Last Tuesday the 22nd wasn't just primary day here in Philadelphia. It was also Earth Day. I started my day off by voting and then handing out sample ballots for some candidates I liked and then headed up to Hartranft Elementary at 7th St and Boston St (around York) for another Philly Orchard Project planting. Above is a shot of 4 volunteers shoveling some lovely dark dirt off of a pickup truck into wheel barrows.
This planting site had a lot of room to work with in a lot right next to an elementary school. There were teachers, staff and students from the school helping out along with some people from the Mural Arts Program who were painting a mural on the southern wall of the school. Also on hand were a set of Temple students who were making an oral history (of the neighborhood?) through video recordings.
At this planting there were some good sized trees, berries and herbs planted.
I added 20 photos to the POP flickr set and the shots from this planting start here.
It comes with a partially full black and cyan cartridges, but empty magenta and yellow. Scans, copies and prints very well. Never used the fax, but previous owner (real estate agent) used it daily.
Includes:
Extra Black ink cartridge
USB cord
Phone cord
Power cord
Installation CDs
Operating manual
Latest drivers available via HP – OSX 10.5 and Vista compatible.
Also, it weighs about 50lbs. so you'll either need a car or be in training for the World's Strongest Man competition.
People love them some free shit. The scene at 1.15p outside the Rittenhouse Square Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop. The line stretched from Sansom St down to Walnut St and around the corner.
Get your free shit here:
Ben & Jerry's 30th Street Station
1 N. 30th Street
Ben & Jerry's Rittenhouse Square (opens at noon)
135 South 18th Street
Ben & Jerry's U-Penn
218 S. 40th Street
Look out for the after work rush. You're not the only one being sly and cutting out of work 15 minutes early to snag a free cone.
Above is a shot of several of the volunteers hard at work at a POP planting at 8/Poplar on the 19th. It was a gorgeous day and a ton of volunteers showed up from POP, Teens 4 Good and Greater Philadelphia Federation of Settlements. Young and old alike picked up wheel barrows, shovels, rakes and loads of dirt to plant a multitude of trees, berries and vines. I had my cousin in town for a last minute visit so I couldn't stick around for too long, but I was there for an hour documenting part of the process of planting a small orchard.
Learn more about the project here. You can donate, via PayPal or check, via the website as well. It's a very cool project and I was there for the initial meeting. My job at PhillyCarShare didn't allow me to do much last year, but now that I'm free of that place, I can take photos and get my hands into the dirt with the rest of the gang.
A flickr set up starting here of the afternoon's planting.
Let me be very clear. If you're in the Philadelphia area this Sunday, between 1p and 4p, and at least 1 hour of that time isn't spent at Zoe Strauss's 8th I-95 Show, you are an idiot.
I missed last year's show because of a work engagement I couldn't get out of (no matter how hard I tried). I was there in 2006 and loved it oh so much. I'm sad I missed the 5 before that one. If I can help it, I'll be at the last 2 shows following the one this weekend. Be a part of history and be there.
If you're not familiar with Zoe's work [what?] do yourself a favor and head on over to her flickr stream and click through 150+ pages of her photos.
The location: Front St & Mifflin St under I-95. Ride your bike. Take the bus. Walk. Hitchhike. Be there!
Above is a photo of an antique camera, the Brooks-Plaubel Veriwide 100. It's a medium format camera spitting out a 6x10cm panoramic negative. It was produced from 1959 – 1965 so it's at least 43 years old. My landlord, a former commercial photographer with a studio full of photographic goodies I can't even begin to describe, graciously lets me use the now unused gear. On top of it all, a box of at least 10 years expired 120 film is mine to experiment with.
The viewfinder at the top of the camera replicates fairly well the 100° angle of view the lens sees. It's a fully manual camera so it's not for those without a little bit of understanding of basic photographic principles of how shutter speed relates to f/stop and speed of film and determining the correct exposure, using the three variables. I haven't done that in a long time and it takes a little bit of quick math to set things. On a roll of 120 film, you get 7 exposures instead of the 12 or 16 you'd get with more typical medium format cameras. And one more thing to make things more complicated, none of the places in town can scan 6x10cm negatives – Photo Lounge and Philadelphia Photographics have 6×9 carriers for scanning. My solution was to get a scanner. A HP G4050. It's on the slow side, but the results are pretty good. Nothing close to the big machines the two places above have, but nice. If one were to lose the viewfinder, you could always flip up the wire finder which works fine.
Other than the viewfinder which is different, there's the process to actually shoot. Once the film is loaded in the camera back (and it's loaded backwards from right to left) and aligned, you wind the film via the big knob (top right in photo). The number of the frame clicks into place in the window next to the winder and holds the knob from turning further. So then, you set your aperture and shutter speed via little levers on the lens. You set the focus distance by guesstimation – with this being a very wide angle of view, most everything is in focus. Then you cock the shutter via a lever underneath the lens. You pull it from left to right and you hear the shutter get into place. Trip the shutter via the release (next to the orange spirit level at left in the photo) and you hear a nice 'snick' sound. Then you advance the film to the next frame. Repeat 6 times and you're golden. Unfortunately, no way to get a double exposure from what I can tell.
I'm still getting the hang of using the scanner, but the results aren't half bad. It's much easier to do black and white than color films. The orange color cast of the negative is annoying to compensate for. Above is a shot around 24th St and Panama St. That's Panama St littered with cherry blossom leaves and pair of paths drawn by cars. Check out the first 7 shots I took with the Veriwide 100 in this flickr set.
Some more info on the camera via Ken Rockwell. And more shots with the camera from others on flickr here and here.
On the 18th, I went to another WXPNFree at Noon concert. It was, once again, an artist I had never heard of prior to hearing her music from the website. The artist's name is Kate Nash. She's a 20-year-old Brit who has won a bundle of awards across the pond and is gaining fans stateside. She's also signed with the big timers at Geffen. A friend of mine is a fan of Nash and asked me if I wanted to go too. I took a listen to some tracks from her MySpace and liked what I heard so off we went.
The WXPN blog has posted the set list and the 42 minute set is archived here – I'm listening to it right now.
Nash is a lively performer constantly bouncing around with energy. You can tell she's a fan of her own music and isn't going through the motions for the crowd. She started off the set behind a keyboard with some funky Christmas bunting, but moved onto the guitar for a couple of songs before returning to her seat. Her lyrics are a tad hard for me to understand (I'm just not that great with the British accent), but they're very entertaining nevertheless.
Some photos from the concert on Flickr starting here.
If you live in Philadelphia, primarily Center City, your door looked like the photo above. We got several doorhangers and flyers in the last few days. I think our door was hit 2x by each candidate today alone. I didn't see a single one of these flyers indicating they were printed on recycled paper. What a waste. Everything's going straight into the trash can (recycled in our household).
That was the scene today in front of Pine St Pizza at 12/Pine around 6.15p. I went in there at 2p or so to see how the day was going. They were past 250 voters and they all said that this was record turnout.
Lady went to vote after work today and was #376 around 4p at our old polling place (she hasn't updated her registration!). That polling place is a little shack and it's not a very large division, but a very residential area. Incredible turnout.
Above is a poll worker at the poll around 6/Fitzwater. I just loved his shirt and had to snap a photo. There were about a dozen people outside of that polling place around 5.45p ready for the Queen Village PM rush hour vote.
All I kept hearing was "record turnout, record turnout" all over town. Awesome.
I'm really pulling for the two local races I've been involved with and I'd love to see a definitive candidate for President chosen tonight. It looks like it's gonna be a long night. Riding my bike down Broad St around Noon today, I saw a dozen TV trucks lining the west side of Broad St from about Sansom St to Pine St. Anchors were standing on top of camera cases to get that nice City Hall backdrop for their live/recorded shots. The TV people are going to be drooling all night.
I just got back from voting and handing out literature at the polling location for a couple of hours. At my polling place (Pine/Broad) at 8.22a, I was voter #86 – better than 1 per minute. The committee people and judge of elections were chatting saying that it was the highest turnout any of them had ever seen. Given that most of these people are in their positions for many years at a time, that's nice to hear. Some more chatting with people in line revealed one voter's hopes that this many people show up in November when it counts even more. He hoped that people didn't make the election a personal matter and that people turned out no matter who came out on the Democratic side.
I walked down to Broad/Lombard around 8.50a to a larger polling place (this one has 3 divisions) and saw the people above filming. They are from Russia Today, based out of D.C. They were up in Philadelphia covering the presidential election. They were asking people who had voted who they voted for and who they thought would be the more gracious loser at the end of the day. They asked whether they thought it was fair that only one candidate would end up against Sen. John McCain and why not have more than one candidate the Democratic party.
At 9.35a an Oldsmobile Alero drove down Broad St blasting Queen's "We Will Rock You" but singing "We will, We will, Barack You" instead. They were greeted by construction workers at the NE corner of Broad/Lombard with jeers and shouts of "Go Hillary!"
And what would a Philadelphia election be without the union guys covering up the signs of their opponents? Well, it wouldn't be an election. I put up 4 signs each for Anne Dicker at the Broad/Lombard polling place. 2 of each of theirs were removed from one lamppost (replaced by the opponents seen in the above photo) and on the lamppost above, they were kind enough to leave them up and tape right over them. I put up a Banaszek sign on the glass outside of the polling place; Dicker already had a supporter there who had put up several signs. There were hordes of electricians lining Broad St from South St to City Hall holding up signs for their boss.
I'm headed out again later to take some more photos around town.
Peggy Banaszek is a friend and a tireless community activist. I've known her for about 3 years now and have admired her work every step of the way. I've done a smattering of volunteer work on her campaign and will be handing out sample ballots, with her name on it, tomorrow during the AM and PM rush hour voting times at my polling location. [above: Peggy at left]
She gets my vote because she's a strong advocate for education, public transportation and realhealthcare reform (not the bullshit plans put forth by Rendell, Clinton and Obama). I know first hand of her advocacy for our public schools. I tagged along for her 10,000 Pages Book Drive which surpassed the 10,000 pages goal by tenfold. She's a strong supporter of Healthcare4AllPA's HB1660 and SB300 which would give all Pennsylvanians universal single-payer healthcare. Her refreshing talk to push for better public transportation instead of throwing hands up in the air and saying the problem is out of her hands is inspiring.
Rep. Babette Josephs has done some incredible work during her tenure as the representative in the 182nd District. But I am not a fan of people staying in office for too long. I am a strong believer in term limits no matter how great a politician may be. There comes a time for all politicians, good and bad, to move on whether that be to the private sector or higher office. The other one in the race, Gormley, is anti-choice and that's just pathetic. I don't vote for anti-choice candidates no matter who they are running against. And now, some words from Peggy:
As for the other races… I'm a supporter of Anne Dicker in her race for State Senate in the 1st District. She's been working hard as an organizer in Philly for as long as I've been around. Dicker is also on the sample ballot I'll be handing out. For the ballot questions, I'll be voting No on Question 1 and Yes on Question 2. Why? There's no need for an additional position as requested in Question 1; the new process would modernize some old school ways of job appointments. I'll be writing myself in for the rest of the local races on the ballot as I don't feel confident in any of the choices provided. Just think about it: the most powerful nation in the world (well, after China?) would finally (if the Dems as a whole get their act together) have a representative who is not a white male. Welcome to the 21st century, America.
For the big cheese, I'll be pushing the button for Obama. I'm not ecstatic about his positions, but I am impressed by the way he excites people who were previously apathetic. Everybody has a tipping point in getting involved and if he's the one getting more people involved, more power to him. Clinton has been running a nasty campaign and has not impressed me in the least. I believe both candidates are incredibly smart, bright and would represent this country well as POTUS abroad.
And finally, at right is a widget created by VoterStory.org which will funnel election day problems/irregularities to local election watchdogs. If you experience anything funny, please use the widget or call your report in. I know the people behind the initiative and they've been doing good things for good causes for awhile.
