philly

Kate and I went to see it at the 10p showing at the last second on opening night right here in Philly. Unfortunately, the theater was pretty empty, but the earlier 7.25p show was sold out. I think there was a special event along with that showing. The film outlined the basic history of Barnes and his facility which was a school and museum set in an idyllic arboretum, from whence Barnes' interest in art began, to his death and decades later when his cherished artwork was squabbled over irregardless of what he thought was an ironclad will. The film was heavily one-sided (against the move) and I have no problem with that. I learned a ton of stuff, albeit mostly from one point of view.

Barnes amassed what is described as the most important collection of post-impressionistic art in the first half of the 20th century (I believe the art critic for LA Weekly said that in the film). He bought Renoir, Cezanne, Henri, Picasso, Van Gogh and others valued at over $25B. He wanted his art collection to never be within Philadelphia with which he seemed to have a spitefully hateful relationship. His first art show was showered with negative reviews and he swore to never show in Philly again – Philly's loss. So he built his art hall in Merion, just under 5 miles northwest of the city. And in his will, it stated that his collection was never to be sold nor loaned nor was it to ever land in Philadelphia. After his death in 1951, in a car accident, a member of the school took over for 40 years and that's when the shit really hit the fan after her death.

Philly power brokers like now Governor Ed Rendell, then Mayor John Street, Pew Charitable Trusts President Rebecca Rimel, billionaires Walter Annenberg and Ray Perelman and Gerry Lenfest are all a part of the equation in yanking the Foundation's collection from Merion.

It's a solid 101 minutes of angry film. However you felt about the situation going into the film, or if you had no opinion at all, you'll leave this film charged. It's playing at The Ritz 5 in Philly right now.

One year ago today, the Rocky Mountain News, the paper of record in Denver, published it's final edition after 149 years and 311 days of publishing. The 22-minute video below was created during the last month of the paper's existence when the paper was initially put up for sale for one month. I'm frightened as to the future of news, and as a result, the future of all of us from the lack of reporting of the news we need to hear/see/read.

I did my best impression of a cool kid on Saturday night. I went to a gallery opening for a new gallery up in Northern Liberties. It was an opening featuring the artwork used for rock shows. The artwork was by the screenprinting graphic arts design group NODIVISION. I'm quite familiar with their stickerart work, but had no idea about their commercial print work.

How'd I hear about this über cool event? I did some work for iFractal, probably the coolest bunch of people working under one [super cool] roof. They do HR communications and they do it well. The owner of the gallery, Shawn (above at left) is the Art Director at iFractal. Shawn also lives in the gallery which he cleared up for the show. At any given time there were 100 people in the 2,000 sq ft space across the street from Honey's. NODIVISION's JP Flexner gave a lecture about the process of making a poster. The drawing, the scanning into a computer, a brief look at the Illustrator work and the final processing for export to print. He gave away one trade secret which is to save at 200% of the final size of the image to make sure the screens turn out right.

There were dozens of original prints hanging all over the space; $10 for the small ones, $20 for the big ones including a 3-D poster which came with a set of blue/red glasses for home enjoyment (I saw at least one of those sold before I left). I'm a big fan of the public healthcare option poster at the top of the post, but I only had so much money on me and wanted to buy one of Shawn's prints.

Shawn's been screenprinting for a little while too and had some for sale (some of them are pictured above). I grabbed one of the 'Try Try Try Again' prints and had him sign it in pencil. Once I'm done setting up my new workspace (new awesome antique teacher's desk and badass computer) I'm going to hang it up for inspiration. Four different fonts for at least four different ways to look at an obstacle. Try, Try, Try instead of the traditional Try, Try. The cascading colors blending one word to the next. The print is awesome. But for now, it'll live in a folder until the time is right.

Bigger shots, and a few more shots in this set:

Lady and I have settled on our wedding plans now. Getting hitched at Davio's and headed to Montreal and Quebec for the honeymoon the week and change afterward. We headed over to the Barnes & Noble in West Philly (i.e. the UPenn bookstore) to check out some guidebooks. You can see in the photo above, we grabbed every single book off of the rack.

We settled on the Frommer's Montréal & Québec City 2010 book after paging through them all for a little while on a nice big seat upstairs. I previously bought a Montreal Moleskine to be able to keep note of our travels in Montreal in one spot. Too bad there's not one for Quebec too, I would've gotten that too. Oh Moleskine, I'll buy just about anything you put in front of my face.

I haven't been to either city in 17 years or so and Kate hasn't been there in a good while. Anybody out there travel through either city recently and have some advice? A favorite spot to eat, an off the beaten path cool thing you discovered, spots to avoid, your take on Montreal's bagel which I'm excited and worried to try… Lemme know!

I turned 30 on February 3, 2010. It's a milestone birthday. Gone is my whimsical youth with one final hurrah toasting my 20s. I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful party with some great friends. I planned the party a few weeks in advance and the wonderful Kate planned a secret [very, very sneaky] pizza party aspect of it. Here's my buddy Melody indulging me in my mini portrait studio I set up on the spiral staircase by my desk. It was my birthday so nobody could say no to a portrait (woohoo!).

Here's the dynamic duo of Kevin and Jilly Jill. Kevin brought over a billion toppings for the pizzas we made that night and Jilly Jill came through with some lovely vino. Don't let those smiles fool you, they are some sneaky bastards.

And here's the always looking good in portraits Tony who brought some lovely homemade tomato sauce for the dozen or so pizzas we had along with his favorite IPA, Bell's Two Hearted Ale.

My friend Ryan came by an dropped off a 1162 page book that I'll never be able to get though, but I know is a very interesting read The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Rise and Fall of New York. And speaking of books, I just started using Goodreads to keep track of the books I read and to get suggestions from my friends and their selections. My profile is up here.

My friend and co-worker, Colleen, trudged through the blizzard and showed up at my doorstep 3/4 the way to a snowwoman. She shook it off and brought some fun to the party.

And here's Julia [the tiger], one half of the duo behind tastebuds and tidbits. She was apparently the mastermind behind the surprise pizza party aspect of it. What a sneaky tiger chica.

And my favorite shot of the night was of my friend Ben. The lighting is perfect with the softbox giving a nice blast to his face with falloff onto the brick behind him and the SB800 on my camera pointed to camera right bouncing off of my white wall by my desk is providing just enough fill. He's got a wonderfully painful look on his face which is just comical. I have no idea what we were talking about that brought about the face as I was about 7 fingers of Glenfiddich 15 into the night (plus a few beers).

All this wouldn't have been possible if not for the wonderful love and support of my best gal. She got everything together and handled the surprise part masterfully. I saw clues here and there, but wasn't able to put it all together. Sneaky, sneaky girl. You're the best.

I welcome my 30s with open arms and know that it's not the end [ie -30- in journalism parlance identifying the end of a story]. I've accomplished a lot in the first third or so of my life and look forward to more capers with my great friends. Here's a slideshow, with link to bigger shots, of the night and everyone who was there: