popplers

There and back again

Another quick trip to Philadelphia— down on Wednesday afternoon, back home again by Thursday evening. The Phillies were playing Tampa Bay (finishing the game they started on Monday night), so I thought it would be fun to go into the city and walk around. I started out at Tony Luke's, which has some sublime neon. For my money, the Uncle Mike sandwich (with sharp provolone) is the best $7 and change that you'll ever spend.

The game hadn't started yet, so I decided to find somewhere to watch it. I figured I'd head to a bar, but as I flipped through the Philadelphia Weekly, I saw a listing for the Melrose Diner. Now, the only thing I like better than a diner is a 24-hour diner with the requisite stainless steel (or chrome) and neon, so I hoofed it to the Melrose. When I arrived, I found a classic diner, but no TV. I warmed up with a cuppa tea and some rice pudding, then headed up East Passyunk Ave.

Eventually, I saw a Times Square-like glow emanating from a few blocks away. I had arrived at the intersection of of E. Passyunk and 9th Street, where Geno's Steaks and Pat's Steaks face off. (I've never eaten at either establishment— back when I still ate meat, I did enjoy a steak (provolone and onions, not Whiz, wit') at Jim's Steaks on South Street.) Geno's has the most horrifying assemblage of eye-bleed neon signage that I've ever seen. The owner also seems like a right-wing whackjob, so I'm content to take my business elsewhere.

Meandered up to South Street (and past Jim's), stopping at bars along the way to check the score. Finally walked down Front Street and back to Tony Luke's, picked up the car, and drove to the hotel. As I arrived, the Phillies won the Series, and I shuffled off to soak in the hot tub.

Thursday was spent finishing up the project at our vendor in King of Prussia, then dashing back to the airport to fly home. Quick trip, but all in all, not bad.

Street scenes from Center City

• Best-ever store name: Funk-O-Mart (Market Street, purveyors of DJ equipment). Also offering "the largest selection of vinyl on the planet".
• I am excited to report that I've seen my first Toynbee Tile. If I'd had my camera, I'd have snapped a pic. It was on 8th Street, between Market & Chestnut, and it was one of the smaller ones. Some of the letters were worn away, but I could make out the main message:
  TOYNBEE IDEA
  MOVIE 2001
  RAISE [DEAD]
  PLANET JUPITER
  There was also a side message in a smaller font, that seemed to read:
  You lay tile alone.
• Lunch at Morimoto was incredible. I love the Stanley Kubrick decor (equal parts Clockwork Orange and 2001), and the weird little lights that look like alien phones or sex toys, and the sushi chefs' incredible knife work. Late lunch, sitting at the sushi bar, was everything I wanted and more. The freshwater eel was superb, as was the spicy salmon maki. Clam sashimi, served in a hollowed-out lemon, was refreshing and tasty. I wasn't impressed by the octopus, though— too chewy. More needlefish, please.
• Best sign from a forgotten age: LITS Department Store - "Hats Trimmed Free of Charge".

Lovetown

Got back last night from Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. The weather was hot and fhumid, but I spent most of the time in air-conditioned interiors anyway.

Three fun things that I did in Philly:

1. Visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art (albeit briefly). Sundays are "pay what you wish", so it didn't matter that the museum was only open until 5 pm. I took a quick stroll through the galleries, and particularly enjoyed the Brancusi and Duchamp exhibits. Also good: Someone's in the Kitchen: Culinary Design Objects from the Collection.
   
2. Segway tour of Fairmount Park with IGlide Tours. Fun, but my feet kept falling asleep.
   
3. Went to the Mütter Museum on Thursday afternoon. (They never mentioned that the College of Physicians of Philadelphia is in a pretty crappy neighborhood— there's a porno shop, a Goodwill, and housing project all close by. What a fascinating sidewalk stain! I wonder if that's blood. But I digress…) The museum is housed in a beautiful building, and touts itself as being "disturbingly informative". That's an accurate assessment. The virtual tour offers a glimpse into the collection, including conjoined twins, wax models of skin diseases, and (my favorite) sliced sections of a human head.

Pix and a restaurant review to follow.

Well, I guess he had to collect something.

Philly travel writer visits Iceland's own penis museum:

[…] I had planned to visit this infamous place while in Reykjavík last month, but discovered it moved two years ago from the cosmopolitan capital to Húsavik, a fishing village of 2,500 inhabitants located on a northern peninsula jutting within a few miles of the Arctic Circle.

When I asked curator Sigurdur Hjartarson how to find him once I got to town, he said, "Just ask anyone." […]

When we visited Reykjavík in 2000, we did pay a visit to the museum (photos). But the new digs look much nicer— check out the official web page for the Icelandic Phallological Museum.

Alooooha!

I uploaded/ captioned/ tagged a subset of our vacation pix from Hawai`i.

This recent New York Times article on Mark Twain's Hawai'i is an interesting read:

[…] Twain spent four months in the islands in 1866, when he was 31 and working on becoming famous. His 25 letters from the Sandwich Islands, written on assignment for The Sacramento Union, are still fresh and rudely funny after almost a century and a half — a foretaste of genius and the best travel writing about Hawaii, my home state, I have ever read. […]