Yo, Irene! Is that all you got?

So Hurricane Irene has come and gone and guess what?  Center City survived.  Was there ever a doubt?  When I hear the mayor and his henchmen along with every newscaster proclaim impending disaster it makes me wonder if they’ve ever lived through a hurricane around here before.  See, it’s a geography thing; once a hurricane gets this far north and this far inland it has dissipated most of its power and destructive force.  Sure, there are isolated pockets that get walloped, and the normal places that flood every time there’s a rain storm will flood during a hurricane, but I will never understand why our leaders and broadcasters spread fear, hysteria, and panic throughout the populace – what really scared me was when I heard that the mayor was going to close the bars and restaurants on Saturday night!  And shutting down the transit system had to be the stupidest thing to do during a storm – that just forces people to drive their own cars.  That doesn’t sound too safe to me. 

Mrs. CCC and I went to a hurricane party on Saturday night at our local, just as the storm was picking up.  We bonded with some of our neighbors.  The toast of the night was, “Irene, welcome to Philadelphia.  Now get out of town quick.”  I spoke to one young couple who had been there since the place opened and were planning on closing the place.  They told the bartender when their tab hit $100 to let them pay it.  They were working on their second tab when I talked to them.  We got home late and made sure we still had a roof and went to bed.

This afternoon I took a breezy stroll down to the river to see how it looked.  In a word, angry.  Usually there’s barely enough water to make it over the dam, but today it was zipping along faster than the traffic on the expressway.  It had overflowed its banks by 2 or 3 feet, but no damage to any of the buildings or boathouses.  So I thought we weathered this storm pretty well, but after an earthquake on Tuesday and a hurricane on Saturday, I can’t wait to see what Mother Nature has in store for us next week.

Best War Movies

A topic of conversation that comes up quite frequently at the local is the best war movies of all time.  It’s a guy thing, I guess.  It goes along with the scene from Cheers when they debated the sweatiest movie of all time (Cool Hand Luke).  So with the help of the guys at the bar, IMDB and AFI, here’s the unofficial list of the best war movies of all time, broken down by war:

War                        Titles

100 Years             Henry V (the Kenneth Branagh version)
Civil War               Glory ; Gone With the Wind
World War I       Lawrence of Arabia; Paths of Glory
World War II       Casablanca; Stalag 17; Bridge on the River Kwai
Korea                    Mash; The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Vietnam               The Deer Hunter; Apocalypse Now
Cold War              Fail Safe; Dr. Strangelove
Iraq                        The Hurt Locker

Most of these movies should be familiar to moviegoers.  They are award-winning movies that appear on many Top 100 lists by AFI and IMDB.  I guess it helps to have William Holden star in your movie – three of his films appear on this list, Stalag 17, Bridge on the River Kwai, and The Bridges at Toko-Ri.  There was about two dozen movies that did not make this cut, the most memorable being Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. 

I don’t know if any of these movies glorify war, most of them depict war at its worst - death, mayhem, brutality.  If anything, these are anti-war movies, because after you view them you wonder why anyone could ever go to war.  What most of them do is depict the courage, honor and sacrifice that men display when they go off to war. 

One guy made an argument that Jaws should be on this list.  Huh?  When did we declare war against sharks?  He explained that the most dramatic scene in the movie is when Quint describes his experiences aboard the USS Indianapolis after it was sunk by a Japanese submarine.  Call this an honorable mention.

So if you’re ever at a loss of things to do, pop one of these films in your player and enjoy the show.

Philadelphia's Orsay

Your Center City Correspondent made a discovery today.  A few months ago Groupon was offering half-price membership to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  You know I love a bargain, so I could not resist their offer.  It took us a while to get there, but today we took the short walk over to Broad and Cherry Streets and found ourselves surrounded by some of the great American works of art from the past few centuries.  Most of the artists whose work is on display have studied or taught there, so you could consider it our local museum. 

Now the PAFA is tiny by comparison to the Art Museum on the Parkway, but it is a gem.  First, the building was designed by Frank Furness and constructed in 1876, and the interior construction is a work of art by itself.  Some of the artists include most of the Peales, Thomas Eakins, Theodore Robinson, Edward Hicks and many more.  Some of their works include portraits of George Washington, The Gross Clinic, Peaceable Kingdom and William Penn’s treaty with the Indians.  There are busts of famous Americans including Abraham Lincoln and John Paul Jones.  And we only saw half of it.  There is another building nearby that Mrs. CCC said we’d visit on another day.

So if you’re looking for a bit of local culture, head for the PAFA.  It’s a true treasure right here in Center City and you don’t have to spend all day there.  Check out their website here:

http://www.pafa.org/

A cautionary tale

Let me tell you a little story about a baseball team.  They moved into a brand new stadium and immediately they started selling out all their games.  Year after year the team played in front of capacity crowds.  And with these crowds came unparalleled success.  Never in their franchise history did they enjoy pennants and division crowns and playing in the World Series like they did during that run.  For 6 out of 7 seasons they participated in the playoffs, appearing in the Series twice in that stretch.  Pretty heady times for the teams and its fans.  But then, all of a sudden the winning dried up.  They missed the playoffs for 5 straight years, with 4 of those years playing under .500 ball.  A one year trip to the playoffs has been followed by a few more years of looking up at the contenders.   And guess what happened to their attendance?  As you might have guessed, their average attendance has plummeted - from over 42,000 fans per game at its peak down to the most recent season where they attracted only 20,000 per game.   As with everything else in life, the success of your favorite baseball team runs in cycles.  Up one year, down the next; up one decade, down the next.  It’s the rare team that can sustain excellence over a long period of time.

So to my fellow riders on the Phillies bandwagon:  enjoy these seasons while they are playing well, because they won’t last.  Go to as many games as you can, buy all the t-shirts and hats and jerseys you can during these successful days.  Just ask the fans of the Cleveland Indians, who saw their team plummet from 100 wins and playing in the Series to next-to-last in their division in a few years.  The one saving grace about a second division team is that I will be able to go to the games without paying stub-hub prices and sitting next to a gaggle of cackling girls in Utley jerseys who are too busy texting their friends to appreciate the beauty, intricacies and athleticism of the game.   They might even let us smoke cigars in the stands again.

Stranger in a strange land

Your Center City Correspondent had an entertaining Saturday night, compliments of Lincoln Financial Field and Miss Taylor Swift.  She played a concert there last night.  I had vaguely heard about her because she is a local girl from Reading, PA, but I could not tell you one song she ever recorded.  And when I talked to people about her, they assured me that the majority of the concert-goers would be young girls and their mothers.  And boy, were they right.  It was easily 80% females, which is probably a conservative estimate.  And when those 60,000 people screamed their approval of the songstress, the noise they made was frightening, ear-shattering, jet engine loud.   So you take this little wisp of a talented young lady, add musicians, dancers, and high-tech video screens, along with a world-class sound system and fireworks and thousands of adoring fans and you have a great night for the fans.   I had to come home and play a few Springsteen songs to get my old-man mojo going again.

 So after a summer of soccer games, Kenny Chesney, U2 and Taylor Swift, it’s back to football.  The pre-season starts this week, with real games just a few weeks away.  I gotta tell you, working an Eagles game is so much easier for an usher; at least those fans aren’t screaming at a high pitch, and they know where their seats are.

A note from the bandwagon: the Phillies haven’t lost a game this week and have expanded their division lead to a gaudy 9.5 games.  They are hitting on a much more timely basis and the pitching is living up to our lofty expectations.  They are a delight to watch.  Let’s hope this continues into late October.

Who needs da shore?

So let me tell you about a great Center City weekend.  As I described before, Mrs. CCC and I took in a Phillies games last Friday night, complete with fireworks.  After the Phillies beat up on the hapless Pirates, we were treated to a real fireworks show, coordinated to patriotic songs.  It lasted for 20 minutes, and would be the best show in the city if it was on the 4^th of July.  Coming at the end of July takes some of the luster off it. 

On Saturday night we met some friends in town and had dinner at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steak house housed in the old J. E. Caldwell’s jewelry store on Chestnut St.  Years ago your Center City Correspondent used to do a lot of shopping in there for Mrs. CCC because it was convenient to work and they wrapped the gift before you left!  The dinner was great featuring different cuts of meat delivered to your table and sliced right in front of you.  They also have a great salad bar featuring all sorts of unique edibles done in a native style.  We pigged out on their desserts, passing them around until we were filled.  And it was fun catching up with old colleagues over a great meal.  All in all, a very pleasant evening. 

Then with all day Sunday at our disposal, we took in the latest Harry Potter movie at a small theater in town with about 10 other viewers for only $6!  Best bargain of the weekend, then home in time to catch the end of the Phillies sweep against the Pirates.  A pretty terrific weekend for the CCC’s.  With nary a flash mob in sight.