philly

I buy one pair of Carhartt dungaree double knee jeans every year and change or so. I wear them just about every single day. Above and below are some shots depicting the wear patterns I put them through. Note: these all started out as the same exact jeans! Left to right: oldest to brand new and unworn.

It's like the selection one might find in a store with lots of different 'distressed' or 'washed' jeans styles. Bottom to top: oldest to brand new.

I've just started to break in the new jeans. I hate breaking in new jeans. So rough and uncomfortable for a good long while. But at some point, you stop noticing them and they're all good once again.

My friend Pat is quite the Renaissance man. I can talk to him about food, sports, art, cars… Our better halves have a ton in common to so we're well suited to hang out in groups and eventually split off to do our own things as well. One newly acquired skill for Pat is his touch at a potter's wheel. He started to take it up just a few years ago and he's got it down pretty well. We're very fortunate to have a bunch of his lovely ceramic bowls, pots and mugs in our house offsetting some of the not so nice stuff we've accumulated over the years. I tagged along as Pat went to the University City Arts League over at 4226 Spruce St in West Philly as he threw three vases. It was my first time in a pottery studio since Lauren Rossi's or Amanda Mittman's 2nd grade birthday party. I remember making a mold of a Mets logo and coloring it blue and orange. I wonder where that thing is now… Ceramics artists out there reading this post, please forgive me about the terminology, this is clearly not my field and Pat was throwing a lot of info at me while I was snapping photos for several hours. Above is Pat kneading the clay into the wheel. Centering the wet clay is crucial.

I set up a SB600 flash + Lumiquest Softbox III using a Manfrotto Super Clamp and Magic Armbehind Pat. I set up a SB800 flash + Lumiquest Softbox III using a Justin Clamp on a pipe running the length of the studio in front of Pat. I had a SB800 flash mounted on my camera as the trigger and offering some fill light. I used a D700 as my body and a bunch of lenses throughout the afternoon. I started off with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF and switched over to a Nikkor 20mm f/3.5 MF lens. Then I had my Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 MF and Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 ED AF for tighter shots.

Here's Pat starting to form the shape of the vase. This part is funny to watch. He stuck one finger into the clay and the hole just grew until he could fit his whole hand inside to feel out the shape. The wheel is mesmerizing to watch.

Here he's forming the lip of the vase. Even pressure has to be applied so things don't get lopsided and then they clay just goes flying off of the wheel. forces.

I backed off a bit with the 20mm in this shot to get more of the very cool studio into the frame. I like this environmental portrait with Pat at work. You can see the tools Pat uses to form his various pots, mugs, bowls, vases and other items. Sticks, rods, sponges… All different textures giving him a different feel digging into the wet red clay.

Here's Pat starting up another vase. The textures of hands pressing into the clay – picking up the excess, the water dripping through… It was poetic to watch.

And here's a final shot of Pat with a vase ready to dry. For this shot, I moved the SB600 to a lightstand and put it directly behind his body. The SB800 is on a lightstand just to camera left and shooting down at his face from about 5'. SB800 on camera is pointed to the shelves at right leaving the rest of the studio in a warmish color cast from the fluorescent lights being balanced by the camera (damn you 60hertz lights!). I'm currently helping Pat pup up a website to sell his lovely wares. I've been taking photos of some of his finished pieces and will continue to do so. I'll be posting some images of those finished pieces soon so keep your eyes out. If you see something you like, lemme know and I'll tell Pat.

Below is a slideshow of more images I put up on flickr. Click on the set to see it fullscreen (at 1200px on the long side!).

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:

These are the leads I've found on various news sites around the way within 45 minutes of the end of Obama's first State of the Union address.

NYT: "With his legislative agenda stalled and unemployment stuck in double-digits, President Obama used his first formal State of the Union address Wednesday night to outline his efforts to rebuild a "tested" nation and put more Americans to work."

LAT: "Every Borscht Belt comedian knows that it is best to leave an audience with a zinger that will always be remembered. President Obama, in his best speeches on race and on winning the presidency, did that."

WaPo: "President Obama delivered an urgent plea for unity on Wednesday night during his first State of the Union address, seeking to recapture the energy that propelled him into office — and reverse his party's trajectory on the heels of recent setbacks."

AP: "Declaring "I don't quit,'" an embattled President Barack Obama vowed in his first State of the Union address Wednesday night to make job growth his topmost priority and urged a divided Congress to boost the still-ailing economy with fresh stimulus spending. Defiant despite stinging setbacks, he said he would not abandon ambitious plans for longer-term fixes to health care, energy, education and more."

Chicago Tribune: "President Barack Obama, vowing a new commitment to fiscal restraint while renewing his bid for an overhaul of healthcare, called on Americans Wednesday night to repair "a deficit of trust." "

The Guardian UK: "Barack Obama bowed to public anger against his presidency by using his first state of the union speech to address many of the concerns of voters and to make creation of more than a million jobs the overwhelming priority for the coming year."

WSJ: "President Barack Obama, seeking to recapture the promise of change the propelled him to the White House, returned to his pledges to remake Washington after a bruising first year that saw his approval ratings drop and his ambitious agenda founder."

Times Online UK: "President Obama defied expectations and mounting evidence of disarray in his own Government to declare in his first annual speech to the joint houses of Congress last night that "our union is strong"."

via iconjohn.

Kate and I headed out for some grub at our favorite Mexican spot in the city, Taqueria la Veracruzana 2 weeks ago and were walking back to Center City when we wanted a little sweet something to end the night with. As we walked through the Italian Market, I suggested Chapterhouse Cafe over at 9/Bainbridge (by the way, a MySpace page isn't the best landing page for your business – a basic webpage isn't too hard to put up and keep up, you can even link to the MySpace page for the updates!). Neither of us had ever been there and it's close by to where we've lived for the last 5 years. I'm not a coffee drinker so I don't drop into the many coffee shops around town too much. We walked into the spot, which I've walked by a hundred times, and was greeted by Jessica, the coffee shop brindled pooch. We became buddies.

Our nightcap was a big cup of hot chocolate. We were in there late so, unfortunately, they had run out of whipped cream. Oh well. The hot chocolates came out a little bit on the lukewarm side, but they were tasty.

It's a cool space inside. A row of stools facing back out to 9th St; a middle room, where we sat, with couches, tables, board games and stuff to read.

It's quiet enough to do some studying as one Temple Law school student was doing a couple tables over from us.

Here's Kate sitting in a funky hanging chair thingy outfitted with some IKEA pillows – how do I know they're IKEA? We have one of them, heh.

We settled into a game of Sorry! which neither of us had played in many moons. We just started playing without reading the (simple) directions. A few turns into the game and we realized both of us had forgotten how to play it, but we went on. I read a few of the rules as we played. Kate won the first round – which wasn't a true round since we were just making shit up while we played. I won the rematch – where we played by the rules – so I'm claiming true victory for the night!

What Yelpers have to say about Chapterhouse. Bigger pictures here.