This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Happy“. The prompt they have offered us is to make a collage of those things that make us happy. So…here’s mine. Click on any of the pictures to bring up the full-size gallery.
I recently signed up for a site that, honestly, I thought would be just another one of those wasted sign-ups that you either forget about or delete after a few weeks. But I was absolutely wrong. And you should sign up too.
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I live across the street from this. I. Can. Not. Wait.
Over four years ago Elizabeth and Aaron Ultimo were laying plans to move from their beloved community in Arlington VA/Washington DC back to Philadelphia PA where Aaron had gone to college years before. It was a move that was inspired by the idea of helping lead the coffee revival in that city. As they poured over the different neighborhoods that inspired their curiosity they settled on a few that sounded like they would be perfect for their plans. One was the quickly growing neighborhood of Fishtown. The other was equally rapidly developing Graduate Hospital. After weighing the two very different neighborhoods and visiting both they fell in love with the charm and beauty of the latter. However, upon moving to Philadelphia opportunity took them to a different neighborhood to which they became very attached. Ultimo Coffee Newbold was born. It was their baby, their firstborn and it flourished beyond expectations…
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This weeks’s WordPress “Photo Challenge“theme is “Everyday Life”. The challenge is to find and create beauty from people doing the most everyday things in their lives. I’ve chosen–not one, but–two (!) pictures for this week.
The first picture above (be sure to click it to view it full-size) is of one of my very best friends during a trip she made to Philadelphia a few years ago. This is one of those friends that you immediately connect with and can go years without talking to, and yet can pick up right where you left off when you see each other again.
She had visited Philly and I had just finished showing her and a couple of our friends the campus of my seminary. We then went to a local pizza shop called “The Pizza Box” that us seminarians would frequent between classes.
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Yesterday, I got the chance to see the unofficial opening ceremony for Philadelphia’s annual Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. The piece is called Le Grand Continental, and it was a large, 155-person, half-hour-long group dance, choreographed by Sylvain Émard Danse and performed on the front “Rocky” steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was phenomenal (the Inquirer had a great review of it as well).
The piece explored the themes of unity, life, discord, speaking out, disillusionment and youthfulness. It had dancers from nearly every imaginable age group, ethnicity, and income level (including, I could swear, Black Thought, the lead MC of The Roots–but I could be wrong). It was amazing seeing such diversity move in concert with one another.
But, either way, the piece has been done and if you haven’t seen it then you’ve missed it, so my main purpose here is not to rub that in, but instead to promote the Live Arts Festival that this piece sort of kicked off.
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Consider this post the official unveiling of my Philadelphia Photo blog:
The Daily Philly: a picture of philly. daily. (almost)
(also on Facebook, Twitter, & Google+)
The Story
I love photography. My dad was a professional photographer for most of my life, photographing my soccer teams and conducting annual Christmas portraits with my brother and me. He’s taught photography at Community Colleges and passed down much of what he knew to me. (I’ve even started doing a personal weekend photo photo challenge on this blog)
I also love Philadelphia. It’s culture, history, feel, and rhythm speak to me in such a real and deep way. It’s big enough that it’s a “real” city: it has art, culture, museums, great food, history, business, urban politics, and even nature (yes, it does!). But, it’s a manageable city. A friend once called it “a city with training wheels”. You can walk from one end of downtown to the other in less than an hour.
So, I brought these two things together into a little web experiment.
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There are few city institutions in this country more hated than the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Despite the name, they are the private organization on contract with the city to manage parking in the city. They make the laws, set the rates, set the penalties, enforce them, and have a financial incentive to making you fail at being a responsible parker in Philly. It’s understood that parking tickets will be a regular part of life in Philly. The PPA is the primary subject in A&E’s show Parking Wars, and their relentlessness and lack of empathy is so bad, that it’s had an effect on local tourism.
They call themselves the most efficient parking authority in the country, but had to be forced to follow-through on the requirement for them to give their profits to the public school system in Philly (they did this by claiming that they were suddenly “no longer profitable”, even as they kept more than a quarter of their profits in reserve bank accounts). Since then, they’ve been forced to reform a bit, but they continue to directly ignore recent court requirements that attempt increase their fairness, because, as is known, the appeals process is extremely problematic and confusing. So are the signs (just look at that one above)!
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At the Philadelphia Art Museum yesterday, I ran across this painting by William Winner, called Domestic Felicity, where the artist depicts a “romanticized group portrait of the artist with his family (here’s a clearer version of the picture).” Really? Definitely not my idea of felicitous domesticity. Happy weekend!
To do this Bible Class that has consumed the past few months of my life (and this blog–I swear I’ll stop talking about it soon), I had to read a lot of stuff, including these (as well as their New testament counterparts). I checked out stuff from the Philadelphia library, and watched a bunch of lectures from iTunesU (especially these). I looked through commentaries and websites and articles and handbooks and sermons.
In other words, I at least glanced over a lot.
But there was one resource that I found more helpful, clear, and amazing than any other Bible resource I’ve ever found. No exaggeration. No hyperbole. I’m serious.
It’s a pair of textbooks (one on the Old Testament, one on the New, one combined with both) written by a theologian I had never heard of before. his name is John Drane (here’s his painfully poor-designed website as well). Yes, textbooks. And I read most of the Old Testament one and all of the New Testament one.
As a fitting conclusion to the six-week Bible Survey Class I’ve been teaching at my church, I’ll be leading a tour of The University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology of Anthropology, focusing on much of the Biblical History we covered in the class. The museum has a very rich collection of items from the regions and eras in which most all of Biblical History unfolds. We will be following the unfolding storyline of the Bible as we travel to each section, learning the context and the history that set the stage for the faith many of us now call our own.
If you’re interested, meet us at 10am this Saturday, August 25th in the courtyard in front of the main entrance (pictured above). Note: There’s a smaller entrance at street level some may confuse as the main entrance. We will be up the steps where the main fountain is.
The cost is $12 for adults and $8 for students (and well worth the price). The museum is located at 33rd and Spruce (map), right across the South St bridge. (Parking advice: park on the east side of the South St bridge in the Graduate Hospital area and then walk over the bridge). See you there!
Friends know that I’m a coffee snob. Real coffee snobs know I’m only a wanna-be coffee snob. I myself know that the latter group is probably more right, but nevertheless, this doesn’t prevent from trying to edge ever closer to my dream of being a real coffee connoisseur.
To that end, I recently invested in the above materials, and I wanted to share them with you on this Casual Friday.
I love hand grinding the coffee beans each morning, and this particular cold brew method creates some of my favorite iced coffee around. Being able to weigh the beans has made a big difference as well. The only things missing? Well, a proper kettle like this one. Currently, I’m using our regular ol’ tea pot, which isn’t able to offer as much control as I’d like.
But maybe, someday, I can earn my coffee snob badge.
As part of the Bible Survey Class I’ve been teaching at my church, I’ll be leading a tour of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at The Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia (map). We will be meeting at 4:30pm this Saturday, July 28th in the main hall just inside the main entrance (you can get into that hall without buying a ticket). I’ll have some introductory words to set up our time, and then we’ll go to the exhibit where we’ll stop a few more times for some added information.
Also, Living Social is selling discounted tickets to the exhibit all this week (the usual evening price is $19.50). So even if you can’t go this week, still buy the tickets and go another time. It’s an amazing exhibit and will be here until mid-October. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at burkhartpm [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
P.S. the trip to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology has been moved to a week later than originally scheduled, to the 25th of August.
Update: I have the first lecture up.
For those interested, I have been given the opportunity to serve at my church this summer by teaching a six-week long Survey of the Bible class. It’s been super fun getting back into all my old seminary books (as well as getting some new ones).
In the class, we’ll go through a theology of the Bible, the history and background of the Bible, as well as go through each of the books of the Bible. In the last class, we’ll talk about how to use this knowledge and the Bible itself to cultivate an actual life of worship and devotion. We will also taking two “field trips”. One to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Franklin Institute, the other to the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
We’ll be recording the lectures, and I’ll post both the audio and my manuscripts on this blog for your edification (hopefully). So feel free to take a look at the official page above for the Bible Survey Class.
Be sure to question, counter, encourage, and ask me on the posts for each of these posts.
Also, if you’re in Philly on Sundays through July and August, please feel free to stop by. We”ll be doing these classes at liberti church: center city from am to pm, after church, at 17th and Sansom in center city Philadelphia.
The first class audio and manuscript will be going up later today so check back!
From the article “Pennsylvania debates new beer flow” in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:
States have adopted various strategies in the 79-year effort to prevent pre-Prohibition alcohol abuses, but Pennsylvania has been particularly idiosyncratic, said Eric Shepard, longtime editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights in Suffern, N.Y.
“Pennsylvania is unique,” he said. “You are by far the weirdest state.”
The bill under consideration, introduced by state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) with Gov. Corbett’s backing, is just the latest effort to get the state out of the liquor business. But Turzai’s new twist would permit beer distributors and other businesses that could afford a license to sell beer in any quantity, along with wine and liquor.
In short, one-stop shopping for alcohol buyers, a la New Jersey.
Also, be sure to contact your local representative to support this bill.
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I love you, Christian and Tim. Thanks for a great couple of years.
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the long way home 
