North African ‘Desert Jewels’ on Exhibit at Philadelphia Museum of Art

An exhibition of historic jewelry and photographs from North Africa will be on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in an exhibition called Desert Jewels, September 4 – December 5.

For thousands of years, North Africa, a region that comprises the modern nations of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Egypt, has been a crossroads for trade and the transmission of cultural influences from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. This exhibition explores the richly diverse artistic heritage of North Africa through the presentation of a group of extraordinary works of the jeweler’s art collected over the course of three decades by Xavier Guerrand-Hermès, of the Paris-based fashion empire. It includes 93 pieces of jewelry complemented by 28 late 19th- and early 20th-century images by photographers who were captivated by the allure of North Africa. The exhibit features ornate necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings, many of which have not been publicly displayed before this exhibition.

The exhibit will be in the new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, across the street from the main museum building.

“These objects illuminate the rich history of North African craftsmanship, which has been shaped by the imprint of many different cultural traditions,” said Timothy Rub, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s George D. Widener director and CEO. “We are pleased to collaborate with the Museum for African Art to share this exceptional collection, which is remarkable not only for its quality and great beauty, but also for the rich insights it provides into the customs and cultural diversity of North Africa.”

Examples of jewelry created with combinations of silver, coral, amber, coins, and semi-precious stones demonstrate the shared aesthetic heritage of many North African societies, the Philadelphia Museum said in a statement. Meanwhile, variations in materials and motifs reflect significant regional differences. Brightly colored necklaces of amazonite beads or large amber beads, such as the Three-Strand Necklace made in Morocco, symbolize wealth, while pendants or enameled beads known as tagguemout are used to encourage the wearer’s fertility. Many of the works in the exhibition indicate regional and group identity, and many were designed to protect the wearer from harm. Hand-shaped amulets, or Khamsa, typically made of silver, are the most popular form of protective jewelry, and are sometimes engraved with prayers and inscriptions in Arabic and Hebrew. The jewelry on view also identifies its wearer. Women receive jewelry from their husbands when they marry and wear it as a symbolic expression of social codes and cultural identity. Some of the jewelry on view is unique to a specific geographic location.

Beginning in the 1860s, European photographers seeking images of foreign locales, set up studios in the major cities of North Africa, photographing women wearing their jewels, as well as documenting markets, ancient archaeological sites and landscapes. The popularity of these photographs, which featured images of Arabs, Jews, Imazighen (also known as Berbers) and people from sub-Saharan Africa, reflected Europeans’ growing fascination with the so-called Orient.

These photographs came to the attention of Western collectors in the 19th century, when archaeological monuments in the region were being explored, visited, and, in some cases, pillaged. Important photographers of the day including the Scotsman George Washington Wilson, the Neurdine brothers from France, and the Turkish photographer Pascal Sabah, visited the region. Some of their images were used for postcards, while other remained in little-known collections.

Captions: (Top) Necklace with central pendant, Tagguemout, 20th Century, Draa Valley, Morocco, Silver, coral, enamel, coins, glass, copal, shell, cotton, plastic, buttons, Photo courtesy of Karen L. Willis/Museum for African Art.

(Second image) Hand pendant with salamander motif, Khamsa 19th or 20th Century, MoroccoSilver, bronze.

Friendly Fenway Park

Yes, it’s America’s oldest ballpark. Yes, it has the “Green Monster,” “Pesky’s Pole,” and other nooks and crannies that makes seeing a game at what John Updike called the “lyric little bandbox,” a memorial experience. But the thing that makes Fenway Park a truly great place is the people. And any conversation about the people of Fenway has to start with the ushers.

After attending a game at Fenway with standing room tickets on August 3, I’ve concluded that to be an usher at the historic ballpark you must meet the following criteria:

* Male;
* Retired;
* Irish;
* Catholic; and most importantly
* Good natured

I was attending the game with two minor (very minor) celebrities: “Fred Johnson” and “Disgruntle Guy” of the Fred Johnson Sports Show, an irregularly aired sports talk program on Live365 Internet radio. The good natured part of the ushers’ requirements came in handy as we wandered around the ballpark often in places where we shouldn’t be, asking silly questions and being in the way of others while taking pictures and video of our experience.

"Disgruntle Guy," "Fred Johnson" and Yours Truly

"Fred Johnson" and "Disgruntle Guy"

For example, we first entered the stadium behind home plate halfway into the first section of seats. It was a beautiful view. While showing the usher our tickets he pointed to the top of the first section and told us we could pretty much stand anywhere. Mr. Johnson asked the only question that mattered: “Is there beer up there?” The thin septuagenarian, wearing the official green shirt and khakis Fenway employee uniform, responded in a raspy voice from a bygone era: “Fenway Park without beer? Never gonna happen.”

The standing areas are marked “Standing” on the ground behind the last row of seats in the first section. We moved around a lot. At one point we found an empty space where we had a clear view of the field. I was taking pictures of the game and an usher came over and gave me some advice. The result is the opening picture. He then offered to take pictures of the three of us (the second picture). After that he politely told us we were in a “no standing” area. Mr. Johnson was inadvertently standing on the “No.” for “No Standing.” “I only let you stand there so you could take pictures,” the usher said.

Another usher moved us away twice from a no standing area. As we moved away to another section he said, “You’re making me work too hard.”

It turns out our experience wasn’t unique. The ushers and all other workers are old hands at dealing with tourists, locals, drunks, fanatics and every other kind of person that walks into the stadium. They are trained to be friendly and helpful. They do this for everyone and for everyone the game is an event.

You may have heard that the “Red Sox Nation” is a bit fanatical about their team. I’m here to tell you they are bat-shit crazy (look left). The Sheraton hotel where I stayed for four days looked like the headquarters of a Red Sox convention, with the lobby full of people wearing Red Sox hats, shirts and other “memorabilia.” If you wanted to strike a conversation all you had to do was ask is if they were going to the game today. This scene was played out in hotels all over the city, as fans from all over New England spent days in Boston happily pumping money into the city’s economy. An hour and half before the game the bars and restaurants around the stadium in the Back Bay neighborhood were alive with fans. People were lined up outside the Will Call gates and ticket entrances. The true measure of Red Sox fandom is that Fenway Park, as of August 9, has a streak of 742 consecutive sellouts dating back to May of 2003.



The game itself takes on the flavor of a rock concert or an evangelical church service. Cheers and applause are intensified as their sounds rattle around the metal beams, concrete and brick of the old building. Conversations naturally take on a louder tone. At the concessions beneath or behind the first section of seats it’s the same thing as excited people run in and out of the tunnels to their seats. The Italian sausage sandwich is the food of choice washed down with a Samuel Adams beer.


Fred Johnson Eats an Italian Pork Sausage Sandwich at Fenway Park

And it’s a democratic experience where everyone has access to all areas of the ballpark, unlike their arch rivals at Yankee Stadium where the high roller seats are separated with a chain from the rest of the rabble.

Yes, there was a ballgame that evening and it was good one. Beloved Mike Lowell, playing for the first time since June 22 and who was rumored to be the subject of trades, received a standing ovation for his first at bat and before the crowd had a chance to sit down drove the first pitch over the Green Monster for a two-run homer, driving the place into a state of bedlam.



After several questionable pitches at batters the benches cleared twice for a near brawl. The Red Sox won 3-1.

Boston and Me

Even if the City of Boston didn’t name a street after me I would still like the place. After all, there are few things not to like about the city by the bay that’s not named San Francisco. I never knew its residents even heard of me, but here I am famous, with a street named after me in Little Italy. I am both honored and humbled by this recognition.


Water has a way of shaping a city. It's appearance, the way people navigate it, its food, its architecture, even its attitude. Boston is no exception. Most cities are built on a grid. The bay surrounding Boston prevents this. Inlets and harbors carve circular paths, inlets slice through the city. Compass points become meaningless. That's okay because Boston is still an easy city to get around.

Chinatown

I walked the heart of this great city from Back Bay to the South Bay, from Chinatown to Little Italy and from one body of water to another and another. When I was too tired to walk or got lost too many times, I took the “T,” the city’s efficient and easy-to-use subway system. Parks, historical sites, museums, great neighborhoods and places to drink—many places to drink—makes it easy to stumble upon something special. It’s a college town, so there’s a youthfulness and energy that fuels the bars, nightclubs and cafes—even in the summertime when I went.

Then there’s Fenway Park, the nation’s oldest ballpark that is absolutely worth a visit during a game, even if you don’t like baseball and can only get standing room tickets.

I spent a few days in this clean, vibrant city and enjoyed nearly all of my experiences. There are plenty of people writing about the must-see historical sites or other high touristed areas. I will highlight certain parts of this diverse city that I experienced.

It’s so close to my home in Philadelphia yet I rarely ever visited and I never stayed more than a few hours. But I’ll be returning.

So it turns out Tony DeMarco Way wasn’t named after me. It was named after a hard-hitting boxer who was a welterweight champion in the 1950s. That’s okay Boston; I still think you’re swell.

Summer’s Bounty

In September I wrote about Greensgrow Farm, an urban farm in a downtrodden neighborhood where I have been buying local, seasonal food for years. I haven’t been there much this season since the spring. That’s because of the weekly farmers’ market that comes to my neighborhood.

For the past few years on Thursdays, a handful of local produce, fruit, and meat and egg producers from the surrounding counties set up stands across the street from the Eastern State Penitentiary Historical Site. This year we’ve taken full advantage of it and we haven’t been disappointed.

The market is sponsored by The Food Trust, a local non-profit organization that strives to make healthy food available to all. One of its many programs is weekly farmers’ markets in different neighborhood throughout the city and suburbs.

For such a small market the variety of locally produced food, nearly all of it organic, is astounding. Berries of all kinds, early season peaches and corn, cantaloupes and watermelons; share space with fresh and washed mixed lettuce, Swiss chard and green beans. There’s nothing like fresh peas, but despite the short season our bellies were full.

One of my favorite stands is Country Meadows Farm, which produces homegrown pastured meats and eggs. The flank steak and ground beef are outstanding. The pastured eggs have rich nearly orange yolks that are so difficult to find, even at places that sell organic or free range eggs.

Everything in the top photo with the exception of the wine and salad dressing was produced locally. The fresh mozzarella cheese for the tomato salad didn’t come from the farmers’ market but was hand-made locally from Claudio Specialty Foods in the Philadelphia Italian Market.

‘Let Them Eat Tastykake,’ Philadelphia Celebrates Bastille Day

The ominous castle-like Eastern State Penitentiary Historical Site in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood was transformed to the infamous 18th Century Parisian prison-fortress for the tongue-in-cheek reenactment of the storming of the Bastille. The 16th annual event—a promotion of the neighborhood restaurants, businesses and the Eastern State Penitentiary—was held July 10.

With the Eastern State Penitentiary in the foreground and the guillotine in the background, the crowd awaits the start of the reenactment. Above, Queen Marie Antoinett addresses her angry subjects.

It was a glorious day for a beheading. An early soaking rainstorm gradually gave way to a bright sunny sky at 5:30 p.m., when the reenactment began. Before and after the main event local restaurants had stands selling French-themed food, such as crepes and garlic sausage sandwiches. Plastic cups of the French lager, Kronenbourg 1664, were available for $3 apiece. The event, which had humble beginnings, has grown into a four-day celebration with local restaurants hosting special French dinners, brunches, a bar crawl and other activities.

The spokesperson for the people confronts the queen.

The crowd may not have been thirsty or hungry Saturday, unlike their counterparts in the 18th Century, but they were looking for the blood. Some brought water pistols as they crowded around the prison to confront Queen Marie Antoinette, played by Terry Berch McNally, owner of the London Grill. The spokesperson for the disgruntled people shared a stage across from the old prison with the guillotine, which by the way was the real deal with a 30-pound steel blade. He led the crowd in song, rhymes and chants.



At first the queen appeared confused, taking the angry mob for a crowd associated with the World Cup. She blew into a Vuvuzela … poorly. She mocked the spokesperson for the people. They traded quips, mixing French revolution rhetoric with modern day references—including Arizona's immigration law, LeBron James, BP, and the Philadelphia Phillies. The queen calls the army. They appear on top of the prison armed, not with muskets, but with more Vuvuzelas.



She showed total disregard for the people. When they begged for bread, she proclaimed, “Let them eat Tastykake,” the brand name of the line of snack cakes made by the Philadelphia-based Tasty Baking Company. Her army then threw thousands of snack cakes over the wall, the vast majority of which were Hostess Twinkies to shame of the local company.

The people and the queen’s army battle while the Twinkies fall into the crowd like soft, spongy missiles covered in plastic wrap. The prison doors open and the first prisoner carried out is former governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who is immediately returned to the prison. Then the queen appears and is slowly marched through the crowd, “perp walk” style to the song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” to the guillotine.



The executioner was played by Fergus "Fergie" Carey, co-owner of the Belgian Café in the neighborhood and Monk’s Café in center city. Before the actual beheading, two watermelons were used to test the guillotine. It performed perfectly.

Preparing the guillotine to cut the watermelon.

Then it was time for the crowd to determine the queen’s fate. They wanted her executed but instead the organizers chose to give her “a fate worse than death.” They traded the queen to the Washington Redskins and presented her with a personalized jersey.

They never said what they received in the trade.

Exploring Old Treasures in a Dusty Store

As expected many retailers were closed in Philadelphia on July fourth, but not everyone. Walking up 2nd Street in the Old City neighborhood there was an antiques store open.

The Jules Goldman Books & Antiques (29 N. 2nd St.) store has only been at this location for seven months, which is why we were not familiar with it. He did little to nothing when it came to renovating the dilapidated store front or even inside the store. It doesn’t matter because the place is dream for anyone who loves to explore.

The store specializes in books and paintings, but you can find anything in the deep, narrow space. Vases from everywhere in the world share space with hundreds, of Sotheby’s catalogs. Painting and prints spill over every corner, nook and cranny. Thousands of books line the shelves of mismatched book cases and cabinets and stacked on the floor.

The affable owner Jules Goldman was sitting by the front door working on his computer. He told us he’s at the store every day. He goes to estate sales in the early morning two days a week and brings his finds to the store to open by late morning. In addition to what’s available to the public, there’s a large back of the store with more antiques and he has a farm house in Bucks County that has even more.

There were just a few people in the store around noon. A heavy set person wearing a “wife beater” t-shirt saw an old 45 rpm record on Goldman's desk with a black and white cover titled, “Stickball,” named after the popular baseball-like game played on the streets of East Coast towns and cities up until the 1970s. He asked Goldman to play it, which he did on an antique record player. It wasn’t a song as much as someone musing about the old days with music in the background. It was awful but it did coax some memories of another time. The three of us starting talking about stickball and handball and every other kind of game we played that involved a ball when we were kids.

The man asked Goldman about the record and he had no information. That’s the thing about Goldman and about his place. He collects without the rigor of historical information and other details that many collectors have. But he does have a good eye and knows his stuff. He just has way too much of it to keep track of it properly or know its provenance.

Near the back of the store on top of a cabinet were several large chandeliers. Indonesian art works depicting wayang shadow puppets near the front. Goldman notes that the frames are British. Why? Who knows? Asian and French art works share space with old Coca Cola marketing products. Even the books are stored haphazardly; although a large collection of French cookbooks were in one place. And, of course, there are records and CDs. I’m no expert, but everything that had a tag attached seemed to be priced fairly, particularly the paintings.

It’s an antique store where anyone can find something of personal value.

Small Town Pride in a Big City on the Fourth of July

Members of the German American Heritage & Pride organization of Philadelphia ride on an incredibly long bike.

For the first time in years we stayed home for the Fourth of July and spent the day in the city. We were strolling down Chestnut Street in the Old City neighborhood when we stumbled upon the staging area for the annual Philadelphia Independence Day Parade.



Marching bands, ethnic groups and charitable organizations were waiting to participate in the parade that was dedicated to saluting American Armed Forces.



That night a big time concert and fireworks display was held on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway that could rival any event in the U.S. More than 100,000 attended the event. In fact, the Fourth of July is a week-long celebration that attracted more than 3.5 million people.



But despite the big city atmosphere of the evening event, the afternoon parade could have been held in any small town in America. And that’s the thing about Philly. It’s a big city that manages to maintain a small town feel.

More videos can be found here. More pictures from the event are below:

U.S. Navy personnel were honored along with the other armed forces at this year's parade.

You can't have a parade in Philadelphia without the Mummers. They prepare to participate in the parade.

Shriners on motorcycles.

One of the more colorful participants was the Singo Lodoyo traditional Indonesian dance troupe from Washington, D.C. More pictures below.