With Tuesday being the first official day of summer, I insist you imbibe in the fruits and frolic of the season — think spiking your Jon’s Water Ice with vodka and souping up your new UPS eQuad bike with a broken muffler to confuse the city’s noise ordinance.
The loudest talk during the 2022 Philadelphia Flower Show in FDR Park — beyond the big, eleven-ribbon win for Reese Amorosi (my wife), a perennial victor when it comes to competitive plants, cacti and flowers — was that the world-famous showcase would return to its indoor home at the Pennsylvania Convention Center for 2023. Sure enough, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society announced next year’s show will hit the Convention Center from March 4-12. Gardeners, local and beyond, may be pleased about the Flower Show’s return to an indoor setting, but let’s give it up for South Philly’s FDR Park — a nearly-forgotten green space that everyone got a chance to experience and fall in love with.
North Philadelphia born-and-raised blogger and community activist Terrill “YaFavTrashman” Haigler has yet another vocation: children’s book author. With a goal of raising $1 million for Philadelphia public schools, Haigler has penned ‘I’m Cool Too‘, based on an actual conversation he had with his children about his job. ‘I’m Cool Too’ drops June 30.
During local sports radio boss Anthony Gargagano’s pre-screening speech for the ‘Hustle’ premiere at the Philadelphia Film Center, he mentioned he knew of a “major film production” coming through town by this winter. Now, we could just ask Greater Philly Film Office doyenne Sharon Pinkenson, but I like a good guess. We know that Night Shyamalan finished his work here on ‘Knock at the Cabin’, and that its co-star, Rupert Grint is already onto Night’s ‘Servant’, season five. There is a Reddit thread stating that director-producer Ridley Scott might be making a movie here. There is a film titled ‘Breathe’ with Jennifer Hudson, Common, Sam Worthington and Milla Jovovich moving into the Philly-region soon for filming. And we already know that Philly’s own Tommy Avalone is this-close to dropping his reading-is-essential documentary, ‘Butterfly in the Sky’. Let’s get together on this, Philly-cineastes.
Back in the day, the Philly-based Gyro Advertising, Sailor Jerry dry goods (clothing, rum, tattoo motifs) and Art in the Age booze used to be a one-nation-under-a-groove-like enterprise. Whole books and films have been based on their whirlwind time in the 90s. Look it up. This Friday, June 24, Sailor Jerry pulls up ship in the harbor of home, Old City’s Art in the Age HQ, for an Ink & Drink cocktail party with KP’s Fine Meats in the house. Because no bad decisions ever got made with tattoo ink, heavy rum drinking and salted meat in one room.
No sooner than we mention Philly restauranteur Stephen Starr hooking up with Aramark at the Wells Fargo Center, he goes and brings a new Franco-inspired, outdoors dining and drinking spot, Café Click, out front of the Comcast Center and became his own Internet entity on Spotify. That’s right, if you like what you hear at Starr Restaurant locations such as Dandelion, El Vez or Buddakan, it can be all yours with the push of a Spotify button.
We know that Garrett “G. Love” Dutton’s new album, ‘Philadelphia Mississippi‘, is out this Friday, but I’m moving three steps ahead in announcing that Philly’s Santi White – SANTIGOLD – just announced her first major show in a minute (The Holified Tour, tickets on-sale this Friday) and a new album, ‘Spirituals’, due out Sept. 9.
Unmasked Philly – Alexander Stadler
Philadelphia artist, graphic novelist and gallery owner Alexander Stadler has been immersed in all-that-is-Philly since arriving here from West Chester in 1993. “I went to the Italian Market on my first visit to the city and had a feeling I would end up happy here, when I had my first cannoli at Lito’s Bakery,” says Stadler.
Currently immersed in completing the ‘Gone and For Ever’ exhibition happening this weekend at William Way Community Center, Stadler’s renown in Philly’s art world starts with the stadler-Kahn gallery and design store hybrid in Rittenhouse Square from 2011-2017, his large scale oil painting of clouds and rainbows and his upcoming graphic memoir about his mother, an elementary learning disabilities teacher and, a fellow artist (his father was a child psychiatrist for underprivileged youth).
Along with being a consummate Philadelphia artist and activist, Stadler is a huge fan of Lee How Fook’s Chinese eatery on N. 11th Street, the Tiffany mural, “The Dream Garden” at the Curtis building near Washington Square, hitting up the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Fabric Workshop and Museum near Reading Terminal Market (“where artists are invited to create textile projects”), listening to Grace Jones and Joni Mitchell, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race (“I’m a huge fan of KimChee because they can transition totally artistic into something we never see coming”), and HBO’s ‘Watchmen’. Stadler also did a road trip during COVID where he drove the length of the Pacific Coast Highway, with his favorite stop on the trip was in Big Sur, at a place called Coast where they had an incredible Bay Laurel Leaf ice cream.
Dessert must be really big with Stadler, because he also revealed this about himself: “I enjoy inviting friends and family over for fried chicken and pie – particularly peanut butter pie, key lime ice cream pie, and raspberry pie.”
