Windows

Windows Shopping

Yeah, Another Blogger145 Comments

I don’t know about you, but in my neck of the woods (I live a bit outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) there aren’t too many towns that look like towns. Mine sure doesn’t, though I suspect it did up until 70 or 80 years ago. Today it’s a mess, a hodgepodge of neighborhoods interspersed with shopping centers galore. And of those towns that do look like towns, few have thick roots going back many years. Which is one reason why I’m pleased that the borough of Doylestown, Pennsylvania lies a mere 15 miles from my abode.

Doylestown, large in size and containing a high percentage of structures erected between the mid-1800s and the early-1900s, somehow combines stateliness, quaintness and chicness casually and seamlessly. I find it to be a swell place to hang out in and to stroll around, and have been doing just that pretty regularly for decades. I dig its well-kept houses, its arthouse cinema and museums, its record store (Siren Records), its bookstores, its big collection of eateries. On a recent Monday I spent two hours on the streets and alleys, and within a few shops, of this estimable hamlet. I had a specific purpose in mind, one I hoped would result in a photographic essay for Yeah, Another Blogger. Hallelujah, my hopes have been realized!

I arrived in Doylestown at 11:00 AM under skies glowing happily in blue and white. The temperature was 50°F (10°C), quite pleasant, though not warm enough for me to wander without my winter coat. You better believe that I, an old f*cker, chill easily. Anyway, with my trusty phone’s camera at the ready, I immediately began checking out the town’s windows, as windows were to be the stars of the hoped-for story. Windows? You bet. I’m into themed walks and have reported upon any number of them for this publication. Now and then, for instance, I’ve gone in search of well-decorated motor vehicles (click here to read my latest opus about the subject). That’s the way I roll, wobbly as it may be.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that I saw any Doylestown windows with design elements that completely knocked my socks off. However, a number came close. For example, there was no denying the power of the tall, narrow windows, pointing skyward, that adorn the Doylestown Presbyterian Church. Some of them depict Biblical scenes. In retrospect, I’d have loved to view them from inside the church too, but the idea didn’t occur to little ol’ me at the time.

And I was taken with the asymmetrical positioning of the windows on a lovely mustard-colored home. Unbalanced though it may seem at first glance, to my eye the arrangement makes perfect sense. It demonstrates how components big and small can work together in harmony when the will is there. The nations of Planet Earth have yet to learn this lesson fully.

The coolest thing about windows is that they usually are reflective, and many were showing off their talents in that regard. Reflections often blow my mind, as they are real and not real simultaneously — real in the sense that they do exist, and not real because they are weightless representations, often distorted, of the physical world. In any event, I couldn’t get enough of the reflections proudly displayed in the windows of the Bucks County Administration Building, a sharp red car parked on State Street, and the Doylestown Inn.

Very cool, too, was a window I photographed while inside Siren Records, where I browsed through a box of used CDs (I bought five of them). As ordinary as the window itself is — billions upon billions of its type populate the world — the scenes surrounding it and seen through it grabbed me. The window, delighted to be trimmed in yellow and to be adjacent to a wide array of colors, provided a shimmering, kaleidoscopic view of the outside world, courtesy of a sun that glared as if there were no tomorrow.

Well, the time to leave Doylestown has arrived. But I’ve still got windows on my mind, and I’m also ready to be rocked. So, I’ll end this story with one of the best windows-centric recordings I know of. The song, written by the late Tony Joe White, is titled Steamy Windows, and has been recorded by several artists, including Tony Joe. Tina Turner more than did the tune justice, releasing a bluesy, full-steam-ahead version in 1989 that is strong enough to shatter glass. Go, Tina, go!

A Reflective Day In The City Of Brotherly Love

Yeah, Another Blogger101 Comments

Howdy, girls and boys, and welcome to the website of he who just can’t seem to stop writing about Philadelphia. And why not after all, seeing that The City Of Brotherly Love has got what it takes. Yo, if it didn’t I wouldn’t have spent most of my adult life within or near its borders.

Anyway, it’s not as if I have something better to discuss right now. Well, I suppose that I could go into exacting details concerning how I gained entry in the Guinness World Records book last week by virtue of having tied some of my lengthiest nose hairs to a 50-pound dumbbell and then hoisting that f*cker two feet and eight inches off the ground without using my hands. Shit, that hurt! Fortunately my nose hairs are preternaturally strong and well-anchored, which allowed the feat to occur without major adverse effects. But nah, Philadelphia’s more interesting than that accomplishment. What now follows hopefully will validate the previous sentence.

The present story had its genesis last month in my piece on Philadelphia’s elevated parks. During my explorations for that essay I came across wonderful reflections on the surfaces of skyscrapers that flank one of the parks. And when my online friend Tanja Britton posted comments extolling those reflections, something inside of me clicked. Indeed, I then put it in mind to stroll around Philadelphia, checking out reflections in glass and metal on the faces of buildings. I tell you, Tanja’s got the power to inspire. Not only that, she’s a fine writer, one who is smitten by the grandeur of nature. You’ll be glad that you did when you click here to access her website.

Cira Centre, in West Philadelphia

On August’s final Thursday, then, a sunny and pleasantly-heated day, I hopped aboard a late-morning train in my suburban town and disembarked at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station an hour later. The station, located in the city’s gigantic West Philadelphia section, sits across the Schuylkill River from central Philly. And hovering above the station is Cira Centre, a sleekly monolithic skyscraper that I immediately fell in love with when it opened in 2005. No way was I going to gaze at reflections around town without including those on CC’s surface.

Cira Centre, sheathed in glass, is a testament to the glories of reflection. Because it is not boxed in by other tall buildings, it has an almost unlimited capacity to mirror the skies. I spent a couple of minutes admiring the ideal shade of medium blue that saturated its facade. Still, I was somewhat surprised that, other than the heavens, the only thing pictured on the side facing me was one single building.

There are other skyscrapers not far from Cira Centre, some of them belonging to or associated with the two educational behemoths (University Of Pennsylvania and Drexel University) that abut one another in West Philadelphia. But my walking tour didn’t lead me to any of those towers. Strolling through the university campuses and on the blocks that surround and transect them, I stayed on the lookout for nifty images presented in the windows of normal-height buildings. I kept getting distracted though, because it was an excellent day for girl-watching in West Philadelphia, as it also would be an hour and a half later when I made my way around a healthy number of central Philadelphia’s streets. But you know what? Not a single female watched me. What do they have against guys whose eye bags droop halfway to the ground? Man, being a geezer ain’t easy.

Ladies notwithstanding, I didn’t lose sight of why I’d gone into town. I’ve always liked to look at reflections, but I’m almost certain that this was the first time I ever devoted more than a few minutes to seeking them out. It wasn’t hard to find them. And obviously it rarely is, a fact that somehow hadn’t registered with me before. During my travels that day, West Philadelphia and central Philadelphia gave me many images to groove on.

Saxby’s, near Drexel University
Gothic building on University Of Pennsylvania’s campus
Dunkin’ Donuts, in central Philadelphia

The orange tables and chairs imbedded in the window of Saxby’s coffee bistro, inches from Drexel University, intrigued me. As did the tree and blue sky in the window panes of a Gothic building smack dab in the middle of the University Of Pennsylvania campus. Ditto for the street scenes, complicated yet quiet, playing out in the glasswork of a Dunkin’ Donuts store in central Philly.

Comcast Center, in central Philadelphia
Looking toward the top of Comcast Technology Center, in central Philadelphia

And what, other than ooh la la, can you say about the sky, clouds and buildings captured in the facade of Comcast Center, the city’s second-tallest structure? That soaring canvas was hard to beat. Comcast Center, in the center of town, reigned as Philadelphia’s highest building for 10 years until its sibling, Comcast Technology Center, opened a block away last year. CTC is a gorgeous creation too. The geometric reflections upon its mirrored surfaces were a minimalist’s delight.

The Graham Building, in central Philadelphia

I was in the midst of a varied show. Some images were perfect or near-perfect replicas of the physical world. Others, though as clear as day, had a distinct life of their own, such as the tables and chairs at Saxby’s. And as for fractured pictures, I was totally down with the few I encountered, especially the dizzying plays of light on The Graham Building’s revolving door, a few blocks from Comcast Center.

Iron Hill Brewery, in central Philadelphia
That’s yours truly with the camera in front of his face, in West Philadelphia
Two Liberty Place, in central Philadelphia

Reflections can mess with your head in a good way and might put you under a spell. What else would you expect from phenomena that, though weightless, in their mysterious ways are as substantial as solid matter? One thing for certain is that I, who came close to flunking high school physics, never will understand the mechanics and processes behind reflections. But who cares? Their call got me off my bony, lazy ass the other day. I needed that.

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Signs In The Windows

Yeah, Another Blogger50 Comments

Last Friday I could feel a story idea calling me from far, far away. I cupped my hands behind my ears and did what anyone would have done: “What?” I yelled into the wilderness of my soul. “You have to speak louder, for crying out loud. Give an old guy a break!”

I waited for a response for a while. When none was forthcoming I waited a little longer. Finally I gave up on the idea of waiting. I’m a man of action, right? Well, not exactly, as proven by the impressive and permanent dents in the cushions of my living room sofa. Still, I rose anyway, put on my coat, stuck my iPhone into one of the coat’s pockets and explained quickly to my wife Sandy what my amorphous game plan was. Then I headed for the door, on my way to the three-level mall minutes away from my suburban Philadelphia house.

“You’re not going to do any shopping?” Sandy said to me as I exited. “Anyone else would go shopping.”

Shopping? Hmmm, not a bad idea. I could use a pair of slipper socks to replace the ones joyfully embroidered with Daffy Duck images that I’ve been wearing for the last 60 years. But whatever it was that was trying to reach me from the wilderness of my soul, shopping wasn’t part of it.

I pulled out of the driveway at 10:15 AM and pulled into one of the mall’s gargantuan parking areas at 10:20. Few cars were around. I entered the wonderland through a door that deposited me in Bloomingdale’s, a classy department store whose goods and displays I always marvel at during my infrequent visits. I felt at home, pretty confident that something somewhere in the mall ultimately would result in yet another blog essay being catapulted into cyberspace.

A poster in Bloomingdale’s cosmetics section caught my eye. “Everyone’s Invited!” it partly read. At once a bell rang in my head. Ouch, that smarted! I shook off the twangs of pain and went with the flow. If I wander around the mall, maybe I’ll spot all kinds of signage that share a sentiment similar to that poster’s, I thought. “C’mon in!” and “Don’t be a stranger!” would be good ones to come across, for example. But, nah . . . after I made my way out of Bloomingdale’s and into the main arteries of the mall’s lower level, I walked past store after store and came up with zippo. Nix that story idea.

All was not lost, however. Far from it. For what I realized is that beautiful signs, primo examples of artful composition, grace the windows of many of the shops. There was my story, I concluded. I would navigate all the avenues of each mall level, photographing the window signs that struck me as worthy of immortalization. I breathed a sigh of relief. The wilderness of my soul, at least for the moment, became a less scary place.

I went at it for an hour, 16 signs making my grade. The majority of them are on display in this essay. At the moment, examining the photos from the comfort of my home, it’s hard to say which of the signs I like best. Who can choose? Why choose? Isn’t it better just to appreciate each sign’s worthy aspects? Okay, you’re right. Choosing isn’t all that difficult. Let me think for a few seconds. I’ll be right back.

You know, I like the one picturing a pink Adidas cap, which fills a big section of glass at the Lids hat store. I’m one with its simplicity and admirable balance.

And I can’t deny the power of the seductive image of Selena Gomez balancing a black and pink handbag on her right leg. I had to restrain myself from marching into the Coach store and buying one of those bags, so helplessly jelly-like am I in the presence of gorgeous girls.

And let’s not overlook the black and white flag that stares out at potential customers from the mall’s Gap store. Maybe it’s a political statement of some kind, I don’t know. But it’s clean and taut and hard to take your eyes off of, from an aesthetic point of view.

There was more to my mall escapade than art appreciation, as it turns out. As I made my way around the mall’s highways and byways it dawned on me that I was getting some needed exercise. And that it felt really good to be stretching my legs. I tried to remember the last time I’d gone for a long walk. I think it was in October, on Cape Cod, upon whose open and natural areas I’ve racked up the miles in a major way.

But when I’m home? The landscape in the burbs, an homage to concrete and asphalt, doesn’t thrill me. And I sometimes forget that areas worth walking in, such as the olden streets of Philadelphia, aren’t much more than a hop, skip and a jump away.

But walk now and then in the mall? Hey, I never really thought about that before. We’ll see. I’ve read that plenty of folks do it regularly, placing one foot after the other upon the mall’s interior corridors as if those paths were athletic field ovals. I saw some of the hardy souls during my rounds. One of them, a millennial of the female variety who was attired in black workout clothes, passed me twice. I watched her do her thing. Her ears were home to earbuds and her eyes were glued to the screen of her phone as she relentlessly pushed ahead. You go, girl! Maybe I’ll join you some day. In my dreams.

An hour and change had passed by the time I got back in my car. I felt refreshed. My head was clear. My mood was up. And the remainder of the day, I was certain, would unfold attractively. That’s what good art and a two-mile stroll will do for you.

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