Results tagged “museums”

In elementary school, I chose Princess Diana's wedding for my fifth grade slide show topic. To see the glass carriage and the twenty-foot train, Americans had to wake up at 4 AM and tune in to any major network. As a young girl, I was obsessed with the story of her wedding, so I dutifully cut out magazine photos, made slides, and wrote the script for my slide show. The slides were all muddied and the show was pretty much a disaster, but I still love the memory of poring over photos, choosing the perfect ones to share with my audience. Almost two decades later, I heard the news of her car accident while at my then boyfriend, now husband's house. We fell asleep only to be awoken a few hours later to have my future father-in-law tell us the sad news that Diana had died.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Readers of American Style magazine named New York City as the top "big city" arts destination in the country. Buffalo was named best "mid-size" city, and Santa Fe led the "small city" category.

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You know it's bad when the dry cleaning lady gives you a disapproving look and tells you she can't guarantee success on the first try.

Anne d'Harnoncourt, the highly respected director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a vibrant force as an arts activist and advocate for the arts in Philadelphia, died unexpectedly late Sunday night.

Ah, The Franklin Institute. Sorry, The Franklin.

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It's actually pretty impressive how many people like to post their videos of their trips to Philadelphia on YouTube.

We're going next month, and we can't wait!

Today we have basketball, masturbation, and ancient, unrequited love. What more can we say?

It’s almost that time again folks: Compulsory Love Day is next Thursday, so it’s time to stock up on the champagne, chocolates, and condoms. That is, if you have a partner. If not, tradition dictates you sit at home alone, preferably in a battered bathrobe, and eat a quart of ice cream out of the container. If you’re feeling somewhere in the middle of the champagne/battered bathrobe spectrum, here are some ideas to keep you and your beloved occupied for the next week and change.

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To say we like puppets is probably an understatement. What’s there not to like about talking pieces of wood? Or, for that matter, watching humans channel their emotions and desires through a manipulate-able avatar? Twilight Zone aside, it sounds like a surefire recipe for fun.

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.

We could seriously watch this all day. TGIF.

If you’re finding yourself short on culture and shorter on cash, you’re in luck this weekend. Saturday is Museum Day, where you can get into a gaggle of local museums gratis. Sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine, the day is a way to spread art and history around and “bring Americans together,” we’re assuming in queues. All you have to do is sign up on the site to get your free pass (good for you and one guest—only one pass per household allowed) and make a list of places you’d like to see. The line-up has changed from past years (Franklin Institute is sadly not participating this go-around), but the selection for Philly is still nice and well-rounded: some possible stops include the Rosenbach, the Insectarium, and Penn’s Museum of Archeology and Anthropology. Ah, Joyce, cockroaches, and mummies. Now that’s a perfect Saturday afternoon.

Over the weekend, I visited the King Tut exhibition at the Franklin Institute for the second time. (The first time also yielded a column.) The exhibit closes in a few days, so it's more crowded than it was when I went in March. That's to be expected.

Phillyist has a confession to make: We have never made it through James Joyce's Ulysses. Not even a little. We've tried. Oh, how we've tried. But though we've failed more times than we'd like to admit, we console ourselves that those with better minds have thrown their hands up in disgust and screamed, "Okay I get it! It's the *&%*#$ Odyssey! Jesus, at least Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was under 200 pages!"

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to...

As predicted, it is going to be a fab year for the undead in Philly. With two, count ‘em, two major Egypt exhibitions in town, plus ten months chock full of mummy-fun, it’s never been a better time to be a desiccated corpse in the City of Brotherly Love. Sure, there’s lots of history and whatnot involved, but be honest: it’s our wrapped up brethren that fascinate and amaze and really bring in the crowds. Here’s a quick run-down of the museum exhibits and events, with a few extras thrown in.

No, we did not get a Wii this weekend. Yes, we are exceedingly depressed about it. Regardless, we're still going to bring you the best of the internet, chopped into tiny bits and grilled for your enjoyment. It's just not going to have anything to do with video games.

Or, at least, not putting up any new ones for now.



In a victory for Philadelphians and all Americans, on Friday the National Park Service announced that a proposal to enclose Independence Hall within a security fence has been scrapped [Philly.com]. If realized, the plan would have cut Independence Square in half with a six-foot tall black iron barricade, hypocritically restricting access to one of the world's most important symbols of freedom.

After releasing the plan, the NPS also allowed for a period of public commentary, accepting thoughts from citizens via their website. Apparently the people of Philadelphia and elsewhere turned up in droves to criticize the proposal, fueled by local blog protests like this one on phillyskyline.com. In that entry, author Brad Maule summarized the problem this way:



Comments from Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa) during Friday's press conference implied that the local outcry was the main reason for reconsideration of the proposal. The public's statements resonated so well, in fact, that some of the "temporary" bicycle barricades we've endured at the site for years will also be removed. Security upgrades moving forward will focus more on improving "human resources."

This is great news. Thank you, National Park Service, for trashing this ill-conceived plan.

We're completely ambivalent about this song, but Gnomia Grey is from the area, and the video was shot in a local bar/lounge (anyone recognize it? We thought we did, but we're wrong), so it's worth posting up for today's video, regardless.

Nonprofit organization Campus Philly, in association with the city, IKEA, and plenty of other companies and organizations, is holding a huge free concert and festival Saturday afternoon to welcome and celebrate new and returning college students. It's called Campus Philly Kick-Off, and it will lead to un-fun things like road closings (the 2000 block of Winter Street will be closed during setup, and both directions of the inner drives of the Parkway, from 20th Street to the Eakins Oval, will be closed throughout), but it will also include fun things like a TNT Red Bull Freestyle Motocross event; a concert featuring folks like Fat Joe and Saves the Day, as well as local acts like The Capitol Years; an Involvement Fair where you can pick out a good nonprofit, community-based organization to join; free admission to plenty of museums for college students; a live skate jam; and an after party at Shampoo. There will also be a booth set up on the Parkway where you can register to vote, and a free bus loop out to IKEA, so you can do your civic duty and pick up an extra lamp.

Museums are cool, but they're even cooler when you can get into them for free. And that's what's happening on Museum Day, which is this Saturday, September 30th. Museum Day was started by the Smithsonian Institution, and used to be for subscribers to their magazine only, but its now open to the general public and celebrated by museums across the country, including many in the local area, like the African American Museum in Philadelphia, the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Franklin Institute (you can get the full list of participating museums in your area here). To get free general admission for you and a friend to one of these museums on September 30th, all you have to do is print off this Museum Day card and bring it with you. You'll have to print out one card per museum that the two of you want to go to, but that seems like a small price to pay for free admission.

Hey, Philly, this Sunday, September 17th, is National Constitution Day! That's because on September 17th, 1787 the Constitution was signed right here in our very own Philadelphia. The 17th is a Sunday this year, which means some folks are observing on Monday, so there are events and celebrations throughout the weekend and into next week. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the National Constitution Center has a particularly large number of events going on, and most of them are free, or free after admission to the museum.

Oh, readers, how we love you! We were halfway through this post when the gods of the internet decided not to shine favorably on us and we lost everything. But, afraid to disappoint, we started over again from scratch. That's how much we care.

No doubt about it, Philly's got a lot to offer: a thriving theatre scene (don't forget, Fringe is just around the corner), fabulous museums, loads of live music and more historical hoopla than you can shake a stick at. However, there are some hotspot trends in places far, far away that look cool too, and Phillyist is wondering why local entreupenuers aren't jumping all over them. Dammit! We want them too!
• Private room karaoke: It's like having a karaoke bar cater just to you and your friends (think Lost in Translation). We'd heard whispers that there was a place that did this in Chinatown, but that it is no longer. If that's the case, the city needs to give this method of musical debauchery a second chance. We gave this a try in Japan, and spent five hours singing ourselves hoarse. Somehow it's simply easier to make a musical ass out of yourselves among a small group of close friends rather than a bar full of strangers. AND you don't end up waiting as long for a microphone.
• Live band karaoke: Caught this on a recent episode of Queer Eye, and if anything can help assuage our frustrated rock star fantasies more effectively than the many hours we spend playing Guitar Hero this is it.

We were only copy-pasting between two different spread sheets...why did the data all change? At least the -ists are consistent. Usually.