My Brain in Wayne

A recent dream that found me in the heart of lovely Wayne, PA, where I resided for a couple of years much longer ago than it seems, reminded me that I’d jotted down another one set there several months back.

The newer one: I’m walking on a side road that feeds into Main Street when I hear Dido singing “Thank You” during an outdoor photoshoot. I approach her because she’s an old friend and we catch up a little but she’s busy working — so after confirming that she still lives nearby I tell her that Em and I have a place in Manayunk now and we should meet for lunch.

Zero idea who Em’s supposed to be.

The older dream: I’ve gone to Minella’s Diner with someone whom, per my notes, I couldn’t place upon waking and in hindsight I would very much like to believe was the mysterious Em. Bruce Springsteen, the E Street Band, and their entire touring entourage are there and have taken up several tables. I hear another patron tell his server that any drinks they order under $55 are on him and, dear reader, I’m at least as curious about how my subconscious came up with that cutoff point as you are. Once my friend and I have been seated, Lex Luthor turns around from the next booth to speak to us — not a generic version, but Lex Luthor as voiced by Clancy Brown in the DCAU Superman and Justice League animated series, fleshed out in real life and threatening us with something I can’t recall.


Related: Of Was and When • REM Brands • HIVE Minded • Fight and Flight

Man of the Hours

As they say, IYKYK, but in case you don’t know here’s a ready-to-click DuckDuckGo search for “John Kruk” Phillies clocks time. My first thought amidst the laughter while listening to the broadcast live was that Last Week Tonight’s staff must be cursing their luck at the show being dark for a spell because they’ve featured Krukker’s off-kilter observations during color commentary more than once in their interstitial segments. I’m breaking my hiatus from the former Twitter, now X, to share this with him and lead play-by-play man Tom McCarthy.

Related: 5 by 5 • They’re Magically Suspicious • Jawn of Justice

Jawn of Justice

I was talking with a friend recently and this happened.

Art Men and Reubens

The National Cartoonists Society held its 72nd annual Reuben Awards dinner
on Saturday, May 26th, in Philadelphia.



Glen Keane was crowned Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year — a prize known
simply as The Reuben — for his 2017 short film “Dear Basketball”. Past winners include Walt Kelly, Mort Drucker, Bill Watterson, Milton Caniff, and Will Eisner. It appears to be the first time the top award has been given for work in animation.

Neon Regenesis

Ellen Winter, cousin of my cousins on the other side, is associate musical director
and keyboardist of The Elementary Spacetime Show. The new production written by César Alvarez and directed by Andrew Neisler is playing through Sept. 24th as part of the 2016 Fringe Festival in Philly. You can find out more on Facebook.

Mr. Pope Hail

When I saw the robes worn during the Pope’s mass in Philadelphia today, Hydra’s classic outfits immediately came to mind. This panel from Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s introduction of SHIELD in Strange Tales #135 next to this crop of a photo taken by Jack Gruber for USA Today is just eerie. Like yesterday, I’m only pointing out what’s already there.


Related: Ozy Ozy Ozy • Which Doctor? • Unsuitable

Hell No

I can’t be the only person who sees a certain horned figure looming. You had one job, Graphics Department. One job.


Related: Mr. Pope Hail • Insufficient Dater • The Devil You Say

Down and Away

I’m a few weeks late in bidding aloha to the Flyin’ Hawaiian, Shane Victorino.


Photo: Jeff Robertson for The Associated Press © 2012.

He was traded by the Phillies on July 31st to the LA Dodgers — who drafted him
back in 1999, although his Major League debut came with San Diego. The Padres got him as a Rule 5 selection, just as the Phils did in 2005. In the past seven years the goofy, hardscrabble Victorino was sent to two All-Star Games, rode in one World
Series parade, and got lodged in the hearts of thousands if not millions of fans.

Maurice Sendak 1928-2012

Even with far more time and attention than I have right now it wouldn’t be possible
to do justice to Maurice Sendak with this post.



Sendak passed yesterday, at the age of 83, following a stroke. His career spanned
65 years and nearly 100 books as well as notable work in other media. You can find a timeline of his life and creations at the website of The Rosenbach Museum & Library, whose director also offers a nice remembrance of that Philadelphia institution’s relationship with the Brooklyn-born Sendak. (I recommend a visit to the place if you’re ever in town — its holdings include a large repository of Lewis Carroll memorabilia, James Joyce’s handwritten manuscript to Ulysses, and “over 10,000 Sendak objects, including original drawings, preliminary sketches, manuscripts, photographs, proofs, and rare prints of Sendak books.”)

[Note: The specific links no longer lead to where they once did, unfortunately, nor does the Rosenbach still house Sendak’s papers, although it maintains his rare-book collection.]

The Onliest Number

Last night The Phillies didn’t just reverse the frustrating if statistically inconsequential losing streak they’d finally snapped the night before. They won their 101st game of the season, tying a franchise record. And in doing so they handed Charlie Manuel his 645th win as Phillies manager, tying the mark of Gene Mauch. Both records can be broken tonight during the final game of the regular season as the Phillies look to sweep the Atlanta Braves, up their MLB-leading win percentage of .627 a skitch, and play a potentially deciding role in whether the Braves themselves make the National League playoffs. The Phillies begin their postseason battles on Saturday, Oct. 1st, either way.


Related: Play Right • Ball Night Long • Short Fall

Play Right

The All-Star break seems like the perfect time to talk a little baseball.

I’m very happy that the National League won this year’s MLB All-Star Game 5-1 — not just because the game decides home-field advantage for the World Series, a fact that I fervently hope affects my Phillies, but out of good ol’ NL pride. National League baseball is real baseball.

Go Cub Go

You don’t have to be a Mac user to appreciate this snow leopard.

But you do need some way of glomming onto cyberspace to watch 6ABC’s video of
the newborn cub at The Cape May County Park & Zoo in Cape May Court House, New Jersey. It was born in May to 8-year-old mama snow leopard Himani and 11-year-old papa Vijay, almost exactly a year after Himani gave birth to twin boys Sabu and Kaba. Just last month, The Philadelphia Zoo’s 3-year-old snow leopard Maya gave birth to a pair of cubs by 5-year-old Amga, video and photos of whom are also online. [Update: All but the zoo home-page links have gone bad.]


Related: Sweet 16 • Brew Ha-Ha • Ducks Uncovered

Ball Night Long

I was up late enough last night to watch my Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4,
in the 19th inning of their 6-hour, 11-minute game. It was the longest MLB matchup of 2011 so far, no surprise, as well as the longest game for the Phils since 1993 and longest for the Reds since 1972.

Sadly, I’d not seen any of it prior to the final inning — although I heard some of it on the radio and the post-game coverage provided a pretty good recap.

Ducks Uncovered

I’m about to call a moratorium on posts beyond what’s in the pipeline because there’s so. much. to write. The 11 o’clock edition of Action News tonight, however, ran a story that just screams to be blogged on, both for what it said and for what it left out.


Screencap © 2011 ABC/WPVI-TV Philadelphia.

The main thing that I was surprised anchor Jim Gardner didn’t mention during the story was that today was the birthday of John James Audubon — which I’ll admit I only knew thanks to the day’s Google logo.

And one reason why the omission is surprising is that the story was about some
ducks hatching outside a fast-food restaurant across the bridge from Philadelphia in Camden County. In case you didn’t know: Audubon, born Jean-Jacques Audubon in France, was a renowned ornithologist — Hello! — who became an American citizen right here in Philly during the War of 1812.

Osteo la Vista

A fun episode of Bones repeated last week. Fox seems to have otherwise benched
the show for the summer, although past seasons can be found in syndication and on cable. You can find the episode in question — “The X in the File” — on Hulu or at
the Fox website [bad link].


Image from Bones 5.11 “The X in the File” © 2010 Twentieth Century Television.

Hart Hanson’s loose adaptation of Kathy Reichs’ popular crime novels has always
owed as much to The X-Files as to CSI, despite its dearth of otherworldly phenomena. That’s due to the pairing of Temperance “Bones” Brennan, the strictly rational forensic anthropologist played by Emily Deschanel, with FBI special agent Seeley Booth, the gut-following, Catholic former Army Rangers sniper played by David Boreanaz.

1 for 1

My Phillies won on Opening Day for the first time in five years. I just hope, as my grandmother pointed out, that it doesn’t jinx them for the rest of the season; despite a history of bad Aprils, they’ve been NL East division champs for the past three years and made it to the World Series the past two, grabbing the crown in 2008.



What a game, though: 11 to 1 over the Nationals — not, I grant you, necessarily the biggest threat, but a win’s a win. Our new staff ace Roy Halladay struck out nine in seven innings and even got an RBI base hit; it’s a shame that Cliff Lee had to go to bring Halladay in, since his single season with the Phils last year was nothing to sneeze at, but the trade seems to make sense. I was already happy to have Placido Palanco back at 3rd even before he came up with today’s insane six RBIs (four courtesy of a grand slam). And the big man, Ryan Howard, kicked off the offense as always with his first homer of the season. Everybody in the starting lineup hit safely, in fact, and when you look at this group, from Howard to Palanco to Chase Utley to Jimmy Rollins to Jayson Werth to Shane Victorino to Raul Ibañez to Carlos Ruiz, it looks to be another sizzling summer as long as — say it with me, baseball fans who invoke this same mantra of obviousness each year — the pitching holds up and the team stays healthy. We have a few guys still out, including key reliever J.C. Romero and closer Brad Lidge, but Cole Hamels is looking good and, hey, 47-year-old hometown mensch Jamie Moyer is back. Given how well last season ended despite some players falling apart it’s way too early to panic — it’s Opening Day.


Related: P Funk • Low and Inside • Play Right

Radical White

Here’s my mom’s house as it looked this afternoon. See that shovel at bottom right
of the photo? The heap covered in snow between it and the tree is my car; behind that
is my grandparents’ car, which never got dug out from last weekend’s storm.

P Funk

I came very close to calling this post “27 and Cry” but decided that, even though
most of the plays on words here are made primarily for my own amusement, referencing an obscure Bowie song from a less-celebrated album was just too far out. Also, there is, famously, a distinct lack of crying in baseball. For a picosecond or so, it was titled “No Joy in Philville” in homage to the well-worn line in “Casey at the Bat”.

Except that there has been joy in Philville, despite the Phillies’ World Series loss
to the New York Yankees this night.

Bat Company

You have to be wary of celebrating a single game too much when it only puts your
team up two to one in a best-of-seven championship series. At a certain point you can even get a mite self-conscious over a blowout, so you can only wonder how your team’s hitters feel when they have to keep going to the plate those last couple of innings on such a tear — sure, they might not try as hard for extra bases when ahead by double digits, but they can’t outright stop swinging. That being said, I found the Phillies’
11-0 rout of the Dodgers tonight to be a hoot.

Harry Kalas 1936-2009

Original Photo: George Widman / The Associated Press © 2002.

Harry Kalas died on Monday.

If you live — or if you once lived, anytime in the past 38 years — in what they call the Greater Philadelphia Area, you’ve probably heard and almost certainly heard of Mr. Kalas. “Harry the K” was the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies for nearly four decades, so established, so resonant, and so loved that his collapse in the visitors’ press box before Washington’s home opener shocked and saddened millions.

Football fans will recognize Harry’s voice from narration on Inside the NFL. He also
did voice-over work for commercials, including the TV spot for last year’s football movie Leatherheads. But he belonged to baseball.