Travelogue Philadelphia: Part 2

Gardens, Bars, Photos, and Visions

It’s Saturday, May 17th. I’m meandering the surroundings of my hotel. Many of these streets are beautiful residential pockets, parents walking strollers, two people smoking in front of a house. There are a lot of flags; I did not realize that Philadelphians loved a flag so much. Vexillologists? Or perhaps Vexillophiles. Sports fans, anyway. I stopped to take a picture of my hotel room from the alley.

I decide to head towards the Magic Gardens, making note of a little bar in a backalley, literarily themed, thinking I might visit later. It feels nice to be taking pictures, after weeks away I’m starting to remember what I like and what I don’t like. I liked the folks smoking outside, I liked seeing people walk down alleys next to one another. I enjoy the activity, that you can see the pictures and tell yourself a story. Sometimes the emptiness can be its own story, but half of my empty pictures feel boring instead of curious.

I have an anxiety around taking pictures of strangers. It’s difficult, I feel like a creep. What makes a person worth photographing, especially when they’re strangers? Sometimes they have interesting features, faces. It’s fantastic to photograph a crowd and later find one person staring down the lens. Or perhaps their faces tell a story all by themselves. Sometimes, someone stands out as simply beautiful and you want to take their picture. That crosses some vague line between photographer and voyeur, which I am not interested in crossing.

I get to the Magic Gardens and the 11 is full so I buy a ticket for 11:30 and walk around the block a bit more. It’s here that I find someone that falls somewhere between 20% striking and 10% smoking (a cinematic effect that, though I find it revolting, always looks frustratingly good on camera). They’re vaping, which is aesthetically different. Ambiguous presentation, black hair shoved under a hat, long and bright orange shirt. They’re carrying coffees and smoke (vapor?) roils around their head, sunlight cutting through it. I don’t think to take a picture until I start to walk off but it’s passed. C’est la vie.

I speak to the lady out front of Magic Gardens who is in some kind of monk garb and has a shaved head. I notice she never lowers her eyes or head and in fact asks me to hold my phone to eye level; I’m fascinated. The little garden is a collection of salvaged glassware and enough bicycle rims to outfit a small army. Reflections all over the place, sharp edges, slippery stairs. It is all very nice to look at, but I am most interested in how porous everything is. Can I get a good image of someone, framed by all these protrusions and intrusions?

I wonder if the intense heat in this glass palace is because of all the reflection and refraction. As soon as I’m out and back on the shaded sidestreets I feel more comfortable. Next stop, Reading Market Terminal.

The Terminal was a delight last time, packed to the gills. Taking pictures of people is a lot easier when they’re in crowds. I caught some of people making food, though each time I kicked myself for having too tight a shot and missing the cook. There was a woman icing cookies and there were so many angles of her, and yet none of them seemed like good photos, so I didn’t bother. Some of my favorite pictures from last time feature people looking at things to buy, though this time I tried to focus a little more on the sellers.

I started to get very hot so I ordered a peanut butter shake and went out and leaned on the wall to suck it down. I watched people. I did not realize that there was some kind of ComicCon type event and I wonder if that is why my hotel was so expensive. There are folks around dressed as One Piece, TNMT, and who knows what other show, characters all over. Some of the costumes are quite good, others are impressive more in spirit than execution. I wonder the fun this brings versus the anxiety one must feel walking around pouring sweat in a head to toe Styrofoam outfit. I think the people in 80% fishnets probably have to think about the heat a little less.

After a while I decide to head back to the hotel, put away the camera, and find somewhere to read and relax. I walked down to J’aime French Bakery and heroically resisted ordering en Francais: Je veux un latte glace au lait d’avoine, grande, et un croissant un chocolat. I sat in the windows and took a few bites of the croissant and sucked down my coffee while reading Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

When I leave the café, it’s because I’m hungry and planning to drink, so I walk up the street to Bud & Marilyn's. The front of house staff let me know they’re not doing dinner yet and give me a copy of their, whatever word they used, snack menu. I say that’s great and sit in a small booth. I order a Caesar Salad and a Fat Tire Ale which is a strange combination. Thankfully it’s a fine one, and the salad is very good. I eavesdrop on the folks at the bar. They’re trading ChatGPT-generated pictures back and forth, which I find befuddling, because they’re giving ChatGPT pictures of themselves to create new ones.

I leave for the bar, walking the wrong direction for about 5 minutes. On that diversion I witness people crossing the sidewalk to avoid a man lying fetal position in the sidewalk. He is clearly homeless, but I am watching and wondering if he is in distress, ill. I watch people cross the street to avoid him, and later I will think about how I also avoided him.

The bar is nearly full when I get there, despite having just opened. I sit in the last empty seat and order a “Toot the Fruit”—vodka, Campari, vermouth, grapefruit. The bartender is talking a lot of comics and so, naturally, I attempt to parlay this into movie chat. He is utterly immune, though I engage in protracted comic book chat for quite a long time. I have not read a comic since Tim Drake kissed a cute boy in Batman Urban Legends, but I make do with what limited X-Men knowledge I have.

The upstairs bartender floats in and out of the room. Tall and dark with short shorts worn Doc Martens. I compliment the boots and we have a little chat before he goes back upstairs. I tend to get pretty chatty when I drink, and I’ll let myself say things I’d never say otherwise. Boundaries lowered, painful self-awareness a little muted.

After two, I switch from vodka to rum, the Pineapple Express—rum, pineapple shrub, Prosecco, ginger—and I find it delicious. Good enough that I ask for water alongside. Meanwhile I am eyeballing upstairs bartender as hard and probably not as subtly as I imagine. “Are your earrings teddy bears!” “Yes!” Long story about where they came from, he has a very high voice, and I wonder a bit about ‘customer service voice’ as I nod along and suck on my straw.

The couple and I are getting quite animated in our discussion with the bartender, now about fascists. He is ‘testing’ another concoction and in reaching for something, spreads a bottle of Aperol all across the floor. He is completely unperturbed and goes about making drinks, then leaves to use the bathroom. I look down and the shattered corpse is lying shards-towards-me. I’m playing with my empty water glass as the couple and I continue talking. The lady ventures behind the bar and takes a glass and—Flash! We all look to one side and a dishwasher in the back has taken a picture. Ruh roh.

She pours what we both think to be water, but when I take a big gulp. I wheeze and start laughing, “that is vodka!” The bartender returns and I get my water, along with another cocktail.

As the couple and I (and the bartender) keep up our merry time, the owner appears. He asks, “who was the woman behind the bar.” There is a feeling that mom has just gotten home. Several of us hastily close out, though the bartender says he’s covered a bit of mine. I look at the receipt and find I’ve only been charged for two Pilsners, so I pay $22 after tax for 4 heavy cocktails. Should I think that my humor, or maybe just my profession, has gotten me some free drinks? Or maybe the bartender is just drunk and forgot. The world shall never know.

I run into the upstairs bartender as I’m leaving. Clearly, I find him ‘terribly hot’ and it is possible that I say this to him as I go. Thus making me, perhaps, the first sad sack of the night to drool after him, though I am sure not the last. He, as any good bartender would I guess have to be, seems flattered and sweet in response.

Immune for now against what I’ll feel thinking about that in the morning, I walk the sidestreets for a while. It is cool out, though not quiet. I am unaware of everything around me, living only in my head and in the refracting images of people and places I know, conversations from the past.. The outcropping in front of the Shedd Aquarium. Sip ‘n’ Savor, Mellow Yellow in Hyde Park. Bookstores. Shakespeare. Smell of garlic, eggplant. I am drifting in these well trod memories and feeling very sentimental.

There is a lot churning in my head but I make a mantra of the bottle in my hand. Water, water, water. Water and teddy bear earrings are what I will go to sleep thinking about. Nothing complicated, nothing stressful. Water and teddy bears.

Thomas

(Probably) NEXT WEEK: A very long book review of *Porn: An Oral History*, with thoughts on shame, taboo, gender, and our fear of being open.