Look, I made you a car!

Have you ever been to Rockefeller Center in New York City? It's a must see place, especially around Christmas time, if for nothing else but to see the Christmas Tree. (Or Holiday tree, or whatever the PC name for it is) I really dig the art and style inside the building. Now I'm not an art critic, nor an art major, but I assume it's of the Art Deco movement of the 1930's. Lots of streamlining, and a lot of industrial imagery. Shirtless muscle bound men with hammers banging on steel to make buildings and Zeppelins and Trains, strong jawed women with sheaths of wheat bundled in their arms. I assume the motif is aimed more at the Ayn Rand, glory of capitalism aesthetic since the patrons of all this art were the Rockefeller family versus the same kind of art work done by the Soviets called Socialist Realism. (Not to be confused with the style exampled by Diego Rivera's "Social Realism" in case you were wondering.) Having been in both Rockefeller Center and the Metro stations of Moscow I can tell you both styles are a lot alike. Either way, it's amazing that we managed to be so optimistic during the depression, but maybe it was more of a unique opportunity in the history of the world where the rich could afford the labor and talents of thousands of gifted but out of work artists and to paraphrase Max Bialystok , "since they had it, they flaunted it."


So once again, I'm on the Scooter in West Chester, and there was this place on Gay Street that sold Futons to the off campus college types and the 41 year old studio apartment dweller losers like myself. Anyway, they moved, and I guess the building is being remodeled and in the course of this remodeling was revealed this very nice retro looking hint as to what used to be in the building, Turner Motors Mercedes-Benz of West Chester. Now for the local townies, maybe they remember when it used to be a car dealership, but I don't, being a newbie and all. The best part of this revelation is this relief that is exactly of the same kind of thing you see in New York City. I'm sure a smarter person than I can tell me what the significance of the two people are, (oh that's Detroiticus, Greek God of automobile manufacturing, and that's Smartshoppera, Goddess of wise automobile buyers.) but regardless, I'm hoping somebody saves it and puts up somewhere where all of us in town can enjoy it.

All this got me thinking about the latest architectural marvel in town. When I look at the new Chester County Courthouse, I think to myself, "God bless 'em, they tried", but it really doesn't have much of a personality. Sure they went with some Roman Columns at the entrance, but you know, it's the little things, those details and flourishes, that usually have nothing to do with the engineering of a building that are often what really makes a building something special.



Maybe since the days of cheap immigrant labor are long over, ( I mean cheap, artisan labor, mustachioed Italian men with chisels) it's not in any body's budget to have these little do-dads on buildings anymore. Well, if we don't care how future generations will look on us, let us at least have the sense to preserve what generations past managed to crank out even during our darkest days.

Riding Around West Chester

Today's weather in West Chester was awesome. I know the word awesome is used way too much these days, it almost cheapens the word somehow when it's used for every slightly better than good thing, but really, mid August, 85 degrees, blue skies, low humidity? If I closed my eyes and imagine that the Pacific Ocean is just down the hill, it's like it's Carmel, California or something. Sure there are a lot of other sensory inputs missing, like the barking of the sea lions, and that musky salt air smell, but driving through tree lined streets of nice homes, quaint shops, hipsters and wealthy folks, it's like you'd expect to see Clint Eastwood walking his dog while he contemplates going to get an ice cream. (Yea, kind of weird imagery there, but he's not always shooting punks you know.)

When the weather is this nice, I think of flying. I really need to get on my horse and finish this pilot's license thing. Joe is about a 2 hour flight away by Cessna 172 in Norfolk, and I've always wanted to fly out to Rick Kohberger's compound near Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. (That's not a typo, there is a town off of I-80 in central PA called Jersey Shore.) So to torture myself, I went out to Brandywine airport, (you know the one that had a little excitement a couple of weeks ago) and watch planes in the pattern do touch and goes. I got a few good photos, like the one of this absolutely beautiful T-28 Trojan,

some planes taking off and landing,


and of course the Helicopters in front of the American Helicopter Museum.


After about an hour of this, I hopped back on the scooter, but before I left the airport I managed to take one more photo, I couldn't resist.


Back in West Chester proper, I'm fooling around with my new Nikon Coolpix S550, and decided to take a few small movies so I can upload my first official videos on You Tube. I just held the camera close to my chest with my left hand, my right hand on the throttle. Probably not the safest thing in the world to do, but until I can build a mount for my helmet for the camera, it was an interesting experiment.



Before I went home though, I wanted to check out this new business on High Street. Imagine you're in that classic scenario, you need to get your hands on some high end Olive Oil, but it needs to be within walking distance. Well, West Chester now has A Taste of Olive, where you can get extra virgin Olive Oils from around the world.....On Tap! You go in, and you can taste them BEFORE you buy. I couldn't walk out without buying a bottle of some Olive Oil from Italy, now if I could only figure out what to cook.


All in all, a pretty good day in West Chester.

Another Swinging Thursday

Well, it's the first Thursday of a Summer month, so that means that 1/2 of Gay Street gets closed down to traffic to set up tents along the street for local merchants to sell their wares or tout their agendas. The air is filled with the lingering aroma of fried dough and BBQ Turkey legs, yet the Renaissance Faire is a couple of months away still. The sounds of R&B and Disco have the older and younger generations swaying to the beats of the live band. Young couples insist on negotiating the throngs of people with their seemingly self propelled, All Terrain, 4 Wheel drive strollers with the independent suspension, air bags, (and if I had my way, ejector seats. I mean really how cool would it be, prior to an impending collision, the sun shade blows off the top of the stroller, a rocket fires, and little Josh gets propelled 50 feet in the air, to be brought down gently by parachute? Am I the only one who thinks about that kind of thing? OK fine, whatever.)

I gather that the point of even having these things the first part of every month during the summer is to attract people, or in the case of the people who work in the town, keep people in the downtown area which helps the local businesses by extending the hours they can make money. Nothing wrong with that. The interesting part of these events is that they have brought out people with nothing to sell but ideas. The Chester County Young Democrats are out there, and so are the Young Republicans. In previous First Thursdays the Freethought Society of Philadelphia(a pro Atheist group) had a booth, and Amnesty International was there today.

Now I normally don't mind the fact that I have to kind of go out of my way in a crowd of people to avoid the "Free Spinal Alignment Check Booth" to keep from having someone put a sales brochure in my hand, but I guess I kind of skived out about having to avoid eye contact with someone who is earnestly and eagerly awaiting an opportunity to tell me why I should vote for somebody, or not vote for somebody, or why God doesn't exist, or how waterbording is terrible, or whatever it is. I don't think for a minute that they don't have a right to be there, au contraire, that's what I love about this town, the free exchange of thoughts and ideas in the public square, does it get any more American than that? Heck we even have protesters and counter-protesters dutifully show up like clock work, rain or shine, on the corner of High and Market at 11:00 am on Saturdays to hold up signs for an hour.

I guess I don't have an answer really, I mean I want all the little businesses to do well in this town, because that's what makes the quality of life living here so awesome. I also want people to be able to spout off whatever it is they believe in public, because I believe its a lot harder to spew venom and be so vitriolic like people will be on a blog then when you see these people in person and realize they are just that, people, kind, smiling, enthusiastic people who believe in a cause, against the war or for the troops, for tax cuts or for helping the less fortunate.

At the end of the day though, I'd like to just get my Funnel Cake and Turkey Leg in peace.