|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
# 16: Philadelphia Freedom!
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 By Maura Madden
Escaping from New York is an action that must be taken on a regular basis if you want to hold on to a fleck of sanity. It's been far too long since I last left, but Friday night I broke the barrier and abandoned New York for a kinder, gentler urban center. My housemate and I met at Penn Station at 4:30, narrowly avoiding the rush hour crowd. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that the concept of rush hour in New York City is misleading, because it suggests that it is a period of time in the city that people are more rushed than others, which is utterly inaccurate. New Yorkers are rushing and are rushed at all times. If you don't rush, you're finished. That's why there are railings placed on the edges of subway platforms that feed into escalators or stairs - if you don't pick up then pace, you might get pushed off. Instead of "Rush Hour", they should call it "The Hour of Extreme Population Density, in which the Citizens of the City Move as Rapidly as Ever, but in Greater Concentration." New Yorkers live by the code: "Live Rushed or Die." So sometimes, you have to flee the Stressopolis.
This weekend's destination was none other than Philadelphia, PA, home of the Liberty Bell, birthplace of Thomas Andrew Madden, the Founding Father of Me, and the surprise antidote to the effects of NYC. The trip down was uneventful - we took the New Jersey Transit train to Trenton, switched to a SEPTA train bound for Philadelphia and disembarked at Market East station downtown. When we stopped to use the bathrooms, I noticed there was a logo on the latch to the bathroom door. The company that makes Philly's finest privacy keepers is called "Hiney Hiders". The latches on New York stalls do not have brand names. It's probably better that way - I don't think New Yorkers are good with calling an ass anything other than an ass.
Our first stop was an art gallery opening in Chinatown, where yanking on a long string to ring the bell is the usual method of gaining access to the space. A hipster we had seen on the train was in the crowd, which was made up of the only people in Philadelphia whose dress strays from the pages of a J. C. Penny's catalogue. Though, come to think of it, I bet many of the ironic hats and t-shirts worn by this well-dressed set were the remnants of J C. Penny's days of yore. After the show we had dinner at a Chinatown restaurant that was described as "lacking ambience", and the fake wood tables and walls spotted with duct tape reinforced that description. The food, however, was really good and the clay pot of seafood was full and sloppy. I also believe there was enough MSG in it to sedate a raging bull. After dinner, we hit a TGIF looking bar where WHAM! dominated the jukebox. I got my slumber in Rittenhouse Square, at my friend's one bedroom apartment that featured a fireplace and cost less that the average mediocre-sized, falling-to-pieces room in a shared housing situation in Williamsburg. When I woke up the next morning I walked three blocks to my other friend's apartment. This phenomenal place would cost a firstborn in New York, but child sacrifice is not required to attain housing in Philadelphia. The envy monster was alive and kicking it to me.
But this space and charm comes at a cost: Where is the edge? Whither the character? My friend and I stopped at a nearby French bakery to get coffee and picked up a loaf of scrump-diddly-umptious bread to snack upon. Seeing a dish of butter on the counter, I wondered if it would be okay if I slathered some over a slice of my recently purchased loaf. My friend encouraged me to partake, but I wanted to be polite - the bakery was so posh and airy, the people looked so fresh and so clean, I didn't want to step on any toes by using the sample bread on my to-go loaf. I decided to follow the rules of etiquette and ask.
"Is it kosher if I use this butter?" I asked, using "kosher" in the way that a Californian might use "cool", meaning, is it okay if I use this butter?
The woman behind the counter gave me a look of utter confusion, which was swiftly replaced by a kind of stuttering embarrassment.
"I don't know," she said.
Now I shot her a look as if to say "How can you not know if it's okay for me to use this butter? Why wouldn't it be okay? I was just being polite by asking. Give me the green light on this, please!"
But then I realized, this is Philadelphia. It is a hot bed of Protestantism, with a few Catholics thrown in for color. Kosher is not just part of the vocabulary. She thinks I'm not sure if this butter is Kosher, or if it's okay to put butter on bread if you keep Kosher.
"I'm not familiar with the statutes of..."
My friend turned to me. "Just use the butter!"
And so I coated my slice as the counter person looked on in trepidation. Was I angering my chosen God because she didn't know the rules about butter on bread? No, lady, all is well here in Philadelphia. I'm just a New Yorker on a visit, nothing to be afraid of. My religious beliefs are not at stake, I'm just trying to be nice like a native Philadelphian would be. And despite its stuffiness, I think that Philly is really quite kosher.
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
