Catch a rising star in Pastorius Park
By Nancy Berger
It’s not often that a community (this means YOU) can get to hear one of the country’s hot, new stars for FREE. But on Wednesday, August 4 in Pastorius Park at 7:30 p.m., this is your chance.
Up-and-coming young (26) singer-songwriter Amos Lee has played North by Northwest, the Tin Angel, the Point, has opened for Bob Dylan, and is, according to Inquirer music writer Tom Moon, truly a rising young star.
His style runs the gamut from soul to folk to funk. According to Lee’s Web site, he delivers “folky soul” music with his “Marvin Gaye-like” voice and acoustic guitar.
And he’s joining the Norah Jones North American tour right after he plays...
Faith communities form voter registration drive
By JOHN OLIVER MASON
Religious communities in Northwest Philadelphia have formed "Your Vote Counts," a drive to register people to vote in time for the 2004 presidential election.
Stan Diamond, a longtime member of the Germantown Jewish Centre, said of his own participation, "I'm part of the committee that's working on voter registration. I'm also involved with NIM [Northwest Interfaith Movement], and NIM is involved with the voter registration, too." Of the voter registration drive, Diamond said, "It's a NIM undertaking, and NIM represents many religious communities in the neighborhood. There are churches and synagogues that are providing manpower for this effort."
Is it important that faith communities get involved in voter registration? "I think," said Diamond, "faith communities have a unique role in it, in that they draw a certain segment of the population, and people who are participants in faith communities are more likely to be willing to join in efforts like this, and so this effort is really aimed at getting underrepresented...
‘Treasures From the Royal Tombs of Ur’ at University Museum
by Dea Adria Mallin
When the Women’s Committee of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology named its recent, sparkling fundraiser “The Lure of Ur,” they weren’t merely rhyming. “Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur” is breathtaking and seductive, and though 4,500 years old, of a timeless beauty. Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, called it “the finest, most resplendent, and magical works of art in all of America.”
The museum’s collection, which most Philadelphians took for granted until it went on a 10-city traveling exhibition schedule in 1998, is back — albeit temporarily, until May 29, 2005 — with more than 200 objects.
Every aspect of this exhibition comes replete with story and significance, because Ur was the very cradle of civilization, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a pivotal place in human history. The materials in the exhibit document the transition from hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers and then the move to cities and the existence of kings, complex economies and administrative systems.
Ur was the city of the Sumerian moon god; it was the site of the Garden of Eden; it was the traditional home of the Biblical patriarch, Abraham; and its language, Sumerian, was...