|
|
|
|
|
|
Local Life
by ALICIA KIMMEL Moving to Philadelphia was something of a culture shock for me. I didn’t move here of my own accord, but rather, I moved here because my husband’s job required us to relocate from Bethany, a small town outside of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to the wonderfully busy city of Philadelphia. However, we found that there was a place reminiscent of all of those little Hallmark villages you see in different department stores around Christmas time. A place where the people are surprisingly what I like to refer to as “down home.” A place called Chestnut Hill, which is a wonderful place to live, and it is here that I have had the pleasure of meeting (and even working with) an extraordinary woman whose name is Helen Darrow. She is 83 but looks much younger. About five months ago, I found myself looking for a job closer to home and more interesting than filing insurance forms for a major corporation downtown. I was walking down Germantown Avenue for the umpteenth time and saw an ad on a storefront for a place called “The Bone Appetite K-9 Bakery.” To make a long story short, I was interviewed and told that I had the job, along with three other people, one of whom was Helen Darrow. Since that time, I have gotten to know her, and to those Hillers who know and love her, she is a fabulously interesting person. Before Helen lived here, she lived in Germantown with David, her husband, who... Hill native headlines night of comedy at Keswick by LEN LEAR When Chestnut Hill area native Craig Shoemaker performs, as he will at Glenside’s historic Keswick Theater on Saturday, September 25, 8:30 p.m., he puts it all out there straight with no chaser. No one-trick pony, this actor/writer/producer/comic has material that’s stronger than bus station chili. He’s mixed the comedy cocktail just right, with just enough fizzy soda and whiskey. I like to think I actually discovered Craig because I wrote the first article he ever received; it was in 1980, and I wrote it for the now-defunct Philadelphia Journal after seeing Shoemaker perform at Rick’s Cabaret, a then-hot club on the 700 block of South Front Street, where he was also a bartender. I found Shoemaker to be very funny, creative and original, so I asked if I could interview him after the show. (Does a pig have knuckles?) During the interview, I discovered that the good-looking young Temple University student was majoring in radio, TV and film while moonlighting at Rick’s Cabaret. His first... Louis Sloan: a ‘national treasure’ at Hahn Gallery By MARIE FOWLER If we designated our citizens with extraordinary talents as “living national treasures” in the way the Japanese do, surely Philadelphia native son and artist Louis Sloan would indeed be one! Sloan’s landscapes on view at the Hahn Gallery in Chestnut Hill through September 29, are intimate in scale, glowing against the gallery walls like Faberge eggs in a jewel box. Sloan, who is “70-something,” paints in Bucks County along the Delaware and beside the falls on Wissahickon Creek. Passionate about the Catskills, he travels there every autumn when the leaves hit their peak of color. He captures foggy mist rising from the Blue Ridge Mountains in southern Virginia and perfectly recreates the blues and greens of the ocean at the Jersey shore, as well as pearly corals and pinks reflected in the sand. “This was one of those silvery days,” he remarks, pointing out a landscape with tiny migrating birds streaking across the picture plane. In Arizona, saguaro cactus stand sentinel against a rosy sky. “I love all the seasons. I’ve painted outside in seven or eight degree weather,” the artist confesses, indicating one of his snow scenes. When working outdoors, Sloan gets his impressions down quickly. Often, he’ll sketch individual leaves or twigs and return to his studio, scattering them about, as if to bring the outside in, before setting to work on a large-scale composition. “My grandfather was an artist,” Sloan remarks, “and my oldest brother painted. We had art books... By HUGH HUNTER Stagecrafters opened its fall series last weekend with Sherlock’s Last Case, written by Charles Marowitz. In this play, Sherlock Holmes receives a letter from Damion Moriarty, the son of his archenemy, Professor Moriarty. Damion vows to avenge his father’s death, and includes a cryptic riddle for the famous sleuth. Holmes knows only one thing for certain: someone is planning his death. Holmes (played by Kevin McLernon) is so convincingly obnoxious that there is no lack of suspects. While Moriarty is the arch-villain, Holmes proceeds to create an entire universe of hostility. He is smug and supercilious. He seizes upon every occasion to correct the hapless Watson, or be callous and condescending to high-strung Mrs. Hudson. He is full of snobby references to the working classes and offers Revealing, touching film at Hill Library about Orchestra By MICHAEL CARUSO The Chestnut Hill branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia was the site Sunday afternoon of an extraordinary event that could have far-reaching results. Daniel Anker’s documentary film, Music from the Inside Out, received a screening for local music-lovers and supporters of the arts in general, launching a fundraising drive that will hopefully culminate in the film’s national theatrical distribution early in 2005. Why, you may ask, was Philadelphia chosen for this important step along the way in the life of a motion picture? Because the makers of the music in the movie’s title are the members of our very own Philadelphia Orchestra. And why Chestnut Hill? Because local residents are among the region’s “movers and shakers” in all aspects of our communal life. Their active participation in the project at this important juncture could be a prerequisite for its success. For instance, Chestnut Hill’s George Blood was the associate recording engineer for the film. Anker, in a short introduction to the screening and in a longer discourse following... |