September 11, 2008 Issue
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Classified Chestnut Hill Local Don't Miss an Issue, Tell us what you see or Winner of Two |
Opinion
The revolution will not be televised Having digested nearly every issue of the paper, and sitting where I do, it’s hard to imagine what the next 50 years of this paper will look like. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the paper being here in 50 years. Everyone is aware that newspapers as a general enterprise are faltering. It seem that people not only are reading less but also are favoring speedy nuggets of news on the Internet rather than longer forms of journalism. “The printed product is dead,” say the industry prognosticators. Weeklies, like the Local, have been sheltered from the troubles dailies are experiencing, but they are not immune to slow and flat circulation. In other words, zero growth. It’s hard to argue that the future of newsprint is not bleak. Numbers don’t lie. But is it only because people don’t want to read? Or is it more that newspapers are no longer indispensible. I won’t dispute the former, but I think newspaper declines have a lot more to do with cautious editors and writers who get caught up in trying to play by old rules while the “blogosphere” advances unfettered. Northwestern University’s Readership Institute, which studied newspaper readership for five years, had this to say in a lengthy report about reaching new readers: “Newspapers that want to forge strong bonds with younger and more diverse readers must prepare themselves for nothing short of revolution … The simple truth is that newspapers can spend too much time making improvements around the edges that only benefit older, more loyal readers. In the meantime you skirt the heart of the issue – coming to grips with what makes lighter, younger readers really engage (or disengage) with your paper.” So what would a revolution look like at the Local? I can already hear the groans and gasps. In light of the Local’s long history of turf war and general strife (Just look at this week’s 50th chapter!), there’s probably not much community stomach for revolution. Especially in a neighborhood that has a lower-than-average tolerance for change. And, it’s tough enough to plan next week’s issue, never mind a full-blown revolution. But if we don’t try to think bigger, to take the newspaper in a new direction, this paper’s future will probably be a slow slide to insolvency. It won’t happen soon. But it will happen. The rules of 50 years ago will not help us now. And although we are effectively a nonprofit enterprise, we still need to be a self-sustaining and, therefore, successful business. We need to sell papers, no matter how much that motivation seems to displease long time advocates and critics alike. The Local needs a plan that accommodates the paper’s central mission to educate and inform the community but also engages and challenges it (referenced in founder Lloyd Wells’ early mission statement that controversy will not be avoided but rather sought). And it can be entertaining as well. These concepts are not mutually exclusive. To that end, I’d like to hear from you. We will soon release a readership survey, a way you can let us know what you like and what you don’t like. In the meantime, write in. One thing we will not change is the Forum. Change is coming. If not, the Local probably won’t be around to celebrate its 100th. Pete Mazzaccaro
What not to be proud of in America I have so many different reactions to the Republican Convention and Gov. Palin’s speech, I hardly know where to begin. First, bragging about always being proud of America sounds good, but I wonder just what parts of our history we should be most proud of. Was it when we terrorized and killed the Native Americans and took their land? Was it when we enslaved Africans, beating, raping, maiming, destroying any who opposed us and forced them to build our country for us? Was it when we hunted down and hung Black people even after they were freed? Was it when we militarily attacked other countries and tried to force them to be like us — democratic? Hard to choose. Maybe more recently we should be proud that many of us live in poverty while something like 10 percent of the population owns 90 percent of the wealth? Yeah, that’s fair. Maybe we’re proud that so many go without proper education, adequate healthcare or adequate housing. Just what America have people been living in??? Second, the Grand Old Party Republican families who claim the moral high ground, are just as fraught with fornication (be it teenager or adult), adultery, (be it politician, pastor or lay person), child molestation, divorce and drug abuse as anyone else. I know from experience and close personal observation that things go on in so-called Christian right-wing families that would shock the heck out of people if they only knew. Yet they manage to keep it quiet so they end up looking better than the rest of us and then tell the rest of us how to live. Third, bringing up the “bitter” remark again was pretty timely. In the 9-4-08 Metro there was an article about a noose being hung at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Evidently an employee there was “resentful and unhappy about a management training program for minorities.” A community leader was quoted as saying, “There has been a low undercurrent of this attitude throughout the years. The real complicating factors for all of this is that economically desperate people will lash out against each other. Sometimes they blame their neighbors, co-workers or people that don’t look like them.” Fourth, belittling the accomplishments of another person, mocking them and making fun of them, signals insecurity to me. It reeks of immaturity and envy. My parents taught me “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” But I guess we can’t apply decency and common sense to politics, huh. If the only way to get votes and support is to make the other guy look bad, politics in this country we’re supposed to be so proud of has gotten pretty bad. Dolores Paulk lives in Germantown.
The road to desolation is paved with old, dusty books So it is with humans, too, except that we have language to substitute for scratching and sniffing each other. Language allows us to describe more abstract things than what we’ve been eating or whom we’ve been hanging around. For example, it makes it possible for us to tell our friends at the dinner table what we’ve been reading. If you ever want the feeling of Odd Man Out at the dinner table, however, try mentioning a book you’ve read that no one else has even heard of. This has happened to me a lot lately. Admittedly, I’d never heard of these books either before I found them, some in a cardboard box, others on a dusty bookshelf. These were books of the neglected kind, written a while ago and since shelved and ignored. Perhaps justly, perhaps not. I sometimes simply find myself playing Catcher-In-The-Rye to old books in danger of going over the edge of oblivion. There are thousands of new books published every year and a diminishing number of readers and time for reading. The competition for our attention is fierce; movies and TV and the Internet and iPods are winning the timeshare battle over books. In the book world, each generation of newborns pushes the old-borns aside, and leaves them languishing and dusty on the world’s libraries’ shelves. Waiting for you and me. I’ll not be mysterious here. As part of my quest for karma there are a few places where I pick up unwanted books and give them away to people who might read them. Occasionally, I find a title irresistible – Dwarf’s Blood, for example, a novel from 1941 – and read it. Then comes the hard part: finding someone to talk to about it. My friends, for example. Intelligent and interesting people. Trouble is, people like to talk about books that are currently in the news, or popular. That’s why the first topic at dinner usually is movies. Who’s seen what? Everyone can chime in on that topic. Even if no one has seen the movie. Everyone has seen publicity for it, or read a review and can at least say whether or not they want to see it. I think this is because people crave being part of a shared experience. It seems almost a need. In mid-August, I tried at five different table gatherings saying, “I’ve just read a very interesting novel about a man who lived alone in Antarctica, studying the lives and habits of penguins.” Silence. “It was written in 1965 by a guy who’d actually lived there, studying penguins.” Brief, respectful pause. Then the conversational channel switched to an Oprah book which one person present had read, but everyone had something to say about. No one even asked me the book’s title, which was the reason I read it: Forbush and the Penguins, by Graham Billings. Just so you know. I couldn’t resist the title and I also wondered, how could someone construct a novel around the premise of a solitary man in Antarctica? It was expectedly tedious in many ways, I must admit, but terrific nonetheless. It was all about…a guy named Forbush…and…penguins. Loveable creatures, those. Oh, and it was action-packed — in a slow, slow way. I really can’t recommend it or not recommend it. Since I read around 100 books a year, an odd book here or there doesn’t diminish the year’s reading experience for me the way it would if I only read five or 10 a year and hit a clunker. All in the day’s work, actually. That’s how Forbush talked. A New Zealander, actually. It was quite honest about how cruelly nature works, come to think of it. Forbush thought a lot. Though the title sounds whimsical, the book was definitely non-Disney. And, in for a penny, in for a pound, after Forbush, I decided to intensify my non-relevance as a dinner-table companion by picking up and reading another book whose title intrigued me. That would be Blind Raftery, by Donn Byrne, better known as the author of Messer Marco Polo. Again, the title pulled me in. Blind Raftery is a famous “dark man,” i.e. he’s blind, but also a poet, singing bard, wandering minstrel who is walking from Galway to Mayo in Ireland with his wife, Hilaria. If you need a quick short book for your list, this book is small, brief, and narrow, with about seven words per line. On the other hand, it’s written in a slow-to-read Irish dialect, beautifully poetic, and was written with the old-fashioned sentiments typical of its era (1924). But in its own, take-yer-time way, it is gripping, funny, horrible, suspenseful, and touching. I haven’t a clue as to how to mention it at future dinner tables. Should I say, “Good news everyone: I’ve read Blind Raftery at last”? Or just mention that I’ve read a book from 1924 about a blind Irish poet/bard? Or just keep it to myself and go see the new Woody Allen movie so I can stimulate a conversation next time I see my friends and family? Ah well, the loneliness of the reader of the obscure. At the least, by virtue of this monologue I’ve managed to get two of the world’s many neglected authors’ names said aloud once again. There’s a kind of resurrection and temporary life in that, isn’t there? Hugh Gilmore can be reached at hughmore@yahoo.com.
Dreams fade for Cottage owner I moved to Philadelphia when I was 18 years old to go to Moore College of Art. At that point in my life, I only wanted to be a painter. To help pay for college, like most art students, I got a job in a restaurant as a waitress . . . I joined the Army too, but that is a whole other story! My first day on the job, I knew that I needed to someday own a restaurant. I loved the head-spinning, fast paced action that goes on every day. I was very shy, so through the years I tried to beg my way into the kitchen. Back in the 80s, women didn’t really work in the back of the house; we were saved for the serving aspect of restaurant work. When I graduated from college, I took the dream job of every fine art student; a gallery position. I worked for Helen Drutt Gallery in Philadelphia and New York for the next six years. During this time I was still obsessed with owning a restaurant. On my days off I would help my friend do prep work, for free, at Judy’s Café. One day, I just decided I needed to take the plunge; I quit my safe gallery job, and started working as a prep cook at Judy’s. The dreaded shift at all restaurants is Sunday. Everyone has worked doubles on Friday and Saturday, and the shift is gladly given away to all newbies. After a few months, I was given the opportunity to take that Sunday shift as a line cook, and, in true Judy’s style, turn it into anything I wanted to. After working at Judy’s for about seven years, I felt confident as a line cook, but knew I needed more restaurant cooking experiences. I took jobs at various restaurants, each for research into strengthening some much needed skills. I worked for the next six years at the Morning Glory, Blue Angel, Beau Monde, Paris Bar & Grill, and my last job was at Penne. I became a mother and 40 in the same month. I knew I needed to open my restaurant before I was too old to work for it. I searched the city for the best place to open. I didn’t want to be just another restaurant. I wanted to be part of a neighborhood. I decided on Mt. Airy. In all my research it was the most diverse economically and racially. I knew this was a place to raise my daughter and my restaurant. My partner and I checked out many locations in Mt. Airy, and decided The Cresheim Cottage Café was meant to be our dream restaurant. Within two months of opening, my business partner, Lizza, was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. I walked away from my dream to be by her and my daughter’s side. She survived and so did our restaurant. She has spent the past four years in and out of the hospital battling Crohn’s disease. I have spent the past four years caring for her, our daughter and our restaurant. Surprisingly, three years into a new business things really do turn around. We had finally started working out the day-to-day kinks in our new business. We were holding fundraisers for various organizations that were close to our hearts. We were giving back to the community that we loved. Then one day, PennDOT showed up and took all of our hard work away. We started just losing 25 percent a month in sales; bad, but we thought it would be bearable. In the past eight months we have plunged down to 75 percent in lost sales and eight employees who left in fear of not being able to pay their personal bills. We lost all of our wedding parties for April — June. No one wanted to take a chance that it would be too noisy; we had no parking and we had no street and sidewalk. It is now August, and I have put my restaurant up for sale as a backup to the very possible reality of bankruptcy. I also live above my restaurant, so my daughter and I will lose our home during this beautification project that was poorly planned. When I moved to Philadelphia I liked the idea of moving to a city that billed itself as the “City of Brotherly Love.” I do not see any brotherly love nowadays, just endless jackhammering, dust, rumble and a big pit filled with bulldozers covering the view of my once beautiful historic building. Where is my real-estate tax, sales tax, business privilege tax and liquor tax love? The city and state keeping taking while I make nothing. Maybe I should have stayed in the “Garden State”? Donna Robb is the chef/owner of the Cresheim Cottage Café in Mt. Airy.
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