Art Museum: Philly- An Inspiration

Poised high up on a hilly path, more often than not the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the first thing you notice as you enter the Philadelphia 30th Street Station on a train. It has become, thanks to the Rocky Movies, an icon in Philadelphia, the most recognizable landmark in this city. You can delude yourself that you are following in Stallone's footsteps as you huff and puff up Kelly Drive to reach this monument. The road from the city center is less picturesque and less Rocky like. You can only get the complete experience if you run up Kelly Drive and then confront yourself with the massive steps leading up to the museum. The steps are dotted with many aspiring athletes working out and even a "Yoga at Sunset" class proceeding on the side. In summer, more often than not you can find dogs running into the fountain and children wading barefoot into the water.

The view of the Philly skyline looks perfect from the steps, the curving Benjamin Franklin Parkway runs through right down to the city. This is the less scenic look and looks deceptively short, but is a far longer walk than the Kelly drive path you could take. Some of the flags planted along the sides of the road flutter in the wind closer to the Museum which is located in a particularly windy area while the rest of them hang limply. The Parkway has many museums and places of interest scattered along it such as the central branch of the Public Library, an interesting four sided sculpture replete with lions and other animals, humans and fountains, the Rodin Museum. The Eastern State Penitentiary and the Barnes Foundation are a stone's throw away.

 Next to the steps amidst the green foliage is hidden the Rocky Statue. You can see many people lining up in front of the statue to pose for photographs. The museum is built in a Classic style and draws heavily from Roman columns and forums. The exhibition that I had a chance to view were the plans to redesign the museum and give it a modern facelift by the architect Frank Gehry- famous for the Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles. It would be interesting to watch how this traditional structure transforms into its modern interpretation. The museum has a pay as you wish every Wednesday and on the first Sunday of the month. Wednesdays are a good time to visit as there are some cool activities from wine tasting to plays and performances.

Now that quite enough has been spoken about the outsides of the museum, let me do a highlight tour of the inside. There are permanent exhibits with rotating display items and special exhibits. Two of the most fascinating permanent exhibits are the Indian temple complete with stone pillars and a mock up of a medieval cathedral with carved wells and tiled roofs.

Special Exhibits generally have a large special area devoted to them. One of the special exhibits, I had a chance to look at was the China exhibit. There were rooms filled with video graphed books on the walls, showcases filled with ceremonial and everyday clothes used by early Chinese kings and common people. Specially built rooms filled with furniture displayed traditional arrangements in Chinese homes. Children were sprawled on the ground with detailed activity books in hand. The best part of all were the stand up interactive panels explaining the exhibits, every museum should get them for every exhibit, they are like a crash course in art appreciation. Finally, everyone, big and small, young and old got a chance to write their name in Chinese and take it home with them.

My top 10 favourite art installations

1. The Four Seasons - Leon Fredric

2. The Arab Chief- Mariano Fortuny y Carbó

3. Little Dancer - Edgar Degas
4. The Imaginary Illness- Honore Daumier
5. Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas-Marcel Duchamp
6. The Staircase Group by Charles Wilson Peale
7. The Crucifixion and The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins
8. Spring by John La Farge
9. The Pont Neuf- Camille Pissarro
10. Potrait of Madamoiselle Legrand- Renoir

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is not a sprawling mega museum like the ones in New York. It is a small cozy museum which you can get to know every exhibit and learn about all of the paintings, sculptures et al. But most of all, the Museum inspires awe and motivation, anyone running on Kelly Drive or driving past the museum at night can testify to that.

Philadelphia in Food

I spent the best part of this summer in Philadelphia, working. Like all my travels and most of my posts, this is all about the food I experienced in this very friendly city.

Lunches at Potbelly and Corner Bakery.. Enjoying a hurried mushroom melt and trying to eat crunchy chips quietly in a client meeting. Actually finding choices, vegetarian dishes I like in the office cafeteria..

Madelines with my friend.. Midnight snack and accompaniment to long overdue catch ups..Roti Canai at Banana Leaf with a foodie co worker.. Conversation was better than the food.. Missing home and succumbing to Philadelphia Chutney Company.. Living to regret the moment of weakness. 

Enjoying my share of farmers markets on Rittenhouse Square.. Knowing basil lemonade Popsicle could taste so good and getting complimented on my 'spring' shirt. Tasting veggie hot dogs as you listen to weird music at the Old st market.. Discovering you happened up on to the Old st market by mistake.. Trekking on purpose to the Ben Franklin parkway for the Fair on Parkway and getting disappointed with the 2 food trucks.

Experimental tasting with tasty kake and orange fair trade chocolate... Loving the icecreams at Franklin Fountain. Veggie burgers at Devil's Alley and Hip City Veg. Vegan cupcakes and OJ at Animo.. Falling in love with wok stir fries at Honeygrow on my first day and coming back many times.. Finishing up with a Smore melt in the mouth cookie from Insomnia Cookies..

Stumbling on to a perfect Italian place BYOB like most in Philly that I can't remember the name of because I went around looking at so many menus before I walked into one. Discovering super relaxed fine dining down the road from your house.. Having a Parisian breakfast at Parc Rittenhouse looking at the park, feeling Parisian with all the dogs around. Trying to repeat the experience at Devon and failing miserably. 

Having one pastry of each kind with Mom at Metropolitan bakery. Trying mojito icecream at a weird gelataria on 20th street.. Buying my friend tiramisu from Miel. Marvelling and getting disgusted simultaneously over chocolate pasta at Max Brenner. Having had too much of a sweet thing, biting into red chillies at Han' s Dynasty. Finally trying and liking Indian food in the US at Indeblue. Realizing a childhood obsession with Dr. Seuss having French toast breakfast at Green Eggs and Ham

The Brotherhood in the City of Brotherly Love- Masonic Temple Tour in Philly

The Freemasons are a guild that have surrounded themselves with mystery on purpose than by accident. We have all heard of them, if not in medieval history books, in the books of Dan Brown. Masons have hazy origin stories, historians offering different opinions, from the Knights Templar to the workmen guilds or unions of past days. While they may have been unnaturally fond of symbols and we in the company of Robert Langdon see things that aren't there, a  thank you is due to  the Masons is for the buildings they made. The Capitol building and the Library of Congress are beautiful testimonies to the skill of Masonic architects. The emblem of the masons is the compass and the ruler, they are steeped in science and building techniques and mathematics. Philadelphia boasts of a fairly large Masonic temple on one of the large streets in the city.There used to be an ancient temple of Solomon in Philadelphia which was destroyed and this new temple was built in place.

As you can imagine, if the buildings built by the Masons are so beautiful, how beautiful the building which they meet in would be. Also they are supported in furnishing and making their buildings by a long lineage of very powerful, rich and well traveled Masons. Interesting masons include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and many other members of the Government and various divisions of military. I walked past this temple and decided to step in on an impulse. I got the tickets for the next guided tour from a very twinkly eyed gentleman who looked a little like Santa Claus. It is generally one of the members of the temple who volunteer to give these tours and we were a group of some 10-15 people from various parts of the country and the world who took the tour. We had a funny, entertaining tour guide who even offered to show the "secret treasure" hidden in the dungeon for a small fee.

The Masonic temple sprawls over two storeys above ground and I do not know how many below. Each room looks like a work of art decorated with interpretations of various cultures- Byzantine, Egyptian, Arabian and colour based rooms as well.The Byzantine Room below is decorated with the traditional murals and colors of the period with Gods and goddesses representing various virtues painted above the doorways.

Every one of the rooms curiously has a clock right opposite the Grand Maester's chair. It's positioned so that the Maester who conducts and adjourns meetings can view the clock and keep track of time without obviously appearing to do so. All others have to make do with sneaking a quick sideways glance.

The biggest challenge with exploring the Masonic temple was half the time I did not know where to look, up/down, around, all this while keeping a ear out for all the interesting stories that the guide had for us. Even the roofs and pathways of this building are so intricately designed and assembled. Most roofs in the pathways are designed to reflect the night sky and morning sky. They look startlingly different with and without lighting apparently, but it being mid day I did not see this. 

Speaking of pathways and doorways, you are never safe from the treasures of the Masonic temple. As you walk along, paintings and frescoes rivet your eyes, as do paintings of famous masons. You might bump into marble busts and statues and encounter brilliant coloured stained glass windows at the end of your stairway. At every turn, you will encounter new and brilliant works of art and architecture. A funny tribute to a famous mason lies above one of the doorways. It is the carving of a turkey. It is a little known fact that Ben Franklin recommended that the turkey be made the national bird of the United States, claiming that the alternative- the bald eagle was a cowardly bird. So the turkey though not the national bird, now presides over Masonic banquets.

The most in-ostentatious of all rooms were the Knight Templar rooms. Considering the crusades, they all rode on and all the treasure they are supposed to have collected, the room resembles a spare meeting room. Its only statement is a deep red carpet and heavy mahogany furniture lending it an air of stability and solidity. This contrasts with the beautiful oriental carvings and gold leaf with dominates the Arabian room. It looks like a room straight out of the Arabian nights. Even the grand Maester's chair, while of a classic shape in most other rooms makes an attempt at grandeur.

 The other gold gilded and ancient room here is the Egyptian room. It was one of the first rooms to be constructed. According to the stories we heard, there are a lot of anachronisms in this room. It was made when Egypt was more in people's imagination than in the reality of explorers and such. The most curious of all is the roof which has zodiac medallions embedded in a rather large sundial, bordered with compasses. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics & the central seat to kneel on is used for induction rituals and other meetings.

 That ends this rather long blog post and the tour. It started and ended with the grand library which I unfortunately do not have a picture of. This is not the half of it. These are selected rooms which are open to tours and all other rooms including subterranean pathways are open to only members and members' families. Also, what I think is a very bad move for such an ahead of times organization, they still are an all boys club and do not recognize women members or women Masonic guilds. But as long as I got to see the tour, it was pretty awesome to say the least.