Last week, when we were on Fakation, trying to relax, we caught up on a bit of reading. When we’d already gone through all available copies of In Touch Weekly and the well-thumbed paperback of I Am Thinking Of My Darling, we eventually turned to a tome massive in scope and facts, Philadelphia: A 300-Year History. Before we go any further, we should say that if you are a Philadelphian and consider knowing your Philly shit at the same high level of import as we do, this book is more important than the Bible. Have it in your home.
Anyhow, we were paging along, jumping through this city’s wild history of corruption, high ebb and low tide, and so on, when we came across a passage that literally stopped us in our tracks. It’s a 1898 quote from Agnes Repplier (pictured) ‚Äî whom we gather was kind of the Jessica Pressler of her time (big on pith, occasionally accidentally striking an oil well of truth from time to time that kept her in petticoats) ‚Äî and man, just see if this doesn’t say it all:

Above all, the Quaker City lacks that discriminating enthusiasm for her own children… which enables more zealous towns to rend the skies with shrill paeans of applause… Philadelphia is… “more than usual calm” when her sons and daughters win distinction in any field. She takes the matter quietly… If mistaking of geese for swans… the mistaking of swans for geese may also be a dangerous error. The birds either languish or fly away to keener air. Yet… the sharp discipline of quiet neglect is healthier for a worker than that loud local praise which wakes no echo from the wider world.

Jesus. It’s all in there, isn’t it? The Brain Drain. The backbiting. The hateration. The cold shoulder. Basically, everything that Philly has come to stand for ‚Äî and hey, not for nothing, just about everything that has ever held us back as a city. We don’t need to tell you we both love this, and hate it, because you probably do, too. But hey. Food for thought. The More You Know, right?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 3:15 pm.