As Alt-Weeklies Trip Over Each Other For Eraserhood Cred, Let Us Not Forget How This All Started
God knows we love us some Eraserhood; we talk about it enough. But as what was once The Loft District or Callowhill or The Place Where Cricket Got Man-Hunted comes ever more into the foreground, let us not forget where this all started — that is, who it was that first put together the words “Eraserhead” and “Neighborhood,” which, once together, could not help but portmanteau themselves. Shawn Kilroy is that who. Back in the late oughties, when The Trestle Inn had smoking and nipples (and probably much else that we shall never know), Kilroy made the above short film, which is frankly the intellectual twinkle in this city’s eye that sparked so much of What We Talk About When We Talk About The Eraserhood today. With an Eraserhead-inspired art show coming up at PhilaMOCA — and attendant pieces in both PW and CP (of which the former, a cover story, one media friend messaged us: “That’s how you can tell the new editor is from out of town”) — it’s important that Kilroy’s contribution not be lost in the shuffle. And though Kilroy is a friend and we have some reservations about speaking for him, we think we can when we say:
You’re welcome, every Philly media hack who will write an Eraserhood story this year. (Wait until you hear what we have planned there in the fall.)
