Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 15:37:56 -0600 (CST)
From: Ed Stastny 
Subject: Philly: 03/11

Amazing, we're here. We speant a good night on the train after some sad goodbyes in Tallahassee. Nora picked us up at the train station and Ranjit greeted us at home. We lunched on Mediterranean num-nums and ran some simple errands. While away, Tiko, Ranjit's pup, got into Lenara's bag and snarfed up her sweets. Tiko later puked in a corner as Lenara was making some synthclay alien-head buttons and I read a book about making synthclay buttons.

You should see (will see?) the cuties Ranjit has created out of the stuff. Neato. We're planning a collaborative sculpture for the next few days' fun.

Between Tally and Philly, Lenara and I stopped in Jacksonville for our layover. Shopped and ate at Heartworks in the Five Points District as instructed by our Tallahostees. Had Wendy's Frosties for dessert and shared a cab back to the train station with a sweet old teacher lady. Never turn down an apple-grilled-cheese at Heartworks, tummypleasing and quirky. It was a special, so you might not be able to get it all the time.

Tallhassee was swampy and gorgeous in many ways. It was more-than-words to meet up with Melba, Cadra, Tanya, Kristin and the rest of the gang. Quite an intoxicating little friendly scene. I miss it already... but, sooner or later, I'll return...

If you ever get a chance to travel... take it.

...e

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 01:42:31 -0400
From: Lenara Verle 
Subject: News from Philadelphia

Well, we've been in Philly for almost a day by now, and let me tell you, the weather got really cold... Ed says it's kida more 'natural' this way, but I got my ears frozen for the first time of my life! And it's spring, for God's sake!

Ok, I happened to like the cold and all the people with big coats here. Tico (the dog) received us with great enthusiasm! He is a veeery smart dog indeed. He managed to open my bag's lace and ate all my chocolate! Fantastic! Anyone who likes chocolate can't be a bad person.

We finally got the pictures on Ed's laptop on the net: http://www.sito.org/~ed/east97/reports/0312len.html

New pictures to come soon when we get our disposable photo camera developed. (and the AVI converter)

More news soon,
Lenara

Splendid relaxing hang-out time with Ranjit and Nora... with special guest appearances by Michael Maier and his lovely wife, MJ Dominus, Ches (Gino Fabrikini) and Jesse Reklaw. We speant a lot of time walking the streets of Philly and even more time just having fun in Ranjit and Nora's cool apartment...an activity made all the more pleasant by Tikko, the tornado in a furry-chihuahua suit.

DISCLAIMER: I might have the events here a bit out of order, so don't set your watches by the Philly story.

We went to a small toy-store where the vender-lady was quite bitter about the fact that I actually liked to chit-chat about collecting toys and didn't immediately jump at her merchandise. If I remembered the name of the store, I'd encourage you to avoid it.

Another stop on our treks included the Tower Books. I put six copies of Impulse Freak #1 on consignment there. Get them while they're... there. Picked up a few cool zines too... one being "Guinea Pig Zero", all about human guinea pigs.

Ate nice chain Mexican at "Cool Pepper". Best fast-food burrito I've ever had. Big and chunky.

That night, Nora had a movie to see for credit, Ranjit was working... and we went out for dinner with the Maiers. They met us at Ranjit's apartment building and we walked to an italian place called Bertucci's (?). Two pitchers of beer, Neapoliton pizza, ravioli and lots of cool discussion. Mike and I were the native-Americans.... the girls were both blessed with cool accents. We talked enthusiastically about everything from dreams to genetics. It was wonderful. The service at the place stunk.... it took us 45 mins to get our preliminary bread. Would have been understandable if the place was busy... but it wasn't. Ah well, gave us a chance to talk even more. I invoked the "tell'm about the chicks" prompt for Lenara and she launched into her story about these baby chicks being able to influence the probability of a randomised robot to hover near them because they thought it was their mother. Lenara first told this story at our first dinner, Indian, in Tallahassee. I made her repeat it about a dozen times. It was great to hang out with Mike. My only other FTF with him was in Chicago in 1994 and then only briefly.

Next day...
Saw the Liberty Bell and couldn't quite get the official scoop on why it's so special. We have our own theories.

(Photo: Lenara with Action Thighs! By: E-Dawg)

Lenara and I toured the Mutter Museum of Absolutely Depressing Physical Maladies. Okay, no, that's not what it was called... just Mutter Museum, I think. It was $8 to get in and the featured exhibit was "When the President is the Patient"(?). They had woodcuts, clippings and even rubber-cast *wounds* on the wall biographying (better than "biographing"....bai-OG-raff-eye-eeng) the various presidents, their illnesses and their injuries. A little gruesome, but nothing too bad. I wandered around the thing twice wondering "is this all there is?" before I noticed the dark green evil light coming from the double-doors at the back of the exhibit. Oh, I hadn't seen the half of it....or is that "halved" of it...? Eeeeeyew. Through the doors lay a large two-floored collection of utter creepyness. Averting my eyes from the floating malformed fetuses and tumoured feet, I read placards and looked at photos of/about siamese twins. Joined at the chest, joined at the hips.... joined at the head (cephalo-yuck!). A tide of pity and depression rolled over me. I look up and Lenara's almost skipping! This was her finest hour. Lenara, if she wasn't a keen computer goddess, would be a brilliant surgeon. She was almost drooling on the glass that separated her and the inflamed colons. I walked around in a daze of organic fragility. Evolution is not kind. The world is at war with itself, galvanising a race of interstellar space-travellers to play bacteria at a macro-level. (shut up, Ed) oops.

The Mutter is a must-see... but don't eat too soon before going. You probably won't want to eat after.

While we were at the Mutter, Jesse Reklaw got into town in his rental car. We arrived back at Ranjee's flat to find Mr.Reklaw sorting out Ranjit's collection of cool indy/arty comics. Hanging out ensued. We called Carrie McNinch in California on a whim. Both Jesse and I know her from zine/comics trading... and both admire her work....and both were worried because we haven't heard from her in awhile. Carrie was a bit surprised to hear from us and assured us she'd sent out a pack of art/letters the previous week...wee haw! Nora, Lenara, Jesse and I (Ranjit was at work) put together a couple of mini-comics that night. One biographical/travelogical about our trip, the other nonsensical(?) about a turtloid being and his snail buddy getting tattoos. Four chefs and a paper-pot. I think we ate Indian food that night. We also went up to Ranjit's place of employment and bugged him as he tried to program. Ches was there...aka Gino Fabrikini, of Hypodermic Noodles and Impulse Freak fame. Lenara and I played with web-tv... and we all took in some chilly philly air on the lighted balconic outcropping high high up in the skyscrapersphere.

The next morning, Ranjit made us a brunch of pancakes and black-bean burritos and Mark Dominus came over. We all sat around talking and making exquisite corpses. Jesse drew portraits of us all, I drew a portrait of him. It was a rainy day...and as afternoon rolled on, we missed our window of opportunity to get Jesse to NY in time to sell some comics. Being the quiet kind person he is, he didn't complain or mention anything about it until later.

The drive from Philly to NY was great...seemed to *fly* by. The rainy dreary landscape with leafless trees and occasionally tiered terrain made it depressingly beautiful. We listened to some tapes: some music from Ranjit's, some bootleg Pixies, some Melba Mix-tapes. Jesse was sad that he didn't have a song as cool as the Pixies' "Ed Is Dead" for his name... he only had "Jesse's Girl"... so I immediately thought of an excuse to play my favorite Cat Power song (from a Melba-tape)..."Nude as the News".... which has a line that croons "Jackson. Jesse. I've got your son in me."... we just changed Jackson to "Reklaw" and everyone was happy. Lenara never complained about not having a name-song.