Born to Be Wild and a Public Service Announcement

Nick Paparone and Jamie Dillon on "Born to Be Wild", which will be part of the Abington Sculpture Park for at least two years.

On Sunday I helped fellow Copy gallerists Nick Paparone and Jamie Dillon christen their new outdoor sculpture, Born to Be Wild at Abington Art Center's Sculpture Park. Born to Be Wild is a great hairy mound of dirt and grass with a bell on top of it that brings to mind games like "king of the hill" or that weird sense of achievement you get from walking up an incline of some sort. The bell works as an affirmation of your achievement, an audible "I was here".

It occurred to me that I ought to mention going out to Abington as a day trip that will help you beat the summer heat. The sculpture park is in a beautiful woods with lots of tree coverage. Trees provide much needed oxygen and shade that you don't really get from the City of Philadelphia.


Sylvia Benitez's "Hatshepsut" is among the many sculptures also on view at the park

Philadelphia Punches Omniana Creator in the Nose

Or, What good is a blog with no pictures?

Violence in Fantasy:

First I'll explain Omniana, which is a fantasy/role-playing sort of game created by Aaron Delamatre, an artist and friend form Cincinnati, Ohio. It's a card game in which you pick a card that tells you what sort of monster you are and then when it's your turn you can "attack" someone else's monster in what-ever land they are in. Monster descriptions are like this:

Thin Rats: They are a pack of three brothers who have been weirdly mutated into paper thin rats with edges as sharp as steel blades. "Flee to safety, my papery brothers, for we are like paper and can do as the paper does."

If you pick to combat some kind of giant with your paper rat in a room with 25 teleportation holes you have to argue why your rat would beat the giant.

I, with my parents (who came to visit Philly for the first time ever) and Gerik Forston, went out to Abington Art Center to play a couple of rounds of this the other night. To get there we rented a hybrid from Philly Car Share and it took me a while to figure it out because instead of starting it with a key you start it with a start button. Weird but cool.

I had a really good time playing Omniana, if you can get a hold of the game (I think there are only one hundred copies in the world) and can find a group of people who are willing to rap like geeks then I suggest it.

Violence in Reality:

Dear Philadelphia,

You are getting scary, so calm down. My friend Beth was recently attacked with a knife in her own house, Vox Populi and my own Copy were recently burglarized--and the other night when I was walking down Frankfort from Johnny and Brenda's to the Fishtown Tavern, on my friend Sue Spaid's (currently working on developing programs for Abington Art Center) advice that we try a new place, the group of us (Aaron Delamatre, Gerik Forston, Sue and myself) were assaulted by a group of rowdy teens (perhaps five of them?).

They, the kids (and for all of you who care, these were white kids), were just generally throwing insults and we (Okay. Mostly I.) were throwing them back when one of them up and decided to punch Aaron in the nose and run. At first I thought the kid had just barely tapped him and then I saw blood.

So get this Philly: I love you but you can't treat my out-of-town friends this way. If you don't want people to enrich your life with art and culture just say so and don't send a pack of kids after us. What is it with all your pent-up rage lately?

I hope you can get over it, I hope that new dude from D.C. steps up,

-Annette Monnier