I have arrived in Charm City for Poe Fest. To refresh your memory, I am here because my short story, “A Dying Wish,” has been selected as a finalist for the Poe Festival’s Saturday ‘Visiter’ Awards. The winners will be announced tomorrow night at the sumptuous Black Cat Ball. Stay tuned for updates.
I’ve performed some light editing on my story since it appeared in serialized form last year, had it typeset, and had it printed for distribution at Poe Fest. I’d be happy to send a copy to interested readers of this blog as well; just drop me an email. The story is also available at the Kindle store for 99 cents, if that’s how you prefer to do your reading. Here’s the link.
Tonight at Poe Fest we’re going to watch a special screening of the 1964 adaptation of Poe’s masterpiece, The Masque of the Red Death. The film stars Vincent Price and is directed by Roger Corman. Vincent Price’s daughter–Victoria Price–will be there to introduce the film. Notably and confusingly, her Wikipedia page says “Although Victoria is the daughter of a horror icon, she is not a fan of horror films, but she is a fan of horror film fans.” This should be interesting…
Meanwhile, let’s turn to our Seasonal Treat Review. Today’s entry is a fall classic: the Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin.
Conceptual Soundness: As I said, this is a classic It’s essentially pumpkin bread in muffin form, with a generous dollop of cream cheese baked right in. Here’s how Starbucks describes it: “A spiced pumpkin muffin topped with sweet cream-cheese filling and a sprinkling of chopped, spiced pepitas.” Pepitas, by the way, are basically pumpkin seeds. (I had to look it up.) Anyway, this sounds like a winner. 4 points!
Appearance of the treat. This is an attractive muffin, if I may say so. It’s baked to perfection, with that golden brown color that you associate with pumpkin bread pulled straight from the oven. The top of the muffin generously spills over the paper-cup-constrained base. (Insert obvious joke about middle-age spread here.) A caldera on the summit of this muffin is filled with luscious cream cheese, and the whole thing is sprinkled with “pepitas” (though they look suspiciously like rolled oats). The paper muffin cup is orange, which is seasonally appropriate. All that’s missing is a cute little plastic muffin topper in the shape of a pumpkin or a black cat. I give the appearance of this treat 3.5 points.
Beau idéal
Taste. In a word, delicious. The cake is moist, delivering a perfect mouthfeel that stands up to the cream cheese. The pepitas lend a (slightly) crunchy, salty, and savory flair that complements the moist and sweet cake. The cream cheese filling is rich and flavorful; it’s a far cry from the cloying, fake cream cheese that is mindlessly troweled onto a grocery store sheet cake. The proportions of the component ingredients are pleasing, and the size of this muffin is enough to satisfy during the long stretch between lunch and dinner. Plus, at 350 calories, this won’t unduly exacerbate your muffin top. 4 points.
Value: This cost me $3.95, which seems about right for what it is. Certainly it’s far better than Starbucks’ raccoon pop, which is a quarter the size and costs the same amount. 3 stars.
October is my favorite month, for a number of reasons–the change in weather, the availability of darker and heavier beers on tap, and of course the approach of Halloween. Somehow all three of those come into play at the annual Poe Fest in Baltimore. The two-day festival is always held on the weekend closest to October 7, which of course is the date Poe died in Baltimore, under mysterious circumstances, in 1849. This year therefore marks the 175th anniversary of Poe’s death. Astute readers will recall I visited Poe Fest in 2019, and I’m returning this year for a very special reason. Let me explain:
Remember the story (“A Dying Wish”) I presented in serial form as part of last year’s October blog posts? I’m pleased to report that it’s been nominated as a finalist in Poe Fest’s literary contest called The Saturday ‘Visiter’ Awards. So I will be attending the Festival, where the winner of the contest will be revealed at the Black Cat Ball on the night of October 5. I will of course report on the outcome, along with photos, the next day.
Meanwhile, as has become our tradition here at Chasing Phantoms, we’ll be making daily Halloween-themed posts throughout the month of October. This year we’re bringing back a fan favorite: Daily reviews of seasonal treats.
Just part of the day’s work here at Chasing Phantoms.
Now, I’m aware there’s been some controversy over how we’ve defined “seasonal treats” in the past. This year we’ll be expanding the concept to its breaking point, like a Nerd Rope that’s stretched until it snaps and scatters little Nerd candies all over the carpet.
So let me be perfectly clear: We are defining “seasonal treats” as any nutritionally-suspect foodstuffs traditionally associated with the month of October. Specifically, we will be reviewing treats in four categories, with (roughly) a week devoted to each category.
Week 1: Seasonal offerings from chain coffee shops (Starbucks, etc)
Week 2: Halloween candy
Week 3: Seasonal offerings from ice cream and donut chains (BR, Winchell’s)
Week 4: Seasonal alcoholic beverages
Yes, we here at Chasing Phantoms are willing to conduct this research for the benefit and edification of our loyal readership. Think of us as a Halloween-themed version of Consumer Reports, just without the standards or credibility.
The fun kicks off tomorrow. Be sure to share the news with your friends!
Today I returned to Philadelphia to finish up my Ben Franklin research. This took me to a couple of sites that you might not associate directly with Franklin. For example, I spend a couple of hours meandering about the labyrinthine Eastern State Penitentiary. Opened in 1829, it’s considered the world’s first true “penitentiary,” designed specifically to promote penitence among its inmates. Toward this end, prisoners at Eastern State were kept entirely isolated from one another, housed in (relatively large, by today’s standards) cells that resembled small chapels, prohibited from speaking, and given solitary jobs to perform. The idea was that isolation would impel prisoners to reflect on their crimes and on spiritual salvation.
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God…”
Reminds me a bit of my visit to the old Preston Castle reform school. The blog post is here.
What does this have to do with Ben Franklin, you ask? Eastern State Penitentiary was a direct (though delayed) outgrown of a meeting held at Ben Franklin’s house in 1787. Franklin and other notable Philadelphians formed “The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” and many of the points for which the Society advocated were adopted into the design of the new prison. It was truly a paradigm shift in the punishment of lawbreakers.
The model underlying Eastern State was adopted across the world, with many hundreds of prisons following the so-called “Pennsylvania System.” Over time, however, Eastern State’s approach proved too costly, and the principles of isolation and silence were officially abandoned at the prison in 1913. It closed due to obsolescence in 1970.
View from the exercise yard today. Original 1829 turret in the middle; 1950s guard tower to the right; modern Philadelphia skyline to the left.
For decades the prison simply decayed in place and was eventually slated for demolition. But it was saved by preservationists at the last minute, and since the 1990s it has been maintained in a state of arrested decay, with tours offered most days of the week.
And if you think this looks a little spooky, they do a Halloween Haunted House event as a fundraiser each October.
The Hospital Block (note the red cross symbol in the center). Al Capone had his tonsils out here in 1929. Seriously.
Plaque listing prisoners who died fighting the First World War. (Over 100 prisoners were paroled to fight in the war.) Note that they are identified here only by their inmate number.
It was a sobering visit. And while one can certainly find fault with the system of incarceration, we can thank Ben Franklin (among others) for helping to move the country away from the horrific practices of the 18th century.
My next visit of the day is harder to connect with Ben Franklin: the Edgar Allan Poe house on N. 7th Street. But there is a connection. Poe wrote a short story titled “The Business Man” that, some scholars claim, is meant as a satire of Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography. (Poe actually wrote several satirical pieces that ridicule the concept of a “self-made man” and conceit more generally.)
Anyway, as we learned a couple of days ago at The Philadelphia Free Library, Edgar Allan Poe had called Philadelphia home for about six years, from 1838 to 1844. The last year of that time was spent at the house on N. 7th Street, which is now a US Parks Service site.
The house is a small, three-story brick structure that was built sometime between 1840 and 1842, so it was still quite new when Poe lived there. After Poe moved out the house changed hands dozens of times, with very little if any attention to its Poe connection. Finally it was purchased by Richard Gimbel (son of the department store magnate), who was a Poe fanboy. After his death in 1970, it eventually ended up with the National Park Service.
Poe’s house today.
The house is mostly unfurnished, but the Park Rangers told me the floorplan and “bones” of the house are virtually unchanged from Poe’s day. In fact, I think this unfurnished space is more conducive to Poe’s spirit than one filled with period antiques and interactive displays and such. I found it quite easy to imagine Poe in this house, climbing these stairs, writing next to that window.
Poe wrote a number of his best-known stories while living in Philadelphia. It’s difficult to connect specific tales with each of his four Philadelphia homes. But the basement of this house is very, very suggestive of the basement in “The Black Cat.”
“In one of the [cellar] walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace…. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious.”
While visiting the yard surrounding the house I ran into a trio of women tending the planting beds. They are Daughters of the American Revolution and they care for the plants once a week. They are very enthusiastic, and explained in some detail the types of herbs and flowers that Mrs. Poe probably grew out here.
Let’s call them Ligeia, Morella, and Annabel Lee.
Also in the garden area was this sculpture of a raven. I’ve got to say, though: It looks a little, uh, Third Reich for my tastes. I thought Dickens’ stuffed raven (Grip) looked more like it belonged on a pallid bust of Pallas.
“Nevermore, mein Fuhrer!”
Finally, as I was leaving Poe’s house, I noticed a neighboring building with a Poe mural. It does seem that Philadelphia takes its Poe connections seriously.
The Park Rangers at the Poe house told me there are two other Poe homes in existence. The one in Baltimore (which I describe in this 2022 blog post, which also contains an Easter Egg related to The Thinker!) and one in The Bronx (which will have to be the subject of a later trip). I did impress the Rangers by pointing out that there’s a third extant Poe domicile in the form of his dorm room at UVA. (I describe it in this blog post.)
BREW OF THE DAY
My final Ben Franklin experience today took place at Victory Brewing Company. The connection here is simply that it’s located at 1776 Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Ben would approve.
In 1996 Victory Brewing was established in Downingtown, PA (which you will recall is home to the diner featured in The Blob). This Philadelphia location opened in 2021.
I ordered Victory’s Moonglow, which is a weizenbock. As you know, a weizenbock is a like a bock, but much of the barley is replaced with wheat. It’s a German style that you might find at the Munich Oktoberfest.
Victory’s version displays a medium copper color, almost no head, and high carbonation. At the front it’s quite sweet, and reminiscent of a classic saison. You can’t help but notice the distinct flavor of dried apricot and raisins. Then there’s a burst of spices mid-palate, including clove, cinnamon, and maybe anise. This morphs into the distinctive flavor of banana Runts, which I consumed by the handful in the 1990s. Finally there’s a little bit of menthol on the finish. Overall, it’s an interestingly complex beer. At 8.7 percent ABV, it’s a beer for sipping rather than quaffing. But I ordered a second one anyway. I’m compelled to give it 4.5 stars out of 5.
I’ve been working on a top-secret project (which will likely be revealed by the end of the year) and it involves, oddly, Benjamin Franklin. I’m not making this up. And this project has made clear to me how much my grasp of American history is lacking.
Growing up in California, I never learned much about the Continental Congress or the Revolutionary War or really anything that took place before 1849. I’ve made a few attempts to remedy this, including my trip with friend Vic to Salem, Mass.
So I’m now trying to fill in some of the gaps in my education Which is why this morning I found myself in The Quaker City for a few days of exploration. What could go wrong?
My crash course on Philadelphia actually began on the plane ride. I’d taken a red-eye from Sacramento, and my seatmate was a garrulous Philadelphian (if you’ll permit me that redundant phrase). He was on his way home after a vacation with his wife, but they were taking separate planes. It seems there was some kind of booking mix-up related to the use of frequent flyer points. But the real point, for my purposes, is that he was unexpectedly flying solo and looking for someone to talk to. And having learned that I was going to be sight-seeing around his home turf, he spent the next few thousand miles sharing his insights about the city. (Did you know that Elphreth’s Alley is the oldest continuously-habitated street in America?)
Anyway, I got breakfast and a Nissan Sentra near the airport and set out for downtown Philly. Ben Franklin is certainly well represented around the city. Bridges, parkways, institutes, boulevards, schools, and various other features of the city are named after Franklin. There’s even a large, modern sculpture of his distinctive bespectacled face and stringy hair on a random street corner.
“Big Ben” sculpture from 1992.
While chatting up the National Park ranger at the Ben Franklin Museum, I learned the following story: Some years back the Philadelphia Inquirer was taking up a collection for a Frank Sinatra mural somewhere in the city. A rival paper objected, pointing out in an editorial that Philadelphia should instead create a mural for one of its native sons. And, perhaps as a joke, the editorial noted that Larry Fine (of Three Stooges fame) is one such native son. The idea nevertheless caught on, donations were made, and the mural was painted at the location (S. 3rd and South Street) where Fine was born.
Giving Ben Franklin a run for his money.
A bar in the same building capitalizes on the Fine connection as well.
But I digress. I was talking about how Ben Franklin has captured this city’s imagination. And in addition to all the named structures and graven images, the city has been tagged with various plaques that commemorate Franklin’s various activities in the area. For example, on St. Stephen’s Church is a brass plaque which claims Ben Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment on this site in 1752.
Built in 1823 at 10th and Ludlow, which may or may not be where Ben flew his kite.
Here’s a closer look at the plaque:
Now, it turns out that there’s considerable debate as to whether this is really the site of Frankin’s kite adventure. And while the “Certified” marker above the plaque would seem to lend credence to the plaque’s claim, it turns out the marker relates to the church building, and not to the plaque.
A few blocks from the dubious kite claim is a bare steel pipe structure outlining where Franklin’s last family home had stood. Ben’s kids had the house razed some years after he died. But in the 1940s, archeological efforts uncovered the foundations of the house. The steel “ghost house” was erected in the 1970s, since there were insufficient records or drawings to reconstruct the house itself.
The ghostly outline of Franklin’s house, marking its exact location some two and a half centuries ago.
Finally, and inevitably, Franklin’s body rests in Philadelphia, not far from the ghost house. He is buried at Christ Church Burial Ground under a smooth marble tablet that’s perpetually covered with a scattering of pennies from passersby.
“A penny saved is a penny earned.”
Even allowing for some resume-padding, it’s an impressive list of accomplishments.
Of course, Philadelphia isn’t all Ben Franklin and Larry Fine. For example, there are these random nudes built into a pedestrian walkway. For no discernible reason.
There’s got to be a flying buttress joke in here somewhere...
There’s also Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculpture The Thinker on the grounds of Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum:
I think I can…I think I can…
You probably know of this piece. Rodin actually cast a number of identical bronze Thinkers. I remember once seeing one at Stanford University. But I’ll forever associate it with Dobie Gillis, who had a habit of sitting next to the statue in a copycat pose.
Kind of inevitable.
And if that’s not enough, today I also ran into some literary luminaries that you don’t often associate with Philadelphia. In the Philadelphia Free Library’s Central branch (built almost a century ago in the beau arts style) one finds a bust of Charles Dickens in the Rare Books Room.
Have you ever noticed how Charles Dickens resembles Don Quixote?
Not far from the Dickens’ bust is his actual pet bird, now stuffed and mounted in a glass box.
That’s so Raven.
The bird is (was?) a raven by the name of Grip. Grip even gets some speaking lines in Dickens’ novel Barnaby Rudge. But she (for Grip is a female) also played a much more important literary role: She is said to be the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.
Wasn’t Nevermore the title of a Nirvana album?
As we all know, Poe lived in Philadelphia for six years. And one of his Philadelphia homes still stands. I will be visiting it on Friday, so we’ll be returning to this theme later.
It’s now getting late, but I do have two more items to share from today. The first is:
OBELISK CORNER
I was taking an afternoon walk through Philadelphia’s Woodlands Cemetery. It dates back to the 1840s, and has a distinctive Victorian air about it. Many of the grave markers take the form of obelisks, with some quite large specimens cropping up here and there.
…or are you just happy to see me?
But take a closer look at that one in the center. Though it doesn’t appear especially large in the photo, it’s actually about 15 stories high. In fact, it’s the largest gravestone in the Continental U.S. Let’s take a closer look:
For perspective, note the two stacked sarcophagi at the foot of the obelisk.
The obelisk marks the grave of one Thomas Wiltberger Evans, who died in 1897. You never heard of him either? It seems that the man with the country’s tallest headstone was a….dentist.
And now, let’s finish up with the
BREW OF THE DAY
I drank my BOTD at Manayunk Brewing Company, which sits in a cavernous, historic cotton mill on the banks of the Schuylkill River. The cotton mill dates back to 1822, and it operated (making cotton or, later, wool) until 1992. At that point it became a brewery.
My words can’t do justice to the wonderful setting. Not only is the historic building awe-inspiring, but there’s an old railroad (?) bridge crossing the river right behind the brewery. And I had a great spot in the sun to enjoy the view.
First cotton, then wool, now ales.
I couldn’t find any info on this bridge that’s directly behind the old cotton mill. Uncle Ed, please help!
I had my heart set on getting one of Manayunk’s home-made brews. But sadly, my server informed me that they lost their entire brewing setup to a flood a few years back. It seems that flooding has been a recurrent problem, judging from the “high water mark” signs in the bar.
However, a few of their beer recipes are still being faithfully produced by local brewing partners. I selected the Schuylkill Punch, which is being brewed by Yards Brewing.
“How would you like a nice Hawaiian Punch?”
This is nothing like what I normally drink. It’s light, with a body light iced tea. There’s almost no malt. And with an ABV of 4.5 percent, it has about half the alcohol of my usual brews.
But this is an exceedingly smooth beer, and it complemented the warm weather perfectly. It’s slightly sweet, with distinct citrus notes of grapefruit, lemon, and some tropical fruits. Carbonation is low, but it has a nice head. Overall, I’d call this a “session” beer, especially if your session is outdoors on a warm day next to the Schuylkill River. I give it 3.5 stars out of five. If they could up the flavor a bit (maybe brewing it with more fruit), I’d knock it up to a solid 4.
I’m not sure when it happened, but Zombies are cool again. They sure weren’t in 1932 when Bela Lugosi starred in the shlocky embarrassment called White Zombie. They sure weren’t in 1968 when George Romero made the ground-breaking horror film, Night of the Living Dead. They sure weren’t when the low-budget Italian horror film named Baron Blood appeared on Channel 2’s Creature Features in 1972, giving me nightmares for a week.
Zombies were always too clumsy to be cool, too disgusting to be slick like Dracula, too inarticulate to really even have much of a personality.
Is the one on the left a zombie accountant?
But somewhere along the line, zombies became cool. It might have been when Simon Pegg starred in 2004’s campy Shaun of the Dead. Or maybe it’s when urban hipsters started holding Zombie Walks. Or maybe it was the profusion of zombie-themed internet games like “Resident Evil” and “The Walking Dead.” All I know is: Zombies are no longer relegated to the lame zone in the pantheon of movie monsters.
Ghostbusters meets White Zombie
So, given all that, perhaps the Zombie can bring a little cachet to our list of Halloween cocktails.
It’s said that the Zombie was invented by Donn Beach, founder of the Don The Beachcomber chain of prototypical “tiki bar” restaurants. When I was a wee lad, one such establishment was located in San Jose, on Stevens Creek Boulevard. I spied it through the car window many times, but alas, I never darkened its doorstep.
San Jose’s Don the Beachcomber, looking like a 1950’s spaceship.
Donn Beach opened his first bar, called Don’s Beachcomber, in Hollywood in 1933. It was successful, and he and his wife developed a chain of Donn the Beachcomber restaurants that numbered 16 at its height. The restaurants cashed in on the post-war Tiki fad that gripped the nation.
But let’s get back to Zombies. Beach is credited with creating the Zombie cocktail. Supposedly he came up with the drink as a courtesy to a favorite customer, who was hung over and was facing an important business meeting. The unnamed customer drank the concoction, and subsequently informed Beach that the drink had turned him “into a Zombie.” Beach recognized the marketing potential, and his drink was henceforth called the “Zombie.”
So, let’s now acknowledge that the Zombie really has nothing to do with Halloween. Its claim to fame is being a high-alcohol drink that goes down easy due to a variety of fruity juices and syrups.
The Recipe: You’ll need four (!) rums: Pour 1 oz. each of white, spiced, and dark rums into a shaker, and hold in reserve 1/2 oz. of 151. Now, to disguise the rum, add 1 oz of lemon juice, 1 oz of lime juice, 1 oz of pineapple juice, 1 oz of passion fruit syrup, and 3 dashes of orange bitters. Shake and pour into a suitable glass with ice. Now, add 1/2 oz of grenadine and the 151. Drink and pass out.
RIP Donn Beach.
The Ratings: The appearance is nothing special. Just a tropical drink. 1 point.
The taste is very tropical–the fruit juices really come through, though I think it was too strong on the lemon. The fruit juices really hide the 3.5 oz of rum, which I guess is the point. Nevertheless, the taste certainly isn’t evocative of Halloween. It’s more of your standard summer drink. 2 points.
As a Halloween name, Zombie is hard to beat. 2 points.
Total: 5 points.
RAVEN’S CORNER
In honor of Edgar Allan Poe and my recent lightning trip to Richmond, I thought I’d share a few raven (or a least big black bird) sightings.
This morning Chris and I visited Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery (est. 1847). In the midst of the confederate section (Hollywood contains about 18,000 confederate dead), there stands a 90-foot-tall granite pyramid erected in 1869.
But what’s this at the apex of the pyramid?
“Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling….”
Ravens have been incorporated into some of Richmond’s signage, such as Poe’s Pub.
That’s either a stylized raven, or a rocket ship.
We appreciated that the owners of the Shelton House (where Poe’s last fiancee lived) have seen fit to plant a fake raven at the front steps.
And, cap things off, today’s Beer of the Day is something called the Raven’s Roost Baltic Porter.
Dark as a raven is the Baltic Porter from Raven’s Roost.
This BOTD isn’t as thick as the Imperial Stouts that I’m partial toward. The body is actually rather thinner than you’d expect from something this dark. It’s also lightly hopped and lightly carbonated. Overall, it’s a rather tame beer. And yet it’s also very flavorful, with a strong chocolate profile and sweet maltiness. Clocking in at 7.1 ABV, it will improve your mood but it won’t kick your ass. I give it four out of five stars.
