With a story like this, it’s easy to lose hope. But I’m confident we’ll find a way to drive this adorable, well-meaning chunk of spyware out of our city, because we are who are. To quote the 6ABC story: “The company also confirmed they haven’t had any issues in the other countries or locations of the other Portals, just in Philadelphia.”
News
A Conshy Company Wants You to Sleep Your Way Across the USA
It sounds like a cool idea. It also sounds a little bit horny. Plus, more on the ill-fated Portal saga.
When the Lunatrain is rockin’, enter quietly and put your keys in the bowl. / Photograph courtesy of Lunatrain
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Lunatrain, a Conshy Company, Wants You to Sleep Your Way Across the USA
A Conshohocken-based company has announced plans for its own private train line. You can just do that? Start a train company? While living in Conshy? It’s called Lunatrain, and they’re emphasizing privacy and comfort. It sounds like a cool idea. It also sounds a little bit horny.
More about Lunatrain, from their website:
- All the cars will be private cabins. Wink.
- Drinks, cocktails and fresh-cooked meals will be available. Drink.
- You will have high-speed wi-fi and “built-in sound absorption technology.” Wink Wink.
- “Private cabins on Lunatrain are priced competitively with airline seats of the same service class on the same route.” Anybody want to join the, like, three-foot off the ground club?
The Portal Is Moving, But It’s Staying
It has become quite clear that the Portal can’t handle Philly and Philly can’t handle the Portal. In six short months It’s been mocked, flashed, attacked with rocks and stripped for its copper wiring.
But it looks like we’re stuck with each other, at least through the Semiquintennial. The Portal’s people have announced that the big quiet zoom screen, currently offline and wrapped in plastic following an apparent rock attack, is looking for a new location in Philly.
Suggested Locations for the Portal (Revised):
- Independence Hall. Let the world see us from our most photogenic angle.
- Top of the Art Museum Steps. Technically the Portal is an art installation! Plus: great views of the skyline.
- 30th Street Station. They say the next location might be indoors, and I can’t think of a busier or better surveilled spot in Philly to keep the Portal safe and active. The fact that half the people onscreen are probably tourists can only help.
- Macy’s. Build The Mannequin Experience and livestream it.
- Walmart Pier. Endless adorable entertainment by the feral cat colony.
- Eastern State Penitentiary. Let our ghosts Zoom with other ghosts around the world.
- Kelpius Cave. Because somebody needs to keep an eye on what goes on in there.
- Venice Island in Manayunk. Because maybe the Portal floats?
- Graffiti Pier. Because maybe the Portal can be killed?
The Portal asks the question “What if you could connect with people all over the world live over video?” Then it says, “Zoom? I’ve never heard of that.” / Photograph by Patrick Rapa
Trump, UPenn, and the Big Freeze
By now you’ve likely heard about the Trump administration’s proposed “funding freeze” for the University of Pennsylvania. And maybe you were like, “But that’s his alma mater” and “Doesn’t he have fond memories of getting an Ivy League education and throwing the old flying novelty disc around the quad?”
No.
The late great Philly journalist Jonathan Valania covered this in a story for Philly Mag in 2019:
As Trump admitted in The Art of the Deal, all he got out of Wharton was bragging rights: “In my opinion, that degree doesn’t prove very much, but a lot of people I do business with take it very seriously, and it’s considered very prestigious. So all things considered, I’m glad I went to Wharton.”
For what it’s worth, one of the future president’s Wharton professor’s didn’t have a high of him either.
It’s rare for a professor to disparage the intelligence of a student, but according to attorney Frank DiPrima, who was close friends with professor William T. Kelley for 47 years, the prof made an exception for Donald Trump, at least in private. “He must have told me that 100 times over the course of 30 years,” says DiPrima, who has been practicing law since 1963 and has served as in-house counsel for entities including the Federal Trade Commission and Playboy Enterprises. “I remember the inflection of his voice when he said it: ‘Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!’” He would say that [Trump] came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything, that he was arrogant and he wasn’t there to learn.” Kelley, who passed away in 2011 at age 94, taught marketing at Wharton for 31 years, retiring in 1982.
Related: Elon Musk went to Penn, too. (Talk about a cursed portal.) Anybody remember him from that era? I bet there were a lot of late-night Doom LAN parties.
Little Bits
- A pack of dogs roaming around the Wissinoming and Tacony neighborhoods was caught on video mauling a cat. One man who was attacked by wild dogs in Philadelphia last month lost both legs. Horrible.
- Police say a Bucks County man shot at a food delivery driver for arriving late.
- Podcaster/former reputed mob boss “Skinny Joey” Merlino says he’s planning to open the first location of a cheesesteak franchise in South Philly on Saturday. The store was previously maybe hit with Molotov cocktails, which is either good marketing or bad. Somebody who went to Wharton could probably tell me.
