Philadelphia

Last weekend I went to a conference of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies in Philadelphia. You can see a picture of the old and new downtown here, from in front of the conference hotel.

Academic conferences are an odd, but oddly satisfying medium. A bunch of people who are connected by an academic discipline or, in this case, a common interest in film, television and new media congregate on some city to give papers, listen to papers, look up old friends in the hall ways, and try to meet new people whose work you are interested in. They also do all the things that people might do at a Shriner's convention: eat, talk, drink, flirt, party, go out at night, and wander around the city.

I am a bit of a turkey, academic nerd or whatever you might want to call it, so I actually spend most of my time at the conference. But I find it very interesting to hear some of the papers, talk a lot with people I know about issues or maybe even projects we are trying to do together. Usually more interesting than seeing the sights or playing tourist.

But I do love restored or interesting markets. So I tried to get out a couple of times to eat in the Reading Market, which you can see here.

I also made sure to patronize a couple of nearby Mom and Pop Philly cheese steak places. Philly cheese steak sandwiches have been a favorite unhealthy food or guilty pleasure of mine for a long time. (One of the numerous things I like about Austin is the Texadelphia cheese steak place across the street from my building.)

But the Mom and Pop sandwich places in Philly remind me of the ones I came to love in Cambridge and Boston back in grad school. A nice little taste of East Coast popular culture.