The Salon

Today was one of the most interesting days of my summer so far.  After finally getting myself to leave the house, I headed down to South Philly to meet up with Jon.  After he finished cleaning out his hookah, we headed over to Wonderland, a store on 20th and Walnut.  Unfortunately, we walked all of the way there for it to be closed.  Jon suggested we get some food, so we went next door to the The Irish Pub. 

It turns out that there are 2 Irish Pubs on Walnut Street.  There is one on 20th, the one we went to, and another on 12th.  Jon had a pretty generous looking burger with a side of fries and 2 sodas for less than ten dollars.  I had a salad, but it wasn't wonderful.  I did, however, enjoy the chicken they cooked for it.  I was pretty amazed at the prices for the food which were extremely reasonable especially for this area of Philadelphia.

After our stint at the pub, we walked around a little while longer and met up with my friend, Amanda.  Amanda took us to The Salon.  The Salon is an extremely interesting experience.  It was such a new and interesting experience that I was at a loss for words for a while.  I'm not exactly sure even how to continue with this blog.  You should first know that The Salon is modeled off of 18th century European musical culture.  During this time, a great deal of music was performed in very intimate settings in the home.  This was made to emulate that idea.

Jon, Amanda, and I walked into a door leading into a house in an alley, and there was a pile of shoes at the bottom of the staircase.  We removed our shoes, and that's when it sort of hit Jon and me that this would be interesting.  We headed up a few flights of stairs where a woman took our ten dollar "donation" to The Salon.  After heading up more stairs to the 3rd or 4th floor, we entered a room with a very high ceiling full of people.  These people were mostly in their sixties.  Jon described them as looking both like hippies and intelligent university professors.  These people were mostly sitting on the floor as there was little furniture for all of the people in the room to share.  This day was by far the most humid day of the year so far.  There were at least 100 people in this room with one air conditioner which was shut off and turned on repeatedly during the concert.  Hopefully you've got an idea of the ambiance at this point.

Andrea Clearwater, the renter of The Salon space, piano player, composer, and graduate of Temple University introduced each of the performers.  There were ten acts in all, five, then an intermission, then another five.  The first three were upbeat jazz artists, but the next few performed 20th century 12 tone pieces.  There was a small intermission during which I managed to acquire myself a cup of wine and a handful of pretzels.  It was a nice atmosphere, albeit hot and muggy.  There were many professionals from the east coast, indigenous to many different countries who were experienced performers and composers.  And...I got to see it all for ten dollars.

After we left The Salon (it lasted for the better part of four hours), we headed over to the Midtown Restaurant.  The Midtown Restaurant is a very simple diner.  It has a counter and some booths, and it's definitely a step back into time.  It definitely hasn't been updated since at least the seventies.  The menu prices were also very affordable, and they should be, for diner food.