Tour Guides Tell Hilarious Lies

Our city will soon face the long arm of the Tour Guide Gestapo, and for that we have City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown to thank. But we also have local historian Ron Avery, who testified in favor of the tour guide regulations that will brand all certified tour guides with flair.

He submitted to Heard in the Hall a list of 84 falsehoods he’s heard tour guides say, which is kind of a lot of work to do for tour guide regulation research. Do you think he’ll open a tour guide regulation test prep service?

Some of these lies are pretty awesome, and I submit we should pretend they are true anyway. Go forth, people, and spread these awesome tall tales!

• Trees were planted along streets so illiterate people would know the name of streets. So Pine Street was lined with pine trees etc.
• It’s called Society Hill because Penn gave it the Society of Freemasons.
• Dr. Rush responsible for death of George Washington. He bled him so much and gave him cough medicine with mercury.
• Ben Franklin had 80 illegitimate children all in Sweden.

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Saving ‘The Gross Clinic’

With the deadline for the sale of The Gross Clinic just two weeks away, Philadelphia’s art community is attempting to save the painting from a fate worse than hell: Going to Bentonville, Arkansas.

While it seems that the sale of The Gross Clinic to Walmart heiress’ Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum and the National Gallery of Art is all but a sure thing, that hasn’t stopped the sale of $2 buttons with the message “Keep ‘Gross’ in Philadelphia.” And painter Charles Cushing is doing a full-size replica of Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece in the lobby of Two Penn Center. (Neat!) He hopes to finish by Dec. 26, the deadline of the sale.

But we all know that nothing in this town gets done without a committee, and that’s why we’ve formed a Committee to Save The Gross Clinic! Who’s on it? Well, Rocky Statue hater Moe Brooker, a few people connected to Jefferson/Eakins, all your usual local tourism/yay Philly people and actor Kevin Bacon. (Hey! They got a celebrity! Just like the casino companies did!)

Bacon even gave a quote to the Inquirer: “This masterpiece and this artist are so intertwined and connected to this city that it should and must remain where it was created, and shared with as many people as possible.”

Rock on, Gross Clinic saviors! (But mainly, a “rock on” to the star of Tremors and Hollow Man.) Here’s to hoping your seemingly futile battle isn’t so futile at all.

Six degrees of Eakins energy [Inquirer]
Sincerest form of flattery for Eakins [Inquirer]
Aug. 3: An Oop De Doo For ‘Rocky’