Recommended: Scene In 2008

I must belatedly recommend Tom Gralish’s project on his Scene on the Road blog. He’s taking a photo for a day the entire year, and recently got to day 100.

While I posted his photo of the kitty since people on the Internet love cute cats and I really love this dude inexplicably carrying a car bumper, my favorite so far is this re-creation/homage to George Tice’s famous Mobil Station photo in New Jersey. (It’s now a Lukoil.)

Scene on the Road

Reason #23 To Love Philadelphia: All The Stars At The ‘Rocky Balboa’ Premiere

Last night was the premiere of Rocky Balboa, the sixth and hopefully last in the Rocky franchise. The movie’s debut at the Prince Music Theater snarled traffic on Chestnut Street, had legions of fans (no, really) and saw all the stars come out.

Well, okay, it had Sylvester Stallone and his brother Frank, and Burt Young. And after that, who’s next in the Inquirer’s online photo gallery? Yes, at right, that’s Inquirer photographer Tom Gralish and writer Mike Vitez (with Vitez’s wife, food editor Maureen Fitzgerald). And Vitez appears to be holding a copy of the book he and Gralish did about the Art Museum steps, of course!

Wow, all the stars were out!

Blaze of glory for a local hero [Inquirer]

We (And The ‘Inquirer’) Are Not Done With These Art Museum Steps Just Yet

Oh, ho, turns out that Sly Stallone isn’t the only one profiting from having the Rocky statue moved to the Art Museum. (For the record, he’s footing the bill for the whole thing, so he’s paying money for some nice publicity.)

But, in addition to the December release of Rocky Balboa, the sixth and (hopefully) final installment of Sly Stallone’s neverending story, there’s another two people benefitting from it: Michael Vitez and Tom Gralish. (Yes, the same Michael Vitez who penned the story about the statue this afternoon and the “preview” this morning.)

In November, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and photographer will release Rocky Stories, a tale of people who come to the Art Museum to run up the steps. The book also has a foreward by Sylvester Stallone. (Ohh, boy, and do we all ever want to read that one.) A little excerpt from Philly publisher Paul Dry books:

The movie premiered in 1976, thirty years ago, yet they still come–a high-school track team from Belfast, three busloads of professional wrestling fans from Australia, a college rower from Maine, a librarian and her fiancé from Lake Tahoe, a race car driver (he ran the steps for good luck)… The story of Rocky inspired them, stirred them.

So, you see, the front page news story today also ties into a book. The book will in turn tie into some sort of parchment scroll, which will tie into an oral tradition somehow.

Update: The testimonials on the book’s website are from Ed Rendell, Dawn Staley and the Inky/ex-Inky trifecta of Mark Bowden, Buzz Bissinger and John Grogan. What, no Jennifer Weiner?

Rocky Stories [Paul Dry Books]
Archives: Rocky