Tell the World I Feel Proud About 'Cha

To force a smile onto your face, a handful of reasons for minor celebration in Philadelphia this week:

1) You can now stream (at www.tsopsoulradio.com), all hours and all days, the famed "Sound of Philadelphia".

The Sound of Philadelphia (aka TSOP) is associated almost entirely with Gamble and Huff and their label Philadelphia International Records (aka PIR).


Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, "Tell the World How I Feel About 'Cha Baby"

Philadelphia International Records, of which I have spoken to you before, is proudly displaying their archives, like a musical peacock.

Some of this stuff, I imagine, is otherwise only available on vinyl or even 8-track.
I have already streamed it on my IPhone; it was easy. I had to download an app called Shoutcast, which lets you stream podcasts on a smartphone, more or less.

This is all part of a big push to re-release and promote the great catalog of Philadelphia International Records. This is a back catalog that rivals Motown, no question.
(Do you demand Proof? Scroll my PIR-related archives, or listen to the Shoutcast player embedded above.)


2) The scaffolding is off Philadelphia's city hall, finally. The word "finally" is called for, since this eyesore has been clouding my view of Philly's literal centerpiece for years. As soon as you thought it was down, you realized that it had merely rotated to another side! Scaffolding, of some form or another and on some side or another, has been up since the 80's.
Like the cleaning, the construction of the building dragged on for decades (more info here).
But now both are complete, so tip your hat to Penna and Phila.



3) The hurricane passed without much incident. Sort of a funny thing to note, that an absence, a non-entity, is worth celebrating. But that's how people think, isn't it? People compare purely imaginative "events" (what could have been [= what did not occur] ) and judge which would be really better.

Which of these "never happened" events is better?: if I would have had one samurai sword in 1997,

or two smaller blades in 1999?

Well, it's sort of stupid to even ask. And all such comparisons of purely fictitious entities are just as ridiculous.
You can't respond, "well, the hurricane really might have been worse,"
because in fact, the hurricane really (REAL-ly) Was Not.
There might be degrees of being, but there are not degrees of non-being; that is, there is no meaning in describing things that are not real, as "almost real." And it is yet more foolish to then judge the goodness of these non things, to pick one nothing as "more" something-good than another nothing.