Philadelphia, Meet Your Future

WE'RE WAITING FOR THE movie/show to start.

Inside a theater at the International House near Penn's campus, Joey and Ruth and I are standing by the entrance. This is an event Philebrity.com has written an advance about, and Joey and Ruth also happen to be friends with the harpist who will soon take the stage, along with members of other various Philly instrumental groups who have written a 73-minute score for the 1970 Czechoslovakian surrealist film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, which will play without sound. It will make watching The Wizard of Oz to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon seem like child's play.

Joey asks Ruth and me if we'd like a beer, and as he's leaving the auditorium to fetch them, I can't help but think that he hardly seems the image of the scenester power broker he's become. Soft-spoken and utterly ­innocuous-looking, he blends easily into the background, another dark-haired young hipster in an auditorium full of them. Rarely if at all does he betray the confident condescension that is a hallmark of his website; only at the computer in the hermetically sealed confines of his home office does he apparently feel comfortable letting the gloves come off. He returns with three warm beers in plastic cups, which we press together with a "Cheers."

It seems Joey and Ruth know the majority of the people coming in and out of the theater, a mix of gelled and shaggy hair, Urban Outfitters and consignment threads. Onstage at the moment is a young woman with long hair parted in the middle, wearing a black gauzy dress. In a voice reminiscent of comedienne Rita Rudner's, she tells the audience: "This next song is a Pablo Neruda poem put to music. So it's not in English. But you can get the jive."

Joey bemoans the fact that Philly is again making national headlines for something that "makes us look stupid" — that Rocky statue. "I think it's a huge embarrassment," Joey says to Ruth and another couple — an attractive, pigtailed girl dressed in thrift-shop chic, the guy with long sideburns, a black film festival t-shirt, several silver rings on his fingers. All nod in agreement. The pigtailed girl is carrying a large leather bag, which contains a fully stocked bar — a "Port-A-Bar," she informs us. She's carrying a small pocketknife as well, which she's using to cut limes.