Victor Fiorillo’s Weekender: Manilow, Mushrooms, Full Frontal Nudity, and Bikes
Since you didn’t hit New Jersey’s $330 million jackpot, that weekend gambling spree in Macau might have to wait. Here are some other worthy ways to fill your time.
Funny looking men who sing: Saturday night brings us Barry Manilow at the Wachovia Center and Elvis Costello at the Mann. This was a hard choice, but I’m going to Barry. Elvis Costello would be the more intellectually fulfilling move, but that key change at the end of “Mandy” gets me every time. They just released some ticket “holds,” so you can score a pair of third-row center seats, though they are $253 each, or nosebleeds for $13. (There are $25 lawn tickets for Elvis.)
Tough guys on film: Though I despise Russell Crowe, I promised my father-in-law I’d take him to see 3:10 to Yuma, which should be pleasantly violent. But if I had it my way, I’d head out to the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville on Sunday for their 2 p.m. screening of The Set-Up, a stellar piece of film noir from 1949 that tells the story of a down-on-his-luck pugilist by showing us 72 minutes of one particularly bad day in “real time,” à la 24.
Chester County fungus: Two full days devoted to mushrooms in the Mushroom Capital of the World, Kennett Square, sounds like a pretty good idea. There’s a mushroom soup cook-off, mushroom ice cream (which is more disgusting than it sounds), mushroom farm tours and, inexplicably, Action News hottie Erin O’Hearn.
Strange people are everywhere: We’ve got genital-exposer Larry Richette AND the National Baptist Convention, but that’s just not enough. So we had to add in the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe, a bizarre assemblage of artistes that runs through next weekend. At last count, there were 43,204,239 productions, and many of them are downright awful. If you can only catch two shows, do Pig Iron Theatre Company’s Isabella and New Paradise Laboratories’ BATCH, from Philadelphia’s premiere experimental theater companies. A word of warning to the Baptists: both shows include full front male and female nudity.
Wheelies down the Schuylkill: Do not be alarmed this Sunday if you notice that the city’s roadways are empty. Do not start looting. It is not the End of the World. It’s just Bike Philly 2007. Twenty miles of streets closed to traffic and 2,000-plus bicyclists enjoying them. Is the privilege of riding my Huffy down public roads with no possibility of being squashed by a cabbie upset over his credit card machine worth the $50 registration fee? Or do I forget to set my alarm clock for the 6:30 a.m. registration? Hmm …
