I’m glad I gave up coffee. I would hate to have turned out like these people:
Madeleine Page, a psychotherapist from Philadelphia, wanted to talk about reassembling her secondhand commercial Cimbali, which she has stripped down to its parts. The effort, she said, will be worth it: “I couldn’t find a good latte.” . . .
“We’re in constant pursuit of perfection,” said Fortune Elkins, a Web designer from Brooklyn, who pulled espresso shots at Dallis’s $7,000 Faema machine. . . . “Coffee has 800 to 1,200 flavor components,” she said. “Also because wine isn’t cooked or prepared, that adds components. It’s an entire process.”
It’s a beverage, people. Not a lifestyle.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you want something done wrong, take it to Philadelphia.
Philly’s latest botched job: Friday’s opening of the National Constitution Center.
Everything was going well at the sweltering morning ceremonies. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had received her award and completed her acceptance speech. The museum was set to open for its first visitors. Then, at just the last moment, when the dramatic unveiling was about to begin...chaos.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports (“Frame’s Fall Mars Opening,” by Jacqueline Soteropoulos and Anthony S. Twyman, July 5, p. A1):
After the scheduled speeches concluded, O’Connor and the 41 others on the stage were to participate in a ceremonial drawing of a giant curtain to unveil the center’s 40-foot-tall glass main entrance.
But when she and the others -- including Gov. Ed Rendell, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, and Mayor John F. Street -- simultaneously tugged metallic ribbons to simulate opening of the curtain, they instead pulled down a massive piece of the stage scenery, in the shape of a picture frame.
It struck Specter, Street[,] and Joseph M. Torsella, Constitution Center president, injuring them slightly. The top beam of the frame, termed “very heavy” by Street, crashed to the floor directly in front of where O’Connor was seated in the first row.
“We could all have been killed there,” O’Connor was overheard saying into her open microphone as she and the others looked in astonishment on the massive beam lying almost in their laps.
It gets worse. Today the Inquirer reports the frame wasn’t put to the test beforehand “Fallen Frame Was Unsecured,” by Jere Downs, Sam Wood, and Joseph Tanfani, July 6, p. A1):
The 650-pound wood frame that toppled onto a stageful of dignitaries at the National Constitution Center’s opening was not secured at its top or its base, and had never been inspected, according to an official close to the investigation of the accident.
In addition, the official and other sources said, there was no run-through or rehearsal of the ceremony, though such rehearsals are standard practice in stagecraft.
Yep, that’s Philly, the city that brought you the MOVE bombing, the 1998 Army-Navy Game, Mayor Frank L. Rizzo, Legionnaires’ Disease, the Fairmount Water Works fire, and so much more: Getting it wrong again.
Okay, so Andy Roddick didn’t win the Championships. He has plenty more years ahead of him: 25 years or so, if he has the staying power of Martina Navratilova.
But that’s doubtful. I mean, who does?
In case you missed it, Navratilova, now 46, won her 20th Wimbledon title -- tying Billie Jean King’s record there -- nabbing another mixed doubles trophy, playing with Leander Paes against competitors half her age.
Actually, the runners-up, Andy Ram and Anastassia Rodionova, were not yet born when Navratilova won her first women’s singles title at Wimbledon in 1978.
Amazing.