Another reminder of why you should want live in Philly.

From the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program:

A Canadian couple, Todd and Meaghan, learned about the Mural Arts Program's Love Letter Tour and coordinated an extended layover in Philadelphia (en route to Paris) to experience this wildly popular tour.

Todd contacted the Mural Arts tour office to let them know he wanted to propose to Meaghan on the tour, and the Mural Arts Program offered a clever idea in making his marriage proposal extra special.

This video is a result of Mural Arts Program's partnership with The University of Pennsylvania - Penn Singers Light Opera Company and Penn Glee Club. We're excited to share with you the biggest surprise of Meaghan's life!

Why we love the Phillies.

They are not only the best team in baseball, they are just plain good guys.

WASHINGTON - One by one, they trickled out of the infield and down the concrete steps before disappearing into visitors' clubhouse of a mostly empty stadium. There was plenty of hugging and hand-shaking and on-the-back patting. But for a few precious seconds, there was no champagne popping. That, they had decided, would wait.

So they filed inside and they gathered around the dark green bottles that sat in the center of the carpeted room. And when the last of them finally arrived, they pointed to three men who had spent the better part of their adult lives waiting to feel that sweet, stickyspray.

Roy Halladay, Mike Sweeney and Brian Schneider: your honors.

"All the guys came around us," Schneider said later as he stood amid the mayhem of the Phillies' latest division title celebration. "I'll never forget that. They know we've never been able to experience this. It was awesome for them to think of us."

I like this.

Here's an interesting personal story of why living in the city is so much cooler than living out in the 'burbs (though, if forced to argue the other side, I'd cite the birds singing at my window in the the morning, the drives through the rolling countryside and a personal love affair with old covered bridges) and how a neighborhood can shape its own sense of community. It is set in Philly, of course, 'cause it's the bestest city there is.

Maybe we'll stay a two newspaper town after all.

The new owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News have worked out what appears, on the surface at least, to be a reasonable and workable deal with the Newspaper Guild.

Don't you wish you lived in Philadelphia?

I you did, things like this might happen to you all the time.

It happened in late April. The Opera Company of Philadelphia teamed up with the Reading Terminal Market Italian Festival for a "Flash Opera" event. Over 30 members of the Opera Company Chorus and principal cast members of La Traviata performed the famed Brindisi in the aisles of Reading Terminal Market.




So cool. Just look at the faces of the people...

...and wish that you lived in Philadelphia.

If I were a young man....

...this sounds a lot like where I'd want to live.

What I like most about the story is how the revitalization came out of what was at its heart a somewhat crooked scheme to make money. It's reminiscent of the old days when the Mafia Capo might be ordering a murder or two at meetings in the back room, but the restaurant out front and the surrounding neighborhood often benefited both financially and socially from his presence.

Just another big, black, basketball-playing millionaire.

Except, he was so much more than that stereotype.

RIP for one of the Really Good Guys.

Update:  The national press is catching up with the news of Manute Bol's death yesterday this morning, but the best story I've found was published during his hospital stay. Read it here.

Wooden's championship run at UCLA began and ended with a classic pair of "Philly guards."

The point guard for UCLA coach John Wooden's first national championship team was from Philadelphia, from Overbrook High. And the point guard from Wooden's last NCAA winner was from Philadelphia, from Overbrook again.

I was going to put up a Facebook note about that, or some sort of half-assed Tweet that would make the point in 140 characters, but that lead paragraph from Mike Jensen's story in this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer renders that moot. It's well worth a read if you want to know more about the Greatest. Coach. Ever.

The play's the thing and, for one night at least, it was all Flyer-ed up.

How hockey crazy is this region over the Philadelphia Flyers improbable run to the Eastern Conference finals and presumed additional run the the NHL Championship Series and a potential Stanley Cup?

Local playwright Larry McKenna,whose "The Next Reunion" is playing at the Society Hill Playhouse in Philadelphia, rewrote the script at the last minute Thursday night so that actors arriving on or returning to the stage could incorporate updates of the score into their dialogues.

No word on how it went and the Flyers lost for the first in seven games. If they lose again tomorrow afternoon, there will be riots in the streets.

Great story, great woman.

This story by Philadelphia Inquirer feature writer Jennifer Lin is as solid and well-written a newspaper as I've read in a long, long time.

It begins with a wonderful anecdote that captures the essence of its subject and closes with final paragraph which encapsulates the essence of the story.And it is can't-stop-reading perfect throughout.

If the Catholic Church is still extant 25 years or so from now and there isn't a Saint Mary Scullion on the rolls, somebody will have screwed up badly.

Today's Inquirer also contains a great story about Mark Twain's tenure as a typesetter for the paper back in 1853-54, written by John Timpane.

Both stories are on the front page and serve as bittersweet reminders of what newspapers used to be and could be and probably never will be again.