Mummer pirates
Jan. 2nd, 2009 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lblanchardWe had the best Mummer's Day imaginable, even though it was bitterly cold.
We walked up Broad Street from Christian to Sansom, experiencing two very different parades. At Broad & Christian, the comic brigades (drunken pipefitters in drag) had just started their march. There were very few crowds there. Grand daughter was totally entranced, stood there like a toddler at the sight of its first Christmas tree. I think it was all the testosterone in the air.
Later we went to the Open House at the Union League, which included reserved bleachers just in front of the League House. The League writes the Mummers Association a check with many zeroes, as it has for years, and they perform for us. They were especially grateful this year as the Mayor has cut the city budget and there will be no funding for the Mummers in 2010, so folks like us are increasingly important. I sat in the cold for four hours, watching the end of the comics, the fancy brigades, and all 18 string bands without leaving my front row seat. Roy and our granddaughter brought me coffee every 45 min or so and checked to make sure I was still able to move.
This is granddaughter with a member of the Greater Kensington String Band, from their "A Pirate's LIfe for Me" 2009 theme. Click around the Flickr photostream for more Mummers.
The official Channel 17 video of them is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mVhaewTm3s
I have a partial video that I took with my little camera, but I am not sure I know how to use GoLive to edit it down to size.
We walked up Broad Street from Christian to Sansom, experiencing two very different parades. At Broad & Christian, the comic brigades (drunken pipefitters in drag) had just started their march. There were very few crowds there. Grand daughter was totally entranced, stood there like a toddler at the sight of its first Christmas tree. I think it was all the testosterone in the air.
Later we went to the Open House at the Union League, which included reserved bleachers just in front of the League House. The League writes the Mummers Association a check with many zeroes, as it has for years, and they perform for us. They were especially grateful this year as the Mayor has cut the city budget and there will be no funding for the Mummers in 2010, so folks like us are increasingly important. I sat in the cold for four hours, watching the end of the comics, the fancy brigades, and all 18 string bands without leaving my front row seat. Roy and our granddaughter brought me coffee every 45 min or so and checked to make sure I was still able to move.
This is granddaughter with a member of the Greater Kensington String Band, from their "A Pirate's LIfe for Me" 2009 theme. Click around the Flickr photostream for more Mummers.
The official Channel 17 video of them is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mVhaewTm3s
I have a partial video that I took with my little camera, but I am not sure I know how to use GoLive to edit it down to size.
