Aesthetics

Artists Michelle and Barry Burton had barely opened their new craft shop on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill on Nov. 15 when the aesthetics committee came knocking at their bright yellow door. It seems the Burtons' sunflower yellow and fantasy blue exterior clashed with the committee's guidelines for a conservative muted palette. Myrna Pope, who heads the committee, handed Michelle Burton a Finneran & Haley brochure showing the Authentic Colors of Historic Philadelphia, as approved by the National Park Service, and strongly suggested repainting.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's declaration that homosexuality is a sin, and the elites' appalled reaction to this declaration, illustrate a point: The large fights of American politics these days are not between liberalism and conservatism, but between competing schools of illiberalism. This is to some degree the result of the American genius for (eventually and often after bloodshed) arriving at consensus answers to the big questions. No one asserts anymore that Jim Crow was not an evil system or that the Soviet Union was not an evil empire, or that 90 percent tax brackets are a good thing or that unhealthy water and air are a necessary attendant to a healthy economy.

It hulks on a pedestal, demanding attention in a pedestrian hub. The rusty iron object veers east, then west, part triangle, part rectangle as it journeys 30 feet up. Each day the iron thing in front of Rowan University's Student Center requires a glance, maybe a head scratch. Last week, it sprouted an icicle that gave it still another dimension. But what is it? And why? Public art - whether it be Philadelphia's giant clothespin or Rowan's mystery sculpture - aims to put hectic lives on pause.

John Fisher, 67, a Temple University philosophy professor who was a leading figure in the field of American aesthetics, died of cancer Saturday at his home in Springfield, Delaware County. Dr. Fisher devoted a career of 34 years to teaching philosophy at Temple. For six of those years, from 1967 to 1973, he also served as chairman of the university's philosophy department. It was during the years of Dr. Fisher's administration that the philosophy department established a doctoral program.

Does beauty inhabit everyday objects such as couches and hairdos, or only nature and high art? Can we learn cognitive truths from great literature such as Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych, a novella that suggests, "Life boils down to a few people loving you"? Must a rock song possess a backbeat, electric instruments and simple harmonic structure to be an authentic rock song? And, hey - does art make assertions? If questions like those could be overheard at the Independence Park Hotel this weekend - mixed in with the usual, "Which way to Ben Franklin's house?"

The perpetual Center City debate over aesthetics vs. profits once again has reached high decibels. At first, the fight over plans for a multistory parking garage on Sansom Street was over whether some old but undistinguished buildings should be razed. Now, with demolition begun, the brawl is over how tall the garage should be. On a deeper level, it's over just how far a historic downtown should bend to accommodate the car. The developer, Wayne Spilove, who also chairs the city's historic commission, wants to create 320 self-park spaces.

YOU DON'T have to believe in miracles to own the jersey Mike Eruzione wore - and the stick he used - in the U.S.'s 4-3 win over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. The items will, according to SportsCollectorsDaily.com, be auctioned at Heritage Auction's Winter Platinum Night in Manhattan in February. The U.S. captain used the stick to score the game-winner in the medal-round game that has become known as the "Miracle on Ice. " According to the website, the white No. 21 jersey is estimated to be worth $1 million.

Artisan-made objects truly have a unique beauty. These pieces, all crafted or sold locally, meld classic technique and modern aesthetics. This color-block tumbler by Maren Kloppmann makes a great accompaniment to morning coffee or tea ($25). Available at the Clay Studio, 139 N. Second St., and www.theclaystudio.org . Create a display with a few of these organic-feeling porcelain containers by Yasha Butler ($40-$90). Available at www.yashabutler.etsy.com or by contacting yashaceramics@gmail.

The latest entry in Channel 12's Philadelphia Performs series turns the spotlight on a bracing variety of local artists and arts organizations - from the bizarre to the merely obscure. This group of five short features, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and airing tonight at 11:30 on WHYY-TV, won't appeal to everyone. But if aesthetics, Greek tragedy, Renaissance music, feminism or the Kensington skyline are subjects that pique your interest, you'll find at least some of these shorts entertaining.

Attempting to maintain a "building aesthetic appropriate to the township," several residents have formed an Architectural Advisory Board. Since the beginning of the year, the five-member board has screened building projects for the township's Planning Board, of which it is a subcommittee. Residents who want to modify their building's facade in any way or businesses hoping to build in the town must first convince the panel that their buildings will "integrate harmoniously into the architecture of Medford," said Councilman Richard W. Wright, the board's chairman.

YOU DON'T have to believe in miracles to own the jersey Mike Eruzione wore - and the stick he used - in the U.S.'s 4-3 win over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. The items will, according to SportsCollectorsDaily.com, be auctioned at Heritage Auction's Winter Platinum Night in Manhattan in February. The U.S. captain used the stick to score the game-winner in the medal-round game that has become known as the "Miracle on Ice. " According to the website, the white No. 21 jersey is estimated to be worth $1 million.

MOST OF US read or look at art in order to feel something - to experience sensations perhaps unavailable to us in everyday waking life. But it's not just our feelings. Encountering the visions of the past, we also begin to acquire a sense of how people used to feel as well. These are the issues that animate the work of the literary critic and poet Sianne Ngai. In her new book, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting ($39.95, Harvard University Press), she considers how those feelings help us form judgments about the aesthetic world, how we know to describe something as "interesting" or adorable.

  When Justin Mitchell and Karina Restrepo created the Mi Cumbia Spa on 17th Street, they didn't hire a decorator. Mitchell, an artist, approached the task as Albert C. Barnes would have evaluated a piece of art. To appreciate Mitchell's approach - and that of so many others who have studied the Barnesian method - you must understand Barnes. Imagine you have never seen or heard of the Mona Lisa or its creator. When you do get to view the painting at the Louvre, you admire the artist's use of color, the lines or shapes he has created, the illusion of distance, and the marvelous light he installed on the subject's face and breast and in the background.

As with all great love stories, Bobbie Ann Tilkens-Fisher and Matthew Fisher found their dream home when they weren't even looking. The couple were happy living in their Northern Liberties rowhouse until they visited Bobbie's family in Wisconsin for the December 2008 holidays. Cocktails at an acquaintance's midcentury house piqued Bobbie's interest: What would it be like to live in one, and are there any in Philadelphia? Back East she went searching, eventually finding the website Modern Homes Philadelphia, run by real estate agent Craig Wakefield, which hosts listings plus resources to learn about the history and significant players behind the region's considerable inventory of midcentury homes.

'Poetry is dead. Long live poetry!" That's my rejoinder to National Poetry Month's seasonal hue and cry - febrile lament of poetry's demise coupled with celebration of its monarchal reign as highest of arts. For poetry lovers this renders April "the cruelest month," as T.S. Eliot observed. Like most poets writing today, I grew up with the notion that poetry is knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door. My teachers, my peers, and many literary journals reminded me that I am merely bloodying my knuckles.

Next door to the Old City fire station and Ben Franklin Park is a darling boutique with a timely fashion mission and a perfectly patriotic name. US*U.S. is a 600-square-foot designer co-op led by custom clothier Lele Tran that houses a practical mix of easy-to-wear clothing, including a boho-inspired children's line, bold-hued bikinis and a collection of Gothic couture wear featuring corsets and fitted skirts. But in addition to delivering this spring's latest colorful styles, US*U.S.

As a graphic designer, Mike Dew is inspired by what he sees - especially while tooling around on the Internet. "I come across things that I want to cook, or stuff for my apartment, or things for work like type, design, architecture. " Now, it all gets tacked on his Pinterest page. Get ready to embrace the newest social media darling - because along with your Facebook wall, Twitter handle, and LinkedIn profile, now you must have a Pinterest page. That is, if you are the creative, visual type.

STONE HARBOR, N.J. - Three summers ago, artist and gallery owner Gary Jacketti came from the contemporary art scene of Beacon, N.Y., into the land of Peter Max and gold-framed paintings of oversized egrets, wine bottles, and beachscapes. Since then, he says, he's been trying to persuade the well-heeled beach-house owners of Stone Harbor not to take the job of buying art so literally. To get some, well, taste. "They're selling wealthy people expensive paintings that are worthless," he says boldly of other galleries.

Others may continue to bandy about identity issues concerning Cage the Elephant; few seemed to care at the exuberant rockers' sold-out Electric Factory show Saturday. Animated fans were later heard asking one another about "the Elephant's" killer new encore song and how it combined the best elements of Cage live. Which it did: front man Matt Shultz hopping about, dirty blond hair a-whirl when not delivering grainy, occasionally yowling yet tuneful vocals; his brother, the shorter- and darker-haired Brad Shultz hunched over his guitar, furiously strumming; the other guitarist, Lincoln Parish (oft-mistaken as the singer's sibling, given his own blond mop)

The torrent of advertising for prescription drugs, patent medicines, and medical procedures in mass media suggests that Americans are more concerned about health issues, and more susceptible to health-related marketing, than ever before. This makes "Health for Sale" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art both timely and historically fascinating; that it's also a cornucopia of graphic imagination is a bonus. This exhibition of more than 50 vintage posters that promote medical products and address public-health issues was drawn from the museum's William H. Helfand collection, itself a subset of the museum's incomparable Ars Medica collection of more than 3,000 works of medical art. Helfand, a retired pharmaceutical executive, has been an indefatigable collector of medical prints, posters, and related ephemera for more than 55 years.