Culture

WHEN I travel, I go to supermarkets. Unlike most touring shoppers, I never pause at store windows displaying jewelry and haute couture. But whether I'm in Aix or Antwerp New Orleans or Naples, I make a beeline for the local grocery store to peruse aisles of preserves, inhale the scent of coffee and pick up toothpaste sporting foreign labels. More than one pal at home has benefited from my wanderings, gifted with a tub of New Zealand clover honey or a pound of chicory-laced coffee from Rouses on Royal Street.

The St. Louis Art Museum is open six days a week and last year attracted 650,000 visitors. It's one of the most heavily used museums in America. Attendance is free - and yet, crows director James Burke, "We're in terrific financial shape. " How does St. Louis do it? Not with mirrors but a tax. The city's art museum, zoo, botanical gardens, history museum and science museum are tax supported. All are located in St. Louis and have free admission. But it isn't just city residents whose real estate taxes support them.

AFTER READING "Inside the Culture of Grief" (Aug. 8), I was distraught and devastated. The vivid pictures showing a 15-year-old lying in his coffin were heartbreaking. I was so disturbed by the images that after reading the story I followed up by going online to hear how writer Simone Weichselbaum "got the story. " I believe Simone's intentions are good, but just because everyone has a different way of coping doesn't mean anyone should make light of their suffering. Maybe this article really touched home for me as my 13-year-old stepson was killed in an accident in July 2005.

David Woods is a Philadelphia writer When the body of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is brought before the Romans, does the bard have them say, "Who dunnit?" No, he has Mark Antony deliver the eloquent "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech. And the Roman poet Horace showed his lyrical skill with: "Pick today's fruits, not relying on the future in the slightest. " Carpe Diem . He did not, you will note, say, "Have a nice day. " In both cases, the writers knew a simple truth: that language matters.

Apparently Alice-Leone Moats ("In the U.S., English is the language," Op- ed Page Feb. 11) does not know the definition of the word culture as it pertains to a society. The definition of culture suggested over 100 years ago by Edward Tyler "is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. " There are physical items, food, clothing, houses, tools, which can be seen, touched and handled.

A wealth of African culture was presented yesterday at the African Marketplace, which was held at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum. Radio personality Georgie Woods was on hand to mark his 40th year in broadcasting.

Those who would advocate banning of guns use the hackneyed argument that they are a product "designed to take a life. " Fact is, less than one one-hundreth of 1 percent of all guns are ever fired with the intent of injuring another. Yet these same people openly champion abortion, which has only one, nearly 100 percent successful purpose: to destroy a human life. I suggest all anti-gun, anti-personal-responsibility liberals review their own destructive culture of death before attempting to impose their amoralistic views on decent society.

The Rankokus Indian Reservation in Westampton Township offered a day of dance performances June 16. Local dancers were featured as well as the Chinanteco and Nahuatl Indian Dance Group of Mexico, which gave its first performance outside that country.

It may have been the ultimate field trip: 11 Morrisville sixth graders realized some common childhood fantasies - and got credit for them. They got to go back in history, rough it in the wilderness, live in a different culture and be a part of the circus. At the Morrisville school board meeting Wednesday, Assistant Superintendent Betsy Fineburg described a cooperative program between Morrisville and the Princeton Day School in Princeton that took place last week. "Sharing Our World," a weeklong program offered by the Princeton school, features a unique concept in hands-on learning, Fineburg said.

The region's cultural organizations are showing signs of recovery from the fiscal crisis and deep recession that began in 2007, according to an annual survey conducted by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. Individual giving is up, foundation support is up, earned income is up, and even some hiring is under way, the survey shows. "This recovery is a testament both to how organizations have restructured and how Philadelphians have placed a high value on culture in their communities," Tom Kaiden, alliance president, said in a statement.

In its mission to draw inspiration from black culture in Philadelphia, an arts organization is offering its yearly breakout conversation among artists, writers and citizens. The 28th annual Celebration of Black Writing, which began Monday and continues until June 2, attracts creative people from many realms - performance and spoken-word artists, authors, editors, journalists, musicians and other cultural craftspeople. Its events cover a wide window of African-American artistic expression and technique, including performances, readings and film screenings, chick lit, advocacy journalism, urban fiction and black mental health.

The charges against Msgr. William J. Lynn are narrow: that the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia official endangered children by letting two priests live or work in parishes despite signs they might abuse minors. But the case prosecutors finished presenting Thursday stretched beyond those confines. Day after day in Courtroom 304 of the city's Criminal Justice Center, the church itself seemed to be on trial. Over eight weeks, jurors saw a parade of witnesses and close to 2,000 documents, some decades old, that detailed what bishops, pastors priests, and church officials knew and did about Philadelphia-area priests suspected of abusing children.

Born in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I would never have predicted that my future husband, Ajit, was in India. Yet, at the age of 29, I was sitting in an apartment in Ghaziabad, one mehndiartist on each arm, being decorated with henna tattoos for my Indian wedding. Triangles, flowers, peacocks — even a king and queen. These were the main components of the designs crafted from my fingertips to my elbows, my toes to my knees. Determined to be authentic, I dutifully sat through the four hours required to finish the ornamentation.

WHEN I travel, I go to supermarkets. Unlike most touring shoppers, I never pause at store windows displaying jewelry and haute couture. But whether I'm in Aix or Antwerp New Orleans or Naples, I make a beeline for the local grocery store to peruse aisles of preserves, inhale the scent of coffee and pick up toothpaste sporting foreign labels. More than one pal at home has benefited from my wanderings, gifted with a tub of New Zealand clover honey or a pound of chicory-laced coffee from Rouses on Royal Street.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — When Facebook goes public — as it's expected to do this week in what is almost certain to be the biggest stock debut for an Internet company — it will be more than a financial milestone. It will also reflect how tightly a company launched eight years ago in a college dorm room has been woven into the fabric of society. In its ability to shape how people around the world communicate, debate, shop, entertain, and inform themselves, Facebook may be the biggest technological advance since broadcast television.

The one thing that's certain about this weekend's world premiere of Skins & Songs, a collaboration between Philadelphia's Spoken Hand Percussion Orchestra and New Yorker Philip Hamilton's a cappella vocal ensemble Voices, is that the stage at the Painted Bride will be crowded. With 22 percussionists and vocalists fusing a musical hybrid out of more than 30 cultural traditions, there's little else regarding the piece that's predictable. "What we've created is something exciting, energetic, and unique," promises Hamilton.

Joining three long-established auction houses in conducting early May catalog sales — Freeman's, Briggs, and Rago, in order of seniority — is an auction newcomer. Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday at the 4700 Wissahickon Ave. business complex, where it has been a retailer for a dozen years, Material Culture will present an inaugural exhibition and auction titled "New World Orders. " The 550-lot sale will feature Asian and other ethnic, folk, and "outsider" art. Presale price estimates range from about $50 to $75 for a William H. Prestele etching to $40,000 to $60,000 for a Samuel Robb cigar store Indian that was a Pine Street "Antiques Row" fixture for decades.

Echale ganas, roughly translated, is Mexican Spanish for "do your best. " Those customary parting words still ring in the ears of thousands of Mexican immigrants who made their way to Southeastern Pennsylvania in the last decade. From 2002 to 2008, local filmmaker Laurence Salzmann made repeated trips to Puebla state in southern Mexico, the rural birthplace of many of them, seeking to understand what drew them to el Norte. The result is Echele Ganas — A Life Left Behind, an unblinking look at Mexico's faded farmland and the relentlessness of immigrant ambition.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Dr. Catalin Cirstoveanu runs a cardio unit with state-of-the-art equipment at a Bucharest children's hospital. But not a single child has been treated in the year-and-a-half since it opened. The reason? Medical staff he needs to bring in to run the machinery would have expected bribes. So Cirstoveanu launched a crusade to save babies who come to him for care: He flies them to Western Europe on budget flights so they can be treated by doctors who don't demand kickbacks.