NOTE: Jason Sheehan’s “Looking for Luisa” is now available online here.

The uniformed representative of the United States Postal Service just dropped the July 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine into my mailbox, and I recommend you hie down to your local newsdealer to pick up a copy. I found it wonderfully readable; so did the American Society of Magazine Editors, which honored Philadelphia with its 2024 National Magazine Award for Lifestyle Journalism, an award that “honors print and digital journalism that celebrates readers’ passions and interests.”

A regional magazine should reflect the character of its region, and the July issue does so again under the editorship of Brian Howard. A report on development at Penn’s Landing describes a corruption wiretap as “amusingly incriminating,” a phrase that in two words encompasses the laconic cynicism of Philly residents towards their government officials, but even better is Philadelphia writer-at-large Jason Sheehan’s article “Looking for Luisa,” which is the funniest thing I’ve read in years. Describing his hunt for a cookbook author who may or may not exist in reality, Sheehan describes one moment of his investigation:

I get one kitchen manager on the phone, and he says this is “the stupidest fucking question” he’s ever been asked, and I’m like, Come on … really? This is Philadelphia, asshole, and if THIS is the stupidest question anyone has ever asked you, then you gotta get out more. I mean, two days ago, one of my neighbors asked me if I thought a cat could survive jumping out of the second-floor window of her townhouse and I said yeah, sure, cats are amazing, and then she said, “But what if it was carrying a whole chicken?,” and that wasn’t even the stupidest question I’d heard THAT DAY.

That breezy combination of absurdity, disbelief, and casual obscenity has always been a part of the style of Philadelphia — both the magazine and the city.

As far as these things are discoverable, Philadelphia is one of the oldest regional magazines in the country, having been established in 1908 by the Trades League of Philadelphia, whatever that was. Since 1946 the magazine has been in the hands of one member of the Lipson family or another and remains locally owned-and-operated. I first started reading Philadelphia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when D. Herbert Lipson hired Editorial Director Maury Z. Levy, who established the tone of the magazine and came up with some of the magazine’s most popular features, especially the annual “Best of Philly” issue.

This August the magazine is planning a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the “Best of Philly” issues, but those of us with long memories will remember that the feature began as “The Best and Worst of Philly,” a compendium of local, witty snark that rendered these issues collector’s items. Apparently (so I surmise), more practical considerations prevailed and the publisher thought it best not to alienate potential advertisers, so at some point the “Worst” was dropped. It’s still a useful issue, though, and I’m looking forward to this year’s entrant.

Though its 2024 National Magazine Award honored Philadelphia‘s lifestyle journalism, each issue also contains deeply researched stories on the city’s political and cultural life; a recent story on the trials and tribulations of the Kimmel Center was a highlight, and I’m sure somebody over there is working on a University of the Arts story that will dig as deeply as anyone can into its recent closure. Alas, very little of the print magazine has found its way online, but its web site is still essential reading for current and former Philadelphians like myself. So I raise a glass to Philadelphia today; and if you’re nice to me I might send you a scan of that Jason Sheehan article. It’s a riot.

I’ve just gotten back from a visit to Philadelphia, my first in eight months, which was far too long. Though only in town for a long weekend, I managed to take care of some unfinished business — a first drink at the Pen & Pencil Club, introducing my wife to Dirty Frank’s — and perhaps even inspired myself to write more about the City of Brotherly Love in the near future.

But where to begin? Philadelphia’s charms are hard to define, but Philly native Agnes Repplier, one of the most celebrated essayists of bygone days, took a stab at it in the introduction to her 1898 Philadelphia: The Place and the People, and for now I’ll let her offer it in her own words, which might be mine had I her talent for elegance:

And now, after two centuries have rolled slowly by, something of [Philadelphia founder Quaker William Penn’s] spirit lingers in the quiet city which preserves the decorum of those early years, which does not jostle her sister cities in the race of life, nor shout loud cries of triumph in their ears, nor flaunt magnificent streamers in the breeze to bid the world take note of each pace she advances.

Every community, like every man, carries to old age the traditions of its childhood, the inheritance derived from those who bade it live. And Philadelphia, though she has suffered sorely from rude and alien hands, still bears in her tranquil streets the impress of the Founder’s touch. Simplicity, dignity, reserve, characterize her now as in Colonial days. She remembers those days with silent self-respect, placing a high value upon names which then were honoured, and are honoured still. The pride of the past mingles and is one with the pride of the present. The stainless record borne by her citizens a hundred and fifty years ago flowers anew in the stainless record their great-great-grandsons bear to-day; and the city cherishes in her cold heart the long annals of the centuries, softening the austerity of her presence for these favoured inheritors of her best traditions. She is not eager for the unknown; she is not keen after excitement; she is not enamoured of noise. Her least noticeable characteristic is enthusiasm. Her mental balance cannot lightly be disturbed. Surtout pas trop de zêle, she says with Talleyrand; and the slow, sure process by which her persuasions harden into convictions does not leave her, like a derelict, at the mercy of wind and wave. She spares herself the arduous labour of forming new opinions every morning, by recollecting and cherishing her opinions of yesterday. It is a habit which promotes solidity of thought.

To those who by right of heritage call themselves her sons, and even to such step-children as are, by nature or grace, attuned to the chill tranquillity of their foster mother, Philadelphia has a subtle charm that endures to the end of life. In the restful atmosphere of her sincere indifference, men and women gain clearness of perspective, and the saving grace of modesty. Few pedestals are erected for their accommodation. They walk the level ground, and, in the healthy absence of local standards, have no alternative save to accept the broad disheartening standards of the world. Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbours, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name. Something of the old Quaker directness, something of the old Quaker candour, — a robust candour not easily subdued, — still lingers in the city founded by the “white truth-teller,” whose word was not as the words of other men, — spoken to conceal his thoughts, and the secret purpose of his soul.

Journalism has been taking a body blow lately, what with accusations of “fake news” and bias, but this ignores the terrific and courageous role that journalism played in much of the twentieth century and continues to play today. From Gareth Jones‘ reportage on the Ukrainian Holodomor in the 1930s to Vasily Grossman’s “The Hell of Treblinka” in 1944 and John Hersey’s Hiroshima in 1946, great journalists have been dedicated to pursuing and reporting events that governments would prefer unpursued and unreported. They do this, often, at great personal risk, and even when the physical risk is minimal, the vast majority of journalists are biased to just one thing: facts, and facts that are verifiable, not those that might be characterized as “alternative.”

I’ve been involved in various kinds of journalism since I edited my college newspaper back in the day; since then, much of this has been arts journalism, and lately here at the blog what I generously call “journalism” has been of the more personal variety. Nonetheless, I’m delighted and honored to end this week as a new, full member of Philadelphia’s Pen & Pencil Club, the oldest private club for journalists in the United States, founded in 1892. It’s going to be a rough couple years up until the 2024 election, and as a free press is the handmaiden of democracy, I raise my glass today to journalism and journalists. I hope to raise a glass or three at the Pen & Pencil Club soon.