ArtsWatch

The Comcast building's 87-foot video screen was working Saturday afternoon - and then it wasn't. This large, glowing strip in the new skyscraper's lobby makes an impressive presence for itself. When we wandered in, it was showing waves rolling in. Images were accompanied by possibly new-age electronic music. The screen on which the images are shown is almost invisible, so that when no image is showing, the wood veneer on which the screen hangs magically reappears. Starry shots of the universe came next, for just a moment, and then the images stopped. We stuck around another ten minutes or so, but nothing more happened.
The shops downstairs haven't opened yet, the dancing fountain was working only sometimes, and two other visitors wandered around the lonely plaza. On this day, the building was hardly a generator of street activity.
And yet, despite the heat, despite it being Saturday in a city where everyone seems to escape to the shore on feels-like-summer weekends, Center City was bulging and pulsing. Every few blocks, downtown was casting a different atmosphere, luring a different constituency.
Several hundred David Sedaris readers stood in line on Sansom Street to get a few words with the author, His Royal Quirkiness, hosted by Joseph Fox Bookshop.
The art show in Rittenhouse Square was drawing a steady parade of sidewalk critics. On Walnut Street at 18th, a violinist, perhaps ten years old, was working up an impressive head of steam with something that sounded suspiciously like Paganini, while a Chinese elder held court at 17th and Walnut, smiling through the sound of his pipa.
The great Wanamaker organ was making the building rumble. We didn't even know it was organ day at Macy's. For reasons that are hard to explain, there's something extremely comforting in knowing that you can hear a Star Wars medley on organ while buying tank-tops, Toddler Size Small three for $7, while smelling white-bread toasting nearby in the department store lunchroom.
It may not be Proust, but father and daughter left feeling very happy.
(Inquirer photo: Comcast Tower, the city's tallest, for now.)