Philly Is Cooler Than It Should Be

The missus and I took a quick jaunt to Philadelphia this weekend. As a Mets fan, I'm supposed to be hard-wired to dislike the City of Brotherly Love.

But it's hard to dislike a place with so much public art - lots of murals and mosaics. One artist, Isaiah Zagar, has made an entire life out of creating public art. His mosaics pepper the neighborhood in which he lives and works. And you just keep coming upon them as you walk around.

We took a little mosaic tour sponsored by Philadelphia's Magic Garden, which is where Zagar has created an entire environment, built over about 15 years. It was a perfectly enjoyable thing to do.

I especially like how democratic his theory of art is. He believes in creating beautiful environments for everyone to enjoy. He often features community members in his mosaics, such as a woman who tells him not to fall off his ladder while working on a mosaic or a plumber he thought should be memorialized.

This was my favorite image from the tour, for obvious reasons. (The Bald Mermaids are or were a dance company of women who decided to shave their heads.)