Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Every once in awhile, one of the local newspapers writes an article about the literary scene in Philadelphia. Up until this week, Wild Violet has always been left out. We finally made the grade.

About a week and a half ago, I got an e-mail from a writer with City Paper, Patrick Rapa, saying that he was writing an article about literary magazines in Philadelphia and asking me if I would answer some questions over e-mail, with possibly some follow-ups afterwards.

I e-mailed him right away and told him I'd get him the answers within a couple days.

I sat down and answered his questions that weekend. Most of them were pretty standard, what's the magazine's philosophy, what we publish, how often issues come out. I gave him some stock answers, but I tried to throw in a few things that I thought would be more interesting, more quotable.

The weekly newspaper came out yesterday, so I asked The Gryphon to pick one up when he came back from work. He came into my office and handed it to me: "The article is on page 25. Your blurb is on 31." Seems that, because it was an alphabetical listing, we appeared on the jump page.

I really liked what he wrote. Considering it was only one paragraph, he managed to get in the pertinent information and even make us sound kind of cool. Here's what he wrote, for those of you who won't be able to pick up this week's City Paper:

Wild Violet
(quarterly, Web-only, free)

"The goal of Wild Violet is to bridge the gap between academia and pop culture, bringing the arts to the mainstream," asserts editor Alyce Wilson. To that end, the journal regularly intersperses the normal "serious" litmag offerings with humor pieces, pop culture commentaries, flash fiction (super-short stories), snappy author interviews and movie reviews. "While Wild Violet doesn't have strict themes, we tend to structure issues so that they include material that works well together," says Wilson. "This is surprisingly easy, with material arriving from different people all around the globe and yet addressing similar ideas, similar questions."
www.wildviolet.net

I'll have to see if we get more hits from the Philadelphia area because of this listing. I imagine we will.

Like we do every couple weeks, The Gryphon and I took the train into the city today to grab some breakfast before I checked the Wild Violet mailbox and he went to work. This was not, however, an ordinary morning.

While riding the train in, it stopped at 30th Street and a lot of people got out, a lot more than usual. Finally, we realized the train was clearing and we asked somebody why. "They said to get off here. There's some sort of police activity and they're shutting down the train. Could be a couple hours."

We had to walk upstairs, through the terminal, then across the street to the SEPTA station to catch the El to 13th Street (even though it's underground through all of Center City, Philadelphians call it the El; don't ask me why).

Fortunately, one hand had been talking to the other, so they didn't charge us extra to get on the El but just waved us through. As we walked, The Gryphon and I discussed possible reasons for the action. "Maybe someone jumped in front of a train," I suggested. But we figured it was something similar to what's going on in New York City today; increased security due to a threat.

Of course, whatever had happened had to be sudden, because nobody had mentioned a thing when we bought our tickets.

As we came above ground at 13th Street, we saw much more of a police presence than usual. Two or three police officers were stationed every few blocks, although they were chatting and didn't seem particularly concerned or alert.

We had breakfast and then walked together a short while before going our separate ways. I noticed a guy in a brown robe walking towards us with a determined stride. He looked muscular, sort of tough. As he got closer I saw he work a monk's vestments. Hanging from his rope belt was a worn rosary. One his back was a jogger's backpack.

"You suppose he's a real monk?" I asked the Gryphon.

"Well, there is a monastery near here."

After passing a few more clumps of police, we saw three Buddhist monks, wearing saffron robes, standing in line, ready to get on a bus to New York. "Cops and monks," I mused aloud. "Interesting morning."

Soon after we parted ways, I asked a guy handing out Metro newspapers if he'd heard anything about what was going on. He said he'd heard there was a bomb threat at Market East Station. This would have been the station after ours if we hadn't been forced to get off at 30th. So this seemed a possibility.

Fortunately, the trains were running again when I needed to catch one back home. I could have taken the El back, but it would have been inconvenient, given my car was parked at the train station.

Shortly after I got on the computer, after an abbreviated dog walk (it started raining only a block into it), The Gryphon IM'd me to give me the scoop. The scare had, indeed, been at Market East, but it wasn't a bomb threat. Apparently, a police dog didn't like somebody's large backpack.

The bomb squad was called in, and the culprit turned out to be — ready for this? — the connector for a propane camp stove.

"What the HELL was s/he doing carrying that around anyway?" I asked. "That's hiking gear, not city gear." There was no answer from The Gryphon, who'd apparently been called away from his desk.

So Philadelphia backpackers beware: leave the camp gear at home if you don't want to screw up everybody's morning commute.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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