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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Coordinates: 39 57 N 79 5 W

Population: 5,687,147 (2006 est.)

With Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game tonight, and the end of the softball season for the Oxford Blues (OUP’s baseball team) looming next week, I decided to take a sportier slant with my post this week. But why Philly? Well, as it happens, the City of Brotherly Love was the site of the first steel and concrete baseball stadium in the United States. Shibe Park, which later became Connie Mack Stadium, opened its doors and entered the history books on April 12, 1909 as the home of the Philadelphia Athletics. Located north of the Central Business District and slightly east of the Schuylkill River between West Lehigh Avenue and West Somerset Street, this famous field hosted games until the end of the 1970 season. Fire damaged the structure the following year, and in 1976 it was finally demolished as that year’s All-Star Game took place across town on former marshland at Veteran’s Stadium.

Ben Keene is the editor of Oxford Atlas of the World. Check out some of his previous places of the week.

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Leopoldstadt, Vienna

Coordinates: 48 13 N 16 22 E

Area: 7.5 sq mi (19.3 sq km)

Having seriously played the sport for ten years in my youth, part of this time with a close friend from Belgium, I reached adulthood as a rarefied type of American: a soccer fan. By which I mean that I still haven’t figured out what all of those baseball statistics mean. But I am looking forward to June 29th when two teams will meet in Ernst Happel Stadium to decide the 2008 European Football Championship. Located in Leopoldstadt, one of 23 districts in Vienna, the stadium sits on an island created by the Danube Canal and the river of the same name. Historically this part of Austria’s capital contained a large Jewish population (Freud lived here), and because of this, gained the nickname “Matzoh Island.” A number of tourist attractions occupy the island today, including Wurstelprater, an amusement park, as well as the Republic of Kugelmugel, a micronation founded in 1984.

Ben Keene is the editor of Oxford Atlas of the World. Check out some of his previous places of the week.

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“Leila-sama! We got another e-mail question from my super-neat Jessie’s Letters page!”

“It is a question with profound meaning?”

“Uh uh.”

“It is a question that seeks the deepest mysteries of the universe?”

“Nope.”

“It is a question that will challenge our understanding of our existence?”

“It’s a question about being a drummer in marching band.”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

“Sometimes Leila frightens me.”

“Heheee… okay. The question says ‘In your story you said the drummers play a cadence. What’s a cadence?’”

“Cake question.”

“Cadence is when the drum section plays a rythym so the rest of the formation can keep time with their steps. We have four cadences in the Lions Band. The first two are full cadences.”

“That’s the one you start!”

“Yeah. Full Cadence Green starts with a roto-tom solo.”

“The other one is our ‘good morning’ cadence.”

“Full Cadence Gold starts with a full section downbeat and cymbal crash.”

“Good morning cadence?”

“We like to play Full Cadence Gold on Collins Circle over behind the school so if anyone in the neighborhood across the street didn’t hear their alarm clock we help them wake up.”

“Yay! Ohayo minna! It’s a bright sunshiney day!”

“Well, except for that one guy who stood in his driveway yelling at us that one day last year.”

“I think he thought we were trying to annoy everyone. Until we marched past his house in parade formation and played ‘National Emblem’ during after-school practice. His wife baked cookies for all of us the next day and brought them to the band room. She said he was so proud to have a parade in front of his house he almost cried. What a nice old couple too.”

“That’s cool. What are the other two cadences?”

“We have one called a ‘Silent Cadence’ if we’re marching up to a performance area at parades. There’s a couple hundred yards where bands aren’t allowed to make a lot of noise because it disrupts the bands in the performance area, so we play that cadence on the rims of our drums.”

“That’s the tick-tock cadence. All drum rims, traps and glockenspiels.”

“That’s the one that sounds like a carnival! I like the tick-tock cadence best.”

“The fourth one is a simple corps cadence. One snare plays the measure downbeats. We use that for starting formations on the field.”

“Now which one do we play in the tunnel at Brown Stadium?”

“Full Cadence Gold, baby.”

“Yeah!”

“Maximum volume. Maximum power.”

“Yay! Arigato minna-san! If you got a question or a comment or just wanna say ‘hi!’ you can send me e-mail on my Jessie’s Letters page and we might even get to answer your question right here on our site! Ja ne!”

The sore throat turned into something chesty and evil. Then all the hot water in the house dried up and went away. Still, my mood is better. And stuff is starting to get done. And I managed somehow get hot water to come out of the taps again. The wind is howling around the house...

Over at The New York Times, this article about SF that US politicians should admit to reading made me smile, althought I thought a few of the descriptions were pushing it.

Dear Mr. Gaiman,In Search of a Book to Read to My Nephew--
Part I
After countless hours of googling bizarre combinations of your name, "children", "books", "favorite", and various other words, I came across a book and its sequel titled GRIMBLE and GRIMBLE AT CHRISTMAS written by Clement Freud (grandson of Sigmund--as I'm sure you know). After discovering these titles, I proceeded to famous internet retailer Amazon.com to discover they, both of them, were out of stock and were "Used & New" with the lowest price being about $45. I then found my way over to eBay, and located a copy of GRIMBLE for... drumroll... $130! In light of these unfriendly prices (I'm cheap, you see) I was hoping you could utilize your "well-known author" powers to possibly influence a publishing company to bring GRIMBLE back in to print, or simply direct me to a website selling them for a reasonable, middle-class friendly price.
Oh, yeah--I almost forgot--can you recommend any other books to read to my five-year-old nephew (I've already read to him CORALINE, and he, as well as I, loved it)?
With much thanks and a fan always,Ben [last name removed by NSA... just kidding]

Actually, and in part because of my lobbying, Grimble was reprinted in the McSweeney's children's anthology with the astonishingly long title. I'd suggest you get the book directly from McSweeney's who tend to have it up very cheaply on their website -- recently they even offered it for nothing (plus postage) although I was too late to put that up here. All profits go to Good Causes too.

(And they have lots of cool stuff that would make nice presents up at http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm).

Beyond that, it's kind of hard to suggest books for a five-year-old, in the same way that it's hard to suggest books for a 38-year-old. People are different. (I know that at 5 Maddy loved Roald Dahl, for example, and all the Daniel Pinkwater picture books and early chapter books.) B

But I know that I need to put up some lists of books and authors -- and links to books that recommend other books.

Incidentally, I just noticed that over at the Pinkwater website there are Pinkwater Podcasts which include readings from Fish Whistle, the book that kept Terry Pratchett and me sane during the 1990 Good Omens tour.

Hello! I have a question for you about the signed limited edition of Coraline. According to amazon.com, the release date was November 30th. I pre-ordered mine over two months ago, so I assumed I'd have no problem getting one. But I just got a notice from Amazon saying that my order has been delayed until at least January. This either means that Amazon is sold out, or that the book has been delayed. I'm obvously hoping for the latter, so there's a chance I can still get a copy. Do you have any information on the situation? Thanks!-Brandon

The book was delayed, and it was mostly my fault -- there was a point in there where the box of sheets for me to sign was following me around the world (literally) and it didn't get signed until I got home from the Beowulf touring.

Having said that, I see from http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2007/12/16/neil-gaiman-update-coraline-shipping-soon/ that the books are going out in the next few days.

(I also understand that the first shipment of Hill House Press Anansi Boys has just arrived in New York from Poland. More information as I get it.)

...

I spoke to Jason Webley, and told him I'd love to put one of his songs up here, and he agreed. So for right now you can download or listen to the complete version of Almost Time To Go from his new CD The Cost of Living at http://www.jasonwebley.com/audio/AlmostTime.mp3.

Guess you never really stuck around
All that long anywhere.
I guess I should have known that you'd skip town.
You always did catch me unawares.
Looking now at your debris,
These trails of paper strewn across the floor,
Towards an open door.
Look at all you've gathered, all you own,
Hold it in your hand, does it weigh more than a single feather?
If the things you feel outsmart the things you know,
It's almost time, it's almost time to go.

Happy-sad in a load of good ways. (Especially if you're writing a book set in a graveyard.) Go and listen to it, or download it.... Read the rest of this post

I'm typing this on the Windows version of Safari. It seems fast and friendly so far, and much like the Mac version (which truth to tell I rarely use, preferring Camino), although it seems to play better with Blogger.