Yanks v. Phils…Bagels v. Tastykakes?
Polarization in the hierarchy! From the press office of the New York archdiocese:
Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and Archbishop Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, have placed a friendly wager on the outcome of the 2009 World Series.
These two long-time friends spoke on Tuesday evening to settle the terms of the bet. If the Phillies win, Archbishop Dolan will ship a dozen bagels to the City of Brotherly Love; if the Yankees prevail, Cardinal Rigali will send a box of Tastykakes to the Big Apple.
Archbishop Dolan said, “Cardinal Rigali is one of my closest and dearest friends; for several years he even served as my Archbishop so I feel a particular loyalty to him. I know he has exquisite taste in most matters. I just wish he had better taste in baseball teams.”
Cardinal Rigali said, “I have great esteem for Archbishop Dolan. He is a gifted spiritual leader who has been a true friend for many years. That is why I am so sorry he will be disappointed when the Phillies successfully defend their World Championship. We have the cream cheese ready for the bagels that I know will be arriving shortly after the Repeat in the City of Brotherly and Sisterly love.”
“Sisterly” love? I trust His Eminence isn’t in charge of liturgical translations. But nice sentiment. Wish I could get on board with the Tastykake offer. I mean, Dolan seems more like a cheesesteak guy. And bagels? No lox? Kinda chintzy. Suggestions to sweeten this pot?
PS: Awesome game last night. Archbishop Tim might want to start making his way to H&H.
I’ve been away from New York City for three decades, and so I suppose I’m out of touch on some matters. When I saw HnH in your post, David, I thought of Horn and Hardart and expected to be brought to a site where I could revisit the Automats that I knew when I was studying in the City. Alas, no such thing, but a bagel store instead! (I’m one of the few New Yorkers who doesn’t like bagels.)
I have one traumatic memory of going to an Automat when I was a young teenager. I was at the dessert section and about to put my money in for a piece of lemon meringue pie, when a burly man–truckdriver or construction guy–gruffly said to me: “That’s sissy pie! Order a man’s pie–like apple pie!”
The Automats seemed still to be flourishing in the mid-1950s. When did they disappear?
There was an NYT feature some years ago on the last Automat–I’ll dig it up.
I used to love lemon meringue “sissy” pie but in recent years have come to realize one of two things is true: No one can make it very well or it really is nothing but a layer of canned lemon custard with a lucscious-looking but gummy white toupee.
I believe this is the story I recalled–”some years ago” was actually 18 years ago. Does it get worse as you get older?
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/11/nyregion/last-automat-closes-its-era-long-gone.html
A 2003 piece on an exhibit on the Automat with a book reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/nyregion/when-nickel-opened-doors-automat-s-golden-age-before-coffee-soared-10-cents.html
And a sign of the Apocalypse, 2009: New York loses automat, Italy adopts them:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/business/worldbusiness/14vend.html
I would have thought the use of the word “Tastykake” would be enough to have Card. Rigali removed from the Vox Clara Commission. But no, apparently not.
I arrived in New York City in 1970, and I remember getting a fleeting glance of an Automat. But there were plenty of Horn & Hardarts. For a few years in the 1970s, I had a Horn & Hardart right next to the apartment building where I lived, where Sunday morning breakfast used to be a treat, and it was very convenient as a place to get a quick, decent, inexpensive meal on weeknights.
The Horn & Hardart places I knew, however, did not have the most glamorous customers. Whever I see the beginning of Annie Hall, when Woody Allen is speaking directly to the camera and describes the third possible way he might age, I always have a vivid image of him walking into the Horn & Hardart next to my building:
I think the Abp should have offered great pastrami on rye and pickles from a real Jewish deli (good ecumenics) and the Cardinal, Philly Cheese steaks – great for the Abp’s chloresterol if the Cardinal loses.
Kathy–
As a Philadelphian, born and bred, I can assure you that TastyKakes (especially the butterscotch krimpets), panis angelicus, are good for the soul, though not the waistline.
I well remember, when I was 11 or 12 and such, going to the Horn and Hardard Automat in Philadelphia for lunch before heading north on the trolley to Shibe Park to watch the Phillies (or the Athletics) lose the afternoon game. I thought the food pretty good at that point, but maybe I was dazzled by the chrome and glass.
As for Tastykakes, they are or were a Philadelphia speciality, and were not particularly good, but the owner apparently had a splendid art collection, some of which, I think, went to the Philadelphia Museum.
Now the Phillies are the glory team, and though I don’t know much about the Yankees (they come from an eastern city somewhere, I think), I hope they’re capable of putting up a better fight than the pathetic excuse for baseball that they showed ast night.
Cardinal Rigali is to congratulated for translating “Philadelphia” as the “City of Brotherly and Sisterly Love”. He is certainly correct philologically. i don’t know whether it will get him kudos from the Consistory, but it is better to be right than…(you name it).
Mr. Gannon –
Mr. Gannon (sorry for the above, where I pushed the wrong button) — is Card. Rigali really correct philologically in translating Philadelphia as “City of Brotherly AND Sisterly Love”? I thought adelphos was strictly masculine, and if you wanted a city of sisterly love it should be Philosoteria or something of the sort. But then my Greek is not what it once was, and what it once was was pretty awful.
So Philadelphia as a “City of Sisterly Love” (much as I applaud the sentiment) strikes me as the same kind of goof as translating the Creed’s “propter nos homines” as “for us men” rather than simply “for us” (meaning all of us, m. and f. both). And I’m sure the Cardinal is too good a Latinist ever to be guilty of such a solecism. Isn’t he?
Mark, I thought TastyKakes were more or less the same as Lil Debs (ducks and runs for cover)
Friends
TastyKakes (definitely not Little Debs or ring dings or any other poor facimile) will be served in heaven, along with cheese steaks and pretzels with Gulden’s mustard. Now that the Phillies (aka “Children of God”) are in battle with the Yankees (aka “Spawns of Satan”) the apocalyptic age may finally be here. After all, when the Phillies win, Jesus comes back and the culmination of time occurs. Then God will be “all in all” (I Cor 15:28). LOL
And btw, know that real Philly cheese steaks are best found at places other than Pat’s and Geno’s. Those two sell overpriced and undersized sandwiches. Their one advantage is they are open 24 hours a day. A visit to 9th and Passyunk at 3:00 AM is an anthropological field trip.
Best to wander up to Henry Ave and get your steaks at Dellasandros or Chubbies, a similar cross corner cheese steak rivalry in the City of Brotherly Shove (I don’t think I should add “Sisterly” before “shove,” should I?).
Peace,
Rick in Philly. Phillies in Six!
I was wrong in my quibble to Joseph Gannon about Brotherly and Sisterly love. Adelphos can in fact mean sister (so the internet’s Liddell and Scott says), though Adelphe seems to be the normal femine. In either case, Philadelphia will work for both sexes, as he said.
My complaint about the usual translation of “propter nos homines” still stands, however.
It is my understanding that competent NT scholars agree that when Paul addresses a community that includes both men and women as adelphoi, the most accurate translation–and this is not a case of political correctness–is “brothers and sisters” rather than “brothers”. The NAB has declined to recognize this point of usage. I decline to speculate as to why. As for “propter nos homines” we are of the same mind, nor do I question the Cardinal’s Latinity.
I hardly need to point out that Philadelphia has always included women in its population.