Happy Bastille Day, Philadelphia!
Published by Becky S July 11th, 2004 in newsy, philadelphia
Are we still mad at France? I can’t speak for the rest of the United States, but the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia isn’t holding a grudge. Yesterday we continued a unique tradition of celebrating Bastille Day in front of Eastern State Penitentiary, a historic and ominous-looking prison.
From the top of the Bastille, Marie Antoinette looks down at the crowd and tells them that eating bread violates the South Beach diet. When we insist on beautiful, beautiful carbohydrates, she rolls her eyes and says, “let them eat cake.” After that famous line, Marie’s faithful minions fire up the catapults and shoot Twinkies* to the people below.
Alas, Twinkies do not appease the crowd, so we storm the Bastille, capture Marie Antoinette, and sacrifice an innocent watermelon in the guillotine. Then we sing and drink more beer.
And that’s how we celebrate Bastille Day in Philadelphia.
* In recent years, the cheap bastards have substituted Twinkies for Tastykake butterscotch crimpets, a tragedy of magnificent proportions.
in the hood they throw crack pipes.
and they don’t care whether or not its bastille day either
mmmmmmm-twinkies, an unidentifiable but of so yummy confectionary delight!
Um, Krimpet is spelled with a K.
Dammit, Clair, you’re right! I oughta have my Philly citizenship revoked.
Watermelon, krimpets, and beer! All carbo-loaded–”Let us eat carbs!” And what’s with the firing of food in Philly? The Fanatic with hotdogs and now a wig-stock milk-maid wannabe with Krimpets?
Well, that explains a lot. I was at a meeting in a Philadelphia hotel today and the afternoon snack they served was called “A Taste of Philadelphia”: Herr’s Potato Chips, Goldberg’s Peanut Chews, pretzels with mustard and Tastycakes. But all they had were Coconut Juniors and Kandy Kakes - no Butterscotch Krimpets. Apparently, they are in hiding from the cake catapulters.
Well, I went to ‘A Taste of Champaign’ and ‘A Taste of Chicago’ recently and they definitely were un-American in the sense that they had abandoned the ‘war on carbs’. Good on Philadelphia for reminding the people where the real battle is at.
OMG that’s hilarious!!
I’ve lived in the area most of my life and never really heard anything about ESP. Recently I had guests come up from GA/FL and they were interested in going so we did a 15 person private tour of the place. I think it was one of the best things we did that weekend…the day after Live 8…with the crowds…eesh we were nuts.
I wish I could make it this year to the celebration. That’d be a blast