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  • Mike Schmidt returns to NBC Sports Philadelphia, John Kruk jumping to NBC as Phillies go national

    Mike Schmidt returns to NBC Sports Philadelphia, John Kruk jumping to NBC as Phillies go national

    Mike Schmidt returned to the Phillies television booth Thursday night, but not to call the game.

    The Phillies legend walked away from NBC Sports Philadelphia this season after 12 years as a part-time announcer, but jumped back in the booth Thursday night to spend the fourth inning with Tom McCarthy, John Kruk, and fellow Hall of Famer George Brett.

    It was a fascinating way to spend 20 minutes, especially considering the many ways Schmidt and Brett are linked. Two of the best third baseman in the history of the game, taken one behind the other in the 1971 MLB draft. Brett had 1,596 career RBIs, while Schmidt had 1,595 (Brett “hired someone to go back through his career and find an RBI” Schmidt once jokingly claimed).

    And of course, there’s the 1980 World Series, where the Phillies defeated the Royals and Schmidt was named MVP, which Brett said was “hard to swallow.” They were both named the respective MVPs of their leagues that season, with Brett ending the season with a batting average of .390.

    George Brett and Mike Schmidt, seen here ahead of Game 1 of the 1980 World Series.

    “By the way, I had .260 in the bag,” Schmidt joked. “I went 0-10 in the last series and dropped down to .250.”

    “I feel so bad for you, Mike. You only had 50 home runs that season,” Brett shot back.

    For the record, Schmidt ended the 1980 season with 48 home runs and 121 RBIs.

    Schmidt and Brett compared stats, busted chops, and shared a life-long friendship borne through intense competition on the field.

    “I hated him. I didn’t like him at all,” Brett said, noting Schmidt beat him “every time I played against him.”

    At one point, Phillies announcer Ben Davis, positioned in the dugout during the game, chimed in to note that between Schmidt, Brett, Phillies manager Don Mattingly, and Mets announcer Keith Hernandez, there were 31 Gold Gloves and 9,723 hits in the building.

    “Who’s that talking?” Brett jokingly replied before taking a shot at himself.

    “They always say you got 3,000 hits. I say, ‘No, I made 7,000 outs,’” Brett said, turning to Schmidt. “How many outs do you think you made?”

    “Well, I know I made 7,000 strikeouts. I mean, I can count those,” Schmidt said.

    The two even joked about their current roles. Brett serves as the Royals’ vice president of baseball operations, while Schmidt complained he can’t get a title with the Phillies.

    “John Middletown, if you’re listening, give Mike a title,” Brett said. “I’m Mike Schmidt, and I own this stadium.”

    So why was Brett in town for a Phillies-Mets game? To help Schmidt promote his “Play Sun Safe” skin cancer awareness campaign, something he’s been passionate about since being diagnosed with melanoma in 2013. As part of his partnership with the Phillies, 12 sunscreen stations have been placed across Citizens Bank Park during games.

    As interesting as the pairing and the history was, the broadcast did lose focus of the game at times. Thankfully, McCarthy and company refocused after Derek Hill drove in Bryson Stott to tie the game in the bottom of the fourth.

    Unfortunately, the Mets jumped all over José Alvarado in the seventh inning and went on to win 6-4.

    Phillies head to national TV, but Kruk will still be around

    John Kruk will jump to NBC Sunday to call the Phillies on national TV.

    The Phillies have Friday night off, but NBC Sports Philadelphia won’t be broadcasting the team again until Monday.

    Saturday night’s game will air on Fox, with Joe Davis and John Smoltz calling the game and Ken Rosenthal reporting from Citizens Bank Park. Chris O’Connor, the brother of Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Timothy O’Connor, who was shot and killed during a Chester County traffic stop in March, will throw a ceremonial first pitch.

    NBC will take over for Sunday Night Baseball, with Kruk back on the network to broadcast the game alongside play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti and former Mets pitcher John Franco.

    While Benetti is the voice of baseball on NBC, the network decided to turn to a rotating crew of analysts to call each game, one representing each team on the field. It’s largely a response to the biggest complaint networks hear when broadcasting baseball games — fans just want to hear their local announcers.

    It’s the second game Kruk has called for NBC this season, though the first — an April loss to the Atlanta Braves — only streamed on Peacock. Hopefully this time Kruk will be a bit luckier for the Phillies. Having Zack Wheeler (6-1, 2.01 ERA) on the mound should help.

    The Phillies will be back on Peacock July 5 when they take on the Pittsburgh Pirates, but they won’t be alone. Peacock will exclusively stream 13 baseball games that day as part of an event NBC is calling “Star-Spangled Sunday.”

    John Kruk’s perfect response when the new Sixers GM jinxed the Phillies

    Phillies standings

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    Phillies news

    Andrew Painter has a 1-8 record and 7.06 ERA, and opponents are batting .404.

    Upcoming Phillies TV schedule

    • Mets at Phillies
    • Phillies at Nationals
    • Phillies at Mets
    • Pirates at Phillies
    • Phillies at Royals
  • At 16, a student from Philly’s Rock School has leapt into three career milestones this year

    At 16, a student from Philly’s Rock School has leapt into three career milestones this year

    At 15, Blake Metcalf had little left to prove.

    In February, the ballet student at Philly’s Rock School for Dance was one of only 38 boys (81 dancers altogether) from around the world selected to compete at the elite Prix de Lausanne in Switzerland.

    He didn’t win a prize at the Prix, but he made the final and got something else valuable: a scholarship to finish his studies at England’s prestigious Royal Ballet School.

    But that’s not all. Metcalf also qualified to compete in the Youth America Grand Prix Final in May in Houston.

    YAGP, a much bigger competition, attracts thousands of students from 50 countries competing in locations all over the world for months leading up to the final.

    Blake Metcalf stretches and watches his classmates at the Rock School for Dance.

    “There was a moment prior to YAGP [Final] where Blake and I spoke,” said Rock president and director Peter Stark, who coached Metcalf, “and I said to him that he didn’t have to do YAGP as he had his plans secured for next year.”

    But Metcalf, who grew up in Lake Mary, Fla., and attended many competitions with his mother Sheri’s dance school, Xtreme Dance Studio, wanted to finish out that chapter.

    He wound up winning first place among the senior men, ages 15-20, with a variation from the first act of Swan Lake and a contemporary solo choreographed by Chase Peterson.

    But winning wasn’t in his sights going in.

    Blake Metcalf in class at the Rock School for Dance.

    “I was like, ‘Let me just have fun, I don’t care what happens, just have a good week,’ ” said Metcalf, who recently turned 16. “And then I made it to the final round, I was like, ‘Awesome, that’s great, first-year senior.’”

    He was then invited to perform in the gala that closes out the competition, “and that was mind-blowing to me,” he said.

    “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m surrounded by so many people, like professionals I look up to, that I never thought I’d even see in person, dancing on the same stage.’”

    When the awards were announced, Metcalf was among the top 12 senior men. His name was the first announced, because he was the youngest, he assumed.

    But he had won first place while, he later added, dealing with a cyst in one hip and a muscle strain in the other.

    “I look to my right and it’s just these super tall men,” he said.

    The YAGP Final turned out well for Metcalf’s classmates as well. In addition to his win, students from the Rock received three second-place awards.

    “It was an extraordinary week for the Rock School,” Stark said. “For the second year in a row, we advanced more students to the final round than any other school in the world, and we ended up being the most awarded school at the competition.”

    Blake Metcalf in men’s class at the Rock School.

    Metcalf, Stark said, “was in a different zone at the finals and it showed in his performances. “Some of the same judges [at the Prix and YAGP final] were especially impressed with his growth.”

    “Mr. Stark warmed me up every day for competition, and he took it very slow, didn’t force anything,” Metcalf said, explaining how he succeeded despite the injuries. “I kind of kept it calm and clean, and then saved myself for stage.”

    So what changed between February and May?

    “I think at Prix de Lausanne, I saw so much incredible talent,” Metcalf said. “I was really inspired, I subconsciously pushed myself more. I came back to Rock, and I was like, ‘alright, let’s do it, like let’s work,’ and I started improving more.”

    “Blake has an extraordinary instrument for dance physically with excellent proportion and line with great flexibility and strength,” Stark said. ”However, what really makes Blake special is both his intense focus in class coupled with heartfelt artistry on stage.”

    Next year in England, Metcalf expects to work on “my power, my bigger jumps. It’ll come with age,” he said, “it’ll come as I get more muscle. But yeah, I definitely need to work on my strength and my power.”

    Blake Metcalf leaves the studio after class at the Rock School.

    Metcalf started dance when he was 5 or 6, after watching his sister, Ash, (now a New York-based actress) dance and compete with his mother’s school.

    “I really wanted to be a dancer, and my mom was like, ‘Alright, Blake, we’ll see, we’ll see.’”

    His mother, he said “tried to get me to go into sports because she wanted me to … go to a college, go the academic route. But I would beg my mom every day, because I looked up to my sister a lot as a kid. Ever since then, I just started getting more and more classes, and then I left all the other worlds behind.”

    He started with hip-hop. Classical dance didn’t come until he was about 11, when someone at his mom’s studio noticed that he had good feet for ballet.

    Soon enough, he’ll get that degree as well. The three-year program at the Royal Ballet School not only prepares its students to join a ballet company, but it also awards its students a bachelor’s at the end.

    Blake Metcalf leaves the Rock School after class.

    Metcalf had never studied anywhere but his mom’s school when Stark invited him to train at the Rock School two summers ago. He enjoyed it so much that he begged to stay for the year, even though it meant leaving his family and his Boston terrier, Cannoli.

    It was Philly where he really began to shine, said Metcalf, who also enjoys drawing, crocheting, knitting, and reading.

    “Rock has really refined me as a dancer,” he said. “Rock has also helped me mentally, it has helped me mature, have my own mindset, not worry about what else is going on and just focus on myself.”

  • 1969’s Stonewall Riots became a watershed moment in the fight for queer rights. Four years earlier, LGBTQ activists gathered at Independence Hall for the first Remembrance March.

    1969’s Stonewall Riots became a watershed moment in the fight for queer rights. Four years earlier, LGBTQ activists gathered at Independence Hall for the first Remembrance March.

    On July 4, 1965, gay activists Frank Kameny of Washington, D.C., Craig Rodwell of New York, and Barbara Gittings of Philadelphia gathered 40 of their LGBTQ brethren in front of Independence Hall to demand equality.

    Dressed in three-piece suits, dresses, pumps, and spit-shined tie-ups, the marchers protested discriminatory policies that allowed gay people to be fired from government jobs and to be denied entry into military service.

    Their slogan: “We don’t dodge the draft … the draft dodges us.”

    Artist Jen Proacci’s sculpture features . historic photographs of a Remberance Day event rendered as a high-resolution print, paired with a vibrant rainbow sky that symbolizes the LGBTQ+ community’s ongoing pursuit of equality, protection and freedom.

    Held four years before the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, the march made history as the country’s first gay rights demonstration. That 1965 march became an annual protest, now known as the Remembrance March.

    The first gathering in 1965 will be celebrated at Philly Pride Visitor Center on Saturday, one of Philadelphia Historic District’s weekly firstival celebrations. Each week in 2026, the Historic District is throwing a day party honoring important events that happened in Philadelphia before anywhere else in the nation and often the world.

    “They were the only 40 to 100 people willing to get on the picket line for gay rights for those five years for the entire nation,” said Mark Segal, editor of the Philadelphia Gay News, who was a teenager in 1965.

    Picket at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. July 4, 1965. Randy Wicker (L), Barbara Gittings (R)

    “It was the one and only march of its kind, and it was national,” he said. “People came from Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. If you were someone involved in getting equality for homosexuals at the time, then you were there.”

    Remembrance Marches predated Stonewall but they didn’t lead to Stonewall, Segal added.

    The Philadelphia demonstrators in the late 1960s were out of the closet but were still very conservative.

    “We were fighting for federal employment,” Kay Tobin Lahusen, the first openly gay American photojournalist, and Gittings’ partner, told The Inquirer in 2007 after Gittings’ death. “We wanted to look employable.”

    That conservative energy largely excluded young people at that time, including Segal.

    “I wasn’t allowed to march in the Remembrance Marches because I was too young. I didn’t want to wear a suit and tie. I wanted to protest in my jeans and my T-shirts. As a Philadelphian, I loved my city. I appreciated the marches and respect these brave people. But we were ready to smash invisibility.”

    Early photos of Philadelphia-based Gay Pride marches part of a collage in the Philly Pride Visitor Center.

    That sentiment bubbled across the nation.

    Early in the morning of June 28, 1969, LGBTQ protesters led a series of demonstrations against police raids at the now historic gay bar, Stonewall Inn, in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

    As a contrast to the more conservative Remembrance Marches, the Stonewall Riots, which Rodwell also participated in, were more disruptive and intersectional. Trans women of color, like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, would eventually go on to become key figures in the uprisings.

    Philadelphia’s last Remembrance March took place the following week.

    The following June, East Coast Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations, also known as ERCHO, adopted a resolution in Philadelphia ending Remembrance March.

    Philadelphia is the birthplace of the nation. It’s also where the U.S. Army was founded.

    That same month, on June 28, 1970, America’s first Gay Pride Liberation March in Greenwich Village was held in commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising.

    “We went from 40 to 100 people in Philadelphia to more than 15,000 in New York,” Segal said.

    “The Remembrance Days are important,” echoed Kristopher Lawrence, Philly Pride Visitor Center’s supervisor. “We were all trying to get to the same place, but we had different views on how we thought it should be done.”

    This week’s Firstival is Saturday, June 20, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., at the Philly Pride Visitor Center, 1139 Locust St.

    The Inquirer is highlighting a “first” from the Philadelphia Historic District’s 52 Weeks of Firsts program each week. A “52 Weeks of Firsts” podcast, produced by All That’s Good Productions, drops every Tuesday.

  • The only collaborative Keith Haring mural that still hangs in its original location is in Point Breeze. It could be your next home.

    The only collaborative Keith Haring mural that still hangs in its original location is in Point Breeze. It could be your next home.

    A Point Breeze rowhouse, now available for rent, offers residents a chance to live with a one-of-a-kind work of art — the only Keith Haring collaborative mural that is still intact and in its original location in the world.

    The three-bedroom home at 2147 Ellsworth St. is adorned with the acclaimed street and pop artist’s We the Youth . The mural, painted on the building’s facade, has stood on the corner of 22nd and Ellsworth Streets for almost 40 years.

    “Keith believed that art was for everyone and that art should be accessible, so to have this mural still at this location for nearly 40 years is historically and culturally significant,” said Jane Golden, founder and executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia.

    The mural features an array of Haring’s trademark dancing figures filled with bright colors and patterns. It also has a small garden next to it, affectionately called “Haring Park,” which has been tended by neighborhood residents since the 1980s.

    Keith Haring, who died in 1990, with his painted carousel.

    Haring, who was born in Reading in 1958 and raised in Kutztown, drew the mural over a few days in September 1987, coinciding with the U.S. Constitution’s bicentennial. The title of the mural pays homage to the Constitution’s opening lines.

    Its location was important to Haring.

    He did not want the mural to be in a more upscale, trendy part of the city, one of the mural’s student collaborators, Rita Martello, told online art marketplace Artsy in 2022.

    “He wanted to put it in an actual urban neighborhood,” Martello said to Artsy.

    Invited by two nonprofits that worked with youth, CityKids NYC and Brandywine Workshop, Haring worked with 14 students. While some of the dancing figures are solid colored, others feature unique patterns and symbols, all contributed by the students.

    “Wherever [murals] are, they provide a foundation where change can begin,” said Golden. “They are a vehicle through which important stories are told, and they allow Philadelphia to maintain its status as a global leader in the arts and culture arena.”

    Presently about 1,000 murals are displayed on the sides of residential homes in Philadelphia through partnerships with Mural Arts.

    Erica Bryant mimics a figure from the Keith Haring mural on the Point Breeze house she and her husband own. It is the only mural Keith Haring made with community groups that is still intact.

    Haring, whose preferred medium was chalk, often created works that were not meant to be permanent. We the Youth too was not immune to decay over time.

    In 2013, after Erica and Lucas Bryant of St. Paul, Minn., bought the house, Mural Arts undertook a massive restoration of the piece, adding several layers of paint and a protective coating against the sun, entirely replacing damaged sections, and replacing the chain link fence.

    “Philly is very proud to have a Keith Haring mural and especially one embedded in the community that was done in such a collaborative manner,” said Golden.

    Haring, who started making chalk drawings in the New York subway, first wanted to paint We the Youth on a garbage truck but was refused by the Philadelphia Sanitation Department.

    He died in 1990, from AIDS-related complications at age 31.

    “You can be the only person in the world who lives in a Keith Haring art piece!” boasts the OCF Realty listing for the three-bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom apartment.

    The 1,797-square-foot, three-story rowhouse was renovated in 2020 and has a backyard patio and a roof deck. The property, managed by OCF Realty, rents for $3,295/month.

  • Tina Fey’s ‘The Four Seasons’ renewed for third season

    Tina Fey’s ‘The Four Seasons’ renewed for third season

    (Spoilers ahead)

    The funniest vacation crew is coming back: Tina Fey’s hit romantic comedy series The Four Seasons has been renewed for a third season, Netflix announced this week.

    The show, initially an adaptation of a 1981 film directed by Alan Alda, released its second season in May with its ensemble cast, including Fey, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Marco Calvani, and Erika Henningsen. Each season sees the friend group travel together on four trips throughout the course of one year, going as far as Italy and Puerto Rico and as near as upstate New York and the Jersey Shore (where they filmed in Ocean Grove and Point Pleasant Beach).

    Created by Fey and fellow 30 Rock writers Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher, The Four Seasons has been credited for its realistic and heartwarming portrayal of middle-aged couples in long-term relationships and friendships.

    Fey and Domingo, from Upper Darby and West Philly, respectively, direct some episodes as well. Like their on-screen friendship, the actors have gotten closer as they’ve worked together on the show, they told The Inquirer last month.

    “We grew up so geographically close together. I was like on the very edge of the last street in Upper Darby, and across the street was Cobbs Creek Park,” said Fey, adding that they’re the same age.

    Tina Fey as Kate and Colman Domingo as Danny in Season 2 of the Netflix comedy series “The Four Seasons,” which premiered May 28.

    “I feel like you can see [our friendship] on screen, because it’s actually what has happened personally for us as well, as we got to know each other and each other’s families, each other’s hearts,” said Domingo. “The Jersey Shore location felt very personal for us, because I feel like we grew up there and it brings up [memories].”

    In Season 2, the group is grieving the death of their friend Nick (Steve Carrell) and navigating major life changes, like in the case of Domingo and Calvani’s characters. Danny and Claude move to Italy after deciding not to have children. In the finale, however, the couple decide to move to Danny’s hometown of Philadelphia to care for his aging mother. (Initially, Danny tries convincing his mom to live with them in Italy, but when she hears there’s no Wawa in the country, she simply replies, “Then there’s no Beverly in Italy.”)

    Will Season 3 see the cast spending any time in Philly? The itinerary hasn’t been announced, but we’re holding out hope.

    Cocreator and writer Tina Fey in “The Four Seasons.”

    Calvani, in the Netflix announcement, suggested that Season 3 might feature Danny and Claude’s “other, hotter” friend group; Calvani said he hopes to “explore our gay friends” and Domingo added that it would be fun to “take the straights on that vacation.”

    One potential new addition to the show is Doctor Who actor David Tennant, who made a cameo in the Season 2 finale as a love interest for Kenney-Silver’s character, Anne. Wigfield hinted at the idea of more story lines with Tennant’s character, but his involvement isn’t official just yet.

    “Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield have a magical way of blending heart and sharp humor, making us feel like part of the inner circle,” said Netflix’s vice president of U.S. comedy Tracey Pakosta in the announcement. “Audiences have fallen in love with these characters and this legendary cast’s electric chemistry.”

  • Amy Poehler was cursed out at PHL once and she told Colman Domingo all about it

    Amy Poehler was cursed out at PHL once and she told Colman Domingo all about it

    Amy Poehler had somewhat of a rude welcome when visiting Philadelphia.

    “The only time I’ve ever been called a c-word to my face [was] at the Philadelphia airport [with Tina Fey],” the Parks and Recreation actor said, laughing, on the latest episode of her podcast, Good Hang.

    Poehler’s crime? Saying no to an autograph flipper.

    “Tina turned to me and she goes, ‘Welcome to Philly,’” Poehler added, referring to her close friend, the Upper Darby native and collaborator on last year’s “Restless Leg” comedy tour.

    Her guest on the podcast, West Philly native Colman Domingo, seemed to empathize but also rose to the defense of his hometown.

    “[Philly’s] a city of underdogs. Tina and I, we always talk about that,” said Domingo, who stars in Netflix’s The Four Seasons, on which Fey is a showrunner. “We’re like, there’s something, that Philly in us.”

    Fey, who grew up taking trips to Wildwood, has the characters in Season 2 of The Four Seasons taking their summer vacation at the Jersey Shore, as a nod to her Philly roots. Domingo, who attended Temple University, also vacationed down the Shore, frequenting Margate and Cape May.

    Domingo also recalled several Philly-specific memories from his childhood on the podcast, claiming that his parents “used to always throw the best parties.”

    “We lived in a rowhome in Philadelphia, and [in] the basement, we had a bar down there,” he said, adding that dancing was a big part of those house parties.

    “We dance like, do you remember that show Dancin’ on Air? With Kelly Ripa? They don’t move like that anymore. We moved like we were trying to hurt somebody.”

    Tina Fey as Kate and Colman Domingo as Danny in Season 2 of the Netflix comedy series “The Four Seasons,” premiering May 28.

    And just in case Poehler needed more convincing that Philly is largely a decent and fun city, Domingo made sure to name-check another famous West Philadelphian: Will Smith.

    “He was actually very friendly, everybody really liked him,” said Domingo of his fellow Overbrook High School alum.

    Domingo, whose latest release is Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, definitely has more convincing to do.

    “Philly makes Boston look like London, England,” said Poehler, referring to her Massachusetts hometown. “Philly is wild. [The Phillie Phanatic] is an insane person.”

  • Spotify 20 is like Wrapped — but it includes all your messy years, too

    Spotify 20 is like Wrapped — but it includes all your messy years, too

    Spotify is reading you for filth again, and it’s not even December yet.

    In honor of the streaming service’s 20th anniversary, it’s ready to embarrass you with 20 years’ worth of listening history — or as many years as you’ve used the app.

    The streaming platform dropped Spotify 20 on Tuesday, a feature that lets users look back at their time on the app in a digestible, data-forward and visually aesthetic way.

    It’s kind of like Spotify Wrapped — the popular annual wrap-up — but it sums up decades of users’ ever-evolving music tastes instead of just one calendar year.

    “Spotify 20: Your Party of the Year(s) … gives you a playful, nostalgia-driven look back at your music listening history,” the platform said in a statement. “It reveals the moments that have defined your time with us through never-before-shared data.”

    The feature is only available via Spotify’s mobile app and concludes with a playlist (that’s also desktop-friendly) of your top 120 tracks.

    The wrap-up also tells you: your first day on Spotify, the total number of songs you’ve streamed, the first song you listened to on Spotify, and your all-time most-streamed artist.

    Taylor Swift performs during the first of three Eras Tour performances at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Friday, May 12, 2023. .

    In addition to personal stats, Spotify crunched the numbers for all its users’ listening history over the last two decades. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most-streamed artist across the board over the last 20 years was none other than Berks County native Taylor Swift. The most-streamed song over 20 years was “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd.

    Hilariously, Spotify 20 was a surprise to the general public, meaning users couldn’t try to intentionally manipulate their results the way they do with Wrapped. That said, this is your warning that you have about six months and change until Spotify Wrapped 2026 drops.

    If you’d like to try the Spotify 20 feature yourself, click the prompt within the app or visit spotify.com/20 and scan the QR code with your phone.

  • Some of the best of Griff Davis’ 55,000 historic black-and-white photos are on display at Lincoln University

    Some of the best of Griff Davis’ 55,000 historic black-and-white photos are on display at Lincoln University

    International photojournalist and foreign service officer Griff Davis died in 1993. Since then, his daughter, Dorothy M. Davis, has been on a fierce mission to keep his memory from fading.

    Davis left behind a legacy of 55,000 historic black-and-white images documenting some of the most significant people of the U.S. civil rights and African independence movements. His daughter has spent the past three decades archiving the photographs and curating exhibitions of his work, including “Lincoln University: Through the Lens of Griff Davis,” which is open through May 3 at the university’s main campus in Chester County.

    The exhibit showcases Davis’ photographs of and correspondence with four of Lincoln University’s most well-known alumni: Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Kwame Nkrumah. Lincoln, the nation’s first degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU), was started in 1854.

    Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah raising his fist the moment Ghana became independent from Great Britain, March 6, 1957.

    ‘History provides a sense of purpose’

    Davis captured behind-the-scenes photos of Hughes, a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance, and a young Marshall, who was the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice. His international subjects included Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, and Azikiwe, the first president of Nigeria.

    “These men were in touch with each other and supporting each other,” Dorothy Davis said. “My dad knew them as people. Through his photographs and letters, he supported them.”

    “I was inspired as a student of Lincoln to know I had matriculated at a place where Langston Hughes, Thurgood Marshall, Kwame Nkrumah, and Nnamdi Azikiwe matriculated,” said Gordon Linton, a 1970 Lincoln University graduate and former state representative from Philadelphia who was a catalyst for bringing the exhibit to the school.

    “That sense of history provides a sense of purpose that the university holds for its students,” he said.

    Davis was a campus photographer at Morehouse College in Atlanta as a student. A military stint during World War II interrupted his education, but he returned to Morehouse upon discharge. In 1947, during his final semester, he took a creative writing course with Hughes, who was teaching at nearby Atlanta University.

    That launched a 20-year friendship that lasted until Hughes’ death in 1967. After Davis’ graduation, Hughes helped him obtain his first photography job as Ebony magazine’s inaugural roving editor and encouraged him to attend Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. There, Davis was the only Black American student in the class of 1949.

    Griff Davis and Langston Hughes read Ebony Magazine, 1947.

    From photojournalism to foreign service

    After his graduation from Columbia, Davis worked as an international photojournalist for the newly formed Black Star Publishing Company, the country’s first privately owned picture agency, founded by three Jewish émigrés who fled Nazi Germany. Davis, their first Black photographer, was often hailed for bringing dignity to his subjects.

    “I think my father would say he saw himself as a photographer first and a journalist/writer was close second,” Dorothy Davis said. “He could communicate more accurately with his photos.”

    Her father switched hats and joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1952. His first assignment took him and his new bride to Liberia as the first information officer and audio/visual adviser for the U.S. embassy. Davis worked in many capacities in the Foreign Service for USAID and retired in 1985. Throughout it all, he continued documenting stories with his camera.

    Dorothy Davis was born in Liberia, unaware of what it meant to be American or Black. It was a deliberate move by her parents, who wanted to shield her from the virulent racism of the U.S. and provide her with a multicultural perspective.

    “He was in the present but always aware of the future,” she recalled. “I saw him always turning a moment into a teaching about something.”

    “Lincoln University: Through the Lens of Griff Davis” is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday through May 3 in the Special Collections and Archives department of the Langston Hughes Memorial Library on Lincoln University’s main campus, 1570 Baltimore Pike.

  • What can a short porn film about praying mantises teach us about ‘desire and devotion and sacrifice’?

    What can a short porn film about praying mantises teach us about ‘desire and devotion and sacrifice’?

    The HUMP! Film Festival, the annual tour of DIY adult films made by novices that features a wide range of kink and romance, is returning to Philadelphia on March 27.

    Curated by the popular podcaster and sex columnist Dan Savage, this year’s festival marks the debut of an animated short (porn) film by Philly filmmaker Isabella Akhtarshenas.

    Her film, Prey for Sex, is a stop-motion animation inspired by nature documentaries that showcases the seductive and somewhat violent mating ritual of praying mantises.

    “The man gets his head bitten off early on in the ritual, and they continue having sex while he’s headless, until he dies, basically,” Akhtarshenas, 29, said, summarizing the plot. She designed the female praying mantis character as “very dommy-mom” and her male counterpart as utterly devoted to her.

    An artist based in South Philly, Akhtarshenas conceived and crafted the piece with her romantic and creative partner, Eric Scott, in two weeks last fall, after attending a previous HUMP! Film Festival. (The festival has grown so popular that it now arrives in two parts, one in the spring and one in the fall).

    Akhtarshenas noticed the lineup didn’t include any stop-motion animation, and wanted to change that.

    A clip from “Prey for Sex.”

    She found inspiration in still images of praying mantises and her ”own library” of personal sex videos, and drew each frame in the Procreate app on her iPad. The whole process took about 150 hours, she said.

    She crafted much of it sitting by her mother, who was hospitalized. A hospital bed, she said, was a somewhat incongruous place to bring an animated porn film about praying mantises into being. When it was done, Akhtarshenas was too proud not to share it.

    “I did show it to my family, who was kind of like, ‘OK, I guess!’” she said.

    Out of 400 submissions, Akhtarshenas’s was one of 48 films selected (there are 24 being played in the spring edition and 24 in the fall).

    The female praying mantis is “very dommy-mom,” Isabella Akhtarshenas said.

    This year’s festival will have two showings at FringeArts, one at 6:30 and the other at 9 p.m. An official trailer for the 90-minute compilation highlights elegant rope bondage, lovers in fursuit heads, and a smattering of butts, including one donning a Beyoncé-esque silver-spangled cowboy hat.

    Savage founded Hump in 2005, and often describes it as “not your average porn festival.” Viewers watch the lineup together, which could be a new experience for those accustomed to viewing porn in a more solitary setting.

    The films always feature people (and creatures) of all sizes, ages, races, and genders.

    Akhtarshenas is thrilled to attend the Philly premiere of her film and hopes viewers leave thinking about “desire and devotion and sacrifice.”

    “I want people to feel inspired creatively, more than anything,” she said.

    The 2026 HUMP! Film Festival will host screenings in Philadelphia on March 27 at 6:30 and 9 p.m. For ages 18+. Tickets: $20 plus fees. FringeArts, 140 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd., Philadelphia. Buy tickets here.

  • The Roots Picnic has announced its first headliner for 2026. It’s Jaÿ-Z.

    The Roots Picnic has announced its first headliner for 2026. It’s Jaÿ-Z.

    Last week, we learned that the Roots Picnic is moving to Belmont Plateau, a mile away from its recent home at the Mann Center. Now, we know who the name-in-lights Saturday night headliner is for the 20th edition of the festival.

    It’s Jaÿ-Z.

    The rapper and head of entertainment business powerhouse Roc Nation will perform with The Roots as the closing act on May 30, the first day of the two-day festival. The Roots has a history of playing as Jaÿ-Z’s backing band before, most notably on Jay-Z: Unplugged, the 2001 live album that was part of the “MTV Unplugged” series.

    And who else is playing over the course of the Picnic, whose lineup last year included over 40 acts? That is not yet known.

    Tuesday’s initial announcement includes only The Roots and Jaÿ-Z. Word on the rest of the festival, which is scheduled for May 30 and 31, is expected later this week.

    In a news release, Roots manager Shawn Gee, who is the president of Live Nation Urban, which produces the festival and others around the country, said that booking Jaÿ-Z and bringing the festival to Belmont Plateau both represented the fulfillment of long-time goals for the Philadelphia hip-hop and The Tonight Show house band.

    “Moving the Roots Picnic to Belmont Plateau and bringing Jaÿ-Z and The Roots together to perform are both bucket-list moments for us,” Gee said in the statement.

    The Roots perform on the Mann Stage during the Roots Picnic 2025 at the Mann Center on Sunday, June 1, 2025.

    “After meeting with Mayor Cherelle Parker and hearing her vision for Philadelphia 250, she truly inspired us to dream even bigger,” he said, thanking Parker, Parks and Recreation commissioner Susan Slawson, and Janelle Jones, the city’s director of the office of special events. “We can’t wait to see everyone in May at the Plat.”

    Jaÿ-Z, of course, is no stranger to large scale hip-hop festivals in Philadelphia. From 2012 to 2022, Roc Nation produced the Made in America festival on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Labor Day weekend.

    Jaÿ-Z curated the festival, headlined it in 2012 and 2017, and booked his wife, Beyoncé to play it in 2013 and 2015. The festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and resumed for two years. In 2023, it was planned with Lizzo and SZA as headliners and then abruptly cancelled a month ahead of time.

    The Roots Picnic announces move to the Belmont Plateau

    Roc Nation has never announced that Made in America is over, but the festival did not take place in 2024 or 2025. Jaÿ-Z headlining the Roots Picnic in Philadelphia would certainly seem to be another sign that Made in America is gone for good.

    Another burning question: What’s up with the two dots — a diacritic called an umlaut — over the “y” in Jaÿ-Z’s name?

    The answer is: He started stylizing it that way on all of his branding earlier this year.

    What that might mean is not entirely clear. However, this is an important anniversary year for the Brooklyn rapper born Shawn Carter.

    His debut album, Reasonable Doubt, was released 30 years ago, in 1996. That same year, he released the single “Dead Presidents” with his name stylized as Jaÿ-Z, which is how it was also written on the Reasonable Doubt album cover.

    So, does that mean Jaÿ-Z is launching a Reasonable Doubt anniversary tour, with the Roots Picnic as his launching pad? Or will he be releasing a new album in 2026, which would be his first since 4:44 in 2017? Stay tuned for answers to those questions.

    Tickets for the 2026 Roots Picnic go on sale Wednesday, March 18, at 10 a.m. at RootsPicnic.com.