When they got to the camera car, people had a weird compulsion to. . . take a picture.
We thought the most amazing thing to happen at this year’s Artscape was the human foosball game over near Penn Station. Harnessed to white plastic pipes, the players scooted from side to side, kicking a mooshy orange ball and making up in hysterical enthusiasm for what they lacked in 360-degree spin capability.
Human foosball was a kick.
Even more amazing, though, was what ensued when former Baltimore Sun correspondent Antero Pietila sauntered up to the table where Sun folks were trying to entice people to sign up for home delivery with discount coupons for movie passes and restaurant meals.
The heck with standing on principle about the dismantling of the Fourth Estate, etc. etc. You could get a coupon for a free oil change!
((To read Pietila’s story – and to see if you turned up in our Artscape photos — click here.))
This is how I canceled The Baltimore Sun:
One night two years ago I got a call from the circulation department. “The reason you have not received your paper is that you owe us $37,” a voice informed me. I said that I had been receiving the paper just fine and it was impossible for me to owe anything because I was on auto-pay.
Turns out, The Sun had not charged my credit card had for some time because the paper had lost my records. I told the man that if that was how the paper was run, it deserved to go out of business.
This is how I restarted The Sun:
At Artscape on Saturday, an energetic solicitor at The Sun tent grabbed my wife, who sicced her on me. I was told that for $19.62 I would get a subscription, an umbrella with comics characters, a $10 gift certificate to Wal-Mart and a book of discount coupons that entitled me to a free second movie ticket after I purchased the first one, a free second restaurant entree, a free oil change and so on.
Checking out the freebies at the Sun's booth at Artscape.
“I need a house,” I told her, thinking I might be able to finagle one hell of a deal.
“You need what?” she said. “But you have a house.”
The deal also included some hilarity, with the eager solicitor telling me that my billing problems had been due to “the old Sun” and that things now were new and much improved because “everything is done in Chicago.” Priceless, but for once I kept quiet.
Karaoke booths were popular with girls.
We’ll see how this goes. I seriously doubt that The Sun is the newspaper I need but I have also received equally attractive offers from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. I’m seriously considering the latter; I get The Times on weekends.
The truth is that while I have become accustomed to reading the news for free on computer, I miss papers. The best of them offer packages that the Internet cannot match by making my eyes scan through headlines and stories that are irresistible. My favorite is a WSJ story a few years back. It was 18 paragraphs about sawdust, as the lede warned. An arcane but remarkable development had occurred in the sawdust industry. Damned interesting.
The Man-Woman looked less lonely.
On North Charles Street, Artscape was all about seeing things a little differently.
High kilt quotient on Charles Street.
I would be less than honest if I did not disclose another reason for my willingness to try The Sun again: the city’s new weekly collection of recyclables. I can get rid of accumulated old newspapers quickly and, as the solicitor at Artscape pointed out, I can cancel the subscription any time.
Antero Pietila worked for The Sun from 1969 to 2004 as a reporter, foreign correspondent in Africa and the Soviet Union, and a member of the editorial board. He lives in Cheswolde with his wife, Barbara, and unruly dog, Obie. He’s a good sport to let us splice his story together with our Artscape photo diary.
