Where we left off on Monday night, I stayed up until 1 AM doing reading, editing my segment of the presentation (and composing an annotated bibliography) and what not (oh and posting my thoughts on both Viral Spiral and Everything is Miscellaneous). Thus, perhaps I wasn't at my freshest on Tuesday. I set my alarm to 7 every day except Sunday (where I set it to 8), which didn't leave too much time to walk down to campus by 8:30-9 (the range of when we started at Allen Hall each day). Skipping the hotel breakfast and forgoing both Crazy Mocha's coffee (which, again, is excellent)and Bruegger's Bagels (OK at best), I decided to try Cafe Brioche, which is conveniently located directly across the street from Allen. Anyway, I can't recommend it enough for a quick breakfast! Their egg and chesse croissants and iced coffee are both excellent. I would end up grabbing another one on Wednesday.
First up was a "combined session" on LIS 2000 and LIS 2600 between 8:30 and 11. After that, we walked over to the SIS building and although we were scheduled to meet with Elizabeth Mahoney, we were in a computer lab with another librarian. We went over the answers to a questionnaire that they had given us yesterday. In the interest of not being unprepared for this (even though it wasn't being graded), I attempted to answer all of the questions on the sheet. All involved using the Pitt libraries site and I managed to figure out 3 of the 5 questions on my own. Of course, this attempted to me not getting that much sleep the night before, but that's the trade-off.
Oh, I should also mention that my group was able to meet after the combined session and before we went to the SIS building again. Originally, we were scheduled to meet right after the SIS presentation, but this left the entire day and evening open.
Given the SIS's building proximity to the bus stop at Forbes and S. Craig, I wandered over to S. Craig to catch the 61C bus to Squirrel Hill. I'd also spent part of the previous evening writing down directions related to my plans for the "exploratorium". Luckily, this proved really handy. Before catching the bus, though, I wandered over to a record store on S. Craig called Desolation Row. It's not really a record store, but just a new CD and vinyl section and a decent used CD section in a corner of a used bookstore called Calihan Book Shop that's visible from the street. I didn't get anything there and though I was a bit hungry, I decided to try a place I'd heard about in Squirrel Hill (Uncle Sam's) and so I held off. After the 61C bus didn't come for 20 minutes, I gave up on got on the 61B bus. It said "Forbes/Squirrel Hill", so I figured I'd get off somewhere there and take it from there. I asked the sullen bus driver if she went to the corner of Forbes and Murray and she didn't even answer me. Oh well.
Despite this unpleasant encounter, here's where Pittsburgh's Port Authority buses have a huge advantage over the SEPTA buses here in Philly or for that matter, the MTA buses in New York City. Near the front, there's a screen that reads off the cross streets at each stop! That's a common sense solution that so many other bus systems should adopt, but don't. So anyway, once the sign said Murray, I got off. Squirrel Hill is nice. Really nice. It's loaded with restaurants and other shops of all sorts and there's a bustling commercial strip along a few blocks of Forbes. My ultimate destination was Jerry's Records (which I'll get to later), but first it was lunch at Uncle Sam's. I'd heard from some food bloggers that the one in Oakland isn't quite as good as the other locations, so I decided to try the one here. Let me tell you, it didn't not disappoint. It got an oddly-named Italian sausage sandwich that really hit the spot. Now onto record shopping!
Murray Street, like much of the rest of Pittsburgh, seems to reside on a large hill, so of course walking down 4-5 blocks to get to Jerry's was fine. If you're a record collector, Jerry's is definitely a great place to visit. Most of the records are $3 and they have almost every kind of music you can imagine on vinyl (including soundtracks, exotica, novelty records by Hollywood stars, etc.) and not a single CD. I know there are lots of record collectors still out there and a younger generation of music listeners who didn't grow up with CDs and eschew downloads for vinyl (or combine both, in some cases), but I wonder how this place survives. It doesn't seem to have too many new releases or rarities that pull in a lot of cash, either. In any case, I'm glad that it's still there, as it looks like it hasn't changed in 30 years or so. I will say that the hostility towards CDs and anything else digital in general is a little off-putting. I love vinyl, but I have room in my life for CDs and mp3s as well. What was also off-putting was the owner's seemingly anti-Philadelphia attitude. I realize that people from Pittsburgh have pride in their city. That's fine. If I lived there, I would, too. It's a GREAT town and I can't wait to go back there in October. But I just don't understand the rivalry between it and Philadelphia. It goes both ways, too, of course. I didn't grow up in PA, so I guess I'll never get it. From my vantage point, Pittsburgh seems to have way more in common with Philly than with most of the rest of Pennsylvania, but whatever. Anyway I got a Will Rigby Lp and an Lp by a band called Senator Flux, both sealed. They were $3 and $5 each, respectively. Awesome!
After walking up the hill to Forbes to catch the 61B and then walking from the Forbes/S. Craig corner (I looked for a 54C but couldn't find one, so I just walked it) back to my hotel, I was drenched in sweat! I had to meet Ian for dinner and was running late. After changing and making myself look halfway decent in record time, we went to Tessaro's in Bloomfield (I think). This place is known as a must for burger fans and it definitely lived up to its reputation. The beer (a locak brew on draft, though I forgot the name) was great, too! After dinner, we headed over to the Southside Flats neighborhood (E. Carson St. reminds me a bit of South St. here in Philadelphia) to see Black Francis of the Pixies play a solo show at Club Cafe. Initially, we got a little lost in Bloomfield and ended up in Lawrenceville. The directions I'd written down were from the hotel, so I realized that we had to go back to North Oakland before going over the Birmingham Bridge. Luckily, there were signs everywhere and it's not too far from Oakland, so were able to find E. Carson St. in the course of a few minutes. The show was sold out, but fortunately I was on the guest list (thanks Adam at Magnum PR), so we didn't have any problems. The show was great. He started at 8, played for over 2 hours and entertained questions from a local radio DJ (a station was broadcasting the first hour of the concert) as well entertaining requests from the audience. And yes, there were lots of Pixies songs! After that, we were both tired, so we went back to the hotel, where I checked my e-mail to make sure everything was OK with our presentation and then went off to bed.
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