FIC SEPTEMBER PROGRAMS
September 3, Tuesday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Roberta Kangilaski is our Quarterback.
September 5, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Larry Platt. His topic – Could Voter Turnout in Philadelphia Be a November Shocker?
Media professional, pundit, and seasoned political observer Larry Platt wrestles with the concern that turnout in Philadelphia might just determine outcome in the presidential election. He’ll size up the state of Philadelphia politics from City Hall to Harrisburg in this election season, and beyond.
In 2015, Larry co-founded The Philadelphia Citizen, a nonprofit digital media outlet described as combining “solutions-based journalism, calls to action and civic-minded events with the goal of bolstering democracy in the American city where it was born.” He edited Philadelphia Magazine from 2002 to 2010 and the Philadelphia Daily News in 2011 to 2012. An author of several books, including Every Day I Fight (2015), the NY Times bestselling memoir of ESPN’s Stuart Scott, he has also written for many national publications, including GQ, the New York Times Magazine, and New York. His credits as a film producer include the 2023 Emmy-nominated documentary Kelce and the 2018 film We Town, which chronicles the basketball program at Westtown School – the West Chester college prep school noted for turning out NBA players. A native Philadelphian, Larry now lives in Ardmore with his wife Bet, who teaches third grade.
Video: To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation
September 9, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Russell Cooke is our Quarterback.
September 12, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Peter Barberie. His topic – Early Photography: Through the Lens in Philadelphia and Beyond.
Peter Barberie will discuss his research on photography’s first decades in the Western Hemisphere, rooted in Philadelphia’s role in the invention and advancement of the medium.
Peter is the Brodsky Curator of Photographs in the Alfred Stieglitz Center at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since 2005 he has organized more than twenty-five exhibitions and edited and authored six books and numerous other publications, many of which embody his efforts to connect the museum with broad public audiences. His past projects include Zoe Strauss: Ten Years (2012); Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography (2014); Long Light: David Lebe (2019); Richard Benson: The World Is Smarter Than You Are (2021); and Judith Joy Ross (2023). Peter holds a BA in art history from the University of Connecticut, Storrs. He earned his MA and PhD in the history of photography and modern art at Princeton.
September 16, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Dick Ullman is our Quarterback.
September 20, Friday Club Dinner, starting at 5:30 p.m.
Speaker is Signe Wilkinson. Her topic – Beyond Words: Politics, Absurdities, Debacles, and Other Human Events.
In her own words, “Signe Wilkinson is the semi-retired Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News cartoonist who divides her time between searching for her reading glasses, trying to remember her to-do list, getting distracted by almost anything, and emergency babysitting one or the other of her two batches of grandkids conveniently – or sometimes inconveniently – located nearby. Her main exercise is gardening and biking around town on errands. Her various awards don’t help with any of this. If you want her to pick up milk for you at the grocery store, please let her know.”
Signe, who loves anything named after Benjamin Franklin, brings us the work of her keen eye, with insights on Pennsylvania politics, Philadelphia’s new cast of characters in City Hall, and a cartoonist’s critique of our Presidential candidates’ hair styles.
September 23, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Richard Pasquier is our Quarterback.
September 24, Movie Night at the Inn – Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times – starting at 6:00 p.m.; feature at 6:30 p. m.
No charge for admission or snacks and drinks including popcorn, chips, nuts, sodas, beer, and wine.
September 26, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Norman Badler. His topic – Visualizing the Past: Using Computer Graphics to Reconstruct Ancient Cultures
Archaeologists and anthropologists try to understand ancient cultures through artifacts, but their object-oriented work often leaves them guessing about the human element. How did the people of bygone cultures manage to accomplish everyday tasks, harness their landscape, and thrive? Norman Badler will show us answers that he, his colleagues, and students have found by using 3D computer graphics to reconstruct ancient sites, especially in Pre-Columbian South America. He’ll also showcase two recent geospatial projects at Cesium GS, a geospatial software company in Old City that offers an open platform for software applications designed to convert data into 3D images: The Universal Navigation Interface to Civilization (UNICiv) enables placement and display of 3D archaeological site models in space and time, and Map2Model reconstructs houses in 3D using 2D map data from the Sanborn 1940 insurance maps housed at the Library of Congress.
Norman Badler, a Penn professor emeritus who taught computer graphics for almost 50 years, is currently head of research for Cesium. He developed the interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in digital media design in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Penn, and he directed a successful research lab, with tangible real-world outcomes, products, and graduates. For over 20 years, he also co- taught the undergraduate course “Visualizing the Past; Peopling the Past” with Penn anthropology professor and museum curator Clark Erickson. His autobiographical account of virtual human developments, due for publication this month by Springer Nature, is titled On Raising a Digital Human: A Personal Evolution.
September 30, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Franklyn Rodgers is our Quarterback.