FAST FACTS ABOUT PHILADELPHIA
--The word "Philadelphia," from the Greek, literally means "Pennsylvania."
--It has the highest number, per capita, of Benjamin Franklin impersonators in the country.
--Someday all of the Benjamin Franklin impersonators will fight all of the Mark Twain impersonators, flooding valleys and destroying whole towns in their wake, until nothing is left.
--Harrison Ford lives here and protects Amish children.
--Bryn Mawr College, a small but esteemed school of witchcraft and wizardry in the city's western suburbs, is sometimes visible by day.
--Philadelphia is at the cutting edge of some of today's most exciting new developments in sandwich technology. The sandwiches here are so large and complex and sublime that they contain whole philosophies. Some have the complete oral traditions of several ancient cultures hidden within the roll alone.
--Philadelphia was one of the thirteen East Coast cities called "home" by Edgar Allen Poe, and it was here that he hosted the first of his many Christmas Literary Extravaganzas. Held in 1839, it was, by contemporary accounts, a grand affair, involving feats of literary memorization and drunken sword canery, and a chorus line of murderous orangutans. Poe was dressed as Santa Claus, but at this point in his career this was hardly unusual. After reciting "Tamerlane," he famously brought out his child bride Virginia and seated her on his lap. "What would you like from Santa this year?" he asked. And she replied, "The modern detective story." And so he invented it then and there, writing "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" using only a checkerboard, a bottle of brandy, and a map of Paris. At this point, the police chased Poe back to Baltimore.