Betty Bourbon’s P.O.P.E. Mural

The Pub on Passyunk East went old-school in the girls’ bathroom department. Not like lye-and-a-hole old-school, but like 6th grade Tiger Beat style: pictures of Matt Dillon, the Coreys (I was a Feldman girl, I admit, Haim struck my 11-year-old hormones as too wimpy) and notes about boys and wanting to touch it.

South Philly’s Betty Bourbon plastered up the pages with shellac and glitter. Will it cause couple fights like the porn wallpaper at Sugar Mom’s? Probably not.

When I retire to open my bar in Philly, I’m going to wallpaper it with blow-ups from the Big Book of Penises (NSFW, depending where you work). It’s from Taschen, so it’s ART.

Alison Dilworth’s Cinderblock Party

It’s no secret I have this thing for Day of the Dead and Mexican folk art.

It’s an open secret that I also have a thing for Ali Dilworth, an artist living in South Philly. She’s one of those full-time artist people, always painting or writing or building human-sized old-lady puppets or pasting into books.

So when I went to a party at her house last year I FREAKED at the mural she painted across the cinderblocks that line her little South Philly backyard.

Dilworth’s last mural was the ancient-flowery-feministy bathroom piece in Sassafras in the OC. You can see pix of that mural and other projects on Alison’s website.

Alison reports she’s currently finishing up a top-secret bathroom mural to be revealed shortly. She’s mum on where. Sticks & Stones? Stogie Joe’s? She ain’t saying. A pro!

Meanwhile, SoPhi’s Betty Bourbon just finished up a collage mural in the P.O.P.E.’s bathroom. We’ll post pix of that soon, since you may not notice it the first time in the darkling throes of last call and it totally uses pictures of naked Burt Reynolds and his reclining, hirsute glory.

More pix of the Day of the Dead mural:

Bonus points to anyone who can point out who the people are in the painting–all Philly artists. Metaphorical meta? My head’s caving in.

Where’s Alison? Hint: there’s a thunder rolling.