Ross Bender

The Great Baltimore Avenue Sinkhole Disaster Ross Bender

Ye Olde University City Village, huddled in the shadow of the University of Pennsylvania, a Proud Ivy League Institution, has seen it all, and yet it continues to see visions, dreams, and hallucinations. In my thirty odd years as a chronicler of the Village I have observed its denizens and their doings and vicissitudes, sometimes from a safe distance and sometimes as a participant observer of the various frenzies and hysterias. This collection of tales, advertisements for myself, and essays covers the two decades since the onslaught of the twenty-first century. The focus, if their is a focus, is on the fraught town and gown relationships between Penn, fondly known to Villagers as the 800-pound Gorilla, and the denizens of UC Village. A special feature of this collection are the essays on cognitive science, including those written at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science from 2003-2004. The Institute, or IRCS, is now happily defunct. Longtime UC Villagers may recognize themselves and their escapades in these stories, and may or may not revel in them.