Articles by Charlie Szwartz

News & Features May 18, 2017

Spring Concert Preview

May is here – and that means it’s time for the Middle School Instrumental and Choral Concert this Friday at 7 pm! These students have been giving up advisories and working tirelessly for over 4 months to showcase their musical talent through their musical instruments, voices, and even iPads. Plus, performers and viewers can end the night with cookies and lemonade. So, what should you expect? The evening will begin with performances from the orchestra. The first piece that will be played is the overture from “The Magic Flute,” an opera written by the famous W.A. Mozart. We will then move to another overture, a waltz-like piece known as “The Beautiful Galatea” by Franz von Suppé. The third piece that we will play is unique in the way that three students of Friends’ Central composed it; two of us are writing this article. Ben Allen, Charlie Szwartz, and Liam Giszter…

Drama, News & Features March 17, 2017

Play Preview: Sally Cotter and the Censored Stone

Hi! This is Tucker, Kyle, Jacob, Dev, and Charlie, and we are writing about Sally Cotter and the Censored Stone! This play will be performed this Friday at 7pm, and Sunday at 2pm. Following the Sunday performance will be an ice cream social! Plot This is a parody of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone with some parts from The Chamber of Secrets. Sally falls asleep after reading Harry Potter and in her dream she shows up at her first day at Frogbull Academy of Sorcery and Sorceressness. (No not Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, “because satires are completely protected from copyright infringement”.) Along the way she meets Dave and Harmonica. They become best of friends. They also meet some not so nice people such as Ursa and Shiftia Shape. As Sally struggles throughout the school year, she discovers the Censored Stone, a magical rock that grants the user…

February 22, 2017

App Unwrap: Swift Playgrounds

Today we are going to highlight an App(le)* that teaches you Swift for free, called Swift Playgrounds. Swift is the coding language that Apple uses to make many of their apps and operating systems, including Playgrounds itself. A coding language is a special type of language that computers understand. Different coding languages do different things. For example, HTML and CSS can create websites, while JavaScript and C Sharp are primarily used for making video games, and so on. This is the home screen. It shows all of the “playgrounds” that you have. A “Playground” is basically an area to experiment with code. I have downloaded many from the store, but we’ll get to that later. Click on the + to create a new blank playground, or click on one that you already worked on to open it. If you don’t know how to code using Swift, no problem! The “Learn…

News & Features, Opinions February 1, 2017

Everything Super Bowl

Jacob and Charlie here, and we are going over everything Super Bowl! Overview Charlie here, and here is a quick overview of the Big Game itself. It is the championship game of the National Football League, featuring the winner of the American Football Conference and the winner of the National Football Conference. It is usually held on the first Sunday of February, unofficially known as Super Bowl Sunday. This year Super Bowl 51 is held on February 5, airing on FOX at 6:30 pm. Every year the Super Bowl is held at a random venue, this year’s being held at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. Last year the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 24-10, and this year’s participants are the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons. Who will win? The Teams Patriots Charlie again, and the New England Patriots have been one of the…

News & Features January 25, 2017

Phoenix Game Day Teams Revealed

Recently, the teams and advisories for the 2017 Phoenix Game Day have been revealed! Start preparing your outfit. And if you don’t know what team you are on, consult this list: The sixth grade is divided by current special rotations with one teacher per team: Art (Adamczyk): Red Drama (Barry): Yellow Music (Guenther): Blue Quakerism (Tozer): Green The seventh grade is divided by homerooms, with McDonald split among all 4 teams: Mutchnick: Green Kenealy: Yellow McDonald: Split* Maw-Deis: Blue Chagan: Red The eighth grade is divided by homerooms, with Davis and Morsa split among all 4 teams: Davis: Split* Pidot: Red Fogel: Blue Morsa: Split* Dr. Z: Green Magistra: Yellow *For split advisories, see your advisor for team distributions. So there you have it! Thanks for reading, and get cheering!

News & Features January 11, 2017

The Phoenix Inquirer is Back and Better than Ever!

The 2016-17 school year has been a very interesting year for The Phoenix Inquirer. From service issues to social media, this year represented a year of growth and change for the newspaper. First of all, as the new school year started, we have gotten a bunch of new members in all three grades, plus our first members from the Class of 2023. And while we did lose some newspaper legends (such as Julian Brenman ‘20, Evan Sweitzer ‘20, and Liam Giszter ‘21), it has been made up with all of our newest members. In the first months of the new school year, the “new”spaper got to work immediately, publishing tons of new content, and by also entertaining the rest of the Middle School through videos and assembly announcements. From “Hexudoku” to “PhoenixTechTips,” the month also had tons of new series and debuts from new members. Shortly after, home.friendscentral.org shut down….

News & Features January 4, 2017

Restaurant Review: SNAP Custom Pizza

SNAP Custom Pizza 4 Station Avenue, Ardmore Welcome to the second ever Phoenix Inquirer Restaurant Review! This is Charlie and Tucker, collaborating yet again. This time, we are traveling all the way to Ardmore to check out one of the best pizza places in the Main Line (or as Tucker calls it, “the main lime”): SNAP Custom Pizza.

Opinions February 3, 2016

Restaurant Review: Saffron Indian Kitchen

Saffron Indian Kitchen 145 Montgomery Avenue, Bala Cynwyd Here we introduce our newest regular column: the Phoenix Inquirer Restaurant Reviews! The two of us, Liam and Charlie, are searching around the world (or at least the Philadelphia area) for some of the best restaurants around. From an amazing Asian steakhouse to that taco place that everyone is talking about, we’ve found the greatest places to find the most mouth-watering food around.

News & Features December 16, 2015

MS Music Concert Leaves Crowd Wowed

Last Friday, December 4, many Friends’ Centralites were blown away by the amazing performances from the Middle School Orchestra, Jazz Band, iPad Ensemble, and Chorus in the Meeting Room. While some people came for the cookies and lemonade, even they were raving about the musical talent in our Middle School. The night got off to a great start when the FCS Middle School Orchestra took the stage at Shallcross Hall, performing songs such as the Star Wars main theme and “Born this Way” by Lady Gaga. Violins were in action, cellos were playing along, flutes and trumpets blasted their notes, and drummers were adding cool sound effects to help the Orchestra with their songs. Next, the iPads were out as the iPad Ensemble (it wasn’t really an ensemble, as it consisted of only sixth and seventh graders (Skylar Davis ‘21, Sammy Darling ‘21, Sam Kazak ‘21, Liam Giszter ‘21, Benna…

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