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happy birthday to this

August 26, 2016 by krisis

On a walk with EV last September.

I – Zina

I am playing a show with my cover band tonight in a bar that is just up the road from my house.

This is not an unusual event. We’ve maintained a steady flow of roughly bi-monthly shows for several years now, and with them we’ve developed a rehearsed rhythm of preparation, load-in, set-up, and breakdown.

The remarkable part of tonight is that it will be my last regular appearance alongside our brilliant drummer Zina for the foreseeable future. I’ve been in three different bands with her since 2010. I’ve reached the point that it’s fait accompli for me to assume any new song I write or learn will make its way to her sticks.

In the days before I met Zina, my guitar playing frequently lacked a tangible rhythm. You couldn’t feel the emphasized beats within my strumming. There was no pulse. At my best, I was writing syncopated song with room for more arrangement within. At my worst (much of which is still creeping around in old posts here), it sounded like I was playing in free time because I never quite complete a measure, so hurried was I to move from each chord to the next.

Zina helped me define the space in my playing – space filled with rhythm, but also space filled with silence. Now I can even find that space when I’m playing on my own.

Hosting RJ’s client event in SF in October.

I am not sad about the show or about Zina leaving the way I was last year when she first broached the subject of her eventual departure. I’m thrilled for her to move on to a new city and new opportunities, but that’s not the only reason I’m not despairing. I’ve learned to accept and adapt to change in this past year like never before. I know that nothing good ever lasts forever, but now I understand that some other good always follows.

In fact, compared to one, five, or ten years ago, the only aspects of my life that have remained constant throughout are playing music, being in a relationship with E, and writing here at Crushing Krisis – as I have been for the past sixteen years as of today, its anniversary. [Read more…] about happy birthday to this

two zoos in two days (and one terrifying capybara)

July 21, 2016 by krisis

E’s sister Jenny has stayed with us many times since we’ve lived in this house and they’ve all been pretty boring.

This is completely paradoxical, as Jenny is a professional museumologist (I should probably ask her what the real word is) and world traveller who loves nothing more than a zoo – or, even a safari (the non-violent kind). Both time I’ve visited her in California have been filled with an assortment of jogging, yoga, movies, dinners, and museums. Yet, E and I are usually exhausted from work and willing to be the ultimate homebodies, so having Jenny stay with us in Philly tends to turn into a lot of lying on the floor and watching Netflix all day. I’m pretty sure we’ve literally done nothing with her on any occasion of her staying here other than leave the house to get food.

Of course, now there is an EV in the equation – we can’t lie on the floor and watch Netflix all day because (a) she isn’t permitted to watch TV and (b) she would spend the entire time walking all over us. Also, (c), you have to feed her something other than tea and cereal. Plus, sitting around the house all day is a little less attractive when you have every day off from work because you quit your job to hang out with a toddler.

Thus, for this Jenny-cation I swore that we’d do some adventuring together with EV. I didn’t intend for that to be entirely crammed into a single 48hr period, but this week’s excessive heat left us with a small window into which we had to cram all of our outdoor action.

2016-06-15 11.30.23 We wound up doing two zoos in two days, and despite hitting various zoos over a half a dozen times in my 10 weeks of toddler concierge service, these past two days were some of the most fun. Jenny provided some much-appreciated tag-teaming, knows a seemingly endless amount of animal facts, facilitated thoughtful engagement with the elements of instructional design that I normally ignore, and even figured out that we got a massive discount at one zoo due to being members of the other one.

Due to Jenny’s zoo obsession and world-traveling habits, it is really hard to find an animal she has never seen before or an animal experience that is completely unique for her, so I pride myself that we were able to tick both boxes yesterday at the Elmwood Park Zoo.

First, there is the peccary, also known as “the skunk pig.” They are the weirdest thing. It’s a slender pig on high, spindly legs with a coat of bristly fur that is nearly reminiscent of a porcupine. When I was first researching Elmwood Park with Mother of Krisis for a visit last month, I was sure that the peccary’s entry on their site was an overripe April Fool’s joke – surely this oddball thing wasn’t an actual animal!

Not only is it actual, but Jenny had never seen one before. They’re honestly not all that exciting to look at, but their slightly ominous, Lord of the Flies dead-eye gaze in photos doesn’t really portray how ridiculous they look in person as they shuffle around to dig in the dirt with their snouts.

2016-07-20 14.12.40 In addition to introducing Jenny to peccaries, we also got closer to a capybara than either of us had even been before. Due to it carefully balancing itself on the edge of its tiny, artificial lakeland home, we were barely an arm’s length away from the creature, and I return to inform you that as the largest rodents in the world capybaras are fucking terrifying.

Like, sure, from afar when they are napping (which is pretty much ALWAYS in my experience) they look like a cute, pillow-sized guinea pig hamster sort of thing that you could snuggle at night, but when you are up close you realize they are a rodent that half as big as you and as solid as a bulldog and they do all of those twitchy little rodent things you’ve seen a hamster do except at about ten times the scale.

That little nose-wrinkle that is so adorable when held in the palm of your hand? When you see it magnified 10x by something that could probably chomp clean through your arm it activates base fight-or-flight instincts in your subconscious lizard brain. They are downright disturbing. It occupies a sort of uncanny valley of unreality that, combined with my terror, made it a struggle to keep my eyes affixed on it for more than a few seconds at a time.

Jenny is with us for a few more days and I’m sure she’ll create many more memories with EV, but for me it will be hard to top that wild kingdom double-whammy on this trip – plus, it gives me something to try to top for the next time she’s in town, and we all know there’s no one I am more competitive with than myself.

Cover songs or originals – which are easier to play?

July 17, 2016 by krisis

We held an unusual rehearsal in our dining room today – three hours of running through the Smash Fantastic cover song repertoire, but as fronted by my Arcati Crisis co-writer and BFF Gina.

An incredibly rare, one-of-a-kind shot of the first time Gina and I performed music together on stage (also the first time I sang solo in public!) This was in 1997 at Masterman, peforming “Sharks Can’t Sleep” by Tracy Bonham. From left to right: me, Joanna, Lucy, and Gina.

The strange arrangement is the result of being asked to play a big benefit show during a week where Ashley will be on vacation. It’s a fun show and we love donating our time to it, so Ashley gave her blessing for us to play it with a fill-in vocalist.

Despite you all knowing Gina primarily for her amazing songwriting and intuitive harmony vocals, she is an awesome interpreter and karaoke veteran. It helps that the rest of the band – Jake, Zina, and I – is the same for both Smash Fantastic and Arcati Crisis.

It was a rollicking rehearsal full of surprises – for example, after over 20 years of friendship I found out that Gina loves “Because The Night” as much as I do, but she does not quite know how to sing Queen’s “Somebody To Love.” We also played a rare pair of our own “Holy Grail” and “Better” with Gina on vocals but not on guitars!

The most interesting part for me was the conversation while we packed up. As we were coiling wires, Gina mentioned off-handedly that she found getting the cover songs right to be much more challenging than playing in an original band.

That took me by surprise! Gina is a confident, experienced singer – I would never expect she would be stressed by cover songs. In fact, I invited her to fill in because I thought she’d find singing two hours of covers a relief in comparison to the stress of shredding through our own songs. However, her reasoning resonated: when you’re covering a song, there’s an existing standard to be held to. As great an interpreter as you may be, you’ve got to get the lyrics right and hit the expected high notes before people will even begin to consider if your performance is any good.

I know that’s the reality, but I’ve never considered it that way. For me, cover songs are a fun vacation from the intense challenge of playing original music.

With cover songs, you simply have to capture the spirit of a song people know well. While Jake tends to hew closely to the real basslines of songs, Zina and I approximate their drum fills and guitar riffs. It’s about verisimilitude. If you give a crowd a hint of the real thing, they don’t notice all the elements you leave out.

That works in our favor on songs for which we can’t quite assemble all the elements of a recording, but it also works in our favor – our covers of “Bang Bang” and “Uptown Funk” dress up the more bare originals considerably with additional passing chords, while even on a classic like “The Way You Make Me Feel” Jake has installed a more propulsive bassline that is only implied in the original.

The first time Gina and I played guitar together in front of people! This was in 1998 at Masterman, playing U2’s “With Or Without You” for the departing senior class. Psychedelic water damage courtesy of my Sophomore year apartment.

By contrast, playing originals is terrifying! The only context the audience has are the notes coming from the stage. There is no earned good will or existing song that will put a smile on their face. And, even when you’re in top shape with a set of good songs, it’s impossible to know when they’re good enough.

It’s like doing yoga – you can always challenge yourself to sink deeper into a pose. I have songs that are nearly 20 years old that I still haven’t mastered playing; I found extra harmony on one just a few weeks ago that makes it sound more like itself than it ever has before.

Gina doesn’t have that anxiety. To her, an original song is something entirely under her control not only to interpret, but to shape and transform. The entire point of the thing is that it belongs to you and it might continue to evolve. That’s nothing to be afraid of – it’s a joy.

I was so intrigued that as best-friends and co-writers Gina and I could differ on this point, but it explains a lot about our relative comfort over the years as performers. There’s no disputing that I’m more vivid and energetically myself on stage in Smash Fantastic, just as Gina is obviously transfixing in Arcati Crisis when she settles into playing an original like “Song for Mrs. Schroeder.”

It will be an interesting eight weeks of getting 30 songs ready for this cover gig, but I think I’m even more intrigued by what Gina and I will know about ourselves afterward when we turn our attention back to originals for the first time in three years.

our supersized supermarkets

July 16, 2016 by krisis

I’ve been thinking about groceries, scale, and the American way.

Last night, while our daughters napped under J’s watch, Lindsay and I absconded to Wegmans for a quick shopping trip slash Pokémon catching session. Yes, you read that right – we had an hour to ourselves and we went grocery shopping for amusement. To be fair, Wegmans is definitely like an amusement park for hungry adults recovering from five hours swimming in a lake with two boisterous young ladies.

Photo by Flickr User Seuss. Some rights reserved.

You could fit an entire French supermarket into this Wegman’s photo. Photo by Flickr User Seuss. 2008, some rights reserved.

I know I’m a little late to coming around to Wegmans – heck, Lindsay grew up shopping at one! Even as I marveled at how Wegmans has every possibly thing (Six different kinds of raw shrimp to choose from! Three different kinds of Tahini! Every single organic vegetable! Liquor and Beer!), I also reflected on the very middle/upper-class American condition of being excited to visit a grocery store that’s as much about leisure as it is about subsistence.

My grocery situation as a small child was all about subsistence. For deli and packs of cigarettes, we had a tiny Vietnamese bodega on our corner, and for other groceries a smallish Stop and Save and Shop or Something on the next block that accepted our food stamps. I remember being mystified by the cheap brands of frozen foods like waffles or steaks that I had never heard of before – because they didn’t advertise on TV.

When an Acme was installed on 80th street it was big news, and the long aisles full of expanded cereal choices and real meat counter seemed like luxuries – likely combined with the fact that we had graduated from welfare with my mom getting her degree and could more readily afford such things.

In college we alternated between a newly-opened Fresh Grocer, which was like a slightly watered-down Whole Foods, and a local Thriftway that Lindsay, Erika and I re-christened “Theftway” for its sometimes-shady customers and peculiar aisle arrangement. Theftway was great for getting cheap name brands, but for anything special, fresh, or healthy we’d take the four block walk to Fresh Grocer.

On our honeymoon the tiny Paris apartment E and I were renting had an impossibly small miniature refrigerator, which meant we needed to restock our food options every other day. That wasn’t so unusual, and the local grocery store reinforced that – it was no bigger than a suburban Wawa and didn’t contain a single super-sized portion of anything. Juices topped out in half gallons, and paper towels came in a max three-rolls-per-pack. When it came to wide varieties, the selection focused on fresh things like cheeses, breads, and juices rather than 100 different kinds of cereal.

We loved it. Bigger doesn’t always have to be better.

Now my local haunt is an impossibly large Giant, which has nearly put our local Acme out of business – it looks dismal by comparison. Not coincidentally, it’s now completely devoid of the upper-middle-class suburban shoppers that used to clog its aisles. After all, Giant has not one but two aisles of healthy and gluten-free foods!

That’s not meant as a knock on GF stuff, since it’s a requirement in our household – more an acknowledgement of the kind of choices that become important to you when you’re not looking for the foods that your WIC check will cover. Recently EV and I had a long wait behind a couple who were trying to figure out what they could cover with WIC checks and what they needed to pay in cash.

After they were finished, the cashier fixed me with a grimace and apologized for the wait. I responded, “No worries, I remember what that was like.”

She gave me a puzzled look in return and started ringing my groceries.

These were my thoughts as Lindsay and I wandered through the stadium-sized Wegman’s. Do we need all of this super-sized choice to be satisfied as consumers? How lucky are we that buying our meals is an act of amusement and convenience? How lucky are we that we can buy them at all?

Monsters and Maps (both digital and physical)

July 14, 2016 by krisis

Yesterday EV and I visited The Academy of Natural Sciences for the first time together!

A cast of a fossilized skull of a T-Rex at Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences.

A T-Rex skull, as shot by EV!

Despite Philly’s bevy of museums, The Academy has always been a sentimental favorite of mine due to its dinosaurs. As an adult, I realize that it represents much more than that as our city’s Science Museum, but as a kid I was less focused on the “science” part and moreso on the part where I could stand next to a full-size T-Rex skeleton. I still get a special thrill every time I visit, although in recent years that been only for trips to the Philly Geek Awards.

The current special exhibit at the museum is called “Dinosaurs Unearthed,” and it gave me one of my first “kids these days!” shaking-of-old-man-cane experiences directly related to parenting EV (because, as they relate to kids in general, I’ve been having those moments since I was six). That’s because this exhibit presents about a half-dozen animatronic dinosaurs at actual scale, and in some cases kids can direct their sounds and movements via a console of light-up buttons.

As an adult whose love for the museum is rooted in seeing fossils, I wasn’t enamored with this brief experience fill with lights and motion. Granted, it was packed with educational content – with more placards to read to EV than appeared with the displays in the rest of the museum. Despite that, I couldn’t help feeling that it was more of a theme park feature than a museum exhibit. Maybe that’s because as an adult I don’t need to see moving dinosaurs to pique my interest in the creatures – I would have probably been more interested in information about the science of how the animalectronics were built!

A more lifelike adolescent T-Rex, which EV was not eager to spend too much time standing in front of.

Yet, I can’t deny the allure for younger kids who aren’t old enough to appreciate the magnitude of seeing casts of million-year-old bones. Maybe this is just anecdotal, but Unearthed seemed to trend pretty heavily towards toddlers through first or second graders compared to the rest of the museum.

Yesterday also marked a week of living in a world of Pokémon Go. Visiting the Academy also gave me a chance to experience the phenomenon in the city and oh my glam the urban play environment is a totally difference from our barren suburbia (or, apparently, from black neighborhoods, which are measurably underrepresented when it comes to gyms and PokeStops).

I first opened the game during one of EV’s intense dino-button-pushing sessions in the special exhibit (yes, I appreciate the irony) to discover that the Benjamin Franklin Parkway was exploding in a rainbow of gyms and lured PokeStops.

While I didn’t want to spend our time in the museum catching creatures, I was interested to see how many people were doing so given articles about how the National Holocaust Museum was pleading with visitors to refrain from playing out of respect. While there were a few other parents idly playing while kids interacted with exhibits, I never saw a critical mass of gamers. Maybe that’s more about the age-range of kids at this museum or its content.

(It did raise some questions for me about how institutions in the physical world have the right to opt in or out of their participation on digital maps. While a museum like The Academy certainly wouldn’t have the types of objections to play that the Holocaust Museum does, they might have other requests – like making certain exhibits a PokeStop or Gym, or even having certain creature-types spawn in the museum.)

It was when we stepped out onto the street that the app exploded into constant vibrations signaling new encounters. I could barely make it a half block without the chance to capture another critter. We were absolutely besieged with them when we stopped for lunch at Mama’s Vegetarian (another EV first!) and a treat at Shake Shack.

2016-07-13 12.26.45 (I sorely miss the food options of working in Center City every day, but not the corresponding money expenditure or caloric intake.)

We eventually made it down to Rittenhouse Square, and it was there that I finally experienced Pokémon Go as a social phenomenon. The park was teeming with obvious trainers orbiting a lured stop in the middle of the park. It was so visible that I felt the need to finally clue EV in to what I have been doing on my phone all week by way of explanation. When EV and I stopped to catch a Horsea in one of the fountains (our first water creature!), folks started chatting us up about where we typically hunt and what sort of creatures we find there.

Despite the allure of digital monsters in the park, I was charmed when EV tugged on my sleeve and demanded not to catch another Pokémon, but to return to The Academy of Natural Sciences to push a few more dinosaur buttons despite being visibly exhausted and in need of a nap. I’m not usually one to accede to every toddler demand, but that was one I was very happy to fulfill.

(I’m sure a facet of that is the fact that we don’t do any electronic button types of toys in our house, but that’s a post for another day.)