THE BAD BUNNY EFFECT: DEBÍ TIRAR MÁS FOTOS ALBUM REVIEW GERALD BROWN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOVA LYNNE.
THE POSSIBILITIES OF DANCE AND ARCHITECTURE
IF YOU’RE FLOATING IN THE OCEAN, THE WAVES ROCKING YOU INTO BLISS, ARE YOU DANCING?: INTERVIEW WITH QRTR LOGAN CRYER.
HOW TO LISTEN TO “I WANNA PICK YOU UP” BY THE BEACH BOYS GOD ONLY JOES
LUCY DACUS AT FDR PARK: MAKE THE WORLD BETTER CONCERT REVIEW TOM BAUMSER
16 FIND YOUR WAY IN: LYDIA SOMANI . . . . 18-19
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When Tom sent a text apology for his concert review having a larger word count than planned, I replied, “Ur good! Everyone has a long piece this round lmao.” He aptly responded:
Orange Crate Magazine Opps! All Longs!
Turns out this was a summer of contemplation. The contributors of Issue 0003 brought their A-game, devlving deeper than ever before and bringing some crazy insight into what art means in our lives. Check it out for yourself. And, hey! Please support the businesses that support this magazine. We are grateful for them and for everyone who makes Orange Crate possible (special shout out to this issue’s steering group, Yuri and Joe!)
I’d probably go with “clatter” which is a descriptor I return to when I think about anything from my own routine clumsiness to riding a scooter around Nepal and taking in the circuit of busses with luggage on top riding on top of cobbled roads, ancient gravel, woven sacks of metal lunch dishes.
where’s a place you’ve recorded that still exists vividly in your ears?
My partner Matt is also a sound nerd from RPI, and routinely takes me into various railroad tunnels up and down the C&O Canal. He knows each of their mapped sonic intricacies, and the way the air moves at different times of year. There is a unique echo in a particular tunnel in the Catoctins, where upon standing at a point about 1/3 in you get a mix of natural reverbs-- like every type. We have lots of recordings from this tunnel, clarinets, screeching, hooting, singing, clapping. The secondary sound is listening for approaching trains for safety reasons, which pass through often since commuter rail lines between DC and NYC utilize this historic tunnel.
what’s the smallest or subtlest sound you’ve ever sculpted a piece around?
I tend to work with hydrophones and the rule of thumb is -- what you think is going to sound amazing does not. (Cascading multi-tiered waterfalls are just nature’s white noise, even below the surface.) I was stationed on an upper ledge of Cunningham Falls trying to drag a waterfall tunnel system. It gets these little rocky pools that are connected from below. My hydrophone delivered the most unrepeatable and unique resonant “plop” (how’s that for onomatopoeia) which ended up being pitched into a drum kit using a sampler on my eurorack modular for an IDM style work. I have never heard anything like it, I cannot repeat it, it’s less than a second.
I am Carolyn Zaldivar Snow, aka Tangent Universes, sound journo Tape Op, Sound Scene co-organizer at Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, my bangs are alright and I cut them myself with $3 scissors.
i’m endlessly fascinated by the ways we engage with our sonic environment—the feedback loop of how sound shapes us, how we shape it, and the ephemeral sound memories that linger without intent or structure. these mini-interviews explore the ambient pockets within the sonic worlds of friends and artists, focusing on sounds that haven’t gone unnoticed. –yuri seung.
let your ears pick a single sound from this recording to walk with. which do you choose, and where does it lead you?
tell me: hear.here.yuri@proton.me
tell me about a moment when technology revealed something about your body or your sound that you’d never heard before.
With a geophone sensor inside my body amplifying through a subwoofer, my footsteps shake the whole room. Even the tiniest motion felt colossal, resonating different parts of the room as I moved.
when you’re performing body drumming, what do you find yourself listening for at the moment of impact?
I listen to the impact sound of hitting my body and then what starts to vibrate in the performance space. That resonance map becomes my compass when I perform blindfolded.
describe the traces of sound or sensation that have stayed in your body long after a performance.
Ever since I switched to the big drumsticks for (DaGu), the direct impact doesn’t hurt that much anymore. What stays is feeling liberated from my own body, and being half-naked onstage doesn’t stress me like it used to.
what’s a sound in your work that could only come from you, and where you come from?
A delicately controlled feedback sound through the human system, in any way possible. It is my dream to become part of the sounds I make.
Qiujiang Levi Lu, experimental musician, performance artist, composer.
what do you listen for when deciding who to invite to play in your living room?
I listen for a question. Every performer I’ve invited has left me asking why and how. An invitation to play at Clubfriends is a way to find an answer, in the context of their performance, and in community with those who might be just as curious.
*Every performance has a built-in Q&A format. After each track is performed, the audience is invited to ask questions specific to what the particular moments prompted. what other sounds—besides the music—help shape the atmosphere in your space?
Silence, actually. Or the “absence” of sound. They might not be the same thing. Over time, I’ve come to experience my record collection as an art collection. The cover art, liner notes, CD booklets with lyrics imposed on images are strong enough to stand alone. Exploring these items in silence, independent of the music that accompanies them, is a tactile and visual experience. I want people to be able to touch them, stare at them, gaze at them, before they feel a need to listen to them. The physical media is just a functional and decorative as my modular midcentury modern pieces. It makes the space make sense as a multipurpose living and entertainment experience.
since you started hosting these gatherings, how has your way of listening to music changed?
I’ve learned new ways to communicate what I’m hearing and feeling. My ears are attuned to what I now have language for. Including but not limited to, “angular” music full of surprises and unpredictability. I’m less afraid of improvisation, the offputting, the thing that’s not gonna hit on the dancefloor. This is all a result of the audience being curious and guest performers being generous with their answers.
Alexa Colas, Creator of Clubfriends Radio & Records, exploring music centric experiences
bonus! Carolyn touches on a mysterious fleeting sound. scan to read the full interview.
THE BAD BUNNY EFFECT: DEBÍ TIRAR MÁS FOTOS ALBUM REVIEW GERALD BROWN
Some say the album Un Verano Sin Ti is untouchable, while others are convinced the maturity of Debí Tirar Más Fotos finally solidified Bad Bunny’s throne as a global superstar. Whether it’s capturing his dreamy singing or playful rapping over classic salsa oldies, Benito, aka Bad Bunny, uses nostalgia as a recurring element in his music. And as his fame increases, he actively chooses not to stray from his roots. Known for mixing in a variety of older Latinx genres to articulate the connection between contemporary reggaeton and these historical sounds, Bad Bunny teases this out on Un Verano Sin Ti and builds Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ musical thesis around it. The former album ran, so the latter could stroll; the success of this technique established his ingenious skills, affording him more room to be himself in his newest project.
Bad Bunny’s notoriety as a mainstream artist with distinctive connections to his origins has launched him into a new stratosphere with the likes of Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar. He rolls out club bangers and deep cuts that possess deeper cultural messaging that resonate with millions around the world. “Después de la Playa” on Un Verano Sin Ti is akin to the placement of “King Kunta” on To Pimp a Butterfly. Both songs create a sense of insular cultural pride while offering a history lesson for those new to the party. On his most recent album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny takes this a step further, using the entire project to introduce historical Puertorican genres such as Plena and Bomba, music with Black diasporic roots that has transformed the sound of the island, as well as all of Latin America. Akin to Beyoncé’s country album Cowboy Carter, Debí Tirar Más Fotos highlights these origins that are foundational to larger popular genres to fuel the album’s main thesis.
Successful music icons have the power to turn a casual listener into a researcher, voluntarily digging through musical and historical archives to learn more behind the hidden messages. Some may question if this power has real weight in the long run. The testament to the strength behind this talent lies in its ability to invite the listener to be introspective and ask themselves hard questions. In DtMF, Bad Bunny leans into this superpower by asking mainland Americans (and the world) to interrogate their relationship to imperialism, without requiring them to look too far abroad.
Throughout the album, Benito celebrates and critiques the bridge between the United States and Puerto Rico. Immediately, in the intro song, “NUEVAYoL”, he creates parallels between the origins and ascension of hip hop in New York City to those of reggaeton in Puerto Rico. He is rapping over Willie Colon like Biggie rapped over The Isley Brothers, showcasing how these respective childhood staples (and NYC) are the bedrock of the next contemporary flow and music innovation.
As the album progresses, Bad Bunny shares how PR’s proximity to the US as a territory allows outsiders to feel entitled to the land and to push out natives. Many of the songs incorporate a variety of elements to capture the messiness of the issues. Sometimes these sentiments can be heard in the audio alone; the solemness in “TURiSTA” or the eerie fear in “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii”. In the latter, Bad Bunny links the fate of Hawaii with a future fate for Puerto Rico, as both islands experience exploitation and devastation via the US. Adding to the lyrics’ potency, he weaves in pauses to emphasize the commentary. A third of the way through the song, the ominous beat comes to a pause with a rooster croaking. Later, it breaks again, with no rooster to warn of the pause. Finally, it breaks once more, at the end, with a crescendo that conveys a fate coming to pass.
DtMF offers a unique global opportunity for listeners to question the world around them and the roles they play in systemic injustices. This album sonically feels like a cry that many people of different marginalized backgrounds can understand. A cry that many of us have expressed in our fight for our respective freedoms. As Americans, how can we use this music to investigate the way our lived experiences mirror those of native Puerto Ricans, regardless of whether we speak Spanish. Yes, the music industry’s ability to profit from these songs may affect the album’s impact on concrete change. But this project has sparked a wave of mini historians, inspired to look closer at the world we live in. And that is the start of an important shift, one that starts from within.
“Green Pineapple“
“Heavy is the Crown - Henrietta Lacks” 2023
POSSIBILITIES OF DANCE AND ARCHITECTURE AARON GUTTENPLAN
As an architectural designer, I see the ultimate goal of our profession as designing spaces for human bodies to move through. Move through efficiently is perhaps best in most cases—certainly in business spaces when time is money, and also usually in residential spaces when we want life to be as easy as possible. Move through pleasurably or move through artistically is another issue.
Art is simultaneously perhaps the most and least important thing in life. Art is not essential for living, but it is hard to imagine anyone living without it. I see dance’s relation to architecture in much the same way, as the ultimate fulfillment of architecture. Dance fills a space with the movement of the human body, not to go about daily chores, conduct business, or even for leisure, but for the pure artistic expression or pleasure derived therein. I think architects should think more seriously about design for dance for this reason; it gives the designer an opportunity to interrogate on a fundamental level what it means for humans to move in relation to a building, without getting hung up on practicalities.
The intersection between performance and space has always fascinated me. For my thesis project in college, I chose to examine the relationship between television and architecture. How are domestic spaces recreated for the TV screen? How could we bring these recreations closer to reality in a meaningful way? In a similar vein, I’m now curious about the links between dance and architecture. Has there been a collaboration between dancer and architect? I am not talking about a stage set designed for a specific dance but rather a full threedimensional space designed to be used in conjunction with a specific dance, so that there is no extraneous space. A space so perfected for the performance that every nook and cranny is used and that if the dancer were to deviate from the choreography, they would collide with the walls of the space.
For contrast, consider truly definitive and famous works of modern dance, such as Alvin Ailey’s Revelations and Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring, which use a handful of set pieces and/or props to create space and enhance the narrative. In Revelations, the dancers use huge ribbons of cloth to represent water and create a dramatic space, but there are no fixed set pieces. In Appalachian Spring, on the other hand, Graham collaborated closely with designer Isamu Noguchi to create essential set pieces that are used in any staging of the work. These works do consider the spaces they work within and create, but they are still operating in the hermetic environment of the stage. Because the performing arts are generally predicated on touring,
they can be performed on basically any stage so long as it is the right size and the required props, setpieces, and costumes are available. There is no meaningful collaboration between the choreographer and the designer of the building it is actually being performed in.
Dancing, however, is not just a choreographed art form but also a spontaneous social activity. How architects can design for/with professional dancers and how architects can design for dance in a social setting are two related but distinct questions. The body is a tool that can map out a three-dimensional space, a way to explore the limits of a body’s movements in relation to a room. A “dance floor” is usually just an empty area and in daily life, so much of the square footage of the buildings we live and work in is just not used by the human body, whether it’s occupied by furniture or is just an awkward, hard-to-use space. Are there ways for designers to create spaces that people want to explore with their moving body? The dancers are having fun, why can’t the designers? There is some precedent for this; the “radical design” movement in 1960s-70s Italy famously used discotheques as a sandbox for their ideas, with design collectives like UFO, Superstudio, and Gruppo 9999 contributing designs now mainly documented only by photographs and drawings in museum exhibitions. Nightclubs are inherently ephemeral spaces due to the necessity to keep up with changing trends in music, dance, and fashion. At the same time, while there are likely individual instances, as far as I am aware there is not a coordinated effort for architects to design nightclubs as a primary mode of design exploration since these Italian designers half a century ago.
When I worked on my aforementioned thesis on the intersection of television and architecture, my goal was to collapse real domestic space and fabricated domestic space as much as possible. To achieve this, I envisioned a complex in which actors and crew working on a sitcom would also live in the space in which they filmed (which can also overlap in some ways with the reality television model, which often relies on scenes filmed in homes).
In this instance, the goal is to collapse the space designed for movement and the movement done in a space as much as possible. Frankly, I’m not entirely sure what this would look like. I think it’s fundamentally a more abstract notion than my approach to television. When I try to envision it, I see it almost as an egg of Silly Putty: the architecture is the egg, and the movement, if it were crystalized into a single moment, is the putty. Is this feasible to achieve in a meaningful way? Perhaps not, but I’d certainly like to try.
IF YOU’RE FLOATING IN THE OCEAN, THE WAVES ROCKING YOU INTO BLISS, ARE YOU DANCING?: INTERVIEW
WITH QRTR
When QRTR and I spoke in mid-August, she was four singles deep into an album rollout for a record that wasn’t even announced yet. Now ONDAS is known to the world and, but there are still two more singles to go before the whole album drops. There’s a strategy to the excess. To start, QRTR (aka Meagan Rodriguez) wanted to see, “how much more time I could add to the process so that I don’t just drop an album and then stop talking about it two weeks later.”
With an album like ONDAS, it makes sense to savor everything. The third studio album from the electronic musician and DJ is a personal and artistic high point on many fronts: Rodriguez’s voice is more present than ever before, the songs deal with “the cyclical nature of grief and relief,” the visual components are strikingly cinematic, and—to top it all off—the record simply bangs.
Between the release of ONDAS on November 7th and her live set debut at this year’s Making Time ∞, this fall will be QRTR season. Prepare by tuning in and letting go.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity
Can you talk about the concept of the album?
So the name of the album is ONDAS, and that translates to “waves” in Portuguese and Spanish, both languages I grew up mixing and mashing together with English. My mom’s Portuguese and my father’s Puerto Rican. The title is based on a poem that I wrote in 2017 to my religious Portuguese mother. I took inspiration from the waves to keep going, over and over despite the ebb and flow of the tide. A lot of the lyrics for the album and the different songs have to do with toxic behaviors of mine and learning to accept certain things about myself, and also in a way being able to confront those things to then release them.
How long has ONDAS been in the making?
I have been working on it for basically two years in terms of the initial concept. The actual production part took me a month or two.
Wow! That seems really fast.
I would flex if it didn’t require me having no motivation for years to get to that point. I’ll have an initial idea or a thread that I want to follow and then so much of my creative process is just trying to gather all of the ideas in a succint way. Then so
much of my creative process is just trying to gather all of the ideas in a succinct way.
After I released my second album [Infina Ad Nausea], I got picked up by a really large talent agency and was really just thrown into the fire of the EDM festival circuit. Something was happening where I think some industry people saw potential in my music, but they didn’t quite understand what it was. I don’t think I even fully understood at the time, so I couldn’t advocate for myself as an artist. I was like, well, maybe they are right about who I am and what this project really is in the scheme of the industry.
I hit writer’s block for a while because I was grappling with what my identity as an artist was. There was this disconnect with what it was that my output was and where I was being placed and the unfortunate part of it all was that I was making some of the most money I’ve ever made as a DJ. I was like, clearly this is the right thing, this is the right direction. It’s a career now. But it wasn’t, because then I didn’t want to write music anymore. I didn’t even know what to write for a while.
Do you remember having an experience where you thought, “Oh, this crowd really gets it”?
In the Fall of 2023, I was on tour with my girlfriend, her artist
Album cover for ONDAS
Photo, custom jewelry and corset by Angela Juarez
project is Olan, and we did this collaborative live set with both of our individual productions. We were on tour with Odesza and I remember seeing the way different cities reacted to our music. During that tour, I had one weekend where I went and I played Making Time ∞, and then I flew to Montreal to open for Bonobo’s OUTLIER party. That weekend to me was a pivotal moment where I was like, there are crowds that get what I do, I just wasn’t in front of them.
And it was funny because I had literally moved to Philly because I attended Making Time ∞ in 2022. Going to the festival and experiencing all this music that I really loved with a bunch of people that I could relate to, that also liked all this music, and they were all behaving themselves really well and respectfully and not weirdly clamoring into a DJ booth or something. I got back to the roots of my project and excited about music again because I made that move, and then because I played that DJ set at Making Time ∞ in 2023 and had such a good crowd response.
Who are other artists or promoters in Philly that have inspired you since moving here?
When I played Making Time ∞ in 2023, I think JEWELSSEA was at that set. Around that time, Arielle Lana LeJarde, who wrote that Fader article about me, DM’d me and was like, “You need to listen to JEWELSSEA’s album, I think you two would vibe.” I listened to her album and then I reached out to Jules and I was just like, “This is so good. This is amazing.”
In terms of parties, I played a forest renegade with High Beam and that whole thing was so fucking cool. They were wheatpasting the DJ’s faces with just a phone number with this hotline for people to call in and find a location. It’s just so thoughtful, so much intention and these small details that I just hadn’t experienced in so long. I think Philly in general, there’s so many people here that I’m constantly inspired by and I feel like they just motivate me to think outside of the box.
I think a big part of this whole process with this album and the release, is really just believing in my heart that there is not a
formula to follow. First, because everything is just evolving; all these platforms are doing things that are not in service for an artist. But I also think it’s just not being so concerned with, “Oh, it needs to be this way because most people do it this way and that’s the right way to release an album.”
What inspired you to release so many singles?
When I was pitching the album to a few labels and some of them were like, “Why don’t you split this into two EPs?” Essentially they were trying to maximize playlist reach. I was like, “Okay. Well, I am open to these ideas if you can advance me money.” But all these labels, understandably, are not giving money into developing artists because it’s not a sure bet. No one wants to take a chance or actually fund a budget to make these rollouts more interesting than a series of TikToks and Reels.
I was like, well, if it’s all about playlisting and having as many shots with the playlist, I’m going to release half the album as singles and see how many shots I can really get. And I would say the songs that aren’t being released as singles are the ones that I’m most excited for people to hear. I saved what I think are the most intimate songs and the most vulnerable ones for the actual album listening experience.
Do you think a lot about the balance between getting audience attention versus doing what makes you feel good and then finding the people who also enjoy it?
I’ve been working on mood boards and visuals, and one of my best friends from college, Angela Juarez, has helped a ton with the visual direction of the album. She also made the clothing and the jewelry that I wear in the album art. I was actually able to start with a concept and work with Angela to create lore that we’re now expressing visually. It kind of feels all-encompassing now in a way that it is just way more cohesive than what I’ve done in the past.
Back in April, Angela and I did a shoot at a beach and we basically got the album artwork done. We got all the single artwork done and we got all the visualizer content all in one day after weeks of planning. Looking back at the photos that night, I remember I started crying because it was so perfect, and the process of working with Angela, this person that I went to film school with.
After that experience, I brought on one of my other best friends from film school, Paul Head, to draw illustrations for the vinyl packaging. We’ve been treating the illustrations as though they are their own language / glyphs specific to the lore Angela and I created together.
I think being able to see my own vision come to fruition with the music itself, and then have my friends be so inspired by the project that they could then build their own visual world alongside it, that has been the best part of this entire thing. It was worth everything. Even if not one person ever heard a song or heard the album, it was worth it to feel like I was in true collaboration with people who felt proud of what they did from our work together.
Single artwork for “Não Fala”. Photo by Angela Juarez
WITH HELP FROM THE MORNING SUN MASON MCAVOY
A black out poem written from the song Morning Sun
The sun in the mornina rolls over the hills and kisses the tall grass mme me
We are so young at heart and living is an art to be good at we aet our strenasn in the daytime be the sun’s golden rays that last s us into the night time we find ourselves in many ways
The sun in the morning a new dav is dawnina look out your window and see yourself walkina through fields of love and the sky up asove is with you
Oh god, we love you aow can we say we love you we love you how can these bodies say
Sun over the tall me we are living good our davtime ra s last we find the morning anew
Look out and see yourself throuah the sky oh god, love love these bodies over living good our last morning look and see the skv bodies
by Dave Bixby and an accompanying audio recording.
A NOTE FROM VICTOR VIEIRA-BRANCO
I am currently amidst a bunch of touring and Logan asked me to write a tour-journal. The thought of writing about that seems overwhelming. Too much happens. Too much to say and also not enough to say. It feels endless and it’s not that fun to talk about work.
As I write, I am listening to a piece off of Bill McHenry’s 1998 album Graphic, “Blocks and Dots”. At 4 minutes, 35 seconds, there is a shout. I wonder if it is Bill, or Gerald Cleaver shouting. I think it’s Gerald. My favorite piece on the record is the following number, “Casi te Amo”. The beauty and power is in the simplicity. Rob Mazurek, a dear friend and mentor of mine loves the quote from Samuel R. Delaney’s book from 1968, Nova: “A moon’s beauty is in variations of sameness.”
Different shows on tour feel like variations of sameness. There are a set of identicals that repeat each day, and within those structures there is room for variety. A combination of our experience the night before and the expectations for that day set a tone. As will the sleeping conditions the night before, and people’s emotions. I have always identified with a sharp searing sense of emotional awareness. I can walk into a room and know who is feeling a way about a thing, and who feels good. As a touring musician, this is a useful trait. A lot of traveling is navigating the emotions of others.
Currently, I am interested in harnessing my ability to navigate through extreme states of being and my own emotions on the road. On the bandstand, I must be vulnerable and intentional. When dealing with a promoter, I must be kind, firm, and clear. With my bandmates I must be patient and open. At night time, I must be awake. There is so much otherness aside from the music to be taken into account and by the time music happens, I must be out of its way for it to appear. A balance between humility and audacity. Awake and asleep.
I am finishing this text in a coffeeshop in Philadelphia, at home before I leave for the final seven shows of this tour tomorrow. I am no longer listening to music of my own choosing and the music in this shop is not happening right now.
A few years ago, I was obsessed over this idea of creativity as a clear cup of water. Whatever was consumed, even if passive, would place a drop into this water. I would imagine this water changing colors like drops of foodcoloring, and felt I had to control what went in there. This cup was totally sacred and I had to protect mine at all costs. I would tell people, “If the music in the supermarket is bad, get the fuck out!”.
I don’t exit anymore. I stay as long as I need to. I try to talk less. I listen more.
Victor Vieira-Branco is a vibraphonist, composer and improviser based in Philadelphia. Currently, he leads the group Bark Culture, featuring John Moran on bass, Joey Sullivan on drums, and (occasionally) Sam Yulsman on piano.
photo by Victor Vieira-Branco
PRESENCE WAS SCARY, ACTUALLY DESSIE NYENUH
Spoilers, duh!
I am so sick of recent horror movies masquerading as the “scariest movie this year.” The promo for Longlegs promised an unsettling, cryptic nightmare, and I’m not the only one who left the theater that night a bit disappointed. It was a great movie but the “scariest film of the decade?” Scariest teasers, maybe. (Though i guess it did its job, it got us all in the theaters).
The success of Longlegs, despite the disappointment of Longlegs, was maybe a sign for other filmmakers to lie about their own releases.
(Seriously who are the critics they’re interviewing? Can I have the full sentences from which these claims are sourced?)
Hi, Steven Soderbergh.
It was a last minute decision for me to see Presence. I’m chronically online alongside movie buffs and Julia Fox, so I knew of this movie, this movie that was supposed to be the scariest ghost story of all time, told from the perspective of the ghost.
Presence is an extremely emotional movie—though it doesn’t really hit until the very end—about a dysfunctional family in the wake of a tragedy that seems to mostly affect Chloe, the teenage daughter with the rest of the family affected by her. They’re all realistically portrayed and represented in ways that feel uncomfortably human, sad and flawed, making it an anxious but comforting watch. But one character just kept taking me out of it.
The teenage son, Tyler, seemingly a momma’s boy though that relationship reads as very maternally one sided, befriends the “popular” boy in school, Ryan, who begins a romantic—I don’t know, thing—with Chloe. And the thing about this freaking white kid is that he is so goddamn cringe in every scene he’s in. He has these monologues that go on way too long. They’re very “I hate my life, I have no control, I feel like nothing.” (Which if you’ve been in a heterosexual partnership of any kind, you know how fast that man starts trauma dumping.)
As the movie goes on it becomes clear that this is our villain. And I want to say I could have told you that, but I couldn’t have. Yea he sucked and I hated him but a villain? This loser? He’s not someone I should be scared of, right?
But like, exactly.
The state of misogyny today is worrying, to say the least.
The movie goes on and eventually, Tyler is drugged downstairs, Chloe is drugged upstairs, and Ryan is trying to kill her. And he’s still going on with these long winded monologues, still feeling the need to tell someone how he feels because he feels no one else cares. While she’s conscious he’s dumping, while she’s unconscious he’s dumping, because she is nothing more than a body to him.
It’s scary because this character that I didn’t even take seriously until the night he comes over while their parents are gone, is still just as capable of, if not more inclined towards, real life horror. This character is a single representation— no—an example of what misogyny can do to boys today, and how easily leaving this mindset and behavior unchecked can slip into taking an innocent life. And why does this little kid have so much fentanyl?
Tyler, the brother, is kind of an asshole the entire movie. He’s not nice to Chloe, barely to his mom, and definitely does some questionable things at school. But in the end he’s the one that saves Chloe. The big reveal happens almost instantaneously when the ghost is revealed to be Tyler, who saves his sister from Ryan but kills both himself and Ryan in the process. In the reveal, we learn that he had been protecting her, taking care of her the entire time. He even, as a ghost, destroys his own room after hearing about leaking a (female) classmate’s nudes.
What we see throughout presence is a boy, eternally seventeen, watching himself and his actions from the outside and he’s disgusted. Disgusted enough that he needed to come back. And this physical Tyler who loved his sister had always existed. It’s apparent in how he doesn’t think twice about saving her.
By the time the movie ends, I’m definitely shaken up, the girl sitting next to me is sobbing.
The consensus I’ve gathered is that no one dislikes this movie. In fact, many people were very affected by it. Disappointed by the difference between the promo and actual film, absolutely. But it hit me a bit after. It’s scary, at least to me, because our villain is real. He exists in the world with us. Except the only thing that stopped him here was a presence from the future.
HOW TO LISTEN TO “I WANNA PICK YOU UP” FROM THE ALBUM THE BEACH BOYS LOVE YOU (1977)
GOD ONLY JOES
Here’s how I see it
There’s gotta be that moment
The Brian Wison “ok Beach Boys, there’s this song I’m working on”
And let’s say albums are recorded in sequence;
Love You has carefully deconstructed whatever grip you might have had
But none of these songs has quite the unfolding of this next one—
Ok—so, you be Dennis, I’m Brian Grown men with beards
Never really so certain of your voice, which now sounds so cocaine and old
You haven’t seen me, your big brother, this energetic in, like, almost a decade!
It’s the upswing of this depressive thing I have Complete control, musically speaking
So I say
“…this song I’m working on. We’ll do it like a duet. Denny, you’ll take the verses. I worked specifically at getting the lyrics right”
You look at the paper and read:
I love to pick you up
‘Cause you’re still a baby to me
Cribs and cradles and bottles and toys
Are part of the joys they bring
“Then I come in on the bridge, y’know, the part about feeding her breakfast from a little cup, and after that we’ll do the chorus together”
You might then say, “What is this? Is– Is this about our daughters?”
And I probably say what I’ll later tell some magazine:
“Well, it’s about a man who considers this chick a baby. She’s too big to pick up, of course. But he wants to; he wants to pretend she’s small like a baby: He really wants to pick her up!”
So Dennis are we gonna record this thing?
You, of course, pause.
You probably think for a moment about
Your own LP, Pacific Ocean Blue
Or maybe you don’t even have to think because
The only time Brian hears “no” is when it’s music
No I won’t sing the words “Hang onto your ego”
No The Beach Boys will not release SMiLE
So for goddamn once, even if it’s this, it’s yes
On this track that gets love completely wrong
Except as its entire self, this snapshot of brother love
Because, now listen
Who the hell would sing this song, if not for that?
LUCY DACUS AT FDR PARK: MAKE THE WORLD BETTER CONCERT REVIEW
TOM BAUMSER
The call went out around 5:10pm that the ad-hoc outdoor venue set up by Philly Parks & Rec was going to be closed until further notice due to a rapidly approaching thunderstorm. With no clear indication of if the event was canceled or merely delayed, everyone took shelter at the NRG Station wondering if we’d just been the victims of a prank. After maybe 10 minutes of rain there was a move back toward the entrance, but out of an abundance of caution the venue—probably taking a cue from the recently disastrous Roots Picnic’s own mishandling of storm protocol—didn’t let anyone back in for another two hours except to piss.
Everyone there that June weekend was attending the inaugural Make The World Better Concert Weekend, a Friday and Sunday event in Philadelphia’s massive and massively underappreciated FDR Park—colloquially “The Lakes”—to enjoy decently popular musicians and local food vendors. The structure seemed to be based off of the Global Citizen Festival that NYC launched over a decade ago, with big television screens, dynamic lighting, community-based messaging, and a reminder that this was the first big concert in FDR since Lollapalooza in ’91.
The first night was a triple bill built for what one enby friend called, “brunette bi women and their media junkie boyfriends.” Bedroom indie rocker Jay Som, Philly postemo royalty Hop Along, and former resident Lucy Dacus who was kicking off leg two of her latest tour. Yes, my bisexual brunette partner and I were excited for it, thank you very much.
Jay Som took the stage for an abbreviated set around 7:30pm, cleanly and ebulliently ripping through songs like “Tenderness” and “Float” as the sun went down and the temperature cooled. Next, Hop Along came on to prove that their dramatic chops haven’t left them in the seven years since their last LP. Starting off with Painted Shut’s “The Knock” and wrapping with their eternal mountain of rejection, “Tibetan Pop Stars”, Francis Quinlan & Co. showed a dynamism and comfort that doesn’t exist on their records, smiling at each other more than any of their songs would make you believe they usually do due to the dour subject matter.
By 9:15pm there was a bit of restlessness in the air that evaporated once Lucy Dacus took the stage and the first few strums of “Hot & Heavy” started playing. In the greater realm of the post-2017 wave of what the descendants of Tumblr have dubbed “sapphic pop” Dacus has always been an outlier—a rocker even. She likes distortion and a backbeat, and no matter how
emotional her lyrics, the warmth in her voice conveys an affability that could convince a cynic that she’s a good hang. Behind the band, an LED screen displayed images of baroque paintings and curtains that changed with the album that each song was on, serving up an Eras Tour vibe for the indie rock crowd.
Later in the show, a number of mostly queer couples took the stage to get married by Lucy as their officiant, a favor she said she’d do on Twitter because of her anxiety about rising fascism. “I don’t know how much longer we’ll have rights so while we do why not get married by me?” was the post. After the newlyweds danced to “Best Guess” and exited the stage a large couch was brought out for an acoustic section that included a feature from Hop Along’s own Frances Quinlan on “Bullseye”. After introducing the band member-by-member and noting how her own setlist had to be adjusted because of the storm, she played her career starting single from 2018, “Night Shift” as the finale. The irony of The Breakup Song being the loudest one sung back to her minutes after cementing nuptials wasn’t lost on Dacus, who sang with a smirk. Then she thanked everyone who attended, the city of Philadelphia, and left. On to the next one.
As for the concert series itself, there was another day on Sunday with Magdalena Bay and Remi Wolf that I didn’t have tickets for, and both of the days were awkwardly sandwiched around an unaffiliated Diplo 5K on Saturday that begged some questions: Did M.I.A.’s #1 Boy get to the reservation site first? Would the festival have been on Saturday if he didn’t? Is there anything more normcore than a Diplo 5K for the South Philly running clubs (see: cults) who like to pretend they’re LARPing “How I Met Your Mother” in their day-to-day lives?
For me and the half dozen or so folks I knew who were also in attendance, the show was really good. The sound and lighting wasn’t obscured and the level of talent was worth the $65 price (pre-tax), though with no two day pass options it did seem patchwork in execution. The location was also a pleasant surprise. FDR Park hasn’t had a live concert production for over 30 years but being there made sense considering how much space there is. Locals know that there’s been some contentious renovations and terraforming of the park since 2021 that are expected to go on for close to a decade as the city modernizes and flood-proofs the area. So it doesn’t seem coincidental that the concert was probably a proofof-method from the city to its residents that the changes coming to FDR Park could be beneficial for both local vendors and the general public.
FIND YOUR WAY IN LYDIA SOMANI
“You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.” James Baldwin
Over the past few years, I’ve amassed screenshots and photos of words that helped fill the gaps in my own language. They offered direct responses to my unarticulated feelings—scattered ideas of my own that I didn’t quite know how to piece together. Something deep within me that simply needed guidance and direction. Words.
It’s a consistently refreshing and grounding feeling knowing I am not alone. Many before me and alongside me have shared these same ideas and articulated their truths better than I ever could. This is one reason why it is our duty as artists to tell the truth.
This piece began as an essay centered on the idea of truth-telling as artists, and steadily shaped itself into a physical art piece. I suppose that’s one way I found my way in: being truthful in my process, adhering to something innate and instinctual.
All of the screenshots, words, and quotes are gathered from social media, newsletters, and readings written by others from mutuals to anonymous usernames. They are reminders and questions, filled with honesty, truth, moral conviction, and clarity of values. Some of these snippets specially address the music and rave scene. I return to them often when I feel alone and seek solace, motivation or direct truth.
The closer we get to navigating inward, toward ourselves, who we are, our calling, our values, and our creativity, the more in tune we can be with our truths and share them freely, liberating one another.
“Find your way in”
Acrylic, pastels, paper, masking tape, pen, marker on wooden board coated in gloss glaze.
