Thoughts from the brain.

The world needed one more blog. This is not that blog.

[housegaleband]

Still | Thanks: An Origin Story

Like we had done every couple of weeks for a few months, Eric, Patrick, and I met in Lancaster to grab dinner, drinks, and talk music. I tried to focus mostly on the first two. I thought I’d had my fill of the latter.

But these two were persistent. A little too hopeful, especially after a couple beers. And me? A little too pragmatic, a little too prescient of the next time we’d meet here and have a similar conversation, with no real steps towards writing music together taken in the interval.

Why not? On the surface, that cliched truism “life is busy.” But personally?

Deep down, I remained convinced that I’d tried this all before. Independent recordings, touring, LA, Nashville. Sleeping in a bus, rehearsing for hours in basements, garages, churches. Starting a corporation, tracking merch sales and gas expenditures, making just enough money to pour into the next project/tour/purchase. Finding other work in order to pay the bills, deciding to move on to other things, other lives.

In that fall and winter of 2013, my friends wanted to talk beginnings. I desperately wanted to avoid the endings.

If hindsight is 20/20, foresight is the middle schooler squinting to see the screen in the front of the room and insisting she sees just fine, thank you. She wants to say her vision is clear, but really, she just doesn’t want to visit the optometrist and get her eyes poked by that blue light.

I thought I knew the inevitable futures, but really, I just couldn’t take the possibility of risk. Even that first step of starting to write required a vulnerability that I was nearly incapable of recognizing in myself. 

I avoided the uncertainty of what I loved, citing busyness to cloak my own fear.

And so, like most middle schoolers, I squintingly persisted down the path of least resistance until I was convinced by (in this case, positive) peer pressure. Oh and also, our drunken angel.

One night in the spring of 2014, the five of us were sitting in a booth in one of Lancaster’s Irish pubs. A wedding was happening a couple doors down, and in wandered a rather inebriated middle-aged couple. Without introductions, they asked if we were in a band. At that point, the answer was, technically, no. Yet all of us exchanged a knowing look, that kind of table-wide eye contact and telepathy that occurs in bad sitcoms where characters respond in ways only made possible with a script.

“Yessss,” we answered. “We’re called Gale*.”

And so, it was spoken into existence. ______** enthusiastically asked us question after question about what our music sounded like, what instruments we played, how we knew each other, etc. Since we were now old friends, we accepted the couples’ invitation to crash the wedding reception and her offer to buy us drinks.***

A couple weeks later, the beginnings of Pioneer were hatched at a studio in Nashville and an old church building in West Reading. 

For years, I’d only been thinking about where I’d been. It took a lot of persistence, encouragement, and work from these guys to pull me out of the past. I saw, once again, the value of writing, recording, and playing music through lenses other than my own, convinced by the musicians around me that something present could be created still.

So while it might seem somewhat self-aggrandizing to start this series of album credits with a congratulatory statement to, well, ourselves, I know that I wouldn’t be a part of this without these guys. So thank you.

it starts and ends with me

-HG

*House Gale, nowadays. Thanks, doom metal band from Arizona who didn’t exist on social media when we initially checked the name. It’s TOTALLY your fault that it took us over two years to record and release some music. It’s certainly NOT our own procrastination. Be our friendly nemesis, please.

**None of us remember her actual name, because we immediately started referring to her as Drunken Angel. There might be some light to mild heresy in that name, but our intention was to capture 1) the spirit of some of the impressively poignant & encouraging things she said to us at just the right time we needed to hear them and 2) she was quite tipsy.

***This is a WHOLE other story, but I have to state that this night included the groom, whom we had never met, introducing us to some of the wedding guests as his friends. Later, he danced on top of the bar. For the second time that night, I thought I had stumbled into some over-the-top 90s sitcom.

[thecautionthecrime]

March 2016 Playlist.

Better late than never. Listen here.

Track 1. Genghis Khan | Miike Snow

Listen, I know “Genghis Khan” was on the January iteration. But this is my official jam of March. I can’t stop listening to this one.

Following that dance party, there’s some more fun electronic offerings from BØRNS (”American Money”) and St. Lucia (”Dancing on Glass”), sandwiching the bizarre yet awesome first single from the new M83 album (”Do It, Try It”). 

My other standout March tune?

Track 5. Bourbon | Gallant

Any song that starts with a jam like this with lyrics like this...

“I’m a headless horseman on quilted sand dunes”

And mannnnn, this dude can sing. The vibe of the Gallant jam feels right with this next one:

Track 6. Somebody Else | The 1975 (explicit)

This is my current favorite off of this new record. I have lots of thoughts on the music, lyrics, and sound of this album, but I’ll save that for another post sometime.

This tune walks this fine line of modern pop grounded in chord progressions and melodies uprooted from gospel and soul.

Similar idea (replace pop in the previous sentence with hip hop) that results in a completely different product with the next song: 

Track 7. The Season / Carry Me | Anderson Paak (explicit). 

I admittedly don’t listen to a lot of rap, but I’m definitely intrigued by this genre-busting sound that I’ve heard brief snippets of from Paak and people like Kendrick Lamar. It’s interesting stuff lyrically as well, including some honest reflections on fame that counter a bit to Matt Heely’s bleak bridge in the 1975 tune.

The playlist concludes with five interesting tunes gleaned from SXSW, Relevant, and NPR Music podcasts. “Nothin on My Mind” by Astronomyy (that staccato guitar line that comes in at 15 seconds grabs me every time) and “Smaller Than My Mother” by Overcoats (mellow beats and strong vocal layers) are particularly intriguing finds.

Happy listening.

[thecautionthecrime]

February 2016 Playlist.

Here’s eleven songs I discovered in February. Like last month, many thanks to the podcasts I frequent. Things start a bit a little electronic and hook-heavy. 

Wait for that plunky little guitar line in the track by Rationale

Vocal melodies x1000 in that tune by Michael Jackson The Weeknd

My boy Stephen Christian (RIP Anberlin) in his solo project’s latest, in a track that epitomizes the album title Songs for the Late Night Drive Home.

A falsetto chorus that is equal parts awesome and absurd in “Gorgeous” by that band from the Jeep commercials.

New single from Paper Route this month as well?! Yes. This song is...ok. It’s probably a good single. It’s catchy and fun. It just doesn’t strike me somehow. I really, really want it to do well for their sake. If you don’t know why, go listen to Absence or The Peace of Wild Things. I’ll wait.

Continue with new stuff from Andrew Bird and M. Ward, then things swing back to electronic and eclectic.

Also, if I was the remixer for the Chvrches track, I would have renamed it Leave a Trance. But I’m not and that’s a good thing.

Happy listens.

[thecautionthecrime]

Icarus. Mosaik (ft. Hunz).

I’ll wait until the wind starts The chimes will ring in my heart I’ll run ahead then let go And where it goes, I’ll follow

I could listen to this song for days on end.

[thecautionthecrime]

Belly of the Deepest Love. Tow’rs.

Stumbled across this band on my rainy day off from school. Perfect sincere soundtrack to contrast with Vonnegut’s sardonic wit on an afternoon spent in books and music.

Incidentally, my own cynical side understands that this sounds like an Of Monsters and Men clone, a grafting of Icelandic forest coupled with the Ozarkian foliage of Fleet Foxes.

But mannnn. Influences and/or derivatives aside, this song is so good.

Makes me wish this could be regularly sung as a worship tune at church: the lyrical imagery is so rich. Too rich, most would argue.

Alas, we live in a world where the shallow sentiments of Taylor Swift* and Chris Tomlin* are proclaimed from the rooftops and cathedrals while songs like this or Sufjan’s or Kendrick’s are largely unheard or unrecognized.

I don’t have anything against those asterisked pop artists above, I just sometimes want more depth in the music I hear. Or in the music that wins album of the year at the Grammy’s.

I know. I hear me too. I sound like a complaining elitist scumbag, referencing Sufjan Stevens and Kendrick Lamar as if on a first name basis, coining words like Ozarkian, making horticultural analogies for music while writing a blog post that uses the word horticultural.

I know that Taylor Swift sells 3,412 albums per second and that most people don’t want to roll the windows down on a sunny day and blast Sufjan Stevens whispering heartbreak over his mother’s mental illness and subsequent death.

Anyway. Just listen to the song and try to avoid cynicism. Leave that to Vonnegut or disillusioned musicians.

[thecautionthecrime]

Hummingbirds.

I was talking to a couple of my seniors this week about that dreaded beast of the final lap before college: the SAT. The essay section has officially been dropped, the test now reverting to a similar format (math and english) to when I went through that terrible phase years ago.

Without knowing much about the process or the decision to drop the essay, I think the change makes a lot of sense. As someone who grades a lot of writing on a weekly basis, I can’t imagine having the responsibility of judging something that weighty for a person’s future. Although, it never really caught on as a solid analysis tool for admissions on the collegiate level anyway...

Again, I’m speculating here, but I have to assume the problem with adopting the essay as a standard had to do with subjectivity.

Grammar rules abound, of course. I actually love grammar. I enjoy teaching these building blocks in my middle school English class because I am a huge nerd. I get a little excited about the classifications of dependent clauses and I get the same looks from eighth grade boys that I gave my English teacher in that alternate, and evidently karmic, universe of my high school years.

Evidently I was paying attention subconsciously? Or, at least, I read a lot. Maybe a bit of both. Either way, I was one of those annoying students with a good deal of natural intelligence and talent trying SO hard to camouflage as a normal high school idiot most of the time.

I know that last paragraph sounds slightly conceited. But I know I done learn to write good someways, and I’m just trying to figure out how to teach something that feels, to me, more like a mysterious gift than a skill to learn.

Oh, I know that there are useful tools and tricks to teach because I teach them. I know there are ways to learn how to structure your thoughts for different writing formats and styles because I teach that as well.

And I know that one of the keys to learning to write well is to just write. A lot. I know this because I can look at lyrics of songs I wrote in high school and early college and want to invent a time-traveling fist with which to sucker punch myself.

But after all of that? What about that extra nonentity mystic something, hovering within the words of a piece of fiction that draws me in, skittering back and forth under the surface of a lyric that stops me in my tracks, pulsing faintly throughout an essay that doesn’t just get its point across but becomes something greater than its purpose?

How on earth do you teach creativity?

I barely know how to capture it myself. Sometimes it visits, sometimes not. And I’ve read excellent works on demystifying the writing process, creating structure to foster those moments, hanging a jar of sugar water around the flag hook on the back porch and hoping the hummingbirds pause in that quick moment you spared to look...

And sometimes nothing comes. 

So.

I learn (and teach) patience.

I learn (and teach) practice.

I learn (and teach) presence.

And I search for that fluttering of wings, offering my best attempt at a jar full of a few basic ingredients.

[thecautionthecrime]

On Blizzards.

I don’t actually mind shoveling snow.

Maybe I’m just playing tricks on my own mind, but I view it as a challenge to accomplish and a means of decent exercise. Usually I throw on some headphones under my hat and listen to music, often occupying my brain with a first-time listen through an album I’ve been meaning to check out, while my soon-to-be-sore body handles the menial labor.

But let’s be clear. Blizzard Jonas could not be easily obscured by mere music or muscle.

I didn’t bother with headphones on Sunday morning as I ventured outside with my roommates, joining the growing number of neighbors armed with shovels.

Thankfully, some anonymous hero had blasted through the entire side of our block with a snowblower at 10:30pm the previous evening, spurring clandestine glances through blinds. I felt like a soldier pinned behind enemy lines, hearing the unmistakable distant rumble of machinery, growing ever closer, cheering as the growling tank appeared, flying the colors of our allies.

Maybe my imagination was amplified from a bit of cabin fever.

Anyway, at least our shared sidewalks were clear. So we set to work on cars, visible only as white lumps with antennae. And the comradery of survival and shared work, initiated by the anonymous angel of 1st armored snowblower corps, continued one shovelful at a time.

My roommates, neighbors, and I freed a car at a time, each captive vehicle driven temporarily to the nearby Wyomissing High School lot to clear space for the next plowed-in prisoner. As we worked, children ran in and out of view behind the growing mounds, playing, digging, building, occasionally arguing. “There’s ten feet of snow and you two are fighting over one snowball?!” echoed the voice of one bemused father from down the block.

All of this activity reminded me of my own childhood during the blizzard of 1996, tunneling forts in the enormous piles of snow in my city home’s backyard as my parents and neighbors worked to clear our shared alleyway. The piles buried my fence and unearthed countless adventures over the many snow days ahead. I recall exhaustion and complaints on the faces of the adults, yet never fully quieting the collective determination by acquaintances to clear that unplowed thruway to many of South 17th Street’s backyard parking spaces.

Pre-blizzard 2016, I had spoken to only a few of my neighbors. After this weekend’s work, I’ve met more people in a couple hours than I had in the previous six months of living on this block, including my somewhat mysterious next door neighbor. I was even introduced to the Night Snowblower, feeling almost starstruck as I shook hands with greatness.

Many of us worked long after our own vehicles and parking spots were cleared. We shared stories and shovels and drinks, utilizing snowbanks as nature’s coolers. (Save the hot cocoa for the fireplace: when I’m shovel-sweating, I’m not looking for something warm to tempt me to retreat to the waiting heat and dry clothes indoors).

No mid-winter musical discoveries for me this past weekend, no headphones drowning out the scrape of shovels. Just a bunch of near-strangers accomplishing a common goal and acquiring sore muscles.

Feels pretty good, actually.

(This article originally appeared in my school’s student publication, The BCS Logic)

[thecautionthecrime]

Baltimore.

I tend to fall in love with cities.

Baltimore and I have a history that goes way back, starting with the obligatory east coast childhood visits to their spectacular aquarium. I remember treading carefully through rows and ramps of fish and strange underwater sights, feeling more and more submerged as we moved upward through the exhibits; that moment of wonder and contrast as deep blue turned to bright sunlight as I wandered into the top floor rainforest canopy.

As a teenager, I made yearly trips to the city for a youth conference held at the convention center downtown. I heard speakers and bands and lights and music and all of the whistling, whirring machinery of the early 2000s Christian culture marketing machine.

The music I recall the most from those trips? Drummers on the streets of the inner harbor pounding away on garbage cans and chemical barrels and anything resembling an instrument. A jazz/fusion band that stopped me in my tracks during a lunch break at Lexington Market, pushing aside all of the glorious smells and sounds of that place, squashing (for a moment) the insatiable hunger of a teenage boy. I watched these musicians casually and calmly rip through solos and whirling melodies. Later, I couldn’t believe that they had no recorded music to their name, and unsuccessfully searched for “The _______ Project” occasionally over the next year, hoping to find something to bring me back to the food court at Lexington.

Right before graduating high school, my senior class ventured around the bay on the BCS traditional sailing trip with my former administrator and his wife. Aside from the astonishing realization that a wry sense of humor and a persona beyond the scary/mysterious disciplinarian existed within Mr. Becker, I discovered the immensity of that body of water and its countless harbors and neighborhoods.

Nights on the bay, sneaking in the sporadic quiet moment or two of profundity among the usual clamor and chatter of my classmates and I saying and doing ridiculous things. Every time I visit Baltimore, I return to that week on and off the water.

I’m drawn to the lights reflecting off the dark beneath the docks at Fells Point, just glimpses in the cold January night, as we made our way into an Irish pub (Slainte) on Friday night. I tried an unusual dish that fused Irish and Korean food (corned beef and kimchi?!), correctly trusting the chef and the recommendation of my father (via Guy Fieri).

Saturday provided brunch at Miss Shirley’s (chicken and waffles for me) and a walk through Federal Hill on a gorgeous and warm winter day before a stop at the American Visionary Art Museum. Saturday evening? Games and hanging with friends who live in a neighborhood a few miles west of Rachel’s brother’s apartment.

My caffeine-fueled Internet research provided the inevitable tea shop on Sunday morning, always a priority Google when I’m spending more than a day in a location. Teavolve (can’t decide if I love or hate this pun) provided the drinks en route to The Book Thing, which is in itself reason enough to travel to Baltimore on the weekend.

A run-down series of rooms, full of sagging ceiling tiles giving up the melting snow into carefully placed buckets, contains thousands of free books. There’s no catch.  Wander the shelves, somewhat arranged by genre but certainly not by author or alphabetized, and take what you want. On the way out, a series of clipboards seek your signature and the number of books you rescued.

Me? I took nine: all hardcover editions of works by authors that I knew, somehow resisting the temptation to grab some unknowns to check out.

And that brings me to one of Baltimore’s antiquated mottos: The City That Reads. A song I referenced in my previous post draws its title from the old slogan and I couldn’t help but hear the opening lyrics echo through my head most of the weekend:

Baltimore’s quiet and cold There’s no ship in the bay to take me back home for the holiday.

Yeah, it’s an emo anthem, and yeah, it activates my nostalgia for the old Calling Out Closer tours, falling in love with a different city or town each night. Baltimore itself, with a stronger pull to my own past than I would have guessed for a city I never lived in, seems to have had that nostalgia effect on these boys from the Midwest as well.

And yet, each time I return, memories are updated and retinted with the adventures of the current visit, including this weekend’s awesome moments spent with my fiance and her brother, wandering through places old and new, creating a brand new layer of glass to peer into my next affair with this town on the bay.

[thecautionthecrime]

January 2016 Playlist.

I listen to a lot of podcasts. It’s a little excessive.

I catch myself starting too many sentences with “I was listening to this podcast and...”

Anyway, I decided to start a playlist for each month of this year to save songs I had heard (many) and really liked (at least on first listen). 

I can’t even claim this to be a carefully curated playlist. Most of these are coming from All Songs Considered or Relevant, with the occasional tune that I discovered or happened to listen to a lot this past month.

That is certainly true of the first track.

Water. Ra Ra Riot.

I kinda lost track of this band. I rediscovered them obsessively this month because of this collaboration with one of the dudes (formerly) from Vampire Weekend. I’ve played this song more than any others this month, by a probably embarrassingly wide margin.

Not quite as the embarrassing amount of streams Bieber’s newest album received from my Spotify account in September...

But man, this song is good. I’m super excited about this record.

There’s Nothing We Can Do. The Sun and the Sea.

I spent this past weekend in Baltimore and got a bit nostalgic. The Graduate, an old post-punk band that released a record we listened to A LOT in the Calling Out Closer days, have this song about Baltimore in the winter. It’s pretty much the epitome of the mid-tempo radio-bait single from the bands of that era (and alas, doesn’t hold up as well as some of the other songs on that album).

Anyway, that song isn’t on here. But a song from some of the members latest project, The Sun and the Sea, does make an appearance. Check it out.

Don’t Wanna Fight. Alabama Shakes.

I’m appalled that it took me till January to listen to this absolute gem of an album all the way through. No excuses. My roommate Eric has played selections multiple times through the last month. I’ve just never actually moved them off my list of bands to check out on my own.

There’s a reason that Sound & Color received six Grammy nominations. Phew. Also, this in-studio performance:

Check out the full playlist if ya want, but definitely listen to those three songs above.

[thecautionthecrime]

Made an ambient song today with @vetramiga https://soundcloud.com/vetra-miga/a-dream-strayed-into-daylight

[thecautionthecrime]

Why Bieber’s “What Do You Mean?” Is A Better Pop Song Than Drake’s “Hotline Bling”

1. Because it is.

2. Because Drake’s “song” has a terribly horrific afterthought of a beat produced via a toy Casio keyboard and funneled through some fried elevator speakers barely audible over the sound of the mouth breather next to you.

You used to call me on my car phone.

3. Because Drake's vocal performance in this song sounds like a dude that never sang before. Sorry, man. I got nothing against you.

4. Because the production in the Bieber track makes me excuse all of the little “hey ah yeahhhhh oohhh” vocal flourishes these weasely little pop boys always gotta do. Whatever, man. Tone it down, and the song is even better. Also, Drake’s version of a vocal flourish resembles the throat clearing grunt of the mouth breather in 90s elevator music world. “YEAH.”

5. Because the Drake song/video HAS to be a joke. Right? Right. It’s clearly a talented musician making a bet with some producer after some late night studio session. “Hey man, I’m SO popular that I bet I can popularize this song that audibly represents that sweat stain on the once-upon-a-time-this-undershirt-was-white tshirt of the elevator mouth breather guy we saw earlier.” Right?!

[thecautionthecrime]

Heights.

Thursday morning, Rachel and I had a few hours alone together at Machu Picchu. Her siblings and brother in law had elected to make the hike up Huaynu Picchu, the spire of rock that towers over the ancient city. I had seen enough pictures and video while planning this trip to vehemently "nope" that part of the plan. Switchback trails and eventually steep Incan steps on the top of the peak? Eeeeeee.

See, I'm a bit scared of heights. I don't have any desire to put myself in a position where my self is in control of whether or not I fall off a cliff. And no, it's not a rational thing. I felt vertigo looking out of the large open window on the 14th floor condo we stayed at in Lima. However, I will gladly ride any and every roller coaster in the world. 420ft tall, 120mph ride at Cedar Point, Ohio? Done it and loved it.

In the case of a coaster, I trust the ride designers and inspectors and even the pimply faced park employees to do what they've been trained to do. There's checks and balances. In the case of the hike, there's only one check (my other foot) and the balance is mostly nonexistent. (You should won't see me on a skateboard).

So as the more self-confident hikers (I use this word loosely: all five of us thought our legs were going to fall off after the day ended) signed the guestbook at the bottom of Huaynu Picchu (yes, a record in case you fall off and die), Rachel and I debated which other trail to check out before we all met up later in the morning to tour the actual ruins of the city. 

Ok, tourist pamphlet, what you got? Incan Bridge...sounds scary. Picture of said narrow "bridge" over an indiscriminate height? Moving on. Machu Picchu mountain trail...Nope.  Look up to the towering, taller cliff opposite the ruins. Very nope. By the way, good thing we didn't choose this: apparently it's twice as long as the Huaynu Picchu trail.

Ok, what's left? Sun Gate. These Incans and their sun obsessions...but ok, it sounds nice, the picture looks innocuous enough, let's do this. If, however, I had looked up in a different direction and seen said Sun Gate in the upper left distance, I would have vehemently declined and found a llama for us to hang out with for a few hours.

I should mention that Machu Picchu is at 8,000ft above sea level. This means that an average 28 year old male in average shape with no discernible health problems feels like a 107 year old chain smoker after walking up 10 or so stairs. 

I should also mention that Incans LOVE stairs.

These stairs are garden stairs.

Censored swears filled my brain as we neared the end of the trek to the Sun Gate. Aside from the multiple stops to seek that elusive oxygen, most of the trail wasn't too narrow. And yes, it was cliffside, but it wasn't an immediate drop off. I consoled my fears by telling myself that a terrible misstep would only result in maybe a broken leg or minor internal bleeding before I caught myself. But that last bit of the trail? I nearly turned around.

Now, normal people might not have been too concerned. But I saw a steep set of rock stairs curving around the side of the cliff, with a thin wooden handrail only safeguarding half of this sequence. I saw 9,426 ways to fall to my death. I also saw many people WAY older than me all over this trail and created an internal bully version of myself ("don't be a wuss, you wuss") to narrow the death calculations to a more manageable number. Rachel agreed: we couldn't just turn around NOW.

So we made it to the top, as high as Huaynu Picchu, overlooking the switchback road and the ruins in the distance.

We achieved the adrenaline rush of accomplishing our goal. After some pictures, some snacks, some friendly banter with the other hikers, we started back (full disclosure: I sat on my butt and crabwalked down that scary portion on all fours like a two year old descending a staircase), and I focused on my next goal.

This hike achieved my main purpose of not just lingering around the ruins all morning. The splendor and archaeological wonder of the city is slighted a bit by the swarms of people. Yes, I understand there's no way around that. I was one of those tourists.

But I knew I wanted to try to find some place in this window of time where Rachel and I could be on our own. I figured heading out on a trail would provide a good opportunity. Yet most of the hike, people were nearby on their way up and down to and from the Sun Gate.

But about a quarter of the way back down, a stretch of the stone trail is canopied by jungle vegetation both cliffside and against the mountain. A distant trickling of water running down the hillside above, the chirping of insects and birds, and most importantly, no hints of muffled voices coming from above or below.

Here, on the top of an ancient mountain in Peru, I asked Rachel to marry me. I used the ol' "check out that view over there" method to distract her as I pulled the ring from my backpack. When she turned around, I was dropping to a knee. After an initial shock and a wave of disbelief and are you really doing this and increasing smiles and tears, she said yes.

Those happy tears are merely a side effect of the thin atmosphere.

The trip down the mountainside was easy. Adrenaline from reaching the peak was dwarfed by the adrenaline of that moment. We barely stopped to rest, talking about how I was less-focused on the heights because I was more concerned about finding the chance to pop the question, talking about all the OTHER questions we'd have to face when we came down off this mountain. We started the bare-bones of planning a wedding (scary), smiling the whole time. I couldn't stop laughing for awhile. Knowing nothing while holding the hand of the girl you love is a great feeling.

I don't know what's around that next curve. I don't know what sight will either thrill or terrify. I don't know the heights or the depths of the steps ahead. But I know that I've found the person to walk beside. We've decided to walk together.

Btw, my fiancé (still weird to say/type) edited/took the photo above and below, respectively.

P.S.

Guess I just had to after we collectively caught the garter and bouquet at the wedding last weekend. We made Kevin and Gloria's little prank set-up into a minor prophecy.

[thecautionthecrime]

A Peruvian Wedding.

The events of this past Saturday seem like a lifetime ago, shrouded by the hustle of travel through ruins and small towns: charter buses, vans, and trains rattling past mountains and rivers, market vendors and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. But mere days ago, Rachel, her family, and I celebrated the reason for this trip to Peru: among the pulsing city movements and sounds, we entered an ancient Catholic Church as dusk started its descent over the towering steeple.  

Through the gaping wooden doors into a high-ceilinged sanctuary, side aisles populated with religious artwork and shrines: the reverent quiet of the room interrupted on occasion by traffic sounds entering from the street outside, unnoticed by the bride's family. The ceremony and liturgy of the wedding, unfamiliar to a guy who can count the masses he's attended on one or two hands, were made slightly more incomprehensible due to the language barrier. The music (provided by a keyboardist, string players, and three vocalists) and the ceremony went mostly untranslated to English, with the exception of the homily.  

As the service neared its conclusion, congregants arriving for the evening mass quietly took seats in the back pews or along the wall. As soon as a round of pictures were completed, the next service began, church doors still wide open in the cool evening air as we filed into buses. We were shuttled downtown and dropped off in Lima’s Plaza de Armas, entering a colonial era building that shares nearby real estate with the governor's palace and a grand cathedral. The reception was held in a social club's 2nd floor ballroom, overlooking the fountains and crowds in the center square. As we awaited the bride and groom, we toured the rest of the building, accompanied by the club president, his pride and enthusiasm unceasing for each new room revealed.

The party kicked off sometime after 9pm, including pyrotechnic sparklers on the dance floor on cue as the newlyweds entered the room for their first dance. The partners split up and waltzed to the Blue Danube with many of their family members, followed immediately by a swirl of folk dancers in full costume. They performed a suddenly interactive number, in which I undoubtedly made a fool of myself, desperately trying to mirror feet that moved much too quickly for my clunky white boy shoes.

In the next couple of hours, speeches were made, toasts were cheered, a bouquet was thrown and a garter was removed, cake was cut, and at some point around 11pm (I think), dinner was served. The party continued on slightly past 1am, filled with live music and dancing, interrupted every 20min or so with a brand new set of costumed performers entering the room.

I have no idea if the order and timeline of events (cake cutting before dinner?!) followed the mold of the typical Lima wedding, but it was a blast watching a Baptist-raised white dude from Pennsylvania marry into a Catholic Peruvian family. I was aware of my own expectations (what I had heard leading up to the day, and my own sense of "this will obviously be different from weddings I've attended") evolve to a complete sense of "expect the unexpected." At one point, that involved walking into a room full of clowns (guess I missed that particular folk dance) on the way up to the roof terrace to take pictures overlooking the square. Surprise clowns aside, it was a beautiful experience on an excellent mild spring evening in Peru.

So congrats, Kevin and Gloria, and thanks for providing the focal point and purpose for this awesome multicultural adventure in Peru!

photo by Rachel Krall.

[thecautionthecrime]

Translations.

I'm on a slow moving train from Ollantaytambo to Macchu Picchu. As dusk settles over the late afternoon, the sparse vegetation of the desert landscape makes its own transition to the suggestion of the jungle. Gone are the tans, browns, and reds of the soaring Andes mountains on both sides of this valley. Instead, the cliffs and hillsides are obscured by all manners of grasses, vines, and trees that occasionally block the view of the mountaintops.

I'm sipping an "Andean Soda" (ginger ale infused with Angostura bitters and lemon), watching the German tourists on board snap pictures out the window, GoPros on selfie sticks, as I listen to an Irish pop band and tap some words into my phone. The car smells a little like the recycled air of an airplane's cabin, a little like lingering coffee, with just a hint of the rain outside.

The weather changes quickly in Cusco's surrounding area. Drops of rain suddenly fall from clouds both threatening and not, only to cease moments or minutes after. Locals take little notice, except to raise the price of plastic ponchos during the rainfall. As quickly as the rain comes and goes, so do archaeological sites and ruins materialize from the common town buildings, stone and staircase soaring above simple dwellings and shops, the centuries-old coexisting with the modern Peruvian life.

Many of these Incan sites share notoriety with Spanish colonial architecture, conquistadors capitalizing on prime real estate after subjugating the original inhabitants. The victors often built directly on Incan foundations, leaving their impossibly strong stonework in place. One of these, Qurikancha / Santo Domingo in Cusco, was partially destroyed in an earthquake in 1950. Much of the Spanish construction fell away, revealing Incan masonry still standing, unstirred. 

I'm surrounded by this impossible mix of ancient and modern, tourists and natives, themselves often descended from a mix of pre-Colombian peoples and Europeans. The last two days in Cusco and its outlying areas have been a whirlwind of bus trips and walking, street vendors demanding attention, all soundtracked by the towering mountains and empires. Tomorrow, I’ll hike Macchu Picchu with thousands of others from all over the world, all of us separately ascending together in a beautiful and complex intersection of centuries.

[thecautionthecrime]

Lima, Peru

The Pacific ocean's hushed roar into the pebbled shore hits the cliffs, after crossing the coastal highway, and traveling upward to a fourteenth floor window of thin-paned glass that substitutes for an entire wall. Surfers dot the swells, awaiting their chosen wave in the relative calm of the late morning surf. Today, small patches of blue barely peek through the ever-present, bright-white haze that fills the sky this time of year in Lima, leaving just a hint of the rocks of Isla San Loreno jutting in the distance.

Despite the sound of the ocean teasing its nearness, the shore takes thirty minutes to reach on foot, across a bridge, down multiple staircases, through a construction zone, across the highway on a pedestrian bridge. The rolling pebbles add to the sound of the waves retreating, pulling and tumbling and clinking together like a giant's palm full of marbles. Perhaps this addition to the roar of the surf enables its clarity fourteen stories high, amidst the condo towers and passing paragliders.

Also reaching my ears - the varied honks of car horns, although not nearly as cacophonous as Lima center or any of the other areas of the city I've traveled through. Drivers of taxis, cars, buses alike communicate through an indecipherable series of eye contact, hand gestures, and bursts of honking; traffic signals and lanes existing as a mere whispered suggestion buried beneath wheels and exhaust.

photo by Rachel Krall.

Buried within this city full of ancient history: 16th century colonial Spanish architecture built on top of existing Incan ruins. These beautiful buildings exist side by side with modern construction, in varying degrees of restoration and use. Within the heart of the Lima, La Plaza de Armas opens out of narrow streets, a massive square filled with fountains, surrounded on all sides by palaces and cathedrals in golden yellow and white trim. Vehicles continue to speak their foreign tongue in stark contrast to the sensation of having entered a time long past.

Beneath the nearby San Francisco Convent, the city's Catholic roots dig deeper still. Underneath the cathedral and its library full of centuries-old volumes, below the calm of the courtyard filled with roses and red brick paths, the low arches and dirt walls of the catacombs hold thousands of bones. Some are excavated and sorted into pits, a project to catalog the buried, yet many more remain hidden in unearthed crypts or inaccessible sections of the tunnels. Only here do the sounds of the city fail to be heard, muffled under years, silenced by stone and dirt.

Lima blends the ancient and modern, layering the immediacy of the city with the slow turn of the tide. The haze of sea and sound obscures and reveals blurry snapshots of a population living among the echoed memory of generations past, over and over again, for the first time.

[thecautionthecrime]

On Writing, and Teaching.

A couple of days months ago, school started. With the dawn of getting up long before dawn to lesson plan and long afternoons / evenings of completing tech upgrades that didn’t quite get finished during the summer, I unknowingly bed farewell to any personal reading or writing goals. Suddenly, October was halfway passed by.

En route to the airport on Wednesday afternoon, I was finally able to finish one of those books I had started in mid-August, On Writing by Stephen King. In conjunction with The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield (an early summer find/read), I have felt the one-two punch of getting my creative butt thoroughly kicked by these two prolific authors.

The discipline employed by both of these writers, described in each of those works above, continues to simultaneously inspire and demolish me. Here’s my biggest takeaway: the importance of time. Both men speak of the origins of their creative pursuits as a study in failing in order to succeed, the need to do in order to do well. 

I have a self-diagnosed tendency towards the pursuit of perfection in most things I attempt. This can be a positive character trait, but sometimes creates an internal difficulty. I’m often crippled by the lack of time needed in order to satisfy myself that a goal has been reached, that a project has been properly completed. Often, this manifests as procrastination because I’m not sure how to begin something that I can’t finish to my own unrealistic internal standards.

I started taking piano lessons in 3rd grade, learning to read music and starting to dabble in classical pieces by the time I entered middle school. After stupidly revealing my hand(s) as a piano player at a couple of church talent shows, I was approached by my pastor to start attending worship team practices. I agreed.

That format, like many modern worship teams, solely used chord charts to play songs on Sunday morning. I knew how to read music, and this was a brand-new ballgame in which I swung the bat like a man with no arms. Could I play the piano? Yes. And on Monday nights from 7pm-9pm? No. No, I could not.

But I practiced improvisation, and how to use these mysterious one letter notations to play at least three notes at a time. It was ugly, but I was starting to figure things out, and with a couple more months, maybe I’d be ready to…

“Hey Ben, I’m gonna schedule you for keyboard next week, ok?”

“…”

“We’ll do some of the songs we practiced tonight.”

“…I don’t think I’m ready.”

“You’ll be fine! See you Sunday!”

That morning, I played audibly on one song, turned my keyboard’s volume all the way down, and hand-synced like a pro on the rest.

I failed in public for a while, ever improving, and ever nudging that volume knob a little bit higher. Years later, I know what I’m doing because I was forced to start doing it before I was ready to do it.

I wasn’t ready to start teaching a class on journalism and launch a student-run publication. I wasn’t ready to start helping middle-schoolers analyze literature and root out their ever-prevalent run-on sentences. I wasn’t ready to make a classroom switch to Chromebooks and iron out the new strain on our network infrastructure.

But I’m doing it. And it’s working. (Although admittedly, that network infrastructure thing remains the biggest goblin cackling behind my back).

Aiming for perfection is an unrealistic and frankly, self-serving goal. Learning how to use your talents, even not fully developed, to immediately begin impacting others is a better use of time. 

I’m trying to tell myself that as I continue to struggle with my own standards and work towards applying this towards my own goals to write more, even beyond just blog posts and song writing, even without the volume knob turned all the way down.

[thecautionthecrime]

HS Retreat 2015 Playlist

Earlier this month, my school took our high schoolers on their annual spiritual life retreat. Here's some mostly instrumental & ambient songs that soundtracked quiet moments of reflection.