Visit Cincinnati

 

What a spec­tac­u­lar town! Since we moved to Detroit, I’ve been look­ing for­ward to explor­ing more of the Mid­west. We got a bit of a pre­view of what to expect this sum­mer when we fol­lowed the Erie canal on our trip to Cape Cod, stop­ping in Buf­fa­lo and Rochester, NY. These once proud cities still have a lot to crow about: because they were built around ship­ping, they’re all on the water and what’s left of the orig­i­nal hous­ing stock and down­town archi­tec­ture is typ­i­cal­ly stunning.

Cincin­nati is no excep­tion. While I was in town for the USTA Mid­west Semi-Annu­al meet­ing, I got a chance to explore a bit. There’s a beau­ti­ful water­front park beneath the icon­ic Roe­bling Bridge. The down­town is bustling and walk­a­ble. I took the advice of a friend who grew up here and walked over to the Over-the-Rhine neigh­bor­hood, which feels quite a bit like Old City in Philadel­phia, with lots of cute shops and restau­rants. It’s where I picked up the shirts for the boys and tried this deli­cious ice cream cone from Graeter’s.

 

I even walked to Ken­tucky! Check the box on anoth­er state I nev­er thought I’d visit!

LVL UP — Hidden Driver

Heard Sub Pop’s LVL UP on All Songs Con­sid­ered as I drove to Cincin­nati last night. Not only are the per­fect for the per­son who’s still obsessed with Neu­tral Milk Hotel, but this song, “Hid­den Dri­ver,” is about a web­site co-found­ed by one of my very tal­ent­ed grad school class­mates, Astra Taylor! I’m excit­ed to hear LVL UP’s Return to Love at the end of next month.

In Praise of Dinosaur Jr.

Have I real­ly not writ­ten any­thing about Dinosaur Jr. since this post? Seems so, apart from a pass­ing ref­er­ence in 2011 to J Mas­cis’ excel­lent Sev­er­al Shades of Why back in 2011. It’s crazy, because when I real­ly think about it, Dinosaur Jr. may be that band that some­how sur­vives every crit­i­cal hangup I ought to have about them.

I mean, I found things wrong with my favorites that makes it hard to under­stand how I ever loved them so much in the first place. R.E.M., neat­ly summed up in a 2‑part pod­cast over at Shal­low Rewards, is one exam­ple. Pave­ment, Spoon and Son­ic Youth? Love them bare­ly ever lis­ten to them these days. Even bands I fell in love with as an adult, like Fiery Fur­naces, Liars and TV on the Radio feel dated.

Some­how, I don’t feel the same way about Dinosaur Jr. Maybe it’s the unmis­tak­able crunchy riff­ing or the time­less­ness of J Mas­cis’ voice, but there’s some­thing deeply sat­is­fy­ing about them. I find myself return­ing to these records and Mas­cis’ recent solo work more often than I realize.

As sum­mer fades and fall draws near, I know I’ll be spend­ing more time with their lat­est record, Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not, like a favorite sweater.

Stereogum on Pitchfork Music Festival

Stere­ogum’s Tom Brei­han on the Pitch­fork Music Festival:

I find some­thing quizzi­cal and hon­or­able in this: A whole fes­ti­val built around music that is not, in any way, designed for par­ty­ing. In a way, isn’t that the log­i­cal end­point of a decade-plus of inter­net music con­sump­tion? We’ve all spent all this time find­ing music on our com­put­ers and pip­ing that music direct­ly into our ears, rarely if ever hav­ing real-life con­ver­sa­tions about some of the artists who mean the most to us. Why shouldn’t we be ded­i­cat­ing entire fes­ti­vals to that same anti­so­cial experience?

Need a #latepass here, but I’m not alto­geth­er sure what this is about. I attend­ed the show Sat­ur­day with a friend, cour­tesy of Pitch­fork, and found myself chat­ting with present and for­mer Pitch­fork crit­ics, as well as the Super Fur­ry Ani­mals in the VIP.

There was also a mas­sive crowd in Union Park singing “Bar­bara Ann” as I left. It sound­ed about the same as when I first expe­ri­enced the Beach Boys 30 years ago at the Great Allen­town Fair.

The Runner Returns

I last wrote about run­ning on this blog in Novem­ber 2013. Look­ing back at ear­li­er posts, it’s hard to believe how chal­leng­ing it was to run after Char­lie arrived. I’m remind­ed that my run­ning bud­dy for my first Philly Dis­tance Run, Mark Gat­ti, promised his wife that he’d take a break from run­ning until his son turned five, a sto­ry he told Jen A. Miller for the Inquir­er back in ’08.

Con­sid­er­ing how many sleep­less nights and impos­si­bly ear­ly morn­ings I had with Char­lie from ’09 to ’11, I could­n’t find the ener­gy to get out and run and when I did, I over­did it and injured myself repeat­ed­ly, cul­mi­nat­ing in a pret­ty seri­ous adduc­tor strain in 2012.

I’ve peri­od­i­cal­ly got­ten out for runs since rehab­bing, but those were very short stints. I imag­ined mov­ing to Jer­sey would trans­late into fan­tas­tic runs along the Coop­er Riv­er, but I still could­n’t find the time.

Now that we’re in Michi­gan and have set­tled in our new home, I’ve start­ed get­ting back after it. I start­ed out in late March with the idea that I’d ease back into shape and not make the sort of com­mit­ments that have end­ed in injury and inac­tiv­i­ty. Welp. I don’t think it was May before I signed up for the Freep Marathon in October.

Unlike what hap­pened in 2012, I’ve man­aged to baby myself just enough to get into decent shape. My goal is to qual­i­fy for Boston, just as it was 8 years ago. I’ve set an ambi­tious goal to get as close to that 3 hour thresh­old, but if I come in under 3:10, I’ll be thrilled. Hope­ful­ly this will be my last couch-to-marathon training!