All photos courtesy of the author. 

Cindy in Philly ⭐️️

I’ll be honest. I didn’t want the dream to dissipate––a familiar feeling of rain coming to an end or a friend’s voice on the telephone growing fainter and fainter. I slowly woke up and found out that Alice Notley had died. In the dream, I met someone I’ve come to know over the years for the first time again. Will Smith from the bands Cindy and Now, a once-stranger who makes a cameo in my debut poetry collection, GLIB. We were in summer school, and I was waiting for him in a field of foxgloves with his plate of salmon and mashed potatoes. I had taken a bite, and we quarreled for a few days before making up through long poems exchanged over text. We kept making plans for Friday, waiting and waiting for a dreamy afternoon, but I woke up before it came.

Cindy is a four-piece band I’ve grown to love after learning about them on a visit home to San Francisco. Cindy is currently composed of founder and lead singer Karina Gill, Staizsh Rodrigues (Children Maybe Later, Almond Joy) on tambourine and backup vocals, Oli Lipton (Now, Violent Change) on guitar, and Will Smith on bass. I had spent all of last winter in New York in coffee shops listening to their latest EP, Swan Lake, for warmth. The breathy, hushed vocals and gentle tambourine transported me to a world of comfort, of C86 bands, of ponds and fog.

They were on tour with the legendary Linda Smith, but I couldn’t see them in New York at Union Pool or Tubby’s due to my own poetry readings. The only date that worked was in Philly. I had never been, but my best friend Penelope had just moved there. She was away in L.A., but against all odds, my friends Noah and Heather joined me on a less-than-48-hour jaunt to see Cindy in Philly.

The train ride was short, and I had picked out a long-sleeved, patterned mod dress to wear with a vest and a yellow tulle scarf. It was supposed to rain, so I carried around my yellow raincoat as well. Our first stop was the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I could spend days there looking at everything from medieval cloisters to Duchamp, but one of my favorite pieces was a simple painting by Miró titled “Woman in Front of the Sun.” I liked its abstraction––a reddish orange blob instituting the sun, three simple stars, and a woman made of squiggles. As soon as our Uber pulled out of the museum grounds, Noah turned around and said he saw Cindy in the distance. All I could make out was Will’s yellow shirt and bowl cut.

The yellow palette continued at our hotel, YOWIE––yellow sign, yellow chairs outside of its café, a bottle of complimentary orange wine. We settled in and watched a few Now music videos. Heather and Noah didn’t know what to expect from Cindy, but I wanted to leave it a surprise. We had pasta next door and made our way to the venue, Pageant : Soloveev on Bainbridge Street. It was a cute walk with apartment buildings interspersed with corner taverns and bookstores. Cindy is neighborhood music.

Pageant : Soloveev is tiny, but beautiful. It doubles as a gallery, so think white walls and wooden benches. We looked around for Cindy, but they piled in one by one. Around showtime, Will stumbled into the crowd with two bottles of a German pinot noir so sweet it reminded us of grape juice. We waved from across the room as the Philly-based instrumental chamber-folk ensemble Hour came on stage. The room turned dark except for a turquoise backlight. Hour’s music was comforting like a folk painting coming to life with each additional instrument entering the scene.

Cindy came on next, and they were strangely charming, like a fuzzy memory reentering your mind. I loved hearing the tambourine and guitars live, and when Staizsh brought out an orange shaker, the room was filled with a cozy vibration. Noah pointed out that Will’s bass guitar is the same color as Minty, my guitar. Their music is so vividly atmospheric, lo-fi but upbeat. Comforting. Perfect for a late-spring evening. I didn’t feel like I was somewhere unfamiliar; we even befriended someone sitting behind us. Hearing “All Weekend” live was most magical after only knowing it through headphones.

  

As we went out for a smoke before Linda Smith’s set, I recalled a line from my poem “Tripping Down the West Coast”:

“We only / congregate outside bars over / cigarettes or someone’s leftover / joint until nine months pass / by and we recognize each / other’s reflection under a dim / streetlamp after hours.”

I love small venues where you can easily get some air between sets and loiter after.

I introduced my friends to Will, and we finally got to catch up for the first time since seeing each other briefly in San Francisco in May. I gave him a handwritten copy of a poem called “Foxgloves” I wrote on garden gnome stationery after the dream I had. Will read it right there, under the golden streetlamp glow, and said it was beautiful. He was glad we made up, even if we had only argued in dreams. “Today is Friday,” he exclaimed before heading in right as Linda Smith’s kick-drum started.

Linda Smith was amazing. She was accompanied by Paul Krolian and Blake Douglas from The Smashing Times. The whole audience was so enchanted, listening closely to every note and word. She ended with “I So Liked Spring.” Everything about the lead-up is so haunting. Will said he cries to it every night, and I almost said I did as well, but didn’t for some reason. Brevity felt right. Still, I was transported to the endless longing of spring of 2021 at Bennington, staring out at the End of the World, listening to that song on repeat. We cheered for an encore before heading back out.

Spring was barely here this year, but I’m glad I got to hear it end with Linda Smith’s ballad. We stood around outside the venue for a while, unsure when to head our separate ways. The bands were headed to Baltimore for their last stop. It felt bittersweet as we chatted with Will about everything and nothing at all—one of those fleeting interactions that feels more poignant than long, everyday ones. A guy approached us with what appeared to be a cut-out of a rug. We didn’t know what to say. Will called it “beautiful,” but the man called us squares. He reappeared from the venue wearing a blanket, but we were all unfazed.

The next morning brought a heavy downpour, and I thought of listening to Cindy and Linda Smith while walking to Rally for coffee in my raincoat, but I didn't. I just played “I So Liked Spring” in my head. I kind of lay there on my shared hotel bed, and it was everything.