Motif

Author: Cathren Housley

  • Firing Back with Live Music: Stefan Couture Rebounds

    Firing Back with Live Music: Stefan Couture Rebounds

    By Cathren Housley

    Stefan Couture creates a party wherever he goes. During the long COVID lockdown when venues went dark, he gathered fans and found a growing crowd of new friends at his Virtual Campfire every Saturday night in North Smithfield, RI. Now that the club and concert stages have reopened, Couture has been spreading the joy to audiences starved for music and fun. 

    We caught up with him a few days before a gig at the Bravo Brewing Company in Pascoag. “I’ve been performing at a lot of Rhode Island’s amazing craft breweries and teaming up with our state’s fantastic food trucks,” he said. “It’s been making for a great night of people, beer, food and music.” 

    A talented RI native, Couture first learned how to connect with his audience in the subways of Boston, busking for a constantly changing collection of commuters. “A group would move on, and I could play the same song again for an entirely different crowd,” he said. Because he could sense the crowd reactions, and could tell what was reaching them, his songwriting developed a simple direct quality that drew listeners in.

    Back in 2001 and 2002 Couture toured the northeast and the west coast as a solo act, selling his CD, Great Big Somewhere, out of his guitar case. In 2003, he formed Stefan Couture and the Campfire Orchestra, and in 2004 their album Ghost in the Rearview was voted Best Local Album in The Providence Phoenix, and that same year, Stefan was named Best Male Vocalist. But when he hit 30, and his friends began getting married, Couture knew he needed to start building a solid base for himself as well. As luck would have it, Richard Gere’s movie, Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, was being filmed in Woonsocket. The production company needed a hot dog cart for a prop and Couture happened to have one. Visiting the production on location, Stefan felt at home. He had a natural talent for crew work and began picking up odd jobs. Those jobs turned into a career, and he joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union in 2008.

    Before the pandemic, Couture was logging 12 hour days with studios like HBO, Warner Brothers, Hulu, and Fox Searchlight. He’d just started a contract with Netflix when COVID shut the entertainment world down. Trapped in his house, alone and without work, he faced the same demons we all did. 

    “It was lonely and tough to get motivated,” he remembered, “but playing music has always helped me navigate through the darkness. I figured if I could help others, while helping myself when performing…then that is the magic of music.” Thus, the Virtual Campfire was born, and people began tuning in every week. He kept that magic going through the long winter and into April – until the world began venturing outside its own closed doors once again.

    Since August, Couture has been a busy guy – he’s back to the production sets, recently wrapping up season nine for Showtime’s Dexter. Couture has also been designing and illustrating his own merchandise. “It’s been starting to take on a life of its own. It’s been so fun and fulfilling combining my art and music.” 

    “I’ve been recording [ a new CD] with Chuck Ladoucer out of Red Dog Studios in Bellingham.” said Couture. “He’s a good friend and a really great creative collaborator. We’ve been compiling songs that we recorded together over the last 20 years that never saw the light of day. We want to whittle the collection down into an EP called Time Traveler’s Mix Tape and release it in the early winter. We’re also looking to record a new album, tentatively titled Trapdoor Companion.” The songs are all new, written during the pandemic. They hope to release that one in the new year.

    Couture will be hitting the concert stage on Saturday, September 18th at the Narrows in Fall River, MA, with recording artist Ryan Montbleau. He’s stoked about the event. “Ryan is  a nationally respected singer/songwriter, it’s an honor to have the opportunity to open for him and get my songs in front of a larger audience,”  Couture told us. Doors open at 7pm, showtime is at 8pm. The Narrows is a fantastic place to party, this should be a night to remember.Want tickets? Go to https://narrowscenter.showare.com 

    And for more on Stefan Couture, visit: Stefancouture.com and https://facebook.com/StefanCoutureMusic

  • Advice from the Trenches: Poison Control

    Advice from the Trenches: Poison Control

    Dear C and Dr. B,

    My wife had reserved some books at our local library for a workshop she was teaching at an after school program. She ran out of time doing prep for the workshop and asked me to pick up the books for her while she continued packing up materials. I drove to the library and found the books waiting on the reserve shelf. 

    I picked up the pile without looking at them, and if I hadn’t had to hit the brakes suddenly for a guy who ran a stop sign, I might never have noticed any of the titles. But as fate would have it, they slid all over the front seat and floor of the car and I had to gather them up. They were mostly craft books, but two of the titles were a bit of a shock. One was “The Empowered Woman’s Guide To Divorce” and the other one was “The Poisoner’s Handbook.”

    We’ve always had the occasional quarrel, but nothing serious – this seems out of left field. Should I be worried?      

    – Pete in Peril?

     Dr. B says: I would  hope you are not in the position of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and delivering your own message of execution! But I think you may need to have a conversation with your wife. I’d start out with “Dear, is something bothering you?” and I would offer to go to counseling with her if there is. It not only adds in a third party, whom she would then need to kill as well, but it also might diffuse whatever pressure or resentment has built up. Of course, as yet you don’t know if there was any to begin with. For all you know, she might be researching for a new play or book or screen play that she is writing.

    Good luck.

    C says: What exactly does your wife do? If she is in fact a writer, then an explanation for the books seems plausible. But if she is a visual or teaching artist for children, I have to wonder what the divorce and murder is all about. She may have a friend who is getting divorced and needs answers. She may have seen a movie or TV program on crime and gotten curious about an unsolved murder. Or – she may be getting ready to hire her own lawyer…after she poisons you.

    If you want to test the waters without seeming obvious, there’s a few things you may want to check for. Does your wife grow lilies of the valley? Walter White used an extract from this plant to poison a few people on Breaking Bad, but even the water in a vase containing these flowers can contain a lethal dose of poison, so if you see new flower arrangements suddenly appearing around the house, watch out! Another decorative flower you should beware is Oleander. This one is so toxic that a single leaf can kill an adult if ingested. Peace Lilies are lethal as well. Do you have a pet your wife has a problem with? Philodendron is especially toxic to cats, as are many plants in the lily family.

    Honestly, I think you are probably safe. She did ask you to pick up the books, and murderers rarely ask their victims to fetch the means of their own destruction or give them an opportunity to figure it out. But every marriage could benefit from periodic efforts to touch base and find out if you are meeting each other’s needs. Let’s put it this way – if your wife really does want to get rid of you, some kindness and concern could change her mind. It certainly never hurts.

    You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com

  • Simply Divine: Bert Crenca’s newest collection serves as tribute to his home town

    Simply Divine: Bert Crenca’s newest collection serves as tribute to his home town

    In Umberto Crenca’s newest collection, Divine Providence, it is difficult to tell where the artist leaves off and the city begins. These paintings have been a labor of love – his tribute to the streets he has always called home.

    Umberto Crenca - Divine Providence
    Umberto Crenca – Divine Providence

    Crenca grew up on Chalkstone Avenue, the son of immigrants who worked in factories all their lives. Home life was hard, and he grew up fast. Art was an early outlet for his frenetic energy, but a talent for provoking anger and pissing off authority sent Crenca reeling through adolescence and straight into rehab. One day, an outreach worker asked him, ”What other interests do you have besides being a wise guy? Because you’re really not good at that.” This was Crenca’s unceremonious boot back into art, but it was not until sculptor Gail Whitsitt-Lynch introduced him to the rampant creativity at RISD that his eyes were opened for the first time to the endless possibilities in art. “It was a world that I didn’t even know existed,” he said.

    Bringing that world to lower income communities where opportunities just didn’t exist was the whole idea behind AS220, the non-profit arts organization co-founded by Crenca. He’s since retired from AS220, allowing him time to amp up the pace of his own work. His home base is now in a building that was formerly an Italian American club. He and his wife, artist and musician Susan Clausen, converted the 4,000 square feet into a hive of studios, performance space and galleries. The walls are covered with paintings and sculptures, by Crenca, Clausen and artists from all over the world. It is a hidden cache of treasures hiding under the blue collar grime of a downtrodden neighborhood – an apt metaphor for Crenca’s own life.

    Crenco deliberately chose not make his style the most prevalent thing in his new collection. “I’m telling a story here, one I have intimate knowledge of. I know these neighborhoods, so there’s a certain feeling I’m trying to capture, both in the way I compose the pieces, and how I execute them in technical terms that is consistent throughout. They’re not finished until they arrive at that place.” Photographing his subjects first allows him a certain privilege in terms of detail and deep space. “I can manipulate differently than if I was doing plein air paintings.”

    The series began at the start of the pandemic; since then Crenca has turned out 119 paintings. “With this series, I think I’m evolving. Now it’s almost undetectable, but 2 years from now, if you look at one of my paintings and compare it to the first one, I think it will be more apparent. When I first started doing art, every time I did something it was different. There was no consistency. But whenever I was exposed to something in an art history book, I realized I needed consistency in my style or I’d never get recognized.” Over the years, the number of paintings in each series has increased. Today, his intent is nothing short of epic: “Imagine if I do 1,000 of these. What kind of exhibit would that be? I only have 881 pieces left to finish. That seems doable.”

    For Crenca, struggle is inherent in art: “When we make something, we have this feeling about what we want to achieve, but there’s no way we can possibly explain it, so really, we’re trying to achieve the impossible.” But that has never stopped him from trying. “The most powerful idea is creation. To me, that’s what we’re all wrestling with, this mystery. That’s what artists are trying to express in their totally clumsy way.” 

    Crenca has traveled a vast distance since Chalkstone Avenue. He’s been given two honorary doctorate degrees, one from Brown, and was one of 10 people honored at the White House, speaking on a panel to representatives from every state. “I hope there’s some value in the way I’ve lived my life, particularly in the last 40 years, that helps other people to feel free to self realize and self actualize … to follow things they feel and are passionate about.” He has always lived life aggressively. “I don’t know any other way, that’s how I approach my art, the way I live, the way I exercise, the way I do everything.”

    AS220 was Crenca’s gift to the community. It’s still running with new staff and new people, and Crenca says he believes that’s the way it should be. His ongoing concern is what he is giving back now. “If I can give a story, a long, detailed story of a place, it is helping to validate people’s experience. They can see those things a little differently and have a different feeling about the place. They become part of the series. People can’t go far now. Can this make them feel better about where they are?”

    One last thought on creativity: “It’s all within the person themselves, they’ve always had it, they always will have it. But it’s a struggle, how to exercise that freedom.” For Crenca, that struggle is everything.

     See the art, buy the book at umbertocrenca.com.

  • Picking Sides: One reader wonders why people are so territorial

    Picking Sides: One reader wonders why people are so territorial

    The End Of The Game Tiger Predator Big Cat Tiger

    Dear C and Dr. B;

    This summer I was a camp counselor. Despite the effort the camp made to create a culture of camaraderie among attendees, the counselors for older kids wouldn’t talk to or associate with the counselors for the younger kids. We were all assigned our groups randomly, and it was purely by chance that I ended up with one of the younger groups. But I’m being treated as lower ranking staff by the snobs who were randomly assigned older kids. 

    I don’t get this at all! Why do they think they are better us? But everyone seems to just swallow this BS. My friend told me that she feels this way all the time – she is often the only Black person in an  otherwise white group and when this happens, the other people often wont talk to her. Why are people so messed up? It’s just plain mean. Is there anything I can do about it?  – Fed Up

    Dr. B says: There a great number of studies on this phenomena, and they all point to this: Humans are territorial animals. One study randomly gave a large group of people either green or red shirts. That alone was enough to make the two groups not talk to each other and be mean to each other. Another study separated a group randomly into either jailor or prisoner roles. In this study, the meanness got to the point where they had to stop the study. 

    What to do about it? First, you need to know, for yourself, that everything is arbitrary and random and not true at all – then treat both sides as if they are equal. You will probably be challenged by the “higher ranking“ group and they will be mean to you.  But if you don’t take it personally, and stick with it, over time, you will be accepted by both sides. 

    How YOU decide to  accept a given reality affects and can change that reality. With humans, pretty much everything is, in truth, really arbitrary. 

    C says: I’ve done my own study on this and it comes to different conclusion: the bigger the car, the smaller the penis. Let me rephrase that: the bigger the brag, the smaller the brain.

     Although I agree that it is a natural instinct for humans to be territorial, in this case, there’s a flaw in that reasoning – there is no territory here to defend. The councilors for the older kids don’t own the damn camp. They didn’t earn their positions due to skill and competency. They’ll be home again at the end of the summer and it is my guess that there’s no one back there who will put up with this crap. I don’t see them as territorial. I just see them as being a bunch of tools. 

    Defending territory can be a noble thing; someone who is protecting their territory has a stake in that plot of land. They see it as their own because it is their home, not because some camp director assigned them to herd a bunch of other people’s kids around.

    People who are genuinely sure of themselves don’t swagger around or blow their own horn constantly. They don’t have to. They have no need to convince anyone else of their worth or value. They HAVE worth and value. And they know it.

    You are giving these douchebags more attention and weight than they deserve. Just ignore them if you don’t have any business with them, and treat them with polite indifference if you do. If they suddenly become super-friendly, don’t trust it. People who are basically insecure often try to set their “opponents” up to be mocked and made fun of, but they seldom flip because they’ve had a sudden epiphany and realize what assholes they’ve been.

    Do your job, have fun, and don’t take this so seriously. It’s just a game. You don’t have to play. 

    You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com

  • Slow Your Roll: One reader wants to know if marijuana is a help or hindrance

    Slow Your Roll: One reader wants to know if marijuana is a help or hindrance

    Dear C and Dr. B;

    I see people all around me who have various habits, all of which could be considered problem vices in a certain light. For instance, marijuana. But some people seem to be able to use it responsibly. I’ve known many adults who manage to hold jobs, raise kids, and drive their cars without ending up in jail or rehab. And I know people who use it medically who never increase their dosage or need to try stronger highs.

    So here is my situation – I turn to marijuana to help cope with depression and a chronic autoimmune disorder. I never increase the amount I use or let it interfere with my work. In the past, doctors tried EVERY antidepressant in the book on me, but they left me unmotivated to the point where I didn’t want to do ANYTHING. My boyfriends would break up with me because I lost interest in sex. The trade-off wasn’t worth it.

    However, according to my sister’s shrink, who thinks marijuana is nothing but a gateway street drug, my marijuana use IS a problem. He says that the FDA hasn’t approved it and he’s seen it mess people up far more than it has helped them. I think his opinion is skewed because he has nothing but dysfunctional patients who would likely abuse any substance they used, including food. What do you think?         – Potunia

    Dr. B says: The jury is out still on marijuana. There is no standardization and research has only recently started because before this, it was illegal. I have heard lots of anecdotal reports from people like you saying it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I have read a lot of preliminary medical reports showing it has no greater long-term positive use than placebo or it has a lot of potential negative long-term consequences. It also seems to affect everyone differently. Although I am not convinced it has any long-term medical use I can’t give you an official opinion. 

    C says: At this point, I want to slap every doctor in the face who uses that “there is no scientific research” excuse to deny the possible validity of medical marijuana. The fact is, until May 2021 the federal government banned medical research on the grounds that marijuana was a Schedule One street drug that had no medical value.

    Let us not forget that the standardized and FDA sanctioned drug industry is the same group that pushed Fentanyl and oxycodone on us, fueling the opioid crisis and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. Their lack of approval for medical marijuana does not disturb me nearly as much as it does the AMA, which hasn’t yet figured out how to make money off of medical marijuana.

    Dr. B is right: He can’t give you an official opinion – and most of his experience is with dysfunctional patients who are more likely to abuse substances. But I seriously doubt that ANY doctor who downplays the potential medical value of marijuana has had any experience with responsible use. There are many MM remedies that cause absolutely no high at all. But every doctor against medical marijuana speaks as if MM use is all about the high.

    I have interviewed Compassion Center patients who have had first-hand experience with medical marijuana over the course of decades. They all turned to it because the FDA-approved drugs for their conditions left them with no energy or quality of life and myriad side effects. Pharmaceuticals have a fairly dismal record of success with many chronic illnesses, especially autoimmune disorders; yet every doctor against MM is willing to dismiss the success stories from thousands of responsible adults as purely anecdotal.

    In all fairness, I realize that board certified doctors live in fear of lawsuits, fines and repercussions, so it is logical for them to deny any view for which the board would reprimand or sue them. But they are holding back a much more viable and sustainable treatment than what the pharmaceutical companies have to offer. In 2018, a Johns Hopkins study found that more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors; other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000. Since the opioid crisis, the figures have grown exponentially. NO ONE has died yet from medical marijuana. You may draw your own conclusions.

    You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com

  • Simply Divine: Umberto Crenca shows off his work and a new book at a pop-up exhibit

    Simply Divine: Umberto Crenca shows off his work and a new book at a pop-up exhibit

    Quiet glimpses of beauty can hide in plain sight – Divine Providence Continued, a pop-up exhibit opening August 19 at 233 Westminster Street, is a collection of windows into a world that most of us walk by every day without seeing. Umberto Crenca has focused a straightforward lens on the small scenes and in-between spaces that ordinarily blend into the background of life.

    Crenca has long been a driving presence in the Providence art scene, co-founding the non-profit art space AS220 in 1985 and fueling the engine behind its growth to the multi-building complex it is today. The galleries, living spaces and studios, performance stages and teaching programs have provided creative growth opportunities for a countless number of artists and performers.

    Throughout it all Crenca has continued to create his own art, taking on a wide range of genres and subjects with an intensity that has earned him a reputation that extends well beyond Providence. Since his retirement from AS220 in 2015, Crenca has been painting with renewed clarity and vision. This newest series brings his work full circle – Divine Providence is an homage to the city where his journey began. 

    The exhibit also launches the release of Crenca’s new book, Divine Providence Volume 1. The large format volume is filled with striking full color images of the first 100 paintings of this continuing series. Both paintings and copies of the book will be available for purchase during the exhibit and through Crenca’s website.  

    Catch the pop-up on Thursday, August 19 from 5-8pm. Continued gallery hours will be on the last two Saturdays and Sundays of this month, August 21-22 and 28-29, from 2-5pm, or by appointment. For more information, visit umbertocrenca.com 

  • Is it Depression or Is Life Hard?: One reader wonders if her antidepressants are necessary anymore

    Is it Depression or Is Life Hard?: One reader wonders if her antidepressants are necessary anymore

    Dear C and Dr. B;

    I am 61 and have been on antidepressants over 20 years. I am doing well and feel fine these days, but does depression ever really go away? I mean on its own? I ask because my mother was depressed when I was a kid and there were no antidepressants back then. Her doctor told her to get out more and be more active. As she got older she did get better and by the time she had died, she was not depressed.  

    My doctor recommended I stay on the medications – I was pretty bad off when they were started. I had also gone through two abusive marriages. I married men very similar to my dad. My current husband is a very respectful and nice man. They say three times a charm. Do I still need to be on antidepressants?       

    – Debbie Downer

    Dr. B says: Depression has a million possible causes, so this is not an easy question to answer. Your mom may have been more oppressed than depressed; this was most women’s plight back in her day. In this time period in our culture, woman’s lives pretty much sucked, as did the lives of most non-white minorities. Was it nature or nurture that caused those suburban housewives to be on valium? Later on, Xanax and Dexedrine dominated their medicine cabinets, followed by Doxepin, then Prozac. These drugs were the family doctor’s answer to everything. Now it’s Adderall, Phentermine, and Xanax, with Celexa close behind. 

    Our society is sleep deprived, over worked, and economically unstable & unequal in so many ways. Our climate is unstable, racial injustice persists, and people are entitled, rude, and downright mean to each other. The pandemic is the icing on the cake. But what we need to remember is that feeling better and actually being better are not the same thing. Medications can make you feel better, because you just don’t care so much. But medications can’t bring meaning to your life. The suffering that we are trying to avoid is intimately tied to finding meaning. It requires intent and effort, not avoidance and numbness. 

    So – whether or not you stay on meds is a conversation you need to have with your doctor. But if you are asking if your life is meaningful you need to examine your social ties and commitments. Do you have enough of them to provide meaningful suffering?

    C says: Debbie, what I hear you asking is whether your circumstances have changed enough that you don’t need antidepressants anymore. If you have been on antidepressants for over 20 years, I’d say that the real question is: Why in hell hasn’t your doctor asked that question yet?

    According to recent studies, long term efficacy of antidepressants is questionable. For one thing, patients generally develop tolerance over time. For another, the long-term effects are still largely unknown. The current thinking on medication is that after the first episode of depression, antidepressants should be taken for 9 months, then re-assessed. Although this will vary depending on the individual case, a maximum of 2 years is recommended for patients who have further episodes of depression. You have been on them for far too long.

    Your problem now is finding a responsible, up-to-date doctor who can assess you. If he decides it’s a good idea to get off the medication, he can help you taper off. Depending on what you’ve been taking, some drugs are addictive long term. Suddenly removing them is not a good idea. That can trigger a relapse or other harmful symptoms, such as suicidal thoughts.

    Regular follow up and close monitoring is essential for anyone who is taking antidepressants of any type. If your doctor is not doing this, you need a new doctor. 

    You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com

  • Quarter Life Crisis: The rug was pulled from beneath this recent grad. Now what?

    Quarter Life Crisis: The rug was pulled from beneath this recent grad. Now what?

    Dear C and Dr. B;

    I am in my last year of college and will soon have to figure out a career. I know that I have some big decisions to make. I am trying to be optimistic, but everything in my life sucks! My mother just died and this means I am losing my home. I can’t support myself yet, so I have to go live with my dad in the meantime. My mother left him because he was totally unsupportive and she found out he was seeing someone else at work! Now he has a new wife, who is less than happy to have me there.

    It seems like everything I depended on has been pulled out from underneath me like the proverbial rug. My parents’ marriage was a failure, now all that’s left is Dad and a bimbo. I cannot get motivated to get out there and forge a life and career for myself. Everything fails in the end anyway. What’s the point?

    Blue Bonnie 

    Dr. B says: Sorry for your losses. Life can be awful – but it is also filled with opportunity and potential. Humans are creatures made up of stories and now is the time to write your own. Your mom wouldn’t want you to crawl under a rock and hide for the rest of your life. She would want you to take a risk and maybe learn to fly.   

    Other people are not responsible for your happiness, and you are not responsible for theirs. In fact, the more you try to make someone else happy the angrier they often get at you for doing so. 

    Your happiness is your responsibility – don’t go looking for someone else to depend on for that. You need to depend on your own merits.  Life on this planet is never going to be easy, and the forces of nature are trying to eradicate us at every moment. But that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate what you do have, enjoy excellent distractions, and find meaning in your life. But all of that is up to you, and no one else.  As Tom Hopkins said: “Being miserable is a habit. Being happy is a habit. The choice is yours.”

    C says: I’m trying to be sympathetic, Bonnie, but you are bitching about free accommodations. Your dad and stepmother weren’t expecting this either; they were trying to start a new life. And however justified you think you are, resenting them is not going to make you feel any better about yourself.

    I do understand that it is painful for you to lose your mom – and maybe your parent’s marriage failed, but don’t mix that up with your own life and career choices. One really has nothing to do with the other. Right now you are mixing it all up in your head and you’re not going to be able to launch yourself onto a successful career path if you can’t focus and take aim.

    Do you have a friend you can visit, a zoo you can volunteer at, or a job out among people who are enjoying the open summer air? Do you have someone you trust and talk to? Now is the time to enlist some outside help for perspective.

    I say this in all kindness, Bonnie: Stop feeling sorry for yourself. This is no more than the trial that every child faces when first walking into adulthood. This is your Rite of Passage. Try not to screw it up.

    You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com

  • Dancing on Air: Amid COVID restrictions, local family of circus artists turns their yard into a stage

    Dancing on Air: Amid COVID restrictions, local family of circus artists turns their yard into a stage

    Twinkling lights spin down from the trees then disappear, while ribbons of music infuse the night – Rise Like a Phoenix, a three person, multi-act circus show, ran for four magical nights in June 2021. The performance was the work of Air and Silk, a family trio of circus artists who brought the enchantment of the circus into their own backyard. 

    The idea began in 2020 as an effort to reach out to an elderly friend in NYC who was isolated and cut off by COVID from the theater and concerts she loved. Simone Jogl, along with daughters Skye and Anneken, created a story in movement as a gift for her, tracing their friend’s life story as an immigrant. They called the production Cirque for Sophia. 

    “We took all the routines that we already knew and put that together with the story,” Anneken says. As the trio began working, the idea got bigger – with costumes, music and professional rigging for aerial silks. After filming a few runs to make a video for friends and family, the trio got even more ambitious: “Let’s do another story!” They began developing their ideas in February 2021. Rise Like A Phoenix is the breathtaking result, and the speed at which the production came together was astonishing.

    Simone explains: “This only works when it’s pretty warm, and because of the pandemic, there was limited aerial time to rehearse the acts.” As a result they had only weeks to develop the full concept – but the trio had years of training and skills to assist them.

    Simone and her husband, Gerwald, were both competitive amateur ballroom dancers in Austria, though not as a team. Their careers overlapped only by a year or so, then Gerwald went into martial arts and Simone focused on Latin American and 10 Dance, making the Austrian national team in both disciplines. Anneken inherited that same love of movement – she began aerial silks when she was 9, and later on began training in contortion as well; she is a Trouper at Circus Smirkus camp in Vermont this summer and she hopes to make this her career. “I’d like to do it professionally, maybe go to a circus college.” There are circus colleges? Anneken nods. “There’s a lot in Montreal, that’s the center. There’s one in Vermont, and in San Diego, but there aren’t that many in the US.” Does Skye have any ambitions to perform? “She is 14 so her ideas shift and change a lot,” says Simone, “but she loves performing and is thinking to fold that into her life for a few years, maybe as a street performer.”

    Air and Silk is a remarkably versatile trio. They do everything themselves, from building the staging, platforms and green-rooms, to the design and set-up of lights. Air and Silk have produced some impressive multi-act circus shows as Lafayette Backyard Productions, and they are available for parties, corporate events and site-specific performances.

    To see a trailer and stills from Rise Like A Phoenix, visit simone0023.wixsite.com/website/blog/. To receive a recording of the entire performance, contact simone@rolfing-providence.com.

  • Texting Treachery: Should this reader confront her husband?

    Texting Treachery: Should this reader confront her husband?

    Dear C and Dr. B;

    My cell phone died and I had to text my daughter, so I borrowed my husband Paul’s phone – he’d left it in the car. I got the shock of my life when I saw my husband’s last message to a co-worker. The subject was “the smokin’ hot” new receptionist at their office, who apparently has “an ass that won’t quit.” The conversation goes on to describe what he’d like to do to her. His co-worker makes several suggestions that were downright obscene, and my husband responds with “if only!” and a drooling emoji. 

    Now I don’t know what to do. It seemed more like locker room talk than an affair going on, but I have NEVER seen that side of Paul and it was seriously disturbing. Paul has been nothing but polite and friendly toward women in my presence. Now it looks like he turns into a sex crazed adolescent behind my back. What the hell? I’m torn between walking out – or flushing his head down the toilet. 

    In Shock 

    Dr. B says: Men and woman act differently when among groups of same-sex friends. Not all man talk follows Trump’s “Grabbing Pussies,”  but much does, just as many women, when among their peers, will compare “pull toys.” There is a difference between saying these things in the locker room and saying the same things publicly or on Facebook. The locker room involves gender-specific bonding. You describe your husband as fully appropriate socially, respectful to you and other women when he is with you or in public. If it is consistent, then it is true. It is also true that he is a male and of the human animal. What he does on his own time in privacy with his friends is really his business. I agree the culture will never be woke so long as these types of activities continue, but I am pretty sure the culture isn’t going to be fully woke in mine, yours or our grandkids lifetimes. Besides – reading his messages is a boundary violation and it is he who should be pissed at you.

    C says: I see this in a very different light. Consistent social behavior isn’t necessarily “true.” It can also be nothing but a consistant act covering up a very different truth.

    Back in the day, I played bass in a punk band, and I was skinny with muscular arms and a crew cut. I was often mistaken for a boy if I sat in the back of the dressing room and kept my mouth shut, so I would hear lots of guys act sweet as pie in front of their girlfriends, then talk crude trash about them behind their backs. True, a lot of it was just showing off, but I noticed something else – the men who were lewd and disrespectful behind closed doors also went through a lot of girlfriends – and the women they left behind had been hurt in the process because the guys didn’t really have any respect for them. The men who did NOT degrade women in private had better relationship outcomes, and although they didn’t criticize the men who bragged, neither did they join in.

    People can’t express thoughts that they do not have. Sometimes talking trash is just a game people fall into under the influence of others, but if someone I knew was consistently respectful to Black people in social situations, but I overheard him using the n-word with his buddies, I wouldn’t write it off as “just being one of the guys.” I’d write it off as being a racist hypocrite. We all have different personalities we pull out depending on the company we are in. For instance, I would never express my true thoughts about Trump at a Proud Boys rally – I don’t have a death wish. But I would most certainly NOT chime in and mimic their opinions just to fit in. 

    I’d sit down and have a good long talk with your husband and I wouldn’t worry that you accidentally “invaded his privacy.” You weren’t snooping through his pockets – in these days of social media, what we all say in private can easily become public domain. If Paul’s pissed that his privacy was invaded, I’d ask him this: “What if your daughter had found the texts?” Ya gotta wonder how he’d explain it to her.

    Paul isn’t a swinging bachelor, he’s part of a family. Hold him accountable.

    You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com