![\"unnamed.jpg\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/f3a6cf92-8231-4374-a619-cb2fde159e50.sized-1000x1000.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
I find Spencer and Vic sitting in the same spot as Sophia was, light rain falling on their heads. I offer them my spare umbrella as we talk.<\/p>\n
The two were on South Street earlier that day, and had been together since the morning. Vic, sitting on the left, lives nearby, about five blocks away. Spencer lives in West Philly near her job at Knockbox Cafe, the Philly cafe voted to be the most \u201clesbian\u201d in the city according to Spencer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vic works at the nearby Penn Medicine Rehabilitation Hospital, and has been there for about a year, having moved to the area for the job. She\u2019s originally from Texas, but \u201cdidn\u2019t like how conservative [it is] where [she] was growing up, so [she] ran away.\u201d It\u2019s been three years since then. Spencer, on the other hand, grew up in Philly, and recognized my friend from Penn Alexander School.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vic worked in a retail pharmacy prior to her current gig, around when Ozempic was booming in popularity. \u201cIt was just constant bullshit, they didn\u2019t pay me enough, and then the company eventually went under, so I left,\u201d she explains. Eventually she moved to a Walmart pharmacy, but got stuck in a predominantly male retail environment. \u201cWhen the gay\u2013looking one is getting yelled at and no one jumps in, I start to find it a problem,\u201d Vic says. They knocked her hours down to five and a half per week, because unlike most pharmacies, Walmart is a seasonal job and doesn\u2019t want to employ people full\u2013time in its pharmacy. So she left, and after three months of unemployment she landed her current position. \u201cThere\u2019s like a tattoo shop there if you ever end up inebriated and in need\u2014just don\u2019t show up too drunk. They might kick you out. I showed up stoned and they\u2019re okay,\u201d she goes on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This brings us to the topic of tattoos.\u00a0Spencer is visibly covered in them, most of their tattoos being stick\u2013and\u2013pokes they did themself. Vic, more covered up, has a bunch as well. \u201cI have a bunny from where I grew up,\u201d she says, \u201cafter my dad died, I don\u2019t know, it kind of just reminds me of him because it was around that time.\u201d Not all are so wholesome, though. \u201cI have a bunch of stupid ones, in nasty places,\u201d she goes on. Pointing to one on her lower back: \u201cthis is a classic, and it\u2019s really poorly done. It was like on the floor of an apartment, okay? Like, drunk, K hole, shittiest possible situation, literally, I should have been infected for weeks. Like, I put underwear on, like, straight over it. Didn\u2019t even think about it. I was just partying, so I didn’t really care,\u201d she explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In high school, Spencer covered their legs with eyes, flowers, strawberries, and all sorts of lesbian imagery. More recently, they covered their upper torso. Spencer is an artist, and is currently interning under a mural artist who runs Hagopian Arts<\/a>. The female\u2013owned public art initiative is based in West Philly and focused on ecology, culture, and community, particularly indigenous ones. Spencer helps with these projects across the city, painting native and medicinal plants with the initiative and doing oil painting on the side.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spencer recently got back from Berlin, where they went on a graffiti tour and left feeling more inspired than ever. Their tour guide spoke of graffiti as the work of the city’s lower income population, and explained that the upper class of the city had recently begun to capitalize on it. In high school, they\u2019d interned with Mural Arts Philadelphia and felt a similar vibe, especially because of their anti\u2013graffiti goal. \u201cThey don\u2019t pay their artists enough, and kind of capitalize off of Philly artists,\u201d they explain. Hagopian Arts, they say, \u201c[is] an independent artist, and works especially with indigenous people, I really enjoy it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked by my friend about a recent lesson they learned that had been really meaningful to them, Spencer turns back to their trip to Berlin. The history behind the street art they learned about, and the ways in which German society built itself back up after World War Two and the Cold War, left them feeling incredibly inspired. The connection between public expression and societal growth drives art in Berlin, and has begun to drive Spencer\u2019s work in Philly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When I leave the pair, they decide to go to Van Leeuwen for a scoop of ice cream.\u00a0<\/p>\n ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n CROW<\/strong><\/p>\n Crow talked my ear off. As our conversation went on, we sat in the rain together as he straightened out a tobacco leaf, rolled, and smoked a blunt in its entirety. The only way I could get our conversation to end was to say my phone was about to die\u2014which it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n He first came to play in Rittenhouse back in 2014 when he was looking for a place to play his quena, an Andean flute. The park was perfect, as he needed a space that could hold such a loud instrument. Despite his public performance, Crow never sets out a hat for money; it\u2019s all for the love of the game. When it comes to his choice of music, Crow\u2019s keen on sticking to songs by Black women. \u201cDamn, I love Black women,\u201d he shares, before listing off a plethora of Black female artists he likes to play, Keyshia Cole<\/a> in particular. He shared this another three times.\u00a0<\/p>\n Crow\u2019s from Los Angeles, and he moved here around the same time as his first trip to the park. He tells me about this as he goes on a tangent about a massive crack he got down his quena. A buddy of his back in Los Angeles was obsessed with getting one of his own, and kept asking Crow to make him one, even buying the proper bamboo for it. They ended up going to a Creole man in Inglewood who taught Crow everything he knows about tempering the wood and making flutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Somewhere along the way we get to Crow\u2019s childhood. The scene starts in Gardena County, Los Angeles, and Crow is six years old. On a day where he had a couple bills in his pocket, he went to the Roadium, a nearby open\u2013air flea market. \u201cThe first thing I heard was music playing at a CD stand\u2014Latino CD stands, you know how they are\u2014and the guy was bumping Andean music,\u201d he says, \u201cI already had some idea of instruments because my sister was a great singer. But I couldn\u2019t figure out what the hell that sound was.\u201d He bought a CD for five dollars, labelled “Viento en los Andes,\u201d thinking that was the band name. \u201cI took it home, playing it, and my mom goes, \u2018Nena, that\u2019s music from the Andes, where\u2019d you get that?\u2019 I tell her, \u2018The Roadium.\u2019 She goes, \u2018Wow, your cousin plays that instrument.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s a quena,\u2019 \u2026 She tells me I need to go back to Colombia. She sings me some Andean songs she knows. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Damn, okay, now I know what I need.\u2019 So I go back to the flea market looking for the CD guy, thinking he\u2019s a vendor so he must know someone,\u201d he goes on.<\/p>\n I let him go on speaking, barely getting in a question throughout the story. \u201cInstead, I hear someone else playing the music,\u201d he says, \u201cactually playing the flute\u2014selling stones, incense, tarot cards, sage bundles, all that. And he has a basket of flutes. They were novelty grade bamboo, not tempered \u2026 He let me stand there practicing until I got a note. When I finally did, he showed me a song\u2014super simple, very native and pentatonic.\u201d Crow picked up Andean songs quickly from there, mostly by ear, going to see the man every weekend for a quick lesson on the tarmac. \u201cTime flies when you\u2019re a kid, so I don\u2019t even know how long I went there learning,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n He moved away from Philly in 2017 to New York City, going back and forth for four years until he settled back in Philly in 2021. Now, he lives here but still performs with his band every now and then in New York City. As of now, he\u2019s been in Philly for three consecutive months. Philly\u2019s very different from Los Angeles, as \u201cthere aren\u2019t many town\u2013square type places in L.A.,\u201d he says. He found Rittenhouse when searching for good acoustics in the city. \u201cTo me, this is free performing. It\u2019s far enough from the cars, and right in the middle I get the best acoustics. When I\u2019m doing stuff, you all can enjoy it. I can\u2019t enjoy it the same way. I enjoy it differently, like I\u2019m doing something while in a dream state,\u201d Crow explains. This spiritual and emotional connection to his quena drove much of the conversation.<\/p>\n When asked why he stays out playing so late, he explains that American bassist Victor Wooten<\/a> \u201ctalked about [it]\u2014being tired late at night and finding the best ideas. When you\u2019re tired, you can hear yourself. That\u2019s why I like playing at night, like 2 or 3 a.m. \u2026 it gets spiritual. I feel the universe responding.\u201d The intensity of his playing frequently reaches the extreme: \u201cI humble myself, like, \u2018How the fuck am I doing this?\u2019 I remember moments where I feel like I\u2019m outsourcing energy, like I\u2019m at the verge of passing out but something won\u2019t let me stop. Even when my mouth hurts. I\u2019m tired, but I\u2019m in it. Now I am it. That\u2019s where I learn the most\u2014in the painful songs, the emotional ones,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd Black women,\u201d he goes on, \u201cthey\u2019re tired, but they have such elegance. You learn a lot from them about pushing music, attacking it.\u201d<\/p>\n He isn\u2019t just into R&B, though\u2014Crow\u2019s a metalhead, too. \u201cOpeth<\/a>, Testament<\/a>, Decapitated<\/a>, Vader<\/a>, Behemoth<\/a>,\u201d are some of his favorites. \u201cI go to backyard metal shows, basement shows. I play guitar, shred, whammy bar, dive\u2013bomb,\u201d he says. His band isn\u2019t metal, though. \u201cThey\u2019re rock, kind of country\u2013ish, cowpunk. I just love groove.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, Crow is the only one playing quena in the park. It\u2019s rare to find someone else, especially in Philly. Growing up, they were everywhere, especially at the Roadium stands where guys were \u201cselling flutes, trinkets, artesan\u00edas, CDs.\u201d He reflects on the technique he learned then, sad that much of it may be lost if his teacher never taught anyone else. \u201cSome of them didn\u2019t want to show their methods\u2014especially flute-making,\u201d a trade he explains was incredibly competitive. \u201cA well\u2013tempered flute is like $60\u2013$80 and has to be well made. Then more makers popped up, more availability. It really was like that South Park episode with the Peruvian flute bands, fighting each other for corners, yelling \u2018This is my corner, bitch!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Crow misses Colombia all the time, \u201cthe food especially, the music, the people, my family. And it\u2019s almost like it\u2019s still the 90s there. Still the 90s there. And like here, you could try to be in the 90s, but I feel like I\u2019m in the 60s or 70s sometimes,\u201d he says. Missing home is another reason why he plays\u2014it lets him feel connected to his Andean roots. \u201cAnd I invoke the ancestors when I play the instrument. It\u2019s something that is thousands of years old, like well over ten. It\u2019s one of those first things we started doing,\u201d he explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"crow.jpeg\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/a917da42-c907-4371-9f9e-2cf073326063.sized-1000x1000.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n