Month: July 2017

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Flower Child

Doll clothes at Irondequoit Farmers Market
Doll clothes at Irondequoit Farmers Market

I told the women who made these doll dresses that I really liked them. I wasn’t familiar with the type of doll. My sister played with Barbies and Peggi still has her 2nd generation Barbie tucked away somewhere. The dolls above are almost actual size, on second thought, more like half size. The woman told us they are sold at some store I’ve never heard of but she said it like it was a really common store and she said they were reasonably priced. Peggi pointed to one of the dresses (not shown in the blow-up of this photo) and told the woman how much she liked it. I asked if she made clothes to human scale and she said, “People ask me that all the time but I don’t”

We had to move our car down the street tonight because our next door neighbor is having another house concert. One of those singer/song writer affairs. I get nervous in those sit-down, rapt attention situations so we usually skip them. But we did go to his first house concert about six years ago. It was Eric Taylor and Eric is back again tonight. So we might pop in somewhere after the break and check out a few songs.

We heard my new favorite band last night in the most unlikely setting. I already wrote about them when we last heard them in February so I’ll just copy paste that description here.

“Vocalist Debbie Kendrick has all the laid back confidence in the world and she backs that up with a voice that commands your attention in the most understated manner. The material is top-shelf gospel-tinged, soul and blues tunes like “John the Revelator.” She has the perfect band with Sean Pfeifer playing rythmic, percussive guitar. Bassist, Mike Patric, is as solid as a rock and drummer Pete Monacelli swings like crazy on one drum, a snare, that he massages with a pair of the most well seasoned, plastic brushes I have ever seen. This band in amazing.”

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Volunteers Of America

Marine Billboard near Record Archive in Rochester, New York
Marine Billboard near Record Archive in Rochester, New York

IMHO Jefferson Airplane peaked with “Crown of Creation” but they still had some magic when I saw them in the old football/then soccer stadium at Indiana University. My brother was in town, we had our drugs lined up and we sat on the lawn about a hundred feet from the stage. The draft lottery had not yet been instituted. We both had college deferments. Neither one of us were going to volunteer for Viet Nam duty.

Mountain opened with their cowbell thing. Loud as hell, so we had to clear out for a bit. The Airplane were touring with “Volunteers,” their followup to “Crown of Creation.” I heard Marty Balin was busted in his hotel room the night before so he didn’t perform. The sixties had turned its final corner. Nearly everything now had dark overtones. Which is what gave the seventies its edge.

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Contemplation

Lions at entrance to subdivision Williamstown, Massachusetts
Lions at entrance to subdivision Williamstown, Massachusetts

I recently advised my friend, John, to call Apple for advice on migrating from his old eMac to a new iMac. That recommendation was mostly for time-saving, selfish reasons but John has spent hours with his new friends at Apple and recently thanked us for the recommendation. He stopped by the other night to borrow an old operating system so he can reformat his old machine before putting it out to pasture and he wanted to bring a few things to our attention, things he had learned from hours spent in his “library.”

He had book-marked pages in the recent “Genius” issue of National Geographic and he read those passages aloud to us. “The aha moment, the flash of clarity that arises at unexpected times—in a dream, in the shower, on a walk—often emerges after a period of contemplation.” His experience in stewing over a problem has found this to be true. And, although I didn’t say anything, I have found the same. I’d spend hours knocking out logo designs under a deadline and then hop in the shower to have the winning entry reveal itself. So, us common folk can at least recognize the concept. There’s also an “Age and Achievement” graph in the issue that charts peak output of a dozen geniuses and makes it pretty clear that in most cases that point is around thirty or forty. But what about Philip Guston?

Next passage, read aloud, voice of John: “This may help explain the astounding performances of jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. Jarrett, who improvises concerts that last for as long as two hours. When he sits down in front of audiences, he purposefully pushes notes out of his mind, moving his hands to keys he had no intention of playing. ‘I’m bypassing the brain completely,’ he tells me. ‘I am being pulled by a force that I can only be thankful for.’ Jarrett specifically remembers one concert in Munich, where he felt as if he had disappeared into the high notes of the keyboard. His creative artistry, nurtured by decades of listening, learning, and practicing melodies, emerges when he is least in control. ‘It’s a vast space in which I trust there will be music,’ he says.”

Esperanza Spalding, a professor at Harvard University, where she teaches composition and performance, plans to record her next album in a 72 hour live stream. She tells students that in order to speak honestly in your own voice, you have to control the urge to plan everything out. “Only play in response to what you just played — and if you lose your focus, then only play in response to that. This helps them focus on a conversational flow, maintaining contact with the energy of the moment rather than wandering through some calculated narrative. They get in touch with what they already have going on. Which is a lot.”

“I foresee that creating before a live audience will add excitement and extra inspiration energy. Knowing someone is watching and listening to what you’re making seems to conjure up a sort of ‘can’t fail’ energy. The necessity to keep going because it’s live draws up another depth of creative facility that can’t be reached when you know you can try again tomorrow. Having such limited time to write and record 10 songs will also force us to rely on improvisation and first instinct. Not allowing us time to judge, second guess, question, or alter the initial hits of inspiration that drive the creation of each song.”

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Crystal Blue Persuasion

View from Thomas Schutte Crystal at The Clark
View from Thomas Schutte Crystal at The Clark

The Clark in Williamstown, just down the road from Mass MoCA, is a jewel of a museum. We spent the night nearby after touring Mass MoCA and we thought we’d visit the place before heading home. We weren’t prepared for how substantial the collection was or how beautiful the grounds and buildings are. What is this place doing in the middle of the Berkshire Mountains?

The featured exhibition here is “Picasso: Encounters,” thirty-five Picasso prints and three paintings, including the Clark’s rare impression of The Frugal Repast (1904) and Ecce Homo, after Rembrandt (1970), made just three years before his death.

One of the coolest pieces in their collection is up on a hill outside the museum buildings. You can get to Thomas Schütte’s “Crystal” by taking a path through the woods from the building that is currently housing Helen Frankenthaler’s beautiful large abstracts. Once inside the Crystal I starting thinking of Tommy James, not his real name, and this song.

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Wall Therapy

Sol Lewitt wall drawing at Mass MoCA
Sol Lewitt wall drawing at Mass MoCA

Sol LeWitt would kick ass if one of his wall drawings was executed here. We set the alarm and took off early for the Berkshires. They happen pretty quickly after Troy so we had most of the day to wander around Mass MoCA. We walked through the Nick Cave installation and started our tour proper with nine of James Turrell’s pieces. Not really light art, as he says, but art about perception. We had reservations for a view of his “Perfectly Clear.” I could have stayed in there all day but we were only allowed nine minutes.

Sol LeWitt has three floors of wall drawings in one of the giant industrial buildings, buildings that used to house Arnold Print Works, a company that specialized in printing cloth. They supplied uniforms to the Union soldiers during the Civil War. You don’t just look at Sol Lewitt pieces. You digest the concept that led to its creation. We spent hours here but didn’t have time for it all.

We saved the last hour of the day for Anselm Kiefer, on view here through 2028. His monumental nautical paintings, “Velimir Khlebnikov,” take up a whole building and we were the only ones, other than the guard, in it. Like DIA Beacon this old industrial complex makes an ideal setting for viewing art. The experience will change you.

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Talking ‘Bout My Generation

Green chairs and small wood tables at Mass MoCA
Green chairs and small wood tables at Mass MoCA

I should not be depressed at a birthday party. The room was crowded, a band playing and many people got up to perform. Some solo and at times there were six guitars on the stage. So what is my problem?

Let’s say you are in a position to go out to see a band. Maybe you would like to hear something creative, exciting, maybe something with an edge. What qualities do you look for? Maybe throw the dice and catch something wildly unexpected. If there was a room full of people and they were all around my age there would be a lot of water under the bridge. Just think where we came from with Motown and garage rock and straight up pop. Hendrix and psychedelia and jazz pushing frontiers. Punk offering a major correction. EDM for crying out loud.

Let’s say you play an instrument. What qualities would you be thinking about adding to this lexicon? Would you go out of your way to do a mediocre version of some roots, Americana thing?

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Lazy Eye

Out of focus sun spots on pavement on our street
Out of focus sun spots on pavement on our street

My ears are still ringing from Saturday night’s Big Ditch/Nod double billing at the Firehouse Saloon. That’s a great place for rock n’ roll. Mostly an empty room with very few clunky chairs and a great sound system. Big Ditch was tight as a drum and Nod was loose as a goose, at one point stopping a song because something was out of whack. I hadn’t seen a band do that in years. In fact I thought that was one of the rules of rock & roll. You never stop a song. Anyway, I loved both bands.

The place is loud as hell. You can’t distinguish one word of the vocals. I’m thinking next time I’ll bring my Home Depot ear muffs and it will be perfect.

We have been spending an unhealthy amount of time following the antics of the US royal family. I’m getting tired of the mind-blowing. House of Cards is much better. We just wrapped up season 5. The show got off to a great start early on but got bogged down with complications in the the 3rd and 4th season. And I was really worried about the Trumpster upstaging season 5.

I’m happy to say he could not. The House of Cards players are better looking. They’re smarter. Trump is a pretty good actor but the HoC actors are much better and therefore much more engaging.

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Moby Dick

Figurines on counter at Captain Jim's in Rochester, New York
Figurines on counter at Captain Jim’s in Rochester, New York

I’m happy to report our old neighborhood is really coming up. Not that there is anywhere to go. Beechwood is mostly single family, four-square homes built in the early part of the last century. When we moved there in ’78 it even had its own post office on Culver near Main. We identified the triangle between Main, Merchants and Winton as affordable and stable and looked at only a handful of houses there before making an offer on Hall Street. Our realtor, my uncle, suggested we go in at $20,000, two thousand below the asking price, and they accepted it.

We stopped in Captain Jim’s on Friday and picked up a fish fry to go. That place is exactly the same. Jim’s mom still lurks in the dining room. I took this photo there. This Moby Dick-like drama was playing out on the counter while we waited for our order. Coincidentally, our neighbor on Hall Street looks just like one of these guys.

It only took forty years or so but there’s now many more restaurants, bars, a barbecue joint and a micro brewery. Of course, there were plenty of places to get a fish fry back then. This has always been Rochester. Club Soda, at the corner of Hall Street and Main, was called My Brother’s Place back then and they had a pretty good one. Carroll’s Irish bar had one. Fleckenstein’s Meat Market turned into a Greek fish store and people lined up for their fish fry and that was when Captain Jim’s opened.

He put the others right out of business. He runs a tight ship. His coleslaw is top notch and the secret with the fish is – you gotta eat it when it’s hot and after the first few bites you’re best off picking the fish out of the breading.

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Long Live Suicide

Kid jumping logs on bike at the end of our street in Rochester, New York
Kid jumping logs on bike at the end of our street in Rochester, New York

Are we really going to be going back down to New York for the fourth time before July is out? NYT had an article a couple of weeks ago about Alan Vega and his artwork. I really liked the portrait they pictured, one of his last paintings, and Invisible-Exports, a gallery on the Lower East Side, has a show on now of those portraits. The article mentioned that Jeffery Deitch will also have a show in his SoHo gallery “that will feature drawings and assemblages from Vega’s earliest days to his last, as well as a larger-than-life projection of Suicide in concert that, he promises, will make people “feel as if they’re there.”

I sent a link to the article to Duane and sure enough the live Suicide video is the footage that he and Howard Thompson shot in that same gallery (from a Suicide performance that took place in that same space if I am not mistaken.)

25 million posted “Dream Baby Dream” from the old Midnight Special show and it has crossed the one million views mark. Duane is, with approval from Vega’s wife, assembling the compilation video for Deitch. Let’s hope his footage is rendered in time for the opening.

We did get to see Suicide a few times and I know I’ve told this story before. But here goes. After their first album came out we drove down after work to hear them at Max’s on a Friday night. It was during the gas crunch and we were unable to find a gas station that was open. We finally ran out and spent the night in the car, parked in front of a gas tank in New Jersey. Let’s hope Trump doesn’t trigger something.

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Dolce Vento

Chairs on back deck at Rocco's in Rochester, New York
Chairs on back deck at Rocco’s in Rochester, New York

The dining room at Rocco was full when we arrived so we sat on the back deck in a light rain. We knew nothing about the wines on the list so we asked the server for a full-bodied, dry red. Mark, the owner and chef, stopped by the table and we asked how his father was doing. Rocco is named after our old dentist. We were told Rocco passed around Christmas.

I’d like to recommend:

Polpo Alla Griglia $12
grilled octopus, gigante beans, green sauce

Insalata Caesar Cardini $9
romaine, garlic-anchovy dressing, pecorino

soundtrack

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Bob Spelled Backward

Orange flowers with yellow centers at Bob and Liz's mid-century modern place in Rochester, New York
Orange flowers with yellow centers at Bob and Liz’s mid-century modern place in Rochester, New York

I have been to Chicago a few times. Our soccer team at IU played Northwestern and one of the other forwards, a little guy, a foreign student like most of the team, took us all to a Turkish restaurant in the city. His name was Attila. We had a tiny cup of Turkish coffee.

And then Dave Mahoney and I hitchhiked up there from Bloomington. Can’t remember why we went up there but I remember staying at the Y downtown and getting chased by some guy after we got out of the shower. And I went up there with Steve Hoy in ’69 to hear the Stones. Peggi was at that show too but we weren’t together. Terry Reid and Chuck Berry opened.

Peggi and I went there together in 2001 to see the Van Gogh/Gaugin show at the Art Institute. It was weeks after 9/11 and there were rumors that the Sears Tower was next. We took the train and walked everywhere once we got there. It seemed very friendly.

Bob Martin left town today behind the wheel of a big U-Haul. He’s headed for Chicago where he bought a house. There is a magnet out there. His grandson. We stopped over to return a hard drive and say goodbye again. We will miss him in so many ways.

We played music together for thirty-five years. That’s how we met. That conversation will end. Bob is an expert on all things technical. Software, hardware, recording. We turned to him all the time for advice. He is a good friend. It is all kinda sad but I guess that is why they invented Facebook. Except I’m not gonna join in those political rants even if I agree with Bob. But I will miss Liz Valentine’s eloquent letters to the editor in our local paper.

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Garage Sales For Dummies

Books at garage sale in Rochester, New York
Books at garage sale in Rochester, New York

We were headed up to Wegman’s on our bikes. We needed just about everything so I had three bags in my basket. There were garage sales on every side street and we turned down one that had a sign pointing to a “Monster Garage Sale.” I was kind of intrigued by this graphic poster but we moved along without buying anything.

Peggi had pointed out the book, “Blogging For Dummies,” and I’m wondering now what kind of advice it would have offered.

I think the hardest part is just doing it. Like meditation you have to stop what you’re doing and collect yourself for a few moments. To make that act more tolerable I just try to amuse myself by what I write. If I don’t have anything to say I just start typing and it is fun to see where it goes. For me, my photos are an aide. They get the ball rolling even if they have nothing to do with the content of my post. And often the photo is far more interesting than what I write. That’s ok with me. I get a sense of release when I hit “Publish” and then I get on with my day. It is ridiculously selfish.

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Road Mask

Catalytic converter cover found on Wisner Road in Rochester, New York
Catalytic converter cover found on Wisner Road in Rochester, New York

We were out riding our bikes and Peggi spotted this catalytic-convertor cover on Wisner Road. I collected them for years but I don’t even see them anymore. Early spring before the city sweeps the streets is the best time to find them. And of course you need to be on your bike to even see them. They get run over until they are as flat as a pancake. I had this Road Mask piece in Tap and Mallet when they opened. No idea where it is today.

My camera card has been acting funny. I think I mentioned this a while back. Sometimes I can’t change the names of the jpegs on it unless I copy the files onto my hard drive. And sometimes I can’t drag the files I don’t want to the trash. I am not allowed.

This morning I put the card in my computer and things were working fine. I had five really nice photos on there and I was allowed to rename the ones I wanted to keep. There were three photos of clouds from yesterday, really dramatic looking cumulus clouds set against a dark black cloud with brilliant blue sky behind it all. We had just finished dinner with my sister at Vic’s Place and she was having a cigarette in the parking lot. I saved three of the cloud photos, real beauties. There was one of a tiny baby rabbit on the lawn in front of Writers and Books. And a shot from the forth floor stairwell leading up to Colleen Buzzard’s studio in the Anderson Building. I was looking at a row of turn-of-the-last-century buildings with saw-tooth rooftops which used to allow natural light in for the factory workers before electricity came along. That shot was just at dusk in low light.

It occurred to me that I was renaming the files on the card and my next thought was, “I wonder if I can drag them to the trash?” I could and I did and I dumped it.

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Follow Up

Pig roasting on the beach July 4th at Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, New York
Pig roasting on the beach July 4th at Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, New York

“A relaxed mind is a creative mind.” So my Yogi tea bag read tonight. I don’t know about that. When I’m relaxed I don’t seem to get anything done. But instead of dismissing this fortune I plan to take it for a spin.

I’ve been preparing for an art show and I’ve been pushing it. I’ve been preparing the coffee maker before we go to bed so all I have to do is push the button in the morning. I’m down there drawing before I am awake. And I stop only when I’m nearly exhausted. I’m going to start relaxing and I will report back.

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Unity, Pride, Strength

Teamster truck and fans at Durand Eastman Beach on 4th of July
Teamster truck and fans at Durand Eastman Beach on 4th of July

It was a perfect day for cruising along the lakeshore. Full sun but not too hot. The sand beach, which is still mostly underwater, was packed with bathers but most people arranged themselves on the lawn where the old railroad tracks were. Giant boom boxes were cranking competing salsa tunes and barbecue equipment was everywhere, even those stainless steel consoles that run on propane. One group was grilling a whole pig on a spigget rotating above a double wide oil drum cooker. The whole trick was riding our bikes slow enough to take this all in.

On top of it all, a super patriotic trucker drove slowly through the parking lot with a sound system mounted on the outside of its cab. The playlist included AC DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

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Highlife

Pink earth art on filled in Inner Loop
Pink earth art on filled in Inner Loop

I thought it was interesting that people pulled right out onto the filled-in Inner Loop to park for free last night. The city was packed for the last night of Jazz Fest. Tonight was for the backup musicians, David Bowie’s Blackstar band at Xerox and Bruno Mars backup band at one of the outdoor stages. I’ve kept track of the acts we’ve seen here and posted some notes below.

We started with the Donny McCaslin Group, a four piece, who sounded really great in the Xerox auditorium. The keyboard player has a big role in their sound and he had plenty of unusual sounds but his Mopho x4 was a little overbearing. And there was a little too much four-on-the-floor from the drums for my tastes. I really liked the sax player’s playing. Peggi talked to him after the gig about his EarthQuaker effects. The band’s new record is based on their experience working with David Bowie and they played an instrumental version of Bowie’s “Lazarus.” It was the best song they did.

The trio over at the Lutheran Church was led by the drummer. Gard Nilssen’s Acoustic Unity had a light airy sound but they played fast and furious. The drummer soloed with brushes. The sax player played tenor and soprano and both at once. The bass played reminded me of Charlie Haden. They played so well together it was quite amazing.

We stopped in Christ Church to hear a bit of Tessa Souter. I was glad to see Billy Drummond in the drum chair. Souter sounds like a really good lounge singer. I don’t mean that as any kind of slight. I would love to be stuck in a hotel bar somewhere or on a cruise ship and have the Spanish guitar, the double bass and Billy’s drums backing her chanteuse show. They weren’t serving drinks in the church though.

We ran into my brother the other night and he was disappointed because there was no band in front of the University Club. He comes down for the free stuff. He likes blues and he usually finds something he likes there. Tonight there was a band there and they were doing James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” when we walked by.

The guitar player in International Orange at the Little Theater was really great. He played all kinds of fingerpicking, slide and whammy bar stuff. He sounded a bit like one of those African Highlife players. I kind of wish he had a different band. The drummer was a little heavy handed and the electric piano just didn’t sound that good with the guitar. And the bass player certainly didn’t need two five string basses. They did a Pat Methany song and something off Keith Jarrett’s “Belonging” but the guitar player’s stuff was the best.

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