This is where Spring comes from. We found the source. All that moist green stuff comes out of this low lying area in Spring Valley.
2 CommentsWhere Spring Comes From
Sculpt A Butt That Defies Gravity
There’s hardly ever a line a Wegmans. They like taking your money. Speaking of “like”, the like button in the sidebar of this page stopped working. Not during an upgrades or anything, it just just stopped working out of the blue. But I discovered that when I sign out of fb the counter begins working again and shows the 433 that have clicked. I tried updating the wp page with a plugging-in but it wanted to start counting from zero so I disabled the plug-in. Just like Sparky‘s site I have a broken counter.
Anyway back to the line at Wegman’s. I had enough time to scan the magazine covers at the check out. Men’s Health magazine, “Melt Your Gut.” Women’s Health magazine, “Sculpt A Butt That Defies Gravity.”
3 CommentsSlag Heap
Twenty years ago Chris Schepp organized the first Infest, an all day concert with ten bands in the Olmstead designed Genesee Valley Park. Pete LaBonne put a band together for the affair and called it “Pete’s Rock Band.” Buffalo’s Bruce Eaton played bass and I played drums. I can’t remember who the other bands were but SLT must have been one of them because Matt Sabo, Pat Lowery and Marathon Mark can all be seen in the video footage we have. I used to have an “Infest” t-shirt and an “Infest” cassette but they’ve slipped away. We came across this vhs tape and Peggi edited a clip for YouTube.
Pete joins Margaret Explosion on piano Wednesday night at the Little Theater Café.
2 CommentsI Stand Astounded
Fred Lipp wanted me to look at this etching by Matisse, a drawing really, and now I want to look at it, over and over. It’s a portrait of Baudelaire and, wow, does it look simple. Except that every line is absolutely perfect. None of the lines touch each other and they are all pretty much the same weight. They float in space while decribing physical form with supremely confident expression. There is so much volume in here and not one false move. You want to take each lines’ journey.
2 CommentsLilacs And Fried Dough
With tree blossoms a full month ahead of schedule in this part of the country farmers are concerned that a cold snap could damage this year’s fruit crop. That would be a shame but it hard to find fault with this gorgeous weather. Some people say we’l be punished for this. My father say’s we’ve earned it. Shelley is upset because the nights have not been cold enough for the sap to flow. She has given up on syruping this year.
I’m hoping this will be the year when the lilacs will have come and gone by the time the officially announced celebration begins.
1 CommentUnknown Error
We renewed our passports today. I say “today” but it took us the better part of the week to get the damn things off. You can’t just go downtown and do it face to face with a county employee anymore. We had to print out a form from the government’s site that included a bar code that “must be legible”. Legible bar codes are impossible to do on an inkjet printer so we made a trip to the library for that phase.
Our laser printer bit the dust. If I could figure out how to recycle the damn thing it would be gone but it’s still sitting in the corner next to me. It served us well, a 660 dpi HP LaserJet that we bought to do early desktop publishing work for Lawyers Co-operative Publishing back in the day. The oldest company in Rochester for a while, West Group bought them and then Reuters bought West Group. We used to layout law books, print the pages out and then they would shoot film negs from our print outs. Not very creative but cutting edge production in the dark ages.
You would think in 2012 you would be able to upload a passport photo the same way you put a photo on FaceBook and fill out the passport forms electronically instead of wrestling with all this old technology. We have three inkjet printers, ones that came free with computers. “Free” with outrageously priced toner cartridge replacements. Our Canon S9000 is giving us an “Unknown Error”. Where do you go to figure that one out? So we printed our 2×2 inch passport photos on our our Epson. We’ve really moved beyond printing and hardly do any of it anymore. I can’t understand why anyone would print a photo anymore. They look so much better on a monitor. So we loaded the coated paper upside down and got the other worldly looking photos above.
5 Comments“Stand Your Ground” or “Shoot First”
I’m thinking about doing a drawing of Florida’s Trayvon Martin in his hood.
2 CommentsSitting, Thinking
I’m not sure what this tree is but it is in an area of the park where they have all sorts of fruit trees. The nearby pink flowering tress are identified as apricot trees so maybe it is in that family. It looks like a Popcorn Tree. Everything is coming on so fast in this summer like weather. We received some mail from the daughter of the former owner of our house. I dreaded opening the envelope thinking it must be a death notice but it was an invitation to his 100th birthday. Imagine how fast time is going for him.
2 CommentsSpecial People
Instead of staying in the woods we’ve been heading into the park proper in hopes of finding yet another early flowering specimen. The apricot trees still rule but the magnolias are coming on. Warm weather obviously brings out a lot of people, two kinds of people, outdoors enthusiasts and dog people. Any walker can tell you dog people always say, “Don’t worry. He/she is harmless” when their dog comes at you or jumps up on your leg. The “Dogs must be on leash” signs at the park entrances only apply to suckers because no one is here to enforce the rules.
We have a few dog maulings under our belts so we’ve had plenty of time to think up novel ways to combat this problem. Peggi would like to buy mace spray but not just the kind the mailman has. She would like something to spray at the dog owners because it is not the dogs fault. We both like dogs especially that cute little thing in “The Artist.” I’ve been thinking about making a t-shirt to wear in the park when we walk that reads. “The Dog Leash Law Does Not Apply To Me.”
1 CommentRoll Away The Stone
The chipmunks have left their winter complex under our sidewalk. They’ve pushed back the stones that we that shoved down there last year in an effort to keep our sidewalks from caving in. The squirrels never went anywhere this winter. I just checked my little iPod weather app and it’s warmer here than it is in New York, San Francisco, LA, Madrid, Sevilla and Barcelona. So there.
Listen to Squirrel Watch by Margaret Explosion.
2 Sore 2 Peck
Peggi and I were sitting at our computers when we heard this noise coming from the front room. It sounded like someone had dropped a sheet of aluminum or maybe a branch falling on our roof but it wasn’t windy at all. We were both too engaged to investigate so we quickly forgot about it. Later in the afternoon we went out back and found this little woodpecker on the ground below our window. He was obviously stunned but he could hardly walk or hop. We found a worm for him but he didn’t seem interested. We called Animal Control and they said to call back tomorrow if the bird was still there.
We got fixed on this guy and checked on him several times through the day finally watching him fly to a nearby cherry tree where he stood still on the side of the tree. His head was obviously too sore to peck. He stayed in that spot for hours and was still there when we left for our Magaret Explosion gig. I turned the light on when we returned but there was no sign of him. I’m hoping he’s back in action.
Leave a commentHawk Eye
The best part about a good walk is the adventure. Heading off in a new direction or just stopping to take in the surroundings. We watched this hawk for quite a while yesterday. It was overlooking a valley and we were on a hill behind it. The hawk had his eye on a squirrel in a nearby tree and was waiting for that squirrel to make one false move. He decided to spare the squirrel and he took off for his next adventure.
Kodak used to make a “Hawk-Eye” camera and my dad worked at Kodak’s Hawk-Eye division on Driving Park overlooking the river. Most of what he did there involved government surveillance projects. He couldn’t talk about it then but it is all in the public domain now.
4 CommentsSubmarine Races
I agree with the sentiment expressed in this graffiti. Governor PaTacky got the ball rolling when he jacked up the State Park entry fees, boat launching fees, fees for each dock you go through on the canal etc. “Pay as you go” rather than having our taxes cover it for everyone. Rochester’s mayor started charging for parking at the lake so if you want to take the view in down there or just watch the submarine races you have to feed the meter. It’s public land and it should be free to visit but don’t go desecrating the park to voice your opinion. Get creative.
Hope Springs Eternal
Perfect Day Again
The weather has been changing from minute to minute today. Full sun and then snow flurries which accumulate and then melt, bursts of wind, more sun and then snow pellets that disappear on contact. Perfect conditions for a walk to the lake.
Our neighbor has his spinach in already. He sets the pace around here and makes us all look like slackers. He was telling us that his grandmother used to sprinkle the seed on the snow in the Spring. I like that image.
1 CommentEnd Of Hibernation
Sam Jones called me the other day to tell me that someone had brought back Hypercard as a game for the iTouch. My dad was an early Mac user and I remember him showing us that program before Peggi and I had our first machine. We did have an Atari that we bought at Leon’s Typewriter on Clinton Avenue but we only used that for music. I’m happy the old stuff is still around but it’s kind of disappointing that some stuff just won’t go away. After the Gene Vincent and Hendrix and Miles and punk did you ever expect Americana to be everywhere? Spring is here. Let’s get it on.
1 CommentThe Kids Are Alright
This will probably be the last week for the show of kids art at the Creative Workshop in the Memorial Art Gallery. The staff has announced an adult student show and they’re accepting entries this week. The upcoming show has a theme, something to do with color and design and Spring, but that’s an art education construct. I submitted a black and tan piece in a rectangular frame.
A couple of people from Fred Lipp’s class had moved across the hall for this season’s figure drawing class. Last night they bravely turned the tables on end so they stood six feet high and then drew full size figures in chalk on the long sheets of brown paper that normally cover the tabletop. No such organized exercises in Fred’s class where people work in any medium on any subject and in any style. I’m working on the figure too but from top down. Last night I learned a lesson in form, how a change in direction of a line or shape indicates a change in form. Most of what he teaches is centered around unlearning what you think you know and then learning to trust your eye.
Maureen, who teaches art to kids, was standing nearby working on her favorite theme, another painting of the a bend in the Genesee river as seen from the flats on the east side. She had scrubbed out some trees and was in the process of putting more trees back in when she said “I wish I could paint like those kids in the show.”
I do too. Just look at the photo above (click for enlargement.
Leave a commentWoods, Burp, Outdoors, Burp
It was seventeen degrees when we took our walk this morning, a brief taste of winter before it heads to sixty on Wednesday. We walked the same loop as yesterday so we could check up on a recent batch of beer cans. We had found these in the usual spot so we tried a new approach to this ongoing situation. I tossed the cans back out on the road and left them there instead of bringing them home to recycle. When we returned today all the cans were gone but the Budweiser guy had thrown a new one down in the ditch.
How many 24 ounce cans can one guy drink?
2 CommentsLittle Personhood
You spelled “is” wrong.
Leave a commentA Mano Di Monacelli
Joe Bean’s is not the best place for an art show but any place is better than no space for an art show. Peter Monacelli, who taught drawing for two decades at MCC has a beautiful show at the coffee bar, mounted high on the wall and unevenly lit. The drawings are part of a series based on the words from the song “Follow” on Richie Havens 1967 album “Mixed Bag.” The one above is entitled “But now silver leaves on mirrors bring delight,” after one of the lines in the song. Peter brought the cd with him last night to the opening but we never heard it. And he assured us he was not dead yet. A fourth cousin with the same name had recently died and Peter and his wife fielded thirty or so condolence calls. One told Gloria, “We lost Pete.”
1 Comment