PopWars

I not sure but I think this is a bootleg bench chained to a tree at the top of the luge hill in Durand Eastman Park. Not as brazen an act as Anthony Pilato driving a bulldozer through the undeveloped part of the park so he could ride his horses up there but still pretty bold. The bench doesn’t look like any of the others in the park. It’s the kind you could buy at Home Depot and it’s in the same spot as the makeshift bench that was placed here when the luge fans were out last year (and then hidden behind a tree when they went home).

There is a metal plaque nailed to the bench that reads, “In Loving Memory of Elizabeth Salathiel 1921-2009 From The USA Luge Team.” I looked her up. She’s for real or was for 87 years. This is the same hill where we used to see the man child, nick-named “Mayor of Durand.” He’d sit at the top and drink Genny’s from the can between occasional sled runs. Haven’t seen him in a few years but there is quite a crew here when the weather is right and plenty of regulars who we say hi to as we ski by. I’ve seen some of them videoing their ride and I found this clip online.

East and West Irondequoit have separate school systems, separate libraries (for now) and separate Wegmans. Kings Highway, the Goodman Street extension, serves as a moat or wall between the two. They share a town hall and lake frontage but there is not much lateral movement between the two. Neither of us can go any further north unless by boat so most of the movement is toward the city and back.

We did some gallery sitting in the I-Square gallery yesterday and it got me thinking about the divide. Mike Nolan, the entrepreneur responsible for developing the future “four corners” of Irondequoit, now called I-Square, lives on the dividing line and is donating this empty storefront gallery space to the community. Most of the funky little shops in this old strip mall will have new homes in his revision although the consignment shop where we took many of Peggi’s mom’s furniture pieces has moved around the corner.

Mike stopped in the gallery before he headed down to Murph’s for a meeting and Peggi noted we had never been to Murph’s. We asked his co-worker if the food was any good. She hesitated and said, “They have good wings and I hear their fish fry is pretty good.” That wetted our appitite so we walked down there when our stint was up. I expected to see Armand at the bar with the locals but he wasn’t there. Everyone seems to know one another in here and it’s strangely comfortable but the fish fry was nasty, three quarters of it deep fried batter, at least, and it was hard to separate the fish from the batter like we usually do. There was a sign above us advertising “25 Wings and a Pitcher of LaBatt’s Blue” for twenty dollars. And classic rock and tv monitors tuned to some sort of lottery in the middle of the afternoon is depressing.

We thought this guy moved away or went on the wagon or died maybe but he’s still around. At least he has slacked off a bit. These are the first cans we’ve found in months. Same guy for sure because the 22 ounce Budweiser cans were in the exact same spot. They look kind of Christmasy.

Three days in a row with temperatures in the sixties. We headed down to the lake and crossed the seasonal swing bridge that connects Culver Road to Lake Road in Webster. This tiny strip of land between Irondequoit Bay and the lake used to have houses on both sides of the road but quite a few on the north side were washed away years ago before they got he lake levels under control. The Army Corp shored it up with a pile of rocks and the town of Webster turned it into a nice little park. Next time we come down here we’ll bring some sandwiches.

A permanent bridge was planned for this spot but the money for the project was diverted to San Francisco after their earthquake and we’re stuck with this winter only solution. If anybody asks I’m all for keeping the bridge open all year. And while we’re at it let’s keep daylight savings on all year.

I skipped the Patron’s Preview last night for the “State Of The City” show at Rochester Contemporary. Gallery director, Bleu said they would be serving “the good wine” but I nixed it. Can’t remember exactly what I did instead but we’ve been weeding out junk around the house and I keep getting sidetracked. We’re planning to have a garage sale in September and we have some stuff on Craig’s list. A guy just called because he wants to buy the golf balls. He’s on the way over here with the cash.

My show, a photo installation entitled “Subterranean Surrogates,” is in conjunction with the “State of the City” show and I will probably be at the opening.

Christo’s newest installation “Ring Of Petals” in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester NY.

I can’t be the only one who is tempted to take a photo of this concrete structure every time we walk by it. It’s on the western shore of Eastman Lake in Durand Eastman Park. The trail along this side of the lake is a bird lover’s paradise and we often spot birders with binoculars and long lens cameras hanging off their necks but in the dead of winter it is usually only us.

Neil Young must have gone crazy with this super moon thing. He recorded his most recent record on a full moon and people say he plans key moments in his life around full moons. Peggi has woken me up to look at the moon before and she was excited about this “Super Moon.” She put her coat on around sunset and said, “I’m headed down to the beach to watch the moon come up.” That got me away from the computer for a bit and I went down to Durand Eastman with her. It was about 35 degrees as the sun went down and it soon felt colder. We were getting ready to bail when the most dramatic huge moon popped up over the beach houses in Sea Breeze. This thing was spectacular!

It was perfect day for the boiling of the beef. Or for an intervention but that’s another story. I wish I had my camera. Nikon had me send the camera back at my expense to fix a lens cover that wouldn’t spring fully open and then told me the replacement part is on backorder! Grrr. If I had the camera I could have pryed the lens cover open to make a movie of our walk through the woods and then the funky little neighborhood of Bloomington style houses (one was for sale for $87,000- just askin’), down Culver Road past the bowling alley and Mastrella’s where we saw the short Elvis impersonator, by the New York Store where we saw new bicycles made in Queens in the window, by the barking dog in front a house with a beautiful view of the lake to Shamrock Jack’s for a sandwich and a pint.

In painting class tonight our teacher, Fred, was talking about how expensive oil paints are now. He was speculating that turpentine is now a “hazardous material” and it costs extra to transport things like that. He was saying you can’t even buy commercial oil paint anymore. It’s illegal in California and “as California goes, so goes the nation.” It’s all acrylic or water based enamel now. A tube of paint is thirty bucks or so.

I got the conversation going because I said I was going back to oils after this batch of paintings. I’ve been using kids’ tempera paint and I’m getting tired of how it acts when I try to rework an area. You kind of reactivate what’s below and it gets messy.

Whenever Peggi’s sister was in town visiting her mom she would ask us what freeway she takes to get from wherever to wherever. I’m the wrong one to ask because I’ve lived here so long I just follow my nose and I can’t keep the 490, 390, 590 thing straight. I remember Route 47 doing pretty much the same thing. Anyway, the point is there are no “freeways” in New York. California has freeways. We have expressways and a thruway. So what were they thinking when when they put up this new sign on 590 North where that highway peters out and leads into the four traffic circles?

I don’t really think of MX-80 Sound as a California band but they’ve been there for about thirty years, long enough for vocalist, Rich Stim, to reinvent himself as video king, “MXRICH”. I love his his newest, done for an Angel Corpus Christi instrumental track.