PopWars

We always have a January thaw but this is ridiculous. We finally get a few inches of sow and now it’s 50 degrees and sunny, too messy to walk or ski in the woods so we headed off toward the bay. This house with the “Let It Snow” banner in the window expressed our sentiments exactly.

My aunt is in hospice and my father was thinking it would be nice to get someone up there to play some music for her. Of course we suggested Phil Marshall, a music therapist and genuine top shelf musician. My aunt is going to suggest a few songs and I’m certain it will be great.

Years back we did a “My Funeral“print version of the Refrigerator I remember thinking about a few songs that I would like to her at my own funeral and of course that doesn’t make any sense at all because I will be in a little can at that point. Peggi Lee “Is That All There Is?”, George Jones “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game”, Eric Dolphy’s “Serene or maybe James Brown’s “Night Train.” I’m pretty sure no one would want to hear the long version of Sun Ra’s “Space Is The Place.”

When my brother’s father in law died the funeral home had his body in a closed cassket and they wheeled him into a room where we were all sitting and they played Sinatra’s “My Way” over the little speakers mounted in the ceiling without any introduction or set up and it was a very strange experience. He was a lot more fun than that. So there are a lot details to work out if you want pull off something like this. It has to be done in a party atmosphere for starters.

Remember the Chevy Nova? Peggi had an orange one when I first met her. We drove it all the way to the bottom of Mexico. Terrible name for a car in a Spanish speaking country. “No go!” “El Glop” is not the best name for attracting English speaking people to your restaurant and maybe that was the whole idea. We had coffee there and some tortilla and then returned for dinner. The place was fantastic.

We’ve been savoring our Barcelona hangover, pouring over photos, having our big meal early like they do in Spain, getting up late and buying Spanish products at Wegmans like Manchego and Valdeon cheese, caramelized pecans and chocolate covered figs. We’re almost as bad as the kid in “Breaking Away” who though he was Italian. Peggi’s reading the Spanish version of Architectural Digest that we bought at the airport as I write this. A good snowstorm would snap us out of this but I don’t think this winter has it in it.

Last night we made fish with a mushroom and fig sauce, something we had twice in Barcelona, each time with cod and then hake. And the other night we made a batch of Espinacas con Garbanzos, something we went looking for in Spain because we fallen in love with it. Spinach, chick peas, paprika, saffron and cumin, it almost tastes Indian or maybe Moroccan. We found a recipe online.

Our iPad has become an essential kitchen appliance. I loved Thomas Friedman’s column the other day on how a tablet at the table of restaurants will allow you put your order through to the kitchen, list ingredients with photos, tally your calories and pay your bill without a waiter. He left out the part about how your food gets to the table but it will take a big bite out of the service industry which has become the backbone of our economy. Our friend, Kevin Vicalvi, used to say, “In the future we’ll all be delivering pizzas to one another” but that was a long time ago.

We walked by the Circ Raluy tents a few times in the last week before deciding to buy a couple of tickets. We waited in line with families, kids with their grandparents and other couples for about a half hour before they opened the gates to the big tent in grand fashion with music from Nino Roto’s “Amarcord” soundtrack blaring from the sound system. I take back what I said last week about animal abuse in the circus. I mean it may still be the case but this circus had no animals, only clowns, jugglers, acrobats and some amazing entertainers. We realized the clowns are not just some fluff between the acts, they are the real meat of the circus. They play to the kids but get to the kid in all of us. They won us over. I do remember the clowns being my favorite part when I was kid but I guess I forgot.

Certain songs transcend pop and work as international soundtracks. Bowie’s “Heroes” sounded like a million dollars in a café. Madonna sounded good spilling out of a clothing store and onto the street. Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” sounded good in the bakery. Michael Jackson sound’s good anywhere. And T Rex’s “Bang A Gong” sounded fantastic on a bus this mornig in Barcelona. Margaret Explosion has to work on its International chops.

Margaret Explosion – Turntable
Margaret Explosion “Turntable”

The best part of the day in Spain for us is drinking café con leche. We pick our cafés carefully and sometimes pass up ten before choosing the right one. It’s nice when the spot is lively but not too crowded and preferably off the beaten path a bit, típico places with locals drinking their coffee out of small glasses. There is one near where we are staying that we’ve even been to twice because the coffee is great and we love our server. Last time we were here we had café con leche, pinchos de tortilla (one with zucchini in it, one traditional Español) and we followed that up with two cortados (a small cup of coffee with hot milk served in a short glass). We came all the way over here for this.

Hard to say who got the worst of this deal. The deer has been gutted, stuffed with clothing and coated with silver. The guy has his head cut off.

The circus is in town! They’ve set up their tents on an empty lot near the port of Barcelona. They’re here for the month of January. Attendance should be mandatory but we’re way too busy and there is the issue of animal abuse. It’s a complicated world.

If someone wheeled a sound system on to one of the streets in downtown Rochester and sang arias in Italian at the top of his lungs he would probably be arrested. The guy in the trench coat above held this crowd of passersby captive and had a woman kissing him on the cheek and whispering in his ear as we strolled by.

We live in Rochester for reasons that are not entirely cultural. They are perfectly valid reasons and as varied as we are. We like a small city with easy access to the countryside and weather of all extremes. Opera on the street is not on the menu.

Indoor horse courts are grown man’s fantasy. We stopped at a gas station on the way up to Pete and Shelley’s in the Adirondacks a few years ago and we asked to use the bathroom. They told us to go through a building out back and use the bathroom there. It was this amazing site. I think about this at this time of year when we put our horseshoes away. We don’t live in Floyd, New York so I can only dream about what color to paint the shoes this winter.

Bill and Geri’s neighbor’s are moving. This might be the time for someone to snag the white, wrought iron love seat that sits in their neighbor’s front lawn. It looks like a romantic rocket launcher for memory laden dreamers.

I enjoyed Michael Kimmelman’s article in the NYT this morning and passed it along to my father and our Madrileño amigo, Julio. A relatively inexpensive park built on top of a newly buried highway that had once torn the city apart with 1970′s style urban blight is transforming the lives and livelihoods of Madrileños.

The City of Rochester recently lost it’s bid for state funding of the “Death To The Inner Loop” project in Rochester but this this is not the time to put this movement on the back burner. Why should the state have to pay for this? This is a money maker. Let’s bring the canal back to the city center and fill in the portion of the Loop between East Main and Monroe. This will transform the lives and livelihoods of Rochesterians. Mr. Kimmelman will be back to do an article on this bustling cultural center.