Fish Fry

Passion Play - 12th Station, Jesus dies on the cross, acrylic on plastic panel, 14"w by 17"h, 2021 Paul Dodd
Passion Play – 12th Station, Jesus dies on the cross, acrylic on plastic panel, 14″w by 17″h, 2021 Paul Dodd

I remember laughing with my brother, Mark, and sister, Ann as we sat on the brick stoop in front of our house on Brookfield Road. We were off from school and trying to stay silent on this day, Good Friday, between the hours of noon and three when Jesus was said to have hung on the cross.

As young Catholics we had to do all these sort of challenging things. We gave up candy for five weeks during Lent. We had to fast before Communion so even though we were up playing for hours before Sunday mass we had to put on a jacket and tie and file into the stuffy church where one of us would sometimes pass out during the service. And of course, we couldn’t eat meat on Fridays.

I have so lost touch with that faith that I mistakenly thought it was Good Friday two weeks ago. I still love the rituals. I love the iconography. And the Stations of the Cross, a series of 14 images depicting Christ on the day of his crucifixtion, is my favorite. I love visiting old churches especially in Spain where they still have holy water fonts at the door and candles to light to your favorite saint statues. Holy Week in southern Spain is an out of body experience.

I’m writing this at two in the afternoon so the 12th station is where we’re at. All 14 of my recent version can be viewed here.

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April Fools Day

Lenten Roses in Kathy's backyard overlooking Irondequoit Bay on Good Friday
Lenten Roses in Kathy’s backyard overlooking Irondequoit Bay on Good Friday

There must have been a microburst that tore through the woods off Pine Valley Road. We hadn’t taken that trail in a few weeks and we found five full sized trees laying across our path. Out on Culver Road we turned toward the lake and walked what remains of the road. The swing bridge at the mouth of the bay had just swung open minutes before we arrived. The town mechanics were just finishing up. We watched the procedure one year and found it was pretty much one guy with something like an electric drill turning the gears while the others watched. So we’re stuck on this side of the bay until November.

We’re watching the first season of the original Hawaii 5-O and last night’s show, “Cocoon,” featured a different Danny. The governor was played by a different actor and Steve McGarrett put the moves on a college girl! It was unsettling to say the least. We looked up the episode and found this show was initially the pilot and the test audience showed good taste by suggesting they dump the imposter and get Steve to cool his jets.

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Cleanest Lake In The US

Jetty at Skaneateles
Jetty at Skaneateles

The Jetty at the top of Skaneateles Lake in the town of Skaneateles had a low slung chain hanging across the entryway. It was apparently closed for the season. We stepped over it and walked to the end where a fisherman was happily casting about.

The Clintons had a summer place here. Listings in the window of a Real Estate office showed restored mansions, lake front properties and empty lots in the millions. There is a Talbots on Main Street and at least a dozen gift shops. The stuff they chose to put in their windows scared us so we walked north down the side streets where the townspeople live. We were trying to understand why people live here. The blocks of idyilic homes felt dreamy but unreal.

We usually come through here on our way down to NYC. We stop at the small bakery for coffee and then drive down the east side of the lake to Binghamton. This time we walked down the west side where we are guessing the Clintons stayed. We walked through a cemetery with a huge monument to the town’s Civil War dead. That felt real. I am sure the town was vital then. Today it is a resort town and that is why we were here.

We were meeting our friends, Matthew and Louise, for lunch and celebrating her birthday. Peggi and I came a whole day early and stayed at Mirbeau, a French style inn and spa. We had dinner in the dining and were expecting a health centered menu but it was meat laden. The room had a gas fireplace, a bath tub and a shower with enough water pressure for both Peggi and me to bath at once. But before that we put the white Mirbeau robes and slippers on and walked across the bridge in the courtyard to the sauna and steam room. We read by the fireplace and slept soundly in the king-sized bed.

Matthew bought us a loaf of French bread from the Patisserie, the best bread we’ve had in ages. I would go back just for another of those loaves.

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State Of The World

Winter Aconite in snow out back 2022
Winter Aconite in snow out back 2022

The little flower that could, Winter Aconite, first identified by my father, has popped up through last night’s snow. Nearly all is right with the world.

Detail from "Brief History of the World" Vol. XXI
Detail from “Brief History of the World” Vol. XXI

I’m nearly finished with Volume XX! of “Brief History of the World.” It is a very slow process of gathering, weeding and juxtaposing. At the same time I’ve been digitizing another volume in preparation for its release as an eBook. The aproprieated images are arranged as spreads so the detail above is out of the admitedly abstract context. I’m also selecting a collection of the spreads from the 21 volumes to use in an upcoming digital presentation.

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Over For Now

George Wegman painting Canal Street Wall 1" at Richard Margolis Studio
George Wegman painting Canal Street Wall 1″ at Richard Margolis Studio

I know it is not over but it feels like it is for now. So many bare faces and smiles. Our Margaret Explosion show was packed on Wednesday, a double bonus night for the band, and there were a lot people out last night for First Friday. We spent most of the evening in the Anderson Building where Pete Monacelli, George Wegman and Kathy Farrell were showing new work at Richard Margolis’s fourth floor studio. Pete is showing 15 of his “Searching for Home” pieces, this batch in dialog with Renaissance artists.

I fell in love with the luscious George Wegman painting (above) as soon as I set my eyes on it and looked for George to have him put a red dot next to it. He was holding court so I drew up my own “sold” note and attached it to the wall tag. I love the palette, the paint handling and the subject matter. It reminded Peggi of my “Subterranean Surrogates” series and I was thinking of the last Margaret Explosion CD cover. I can’t wait to get the painting home.

I really enjoyed the figure drawing show at Nancy Valle’s studio. A group meets there for three hours every Monday and it is hard to find an excuse not to join them. Still on the fourth floor we revisited Joan Lyon’s show and spent some time in Colleen Buzzard’s studio which had been re-invigorated by a tidy-up for a photo shoot. Peggi and I were trying to remember Colleen’s exact words and couldn’t but the gist of her comment to someone (we can’t remember that either) was out of the darkness and isolation comes new energy. We finished the night on the first floor where Heather Gray was preparing to wrap up a gorgeous new painting she had just sold.

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Reservoir Lock

Old Erie Canal lock on 490 expressway near Culver Road
Old Erie Canal lock on 490 expressway near Culver Road

I took this photo through the passenger side window while Peggi was driving to the Co-op. We had to get our monthly shop in. Members save ten percent once a month, the number of times we shop there each month. The wall in front of the wall is what remains of Lock 65 on the Erie Canal as flowed through Rochester. I guess the canal didn’t exactly flow, it just sat there until they drained in the winter months.

They also called it the “Reservoir Lock” because it was connected to what is now Lake Riley, the pond at the base of Cobbs Hill. I guess barges could turn around there or rest maybe. We used to skate on the pond in the winter and I played Little League there in the summer. The canal was moved several times. The old bed became the subway line and now it is the expressway we were traveling on.

Broad Street Bridge in downtown Rochester
Broad Street Bridge in downtown Rochester

We usually leave our car in the Co-Op parking lot and walk in a big loop before shopping, sometimes up to UR, across Elmwood and back down on the west side of the river or sometimes downtown to Rochester Art Supply. Getting the canal, which runs east/west, across the Genesee River, which as you can see in this photo gets pretty wild, was no easy feat for the Irish. The lower part of the bridge in the photo above carried the canal across the river which flows south to north, an intersection of two waterways in the center of the city. And at some point they built a second layer to the bridge in order to carry cars. They canal now intersects the river in a lazy fashion in Genesee Valley Park.

There was talk of re-watering the canal in downtown Rochester but I think that fizzled. I read there is serious talk of taking the car layer off the bridge and converting the former canal bed layer to a pedestrian park. I never thought I would live to see them take the Inner Loop out so who knows.

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Xalaparta

Basque musicians playing xalaparta in Bilbao before Copa del Rey match with Barcelona
Basque musicians playing xalaparta in Bilbao before Copa del Rey match with Barcelona

Barcelona, long the best football team in world, fell apart. They got so big they couldn’t afford their big money players. Messi, still the best player in the world, is paying in Paris with Neymar and Mbappe. Others took a cut in salary. A former player has returned to coach the team and he is playing youngsters, 17 and 18 years old, with the remaining veterans, the mentors, Pique and Busquets. They still play the beautiful game and they are even more fun to watch. Unfortunately they can’t seem to win but they are coming closer.

The Bilbao club is the opposite of a big money team. They only hire people born in the Basque region. That region, in northwestern Spain stretches in France. Basque before country! This last match was played in Bilbao and before the match began, while the stadium was bathed in deep red LED lights we were treated to tradition Basque music played on xalaparta, a hollow wood instrument.

Bilbao has a famous soccer academy and the graduates for the most part stay in the region. Most Spanish teams have their ultra fan sections. The fans in Bilbao are all ultra fans. They are loyal backers and proud of their team. They beat Barcelona in overtime and will advance to the final rounds of the Copa del Rey.

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Tamborrada

Tamborrada,, pregame show in San Sebastian vs. Atletico in Copa del Rey
Tamborrada,, pregame show in San Sebastian vs. Atletico in Copa del Rey

We opened the ESPN app to watch the Copa de Rey match between Atletico and Real Sociedad in San Sebastian and found a group of people out on the pitch dressed as chefs. We became rabid Atletico fans last year during their improbable run to the top of La Liga but this year things have fallen apart for them. Real Sociedad has some of the most boisterous fans in La Liga and the were louder than ever last night. There was no way Atletico could have won.

The city was celebrating the feast day of their patron saint, San Sebastian, with a festival called Tamborrada, where groups of locals form street parades, dress as soldiers and cooks. San Sebastián has long been noted for their culinary arts and members of their famous dining societies meet at midnight in the Plaza de la Constitución and then march through the streets with drums for the next 24 hours.

Back in Rochester old man winter showed he could still get it up. We had eighteen inches of snow at the beginning of the week and have skied for four days in a row now. It was only 12 degrees when we got out their this morning and we didn’t expect to anyone else out but we underestimated our fellow citizens.

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If You Don’t Know How To Do It

Watermelon on the frozen beach
Watermelon on the frozen beach

Peggi and I home-tested for the first time since this thing began. We were getting to gather with two other couples to celebrate Jedi’s 67th and someone suggested we all test before the event. We bought some test kits back in the fall when we thought we might have been exposed. We felt ok and never went anywhere so we didn’t use them. The package said they expired in January so here we are. Negative.

We arranged to take Jedi and Helena’s dog, Bigz, for a walking the morning. Jedi was still in pjs when we stopped by. Bigz was roaring to go. He pulled us along, down Hoffman to the golf course and into the woods. We came up on Center Entrance and met a neighbor walking her new puppy. The puppy was three time the size of the Notorious Mr. Bigz but Bigz was the aggressor. I’ve had this song going through my head all day.

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SuperCopa

Inside of my new coffee cup
Inside of my new coffee cup

Keeping up with the three LaLiga teams we follow is handful. Imagine if you were one of the players. In addition to the 38 regular season fixtures there are Olympic and World Cup qualifying games for their home countries and then, if the teams are lucky enough, the tournaments which are woven into the season. The Champions League, the Copa del Rey and today’s Super Cup.

Real Madrid meets Barcelona today (always an “El Classico” when they meet). Atletico meets Athletic Club Bilbao tomorrow and then the winners meet each other on Sunday, all matches in Riyadh, the capitol of Saudi Arabia. The four teams qualified by being the first or second place finishers in last year’s La Liga and Copa del Rey tournaments. Why Saudi Arabia? Money. Lots of it. Will MBS be in the stands? I will report back.

We picked an armload of collard greens and kale from garden. In January! Petra from Fruition Seeds says it gets sweeter after a freeze. I eat the very top leaves of the kale plants while we are down there, the smallest but most tender. We found enough cilantro and even some arugula standing in the snow to compliment the tasting. Super greens for Supercopa!

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Los Reyes Magos

Copa Del Rey opening shot. Alcoi vs. Real Madrid
Copa Del Rey opening shot. Alcoi vs. Real Madrid

The first round of Spain’s Copa del Rey happened midweek between La Liga fixtures. Second and third tier clubs are eligible so the matches took us to unknown regions while the country celebrated Los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day.) We enjoy the pageantry of the pregame as much as the match and watched one match each day for the last three, Barcelona playing in Linares, Real Madrid in Alcoi in Alcoyano’s tiny stadium and then Majadahonda vs Atletico. All three of the big teams won but just barely in some cases.

I see the 99 year old Betty White did not die from complications of the Covid vaccination. I’m running out of band width keeping up with the fact checks!

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Supply Chain

School buses lined up at East Ridge High School
School buses lined up at East Ridge High School

I didn’t want the acrylic primer I bought online to freeze so I was keeping a lookout for the Amazon truck. It was dinner time and dark when we got an email saying our package had been delivered. I walked around the house but I couldn’t find it. We texted the neighbors on three sides and emailed Amazon that we didn’t receive the package. On their site we found a photo of our package sitting somewhere in the dark, a beige blur on a solid background shot in a vertical orientation. We took the photo into Photoshop Elements and jacked up the levels enough to see the box sitting in front of our neighbors front door.

When we closed the street pool this fall I brought the two large flower pots home to repaint. I love winter for all the time it provides for projects but I am already backed up. I asked the paint guy at Meyer’s if he could mix me some turquoise paint with primer mixed in. I was under the impression that that was how things were done now. He told me that was a scam and I would have to use “bonding primer” first and then the paint. But their primer was backordered on account of one of those Covid supply chain issues.

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Dots / Pieces

Shadows on primed canvas in studio
Shadows on primed canvas in studio

Peggi called me down to the basement so I could experience this before it disappeared. I was just getting started on the painting and it looks finished.

I can see how Philomena died, she was 102 years old, but Charlie Coco’s little sister? Philomena spent her last years, hardly her golden, in the same home as my mom. It was interesting to learn she was an Italian translator for WSAY back in the day. And Charlie’s sister had pancreatic cancer. There is too much of that going around.

We didn’t realize one of the branches we picked up in our yard after the wind storm had broken our windshield until we got in the car. We sort of asked for it by not parking our car in the garage. We use that space for more important things. Insurance covered it but we had to bring it into the shop because there are so many electronics in the glass. Who knew?

We made a big batch of applesauce today, enough to put out when we have my family over for Xmas eve. We listened to Roscommon Mitchell’s “Dots / Pieces for Percusion and Woodwinds” while we worked. As cleansing as Morton Feldman.

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Last Swim

Colorful five leaf vine near pool
Colorful five leaf vine near pool

We picked a batch of fresh pimientos de Padron yesterday and cooked them just before leaving the house for Kathy’s where we dined out back overlooking the bay. The peppers were cold when we got there, of course, but they tasted great and to our surprise none were too hot. There are plenty of white flowers on the pepper plants so if the frost holds out we’ll be enjoying many more rounds.

We brought home some more tomatoes but the plants are exhausted. Our arugula, collard greens, carrots, beets and kale are still overproducing. Our refrigerator is so full of bags of greens that things are freezing.

We checked in with our neighbor down the street and he told us he has trapped eight raccoons in the last week. I wondered if he had asked Animal Controller where they were taking the creatures and he said the guy told him the the town had some property on the other side of 590. I pity the neighbors over there.

We took our last swim of the year in the pool this afternoon. We’ll be closing it over the weekend. We’re planning to watch Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground” tonight,  in our neighbors’ home theater if we are lucky

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Not For The Art Market

Wooden Makonde mask from Mozambique
Wooden Makonde mask from Mozambique

I always thought the Wildroot Gallery was in an active barbershop. The group that showed there back in the seventies has had many shows, in many different places, since the original space in the South Wedge closed. At their current show in Warren Philips Gallery I learned the Wildroot was a former barbershop when the five artists reclaimed it. The five have continued to turn out work and we have become big fans if George Wegman and Peter Monacelli.

Due to Covid Warren had a soft opening on Saturday. We suspected the artists would be there, the first day of the show, and they were. As we entered the gallery we were stopped in our tracks by the glass case that Warren had in the window. He had just purchased a collection of Africa artifacts and they sort of upstaged the show. We came home with this wooden Makonde mask from Mozambique and a cowbell with a sculpted wooden head as a handle from Cameroon. Warren told us both these pieces were made to be used in rituals. They were not made for the art market. That was reassuring. 

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Our Town

Boat along the Erie Canal near Fairport
Boat along the Erie Canal near Fairport

We have not played horseshoes in a week. First Rick thought he might have Covid so we were awaiting test results. That turned out to be a cold, a common condition that almost disappeared during the pandemic. And then Peggi’s sister came to visit from LA along with her man friend. We had dinner here the first night, an evening warm enough to sit on the the deck while I roasted corn. The corn was cold by the time we ate but the seared tuna that Peggi made was fantastic. It occurred to me that I need to up my game with the salad, both the dressing and the green stuff. Salad should rightfully be the best part of any meal. Peggi made Tarta de Santiago for dessert and we finished the evening playing 45s, some from the collection of the Fournier sisters. Bobby Darin’s “Nature Boy” was the hit of the night.

The next day we took a walk along the canal, starting in Pittsford where our guests were staying. We walked from there to Fairport, thinking there would be a place to eat. The walk was a lot farther than we thought and I was thinking about a pint of cold beer but unlike Pittsford, Fairport is a blue collar town and the restaurants don’t open til 4. We met at Rocco’s for dinner that night and ordered traditional Italian fair. Peggi and I recommended the salad and we all ordered it but it bombed. Despite the fancy name, “Tres Colores,” the radicchio and lettuce mix were downing in a bitter sherry vinaigrette. You notice these kind of things when you recommend a place to guests. It is still one of our favorite restaurants. 

We asked our guests what they would like to do the next day and were delighted to hear they wanted to to see the apple orchards so we worked our way around the bay and drove along the lake to Pultneyville where we  stopped at B. Forman Park. Fully loaded apple trucks were everywhere along the way and I was surprised at how large an industry it really is when you go looking for it. The cobblestone houses are a sensational and we stopped in front of one just to gawk. We took Middle Road back and stopped at Lagoner Farms in Williamson where we sat at a picnic table in the sun while enjoying their cider and a cheese plate.

We finished our visit with a meal and conversation outdoors at Redd. Everything is right with the world there.

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Spirit Communication

Shannon Taggert "Messages & Mediums " at Rochester Contemporary
Shannon Taggert “Messages & Mediums ” at Rochester Contemporary

We met met Shannon back in her RIT days. She photographed some of my painting back when film was king. She became entranced by the spiritualists at Lillydale. She moved to Brooklyn and is now based in Minneapolis but she is still following that thread. Her most recent photographs were taken over Skype, Zoom, and FaceTime during the pandemic and uses a computer screen and her camera to memorialize recent digital séances. At her opening last night she reminded us of parties in our house in the city where we danced til the sun came up.

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Pimientos De Padron

Homegrown Pimietos de Padron. Too big, too red, too hot.
Homegrown Pimietos de Padron. Too big, too red, too hot.

Pimientos de Padron are a favorite tapa of ours when we are in Spain. We were planning to do another Camino walk, el Primitivo, when the pandemic hit. Spain closed its doors for good reason, opened them for a spell and now recommends against travel. So we sit on this side of the Atlantic.

Fruition Seeds in Naples, just south of us, offered Pimientos de Padron seeds this year so we grew our own. We were surprised how big the plants got. Bigger than our bell pepper and jalapeño plants. And bountiful.! They grew so fast the first few batches were already too big. We were aware that servings in Spain often had one or two in the batch that had some heat and they surprise you because the rest are so deliciously seductive.

So instead of letting then grow large and well before they turn red we we’ve been picking them young, when some are only an inch long. They go great with a La Liga match and bring us one step closer to Spain.

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Dumpster

Dumpster in our driveway
Dumpster in our driveway

There was a period, a few years back, when I photographed every dumpster I saw. One of them was in our next door neighbor’s yard just after he died. He was one of the old timers, the original owner of a Don Hershey classic that was built in the late forties. You can see just a bit of his former garage door in the photo above. The dumpster is in our driveway. We’re getting a new roof, a metal one, just like our friends, Pete and Shelley.

The workers left their magnet on wheels here when they left for the day so Peggi and I took turns pushing it around the yard. Mostly`we found nails, roofing nails.

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National Cash Shortage

Street preachers, downtown Rochester, New York
Street preachers, downtown Rochester, New York

The cash register lines at Home Depot all had a sign that read “National Cash Shortage. Please use exact change for your purchase if possible.” It struck me as odd because I take every opportunity not to use cash. I use Apple Pay whenever possible and if others are doing this too you’d think there would piles of extra cash around. Then again, I try not to carry coins in my pockets. I have an old ashtray next to the bed with a pile of coins in it. Maybe that’s where all the cash is. And why doesn’t Home Depot accept Apple Pay?

These sidewalk preachers were really putting on a show. Dressed like shepherds in a manger scene they were videoing the proceedings while preaching to a handful of other guys in robes. And then there was me, on my way to Rochester Art Supply. The sign in front of the speaker showed the classic head of Christ, the 1940 portrait by Warner Sallman, but with red horns and the head proclaimed, “This Is The Devil. Jesus Is A Negro.” I kind of suspected that. I couldn’t figure out where they were coming from, going on about President Wilson and the Gold Standard. I took a photo and moved on.

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