PopWars

We were out at Peggi’s mom’s place for dinner and wanted to make some brownies for her but she didn’t have any oil. We asked our server at the Bistro for a small amount and he gave us some in a cup. It smelled delicious and it was too good to put in a package of brownie mix but we did so. We brought the leftover home and savored it.

I loved Olive Oyl from the old Popeye show before I knew what olive oil was. I rode my bike up to Rubino’s this morning to replenish our supply. The can we just finished was from Olindo’s and the price was right but it was nothing special. No reflection on Olindo’s, they have so many choices I usually reach for something with an exotic package and sometimes it doesn’t work out. I wish you could taste or at least smell the oil before you commit to such a big supply.

“El Toro” from Spain is shown in the upper right hand corner of the blow up of the shot above. I bought that once because I am partial to Spain. But then I read olives are often grown in Greece, Italy or Spain and then packaged as a product from one of those countries so the label doesn’t really mean much. “El Toro” is not “Extra Virgin” or “First Cold Pressed” and we look for that because Peggi is managing her cholesterol with diet. You need a calculator to compare prices because the cans are three, four or five liters and sometimes noted in gallons, quarts and ounces. I chose the Casale oil shown at the bottom. It was $21.99 for  three liters. I asked the cashier if she knew how this oil is and she said, “It’s beautiful.” I drizzled some on toast when I got home and it is.

First Friday of the month usually means gallery hopping for us. The First Friday website doesn’t list them all but we usually check the list before heading out. Cool video installation at RoCo although it was a little hard to hear the soundtrack so we were sort of lost as to what it was all about. We ran into a guy that had just moved here three days ago from LA. He works for a company that makes sustainable clothing and Wegmans has just taken on the line. It’s made from hemp and recycled plastic. He was wearing a few of the pieces and they looked great.

We stopped in the Four Wall’s Gallery and took in Harold Copp’s show. He mixes silkscreen and painting in some pretty interesting ways. There are a lot more than four walls here in the basement of the Elton Street warehouse. Shawn Dunwoody has a pretty cool setup here that offers art programs to city kids. There was a band playing but they blew the sound system.

We finished the evening in surreal fashion as we watched tivo’d footage of John Gilmore art being sold on the AANtv network. If I understand this right, John bought the art from these people in the first place and he was now turning a profit on it as they auctioned it off again.

Outside of high school in Webster and a few years in Indiana I have lived my whole life near Culver Road. It runs north and south from Cobbs Hill Park in the city to Lake Ontario. I never get tired of traveling it. Although the ride above looks pretty comfy it is best experienced on bike.

There are a lot of options in town for buying new band equipment but when you want to keep your vintage equipment going there is no better spot than Sound Source (“We Make Hearing Loss Affordable”).

One of the best things about a trip to Sound Source is that it is another opportunity to look at old promo shots for local bands like Wilmer Alexander and The Dukes and The Quirks and the the lounge duo, Robin Jon. Rob and Jon just happen to be the owners of this place so you take updated photos of these guys in the flesh if you can get the two of them together. They keep Rob in the back with his head lamp and soldering gun. Rob is likely to to offer you a fudgsicle or show you one of his new squishy toys. Jon manages the front end and takes care of the money.

Rob fixed Peggi’s sax pickup while we waited all the while triggering crying baby noises with something on his desk. He started talking about the Sound Source web site, which is in a sorry state, and wondered if he could learn how to post stuff to it on his own. We told him we would help with this effort. Rob’s father worked at Kodak and he took 3-D photos of Rob’s band during his his high school days. Rob has shown us these on a few occaisions and they are mind blowing. I’m wondering if there is any java script for displaying these on their new web site.

There were only four people in Peggi’s yoga class last night. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it had something to do with Jeffery, the yoga teacher, going on a cruise for a few weeks. There were seven people in my painting class but that’s everyone who signed up for the winter session. It’s the slow time of year and that’s the way we like it.

We dropped my father off after class and Peggi and I went downtown to Danny’s Ball at Abilene. The Eastman 10, who were arrested for playing in the streets on election night, did a rousing version of “God Bless America” and the packed house went nuts. We had our long sleeve Obama t-shirts on.

“Frustration is one of the great things in art. Satisfaction is nothing”. Philip Guston told it like it is.

It’s physically tough too. I sprained my ankle a few weeks ago running down the stairs with a painting in my arms. And for months I’ve been watching this dry red patch between my thumb and forefinger get more and more irritated. It’s on the hand I hold my palette with. In the last week I noticed a funky odor when I brought my hand near my nose. I googled “skin oder” and found all sorts of skin cancer links and stories about animals becoming aware of their owner’s cancer before doctors. So I called my doctor and he got me right in.

He had a Joesph Cornell like box on his wall and I took a shot of it. I explained that my palette used to be painted white but I have worn the paint off over the years. My doctor prescribed a low level topical steroid ointment. He said it was probably a reaction to the chemicals in the plywood and suggested that I give my palette a new coat of paint. I thanked him and gave him a post card for my painting show.

The alkalinity was out of whack at our neighborhood pool so Peggi had to dump in five pounds of a baking soda like mix to get it under control. We brought our laptop down there and had our pick of three unprotected networks. We listened to songs on Kevin Patrick‘s blog and basked in the sun. “A Little Bit of Soap” by the Exciters sounded fantastic. We discovered there is a 1960′s era transistor radio built into our laptop.