Wood Warms You Thrice

Splitting wood
Splitting wood

The paying kind of work has slowed down and I thought I might be able to take care of a few things around here in the downtime but it seems the more time you have the less you get done. I’m afraid to find out what happens when I retire. I probably won’t get anything done at all. I remember my soccer coach at Indiana University telling the team that even though it is hard to believe you will be a better student by devoting so much time to the team. I only lasted one year and I was a terrible student but it didn’t have anything to do with all those hours spent with the team. I was the first freshman ever in the starting line up and I loved every minute of it but the sixties got in the way

Which brings me back to my desk. I was going to clean it off today. I’ve run out of room for my mouse pad and there’s stuff piled all around my keyboard. My neighbor down the street asked if I could help split some wood. He rented an hydraulic splitter from Home Depot but it was a piece of shit. It squirted oil and the foot was bent so the wood kept wanting to squirt out. We save some money burning wood but even when a tree falls in your yard you work your ass off preparing it for the wood stove.

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Broken Bad

Peggi's Xmas Cookies
Peggi’s Xmas Cookies

We worked late last night wrapping up the crap that just had to be done before the dreaded holidays and we were getting pretty psyched to watch our new Netflix disc of “Breaking Bad”, 2nd Season, Disc Two. We stuck the dvd in and it wouldn’t play because it had a small crack in it. A series about crack with a crack in it! It wouldn’t play in my computer either. In fact I had a hard time getting it out. I had to reboot for the holidays.

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Ground Zero Rochester

Bowling at L&M Lanes in Rochester, New York
Bowling at L&M Lanes in Rochester, New York

Local film director, Robin Lehman has two Oscars under his belt or above his fireplace or stashed away somewhere in his Rochester home. The Eastman House honored Lehman last night by showing three of his documentaries and then grilling him in a post movie Q and A session. I liked the first short the best. Beautiful, liquid shots from inside an African volcano that were orchestrated to a Bach organ fugue. The second short, close-ups of underwater creatures, was unbelievably beautiful but the soundtrack was cornball and the third, main feature, “Forever Young”, about aging well, was just what you would expect. Get into something and get into it good, advice that could just as easily be offered to people of any age. My neighbor, Leo, in his nineties, is a perfect case. Whenever I say “Take it easy,” as a parting salutation he shoots back, “I don’t want to take it easy.”

And then (we were following Rick and Monica around tonight) off to L&M Lanes on Merchants Road in the old hood for a few games of bowling and some pints of Victory Hop Devil. The juke box hits the spot as well with Neil Young, Parliament and Zeppelin. This place feels like ground zero Rochester.

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Art Rules

Kodak building across from the Rochester Art Supply Sale at High Falls Gallery
Kodak building across from the Rochester Art Supply Sale at High Falls Gallery

The gallery space at High Falls in the shadow of Eastman Kodak’s world headquarters was home to an art supply trade show yesterday. Rochester Art Supply is Amazon’s art vendor so they buy in bulk and Mike, the owner, had some barn-burner prices on canvas and paint and brushes so I bought some of each. You were supposed to pre-register for the seminars that ran throughout the day but we hung around the entrance to a watercolor demonstration and they waved us in. Canada’s “Windsor & Newton Artist-in-Residence ” passed around some near photographic prints of landscapes he had painted but didn’t spend any time on composition or expression or any of those sort of painterly concerns.

He started with the composition of paint, pigment, binder and medium. Watercolor is uses gum Arabic as a binder between the pigment and water. All of the gum Arabic comes from Libya and for a few years the art world was panicking because of the instability there. He advised against re-wetting water color from the tube and seemed to recommend what he called pan paints. He demonstrated how much water sable brushes hold but he warned that real sable brushes are getting more expensive because the hair on a sable is not as long as it used to be because of global warming. He showed us a Windsor Newton Series 7 Number 10 brush that lists for $400. And if you spring for a good brush he said, “don’t use it with acrylic or ink.”

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Smiley Faces

Three CrimeFaces (Rochester mug shots) for Lucy Bryne Show at Creative Workshop in Rochester, NY
Three CrimeFaces (Rochester mug shots) for Lucy Bryne Show at Creative Workshop in Rochester, NY

For the last six months or so I’ve been painting on paper with water color, opaque water color, kid’s tempera paint to be precise. The Creative Workshop passed out a flyer to announcing a portrait show and students were asked to submit up to three works that were properly mounted and ready to hang. I don’t Know if push pins through the corners of works on paper would qualify and I waited ’til the last minute so I chose three small oils from earlier this year. I snapped a photo of them in my driveway before dropping them off. Rachel, the Workshop director told me they would only have room for two which I took to mean two of your “crime faces”. So I let Rachel pick the two she liked and I took the one on the right back home with me. The show is up now and it looks pretty good.

Stop by the Little Theater Cafe tonight for Margaret Explosion. We’ll be there every Wednesday until the new year.

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Pagan Rites

Chiminea fire in the back yard
Chiminea fire in the back yard

I almost forgot I had a blog. I haven’t been here in a few days. Too much work. Don’t call us. We’re too busy.

We celebrated the Autumnal Equinox in style last night. I think it was a full moon, it looked it. We fired up our Home Depot chiminea and burnt some scrap wood from the garage. It was mostly pine but there was some redwood and cedar scraps from various home improvement projects. It got too hot out there for a while. There is a whole ‘nother world in that chiminea. We were transfixed.

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Red Sauce

I suspect Martin eats out more than he eats in but I know he is a great cook. We’ve had his homemade pizzas and olive salad and things I can’t remember right now. He emailed us that he and Boo had bought thirty pounds of tomatoes at the public market and made sauce by baking the tomatoes. We have always par-boiled the tomatoes and then simmered the sauce for most of the day so we were intrigued by the baking approach. We grow tomatoes in the gardens of the neighbors on either side of us. We don’t have enough sun on our property to grow them. In fact I only have to mow our lawn twice a year because it just doesn’t get enough light to grow.

We picked both gardens clean and split the tomatoes in half as Martin suggested. Here’s his recipe:
Cut in half and put in roasting pans with chopped onion, garlic, some with red peppers and olive oil, baked for 3 hours, pull the skins off and blend. We started at 400 for an hour then lowered to 350. They get real juicy at first then the juice starts to evaporate. When most of it is gone take them out and let them cool. We dug in and slipped the skins off before blending them and putting them in freezer bags with a funnel. We put sliced carrots in some batches- they sweeten it a bit. Don’t bother with Basil, the flavor disappears almost as soon as you put it in so it should never be added until you’re ready to eat.

I was working out in the tomatoes cooked down and the whole neighborhood smelled like an Italian restaurant. We started to pull the skins off and then bagged that idea. And we didn’t blend them either. It almost like stewed tomatoes but chunky and rich. The next night I baked a big eggplant at 400 for about an hour and then peeled and sliced it. I mixed it in with the sauce and we served it over whole wheat pasta.

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Like Obsession

A. Botts art at the Record Archive in Rochester, New York
A. Botts art at the Record Archive in Rochester, New York

First Friday comes around pretty fast these days. We started at the Bop Shop Atrium and heard a few songs by John and Mary. This was the last of a series called “Fourteen Fridays” there. Peggi and I played quite a few gigs with John back when he was in 10,000 Maniacs and we reconnected after their set. We walked across the street to the Print Club’s show at Rochester Arts & Cultural Council. The definition of a print is pretty wide open these days and it gets a little tedious trying to figure out how the images were made so I skip that part and just take in the imagery. There were some especially nice prints there. My father and I used to be members of that organization.

A. Botts art at the Record Archive in Rochester, New York
A. Botts art at the Record Archive in Rochester, New York

We headed over to the Record Archive next where a band had just finished. One of the band members, who goes by the name of A. Boggs, was showing his drawings and collages there as well. A. is influenced by Philip Guston and even used a photocopy of a pile of Guston’s feet in a few of his Dylan collages. The detail above is from a piece called “Two Heads Emerging.” A. Boggs work was priced at around $25 each. Since I am obsessed with Guston I got pretty excited at the show.

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Hanging Pumpkin

Hanging pumpkin escaping the garden.
Hanging pumpkin escaping the garden.

We started some seeds from scratch this year, lettuce, peppers and basil, and they did well. We bought our plants, tomatoes and more jalepeños, at Case’s on Norton just like other years. But we picked up some zucchini plants at Aman’s on East Ridge Road. The plants were labeled “zucchini ” but they got huge in a hurry and ran all over the garden. I pulled a twenty foot section out of our tomatoes and threw it back where it started. The leaves are as big as elephant ears and the vegetable that emerged from the blossoms looked a lot like pumpkins now. Some are already orange. We will probably have enough for the whole street. The one see above escaped the garden and is now hanging off the fence that is supposed to keep the deer out. Do deer like pumpkin? We will find out.

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Rat On A Wheel

Good Luck game at Holy Cross Carnival in Rochester, New York
Good Luck game at Holy Cross Carnival in Rochester, New York

Peggi and I were talking to my brother about our nephew and my brother said, “He’s like a rat on a wheel.” This was a vivid analogy for us because we had just seen a rat on a wheel at the Holy Cross carnival on Lake Avenue up near the lake. We put 50 cents down on a color and the attendant spun the wheel and dropped the rat on it. In a flash the rat dove down one of the holes and it wasn’t the one next to our colors. As I watched the guy pull the rat out I was thinking of the white rat I had in Psychology class. We tortured it in rat lab and then I brought it home as a pet. I don’t remember what became of it. I hope my nephew has a better fate.

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Before

Orange shelves from the garage
Orange shelves from the garage

These shelves from our garage were full of junk when moved in. We piled our junk in front of them and couldn’t find anything in the heap. So after five years we decided to sort it all out, the old door hinges, motor oil, jars of nails and the industrial strength velcro.

I emptied the shelves and brought them out into the yard so I could even up the lines. I reworked the shelving and supports so they line up with one another. I know this is a bit obsessive but they looked like they had been put together by a madman. I can deal with the bright orange but I at least had to straighten out the site lines before I rehang them.

It only two two nights to do this. Not really worth an “After” shot.

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In My Own Dream

8-tracks for another lifetime: David Bowie, Low; Ramones, Leave Home; James Brown, Reality; Patti Smith, Radio Ethiopia; Muddy Waters, After The Rain; Ramones, Ramones; Kinks, Village Green; James Brown, Hell; Beach Boys, Holland; Toot & THe Maytals, In The Dark; Fela Kuti, Africa '70; Bootsy, Player Of The Year; Iggy Pop, The Idiot; Bootsy, Ahh...The Name Is Bootsy, Baby; Patti Smith, Horses; Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka; Sun Ra, The Magic City; Lou Reed, Metal Machine Music
8-tracks for another lifetime: David Bowie, Low; Ramones, Leave Home; James Brown, Reality; Patti Smith, Radio Ethiopia; Muddy Waters, After The Rain; Ramones, Ramones; Kinks, Village Green; James Brown, Hell; Beach Boys, Holland; Toot & THe Maytals, In The Dark; Fela Kuti, Africa ’70; Bootsy, Player Of The Year; Iggy Pop, The Idiot; Bootsy, Ahh…The Name Is Bootsy, Baby; Patti Smith, Horses; Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka; Sun Ra, The Magic City; Lou Reed, Metal Machine Music

8-Tracks have to be one the clunkiest mediums ever invented for playing music but in 1969 they seemed wondrous. My college roommate had a white Plymouth Barracuda and a collection of ten or so 8-Tracks. I couldn’t get enough of Led Zeppelin’s first but the one that seemed absolutely perfect for our off campus outings was Paul Butterfield’s “In My Own Dream.”

Elvin Bishop played guitar on that album and I always figured it was him that sang the title song but Bob Mahoney straightened me out. It was Paul Butterfield singing and playing the slinky guitar part. Philip Wilson had left the Art Ensemble and he played drums on this album and a young David Sanborn played sax but the gorgeous sax solo on this track is credited to Gene Dinwiddie. In my own dream, what a place to be!

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I Got White Owl Blunts

White Owl Blunts packaging found near Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, NY
White Owl Blunts packaging found near Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, NY

I guess I should admit it. I like to play golf. I’ve got my own rules though and I don’t use any clubs. I don’t even start with any balls. When our walking route takes near the golf course I’ll stay off the fairways and walk the woods next to the fairways looking for balls. The other day I found four and today I found six including a “Nike”, a “Nitro X Factor” and and a “MC Lady”. If I find a beer bottle I throw it back out on the fairway.

Speaking of beer, the Budweiser guy has slowed his pace this summer. I’ve checked his usual 20-ounce dumping grounds when we take that route but have been coming up clean.

Another one of our routes takes us by an entrance to the park where dog walkers park. You gotta watch where you step here. Lately I’ve been picking up these brightly colored cigar tubes. At first I pictured some guy have having a smoke as he walked his dog but yesterday we walked by a group of teens who turned their music down as we walked by. I’m thinking it might have been Wu Tang’s “Method Man”. “I got fat bags of skunk/I got White Owl blunts.”

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I Heart Tapioca

Jim Mott painting of the view from our bedroom.

Painter Jim Mott has updated his blog with posts on the last two stops of the local edition of his “Itinerant Artist” project. We feel very lucky that North Irondequoit was one of those stops. I was happy to read that Peggi’s tapioca made an impression on him. Jim plans to have a show of these local paintings when the tour is over.

Margaret Explosion plays another art opening tonight. This one at the NTID Dyer Arts Center at RIT is for the Arena Art Group and it’s open the the public so stop out. We’ve played here before and like the sound of this room. Here’s a song from the Edith Small opening from a few years back. Phil Marshall plays guitar.

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She’s A Mud House

Mud house on Webster Avenue in Rochester, NY
Mud house on Webster Avenue in Rochester, NY

Webster Avenue is our preferred route to downtown so we travel it quite a bit. I read about the mud house that is being built there in City News but I couldn’t find it the first few times we drove by. It’s tucked behind another building, right near Rosedale Terrace where my mother grew up. In City I read that “Superadobes are the brainchild of architect and author Nader Khalili, who taught the technique at Cal-Earth Architecture, a California-based design center he founded in 1986.” This is the first one in New York State. The building seems to be going up under the direction of a church group because two of the people we met when we stopped by are called “Brother” and “Sister” and they didn’t look related by blood. And the worker bees are all city kids. The girl above was taking photos of us while I was taking photos of the giant beehive (and her). Her shirt read, “Before My Boyfriend Comes.” I didn’t ask.

Mud house on Webster Avenue in Rochester, NY

Margaret Explosion plays tonight at RoCo on East Avenue. It’s a benefit for David and Sally’s son Oscar. He has a condition (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) that will seriously compromise his strength for the rest of his life. They’re raffling off an iPad as well. Come on out for a worthwhile event. Details.

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Reformation, Resurrection

World Cup at our neighbor's house
World Cup at our neighbor’s house

Couldn’t help but talk a little World Cup with my brother at my aunt’s funeral service this morning. My brother thought Germany would have beat Spain if Müller had been allowed to play. I told him Spain cleaned Germany’s clock and controlled the whole field for the whole game or at least 65% of it. Forget about Germany and Brazil. Spain plays the “beautiful game.”

We were on the road to the church this morning when Peggi asked me if we knew where we were going. I had my aunt’s obituary in my pocket and took it out to read “Church of the Reformation” but there wasn’t any street address. So we turned around and googled it back home. There was a Church of the Reformation downtown but it was Lutheran so I looked at the obit again and it read “Resurrection” which sounds a lot more Catholic. We were a little late and I was thinking how people used to say I would be late to my own funeral and I’d say, “that sounds like a good idea.” but I’m not so sure anymore.

My father gave a nice little talk about his sister and their close knit neighborhood in the 19th ward. He finished with how he will always remember her smile. It seemed she was always laughing in the old days. I think she really enjoyed life.

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Beatles Or Bottles

New Math at Orange Monkey in Rochester, New York
New Math at Orange Monkey in Rochester, New York

Every time I hear a Beatles song I think of the bikers at “Big Daddy’s” on Lyell Avenue who challenged “New Math” with shouts of “Beatles or bottles”. They didn’t like what we were playing and I can’t quite remember how Kevin handled it but it seems like he announced one of our songs as an “obscure Beatle song”. At least that sounds like something he would do.

We streamed “Stones in Exile” last night with our Netflix app. We had the iPad cranked through the stereo and the footage from the “Exile” period was great. I have the double lp out and have played it quite a bit since reading the 33 1/3 book on the lp. That corresponded with the re-release of the remaster lp on a double cd. I ripped a copy of that while at a friend’s but haven’t listened to it yet. I don’t think I can handle the new tracks that Mick tarted up.

We stopped down at Vic & Irv’s while Duane was here and he spotted a skull and cross bones tattoo on the back of neck of the woman behind the grill. Rochester’s Lou Gramn was playing on the sound system. Their onion rings and milk shakes are sensational and have been since I started coming here back in the British Invasion days. In the Stones documentary Kieth says Mick’s rock and he’s roll. I have always felt that Vic & Irv’s is Stones compared to Don & Bob’s Beatles. The Beatles may have been more musical but the Stones have better hot sauce.

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We Pick

Peggi's feet overlooking Blue Mountain Lake from Castle Rock in the Adirondacks
Peggi’s feet overlooking Blue Mountain Lake from Castle Rock in the Adirondacks

We picked two more pans of raspberries from the garden. You really need to wearing long sleeve shirts and full length pants when you get out there in the prickers but it was too hot for that. Peggi made a pie and plans to make another today after the World Cup. I’m afraid Paraquay’s going down today but it would be nice to see them upset the Netherlands apple cart. We had more raspberries for breakfast. I’ve been picking seeds out from between my teeth for days. I’ve been afraid to use my Waterpik, in fear that I’ll drive one of those little seeds up my gums.

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Belfiore Sardegna

Blue flowers in the marsh, late spring, Rochester, NY
Blue flowers in the marsh, late spring, Rochester, NY

The blue Spring flowers in the marsh are starting to give way to Summer and I have big plans for the summer. I’m going to clean out the garage.

Jeff Beck packed two shows at Kodak Hall last night and the streets were still packed with Jazz Fest goers. Downtown Rochester felt like a typical European city on most any night. We didn’t really find anything we liked in the clubs so we strolled the streets, found Deb Jones’ little party spot in the Harro Health Club parking lot and joined them for a bit and then checked out Booker T on East Ave. They had a big fat drummer that played just behind the beat enough to get a good groove on.

It’s hard to drive by Palermo’s Market without stopping in. Saturdays are always good even if you don’t need anything. The owner puts all sorts of cheese and olive samples out and everything always looks so good I walk out with a few bags full of stuff. I tried to pace myself with the Belfiore Sardegna cheese that I came home with but it’s gone already.

We had fallen so far behind with our 4D work that cancelled plans of watching the US in a pub downtown. Instead I kept a browser window open so I could follow the play by play at FIFA’s site. The US was robbed but how the heck did they get down 2-0 to begun with? Gome hell or highwater we’re going somewhere with ESPN for the US Alegeria game.

I’m keeping track of the Jazz Fest over here.

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Sam’s Bike

Sam's bike in bushes out behind Bill and Geri's house
Sam’s bike in bushes out behind Bill and Geri’s house

We were having homemade pizzas in Bill and Geri’s backyard when I spotted this bike in the bushes. I had never seen Bill or Geri on a bike so I asked who it belonged to. Geri said their son Sam bought it but never rode it. Cool bike.

I offered to to go out to the Apple Sore with my dad because he wanted to buy an iPad. He spends so much time in his computer room he deserves one so can get out more like maybe to the living room. He bought the bottom of the line model without 3G. These things are selling so fast Apple ships them in sleep mode and when you switch them on you still have 96 per cent battery life left. He purchased a few apps while we were still in the store. Keynote and Sketchbook Pro.

He was going to borrow my laptop for his upcoming presentation on Brighton’s farms in the 1800’s. He’s building his slide show in Keynote and he wanted to continue work on the iPad. An Apple employee demonstrated the basics of the iPad app and sold us a cable to plug the iPad into the projection unit so he won’t need the laptop. We both wanted one of the Pogo Sketch pens that let you draw on the iPad like a tablet but they only had the pens in hot pink. My father went for the pink saying it would be hard to lose. I decided to wait and order a silver one online. I found one on Amazon but with shipping it was more than the pink one.

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