PopWars

I had to tear myself away from the live feed from Sturgis, South Dakota. The camera is positioned over Sturgis Liquor across the street from the “Knuckle Saloon.” There’s a flashing sign sign out front reading “Jack Daniels Apparel Sold Here” and a van, parked under the sign, advertises “Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey.” Its no wonder the people on the street walk so funny.

We watched an HP Lovecraft documentary last night. I’m not recommending it but it did color our encounter this afternoon with an Eastern Cicada Killer Wasp. Peggi identified the creature with her iNaturalist app and we were relieved to learn the “Killer Wasp” part is not where the emphasis should be. The huge, black and white striped wasp is not particularly dangerous to humans. It is the “Cicada Killer” part of the name that telles the Lovecraftian story. What we were looking at, a creature darting around on our driveway, was the wasp trying to kill the Cicada.

NYT featured an article about how readers were coping with the pandemic blues. A Milwaukee reader said, “I’ve been painting rocks and leaving them on paths at parks for a happy little surprise for someone.” Here in Rochester we too have come across those damn things and I can’t tell how annoying they are out in nature. More annoying than those stone piles that people make on beaches.

We spent some time down in the garden today. Some weeding, some planting (a new row of cilantro), some watering. I tied up the new growth on our tomato plants. Some of them would be eight foot tall if they hadn’t run out of stake. And of course we picked stuff (beets, basil, cilantro, arugula and kale). 

It was especially nice down there because Michael Burritt, the percussion teacher at the Eastman School of Music, had his windows open and he was playing one of his melodious mallet instruments. He has a signature brand of vibes. Either that or xylophone. I always get those mixed up. And he has a particularly loud air conditioner which is usually on in the summer but it wasn’t today. So it was a treat to hear him play.

Driving down Culver, a route we used to take almost daily pre-pandemic, I had a creepy feeling come over me. I didn’t miss the short ride to downtown, not at all. I wondered aloud if we were disengaging with the world. A gold, early seventies, Chevy pick-up was waiting at the Norton Street intersection with Culver Road. I couldn’t wait to get a better look at it and when we did I was delighted to see a young couple in the front seat, he driving and she beaming, while sitting right next to him in the middle of the passenger seat. This is why we go out in the world. This is why we must put this pandemic behind us.

We made an appointment to to see Warren Philips new show at his gallery in the Hungerford building. We expected to find Warren framing in his shop but he sat down and held court while we browsed. The wall behind him features an Antonio Tapies etching flanked by two Manolo Millaries prints. Further down the same wall was a Lucio Muñoz serigraph. These are all giants of the Spanish abstract movement. All were featured in the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca when we were there last year.

Early August is peak green in upstate NewYork. The woods are at their fullest, the trails are overgrown, the cattails are at their tallest. The Black Swallow Wort is going to seed. The garlic mustard and mayapples are starting to die back. We’re peaking.

Our canopy of oaks, though, is thinner than usual. The leaves are spindly, half eaten by the caterpillar/gypsy moth plague, so there is more sun on our lot. We took notice of the stray Autumn Olive trees that we have, an invasive species that has popped up on all four sides of our house.

Our neighbor called our attention to one that was hanging over the road. He said he was afraid one the thorns on its branches would reach in his truck window and scratch him. He offered to prune our bush, an offer that struck us as rude but one that was, true to form, only blunt.

Instead of pruning the tree we decided to take it out, it and twenty or so others. Some were fifteen feet high. All were gangly. Weed trees. And the thorns were “crown of thorns” size. We cut the tees down with a saw and then dug the root balls out, a task that took us the better part of three days.

In our down time we’ve been watching the high school senior across the street shoot baskets in her driveway. It was exactly a year ago today when I surprised her with a new net. She has gotten really good. So good that she now has a coach who who stops by and feeds her shots. When she shoots it is all net.

A bunch of us on our dead end street split the cost of the swimming pool that sits on an empty lot. The arrangement predates our arrival by decades. The pool was put in in 1960. One of the neighbors has been mowing the lawn there for years but his tractor has bitten the dust. I’ve mowed it by hand before but it takes forever and it is boring. I’ve only mowed our lawn once this year and I’m hoping I won’t have to mow it again. We are surrounded by trees. I use the mower in the fall to chew up the leaves.

The presidency of the pool corp rotates and Peggi and I are stuck with it for two years. It was up to us to find someone to mow the lawn. Jeddy and Helena live across from the pool and they have a guy that mows their lawn. We’ve heard them talk about the guy. Not unreliable but, “He said he would come today . . .” And he doesn’t just come like clockwork during a drought. He waits for there to be a need. He’s our guy.

I called him this afternoon. He said he would come tomorrow, mow the lawn and then tell us how much it will be. He said he charges one dollar a minute. I asked, “How fast does your tractor go?”

We brought back our fort three tomatoes from the garden and had them with some basil and Manchego theses. And then we vacuumed the screen on our porch. The tree debris, catkins, cotton wood seed and the gypsy moths, have finally subsided. We are deep into summer now.

Our tomato plants are now taller than I am. And more importantly they are taller than our stakes. Peggi reminded me that other years we strapped extensions onto the existing stakes so that may be tomorrow’s project. We have more plants than ever this year, two different kinds, all started from Fruition seed. We don’t get full sun, maybe four hours a day, so they are probably reaching for as much light as they can get.

Peggi got stung by a ground bee on walk yesterday. Her second bee experience in her long life. Last time it got infected and compounded the hurt so her doctor started her on antibiotics. In line at Wegmans to pick up the subscription she noticed the woman next to her, speaking loudly, was not wearing a mask. Peggi asked the pharmacist how the woman got in without wearing a mask and pharmacist said they can’t force people to wear masks.

Before climbing the walls in the depths of the Covid crisis the British writer, Sophie Atkinson, reread “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” and in a recent NYTs piece she recommended it as a roadmap to navigating the countless days at home. She was reminded of an obvious truth: “I don’t need to go outdoors or online to have fun. Life has started to feel a little lighter. ” I made a note to reread the book.

And yesterday I read Brigid Berlin’s obit. She was the “B” in the subtitle of “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” – “(From A to B and Back Again).” She too was an artist and she recorded most of the conversation transcribed in the book. From her obit -“Her most radical act, late in life, was to become a near replica of her mother, with a similar apartment, identical pug dogs and conservative political views.”

Because we ordered an early copy through Interview Magazine, our book is autographed with an original Campbell’s soup can drawing.