Light pole, pavement, concrete, spray paint and shadow on Mount Hope Avenue
Donating blood is not exactly painless. There is a mind-numbing series of questions to be filled out on a barely responsive portable tablet. And then there is the interview, blood pressure and pulse readings. They prick the tip of your finger to determine if you have enough iron in your blood. And there is a bit of a wait regardless of your appointment time. But the toughest part is all those eighties songs that you never wanted to hear again. “We Can Dance If We Want To.” Sally, who works fifty hours a week at the Prince Street collection facility, makes all this near painless.
Pete Monacelli has talked many times about the letters between Thomas Merton and Ad Reinhardt. I had them open on my iPad while I sat in the big chair pumping my fist until the blood bag was full. There is a currently a critical shortage so stop by if you can.
Aptly named, the first day of the week was letter perfect yesterday. Peggi and I were picked up in our driveway and chauffeured in the back seat of Jeff and Mary Kaye’s car to the eastern shore of Sodus Bay where we met our friends, Matthew and Louise. Jeff chose the to hug Ontario’s lakeshore, a dreamy route with gorgeous homes on the lakeside and orchards and barns on the other.
We shared conversation over wood fired pizza and beer under a picnic table umbrella. All the while wondering what it would be like to live on Eagle Island. We heard there is road for golf carts but no car access, only by boat or sled in the winter.
We stopped at this cobblestone house on the way home to inspect it up close. How did those craftsmen get these lake stones set in the concrete without displacing these beautiful ridges?
Our friend, Kathy, haunts second hand stores. And she finds all sorts of treasures at estate sales. I suspect that is where she bought an Italian pasta maker. We borrowed it and Peggi made two batches of pasta. One with mushrooms and one with her sauce. Both were delicious. We ordered one on Amazon and it showed up today so we walked her pasta maker back over to her house. We went through the woods on the way and then along the lake on the way back.
Kathy’s pergola is almost done. The wood has all been carefully scorched and then stained. We have made a point to stop by once a week for the last six just to see it take shape. I was not even sure what a pergola was. I couldn’t understand why you build all this and not put a roof on but now I get it. A pergola is something else altogether. An environment with diffuse light and, as Peggi pointed out, its own sound quality. I’m looking forward to sipping a beer here as we look out on the dreamy Bay.
Monte Carlo Club on Ontario Street in Niagara Falls, New York
This establishment is also on Ontario Avenue in Niagara Falls, just down the street from Prophet Isaiah’s Second Coming House which was pictured in yesterday’s post. I’m partial to the New York side of Niagara Falls. I like the view of the Falls better and it’s not as neat and tidy as the Canadian side. My uncle was born here and he and my aunt still live here. My cousin lives next door to them about five minutes from this place.
This neighborhood is still referred to as “Little Italy” even though it is mostly black now. My uncle grew up a block from the Monte Carlo although it wasn’t even here then. It’s not really here now either. The neighborhood went from Irish and Italian to African Americans from down south. Like most northeastern cities it has seen better days but maybe someone will buy the Monte Carlo and open it back up..
Prophet Isaiah’s Second Coming House on Ontario Avenue in Niagara Falls 2019
We avoid the NYS Thruway if can but we never realized that you save money with the E-ZPass until we rode out to Main Street Arts with Pete and Gloria. They told us they use it all the way down to Florida. We velcroed the clunky plastic thing to our windshield and waited for an opportunity to use it.
Last time we travelled by air we almost missed our connection waiting in a long customs line in the International terminal. And while we were nervously waiting we couldn’t help noticing that some people just waltzed through. Was it Nexus or Global Entry? We signed up for that too. It took us months to get approved and once we were, we made an appointment to pick up the pass at the Whirlpool Bridge Nexus office in Niagara Falls, just five minutes from my aunt and uncle’s house.
We left a day early and stayed overnight in Buffalo. Our first experience with the E-ZPass had us waiting in a line to use it while people in the cash line zipped right through.
The Albright Knox was between shows but that only allows their stellar permanent collection to shine. Choice Seymour Knox picks like Brancusi, Guston and Mark Rothko. We brought our walking shoes and had an IPA at the Big Ditch Brewery and then dinner on the patio at Tempo on Delaware.
We started the morning with a latte at the Rowhouse and then drove north to Niagara Falls where we stumbled on the Prophet Isaiah’s Second Coming House on Ontario Avenue. The door slowly opened as I was taking this picture and a man invited us in but I was still trying to figure what what we were looking at.
My aunt made brownies and we had those at the table while we told family stories. I mentioned we had seen the Second Coming House and my uncle told us he grew up just three blocks from the house.
Gallery wall at The Yards in the Public Market, Rochester, New York
Jim Mott amazes me with his ability to capture a scene on a small scale in a rather short period of time like maybe an hour. He paints in oil on cardboard and the finished piece is consistently true to the color in front of him. Nothing in his finished image is overworked yet they are perfectly readable. His paintings remain painterly and fun to look at. But Jim is looking for something else. He wants to make a connection with his work.
He gave a talk, “The Art of Connection: 20 Years of Socially-Engaged Art Projects,” at The Yards at the Public Market and passed a short stack of his paintings around the room as he showed slides. He grew up wanting to be a local artist but found it was impossible to make any money. And furthermore, nobody seemed to really care. He became disgruntled.
In 2000 he placed a small ad in the New Yorker offering to paint pictures at strangers’ homes in exchange for hospitality. He arranged tours that took him across the country and back several times. He estimates he has been to 200 homes and each time the homeowner chose one the paintings he did at their place to keep for themselves. Jim brought the rest home. His presentation contained a bar chart that showed how much more productive he was on the road compared to staying at home. It was dramatic.
Last year he came up with a Landscape Lottery project where locations were chosen by random GPS corordinates. It took him to some strange places like the middle of a parking lot where he found he had to work harder to make a good painting and they were often some of his best.
He told us he is looking for new ideas for his next project so he has us thinking.
We listened to “On The Beach” yesterday because we read it was the 45th anniversary of that record’s release. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason. There is a newspaper depicted on the cover and the headline reads “Sen. Buckley Calls For Nixon To Resign.” Almost a half century on we have another president leading a “Love It or Leave It” movement.
We bought two 22 ounce cans of Estrella Jalisco at Southtown Beverage and we brought one of them down to the pool today. I noticed that it was brewed by Grupo Modelo, a large Mexican company that was bought by Constellation Brands, the local company that got their start with fortified Wild Irish Rose. The Estrella Jalisco tasted great in the hot sun and we were reminded of a cd we bought in Mexico, by a group from Jalisco called Mariachi Reyes del Aserrado. We called that up and it felt like we were on an exotic vacation or as Louise says “living in the afterlife.”
My regular dentist is shy about telling me to open wider. He is so gentle it seems like he tip-toes into the room. I’ve never had a bad experience there and he has done some grisly work. In high school I went to his father in the very same building. I went out with the receptionist. His father introduced me to Novocain, a god send.
Our childhood dentist, who worked out of the sixth floor of the Medical Arts building on Alexander, would just say, “Hold on.” And then he would grind away with his low speed drill. He would make a fist and act like it was my tooth. He’d say, “I went in here and it opened up and the cavity went this way.” He would take a break while I was in the chair and smoke a cigarette in the other room.
While I was going to school in Bloomington I went to a dentist on Kirkwood, a jovial older guy. His wife was the receptionist. I had a tooth pulled there. He gave me a sedative with instructions to take it twenty minutes before arriving for my appointment. I was on my bicycle and I barely made it there. I came to while he was struggling to extract my tooth. I remember helping him yank it out.
When I moved back to Rochester I started seeing Rocco Cupolo, a dentist my mom recommended. He remarried and had a second family so he worked a long time. Rocco’s, the Italian restaurant on Monroe Avenue is owned by his son and is named after him.
I had a root canal yesterday from a specialist. He worked furiously and continually asked me to “Open Big.” I was afraid to say anything to him for fear he would break one of those long skinny files off in my tooth. Other than asking his assistant for tools the only other thing he said was “What nice long roots you have.”
“Uncle Ray” Paul Dodd Painting from 1990 Pyramid Arts Center show entitled “The City” Acrylic house paint on billboard paper, 54″ wide by “60” high
Ray Tierney II, my mom’s only brother (she had four sisters) was my godfather. I guess I would have gone to live with the Tierney’s if something had happened to my parents. I had a godmother too, one of my father’s sisters, Aunt Helen, who at the time of my baptism was unmarried. She was my parent’s go-to sitter. Ray already had a family of his own.
My grandfather, also named Ray Tierney, owned a grocery store on North Street with two of his brothers. He was dynamo so it was only natural that his son and Ray Tierney III went into the grocery business. I worked there during high school and eventually was in charge of ordering for the dog food and paper aisles. Fellow workers would send newbies out in the dark to take down the flag (there was none) or into the back room for shelf stretchers. They referred to my uncle as “High Pockets.”
I was certain my uncle had left the store when I snagged a banana cream pie and took it in the cooler where I climbed up on the milk crates to work on the pie. I didn’t have any silverware so I was holding the whole pie up to my mouth when my uncle walked in. When I told Ray III this story he said, “Don’t worry, he probably saved the empty box and got credit for the pie.”
I painted this picture of my uncle in 1990 for a Pyramid Arts Center show entitled “The City.” It was one of ten large portrayals of one member of each family in my extended family, a show intended to show the connection between family and place.
Maybe it was the hot sun but this was a particularly strange yard sale. We were only here because we were walking right by it. I can’t figure out what the advantage of using those Perfect Push-Up handles would be. And ten dollars for the John F. Kennedy plate is crazy.
The “Kenny Rogers” photo, in a brown envelope previously used for “Paid Bills” was intriguing. I pulled it all the way out of the envelope. Kenny was photographed at the Rochester Airport wearing short white shorts. It was hard to tell whether the woman proprietor was suggesting you put it on eBay or whether she had researched the photo there and determined it was worth five dollars. The skinny old man figure at the bottom right was missing some fingers. The masking tape called our attention to them. But the missing fingers were taped to the base of the figurine.
We missed the opening of our nephew’s restaurant in Miami. It was in the middle of Jazz Fest and World Cup so we made tentative plans to visit in the Fall when the hurricane season is over. Today we firmed up those plans when Peggi’s sister called and suggested meeting there over Thanksgiving weekend.
We took the call while walking through the park. Peggi’s sister, who lives in LA, asked if we had any travel plans this summer. We were almost to the beach and the thought of going anywhere this time of year seemed really strange. In LA the weather is pretty much the same all year but the summer can get awfully hot so I guess that would be the time to go somewhere.
Our nephew and his girlfriend call their new restaurant Boia De, Italian for “Oh My.” We are really looking forward to dining there.
Paddle Boat on Irondequoit Bay from Kathy’s backyard
It was so hot today we decided to stay off the streets and take the path in the woods to our friend Kathy’s place. She has workers there constructing a deck in her backyard and we’ve been checking up on the progress. It is not your ordinary deck. This one is off her unattached garage and it is just above ground level. Tick safe.
The garage wall that meets the deck has been reworked as well with hand stained board and batten. And beams and supports for a pergola are being carefully considered. This is a work of art and it has been a joy to watch. The Harbor Town Belle was headed up to the Bay Bridge while we were there.
Peggi wore her backpack over in order to carry Kathy’s pasta maker home. We’re having handmade pasta with artichokes for dinner.
We were down at the pool before the sun was up this morning, forced out of our house while Town & Country treated the perimeter for carpenter ants. It is supposed to be non-toxic, a synthetic concoction of chrysanthemum and oyster shells. He doesn’t even wear a mask. But that’s not saying much. We brought the papers, our devices and a pot of coffee down here while he did his thing.
“If you want something done right, do it yourself.” I hate that saying. Why should you have to hang your own gutters? Or remodel your kitchen? There are craftsmen out there. People who have lots of experience. People who are really good at what they do. This “do it yourself” movement has left us with half-assed work everywhere you look.
That’s what I like to think but just because I like to think that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. We hired a company last Fall to replace a few gutters. They were recommended to us. I think that company subcontracted the job to someone else. The guy in charge hit his thumb with a hammer. He showed it to us and told us he thought he broke it. He came back three days later with it all wrapped up.
They hung the gutters with screws that came right through the backside of the fascia board. I didn’t call and complain because I didn’t want to see the guys again. I tried not to look up all winter and planned to back them out in the Spring and put in shorter screws. I finally got to it today. I found a whole long stretch were there were no screws at all. The hangers were lying in the gutter. I borrowed Jared’s six foot level and did the job right. You know what they say.
US Women’s National team at Red Bull Stadium in May 2019. Rapino, Heath, Sonnet, Lavelle, Lloyd and Mewis
Close-ups of the US soccer players were on the NY subway station walls when we were down there in May. Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd and Mallory Pugh. FIFA printed giant posters that were displayed on each surface of a kiosk in Red Bull Stadium when we saw the team play their last friendly before France. We had already fallen in love with Rose Lavelle, watching her play portions of matches leading up to the World Cup. I walked all around the posters looking for Lavelle but there was none. But we were thrilled to see her start. In fact it was the same lineup that started today. Lavelle is now marketable.
Rapino came through big time with a perfectly struck ball in the sixty first minute. She has an amazing amount of confidence in high pressure situations. But nobody wants to win on penalty shots.
The US’s long ball approach to the first half took the play right by Rose Lavelle time and again. But with the ball at her feet in the second half she was able to work her magic. This was an absolutely perfect dream finish! Fox won’t let me embed the video but if you follow this link to YouTube you can see the five foot four inch Lavelle take on the Dutch side herself.
We bought two quarts of local strawberries at Aman’s and put one in each of our backpacks. Our Wegmans purchases were nestled below. These mutant strawberries were on display near the checkout, right next to the refrigerator magnets. The one reading, “Somedays I amaze myself and other days I put my keys in the refrigerator” caught our eye.
I hated to see England lose the the third place match today. I really, really wanted Ellen White to get another one but it was not in the cards. Sweden came out like gangbusters and scored two early goals. The rest of the match was England’s. Most of the items on our shopping list were for tomorrow’s match. We’re having a few friends over to watch it live and then a pool party to celebrate!
We passed a neighbor on our way out. He was completely lost in thought as he hovered over his weed whacker. Peggi identified this flowering bush as a Honeysuckle and geotagged it with the iNaturalist app. We use that everyday now, cataloging the world in some small way.
We waited out a thunderstorm and then headed into the park. The temperature had dropped ten degrees but it was still just as humid. The park was almost empty. No dog walkers parked at the entrance. At the top of Zoo Road we spotted some teenage girls standing by a car. They saw us and quickly got into the car. One kid, a guy, was still standing near the car but he turned his back to us. A small time drug deal was going down.
Up at the lake the parking lot was empty. A couple of Asian kids were playing soccer. We heard people swimming but couldn’t see them. We looked down one of those steep paths and l saw that the beach is still underwater.
On the way back through the park we saw a familiar pickup truck, a dog walker with wacky pro gun bumper stickers on his bumper A little further up the road we saw a guy standing near his car, smoking a cigar. A big branch fell in the woods behind him and we all looked in that direction. He didn’t acknowledge it but told us we were brave to be out walking without an umbrella.
Dome inside St. Mary The Protectress Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Rochester, New York
Wonder Windows was having their company picnic in the park this afternoon. Their trucks were lined up on Log Cabin Road. They were in the same shelter that we used to have the Earring Company picnic in. We stopped to look out at Durand Lake. Someone was out in the middle with a small boat. He had his pole in the water and it looked so idyllic and then BOOM! Someone set off a loud fireworks.
We plan to blow up our last package of Roller Coaster Firecrackers tomorrow in honor of Earl, the founder of the company. He is the one pictured on the right on their storefront in Nevada in this photo. He died in a car accident a few months ago and we told his brother we’d toast him with this ceremonial mini blast..
Dancing in the street at Jazz Fest in Rochester, New York
When our friend, Duane, was up from Brooklyn for a few days he reset the weight on the tone arm of our stereo. He said it felt too heavy. I knew that was asking for trouble. I played a George and Tammy song after dinner and then Family Affair by Sly and the Family Stone. “Near You” sounded scratchier than ever and the needle wouldn’t even stay in the groove for Sly. I added some more weight.
We watched the match today with our neighbors. Jedi played soccer growing up in Jamaica so he knows the game and he is fun to watch with. His wife, Helena, made some killer fried green tomatoes for the occasion and Peggi made hummus. We did some serious screaming.
Without the injured Rapino the US beat England but just by a whisker. A goal called back for being a few inches offsides and then a missed penalty shot prevented England from taking the match into overtime. England had the possession too but the US played better. All three goals were beauties. And Rose Lavelle’s nutmeg in the opening minutes, and not just a nutmeg but one where she picked up her own passon the other side, a good omen. The US is going all the way.
