Salt pile behind Town Hall in Irondequoit, New York
It was pouring rain and in the mid fifties when we set out to the library. We had our rain gear on and the shoes we plan to wear when we walk the Camino. Peggi read you should have a hundred miles on the shoes before you go. Or was it a hundred hours? We were talking up Noah Baumbach movies to our neighbors and they rented “Mistress America” at the library. They liked it and offered it to us to watch again. I liked it better the second time.
We returned the movie and couldn’t find any place to hang our rain gear so we left it balled up near the door. We put “Fire & Fury” on reserve and a book about El Camino and then and we wandered around the library. We came home with another dvd, David Lynch’s “the Art of Life,” and three books – Reckless Daughter – A portrait of Joni Mitchell” (which was recommended by a friend), the Philip Roth collection of non-fiction (I plan to go right to the piece he wrote about his friend, Philip Guston) and “The Directory of Saints” (I liked how it was organized by the topic they were the patron saint of).
Rick Muto oil on panel, plein air painting of marsh along Sterling Creek 8″ x 6,” on view at Axom Gallery in Rochester New York
Axom Gallery, across the street from the Barrel ‘O Dolls, is one of the nicest spaces for art in the city of Rochester. We have seen so many really good shows there over the years and we have slowly gotten to know Rick and Robin Muto, the gallery owners. Rick runs his decorative and fine art business (murals, faux pieta dura and marbling) out of their space. Robin runs her interior decorating business and increasingly her retail shop out of another portion of their space and their daughter used to be the gallery director but she took a job at the MAG and Rick is now the gallery director.
Rick’s passion though is en plein air oil painting and he has a show at Axom now with twenty exquisite paintings of local nature scenes. Rick told us he usually finishes these paintings on site in one session. We spend a lot of time in the woods and I would say his sense of space and color is spot on. I particularly like the ones that look the loosest, the most expressive, like this one of the “Marsh Along Sterling Creek.”
Can you imagine going out for the day and coming back with one of these? If I could do that I would throw away my camera.
Check written to Fowler Coal in Bloomington Indiana
I cleaned off our answering machine today, a major accomplshment. We still have a wired line but don’t answer it much. The messages were stockpiled and the earliest were from my parents, both calling near the end of their lives for help. I recorded them on to my iPad in GarageBand and saved them as an mp3. They are heartbreaking but hard to let go of.
I am happy to see Steve Hoy saw my last post. He says he doesn’t remember writing it and that is why I save this stuff.
I found this old check in a box. I only kept a few checks, like the one I wrote to Swing-In Pizza for $3.98. Steve and I rented a whole house in Bloomington for $85 a month. It had a coal burning furnace and we had to clean the ashes out and put them in metal ash can outside. (My father always called our garage cans “ash cans” and I always thought that was odd since we never put any ashes in there.) As the winter wore on in Bloomington we got too lazy to take the ashes out so we’d pile them up on the concrete basement floor. I went down there one night to feed the fire and it wasn’t quite dark so the lights were off. I noticed the four foot high pile was glowing red hot.
Steve Hoy English paper on the 4th Dimension, written for Paul Dodd in 1969
Steve Hoy was the best man at our wedding. But before that he was my college roommate, back when they were randomly assigned without any profiling or preferences being stated.
I coasted through high school and had a great time but I was a terrible student, learning only what I needed to get by. I was determined to turn over a new leaf in college and planned on applying myself. That idea went out the window when Steve showed up. The first thing I remember him saying was, “Is it ok to put one of my stereo speakers on your desk?” He was already a junior. He had a car, a white Barracuda. We had a good time.
We rented a small, coal-heated house the next year and I eventually dropped out but before I did, Steve wrote an English paper for me. I think the assignment was to make something up and that was too much for me. Steve’s paper got me an A-/B+, one of the best grades I received. Steve, a sci-fi buff, entitled the essay “The Fourth Dimension.”
We had an early link to this video, one that we weren’t supposed to share, but I’m happy to hear it has gone public now. We heard stories about the Cassorla brothers long before we ever met them. Most of the stories involved pranks or explosions. They built a reputation in West Irondequoit. Once we became friends they’d bring large containers of pretzels to our parties, salty stuff their father, Red, delivered to all the mom and pop stores in the city. They’d also bring stuff that blew up pretty good.
Red worked out of a warehouse over by the Public Market and didn’t retire until his late eighties when the brothers and Red all moved out west. Red was a Sephardic Jew from Spain and his sons drove him back here every year for the holy days. They’d all come to the Little to hear the band and catch up with old friends. Red’s eyes would light up when Peggi spoke Spanish to him.
And, although we never talked about it, I think there might have been a connection to the Cassorla brothers when Peggi and I hosted a wedding reception for our bass player many years ago. I was spinning records in the living room and the bass player’s brother asked me if it was ok to set off some fireworks outside. I said “Sure” and went on playing records until we heard the explosion. Neighbors for miles around called the cops. There were ten police cars out front when they rang our doorbell. They asked if I was the owner of the house and I said, yes. They said, “Come on, we’re going downtown.” I was guilty on all counts.
They put handcuffs on me and put me in the back seat. I could see our neighbors looking out their windows at me. For some reason we never went downtown. I watched the parents of the bride and groom leave our house and the party fizzle. Peggi told me later that the remaining guests carried on a lively debate as to whether the guy that actually set the fireworks off should fess up but he couldn’t do that because he had more fireworks in his car and he worked for the City so he was afraid he would los his job. One of the guests was a lawyer and I really wish I had heard that debate. It reminds me of the “The Dinner” with Laura Linney.
My story had a beautiful, surreal ending when after an hour or so in the back seat Steve Black left the party and walked up to the cop car. The cop slowly rolled the window down and Steve said, “Officer, I have a confession to make. I set the bomb off.” I remember saying, “Steve, what are you doing?” but the officer opened the door, put handcuffs on Steve and put him in the back seat with me. After another hour, they let us go but told us we had to be in court at nine the next morning. The charges were dropped when the arresting officer failed to show up.
“Is Donald Trump a conceptual artist?” What a joy it was to read this article in the art section of this morning’s paper. Yes, there is a curved line between Malevich, Dada, abstract expressionism, minimalists like Ellsworth Kelly, Carmen Herrera, Robert Smithson, Donald Judd and the current occupant. Between art and absurdity.
The US government solicited eight prototypes which were built at a cost of $3.3 million in federal funds and unveiled last October along the United States border near San Diego. The eight companies who responded are each hoping to be the winning contractor when Trump builds his great wall. I cut out the pictures of the prototypes when the Times published them in early November. The pieces reminded me of the objects in my ongoing 6×6 project.
The cheekily named MAGA organization has started a brilliant campaign to designate the prototype display area as a national monument. Each of the eight wall sections were designed to United States Customs and Border Protection specifications, built to withstand a 30-minute assault from sledgehammers to acetylene torches, and to be difficult to scale or tunnel beneath. When viewed up close the walls have the undeniable majesty of minimalist sculpture.
Yes, I signed the MAGA petition and I encourage you to do so as well.
Matisse is a saint in my book, a candidate for pagan idolatry.
I ordered this cut-out book, “Expressionism in Germany and France,” while I was in the throes of preparation for “Witness” and I’m just now getting into it. I love German Expressionism, the more rough and tumble, the better, and I find it interesting those guys, coming out of WWI, were influenced by the dainty French. But this quote from Matisse is foundational!
“What I am after, above all, is expression … Expression, for me, does not reside in passion bursting from a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive: the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around the, the proportions, all that has its share.
Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painter’s command to express his feelings. In a picture every part will be visible and will play its appointed role, whether it be principal or secondary. Everything that is not useful in the picture is, it follows, harmful. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety: any superfluous detail would replace some other essential detail in the mind of the spectator.”
We had not been down the west side of Durand Lake in a while so this was the first we had seen of the beaver damage there. What were they thinking trying to gnaw their way through trees this big?
Duane suggested we add the 1957 French film, “Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday,” to our Netflix queue. We have but we’ll have to watch “Advise & Consent” first and mail it back. I wish they would just make the switch to everything streamable. We streamed “The Dinner” a few nights back. I loved the story, a moral dilemma, almost like a nightmare. Laura Linney was great as the over protective mom and Richard Gere made a pretty good straight man. The guy who played his brother, Steve Coogan, surprised us because we had just seen him in “A Trip To Spain” and couldn’t stand him. Our friend, Claire, loved him in that movie. Guess that’s the sign of a good actor. I read that “The Dinner” was based on a book and it has already been made into three movies. I think some could do a killer movie with this story but it might take a few more tries. It has been compared to Polanski’s “Carnage” so we will have to track that one down.
Although we have been Amazon Prime members for some time we had never watched anything from them so we lined up a queue there. Jim Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson” is great. Peggi and I think it is his best movie. He wrote the story as well. It’s understated, slow, beautiful, and a real fantasy. Adam Driver is fantastic.
Driver is great in Scorsese’s “Silence” too but unfortunately he is not the lead. I loved the look of this movie. I loved the whole Catholic thing and the way the Japanese fought it. Whoever it is that’s writing Roger Ebert’s site put it this way, “Silence is a monumental work, and a punishing one. It puts you through hell with no promise of enlightenment, only a set of questions and propositions, sensations and experiences.”
Looking across Eastman Lake out to Lake Ontario Winter
You know it is going to be a good party, and by extension a good year, when someone clears off the coffee table in the living room so people can take turns dancing on it. James Brown got the party started and his “Super Bad” drove it over the top. The band, with Bootsy Collins on bass and his brother Catfish on guitar, is just incredible. They wind it so tight, keeping you in crazy suspense until they reach the bridge, and then the sax solo, where James asks Robert McCollough to “Blow me some Trane” goes over the top. Prince ruled for a few songs, Grace Jones’ “I’m Not Perfect” was a knock out. I couldn’t find our seven inch of “Love To Love You” so I played part of the album version. And with the 45s all in a big pile we finished the night with the Stooges, “1969.”
There were more people skiing and snowshoeing in the park today than we have ever seen. Could be a combination of perfect conditions and a national holiday but I’d like to think more people are throwing off the digital shackles and getting out there.
Peggi’s sister sent us four coffee cups from the Bauer Pottery Company in LA. They look like California and have livened up our mornings.
Duane sent us up a copy of “Leon of Juda,” Robert Frank’s newest book of photos, published by Steidl. I mention the publisher because the book is beautiful. The photos are as well but that goes without saying. I’ve looked at the book (it is without text) everyday since it arrived and it still seems mysterious and fresh.
And a paperback also arrived from Louise in time for the holidays, one based on a 1972 BBC series, “Ways of Seeing” by John Berger. Parts of it are so thought provoking I will never forget what I read.
Berger starts Chapter 3 with a passage from Genesis. Catholics weren’t so big on the bible when I went to school so I was familiar with the story but still not ready to read it.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons …. And the Lord God called unto the man and said unto him, ‘Where are thou?’ And he said, ‘I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself ….
Unto the woman God said, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.'”
With these words he makes the case that all of European culture was ripe for the #MeToo movement. With rare exceptions, paintings of female nudes exist for the delight of men. “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakednsss you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.”
And he notes, “other non-European traditions – in Indian art, Persian art, African art, Pre-Columbian art – nakedness is never supine in this way. And if, in these traditions, the theme of a work is sexual attraction, it is likely to show active sexual love as between two people, the woman as active as the man, the actions of each absorbing the other”
He finishes the chapter with a challenge. “Choose from this book an image of a traditional nude. Transform the woman into a man. Either in your mind’s eye or by drawing on the reproduction. Then notice the violence which that transformation does. Not to the image, but to the assumptions of a likely viewer.”
We stood on this point on the edge of Eastman Lake trying to decide if the ice was frozen solid enough for us to ski across. We discussed what it would be like to fall in the water in 15 degree weather and then decided to stay on the path that runs along the shore.
The B section of our local paper keeps getting smaller even though it comes stock from USA Today. Just a few months ago it was reduced to six pages, one spread and an insert. Then it was knocked down to just the spread with entertainment gossip on the back page. And then that last page went all ads. I cut out Mesfin Fekadu’s “Top Ten Albums of 2017” from that section just to see what I’m missing. I hate feeling like the world is passing me by.
I had never heard of SZA but her “Ctrl” album was at number one. It’s easy going with a tasteful headphone ready mix. Lots of space and odd instrumentation. Very listenable, like something you’d hear in the Apple Store. Kendrick Lamar’s, “DAMN,” is Hollywood enough to include U2 but the tracks barely get off the ground. Daniel Caesar’s, “Freudian,” at number three, is way laid back R&B, almost detached make-out music.
Funny Mesfin Fekadu put Jay-Z’s, “4:44” at number 4. It really drew me in with its catchy lyrics, rhythms and samples. I’d put this one at number one. Taylor Swift sounds like she is completely lost on “reputation.” The generic big production swallows up her simple charm. I put Sam Smith’s, “The Thrill of It All,” on while we ate dinner and that was just about right. Soft, gospel tinged dinner music.
Number seven, St. Vincent’s, “MASSEDUCTION” isn’t as exotic as Bjork. I thought I was gonna like her but “Sugarboy” sounds like Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” on the wrong speed. Miguel’s, War & Leisure is old school R&B and various songs didn’t so much remind me of Smokey, the Chi-Lites, Funkadelic and Prince but made me want to hear them instead. “H.E.R.,” by Gabi Wilson under her stage name H.E.R., is more late night, make out chill stuff. And the number ten pick is Haim, “Something to Tell You,“ Three sisters who play pop songs like a lame eighties band.
I’m glad I liked Jay Z. I don’t feel so out of it.
We waited for double-digit degrees before strapping on our skis and we shoveled the driveway to warm up. My ski boots are plastic on the bottom so it makes it exciting just trying to stand up while shoveling. We went through the woods again and were out in the middle of the golf course when our financial guy called. He was home for the holidays but our question couldn’t wait. We were looking for losses to declare before the end of the year, losses in the the best market ever. We needed to offset the financial gains we made with the sale of some art. We were plenty warm until he called.
I love winter. I’m not crazy about how my skin dries out but everything else about it is cool. I like staying in, working on projects, reading by the fire and watching movies at night. But most of all I like getting outside to walk, split wood, shovel or – best of all – ski. And this has been a stellar year for that. Fresh snow just when you need it and temps well below freezing.
I’ve dialed back so far this winter I keep forgetting to check in here. After ten years practice I’m not contemplating a dead end but I could see it happening. What’s to report, or record or review? Well, we’re keeping warm.
Nighttime ski tracks in front of the house of blue lights
We had about eighteen people over last night, all family members but not all of the family. Our niece’s daughter told us she was going to stay up til three in the morning to see Santa. She is about a year younger than I was when my teacher, a nun at St. John’s, asked the class to raise their hand if they still believe in Santa Claus. It wasn’t all that mean. I certainly had my doubts and I get to tell this story every year.
Peggi’s sister sent a photo up of her two sons on the beach in Miami where they have gathered for the holidays. Hardly looked like Christmas down there. That’s the best part about the day for me now and this is a good one. Cold and white. We skied out the door, through the woods and up to the lake. The sky was intensely blue and the wind was blowing so there were fresh drifts up on the ridge. When we got back my brother was in the driveway with his wife. We took a long walk with them. We like to think we’re in training to walk the Camino in April.
Our snow has disappeared so we walked in the woods today. Odd how clunky the trail feels on the bottom of your feet after only a week of gliding through it on our skis. This trail, on the east side of Durand Lake, is a popular one for good reason. These heavily tattooed beech trees attest to that.
I must be running in the wrong circles because I can’t remember the last time I heard a really exciting local band, somebody doing something I haven’t heard before, something from left field. I keep running across bands that are all too eager to provide comfort food, pale imitations of what was once the good stuff. I know they’re out there. Like I said, “I’m running in the wrong circles.”
Black Thought from the Roots is wondering the same thing. “We back again For a couple things we lost in the fire The drive, the desire to perform on a higher plateau I’m at that show lost in the mire Wondering how we got so far from inspired”
Thinking about checking Sirsy out tomorrow night at Three Heads.
Until yesterday we were still using hand-me-down bath towels from Peggi’s parents. They last a long time but you eventually get really tired of the color. So we went on an adventure to Bed Bath and Beyond. Department stores don’t have clerks that work in them anymore. You just pick up a giant cart at the door and roll it around the store looking for what you came in there for. The carts are so big you can’t help but bump into other shoppers.
The towel department is arranged by price. The towels get thicker and longer if you are willing pay extra. Our main criteria was the color and we wanted the whole set. Two bath towels, two hand towels, two wash clothes and a bath mat. We settled on some Turkish cotton Expresso towels.
The store was really crowded because of the holiday and the cashier wanted to know if we needed gift boxes but we told her they were just for ourselves. We had a coupon that saved us ten dollars and gave her that. The woman in line behind us also had a coupon, an extra one, for twenty dollars off. She said we could have it too. I’m really starting to get in the spirit.
Looking across Eastman Lake in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York
Unless my math is off we’ve skied seven days this winter and it’s not even officially winter yet. We had to get out there early today because forty degrees and rain is moving into our region. A good start.
I gave my new 45 case a coat of primer tonight. I plan to paint it black (and I just so happen to have a London Records single with that name). It is about four feet long and two shelves high. A modest collection. I got rid of the duplicates between Peggi’s and my collections from our respective youths and I kept most of the seventies and eighties stuff. I got rid of the crap but kept some stuff that is so bad it’s good. We’re gearing up for another 45 party.
I bought some seven inch wide boards at Lowe’s and cut channels to slide portions into so there are eight chambers in the shelf. A proper ruler would have been the tool for that but I don’t have one. I thought about clamping a straight edge on the boards and running my circular saw, set at a shallow, 1/8 inch depth, though but that seemed like too much work, adjusting the guide for each saw blade width. So I used my table saw and cut the channel on the bottom side of the board with the blade just barely poking up from the table. Managed to not cut any finger tips off. We have Part 1 and Part 2 of that song as well.
Bull’s head over the bar at Ox & Stone on Alexander Street
We spotted our neighbor in Wegman’s buying prescriptions for her mom. We usually see her out skiing in the woods and we told her how perfect the conditions were today. A fresh couple of inches, clear blue sky, newly groomed trails and just 16 degrees. Nothing sticky about that.
The Members Show at RoCo looked really good during the day light hours. Of course in a floor to ceiling, salon style show different things catch your eye each visit. We were there to pick up the Stewart Davis painting we bought from their side gallery. We chatted with Bleu and then headed over to Casey’s new joint on Alexander Street, Lanai. The restaurant wasn’t open yet and we were starved so went across the street to Ox & Stone. It was too early for dinner there too so we sat at the bar under this big bull head and ordered Spanish style tapas.
Paul and Peggi shadows on golf course while skiing
There is a volunteer cross country ski foundation that grooms the golf course at Durand each Winter. It’s $10 for four months and if you are a member you can check out the conditions before leaving the house. They had already groomed a few trails by the time we got down there this afternoon so we were able to ski up to the lake but the ground is not frozen yet so it got sticky. We are supposed to get another foot tonight so that will help.
Protected heating controls In gym at Brighton High School
I like mountain pose.There is not much to it. And I love Savasana, the Sanskrit name for the relaxation pose we do at the end of class. Between those two there is some real work to do in opening up the creaky old frame. I like Jeffery’s class because he keeps you engaged. My tendency is to daydream but I surrender myself to watching and listening to him and two hours fly by.
Tonight he read a short passage from a motivational book at the end of class that I really liked. It was about salmon swimming upstream. You would think they’d choose the path of least resistence but they swim into the strongest current because they know that channel is unobstructed. We are meant to tackle things head on. I see the Bills won in OT yesterday.
Matthew made soup but he forgot to bring it out to the new place where we were rebuilding an exterior wall from the inside out. There was a large can of Campbell’s Alphabet soup out there so we heated that up for lunch and I couldn’t believe how good it was. Is that because of the salt? The first two letters I saw were a “P’ and an “E.’
I’m tired of not being able to reach the 45s on the top shelf of the book case so I’m planning on building a cabinet that will sit on the floor under a table near our stereo. That prompted me to file away some the ones that have been sitting in a stack – black column with no jackets – 45s that Peggi and I had when we were young. We didn’t know each other then but we have plenty of duplicates so I’ve been sorting those out too, keeping the copy with least amount of pops. I can usually tell which one is Peggi’s because she used to write her name on them and in some cases her name plus her boyfriend de jour.
I have a lot of friends who worked in record stores, Martin at Midtown and Record Theater, Kevin and Corrine at Record Theater, Andrea at Discount Records, and they would know the protocol for alphabetizing bands but I’m wrestling with a few things. You certainly don’t file all the “The So-&-Sos” bands under “The” so you drop the “The.” If an artist records under their own name you would file it under their last name but if they record under the name of a band with their name in it like Bobby Fuller Four or Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers I think you file them under the first letter in their first names. Do The 4 Seasons go under “Four” in the “F’s” or “4” at the beginning of the whole alphabet? And what about Little Peggy March or Chubby Checker? Do they go under their nicknames or their last names? Does Dr. John go under Dr. or Doctor or John? I went with Dr. he sits just after The Dovells.
