Old train under bridge on Lake Avenue in Rochester, New York
We used to play this card game called “Indian Poker,” a politically incorrect name no matter what kind of Indian it was named after. You would pick a card and not look at it but stick it to your forehead so all the other players could see it. I think you then bet on whether you thought you had he highest card or something. It was kind of hard to keep a straight face while watching someone go of broke with a two or a three on their forehead.
When we stopped up to see my mom yesterday she had a dark sign of the cross on her forehead. Even though her home is non-denominational they have a record of your religion and I was surprised to see about half of the residents with smudge marks on their heads. My mom’s was the darkest. I said, “I see you got your ashes for Ash Wednesday.” She said, “What?” like she had already forgotten about it, so I just let it go.
“So the only thing to do was to drive up and watch the city from Observatory Crest“
They had to pull open the dividers in the big meeting room tonight at the library in order to accommodate the overflow crowd for a presentation called “The Eastern Coyote” by Scott Smith of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Channel 8 was there with a video camera. Channel 10 showed up about halfway through the presentation. Peggi estimated a couple hundred people in the room.
We have 2 to 3 coyotes per square mile here, two times more than they have in the Adirondacks. There are 25,000 in New York State with the highest density in the Mohawk Valley. Of course Scott talked about coydogs, a cross between a coyote and you know. They have apparently been bred out in the colder northern climates but they are quite prevalent in the Carolinas.
I always thought wolf, coyotes and foxes would coexist as similar species but wolf eat coyotes and coyotes eat foxes and foxes eat rats, rabbits, chipmunks and so on down the line. Coyotes mate for life but fool around. Seventy per cent of their diet is deer but they don’t kill most of them, they are good at finding dead or injured deer.
An email had recently circulated among our neighbors, one that started with a women who spotted a deer head near her house when she was walking her dog. A deer hunter was the first to reply and he thought it could have been left by coyotes because they don’t like the head. Other neighbors chimed in with their recent coyote sightings.
Scott’s slides show all different colors of coyotes. I spotted what I thought was a red fox this morning. It was slinking through the trees in the woods across from our house. Stella, our eighteen year old, all white cat, was out while I grabbed the paper. I’m thinking the coyote got her. At least, I’d prefer to think that’s what happened to her. We had to have the vet put her down this afternoon because she had stopped eating.
Statue of Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycroft Community in East Aurora, New York
We celebrated Peggi’s birthday by driving to East Aurora to visit the Roycroft artist community, something Peggi has always wanted to do. We had brunch in the Inn there, one of the original buildings in the complex and we walked around the grounds soaking in the vibe of the community of printers, furniture makers, metalsmiths, leathersmiths, and bookbinders.
The Arts and Crafts movement started in England in the late 1800s as a reaction against the the excessive ornamentation of the Victorian Age. It was also part of a backlash to the Industrial Revolution. William Morris, the movement’s artistic figurehead tried to unite all the arts within the decoration of the home emphasizing nature and simplicity of form. He inspired the Roycroft artist colony to form in East Aurora, New York, just outside of Buffalo. Morris’s motto was, “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
We asked to see a room in the inn and they showed us suite appointed with classic arts and crafts furniture. We wanted to move in and go back in time.
You don’t have join the Rochester Yacht Club to enjoy the incredible setting they have down there on the mouth of the Genesee. You can just show up for Jeffery’s Saturday morning yoga class. The views from the club are seriously distracting in all all seasons. The one and a half hour class just flies by. It helps that Jeffery wings it and sometimes spins out on stream of conscious tangents.
We were on our backs for a good bit of Saturday’s class doing twists and little bridges and he got going on addiction and how we cross the dominant leg over the other and then announcing “humans are an addictive species.” That launched him into a story about living in a hotel for a year, after his house fire, watching cable tv and a show about hoarders.
Back to anatomical awareness of the fascia muscle that runs from our feet all the way up our backs to our eye sockets. I was trying to imagine that while starring at the textured ceiling. I was picking out faces and generally getting lost in it. And then there is that small green gob of something, probably food, stuck to the ceiling. Oil has seeped from the gob, spreading in a four inch radius.
Chris Zajkowski and Heather arrived at Abilene the same time as us but we had to turn back. Our earplugs were still in the car. Little dig we know, we didn’t need them tonight to protect what little we have left. The Phil Marshall Band was not loud. They were just right. They gingerly felt their way through songs from Phil’s new album. It was beautiful. After the show we told Phil how much we loved his cd and the night’s performance. He told us he owes it all to Chris, his co-producer. He told us, “I was gonna make a pop album.”
Super Bowl cup-cakes at Kneads & Wants on Lake Avenue in Rochester, New York
It was good to see writing, or more accurately reading of one’s writing, take first prize at this month’s First Friday gallery night. Of course, the prize is not even tangible and entirely subjective. We only saw three shows last night but Sonja Livingston, reading from her book, “Queen of the Fall” (working title, “Land of the Lost”) was as good as it gets. She possesses the keenest of observational skills and an extraordinary ability to elevate the ordinary. She is a joy to read and a double delight to hear read. I went ape over her first book and Writer’s & Books has selected this one as its 16th year “If All of Rochester Reads the Same Book…” selection.
Poet, Sally Bittner Bonn, read a couple of pieces from her upcoming memoir about raising a child (Oscar) with a disability. Both were deeply felt and moving. Oscar is a Margaret Explosion fan, we played at a few benefits to raise money for his power chair. Oscar was there for his mom’s readings and we had a chance to say hi. Always a delight.
Today’s blue skies had me in lockstep with this MX-80 song from their newest, “So Funny.” It is a pretty healthy pace for the woods. We passed a neighbor and she was listening to the Saturday afternoon broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera. We never take sound producing devices in the woods and why would you need it when you can’t get some songs out of your head?
I miss the hard-core drive of Dave Mahoney’s drumming and I wish people would quit dying but Bruce Anderson’s guitar is still stellar and the band sounds more melodic than ever. You can watch the entire lp, cd or whatever it is on YouTube or FB.
Todd at 1998 opening for Paul Dodd Bug Jar Mug Shot opening
In 1998 I took my one megapixel Kodak DC210 to Friday happy hour at the Bug Jar on Monroe Avenue. I brought along a simple light fixture, the one I used for painting, with a hundred watt bulb and a big piece of white paper that I hung on the wall in the back room. One by one I approached everyone in the place and asked them if they would like to sit for a mug shot. I found twenty four willing participants. I cropped the photos a bit and converted them to black and white and then to a large dot pattern. I printed the images on our LaserWriter, tiling the files out of a Quark XPress document. Each mugshot image consisted of nine 8 1/2×11 inch prints which I spray mounted to some black cardboard. I hung them in the Bug Jar about a month later.
I recently came across the original color photos so I posted them here for the first time. I also found about fifty photos from the opening of the show. Those are in a separate slideshow below.
Margaret Explosion had a weekly happy hour gig at the Bug Jar for about three years and I remember Bill Jones borrowing my camera to shoot a few photos of the band playing at the opening.
Here’s Margaret Explosion playing “Floating at the Bug Jar.” Leave a comment
Some tree trunks grow into two trunks and sometimes three, dividing just a few feet from the ground. They are always compromised. Moisture and debris gather in the crevice and the two or three trunks lean away from each other seeking light of their own. Most of the growth on the separate trunks is weighted toward the lean. The trees are beautiful but doomed by gravity. We have seen so many of them split apart with one trunk crashing to the ground whether we were there to hear them hit or not.
We had seen the split in this one and knew it was on borrowed time so it was no surprise to find it laying across our walking path. It would be a ski path if we still had winter around here but it was 60 degrees today. It wasn’t just crossing our path it fell along the path so it would have been impossible to ski around without stopping and taking off our skis. We had to address this problem but we needed to enlist an engineer so we stopped down at Jared’s.
We had our chainsaw in our wheelbarrow along with the oil and gas containers and Jared contributed a couple of wedges, a maul and a short handled sledge hammer. We spent a good part of the afternoon making strategic cuts in this one hundred foot tree. You can see how the bottom part of the tree was hovering above the ground. It had fallen into a few other trees and was hung up but spring loaded between the trees. Many of our cuts resulted in surprising releases. A most enjoyable afternoon.
Ebony Fashion Fair Show at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York
All the big names were represented at the MAG’s Ebony Fashion Fair Show. Mostly male fashion designers, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta, Stephen Burrows, Patrick Kelly, Valentino, Alexander McQueen with their fabulous creations for women and a few fabulous women like Vivian Westwood. We were there for the opening and I found the people in the crowd more interesting than the dresses. Actually I was most intrigued by the mannequins. I’d like take some of those home and use them as models for drawings.
“She’s a model and she’s looking good
I’d like to take her home that’s understood” Kraftwerk
We bought a new light, a floor lamp to stand in the corner over our drawing table and pretty much light up the whole room when we need it. I had a homemade rack for cassettes under the table and it just looked ridiculous with the new lamp. And when was the last time anyone but a hipster listened to a cassette? Well, today! We got into it, Playette, a mix tape from ’84, my recording of Talking Heads from the Village Gate as a threesome in ’77. It’s all stuff that doesn’t exist in any other format unless that Roir Stuff eventually went digital. Even Pete LaBonne has gone digital.
I put all the tapes in a box and we’ll probably never listen to them again. I was intrigued by one labeled “10 Commandments” from 1985, the same year as the video above. 10 Commandments opened for Personal Effects at Scorgies. and the band was us, Personal Effects, doing other bands’ material. So I kept that one out for a future listen. Funny thing, Taana Gardner’s “Heartbeat” was not in the set. Now you know this just don’t make no kinda sense.
Here’s the 10 Commandments’ 1985 set list: “Heaven” – Talking Heads “What Goes On” – VU “Connection” – Stones “End Of The World” – Skeeter Davis “Big Bottom” – Spinal Tap “More Than Good” – MX-80 “Sex Machine” – JB “Maggot Brain” – Funkadelics “She Belongs To Me” – Dylan “It Came Out Of The Sky” – CCR “FunTime” – Iggy
Man with camera on Lake Ontario, Rochester, New York
You have to keep a close eye on Lake Ontario. It looks different every time you check in on it. The upcoming warm weather is going to wreck the sculpture garden, nature’s installation, so you better stop down soon.
We were running out the door this morning, to meet with the lawyers that are handling my parents’ estate, and I had my jacket in my hand. I didn’t take the time to put it on in the house. I was too busy reading the paper. The zipper in my jacket got caught near the bottom of the door to our house and I couldn’t free it. I couldn’t open the door either and the key wouldn’t turn the lock. I tried ramming the door with my shoulder. That didn’t work either so we left. I had a hat on but no jacket in the middle of winter.
But that’s another thing. What kind of a winter is this? Imagine if you were on the high school cross-country ski team. They’ve had one week to ski. In that week I did notice that cross-country is a co-ed sport. I should have figured that out in high school.
We had lunch at Joe Bean. Ran into Fireball Jr. and Linda from Parkleigh. I was still running around without a coat. We stopped in to see my mom in her new digs and signed a contract for her room and board. When we got home I went down to Jared’s place and borrowed a pry bar to pop the door open and free my jacket.
In the dorms back at IU we used to “penny” people in their rooms. We’d lean on the closed door and push pennies into the space between the door and the door jam. Guys would be locked in for hours. Peggi and I were essentially pennied out of our house.
Snow on bridge grate in Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, New York
Is there a Tinsel Town in every city? Ours is on Buffalo Road, about half way to Buffalo in Gates. Tonight, for one night only, they were showing “Florence and the Uffizi Gallery.” Their Renaissance masterpieces include Michelangelo’s David, Leonardo’s Annunciation, Birth of Venus by Botticelli and the Shield of Medusa by Caravaggio so we had to go.
The good parts, the long closeups of the paintings and sculptures were sensational. The bad parts, well, “Quince Jam”s” YouTube review says it better than I can. “The music is appalling, suitable only for a Hollywood panshot around the Grand Canyon. Totally inappropriate for this film and FAR too loud and overblown. And the dreadful actor playing the ridiculous concept of being one of the Medici. Only go with earplugs and prepare to shut your eyes while he hams it up as an ACTOR in his leather trousers.”
Yellow fish in tank at the Friendly Home in Rochester, New York
As of this afternoon my mom is living in the Rochester Home for the Friendless. At least that is what it was once called. Founded in 1849 as the Rochester Association for the Relief of Homeless and Friendless Females, the organization eventually outgrew its location in an old tavern on the corner of East and Alexander. In 1918 they changed their name to the Rochester Friendly Home, moved further east on East Avenue and began to accept married couples and single men as well as women. It is a skilled nursing facility and perfect for my mom’s needs. I really believe this but once we got my mom in the car it took a really hard sell on the drive out there. By the time we left I think she was in the groove.
Orange cone on golf/ski course at Durand Eastman in Rochester, New York
I don’t have a photos of these two scenes but I will do my best to describe them. The settings for both are the same little room, the computer room, at my mom’s apartment building. Two days ago I walked by and two grey-haired people, one man, one woman, were sitting in front of the two Windows machines. Both were looking intently at the monitors playing Solitare. The next day the same woman was alone in the room playing Solitare. At least it looked like she was playing Solitare before she nodded off.
We ran into a guy on the golf course today. It was too warm for the woods. The packed down, well travelled paths on the golf course are still skiable when the temperature gets in the upper thirties. Anyway we were stopped, just kinda looking around, he stopped and said hi. After some small talk he asked why we looked so familiar. “Did you play in a band?” Peggi said, “We still do. Margaret Explosion.” “No,’ he said, Personal Effects.” Peggi said, “That was like thirty some years ago.”
Personal Effects “It’s Different Out There” on Earring Records 1985 EAR 3
Personal Effects – “Nothing Lasts Forever”1 Comment
The most efficient way to to store stuff is digitally. After that there is flat filing cabinets. I put my father’s old cabinet in my studio and that set off a chain reaction of purging to make space for the new. Out with a pile of paintings and older work, sifting through piles of junk and then into the closets where we found boxes of 4D Advertising samples. All to the trash. Now, what about this box of teeth molds that our former neighbor, Leo, an orthodontist who often worked out of his house, left in his basement when he passed? I took a photo and thought about Leo.
Phil Marshall has a rubber soul. We are friends and have played together but I was not aware of his Beatle affinity. We recently donated to his Indiegogo CD project. Our level entitles us to have Phil as a guest on a podcast. Our promo copy of the cd arrived in two versions, “Scatterbed,” fleshed out tracks with guest musicians, and “Scatterbed Sleeper,” basic tracks of guitar and voice performed simultaneously, described as “the album in its rawest and most immediate form.” Both are produced by Chris Zajkowski and they sound fantastic.
While in hospice my dad occupied a scatterbed at St. John’s. He filled an open bed on the fifth floor next door to long-time nursing home residents, wanderers and people who talk non-stop in non-sequiturs. This is David Greenberger Duplex Planet territory. We intended to engage Phil to play music for my father while he was there, a few Johnny Mercer songs between the madness, but it never happened. Phil is a professional music therapist, what must be a heroic profession. “Scatterbed” arrived two weeks after my dad’s passing and Phil’s self described “reflection on loss, grief, faith and the lack thereof” resonated big time.
Our listening session began with “Sleeper,” the basic tracks. The first song, “Heaven is Waiting,” made me cry. As rich as Gershwin or Nilsson. The rhythm guitar in the next song, “Black Ice,” immediately called to mind Beefheart’s, “Harry Irene.” “In the final instant, Beyond all love and fear, Is there a perfect moment, When everything is clear?” “Faith,” which is inevitably called into play in the final hours meets a worthy opponent. “Faith, I doubt, is true, Faith, in love I do believe.” “Ebb And Flow’s” innocence echoes the Velvet Underground’s “After Hours” as it looks death in the eye. “Surrender it all to ebb and flow.” I’m quoting the lyrics here but, more importantly, Phil’s gorgeous melodies get under your skin and stay there.
Our session was interrupted so we started over the next day. “Sleeper” to “Scatterbed” full blown. I found myself thinking not only of my father but our departed painting teacher who also left a huge hole a few months back. We let a week go by and played the two in reverse order. “Sleeper” speaks more clearly, more directly and I am thankful to have a copy. For me the ideal transition from “Sleeper” to “Scatterbed” would have gone more raw, more fragile and more vulnerable. But then, Stella, our eighteen year old cat is in hospice as I write this.
Snow covered path around Eastman Lake in Rochester, New York
OK, so this will be an abbreviated winter. In short spurts it feels like any other winter. The cross country ski conditions the last three days have been near perfect. We skied from our front door to the lake and came back along the western shore of Eastman Lake. That path, a favorite with birders, is so close to the water, parts of it are often under water, especially when the beavers have been active. And it gets so much sun the snow melts quickly. The day after a fresh snow though is always nice and today was especially nice.
Gary Pudup, a former sheriff and head of the local ACLU chapter, is very active in New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. When he ran for office we tried to support him by posting a NYAGV sign on the road behind our house. Someone stole it in the first week. Gary lost his race but we are still friends. He and his wife come to every Margaret Explosion performance.
Last night the Little Theater screened “No Control,” a documentary about gun violence, and Gary brought in the head of the statewide group and a photo journalist for a discussion. Joe Quint’s photos were really powerful. “No Control,” the movie, was a little messy. They contrasted an anti-gun artist with a pro-gun, freedom loving, Cody Wilson, who was busted for making the downloadable plans for a 3D printer gun, “The Liberator.” I didn’t care for the artwork and was kind of drawn into Cody’s open source argument.
This year everything is different. We waited until January 18th for the first significant snowfall. Significant as in enough to cross country ski on. And we had to wait until the end of the day for sufficient accumulation. The moon was visible, the conditions were perfect and Durand’s most fragrant witch hazel, the one that normally blossoms at the end of February, was in full bloom.
David Bowie poster on East Avenue in Rochester, New York
A photo in this morning’s paper of a spunky Irene Gossin speaking in 1970 about environmental issues in front of a map of Irondequoit Bay caught my eye. She is in her nineties and went on to become Penfield Town Supervisor. The article rattled off all the issues she fought against over the years, some of them the same issues my father battled.
They described the home she and her husband built – three acres of land at the edge of a high bluff with a sweeping view of Irondequoit Creek and the wetlands that surround it. The article described the “home’s clean lines, open plan and careful situation in a copse of trees atop the bluff, concepts that Gossin said were meant to echo Frank Lloyd Wright, embraced the home’s location and, perhaps, helped inspire Gossin’s ardent defense of the wetlands so close at hand.”
I stopped right there. This must be a Don Hershey house. Sure enough Peggi found it in her database but we had no address. We have no pictures on the site and of course she is an original owner so there are no real estate photos online. We headed out to track down the house and spent the better part of the afternoon driving around. It took us to a neighborhood we had never really explored with dramatic views of Irondequoit Bay. We were essentially east of Tryon Park, south of the bay, west of Creek Street and north of the old Browncroft Boulevard.
I like to think Don Hershey’s design of the house fit Irene like a glove and she in turn was inspired to defend the beauty that surrounded her whole life.
