Sparky plays guitar in the backyard. Photo by Katie Shapiro.
I was saddened to hear that Billy Sherill died. He produced and co-wrote some of my favorite country music, big hits for Tammy Wynette and George Jones, in a lush musical style that became known as “Countrypolitan.”
Speaking of country, our old neighbor, Sparky, stopped by to see us over the weekend. We weren’t home so he left a note instructing us to “have a nice day.” I had been thinking about Sparky because Bob Mahoney just sent us a photo of himself, beaming and standing in front of a life size Sparky painting that I did years ago. It was one in a series that were shown in Godiva’s windows, this one with type on it that read, “Might Just Side The Bastard,” a quote of Sparky’s from a conversation I had with him about his garage. The painting is still hanging in a bar on Monroe Avenue.
My blog was recently overrun with spam. I had over 600 comments in one day, ones that I “mark as spam” to train the server not to accept from that IP address again. There was a hole in my spam plug-in and I couldn’t update it because I was unable to back-up the blog up because I had reached some sort of limit on the server. Well we took care of business today. Peggi updated her site as well and I’m now running the latest WordPress version. Still have the ancient, original, default theme but I am up to date with the software. Like the scene in “Spinal Tap” when David St. Hubbins tunes his guitar, shoves it aside and exclaims, “I’m in.”
My favorite spam comment read, “Go here for the best under eye wrinkles.”
Gold Skylark on Avondale Street in Rochester, New York
We had my parents over for dinner last night. I cooked out in the rain, pulling that off by keeping the Weber real close to the house. I grilled eggplant from our garden. After dinner we ate ice cream out on the porch and listened to the rain. Our neighbor, Jared, told us today that we had an inch and three quarters of rain.
Our driveway is a little tricky at night so we walked my parents out to their car. It is a new car so it has a camera for seeing behind the car. We watched as my dad tried to clear the windshield and after a few minutes he asked us to get in. We sat in the back and tried to help him with the controls. The air conditioning was on because it was warm, the fan was on full blast and the icon for the windshield was lit up. We tried raising the temperature setting and then lowering it but nothing worked. My father gave the manual to Peggi and she skimmed through it while I went in to get my iPad. We were both scrambling to find a solution while my father was wiping the windshield with the towel. My mother asked if we could give her a ride home and then wondered aloud if their car was running. One twist of the key and the fog cleared in seconds.
Cynipid Gall Wasp on underside of a leaf found in our cilantro patch
I’ve been popping on Apple’s Beats 1 international radio program for a few weeks now. I can usually get a good twenty minutes out of it before that Zane guy plays something unbearably auto-tuned. This Halsey has an anthem on her hands and I heard something by Dr. Dre’s that I really liked but I can’t find my way back to it. After stumbling over the 3 Month free Apple Music come-on I finally pulled the trigger. This afternoon we listened to a playlist of “modern bachata.” It’s a great time to be alive.
We are the new Americana,
High on legal marijuana,
Raised on Biggie and Nirvana,
We are the new Americana.
We rode our bikes over to my parents’ apartment to celebrate my mother’s 88th birthday. We were a little late, as usual, but had to check out this yard sale. These books were displayed on the lawn outside the garage. “Desserts for Diabetics,” “Controlling Your Fat Tooth,” T.D. Jakes “The Lady, Her Lover & the Lord” with the enticing subtitle, “Woman Thou Art Loosed,” “Are You Rapture Ready.”
I know you can’t read the title on the video cassette. It is labeled “Groomadog Videos Inc. Present The Poodles.” In fact there was a scraggly little white dog yapping behind an aluminum screen door. The owner came out of the house and stood behind a table in her garage, one with the most mundane articles imaginable neatly arranged on it. Two blond wigs were perched on styrofoam heads, a 3D picture of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and dime store frames with the original package pictures under the glass. We were speechless.
Model from Crime Page 2015 oil on board by Paul Dodd
I was working on this painting when Fred Lipp died. Is it done? I will never know for sure. Anyone who knew Fred will never forget him. And that is the only consolation we have in his absence. We cling to the concepts he taught us and we won’t let go. In fact, it is our duty to build on those truths through constant questioning.
A “call for art made under Fred’s guidance” has been issued by the Creative Workshop. From their statement: They are looking for artwork made in Creative Workshop classes, individual studios, or at RIT with help from Fred. These artworks will be displayed as we remember a great mentor and exceptional teacher. In his years of teaching, Fred would push his students to make ever better work, an ongoing process. This exhibit will be on view in the Lucy Burne Gallery from Thursday, October 15 – Tuesday, November 10 2015. They also plan to celebrate Fredʼs spirit at a public reception on Thursday October 29, 2015 from 5:30 to 9 pm.
Please direct questions to Rachael Baldanza at 585- 276-8956.
In England they’re “wheelie bins” or “skips.” Here in the U.S. Peggi knows exactly what I’m talking about when we’re driving down the road and I say “dumpster!” It means we’ll be turning the car around and checking out a dumpster that we had just whizzed by. Not all dumpsters are worth a second look and not all dumpsters are situated in an environment that is suitable for a photo. But I’ve found sixty that I like.
Leo Dodd and Louis Miller, co-proprietors of Munich Restaurant on Thurston Road in Rochester, New York
My family, on my father’s side, was in the bootlegging business. Nothing to be ashamed of, the laws changed and they carried on legally. My father’s father, shown above on the right, ran the Munich Restaurant on Chili Avenue near Thurston. His partner must have been of German descent, a good portion of the city was. When World War II broke out though, they quickly changed the name of their place to the the Dodd Miller Tavern.
My grandfather retired the year I was born so I never saw the place. My dad worked there as a kid. The brick building is still there and it’s still a bar. We stopped in there in the early eighties when my brother, Mark, was up from New York. I think it was a black dance club at that time.
We bought our first chiminea, a clay one with sculpted creatures crawling up the side like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, from Jim at Animas Traders. He used to take two buying trips to Mexico each year and buy directly from the craftspeople and then have a truck deliver it all to his store on Clinton Avenue. Nowadays you can buy a chimenea at Home Depot. That’s where we bought our second one, something made by Hampton Bay. It was a piece of shit. The smoke escaped from all sides making it impossible to sit next to. We sold it or basically gave it away at our garage sale.
A few years ago I photographed this Carl Andre fire brick arrangement at MoMA thinking I had enough fire bricks left over from our fireplace project to make an exact copy, maybe in our back yard. I counted the bricks when I got back home. I didn’t have enough.
Yesterday we headed out to the Garden Factory to see if they had a chimenea that we liked. Our neighbors are always talking about this place. It sounds like a chain but it’s not. They gave us 20% off this floor model because it had some paint chipped off. We burned some sticks tonight to christen it.
We’ve been helping my sister this past week as she moved into a smaller apartment. Some things just had to go but she was able to find a spot for the desk my parents gave her when she turned ten. No idea what happened to the one they gave me but I remember writing a girlfriend’s address on the bottom side of one of the drawers. It was probably handed down to one of my brothers when I left the house. My sister is much more sentimental than I. It would be more accurate to say she is sentimental about more things than I am.
It was such a nice night we decided to drive east along the lake and have dinner at El Rincón in Sodus. We couldn’t do that without stopping at my brother Fran’s place. We never expected to find him home but his truck was in the driveway. We hollered inside and he came out, shaving cream on his face and a towel around his waist and told us he was getting ready for his fortieth reunion.
Between courses at El Rincón I looked up our niece’s address. She had just moved and it turned out she was six minutes away in a two hundred year old farmhouse. We stopped and got a tour while the kids broke open a stuffed animal and scattered lightweight styrofoam kernels all over the house. We never talked about the upcoming family picnic, the one where one party refuses to vaccinate their kids and another won’t bring their kids for fear of what they might be exposed to.
Don’s Original with blue sky on night of a blue moon
I found ten versions of “Blue Moon” songs in our digital library and played them all in succession while Duane was here on the eve of such a celestial celebration. Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker and Sun Ra all did “Blue Moon” but Bob Dylan’s from “Self Portrait” is my favorite.
We had dinner at Vic’s Place and then walked out on the pier. Duane has a new camera so we both took photos in all sorts of low light and challenging situations and then compared numbers, F-stops, shutter speeds and ISOs. We parked the car in the parking lot of the old Vic & Irv’s, god rest their souls, and sat on the beach in front of Marge’s to watch the moon rise over Alayna’s house. On the way out I heard the owner, Fran Beth, say her husband would have been 72 last night.
Duane wanted to see Olga while he was in town and she suggested meeting at Jeffery’s yoga class at the Rochester Yacht Club. This would be his first yoga class. The two of them set up in the shade in front of Peggi and me this morning. The sky was intensely blue until white puffy clouds drifted by. I stopped several times to take a quick photo. Jeffery demonstrated something that looked like a can opener but he was calling it a cannonball. I corrected the yoga teacher, gently pointing out that a cannonball would be both legs. There was a time when I got so good at can openers off the diving board of Tim Schapp’s pool that I was not allowed to do them because I emptied too much water from the pool. I would lean back at exactly the right moment and it would sound like thunder as I hit the water. I could never do a proper cannonball. Wrong body type.
After yoga class, we headed over to Atlas Eats. I had Kimchi pancakes and about six cups of coffee. Duane told us a story about smoking a joint with some friends at a park in the Thousand Islands and some guy came up to them and said, “That smells pretty good, can I have a hit?” They hung out for a bit and the guy left. He turned out to Abbie Hoffman who was in hiding up there.
Carley Lloyd in Rochester, playing for the Houston vs. the Western New York Flash
OK, it’s the hottest night of the year. Ninety degrees as I write this. The Western New York Flash who have been playing exceptional well despite their mediocre record, are playing the Portland Thorns tonight. Portland averages 13,000 fans a game. I suspect there will be a lot fewer in the stands tonight but we’ll get to see another batch of World Cup players.
Germany’s amazing Nadine Angerer will be in goal for Portland. Alex Morgan, Rachel Van Hollebeke (née Buehler) and Tobin Heath from the US national team will be playing favor up front for Portland along with Canada’s and maybe the world’s best player, Christine Sinclair. And Columbia’s Lady Andade will be playing forward for the Flash. On Saturday we got close-ups of Carley Lloyd and Megan Klingenberg.
We like to get to the stadium early to see the warm-ups. We stand right behind the U.S. net and watch the players take shots on goal. If only they could shoot as well during regulation time.
In 1968 I was preparing for my senior prom. That year Soviet troops were marching on Prague in reaction to Alexander Dubcek’s reform campaign called the “Prague Spring.” He had restored cultural freedom to the city known for its artists, musicians and writers. The Soviets felt differently and invaded.
The following year the Italian artist, Luciano Guarnieri, created a portfolio of color lithographs called “Shadow on Prague'” an edition of 200. They are on display now in the Lockhart Gallery, down the hall from the Finger Lakes show at the MAG. These images are as powerful as they are beautiful.
“Sweet & Sour,” the title of Stephanie McMahon’s oil on panel painting (above, click photo for full painting) pretty well summarizes my reaction to this year’s Finger Lakes show. I really like this painting. It is playful and surprising, fun and spatially engaging. What more could you ask for? I really liked Lanna Pejovic’s “The Listener II.” We had seen a show of her work recently at the former Bausch & Lomb headquarters. This one picks up where those left off, drawing you in to and under the arches as the ground comes roaring forward. Quite a sensation! The hand of the artist is clearly present in these two paintings. And that’s what I like.
This year’s judge is not so interested in the rough and tumble. There is a distant polish to a lot of the work here, a few hyper realism pieces way over polished. It is a really nice looking show, mostly of a piece with an abundance of abstracts. Of course it’s hard to take a show in on opening night and when I go back I’m sure I’ll find something with some guts. If I want decorative I’ll go to the MAG’s store.
Upstairs in the ballroom we spotted our neighbor, Domnika, as we walked in. She told us the band is great. We already knew that. They were playing Bob Marley’s “Could You Be Loved” and they sounded just like the record. She told us she came up here first and had not even seen the show yet. It was almost eleven.
The band is called “Shine.” The three vocalists were fantastic. In the short time we were there they did Michael Jackson’s “ABC,” Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” and then got us out on the dance floor with Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious.” Somebody has to book this band for a party and invite us.
Two chairs on Lake Ontario overlooking Lake Ontario
Most of the Irondequoit Art Trail, a yearly tour of artist’s home studios, is in West Irondequoit but we only had limited amount of time so we did the east side. We were on bikes and our route took us downhill toward the lake. First stop was The Artist’s Cave in the Quonset hut across from the amusement park. The building has an unusual energy and was the perfect spot for John Leonard paintings, my favorite of which are some curious takes on the crucifixion. The second and third stops were both on Lake Bluff Road, a funky but exotic neighborhood tucked in behind Vic’s Place and overlooking Lake Ontario. We had a delightful time chatting with Sally Steinwachs while we marveled at her paintings.
We intended to continue across town to Deb VanWert’s, Craig Wilson’s and TeeJay’s but we had to help my sister pack up her apartment. On the way back Peggi suggested putting our place on the map next year.
There was some loose talk about getting together for dinner and then the designated day was upon us. We settled on Mexican, a bean casserole recipe that we got from Robin Goldblatt’s mom. Robin was our bass player while she was still in high school. We had dinner at her house one time, smoked a joint with her mom (Robin didn’t smoke) and first had this delicious Mexican dish.
So, at noon, the day of the show, I found a Rufino Tamayo graphic and put together this invite. Some people don’t know that the photos in these blog posts all exist in a bigger, un-cropped version, something you can only see if you click on the photos. Jeff and Mary Kaye, Matthew and Louise all got an invite but does anyone check email anymore? Would Peggi and I be eating this dish for a week?
I made a big green salad with the Romaine, spinach, beet greens, cilantro and basil from our garden. And with the first beets of the season Peggi made a beet/goat cheese, roasted pecan side dish and the doorbell rang. Matthew made an otherworldly guacamole dish. Jeff brought two bottles of Spanish wine. We bought a quart bottle of Pineapple pop, “Pinå. “I made a Cumbia playlist. We lit our Mexican candles, the ones that smell like melting plastic. The conversation was fast and furious and somewhere around midnight we all headed down the street to the pool for skinny dipping and a diving board contest. We were loud and nobody complained. The water temperature was 83, warmer than the air. It was magic!
When my father was still working he would bring home loaner digital cameras from Kodak’s Camera Club. The first one was half a megapixel resolution. 500K photos. Once the one mega pixel models came out I bought one, through his camera club connection of course. They were expensive at the time.A few years later I graduated to a 3 megapixel model, another Kodak camera, and it was that camera that I used to take the picture above. The enlargement is shown in its full resolution, 1152 pixels wide.
I photographed fifty or so manhole covers all within a few blocks of our house near East High. My father documents birds and wildflowers, I document signs and dumpsters and manhole covers, things like that. It runs in the family.
I created a slideshow back in’99 and put it on the Refrigerator website. This was in the early html days when you vertical center an object in a table. These days you go through hoops to align things with divs and the page is much more adaptable to various screen sizes. I dusted it off and moved the slideshow to PopWars where it looks brand new. Go to Manhole Mandalas.
Wooden inboard motorboat on Genesee River from Schooners
The High Line in New York is a sensation, a former railroad line converted to a simple but scenic walkway. The local trail that runs between Lakeshore Boulevard and Lake Ontario, where the old train tracks were, is also a sensation. It is mostly level, the views of the lake are gorgeous, the people watching is prime and it is no where near as crowded as the High Line.
We often do it by bike and start up near the Parkside Diner. From there you can roll through the park woods, across the marsh on the new wooden bridge and on to trail along the lake. There are people picnicking on both sides of the trail, Reggaeton on the sound systems, sun worshippers in lounge chairs oriented just so, bathers in water, most in only up to their knees but some out on the sand bars, windsurfers way out and lines of motor boats anchored just off shore. Today we rode the whole thing, took every bit of it in and continued on to the river where I took this shot while we had lunch. It is a rather inexpensive vacation.
Fawn alone inwards near our house in Rochester, New York
As hot as it was we suited up and walked in the woods. We spooked this little fawn but once it jumped up and ran in circles it got really curious about us and came pretty close. There was no sign of the mother. We were standing as still as possible. After a while I threw it one of the Beechnuts I had picked up and I spooked it again but it came back to check us out once more and then just bent its knees and sat down in the ferns.
When Bill Jones died a few years back, Fred Lipp bought his wife a tree to plant in their yard. Maureen Church, a longtime student, remembered that gesture and asked if we wanted to go in on a cherry tree for Fred’s family. We dug the hole today and planted the tree. His daughter, Janet, promised to send us a picture when it blossoms in the Spring.
Subterranean Surrogates in Inner Loop. downtown Rochester, New York
You know you’re in a happenin’ spot when both Bleu Cease and Jonathan Binstock, the directors of RoCo and MAG, are in the house. Well, not exactly in the house but outside of the packed 1975 Gallery where a show of work by the international mural artists, in town for this year’s “Wall Therapy” project, was in opening mode. The work had some serious prices attached to it and some of it was extremely meticulous. This gallery has zeroed in on the tattoo set. Illustration, surrealistic nods to the absurd, bugs, photo realism are all touchstones. I was drawn more to the “Subterranean Surrogates” in the old Inner loop, the underground infrastructure going into this new terrain in front of the gallery.
We wandered over to the Village Gate for the Festival of Lights. The Village Gate location was running a little later than the 10 o’clock start time and and I got a kick out of that. I used to like that hour or so where you waited for a band to come in a rock n’ roll club that was running perpetually late as the excitement built. The place was wall-to-wall bodies, the sound system mysteriously went silent but we stuck around long enough to see some LED lit dancers slithering around the cobblestone. Last night’s thunderstorm and its accompanying light show blew away the Festival of Lights by a long shot.
