Category: Lopsided Observations

Not all observations are worth noting.

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Kill Your Sons

Roman soldier with sword and babies, Gaudi Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Roman soldier with sword and babies, Gaudi Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

To protect his thrown King Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in Bethlehem when he heard that Jesus was born. Like most of the episodes in the bible it is highly unlikely that this ever happened but it makes a good story and the Catholic church put these stories, most of them borrowed from mythology, to good use in an effort to win converts, keep the converted and illustrate their moral superiority. These innocents were the first martyrs. There is no one more revered in the church than a martyr. Of course when times got tough the Catholic Inquisitors resorted to “Convert or Die” methods themselves.

I used to know most of these bible (new testament included) stories but they all got jumbled up with age. These days I only set foot in church for funerals or when I’m drawn into an ancient cathedral in Spain. But I’m thankful for all the heady times in Catholic school where they struggled to convince me of the most absurd dogmas (virgin birth, resurection). The experience was formative and I look back fondly on most of it. Thankfully the church used it’s money to hire the best artists in history to illustrate their myths so I have a deep appreciation of religious art, a lot of it Spanish from the golden age (Siglo de Oro).

Last night after dinner we were showed our Spain photos to my parents. Both my father and I called our digital photos “slides” when I brought them up on our tv. Kodak did that to us. When the stone carvings, above, on the Nativity side of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, came up Peggi and I speculated aloud on what was being depicted. I thought maybe it was an archangel protecting the babies but my father thought for a bit and correctly identified it as the “Massacre of the Innocents”. So I can’t blame age for not remembering this. It was really my bad study habits.

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No, Gracias Por Nuestra Visita.

Tapas in Barcelona
Tapas in Barcelona

Tapas, Pinchos or Pintxos, Raciones or whatever you want to call the small portions of prepared food that are offered in every café/bar (cafés seamlessly meld into or double as bars) in Spain should have caught on here by now. I really don’t understand why the concept has not taken hold. Are there U.S. Heath Department rules against serving food this way or something? It seems like the very definition of civilization to walk into a place, say Hola, and order something from the glass cases on the counter. Sharing a small dish over conversation and a coffee or making a meal of three or four portions with a glass of wine or beer is a no-brainer, tried and true, money-making concept but I have yet to see anyone pull it off in the States. Octopus salad with black olives! Come on.

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Gypsy Bandits

Renault 4TL in Barcelona Spain
Renault 4TL in Barcelona Spain

I wonder what Jerome’s would say if we bought one of these orange Renault 4TLs and brought it in to them for service. My hunch is Ted would be fine with it but Mike would go bananas. “A French car!” He’s still giving us a hard time about our Obama 08 bumper sticker. Of course the Glen Beck and Rush shows that he listens to at top volume have got him all wound up.

There are so many cool European cars on the road over here. I’m kind of partial to the Seats since they’re made in Spain but I don’ think I’ve ever seen one in the states. In Barcelona about half the vehicles on the road have only two wheels, mostly motorcycles and scooters but thousands of bicycles too. They have racks all over town where you can rent them and you can drop them off at any of the other locations. We can only think locals rent rather than buy their bicycles because they don’t have any room in their apartments to store them. Maybe that’s why it seems like there is less crap over here. Space is at a premium and it is used well.

We stopped at a cafè/bar on the way home tonight and heard “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.” That thing gets stuck in your head. When we got back to our place we put our “Gypsy/Flamenco/Spain playlist on the iPad to cleanse our ears. Which rounded up the Gypsy songs (mostly Gypsy Kings) and inadvertently added “The Screaming Gypsy Bandits.” They sound good here.

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Modernismo

Sculpture on street in Barcelona
Sculpture on street in Barcelona

There is no doubt that Spaniards have a highly developed sense of design. Despite multinational, big money influence they have their own colour palette and they pay attention to detail. They certainly have a longer history so it follows that they are further along the evolutionary scale in that regard.

Hundreds of years of culture are all around them. Roman ruins, ancient buildings and art in public spaces, a respect for the past and a hunger for the new are all part of the package. And then there is Generalissimo Francisco Franco. When his dictatorship ended the country blossomed as if on steroids. It is something to behold.

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Bridge It

Picnic table in park along Lake Road near Sea Breeze in Webster, New York
Picnic table in park along Lake Road near Sea Breeze in Webster, New York

Three days in a row with temperatures in the sixties. We headed down to the lake and crossed the seasonal swing bridge that connects Culver Road to Lake Road in Webster. This tiny strip of land between Irondequoit Bay and the lake used to have houses on both sides of the road but quite a few on the north side were washed away years ago before they got he lake levels under control. The Army Corp shored it up with a pile of rocks and the town of Webster turned it into a nice little park. Next time we come down here we’ll bring some sandwiches.

A permanent bridge was planned for this spot but the money for the project was diverted to San Francisco after their earthquake and we’re stuck with this winter only solution. If anybody asks I’m all for keeping the bridge open all year. And while we’re at it let’s keep daylight savings on all year.

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Passive Activism

Occupy Rochester site in Washington Square Park, Rochester, New York
Occupy Rochester site in Washington Square Park, Rochester, New York

I started the day by donating $5 to keep Wikipedia free. It didn’t quite make sense (Donate To Keep Wikipedia Free) but I went for it. We were only trying to learn something about Ignatius of Loyola who I was confusing with Saint Francis Xavier who was only a student of Saint and not the founder of the Jesuits. We were talking about the northeast corner of Spain near the border with France where there is some sort of Romanesque monastery in the mountains and planning our next trip to Spain.

We made the rounds at the Public Market and ran into Richard from Abilene. We apologized for not not making it out more often. I don’t know what our problem is. Maybe when Bobbie Henri does their Christmas show. We bought a few sandwiches at Flour City Bakery and took them over to Washington Square Park where we sat on in the sun on the steps of the war monument, a gentle nod of sololdarity to OWS.

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Eye Way Way

Ai Weiwei in Beijing. Photo by Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
Ai Weiwei in Beijing. Photo by Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

A couple of days ago I posted a photo of the sculpture Ai Weiwei’s has in the courtyard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has been in the news and on my mind for weeks now. The Chinese Government put him in jail for 81 days recently and grilled him about his activism. They released him and ordered him to stay off Twitter. He refused and now they claim he owes $2.4 million in back taxes. The bill is due on Tuesday and he has collected a million so far, some of it tossed over the fence in front of his house by supporters. Ai Weiwei says he considers the aid a loan and he will repay it. His art is wrapped in activism and this is your chance to buy a piece from one of the world’s hottest artists. Fold a dollar bill into a paper airplane and send it over his fence.

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Art Hound

Dock behind Hungerford Building at night in Rochester. New York
Dock behind Hungerford Building at night in Rochester. New York

After our recent LA art bender First Friday in Rochester was bound to be a bit of a let down but it provided some wonderful surprises instead. It was almost impossible to find a parking space near the Hungerford buildings so we invented one out back by a loading dock. This place feels like ground zero for funky art but we found a few jewels. By contrast the “Scapes” electronic media arts show at RoCo was pretty sophisticated. Jason and Debora Beragozzi, husband and wife video geeks, each had engaging installations. I used the word “geeks” because they both are intrigued by the relatively low tech nature of live image processing, no whiz bang image manipulation software or fast cut editing, more like watching the snowy static when a station went off the air or watching a station you couldn’t quite tune in in the pre-digital days. Jason plays with settings to intentionally achieve video errors triggering startling effects. Judd Williams’ “Sandpapers” at Philips Fine Art, exquisite collages made entirely with used sandpaper, was as good as anything we saw in LA.

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AM DJ Was My Host

Chuck Cuminale aka Colorblind James opening for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Photo by Gary Brandt.
Chuck Cuminale aka Colorblind James opening for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Photo by Gary Brandt.

The headline in the “Local Beat” section of today’s paper reads “Colorblind James Experience Reunites.” I wish! Chuck Cuminale, aka Colorblind James (both colorblind and real name, James), song writer extraordinaire, lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player, has been dead ten years now. Chuck insisted that the lyrics to his songs be included in any lp or cd package. They address life’s big themes and read like poetry, dark and funny and sweet, a world away from trendy punk or new wave of the day. Chuck was humble but opinionated. He knew exactly what he wanted in a backing band and he ran a tight ship.

Gary Brandt took this photo of Chuck when Colorblind James opened for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Gary worked at Midtown and MotoPhoto and used to shoot black and white film and run it through the color processor at work to achieve this look. It was Colorblind’s first gig at Scorgies and Bernie Heveron, PE’s former bass player was on stand up bass. The band had recently settled in Rochester after a stint in San Francisco and Phil Marshall, Chuck’s brother-in-law, moved back with the band on lead guitar. Gary Miexner, who was with Colorblind when we first saw them at Red Creek in 1980, was back in the band as well. Jim McAvaney was the perfect drummer for Chuck’s theatrical numbers.

Chuck is seen performing “Considering A Move To Memphis” above. The band could move mountains and continued to do so with Ken Frank, now with Margaret Explosion, on bass. Tonight, with Chuck’s son Mark standing in for his father, they pay their respects at Abilene.

Chuck gave us a copy of their first 45 at that Red Creek gig. Jan Marshall did the cover art. This is the B side.

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Shake It

Tree surrounded with pine needles in woods
Tree surrounded with pine needles in woods

Pete and Shelley are coming down from the mountains for tonight’s gig at the George Eastman House. Shelley emailed from the library that she was bringing her shakers so we’re in for a special treat. How do you think this tree lost it’s needles?

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Cese Definitivo De La Violencia

Members of the Basque separatist group, ETA, announce cease fire in San Sebastian, Spain
Members of the Basque separatist group, ETA, announce cease fire in San Sebastian, Spain

I look at the Spanish papers most days, El Pais, El Mundo and ABC. I look at the headlines mostly and if I must read an article I’ll ask Peggi to translate it or use Google. Big news there today with the Basque separatist group ETA announcing an end to their violent tactics with this theatrical video.

Mickey Mantle would have turned 80 today if he was still alive. We’re watching our first baseball game of the season and it’s almost November. I’m not really crazy about red but I’m partial to the National League unless the Yankees or Detroit Tigers are in the series. The Rochester Red Wings used to be a farm team for the Saint Louis Cardinals so that’s reason enough to root for them and George W. used to own the Texas Rangers so that’s reason enough not to root for them.

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Head In The Sand

Lake Ontario from Webster Park outside of Rochester, NY
Lake Ontario from Webster Park outside of Rochester, NY

Interesting that the shoreline at Charlotte beach and Durand beach in Rochester is sandy while what used to be the beach at Webster Park is all rocks. I guess the bay that forms the Rochester harbor is more protected from the rough seas. I feel a lot better now.

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Climb Every Mountain

End of Summerville pier in Rochester, NY
End of Summerville pier in Rochester, NY

While walking out the Charlotte pier on Labor Day weekend I kept looking over at the funkier, slightly shorter Summerville Pier on the other side of the Genesee River. On Sunday we rode our bikes over to the east pier and walked out past the warning signs, “No Hand Rails, Uneven Surfaces, Deep Water.” There were a handful of fishermen and woman out there, plenty of trash and really uneven surfaces. It was a mini vacation.

We stopped in O’Laughlins to go to the bathroom and the Bills were down 21-0. We heard cheers coming from the homes along Rock Beach so assumed they were catching up but we were really surprised to hear they won by the time we got back home.

We expected a slightly more irreverent send off for Barbara Stewart but her funeral service was quite beautiful. She had more sides than we knew. We first met her when we did a website for her government consulting consortium, SWI. And then we found out about her kazoo side and lifelong efforts to make the kazoo the national instrument. Along the way we learned she had won an Olympic gold medal for pole vaulting, appeared on Conan O’Brien, worked with Tony Randall, held a violinist chair in the Philharmonic and Dave Ripton was her handyman.

At first we found it hard to shut her up and get down to the work at hand but she had so many fantastic stories to tell and she was so much fun that she won us over and we’d look forward to her visits no matter how much time they ate up. She planned her final service and it was an eclectic mixture of classical and camp with an operatic closing number, “Climb Every Mountain.”

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It Is Too Much

View across Genesee river from High Falls district in Rochester New York
View across Genesee river from High Falls district in Rochester New York

LED lightbulbs, electric cars, handmade soap and organic local produce was all represented at this weekend’s Greentopia Festival in Rochester’s High Falls District and the gorgeous weather ensured a great turnout. Hard to square the pepperoni pizza vendors in the ideal green future but the view of the Pont de Rennes Pedestrian Bridge was pretty green.

I was happy to see that Lucinda Storms and Ann McCracken won exhibitors awards at Sunday’s Public Market Artist’s Row event but my favorite vendor was Polixeni Theodorou. I bought one of her recycled Poloroid greeting cards (mine is a shot of Lake Ontario where it is impossible to distinguish the horizon line as grey green blue water meets grey blue sky) mounted on hand made cards. The penciled text on my card reads, “It is too much – Polixni. The card came packaged inside of a pamphlet entitled “How I Met My Lover, a flow chart: my path through Japanese cinema of the 60’s and 70’s.” There’s a small photo of the Japanese new wave film star, Tatsuya Nakadai, in a heart shape on the cover and the “the amazing music by Toru Takemitsu” mention in the flow chart got me tracking down some amazing video clips with his sound tracks.

We concluded our Greentopia weekend at an old fashioned garden party as Jim and Marie Via celebrated the 100th anniversary of their California bungalow style home.

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Death To The Inner loop

Jason Bernagozzi sound installation, part of "Transitions Rochester" exhibit at Visual Studies Workshop
Jason Bernagozzi sound installation, part of “Transitions Rochester” exhibit at Visual Studies Workshop

Even vital cities can be revitalized but gallery shows centered around this theme can make for some pretty dreary art. The program notes for “Transitions, Rochester” at Visual Studies Workshop lay out the facts. “Rochester’s days as a company town are over and urban sprawl and ineffective city planning have left a disabled core surrounded by middle-class wealth.” Curators Rick Hock of Visual Studies Workshop and Alison Nordström of Eastman House have put together a show that drenches dreary in urban beauty. This is a sister show or (maybe the parent) to Rochester Contemporary’s “In The Loop” and there is an upcoming, related show at the Eastman House.

At the VSW I especially liked Dan Verenka’s video shot from a slow moving car as he cruised Rochester’s so called Urban Renewal projects. And Jason Bernagozzi has a room devoted to the sounds of underground Rochester, recordings he made downtown below street level. This piece looks and sounds gorgeous.

Visual Studies is an underutilized space and Rick Hock is determined to change that. He has put out an All Points Bulletin. They are at an exciting juncture over there as the city tears up the street in front and ArtWalk extends it’s strolling grounds. They’re sitting on a fantastic trove of visual resources, a worldclass collection of photo publications and a box with Robert Frank’s shoes (he did a workshop here in ’72 and donated the shoes he wore while photographing the “The Americans”). Who knows we may even see init.three over there.

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Back To Earth

Half Price Ice Cream Cones sign in Hammondsport, New York
Half Price Ice Cream Cones sign in Hammondsport, New York

I took my Nikon P7000, a point and shoot that David Pogue described as “like carrying a brick in your pocket”, out to the UPS Store yesterday to have Nikon repair the lens cover again. It is less than a year old and it spent a full month at the Nikon plant in New Jersey about five months ago when they repaired this problem for the first time. Little black blades spin open to uncover the lens when you push the power button but over time they only open part way and you wind up with Lomo style photos. I have the camera in my pocket at all times and feel naked without it. Maybe I should wait for it to return and put it on eBay.

Our big garage sale was a real eye opener to the underground economy. The dealers who stormed the gates in the two hours before the sale began and the Craigslist “Curb Alert” responders at the end of the sale are the unseen American worker bees. And of course the casual garage sailors are the backbone of economy. My brother-in-law sold our old 8-tracks on eBay.

We were too exhausted after the sale to fully appreciate our neighbor, Rick Simpson’s, performance art. All our neighbors had watched us fuss with the boxes of stuff in our garage for weeks leading up to the sale and little did we know Rick was hatching this plan to bring us back to earth, clown style. He is a professional clown after all so while we manned the tables in Alice and Julio’s driveway Rick filled our empty garage with his stuff, a boat, lawnmower, bicycles and a couple stacks of old tires. When we popped the door that night we were stunned!

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Devaluing Value

Old rock magazines headed for garage sale on Saturday in Rochester, New York
Old rock magazines headed for garage sale on Saturday in Rochester, New York

I was going to toss these old magazines in the 50 cent box for Saturday’s yard sale but I stopped to check the eBay price of the Rock Scene with the dorky picture of Keith and I found it just sold for $26. There is so much anxiety involved with this whole garage sale thing.

I had this U2 cd single of a song called “Numb” from the Zooropa album. It was a promo sent to us when we were doing the print version of the Refrigerator and our friend, Duane, told us it was valuable so I put it right by my monitor for the day when we decided to liquidate. I guess it’s more like downsizing or miniaturizing as in mp3 files. Ironically, the precious cd” wasn’t there when I reached for it. I had to laugh. I never even ripped it either. Its probably in one of the cd boxes out in the garage.

I spot-checked the thousands of cds and vinyl records and found that vinyl was worth more than the cds so I decided to go with $3 for the vinyl and $4 for the cds and I will probably lower the price in the afternoon.

I never expected to get any money back when I finished with our books and records and Rock Scene magazines yet the value we placed in these things while we owned them gets devalued when we look them up on line. It’s all kind of weird. A lot of our stuff came from garage sales in the first place. Maybe this is what makes the world go ’round. This is our first garage sale and I hope its the last.

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Biennial Time

Jennifer Hecher's "Martyr Dress #2" in Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY
Jennifer Hecher’s “Martyr Dress #2” in Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY

I guess my favorite piece in the Finger Lakes Show, which opened last night at the Memorial Art Gallery, was Jennifer Hecher’s “Martyr Dress #2”. It was the most intriguing and quite beautiful, made mostly with broken white and brown egg shells (click photo for enlargement). Just what did she do with all those eggs? Her cholesterol could be sky high.

It’s a bigger show than the last few with quite bit of variety and unevenness. I have some watercolors near the exit, a perfect location, but my two pieces are hug too close together. A revved-up Krypton 88 with Jim Via on guitar, Jenna Weintraub on pipes and left handed Dana Gregory on drums made it a party in the ballroom.

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Everyone’s A Designer

United States Postal Service logos
United States Postal Service logos

Our neighbor emailed us that there has been a rash of car break-ins and mail theft in our neighborhood. She said the police believe they have the kids that were responsible. Mail theft is kind of a big deal. The kids probably didn’t even know how serious an offense it is.

It reminded me of a story I did for the Refrigerator in 1999 when the Post Office was defacing their own mailboxes. They had come up with a new logo, one that looked completely wrong in context, and they were in the process of pasting the new, slightly bigger, logo on top of every perfectly fine old logo on every mailbox in the country. At that time there were still a few of the old logos left on overlooked mailboxes and we encouraged readers to send in their old mailbox sitings.

I wondered what the penalty would be if you got caught defacing every classic, tank-like mailbox in the country the new, hideous, speedy-like-FedEx, italicized logo. Here we are thirteen years down the road. The mailboxes still look like 49′ Fords. They aren’t going anywhere, they’re fixtures of stability in our neighborhood and the “new” logo makes them look like they’re falling over.

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