I liked what I saw of the show at RoCo and I will go back. Opening night was too distracting to take it in. Amy Casey’s painstakingly executed drawings are a delight to look at. I couldn’t quite figure out Trevor Flynn’s messy community drawings but it was fun to see people drawing on the walls. Spectres of Liberty from Troy have an interesting video in the little circular room. I was wondering if they were the same people that put up the inflated art installation at the Eastman House during Montage 93. Overall though, I couldn’t help but long for a real look at the state of Rochester, instead of the generic “city”. I am amazed at the state it is in and I’m sure I’m not alone. I think it would make a terrific show.
Karen Brummund’s “Time-Based Architecture” outdoor installation at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY]
I remember Gallery Nights in Rochester where swarms of people crossed each other’s paths as we bounced from one gallery to the next. Or maybe that was another city. When First Friday’s come every four weeks or so it’s hard to muster that much enthusiasm but sometime the nights with the lowest expectations are the most rewarding.
We started Friday evening at the Village Gate sipping Negra Modelos (feminine adjective male noun) while listening to a Po’ Boys offshoot, Dixieland/Eastman School of Music band. They sounded best when they took it big easy, laying back enough to allow the drummer‘s lightest touch, left hand rolls to poke through. Down the street to the MAG where they had just hung a hundred or so self portraits of Rochester residents on the fence surrounding the gallery grounds. We spotted a handful that we loved. Jamie Seale, bass player for Giant Panda proclaimed this show the best he had seen in in his mom’s gallery.
From there Brian Peterson pointed us down the street to the Visual Studies Workshop where there was an outdoor installation by Karen Brummund. Worker bees were plastering the front face of the building with a stack of 8 1/2 x 11 laser prints of a huge tiled image of the front face of the building blurring the line between a photo of the building and the building itself. I like this technique and used it myself on the mugshots of Bug Jar patrons that I did in 1998.
We finished the night at the State of City exhibition at RoCo and topped that off by ringing the buzzer at Black Dog Studios where they had a show of Hendrix related art from the collection of Jimi’s cousin. Kind of whacky.
Morning Prayers sign outside Saint Salome’s Church in Rochester, NY
Al that praying is not really paying off for the people of Saint Salome’s parish in Rochester. First they closed their grade school and then they tore it down and built a senior living facility in its place with the promise that the new residents would be right next door to the church and now the diocese has announced they’re closing the church. The building, built in 1964, still looks pretty modern but then the whole concept of modern is sort of out of date. Abstract art (Kandinsky, Modrian and all) is now one hundred years old fer cryin’ out loud.
Our next door neighbor, Leo, called us this morning to ask us what his email address is.
George the Second, Paul Dodd digital print of George W. Bush announcing the war with Iraq, 2010. Tom Burke bought this work at Rochester Contemporary.
Our new neighbor stopped by today and we showed her around our house. On the way out she said, “I don’t usually like to talk politics but I like your bumper sticker. If they would only give him a chance.” I had almost forgotten that we still have an Obama sicker on our car. I get a little agitated when I see a Bush/Cheney sticker and I’m sure our sticker annoys some people. We were pretty optimistic when we slapped it on there. I do miss the Bushisms. I can mangle a sentence as good as he can and maybe that’s why I like these so much.
“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”
“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.”
“I heard somebody say, ‘Where’s Mandela?’ Well, Mandela’s dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas.”
“I want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the courageous spacial entrepreneurs who set such a wonderful example for the young of our country.”
“I can only speak to myself.”
“I understand small business growth. I was one.”
“That’s George Washington, the first president, of course. The interesting thing about him is that I read three — three or four books about him last year. Isn’t that interesting?
“My mom often used to say, ‘The trouble with W’ — although she didn’t put that to words.”
“I can press when there needs to be pressed; I can hold hands when there needs to be — hold hands.”
“It would be a mistake for the United States Senate to allow any kind of human cloning to come out of that chamber.”
“The illiteracy level of our children are appalling.”
“It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.”
“There’s no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead.”
“I’m honoured to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.”
“I hope you leave here and walk out and say, ‘What did he say?’”
“Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”
“Give me — give my chance a plan to work.”
“More and more of our imports come from overseas.”
“I couldn’t imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukah.”
“I hear there’s rumours on the internets.”
“Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat.”
“All I can tell you is when the governor calls, I answer his phone.”
“I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”
I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the soil of a friend
“There’s no cave deep enough for America, or dark enough to hide.”
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
Private Property No Fishing at Newport House in Rochester, New York
Roman Polanski made some of my favorite movies (Knife in the Water, Rosemary’s Baby, The Tenant, Chinatown) and one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen (The Fearless Vampire Killers). We had “Repulsion” here for a days and it looked and sounded great. Chico Hamilton did the soundtrack and it’s a big part of the sixties action. Now that I’ve gotten rid of my cds I might try to track that soundtrack down. The dvd (from Netflix) would not play through part of the movie. It froze and then jumped ahead and we couldn’t reverse it. We tried sneaking up on the bad spot and watched the early scenes about five times in the process. They were so good we didn’t complain to Netflix or anything.
This situation came up tonight where I threw a ringer and the shoe landed under a leaner that Rick had. We weren’t sure how to score it so we gave Rick two and me three. I have to look up whether one cancels out the other. Last one thrown scores? I’ll report back.
Reduced table at AJ Wright’s in Culver Ridge Plaza, Rochester, N
I do most of my clothes shopping at AJ Wright’s in Culver Ridge Plaza. I stopped in for a new pair of shorts and picked out a plaid, Phat Farm pair for ten bucks. Up at the checkout the lady in front of me was complaining to the cashier about the amount of merchandise on the floor, literally on the floor. The cashier explained that they don’t have enough employees to keep the place up. While they talked I took this shot of the reduced table.
We played an art opening at RIT over the weekend and during the break a guy came up to me and introduced himself as an old neighbor. I was his paperboy and when I was a little older I babysat for his daughter. His daughter was there too with her husband. They had all just arrived and had not heard us play yet. The daughter’s husband looked at Peggi’s soprano sax and asked, “So do you play the kind of music you snuggle up with?” He winked while asking this. I said, “No, it’s more like the kind of music you drive off the road to.”
After the gig we drove out to Jeff and Mary Kaye’s place to help them with their stereo. They were going to have a pizza party the next night and they wanted to hook their computer up to the stereo so people could dance. Driving along the river on the way home we found a station playing Donovan’s “Catch The Wind” and the dj followed that up with “Wild Is The Wind”. Talk about “driving off the road” music! We were thinking it was Antony singing it but it turned to be Nina Simone. Guess it’s pretty clear where he got his thing from. We were so taken by this song that we found ourselves in the lane for 590 South to Corning. I had to swerve at the last minute to point the car toward Rochester.
Every time I hear a Beatles song I think of the bikers at “Big Daddy’s” on Lyell Avenue who challenged “New Math” with shouts of “Beatles or bottles”. They didn’t like what we were playing and I can’t quite remember how Kevin handled it but it seems like he announced one of our songs as an “obscure Beatle song”. At least that sounds like something he would do.
We streamed “Stones in Exile” last night with our Netflix app. We had the iPad cranked through the stereo and the footage from the “Exile” period was great. I have the double lp out and have played it quite a bit since reading the 33 1/3 book on the lp. That corresponded with the re-release of the remaster lp on a double cd. I ripped a copy of that while at a friend’s but haven’t listened to it yet. I don’t think I can handle the new tracks that Mick tarted up.
We stopped down at Vic & Irv’s while Duane was here and he spotted a skull and cross bones tattoo on the back of neck of the woman behind the grill. Rochester’s Lou Gramn was playing on the sound system. Their onion rings and milk shakes are sensational and have been since I started coming here back in the British Invasion days. In the Stones documentary Kieth says Mick’s rock and he’s roll. I have always felt that Vic & Irv’s is Stones compared to Don & Bob’s Beatles. The Beatles may have been more musical but the Stones have better hot sauce.
Hydrangeas in yard off Rocket Street in Rochester, NY
Hydrangeas around here are either pink or blue. Supposedly the color is determined by ph of the soil but that may just be an old wives tale. They are usually more fun than the truth. I’ve seen pink and blue flowers on the same bush. Maybe the pink ones are boys and blue ones girls.
Richard Margolis . The last time we were in the Pelican Restaurant on East Main we were having lunch with our old neighbor, Sparky. It’s changed names now but not cliental. We sat across from a cop who was eatting bacon, eggs and toast. He was reading the front page story on the sentencing of the former Greece NY police chief. We were meeting with photographer, Richard Margolis, who was just back from Tel Aviv. We were planning to meet in his studio but his air conditioning gave out in the heat. We are designing a book of his photos of Israel public art.
Peggi was supposed to take her mom to the doctor this afternoon but we had to cancel that for the World Cup match. We scurried down to our neighbors house to watch the Spain play Germany. We had seen Germany play four times this tournament and we were convinced they were going to go the whole way but it was impossible for us to route against Spain and we were thrilled to see them win 1-0. It really is tough getting work done during the Copa Mundial.
I was on the phone with our neighbor, Rick, when our other neighbor, Leo, rang the doorbell. Leo asked if we could show him how to use the Garmin GPS unit he bought. He assumed we were tech savvy enough to have experience with these things. We walked out to the driveway and I plugged it into our cigarette lighter.
Leo told us he was out in Webster the night before and he took a wrong turn and couldn’t figure out where he was. We stumbled through the clunky interface and pecked out his home address and removed the “untitled” entries he had set up on his own. We punched in the Wegmans location near us, his daughter’s address, his lady friend’s address and then I asked him, “Where else do you go these days?” He thought for a while and said, “Toastmaster’s, once a month”, so we typed in that address and I demonstrated how the device could give us directions from directions from our driveway to his house next door.
I stopped by our former neighbor’s place this morning to see how he was doing. I rang the doorbell and l spotted some beautiful red flowers in the backyard. I complimented Sparky on the flowers and he laughed and said he found them in box and stuck them in the ground. “They’re plastic Poinsettias.”
We get our tv off the air so we’re limited to the few World Cup games that ABC decides to share. And then on Saturday when we could have watched he US game at home we were out at my father’s history talk in Brighton. When that finished we ran down the street to the Otter Lounge. They had ten big Toshibas lining the walls, all tuned to the USA/Ghana game and a pretty big crowd. The US was out hustled in the first half. They came back strong in the second and tied the game but then lost deservedly in overtime.
I read online that Sunday’s England/Germany game was on ABC but we found a political talk show on when tuned in. I called my parents and asked if we could me over and watch the game there. My dad was just climbing out of bed when we arrived. We went in routing for England. My family has roots there and of course, Paul Dodd is England’s number one soccer hooligan. I don’t care if they lost a goal to a bad call. They were completely out classed by Germany and we switched allegiances. Germany moved the ball with such incredible control I think they’re going all the way.
Mexico played Arentina in the afternoon game and we decided to watch this one out at Peggi’s mom’s place. I called her and asked if we could come out and watch the game and she said, “OK, but the World Cup is over.” I said, “It may be over for the US but it won’t be over until the final on July 11th.
Pittsford kind of gives me the creeps but it looked pretty cool today as this big rain storm moved in. A suburb of Rochester, it’s an Erie Canal town gone prepsville with the Pendleton Shop, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s at the four corners. I’m calling this building the coal tower but I think the coal tower is shorter and off to the right. I should get my facts right before opening my mouth but I don’t. I’m sure Pittsford has a rich, colorful history but has been pretty much obliterated.
My father is presenting a talk on the history of the Buckland farmland in Brighton this Saturday at noon. Based on The Edmunds diaries, 40 handwritten books by a father and son, it’s an account of West Brighton farm life in the late 1800’s. Reservations are required.
Joe Deal’s “Watering, Phillips Ranch, California” 1983
Joe Deal is dead at 62. That’s one of his photos above. He emerged as a leading figure in the new wave of American photographers when 18 of his black and white photographs were included in the enormously influential exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” The exhibition, which William Jenkins organized at the George Eastman House in Rochester in 1975, is now regarded by historians as a turning point in American photography. I took two photography classes at the UoR in 1977 that were taught by Bill Jenkins and I loved them. I don’t print from b&w negs anymore but that doesn’t have anything to do with what Bill taught me.
We were all set to watch the US vs. Algeria game at ten this morning but it wasn’t on ABC like the last US games were. So we took a bowl of fruit down to our neighbors and asked if we could watch the game there. They have cable tv and the game was broadcast on ESPN. It was a real nail biter. US had to win to advance and they did so, 1-0, in the 91st minute.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement, we came back to work and we were previewing a Flash movie that Peggi had constructed on on cancer and the immune system when the house shook. Peggi felt the floor shake and I thought it was the roof was shaking. I couldn’t imagine who would be on our roof. It was a Magnitude-5.0 earthquake that was centered over Ottawa. My mom called later to tell us she was having an EKG and the nurse had just left the room with the equipment cart. She let the door close and just as it closed the building shook. My mom was naked and couldn’t imagine what the nurse had run into with the cart.
Kentucky Fried Chicken on East Main Street in Rochester, NY
There was an article about abandoned homes in Detroit (Peggi’s home town) in the Sunday paper and I cut out a picture of a house engulfed in vegetation. It wasn’t even boarded up to keep people out. No one wanted in. And today there was a story in the business section about the 33 per cent of Califoria home owners who have negative equity in their homes. This article featured a photo of a boarded up house in Oakland. It looked a lot like our friend Brad’s house so I cut that out too. I get the feeling that I am one of the only people left who reads a newspaper so I’m recapping these news items for you. Besides, I am attracted to decay for some reason.
When we stopped in Peggi’s mom’s place to take her out to dinner she was watching a show on the History channel about the Bermuda Triangle. Last week it was America’s Funniest Home Videos. They had a clip of a dog opening the refrigerator and helping himself to food.
We decided on “Black & Blue” in Pittsford Plaza. The place was just about packed on a Tuesday night. Peggi and I ordered the Red Snapper special and her mom ordered the Mahi Mahi. We started by sharing an appetizer of Calamari. We order this whenever we see it on a menu and we’ve been comparing the versions. So far Mario’s grilled Calamari holds the title with has the best version of this dish with the Italian Osteria a close second.
Black & Blue’s Calamari was unrecognizable as Calamari. We had to confirm what we were eating with the waitress. The fish was dry and way too salty. Why does anyone eat here? Maybe it’s the babes a the bar in high heels and shorts. Peggi said they looked like hookers and sure enough when she was in the bathroom she overheard two of them discussing which guys they were gonna do.
We thoroughly enjoyed all nine nights of the Jazz Fest but we’re ready for a break. It is such a kick to see and hear so many creative and incredible players in our town. It was a pleasure wearing ourselves down while taking it all in.
As we cut through the construction zone surrounding the Eastman Theater on way to the third group of the evening we paused at the emergency phone but we weren’t in that bad shape.
Lopsided reviews of the Jazz Fest acts we saw can be found over here.
I probably take a picture of the Rochester Gas & Electric (there’s a monopoly for you) power plant every year during the annual Jazz Fest. I put my three year old, pocket, point & shoot in “Scene, Night Portrait” mode, set the timer and placed it on the curb.
We rode downtown with John Gilmore and were almost there when I realized I had left my Jazz Pass in our car so I wouldn’t forget it. Peggi had listened to the sound samples and had a club hopping route sketched out but this wrinkle rearranged the evening for us. We started with Katherine Russell and then ran into Rick and Monica in the newly carpeted tent. They highly recommended the Scottish sax quartet at Christ Church so we left and walked in the rain stood in back of the church while they played their opening number. The church was packed but I hatched a plan for a seat. I figured someone would hate them and walk out when the song finished. We planned to walk right down the center isle and grab the seats of whoever left. We kept walking toward the alter and no one left. We got to the front row (or pew) and a couple got up. Best seats in the house and the saxes sounded fantastic with the cathedral ambiance.
Does the Great Blue Heron sound anything like a vuvuzela? Not really but I’m trying to make sense of this collision of coincidence. Rich sent us a photo of a Heron in Sausalito and we just spent some time watching one practice tai chi in Eastman Lake. The World Cup and the Rochester Jazz Fest both start today! I’m a little worried about how we’re going to keep up with our work in the next few weeks.
Maybe it is just the sort of distraction we need to wean us from obsessive Jazz Festival devotion. The organizers added a new venue, a tent in parking lot at Abilene. We were excited about hearing jazz over there but then found out all those acts are Americana, a categorization that bothers me. And the success of the last eight years seems to have only diluted the presence of American jazz. Still no Ornette, Pharoah, Joe McPhee, McCoy Tyner, Art Ensemble but Bernie Williams is here. We have the Club Pass and we’ll wander and we always find some cool stuff so I’m optimistic. Pay no attention to me.
Scott McCarney and Skuta at Visual Studies opening for 52/52+ in Rochester, NY
The lawns were going brown in May and now the golf course is flooded. Not that I’m golfer but we do cut across one of the holes when we walk and I am always on the lookout for balls. I have about ten gallons of them in the garage. I’m fairly certain of the quantity because I have stuffed them down the throat of those five gallon, bottled water jugs that are made of the toxic plastic. We had bottled water delivered when we were on trade but those days are gone and we are probably a lot healthier for it. We drink water straight from the tap now. Is that dangerous? I guess we could filter it but I wonder if you lose the minerals when you do that? Sometimes you get a chlorine hit but it usually tastes pretty good.
The path in the woods across the street was covered with tulip petals. Not the flower, they’re long gone. These are the blossoms of the tulip trees and we have a lot of them down here. I don’t remember ever seeing a tulip tree in the city. I think the rain filled the flowers and broke them off. We had a lot wind too so maybe that was a factor. The petals are green and orange and yellow. They look edible and are scattered on the path as if in preparation for some tribal ritual.
Artist’s books are a funny thing. They don’t always make for a good book. They are often something only an artist could love. Scott McCarney, though, is one of the best. He’s curated the current show at Visual Studies Workshop for his roommate from 26 years ago, when they were both students at VSW. Skuta who now lives in Iceland, created a book a week for a full year and 52 of them are on display here.
We started out sitting with friends in the back of the room at Lovin’ Cup but had to move up when Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric took the stage. We found a spot down front with Chris Schepp. That’s his cream soda bottle that gets placed in front of my camera in the movie above. I was drinking the Rocky Mountain IPA and it was way too strong for me. I propped my camera up on a jar with a candle in it, a lit candle, and I melted the bottom of my pocket Nikon. Ah, but we had a good time. These two are so charming, so relaxed on stage, so comfortable with themselves. They’re not afraid to stop songs, which they did twice, and their between song banter is worthy of Gracie and Allen. We came to these two through Wreckless Eric’s songs from the mid seventies. They were unlike anything else at the time and “Whole Wide World” sounds as good today as it did back then. In fact I prefer it today with just two guitars. Amy more than holds her own with beautiful songs.
They did both sides of their new single, two really odd songs, one Amy’s, one Wreckless’s. They have their own thing going on. but ironically, their new cd is all covers. We bought a copy on the way out. In true Wreckless form none of the tags were there when I ripped it in iTunes so I had to enter my own. I misspelled ‘favorites” at first as the name of the cd is “Two-Way Family Favourites,” English style. It includes sensational versions of “Fernando” and “In My Room” and the Byrds song in the video which they dedicated to Dennis Hopper.
Robert Meyerowitz’s car and dog at Cobbs Hill in Rochester, NY
I met Robert Meyerowitz, former City Newspaper music critic, at Cobbs Hill for tennis. I hadn’t played in ten years or so. I think the last time was with Pat Lowery from SLT. I held my own but really fell apart when Robert tried to show me how to serve. And I managed to knock a few balls over the fence. Robert drove here from Alaska and he may be headed to Washington to take some sort of government job.
We had a company ask us to look at their website because they weren’t happy with its performance. The site was designed by company in China and I spent about an hour there marveling at their graphic sense.
Peggi read a book review in Sunday’s paper for “Last Call, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.” My grandfather ran a speakeasy in the city and the book sounded interesting so we tried ordering it on the iPad. We couldn’t find it at Apple so we went right to Simon & Schuster’s site and bought the epub version as a download but the only thing that was downloaded was an html document that launched in our browser and took us to a page with three lines of code.
We received an email confirmation from Simon & Schuster so the credit card part cleared fine but we didn’t have the book. We sent an email to them and they said we would hear from them in 48 hours. That never happened so I called and talked to a woman who took my name and number and told me someone would call. I said, “Really? Someone from Simon & Schuster is going to call me?” And she said, “Well, I certainly hope so.”
I let a few days go by and no one called so I called S&S again this afternoon and talked to Julius. He wanted to credit our account be couldn’t find our order number in their system. In fact he said,”I see no orders all for the epub version of this book.” I spent about a half hour on the phone with him while he tried to contact the guy in charge of downloads. He was unable to reach him on his Blackberry so I told Julius I had to get back to work. He promised he would get back to me. We went down to the pool for a dip and when we returned I found this email.
Thanks for contacting us. Unfortunately, eBooks purchased from SimonandSchuster.com require Adobe Digital Editions in order to be downloaded and properly viewed. At this time, Adobe Digital Editions is not compatible with the iPad. Because of the difficulty, I have issued a full refund for your purchase. Please allow up to 30 days for this to be fully visible on all of your credit card and/or banking statements.
I’m very sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.
Sincerely,
Stephen
SimonandSchuster.com
I know our friend, Martin, is deeply interested in this topic so I took notes.
Vinyl records purchased at Record Archive Sidewalk Sale in Rochester, NY
Peggi headed out to pick up her mom and stopped to talk with our neighbor who’s putting up a new fence to combat the deer. He pointed out that our left rear tire was low so Peggi turned around and asked me if I wanted to pump it with our bicycle pump. I had done this before but it’s a lot of work so I suggested she stop at the corner and visit the 50 cent air machine. When she returned home with her mom she informed me that “Air is now a dollar.”
This reminded me of the conversation I had with John on Saturday night as we sat around the picnic table out behind Abilene next door to world’s loudest air conditioner. John is an antique dealer and he was telling me that he could buy anything for a dollar. “Everything can be bought for a dollar.” “Things used to be rare,” he said. “Now, nothing is rare.” He pointed to the Labatt Blue bottle in front of him and said, “If they stop making this beer I could still buy it online.” I knew John was right but it still sounded astonishing.
We had been at Record Archive’s Sidewalk Sale on Saturday morning and they had a row of tables set up with $1 CDs and $1 LPs. Jeff Spevak was just finishing sifting through the boxes of vinyl. He told us, “I got all the good stuff.” I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not but he did have a nice looking George Jones lp in his stack. We found fourteen treasures and sure enough each one was a dollar.
The Last Poets lp is beyond astonishing. “White man’s gotta god complex.” And the “Flamenco Moods” record turned out be a hard core mournful flamenco mood. Already had Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is” but it too was only a dollar.
![Karen Brummund's "Time-Based Architecture" outdoor installation at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY]](https://www.popwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/KarenBrummundVisualStudieslg.jpg)
