Category: We Live Like Kings

It is not exactly logical, “Mystery is that which gives meaning,” but it does free the mind.

Somewhere in the mid-sixties the nine of us piled into the family station wagon and drove south to Mt. Savior Monastery in Elmira. I assume my father had made some sort of arrangement before we stopped in, I was just going along for the ride and probably would rather have stayed home with my friends. I remember the grounds, the barn, the small church and I remember meeting Brother David. My father was greatly influenced by this mystic monk. This glimpse of monastic life was certainly mysterious to me. On the way home we would stopped at Annis Dairy for ice cream.

In his “Underground Designers Handbook,”Leo Dodd says he attended a lecture series by Brother David and was exposed to “the beauty and clarity of his thought, how common religious terms like awareness, encounter and commitment, in David’s hands, took on a special arrangement with stunning impact. Without this exposure, to how these terms interplay with God, man and mystery this handbook would not exist.”

Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Benedictine monk, author, and interfaith scholar best known for his teachings on gratefulness. He was born in Austria in 1926. He was greatly influenced by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki’s book, “The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk,” and the two protested the Viet Nam war together. 98 years old now, he is still a prominent voice bridging contemplative Christian traditions with Buddhism. He has a Ted Talk.

My father was 41 in 1968 when he created his “Underground Designers Handbook.” My parents were unhappy with the conservative tenants of Catholicism and along with a former priest and a small group of like-minded liberals they went about forming their own church, not a physical building but a community. In the formative stages the group would meet at our house and conversation mixed with cigarette smoke wafted upstairs to our bedrooms.

Leo’s artwork, in colored pencils and ink, is a joy to look at. Trained as a mechanical engineer he worked as a design engineer for Eastman Kodak. He was able to reduce concepts to graphic symbols. And if it got complicated he would create a matrix. He used to to say he couldn’t talk without a pencil. I don’t think he could think without one. He retired early but continued working as a consultant. I was lucky to have been on jobs with Leo while creating slideshows for high-tech companies under insane deadlines. This was fun for him. The concepts expressed in his Underground Designers Handbook remain mysterious to me but mystery is that which gives meaning.

CLICK HERE to download the free book.

Leo’s book is available here in the generic ePub format. On Mac the download should should open in your Books app. To read Apple Books (ePub format) on a PC, you’ll need to use a third-party reader compatible with the ePub format. Popular options include Adobe Digital Editions, Calibre, or FB Reader. You can also use Microsoft Edge. 

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There is a reason Ed Ruscha photographed Every Building on the Sunset Strip in 1966. It was already an iconic slice of California fantasy. Our Uber driver was just finishing his shift this morning as we spotted one attraction after the other. He told us “the billboards (mostly promoting shows we’ve never heard of) really pop at night.” He dropped us off at Ameba a half hour before they opened so we walked the star-studded sidewalks on Hollywood Boulevard and found a coffee shop next to the yet another Scientology building. Kim Carnes’ “Betty Davis Eyes” was playing on the sound system.

Gene Autry has more than one star on the sidewalk. The store was mobbed by the time we got back there. Peggi and I found two boxes of used jazz 45s and each went through a box. I found it interesting that the smaller San Francisco store had about three times as many. The clerk, who had family in Rochester, told us they had a listening station up until Covid and they never brought it back so we bought a short stack on good faith. 

Peggi’s sister made reservations at the Getty and we drove over there in the afternoon. We started with the Gustave Caillebotte show, mostly stunning, large Impressionist paintings of his friends with a few awkward clunkers. And then the three Rembrandt’s in the permanent collection that are seared in my memory from previous visits. I find it especially reassuring that Rembrandt is still laughing in this 1628 self-portrait. Only he has/had the ability to capture a human being for all time.

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We only had three things on our LA to do list. “Monument Eternal” at Hammer Museum was at the top. The show is devoted to Alice Coltrane, who, imho, more than filled the shoes of her husband when he died so young. With four children, she mastered the harp and made some of the most beautiful music of the twentieth century.

A short documentary, made for National Education Television’s Black Journal, was my favorite part of the show. We get to hear Alice, in her own voice, describing how she chose to carry on after her John’s death, how John was a part of her and she, a part of him, both musically and spiritually. Case closed. She is a saint. I found the documentary on Criterion when got back.

We had lunch in dreamy Westwood, shopped at the open air market for fresh fruit, and then walked around UCLA’s sculpture garden which just about has one of everything (except Gaston LaChaise). I was struck by how the California light made Matisse’s four back sculptures look even better than they do in MOMA’s garden.

On the way back to Peggi’s sister’s we listened to “Alice Coltrane’s “Journey in Satchidananda” while Peggi made a movie of the neighborhood.

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I took this photo at the Metropolitano in 2023. That’s Morata coming off. He doesn’t even play for Atletico. Cholo, on the edge of the box in black, is still there though. And I think Atletico is still our favorite team. Barcelona has just been magical for the most part and it is hard to compete with that. They play dangerously with a high line, they start youngsters, and they thread the ball from the back with ease. They deserve to be in first place.

All three of our favorite teams have lost some big games recently and a funny thing has happened. We don’t mind rooting against any of them if their opponent is playing better. Celta Vigo‘s Borja Iglesias scored a hat trick against Barca! We were pulling for them but quickly changed sides when Barca came back. Las Palmas avoided relegation by defeating Atletico. Good for them! And Athletic Club held Real Madrid to a 0-0 draw until Federico Valverde scored in stoppage! It is like we are rooting for the game now.

We watch a lot of matches a day or so late on ESPN or Paramount and when we are all caught up I check the standings on line and search for the upcoming matches so we can take them down in order and and not spoil a result. The three teams are (or were) all in La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey so I’ve been in the habit of searching for“upcoming matches Atletico Madrid,” “upcoming matches Real Madrid” and “upcoming matches Barcelona” to round them all up. It occurred this task, which takes me about twenty minutes could easily be handled by AI.

At R and A’s place yesterday Rich did exactly that in his version of Chat GPT. He generated a chronological list of the upcoming matches of all three teams in all three leagues in seconds.

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John Gilmore stopped by on Friday afternoon. He snuck in while Peggi and I were playing the basement and he spooked Peggi when she came upstairs. We planned make seven First Friday stops and we got a late start. We ran into Boo Poulin and Joan Lyons twice so we knew we made the right choices. We had an opportunity to tell Joan how much we liked her piece in MoMA’s Robert Frank retrospective.

I particularly liked Rolanda Spencer’s earthy, sensual “yami Aje: Mothers + Witches” installation at RIT’s City Space.

We hardly had enough time to study all the photos in Steve Piper’s “Souvenirs, Visits to America’s Agricultural Fairs” show at Lumiere. Later at Colleen Buzzard’s we saw Jon Gary leafing through a book of Steve’s photos from the show so purchasing a book sounds like the ticket. Steve’s photos are black and whites with the entire grey scale well represented. The ordinary situations are multi-layered. There’s humor in the melancholy.

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I love these tin type portraits that Nicholas Kundrant is showing at Richard Margolis’s Studio this month. The tiny gallery was packed on Friday night. Was every young person that Kundrant photographed there? This one was my favorite. Hard to tell what era the subject is from or when the image was made.

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I have a stack of big pads in the basement filled with ads, newspaper and magazine pages, posters etc. from the late 80’s, early 90’s. I had to move them this afternoon to find way we no longer able t stream to our downstairs speakers. I came across a couple of large Tom Irish (real name – wow) postcards that drew me in. I don’t remember where I picked them up. I looked Tom up online and found he’s from Springville, New York. I had to look that up too – just south of Buffalo. He describes himself as a “visual artist whose style is outsider/folk art, and if you don’t like it, don’t look at it.” He was drafted on his 19th birthday to serve in Vietnam and he recorded his combat experience in a diary of sketches. I would love to see that. I may have to track him down.

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“The Way These Painters Lived
From his window across a courtyard, Frank could watch the painter Willem de Kooning as he paced in his studio and contemplated his canvas. “I think that the people that influenced me most were the abstractionist painters I met; and what influenced me strongly was the way these painters lived, Frank said of his time embedded in New York City’s vibrant arts community. They were people who really believed in what they did. So it reinforced my belief that you could really follow your intuition… You could photograph what you felt like.”
– wall tag quote from Robert Frank MoMA exhibition 2024

When Robert Frank was still alive he worked with Gerhard Steidl to produce a series of dreamy photo books. All in the twenty dollar range, they are gorgeous beyond words. We have five but not “Park/Sleep.” I was looking at the Amazon listing for that one as we shopped for Duane and I came across these two customer reviews:

Verified Purchase
“The book is about his life I guess and it IS ROBERT FRANK so I wonder why he thinks it’s important for us to see. If you are a photographer, as I am, you probably have similar pictures that you made.
They will never be published because you are not HIM.”
2 people found this helpful

Verified Purchase
“Just an intractable artist, not the Robert Frank from The Americans, the great photographer we all loved.
I don’t like this explicit despair.”
3 people found this helpful

We saw the recent/fantastic Robert Frank shows at MoMA with Duane a few weeks ago and Peggi photographed a Steidl book in the bookstore that was about the making of these Steidl books. We ordered that one for Duane and we sent him this small sculpture (above.) Duane’s package to us was the catalog from the MoMA show. Peggi and I spent Christmas morning with it and it was real gift to see the show again.

My brother, Mark, and his wife, Amy, came up from New York for Christmas and Hanukkah and gave us a book they bought at the Jewish Museum for their current show, “Draw Them In Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Confronts Philip Guston.” My first thought was “No Contest” but we gave it a chance and fell in love with it. With essays by the artist and conversation with Art Spiegelman, Hancock’s paintings came to life. We plan to see the show in person when we visit New York in February.

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Less than 1% of the white-tailed deer population has a genetic mutation that causes varying amounts of white hair in its coat. They’re called piebald deer and this one has settled down in our neighborhood. We brought what will probably be our last load of greens back from the garden. We did two plantings of Mache lettuce this year. The hardy plants grows close to the ground and I found it really tedious to pick until I realized I could just uproot the whole plant and break the tiny roots off at home before rinsing it. It is delicious and miraculously, it seems to be multiplying just as the ground freezes for winter.

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So, Jim Callan has passed away and Rochester should by all rights have its first saint and someday our patron saint. Forget the miracles. The wonders of everyday life are enough.

That’s Jim, above on the right, dispensing Communion. The faces across the top are from the local Crimestoppers page. I got interested in them while working as a graphic artist for the Rochester Police Department. Jim welcomed all and set up special ministries to assist the needy. Mark, the sketch in the middle, was the only homeless guy I knew at the time. He was a dj on WRUR and would fill in for others. Rumor had it he fell asleep on air one night. As the note in the bottom says, I was baptized in this church but that was long before Jim took over. This image is my first draft for the seventh station of the cross. All fourteen were shown in the 1999 Finger Lakes Show.

The Spiritus Christi community rose from temporal Corpus Christi (body of Christ) . My parents had a second floor apartment around the corner on Alexander Street, a place so small, I have heard, that my crib was out in the hall. Jim Callan and my parents were part of an early group of breakaway Catholics that eventually became the Servant of God Community. In Jim Callan’s 2001 book, “Studentbaker Corporation” he tells the now familiar story of his early priesthood.

He was assigned to Saint Ambrose’ parish. They had just spent a fortune on new facilities and Jim had taken a vow of poverty. He refused the opulence and for his obstinance he was reassigned to Corpus Christi, a parish long past its glory days with a dwindling congregation. With ideals borrowed from Jesus he turned the place around with little regard to church orthodoxy. He shared communion with non Catholics, he welcomed gays and he allowed women to take their rightful place at the alter. A 1998 a New York Times article stated the Mass attendance went from 200 to 3,000 under Callan. He filled the pews and after twenty two years the church hierarchy, God’s Rottweiler himself, Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI gave him the boot. They renamed their community, Spiritus Christi, and under the direction of Mary Braverman made it the largest breakaway Catholic group in the country.

Sonja Livingston, in her fabulous memoir, “Ghostbread,” writes lovingly about the role Father Jim played in her life. Other than taking his vow of poverty seriously, all Father Jim Callan had to do to get excommunicated was let women say mass, bless same sex marriages and welcome anyone to break bread (receive communion) in church. That’s like crossing the street. 

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I’m still trying to figure out what it was that held Thursday night’s cultural mash-up together. Pat Thomas was in town on a short book tour. I’m not even sure what the most recent book is. Either the “Material Wealth: Allen Ginsberg” or “Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin.” Larry Champoux, a former director of Pyramid Art Center, Writers & Books and Action for a Better Community, skillfully directed traffic.

Dick Storms, the owner of Record Archive, told his San Francisco stories. He went out there in ’67 and found the scene already over. He sold copies of a bogus underground newspaper to tourists and kept the profits, enough for a banana and a pack of Pall Malls. Mark Weinstein was sitting next to us. Dick’s wife Lucinda took a fantastic photo of Dick and Mark. Lucinda posted it to her IG page.

A poet named Anderson who works with Black Box Theatre on Joseph Avenue, read five poems, one a response to Nina Simone. This may have had a connection to Pat’s book, “LISTEN, WHITEY!: The Sounds of Black Power.” Pat played a track from a record he reissued from 1968 that sounded every bit as fresh as the Last Poets – a band called Watt’s Prophets, all vocals with no instrumentation. Stream them when you get a chance! And buy one of Pat’s books!

Pat played drums with Absolute Grey back in the eighties. Their first lp was on Earring Records. His bandmate, Mitch, was in the audience with his two daughters. We all had dinner back at our place on Friday and had a great time.

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The George Eastman Museum has pretty cool show of movie posters, “Crashing Into The Sixties: Film Posters From The Collection.” A large portion of the posters were designed by the great Saul Bass. I don’t I’ve seen “the remember seeing “The Miracle Worker” since I was really young but the poster struck me as just as moving as the movie was back then. My favorites, not to say I think they would drive throngs to the theatre, were the Eastern European ones. “Reszta Jest Milczeniem” translates to “The Rest Is Silence,” Hamlet’s last words.

I left the show with the Brogues “1965 song “I Ain’t No Miracle Worker” stuck in my head. I only know that song by Rochester’s Chesterfield Kings.

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The two trails shown above are actually connected. Such is the nature of pano mode. We were coming from the right, back from the lake, when I stopped to take this shot. That’s the club house up on the hill. If we were in Europe there would be a café up there. We have had a string of beautiful weather days and perfect cross country skiing.

Four days after Valentines Day Ying Quartet, the Grammy winning, longtime ensemble-in-residence at the Eastman, selected a program of romantic string quartet pieces to perform at Kilbourn on Sunday. It was a perfect match with the Greta Gerwig Criterion pick we had watched the night before, “A Brief Encounter” with Celia Johnson.

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As nice as it is to walk in the woods, the park and along the lake our walks were often more interesting when we lived in the city. We would find stuff on the street and at the curb. In the late nineties we came across a kid carrying boxes of stuff out to the street. We asked him what was going on and he said, “Someone died here.” So we went through the boxes and found personal effects like a social security card, a Taylor Instruments id, a Blinded Veterans Association card and a pass that would allow George Brandt to ride City buses for free if accompanied by an aid.

We also found a lot of photos. Strange photos in an interesting way. Some of them so odd we surmised they were taken by someone who might have been blind. But then George was in quite a few of the photos. So I don’t know who to credit these photos to. I am putting some of the on my “Found Photos” page. I have quite a few of those so it will take me some time to populate this page. I like to think someone will find some of my junk when I’m gone and at least puzzle over it.

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Surely Rochester has more Italian restaurants per capita than any other city. At least it always seemed that way. The Refrigerator, the website not the broadsheet, had a section called “That’s Italian.” We, the editors, mostly me, would post reviews of local Italian restaurants and readers would send in their reviews, sometimes anonymously. We took the site down years ago but I kept the content and posted it under “Features” in the nav bar.

The only Italian food we had growing up was Chef Boyardee. My father would pronounce the word Italian will a long “I” (like eye-talian.) I had Italian friends though and quickly developed a taste. Caruso’s Restaurant on Canandaigua was the first Italian restaurant I remember eating at. In high school my girlfriend’s older brother (center above) drove us to Caruso’s on Canandaigua Lake for dinner before the prom. I think the main attraction was their reputation for not asking for id but the place felt exotic to me. We ordered Chianti and lasagna.

Peggi’s birthday is Thursday and we’re planning on having dinner at Lucano’s, a long time favorite Italian restaurant. There should be a review of it in “That’s Italian.”

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Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit is the perfect temperature for walking. We headed up to the library today. Took Titus in both directions instead of the Kings Highway up and Titus back loop. I was tempted by the “Biblical Tales” and “80’s Mobster” packages in Blind Date offerings. I thought the idea was particularly creative but figured it was in the Librarian playbook. Peggi read a bit of Thurston Moore’s book while I checked out the art section. I bought a two dollar book titled “Windows to Rochester” in their sales section, a local history book put together by the Rochester School for the Deaf for Rochester’s 1984 Sesquicentennial. I was struck by this April 28, 1896 entry:

“The steamer, “North King” made her initial trip of the season yesterday. She arrived from Kingston and cleared for Coburg and Port Hope. She will make day trips from Charlotte this season instead of night trips, as has been her custom for several years past. The growth of steam navigation on Lake Ontario has met the requirements of modern progress, and for many years there has been a daily service. The perfection of steamboat navigation service in these days is one of the greatest boons. It enables people to make quick trips to new and interesting regions with little expense and much comfort. The North King is indeed a very different vessel to its venerable ancestor, the Frontenac, (launched on Lake Ontario in 1816,) whose ghost, if it sails the lake or walks the earth, must look with bewildering astonishment at the electric motors which provide the means to illuminate the saloons and staterooms of the North King with electric lights, and at the speed with which it conveys its passengers in luxury to the most charming and quaint resorts in the queen’s dominion, where many Rochesterians spend happy days in summer time.”

A steamship with saloons and staterooms making daily luxury trips to Canada! Mayor Johnson brought this idea back in the nineties and we crossed to Toronto a couple of times on the Fast Ferry before he was laughed out of town. We are indeed going backwards.

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“I have come to the sad conclusion that there never was an age that was wholly civilized—that there was always the barbarism & savagery that we know to-day, with a few beautiful spirits who lit up their age.”

—Janice Biala, quote from Ninth Street Women by Mary Gabriel

That quote is from “Ninth Street Women” by Mary Gabriel, a fascinating book about the women artists at the center of America’s Abstract Expressionist movement. I was anxious to read more last night but we opted to watch the third to the last episode of the original Hawaii Five 0 series and I feel asleep. We have worked our way through all thirteen seasons. Danno bailed last season and the show seems lost, just as we will be when the series ends.

Today is the last day that “Lost In Translation” will be available on Netflix. It was so good. Roger Ebert, while still alive, (his site lives on) wrote “Bill Murray’s acting in Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” is surely one of the most exquisitely controlled performances in recent movies. Without it, the film could be unwatchable. With it, I can’t take my eyes away.  Not for a second, not for a frame, does his focus relax, and yet it seems effortless. It’s sometimes said of an actor that we can’t see him acting. I can’t even see him not acting. He seems to be existing, merely existing, in the situation created for him by Sofia Coppola.”

A neighbor of ours dropped dead at sixty. We saw his obit on Christmas Eve and stopped over to visit his longtime partner. It’s pretty clear time is running out. We heard the Stooges,”1970,” in our car on the way home from Jeff and Mary Kaye’s. “1969, baby,” “Ninteen-seventy rollin’ in sight” and now – I don’t want think about it.

The witch hazel, the ultra fragrant, butterscotch strain in the park that usually blooms in February is out now.

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