Tiger Woods on the 8th hole of Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York
Golf brings out the worst in me but I couldn’t say no to the offer of free tickets to the PGA Championship so we drove to my parents, parked in their driveway and then rode our bikes to Oak Hill Country Club. There was a New State Trooper guarding the bike rack when we got to the gate. We followed the throngs on to the course and had no idea where we were or what was going on but we found that we could see quite a bit of action by just staying still. The acton comes to you as all the players are moving in big circles. Tiger Woods came to us.
But the manicured greens, the whispering, the cigars, the fashion sense, the blazing sun and the overall decorum gives me the creeps. We couldn’t bring water in and paid three bucks for a bottle and I had to dodge the “Mobile Device Policy Enforcement” team to take this shot. My brother was volunteering in the Pro Shop for free tickets so we stopped in to see him but the place was as big as a Walmart and packed to the gills. Greg Norman Women’s Wear anyone?
I’ve kind of gone off the deep end with August Sander’s portraits. I’d like to buy every book available of his photos or maybe just download every photo I find by him from Google image searches. The Nazis put the kabash on his social commentary tainted portraits so he switched to landscapes under their noses. I love the portraits, the brick laborer, the piano teacher, the dwarfs, the couple, another couple, the chef, the artist and the man women.
Bowling ball return at L&M Lanes on Merchants Road in Rochester, New York
Our friend and neighbor, Rick, got a bowling ball for Christmas. He booked the upstairs lanes at L&M on Merchants Road last Saturday and brought his laptop and microphone to dj while he bowled. This place has real wood lanes, 6 upstairs and 6 downstairs and eighteen beers on tap, Rick’s idea of heaven. D&C music editor, Jeff Spevak, was there but not bowling, he was taking movies on assignment and he came up with this short little movie. He caught me picking off a spare.
Clarence and Dottie building their Don Hershey designed house in 1947
Clarence Maier, who died last year at 100, gave us a few photos of our house being built. It was in the late forties and he did most of the work himself, cutting down oak trees on our lot and having them milled and kiln-dried for the pegged floors. His wife Dottie not only helped, as you can see above, but she also suggested that architect, Don Hershey, put a vaulted ceiling in living room because she had seen some pictures of one in a magazine. According to an article on the Don Hershey website Don always insisted on talking with both husband and wife. “Women usually have the best ideas,” he said. “I always said, let me design this house for both of you. After all, the woman is the commander of the house.”
Legend has it Don would show up on your site and start sketching. House should sit here and face that way with a big window here etc. Historic Brighton, a local history club, is featuring Hershey tomorrow in their “Masters of Mid-Century Design” presentation. We plan to be there along with other fellow Don Hershey owners. In fact we met with a couple today who just bought one off Panarama Trail in Penfield. Their’s was built in the mid sixties and they have furnished it accordingly with turquoise and cork and Saarinen tulip chairs and Trent Reznor’s keyboard stand from NIN. Their design sense makes ours look absolutely spartan but the Hershey characteristics dominate. Open plans, sunken living room, angular bump outs, corner windows, big ass overhangs and problematically flat roofs for this climate.
Jeffrey Owen Jones, a film professor at the Rochester Institute Of Technology, who was “Mr. Jones” in Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” lived in a Don Hershey until died a few years back.
The craziest thing is the fold out carpenter’s ruler shown in Clarence’s back right pocket. That is exactly where I’ve been carrying a similar ruler for the last six months or or so. He and his wife are shown constructing our bedroom. And the commander of our house has been right by my side.
When Duane Sherwood was town over Christmas we made the obligatory pilgrimage to Vic & Irv’s (they are closed until March) and hatched plans to go to the John Cale Nico tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. We were going to take the train down and get off in Beacon. We had all read Robert Irwin’s book and were obsessed with seeing the former Nabisco box-printing facility that was renovated by Dia with Irwin as designer. The only tickets left to the BAM show were scattered about. Peggi, Duane and I contemplated sitting in different locations and then nixed the plan. It’s not like Nico would come back from the dead. Here’s what we missed.
Old light switches on the wall George Eastman House
Time is running out for “60 From The 60s,” a selection from the Eastman House archives. The show ends the 27th. With the astounding collection they have in the vaults over there this show could have been 600 or 6000.
I took this shot of some old light switches in the gallery over there.
Was Bobby Henrie really duck-walking in our our living room last night? It has always been a fantasy of mine to have a band like the one Ricky Nelson had play in our home the way Ricky’s band did at the end of his father’s show. But it wouldn’t be enough to have this band sound like Rick’s. They would have to swing like a jazz band, rock a little harder, be irresistibly danceable and wild even. The Goners are that band and last night was a dream.
Years ago, when we lived in the city, we were talking to our neighbor over the fence on New Years Eve. She asked what we were doing that night and we said, “Nothing much. We’re just gonna lie low.” Around midnight we were doing a line dance out our front door and around the house. We don’t like to plan our parties and and last night was no exception although this time we gave a couple days notice. We invited the neighbors so no one could complain about the noise. It appears everyone got home ok and no one called the cops when Earl set the psychedelic fireworks off in the back yard. Somehow we wound up with more bottles of wine , more beer and more food than we went in to the the whole affair with. Looks like twenty thirteen will be a good one.
Shaggy Mane mushroom on golf course in Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, New York
This Shaggy Mane, also known as Lawyer’s Wig, greeted us as we burst through the woods out in to the opening of the golf course at Durand Eastman. This one is edible but it’s a little old. We’re pretty good at spotting mushrooms but we don’t have the confidence to snag them for food. The orange “chicken mushrooms” are supposed to be good and they’re pretty common in our woods. (Can’t believe I call it “our woods.” We do seem to be the only ones who use it. Our friend Shelley picked some oyster mushrooms while we were up in the mountains and we planned on having them for breakfast before we left but but it rained and that puts the outdoor kitchen stove off limits.
The Adirondack Mountains region is one of the most beautiful parts of our country. From Rochester only a morning’s drive with one stop for bathroom and coffee and yet it had been over a year since our last visit. We stayed with our friends, Pete and Shelley and kept them up til the the wee hours. The stars up here are killer. It was a new moon and a perfectly clear sky on Friday night. Looking straight up at midnight was a trip. The daytime view was equally astounding.
Bench designed by John Dodd in front of City Newspaper building in Rochester New York
We went on an art run this afternoon, stopped at Rochester Art Supply downtown to pick up some natural white acid free matt board and some 140 pound watercolor paper. Peggi was looking for a frame for a small watercolor but they don’t carry framing supplies here so we headed over to Lumiere. Bill Edwards, the owner of Light Impressions was there setting up green folding chairs for a reception and artist’s talk tonight with Brian Oglesbee. The gallery there was filled with his beautiful prints, no Photoshop by digitally printed as if that matters.
We left the car parked out front and walked over to the Village Gate too see if John Dodd had finished installing his benches. He has two in front of City Newspaper, a left one(pictured above) and a right one on either side of the entry way. He must have just finished installing them as a few people were discussing them as we approached. Mary Anna Towler, the editor of City News, walked out while Peggi was sitting on one and she exclaimed, “We got our benches!” She asked Peggi if they were comfortable.
Bench designed by John Dodd in front of City Newspaper building in Rochester New York
As I write this I’m thinking I should have complimented her on the great job City does each week with their publication. You have to leave town and pick up the alternative press there to realize how lucky we are here to have such a relatively hard hitting, thought provoking rag.
Mercy flight at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York
We watched this helicopter take off and then land again at Strong Memorial Hospital. They call it the Mercy Flight and they scoop up critically injured people and whisk them to the rooftop of the Emergency Building. The guy in the bed next to Bill, who we were visiting in his temporary ICU room, was groaning and clearly not happy with his new, brain damaged condition as a result of a motorcycle accident. And Bill called the nurse in the middle of the night when a patient near him went blue. This place is not for the faint of heart. Bill had a tumor removed and a lung shortened in the process. He’s optimistic and ready to walk out of there on Wednesday. So many things can go wrong with the human body and most of them eventually do.
Noguchi sculpture in garden at Noguchi Museum in Long Island City
There was something strangely familiar about this particular sculpture in in the garden of the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until Peggi pointed out that it reminded her of “Subterranean Surrogates.” The museum here, on the site of Noguchi’s last NYC studio, was recently renovated but remains the first and only museum in the country to be founded by an artist during his lifetime and dedicated to his work. Noguchi worked in ceramics, drew, designed gardens, furniture, architecture, and sets but it is his stone sculptures that have always knocked me out and there is a large section of them here in a protected outdoor setting and garden. We started there and I didn’t want to leave to go inside.
This Week In New York called the Noguchi Museum “one of the most peaceful, beautiful, spiritual, and moving places in New York.” Not much of an exaggeration. Michael Black (one of the founding members of the Bang On A Can All Stars) and the Hartt Bass Band (eight double basses) performed pieces in the museum the day we were there. They sounded great but not great enough to keep us from going back out to the sculpture garden.
“Wes Peden and his partner juggling in Rochester, New York
Baptist Churches can be scary places like that video I saw on Huffington Post with the Baptist preacher talking about rounding up all the homosexuals. The auditorium at Northridge Baptist Church tonight, though was “More Fun Than Visiting A Zoo.” Our neighbor, Rick, tipped us off to this show which featured Rick’s juggling partner’s son Wes and his partner from Ohio with a sensational live percussionist from Sweden. Wes has been studying for three years at a circus school in Sweden and is now considered one of the top jugglers in the world! I missed a lot of their act because I was gawking at the drummer.
Scott McCarney “Bible For Terry Jones” at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York
Scott McCarney’s beautiful new show, “Reversing the Catastrophe of Fixed Meaning,” opened last night a Visual Studies Workshop. An ambitious title that for me actually succeeds in the incendiary piece, “Bible For Terry Jones.” There is something of a “Boy’s Life” nostalgia in Scott’s work but he manages to shatter the stereotypes. His “book art” rewrites the museum tags on this dying medium.
And then there is Robert Frank’s shoes, the ones he wore while shooting photos for “The Americans.” He donated them to Visual Studies after a workshop here in the seventies. I had heard they were here but I wasn’t prepared for their dandyness. It puts a whole new spin on these classic images.
Window at Baobab Cultural Center in Rochester, New York
Don’t you hate it when someone makes a point of noting that no Photoshop was used in a photo. Who cares? The camera lies and that’s why we like it. I snapped a shot of a statue in the window of the Baobab Cultural Center and wound up with this magical composition full of reflections I didn’t see.
Bob Henrie and the Goners at the Lovin Cup in Rochester.NY
Kinda nice to have someone provide so much light for a rock n’ roll shoot. WXXI shot another installment of its local music series last night at the Lovin’ Cup and I snagged this shot from our front row seats. The band did all Bob Henrie originals, probably to avoid paying licensing fees, songs dedicated to their heroes, Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry, that somehow manager to sound jazzy. Bob Henrie even duck walked on few songs. They tore it up. Genesee Beer underwrote this season’s installment so have a Genny the next time you’re out.
Joe Bean Coffee Roasters on University Avenue in Rochester, New York
The atmosphere and service at Joe Bean Roasters on University Avenue are laid back which is something I didn’t expect considering their product. They are artisan roasters and craft brewers. You can choose from about ten different preparations but we chose the single pour method and watched as our barista weighed the beans on a drug dealer’s scale, ground them and slipped the grounds into a single serving sized paper cone while the water boils on a burner in hands reach of the seats at the bar. The glass pots of fresh brew are placed, Japanese style, on a small board alongside a ceramic cup which we were able to fill three times while we chatted with Mike, the owner. The place feels a bit like the opium den Robert DeNiro visited in “Once Upon a Time in America.”
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.
The great Antoni Gaudí picked up what they were putting down in Barcelona and transformed the city and architecture worldwide. Pablo Picasso painted here for twenty years. Juan Joan Miró was born here and spent most of his life here. Dali lived and worked nearby. Surrealism, Modernismo or Moderisime in Catalan, Novcentisme, new century movement (last century change, not this one), Manzana de la Discordia or just plain Psicodèlico, Barcelona wears it well.
Public drinking fountain in the old city of Barcelona
There are public drinking fountains all over the old city of Barcelona. Most are dried up. Some still work but people don’t seem to use them anymore. I saw a dog drinking out of one yesterday. People buy their water in plastic jugs now. See “MX-80 – We’re So Civilized.”
