Category: We Live Like Kings

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

I’ve started a collection of dumpster photos. The past is still here for hobby archeologists and the dumpsters are a record of our progress. Someone has got to catalog this stuff.

Animal is one of LA’s hottest restaurants. Google it, they have great publicists. We first read about it in the New Yorker last year but we’ve known about it for a few years because our nephew works there. Someday he’ll have his own place. He’s an amazing chef. We had dinner with him at Animal last night and the five of us shared eleven plates. “Plates” includes appetizers, salads and entrees and they are typically shared as we did. They do “New American” cuisine, “maximum flavor from a minimalist kitchen.” Each dish from their daily menu is entirely distinctive and sensational.

Our nephew took us to the Beverly Hills farmer’s market this morning where he shopped for mushrooms, delicata squash, cilantro, a persimmon that he used in our arugula pecan salad tonight.

The Getty has organized a sixty venue overview of work by LA artists entitled “Pacific Standard Time”. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has a few of it’s galleries devoted to the show including “California Design – Living In A Modern Way” the first major study of California midcentury modern design. Although more style than art the style is so distinctive it still looks cutting edge or at least contemporary. On display are photos and plans for Neutra homes, Eames furniture, the first Barbie and these classic lp jackets. This gallery is where Duane Sherwood will spend eternity if he’s good.

Wandering in the hills west of LA without a star map you get a sense of the wide open design possibilities when money trumps steep slope ordinances. Swimming pools hang over cliffs. Architects have free reign to tear down and rebuild for the heck of it. Good taste crashes into bad. Mexican laborers transform the landscape. Houses are built in a Greco-Roman style or look like they were imported from Vermont, Switzerland, Turkey or Mexico. We saw one that looked like a castle from a Johnny Depp movie. Snow is not a concern, rain and cold hardly, roofs are flat, walls are made of glass. People here live in a modern way.

Splitting wood is a perfect Fall activity. I used to swing a sledgehammer at a maul but my elbows hurt for days afterward so now we borrow my neighbor’s wood splitter. It’s a Heathkit. He built it from a kit in the fifties. The chainsaw is technically borrowed too. Bill Jones had one of his trees fall over his neighbor’s driveway a few years ago and bought the saw to clean up the mess and then he loaned it to us. We use it all the time and even let Bill borrow it back to cut down his way overgrown arborvitae.

It’s hard to tell what people do downtown. I mean what kind of work goes on in an office these days that couldn’t be done by an automated program or by someone at home with an internet connection? I drove out West Ridge Road this morning and then south on Mount Read over to Lyell Avenue where I picked up some stainless steel rods from Triple A Welding. Out there it’s pretty easy to see what people do for a living. Mount Read is full of trucks moving equipment and supplies up and down. Large manufacturing facilities line both sides of the street. Although a ghost of its former self Kodak still has cars and trucks moving on its internal highway and smoke billowing from its stacks. AAA Welding has great big stainless steel food processing tanks out in their lot. People make things out here.

After barging in on our neighbors to watch the Women’s World Cup in the middle of the day for a few weeks in a row they bought us tickets to Wednesday’s New York Flash game against magicJack. It was a an opportunity for the mayor of Rochester to give Rochester’s Abby Wambach (24 hours after her Letterman appearance) the keys to the city as he welcomed fourteen returning Word Cup players from the two teams in front of a sold out crowd of over 15,000.

Rochester’s Flash have an amazing lineup with Canada’s Sinclair on the left flank working with Marta, the wold’s best female soccer player, and Alex Morgan right behind them. Marta’s moves are astounding. She out maneuvers opponents like a magician and gives the ball up to take the heat off only to move to an open spot in seconds so she can receive the pass. The tiniest player on the field, she’s is also tough as nails. We watched her shove an adversary to the ground in frustration because, as a matter of fact, she does own the road. The whole team plays world class soccer passing with artful finesse and they are a joy to watch. How did we get so lucky?

Is my perception all warped or do Europeans pay a lot more attention to design than we do? Everywhere you look, the urinals for crying out loud, from high brow to low brow.

Sevilla has a great bike system for getting around too. It’s called “Sevici”. We noticed the fifties style bikes as soon as we got off the high speed train from Madrid (another great way to get around) and at first we thought they must be tourists but we soon realized they were mostly locals. You can pick up a bike at at over a hundred locations and drop it off at any one. They are a comfortable ride too, fat tires, baskets and fenders.

Last night we found Sevilla’s answer to the Bug Jar without the bands. Good music, Tom Jones to Abba with all sorts of Spanish pop we didn’t recognize, free Internet access and a cool relaxed vibe.