Paul Dodd “Investment Banker” drawing at Creative Workshop gallery in Rochester, New York
We stopped down to the Creative Workshop in the basement of the Memorial Art Gallery to see the new show of “student art.” There is no shame in being a a lifelong student. I resigned myself to this a long time ago. Learning is not something you grow out of and this is all the more true at the Creative Workshop because Fred Lipp teaches there. Note: Classes start again next week.
I love the play between these three items in the show, my “Investment Banker” with the one eyed dog (Pauline Johnson Brown’s “Buster”) and Violet Paolucci’s “Untitled” ceramic vase establishing real form in the center. The color dialog is quite nice as well. And then around the corner we found a watercolor of the dedication of the O”Rourke bridge by Leo Dodd and Peggi Fournier’s watercolor of an African boy.
January seascape at Charlotte beach in Rochester, New York
The shoreline at Lake Ontario is so beautiful now. It is just other worldly. It doesn’t get this way every year and I can’t remember the last time it got this fantastic, maybe ten years ago or so. I hope you can find the time to go straight north from wherever you are in Rochester and see for yourself.
Picture from Rochester Times Union showing some of the 1964 Soap Box Derby participants
My soap box was deep red with an off center yellow stripe although you can’t tell that from this B&W photo. My brother, Mark’s, car was yellow like the Cheerios box, his favorite breakfast cereal, and my father helped us build our soap boxes.
The rules were kind of fuzzy on parental involvement and some parents went so far as to illegally weight the front end or rework the bearings in the wheels to give their kids an edge. My dad played by the rules but I’m quite certain we were too spaced out to be much help. At the same time, my younger brother, Fran, could have built a motorized vehicle. My dad has been doing some downsizing and he gave me this photo from the Times Union, a sponsor of the 1964 Soap Box Derby.
I am still buzzing over yesterday’s experience of reconnecting with an old friend. When I first met Greg he was living in the small studio that Indiana University gave to fine art majors. No dorm room, no apartment, an early piece of performance art and when I last saw him, sometime in the early seventies, he was sitting on a stoop in front of the apartment in the lower east side where he still lives.
Of course we had to run down the whereabouts of the Bloomington trailer denizens. He didn’t know Dave had passed on and that was a jolt. Greg had hired Dave to prepare the old drive-in screen that Greg repurposed as an installation. Greg loved the trailer and we all thought Greg was magical. Somehow I knew he would ride his bike back in to our life.
Greg is still a big idea, small footprint kinda guy. When the phone rang with his name on it it was as if he had crawled out of a cave. He has been living a self described, introspective, contemplative life devoted to art and he was excited to tell me he had recently come full circle in a long journey where he had set aside the production of tangible work. I had to hang up when someone knocked on our door. I told him I would call back to say goodbye but that would be silly.
I really like the new “More” revamp of our daily paper. I suspected Gannett was just trying to sell us less as more but there really is more local coverage and I am thankful for that. There has been some great reporting on the thievery in Maggie Brooks’ organization and new scandals in Mayor Lovely Warren’s cabinet. And the story today about the 70 year old guy who shot himself in the hand at a local restaurant was thoroughly entertaining. He was showing his gun to a friend and a round went through his hand, struck his leg and grazed his friend’s ankle. A family with a baby was sitting at the table next to him and the story quoted the baby’s mother as saying the shooter kept repeating, “I’ve got a permit.”
The new national news section is all picked up from USA Today but there is more there than we used to have, and by chance, USA Today picked up a photo from the AP that showed a man sleeping on a subway grate in Washington DC, and because our paper carried the photo, his family in Rochester spotted him and were able to reconnect. According to the story, the man’s mom claimed “God took this photo” and the local police chief claimed “It was pure dumb luck.” I love thinking about the distinction between God and dumb luck.
I pointed out “Lucille” license plates on a car in Wegmans parking and Peggi pointed to the car next to that one with “Mob Jr” on their tags so I photographed it. I would love to see a nostalgic piece in the paper about the Rochester’s mob days.
Snow covered path around Eastman Lake in Rochester, New York
I’m guessing we had about eighteen inches here so, needless to say, the cross-country skiing has been fantastic. I can’t operate my camera with my mittens on or I would have come back with dozens of photos. The deep snow, clear blue skies, bright sunshine and low humidity, single digit temperatures make for perfect photos and, in my case, memories. This year I am planning to resist the urge to document or at least pause long enough to contemplate what part of the actual experience I will be missing when I do document. And it should be noted that often times the act of reviewing the document of an experience is better than the actual experience.
For a couple of seconds I was thinking about getting it on with this mannequin in Lord & Taylors. We were out at the mall to pick up a wedding gift for some friends and we found exactly what we were looking for. Pretty easy ride out there, enough time to listen to two Margaret Explosion songs and then two more on the way back. But when we walked into the reception with our gift we saw that the bride and groom already had what we bought so we left with our bag and will have to return to the mall.
Yes, we sat around the table until 3AM or so and I still did not want the night to end but there is a limit to pure enjoyment. I think it was Louise who asked us all what our New Year’s resolution was. Responses started to my right and they were all so interesting I began to panic as as the circle closed in on me. I manage to do some of my best work when I am under the gun and I came up with this one only moments before my turn. Where the other resolutions were met with rousing, standing toasts mine was greeted with a round of boos.
I had to explain myself and luckily I managed that. The evening, the company, the conversation was all so beautiful I only want more of the same.
Three tree trunks in woods near Durand Eastman Park
We’re having a few friends over for New Year’s, last minute style, sort of a stragglers ball. We decided to serve lobster and we picked out seven that were still moving. They’re in our refrigerator now and I’m feeling kinda bad about their boiling water fate. But the quick method seems marginally more humane than baking them as the seafood manager at Wegman’s suggested.
Our friends, Maureen and Karl are getting married at the Justice of the Peace today and there is a reception for them at their house this afternoon so I’m afraid we won’t have time to walk. In lieu of that I looked for a recent photo of the woods and found this one. I love how the trunk of the central tree appears to get wider as you move your eyes up. And the root structure, visible at the base, looks especially animated as the tree bursts out of the pine needles. I wish I was there now.
I’ve found I have to turn the tv on pretty early in order to catch the live Premier League games from England. If I tune in at noon I’ve already missed them. There are sometimes four games on simultaneously so I can always find one that looks good. I don’t have any favorite teams or favorite players, I just like watching the motion with the sound off. A good game is like a German Expressionist drawing, all angular and emphatic but as pure as poetry. Today I watched AVL battle SWA to a 1-1 tie.
With most of the snow melted we headed over to the garden to check on our cilantro. Sure enough it was still kicking and we got reacquainted. It tastes great in anything but I like like straight out of the garden. The hill leading down into the woods was slippery so we traversed our way down and spent some time looking at these small trees in the frozen creek.
We planned on getting in Duane’s car and riding back to New York with him after Christmas but his Brooklyn apartment building had a serious plumbing issue while he was up here so we decided to stay in town where the toilets work. The ride back was a black ice nightmare for him so we’re happy to have missed out on that.
We knew there wasn’t enough snow yesterday to ski through the woods so we put our skis in the car and drove along the lake. We stopped at Horseshoe Road and skied out on to the golf course but the snow stuck to the bottom of our skis so we turned around. Today we walked on the road but we’re attracted to a loud industrial sound in the distance. We followed our ears and cut across the marsh off Hoffman Road where we found this big blue ball. We would never be able to walk out there in the summer without sinking in mud. The temperatures have been hovering around the freezing mark and we’re making the best of Limbo.
It felt like a blue Christmas, the whole lead-up, and then on Christmas day we learned Yusef Lateef had died. He was 93 and was still playing. I’m pretty sure it was Russell, the crazy guy that lived across the street from Steve Hoy and me on Driscol Drive in Bloomington, Indiana that first turned us on to Yusef Lateef, 1968’s “The Blue Yusef Lateef.” It was so exotic, so beautiful, we soon had our own copy of the lp and still do. Blue has always been my favorite color.
Duck Dynasty suckers at Patti’s Pantry in Rochester, New York
You might feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven as you walk into Patti’s Pantry on Dewey Road. It is a complete throwback to days that never were. Plastic bottles of Mrs. Butterworth maple syrup adorn every table and the dining room overlooks the CSX railroad station, in fact a train came through while we were eating. It’s sort of a truck stop without the truckers. There was a cool cow print on our coffee cups and my Ceaser’s Salad was weighted down with bacon. My father ordered the hot chocolate and considered the fried bologna and onion sandwich before ordering Philly Cheese steak quesadillas.
We had entered Holy Sepulcher on the Lake Ave. side, helped my parents pick out a location for their final rest in the cemetary’s new “green space” and then exited on the Dewey Avenue side just in time for lunch. Patti’s Pantry is connected with some outfit that makes candies from way back like Smith Brother’s cough drops and all chocolate Necco Wafers. My mom bought some of those but they didn’t taste like used to. We didn’t fall for the Duck Dynasty candy beards.
Nativity scene at Transfiguration Church on Culver Road
I may have done this same post this last year. I’m afraid to look. I do know the Church of the Transfiguration had the same plywood nativity scene on display and I can’t imagine me not wanting to to photograph it. I would like to believe this spot on Culver Road is the exact spot where the young baby Jesus was born.
Nod at Skylark in Rochester, New York December 2013
It is still possible to round up enough energy to leave the house at ten thirty or quarter to eleven at night. Nod does not play that often these days and they were splitting a bill with The Fox Sisters at Skylark Lounge. It was a bit like the old days there. We met Rick Cona and his girlfriend at the door. Rick was the original guitarist in the Chesterfield Kings and we had just seen Greg Prevost at Spevak’s Xmas party.
This week’s New York Times Magazine had an article about Rochester’s Lydia Lunch in the Magazine section and they quoted Greg talking about Lydia as a customer of the House of Guitars where he worked before she left town. The two surviving founders of the Bug Jar were there and Mark Bradley was playing sax with the Fox Sisters. We played pinball between sets and had a good time. Nod sounded great. The trio is incredibly rhythmic and unique as hell and that’s why we love them. Fox Sisters looked and sounded like the Dap Kings without Sharon Jones.
Thomas Merton portraits from the collection of William Shannon at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York
In England and Wales the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is observed as a holy day of obligation (i.e. you must go to mass). Peter, fisherman, friend and disciple of Jesus, and Paul, a Jewish pharisee and later a self-appointed apostle of Jesus were both martyred and have churches named after them in every major city in the country.
Peter (Monicelli) and Paul (Dodd), local voluntary Catholic exiles, drove out to Nazareth College yesterday to visit the Thomas Merton library (Peter’s agenda) and photograph the stations of the cross in the school chapel (Paul’s agenda). We started with the stations because I was driving. Pete found the lights in back room of the empty chapel and I was able to photograph the fourteen stops. By coincidence, I first spotted the classic, sculpted stations at Father William Shannon’s memorial service last year. Bill, as my parents called him, was a close family friend as well as the leading authority on the writer, mystic, artist, Trappist monk, poet and social activist, Thomas Merton.
Pete Monacelli was in heaven in the Merton Library. Pete is a self described “abstract illustrator” but that sells himself short. He is an artist, a seriously productive and successful artist, as well a great guy with a huge heart. He is very interested in the connection between Merton and the early abstract expressionists. Merton was on the same search as his New York contemporaries when he converted to Catholicism and joined a monastery. Pete showed me many series of works he has done based on Merton’s works, beautiful drawings and paintings and assemblages. He wanted me to pick one to take home and he let me borrow Volume 1 of Merton’s journals. There are seven but he insisted I start with one.
We had lunch at Rocky’s on Jay Street. Pete eats here at least twice a week and can get away with ordering rigatoni as “rig” and calling the waitress “sweetie.” Pete is my favorite drummer in town. He had Rob Storms at Sound Source rig his turntable to run at 16. He says all the guys in his day used to learn guitar parts by slowing the song down, dropping the tune an octave. After lunch we listened to Miles Davis’ version of “Guinevere” and “Pharaoh’s Dance” from “Bitches Brew” on 16RPM. They are both long songs and were twice as long this way but beautiful. You quickly forget that you have changed gears while you hear parts dramatically unfold. He told me with all certainty, the way Pete says most things, that this is what Margaret Explosion sounds like.
Magazines and the whole print world have clearly taken a hit but somehow the magazine rack at Wegmans hasn’t gotten any smaller. I picked up a few this morning and would have bought something if I could have found anything interesting. It seems instead of just going out of business they have filled their pages with more ads and shorter articles. Rolling Stone was hard to even flip though. It was stuffed with blown-in subscription cards and heavy stock, multipage ad supplements. An article entitled “The Year Pop’s Future Arrived” had a picture of Paul McCartney in it. Maybe that was the point. No future.
A casual glance reveals there are more Mac oriented mags than PC ones and for a system that is so intuitive and easy to use there is the niche journal, “iPad For Seniors.” I was afraid to open “The Saturday Evening Post. Did it come back from the dead? “If “Fast Company” really knows “The Secrets Of The Most Productive People” they certainly aren’t secrets. And I was too skeptical to look at the “Skeptical Inquirer’s” article on “Islamic Creationism.”
“When We Were Young” “Contemplation” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 11.20.13. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Bob Martin – guitar, Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, Paul Dodd – drums.
Listen to When We Were Young by Margaret Explosion
Who knows what tomorrow may bring. As far as we know tonight is our last night at Café. Christmas falls on a Wednesday this year and no schedule has been announced for next year.
Bill Coppard owned the Little Theater when we first started playing in the café and for over ten years we have felt very lucky to do what do in this magical space. Minimal amplification for guitar and sax, acoustic bass, bass clarinet, drums and occasional grand piano. No pre-planned sets of music, no songs in fact until we play them for the first and last time. A low wire trapeze act bolstered by the belief that it is never as good as the first time.
“When We Were Young” was recorded two weeks ago at the Café. Peggi says the cover may be an early “selfie”. As usual the song is a free download. We have almost 200 of them on our site. We hope you can stop by the Café tonight. We’d love to see you.
Paul Dodd “Investment Banker” 22″w x 28″h, charcoal on paper, 2013
I drew this guy from a tiny obit picture in the New York Times. Don’t know if he wore the patch his entire life but he seems pretty comfortable with it. Of course he’s dead now but his investment banker image is eternally fixed.
