I took this shot from the driver’s seat of our car. I stopped right in the middle of the road to grab it. We were somewhere between Keene and Keene Valley, just south of Lake Placid in the mountains and I glanced up at the frozen waterfall on the mountain to our left and spotted this moving figure!
I’m guessing this guy started at the bottom and was trying to get to the top without dying. In the full photo I can see another figure at the bottom and there are some ropes visible. If that was me up there I would be frozen in sheer terror.
Speaking of extreme activities – there is a new wireless network in our neighborhood. It shows up as “Corpus Silicosum “and I’m guessing it belongs to the skateboarder down the hill. I goggled it but it is that rare combination of words, unique and unindexed, left completely to the imagination.
Now we’re stuck on that BOC song. The lyrics do dovetail nicely with Peggi’s birthday. Stop out at the Little Theater Café tonight and celebrate with Margaret Explosion. We have ordered a cake which we will share during the break. Happy Birthday Peggi!
We celebrated Peggi’s birthday with Pete and Shelley in the mountains and for some reason we got fixed on the BOC song. I really never paid much attention to the lyrics. I never do. I guess I look for other stuff in a song. Shelley pointed out how powerful this line is. “Seasons don’t fear the reaper. Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..we can be like they are. We can! “None of us could come up with the rest of the lyrics but that didn’t stop Pete from banging out a version on acoustic guitar. We had such a good time we forgot our pillows.
Bob sled painting at the Lake View Motel in Lake Placid, New York
Would love to be in San Francisco for the opening of the Luc Tuymans show. They showed a few luscious paintings of his (one of a gas chamber) in a review in Sunday’s Times. But I’m not complaining. We have wifi access at the Lake Side Motel in Lake Placid New York and the Saints are winning. Kind of funny that the town of Lake Placid is not on Lake Placid. It’s on Mirror Lake. Lake Placid, the lake, is next door. The Olympics were held here in 1980 and some members of the US team are training here now. It’s fourteen degrees outside and they have real snow here unlike Vancouver.
We skied in the woods for a while this afternoon and then skied out on Mirror Lake at sunset before settling in at the bar for a local brew and the pregame show. Every other vehicle on the way up here was towing a trailer with a couple of sleds and we spotted snowmobiles darting across the road everywhere. If snowmobiling is a sport it has to be the most popular one up here. We had dinner with a bunch of Canadians downhill skiers. They kept slipping into French so we couldn’t understand what they were saying. They are going to be out on the slopes at 8 in the morning. They made us cross country skiers feel like slackers.
Our motel overlooks the lake and has some pretty cool artwork in the halls (above). We plan to head over to Pete and Shelley‘s neck of the woods tomorrow where we’ll celebrate a significant birthday for Peggi.
We knew we were going to run into the man child Mayor of Durand today. And sure enough, we heard him and his buddy coming down the hill before we saw them. We chatted, lamenting that the fact that the big storm was going to miss us. Peggi thinks these guys are Viet Nam vets but I think they’re too young. Maybe just vets. They have little flags on their sleds like there is something patriotic about drinking beer in the park and sledding.
Julianna Furlong Williams painting at Rochester Contemporary
I think most painters would agree that there is a fine line between bad and good. You can be hating what you’re looking at and then make just the right move, one adjustment even, and the whole thing looks good. Not that this has anything to do with Juliana Furlong Williams‘ painting above. This is nothing but good. It was so nice to walk into RoCo last night see all those red dots. Juliana sold eight pieces at around $1000 each.
Paul Dodd painting submissions to Lucy Burne Show at MAG 2010
Philip Guston is quoted as saying, “I imagine wanting to paint as a cave man would. . . I should like to paint like a man who has never seen a painting.” Sort of like Sandra Bernhard in King of Comedy which played on the big screen last night at the Dryden Theater. Her character, Masha, wanted to be black.
I submitted the paintings shown above to a show in the Lucy Burne Gallery at the MAG. The upcoming show is called, “This is a Series” so it is right up my alley since I have stuck in a rut.
Last night I was thinking about how I would like to paint and I had this mental picture of a head that had so much volume in it that I wanted to kick it like soccer ball. Duane from Lowel has been pushing me to use a back lighting technique on my subjects to illuminate the edges and provide 3d relief against a dark background.I am ready for a breakthrough.
Margaret Explosion “Snowshoes” featuring Jack Schaefer
I have been getting into production of a modern version of the 45rpm record and I’m talking about the American version with the big hole not the English version with that contraption in the middle. The new versions are iPod ready complete with cover art and minimal info in the tags. I’ve been going with “psychedelic jazz” in the “Genre” section of iTunes. I’ve done about twenty of these things and we’ll eventually get them up on the Margaret Explosion page for downloads. We will probably record tonight and maybe come home with new single.
The conceptual artist, Tino Sehgal, who believes “there are too many things in the world” has a show at the Guggenheim in New York that I would love see. If only we had that high speed train that the politicians bee talking about. I read about the show here. Conceptual art is smart and the smarter it is the better it is. Plus it must be easier than painting.
We had take out Chinese with Peggi’s mom the other night and her fortune read, “Failures are opportunities”. Coincidentally, I have decided to make an effort to learn from my mistakes.
It might be out of boredom or maybe it’s my risk taking appetite for adventure but I don’t make things easy. Instead of buckling down and making considered moves in an orderly direction I have a tendency to throw too many things on my plate forcing a hand full of distractions and problems of my own making. There is a method, as laid out by my painting intstructor, Fred Lpp, and I cannot argue with it. Start with a plan but be ready to chuck it. Evaluate what you have down after every move. Always address the worst first and when there are no problems, you’re done. It could be so easy. Boldly proceed with caution.
It is so exhilarating to come across a new path in the woods. We drove over near the clubhouse in Durand and parked our car along Kings Highway so we could ski off into the undeveloped western part of park. We’ve been over here before and we’re always surprised how big this park is. We are still able to explore and get lost and that is a wonderful feeling.
John Gilmore brought an Andy Warhol movie over on Saturday night. It was more than I needed to know about his sex life. Give the guy a little respect. You wouldn’t even be in this movie if it wasn’t for Andy. It was called the “The Complete Picture” so we were warned. Had some great footage of the early hand drawn pop days and paintings that were painted rather than screened. Kind of old fashioned. The thing that bothered me the most was having someone read Andy’s words. The producers didn’t have access to real recordings so an actor read quotes out of “A to B and Back Again” or “The Philosophy of” I couldn’t even listen to what they were reading, the voice was so not Andy. I wouldn’t think that any one who ever heard his voice would trample on it. Don’t even get me started on Bowie’s portrayal in the Basquiat movie. Warhol had a distinctive, delicate and charming speaking voice. You didn’t know whether to take the words at face value or look for the philosophical twists. Same experience as looking at his art.
Our neighbors bought a new tv yesterday and I helped set it up. I came back across the street to paint and I heard later that Rick was only able to get dvd picture in black and white only. I guess I plugged one of the yellow cables in the wrong spot. Rick picked up a “District 9” to christen the thing with and he popped the corn. It is a sci-fi mocumentary and I found it hard to get a look at the aliens with all those squirmy thing attached to their face. And I didn’t give a hoot about the lead character so I fell asleep – in someone else’s house. I can’t wait to hear if our friends on the west coast liked it or not. I saw it on their NetFlix list.
Peggi getting her eyes examined at Dr. Goodfriend’s office Rochester, NY
Peggi and I had back to back eye exams today at Doctor Goodfriend’s. His partner, Doctor Searl is the father of Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad’s bassist, Jamie. The Dub Squad’s playing in Buffalo tonight at the Nietzsche’s in Buffalo. Not a good night to drive to Buffalo. We used to play Nietzsche’s back in the eighties. It’s a funky old club in a quiet part of town, nothing like the rough and tumble Continental. Nice warm sound to the room. I really liked the place.
Joan Weissegger and Cheryl Mitchell, two classmates from Rl Thomas came out to see Margaret Explosion last night. I saw them chatting with another classmate, Mike Allen AKOS, while we were playing. Yet another classmate, Jeff Munson, is usually there but he’s in Mexico. It’s kind of odd how you get thrown together in high school and then see these same people for your whole life. That kind of thing happens in Rochester.
Now that the snow is gone, the beer cans are starting to come out down on Hoffman Road. We’re not really sure who is dumping all these. We have speculated wildly and even suspected neighbors but who knows. I bring them home so I don’t have to look at them, that and I collect the five cents. I don’t think kids would be so stuck on the Budweiser brand. And they wouldn’t always throw them in the same place. This seems like the work of an obsessive alcoholic, as if there is any other kind.
Well, I signed up to be notified when the iPad becomes available. I read so much hype and speculation about the product that the movie on Apple’s site looked like a spoof. I’m guessing Bob Martin will already have an iPad when get to the Little for tonight’s gig.
Brad Fox sent me one of those small 33 1/i books on Trout Mask Replica and the behind the scenes tales of that seminal Captain Beefheart lp were really interesting. I noticed a few other books from this series on the shelf at Duane‘s place in Brooklyn so I asked if I could borrow a them. I read “Low” first and learned that David Bowie was a bit of Nazi nut. So it came as no surprise when Quentin Tarantino used Bowie’s Cat People Theme (Putting Out Fire) in Inglourious Basterds. It seemed everything was borrowed in that movie and then I heard the movie itself was a remake. I dug out our 45 of that song and it sounded fantastic, best thing in that movie, the theme song from another movie.
I’m reading Joe Harvard’s (sounds like a made up name) 33 1/3 book on The Velvet Underground and Nico and loving it. Next up is Exile on Main Street and then I might have to buy one. Bruce Eaton has written one on Big Star and it includes a passage on Pete LaBonne. I never caught on to Big Star in the day but I guess there is still time.
Crime face from Crimestopper’s page in Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
This mornings paper had an article about how Arthur Shawcross died of neglect while serving his life sentence. Sounds like someone found a way to trim the New York State budget. The article described Shawcross one of New York’s worst serial killer (I was trying to recall the best). And it reminded readers that noted crime author, Jack Olsen, wrote a book about him. Peggi reads true crime and thought that was a particularly good book.
I guess we share some sort of fascination with crime. I worked as a graphic artist for the Rochester Police, pulling mug shots for a memorable year, and I usually use that as my excuse. I’ve been painting mug shots from the paper on and off for many years now and I keep going through phases where I question why I paint these people. It doesn’t really help their plight and most people would rather not look at the paintings so what is the point? – That sort of questioning. I find these faces a lot more interesting than happy smily people, more interesting than good looking models, more interesting than poseurs although many of these people may be just that. It’s meaty material and there is probably no more to it than a preference for either C.S.I. or that Charlie Sheen show.
The last Crimestoppers page in our paper was in December and I just got around to scanning it. The photos are only thumbnail size in the paper and I discovered it helps to have a little bit bigger source so I print them out a larger size. Most of these people rather unattractive but every once and a while there is a looker like this 22 year old wanted for Grand Larceny.
We usually have a January thaw but fifty degrees is ridiculous. That glacier above, what’s left from the snow I shoveled off our roof, used to be the size of a truck. I have our iTouch set to check temps in five locations, Madrid, New York, San Francisco, Rochester and Paradox (up in the Adirondacks). Today Madrid was the coldest at 39 and New York the warmest at 55. I had to “restore” my iTouch because since my nephew put all these apps on it I kept getting a message that said I wasn’t authorized to update. I found that I could get my purchased apps back by pretending to buy them again and then clicking “Yes” when it it says “You have already bought these. Do you want to download them again for free”.
Our charge card gives us points that we can use at big box stores and we were thing about picking up one of the Apple Tablets when they get announced. We could use it as a reader I presume and I’m looking forward to drawing on it. We are sort of early adaptors and I know that comes with some risk. I say “sort of” because we still don’t have a cell phone (“refuseniks”) but we did buy the first iPod and we still have it in our car. We bought one of the first home computers, an Atari 1040 and we bought the first Walkman cassette player. It was made of metal and it had two headphone jacks on it. Peggi and I kept getting tangled up in the thing. And we’d each decide to go around different sides of a utility pole and get the headphones ripped out.
We had dinner across the street last night and the conversation turned to jobs, benefits and long term care. I won’t name any names but a teacher was grumbling about all the work involved with trying to stay one step ahead of students while correcting the mountain of papers from previous assignments. A former teacher expressed the numbing tediousness of correcting the same mistakes by different students over and over again. A museum worker said it was nice to walk out of the place and leave the job behind at the end of the day. And the web designers were assessing their lot. A career that will not stand still, that demands new, better but more complicated solutions all the time. Spending days and sometimes whole weeks between paychecks keeping up with new css, html, php and mysql standards while finding your own benefit packages.
We retired to the tv room for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 3, Disc 4” and all was right with the world.
Today’s paper had a picture of “Rain” doing their Beatles tribute. I guess they are in town at the Auditorium. It was one of those dreamlike pictures where the people sort of look like somebody you know and you stare at it but something is off.
Maybe my perception was altered by the dream Peggi told me about this morning. We had a big party and my brother and sister-in-law’s RIT buddies were all here with my family. I was thinking, “we don’t really know these RIT buddies.” My mom sat on the coffee table that my brother built and it broke so my brother tried to fix it. Maybe it was the Vox amps in that picture but something triggered “From Me To You” and that damn thing was stuck in my head.
I went to Kevin’s blog hoping to cleanse my mind but he didn’t have a fresh post up there. He has some cool links to other music blogs so I followed a few and bought an Amy Rigby/Wreckless Eric 45 with PayPal bucks, the perfect audio antidote.
You can the smell the woods again because the ground has thawed. Deer, turkey and coyote tracks run in all directions. Hawks and giant woodpeckers work the airspace. Snow topped fallen trees make the valleys look like Franz Kline paintings. Life and death issues are played out on this stage even in the depths of winter. We came across this scene this morning where the blood had crystalized on the snow.
Batik curtains (with water damage) by Peggi hanging in our basement window.
Temperatures near 40 for the last week have put a real damper on cross country skiing. We did some yard work yesterday and even had our wheelbarrow out. But I spent most of the day in the basement working on a few paintings. I know I got way out ahead of myself on this recent batch. Even if I know the bast procedure I can’t help but throw a monkey wrench in.
Weekend paper had an article about Ida Applebroog who has a sensational new show opening tomorrow night at Hauser & Wirth in New York. I wish I could be there. I spent quite a bit of time at her website and fell in love with her work. Hint, hint, hint.
After meeting with our financial adviser we had dinner at Peggi’s mom’s apartment in the Bistro. This is my favorite restaurant in the city. Is not open to the public but I suppose you could eat here if you said you were thinking about checking in to the Senior Living facility. We had a delicious portabella mushroom dish and peppermint tea for dessert. The table next to us ordered the flaming banana dish and we all cheered when Tracy torched them.
The Bistro’s walls are decorated with framed posters of black and white French café photos and they set a perfect mood of civilized escape. We had just watched a 2003 film on Henri Cartier Bresson last night called “An Impassioned Eye.” He is my favorite photographer by a long shot. His photos are full of life and perfectly composed. They feel sculptural to me. They read at a glance and from a distance as well. He spoils you. He is a master.
Back in Peggi’s mom’s apartment I took control of the remote an we hopped back and forth from the English Premier League’s Everton vs. Arsenal game to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Did you know Paul Dodd is “England’s Number One Soccer Yob?
“Spotless Restrooms” sign on door at Delta Sonic on Main Street in Rochester, NY
Delta Sonic is in tough competition with the new Fastrac that open next door to its Main Street location. But it’s even tougher to figure out which station has the cheaper gas. Delta Sonic’s low price is available only with a car wash and Fastrac’s low price is only available if you use their card. The “Spotless Restrooms” at Delta Sonic hardly seem possible.
I plan to add this photo to the “Signs” section that I have been quietly building on Popwars. I have a “Signs” collection on the Refrigerator but that site became unwieldily so I am slowly rebuilding it on PopWars where I am using php to update the navigation and MySql to populate the pages. I wrestle with every stage of this thing and then get interrupted by paying work so it may be a few years before launch.
John Gilmore rode downtown with us last night for the Margaret Explosion gig. He was telling us how he stuck his own handmade sign on the outside of the building he worked in at Kodak Park. It read, “This Space Reserved For (his ID badge number)”. So had his own private parking spot in a crowded lot. He quoted an oft used but new to us corporate saying, “Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”
