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Family Affair

Marsh off Hoffman Road on Christmas Day 2021
Marsh off Hoffman Road on Christmas Day 2021

We walked in rain coats this morning. The streets were quiet. Even The marsh off Hoffman Road looked especially beautiful. Back home I started a fire while Peggi read a few articles from the NYT website. Our local paper paused print production for a few days by putting the Saturday Real Estate section in with the Thursday weekend edition. And because our local carrier delivers it and the NY Times he is letting our copies sit at the warehouse until Sunday. Rochester hung in there but this is the beginning of the end for print journalism.

I played ten 45s while we opened a few gifts and then created a short Xmas Playlist in Apple Music so I could share the audio track of our Christmas. 

Love Me Tender - Elvis
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton
Fool #1 - Brenda Lee
Make The World Go Away - Ray Price
Solitary Man - Neil Diamond
Family Affair - Sly & The Family Stone
Nature Boy - Bobby Darin
The Twelfth of Never - Johnny Mathis 
Why Can't We Live Together - Timmy Thomas
I'm Stone In Love With You - The Stylistics
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Reverie

Lake Ontario on Christmas Eve 2021
Lake Ontario on Christmas Eve 2021

We followed ski tracks into the park this morning. It may not be a white Christmas but it is a white Christmas Eve. You would never know that up at the lake.

Every ten years or so I get a chance to reconnect with Greg. An art major at IU when I was there, Greg was the real deal. I lived in the dorm, Greg saved on rent by living in his art studio in the Fine Arts building. In a sense he never left the studio. His apartment in NYC, all 185 square feet of it, is a rent controlled, fifth floor walkup.

Greg called this morning and we talked for an hour or so as if no time had passed at all. Many of our mutual friends have passed but we were able to engage and laugh in the present. Greg lamented how young artists can’t afford the city anymore and he missed batting around art notions over a cup of coffee. I offered that this observation may just be shaped by our age but he wouldn’t have it. He told me he limits his reverie. By doing so, the exercise is more satisfying and it leaves more time for him to work on his art journal/journey. I’m glad he made time to touch base today.

"Reverie" by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 03.13.19. Peggi Fournier - sax, Ken Frank - bass, Phil Marshall - guitar, Paul Dodd - drums.
“Reverie” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 03.13.19. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Phil Marshall – guitar, Paul Dodd – drums.
Listen to “Reverie” by Margaret Explosion
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Hiking For Dollars

Sheets of snow/ice sliding off our metal roof
Sheets of snow/ice sliding off our metal roof

Everybody asks if our new metal roof is noisier in the rain and we haven’t noticed that. We got the roof hoping the snow would slide off instead of building ice ice dams as it melts. Our first snowfall is indeed sliding off. Very slowly. And it looks sensational behind our blue LED Christmas lights.

I was packing up my drums last night when Phil, the guitarist in Margaret Explosion, texted. “People all around me are testing positive. I think it is unwise to pursue the gig tonight.” We haven’t seen anyone except for Jedi who came over for a Christmas beer yesterday. The text took me back. Were we being reckless going out with Omicron in the air? Probably but we went for it. I texted Jack to see if he was available to sit in on his instrument of choice. He wasn’t so we performed as a trio. We had done so a few other times, at High Falls and then at a funeral but never at the little and the Wednesday before Christmas is traditionally a big night there.

I particularly like the minimal palette. I love it when there is air around Peggi’s sax and I can hear the full shape of Ken’s double bass notes. The café was almost full but not like holidays past and there were notable absences. Peggi and I had talked about doing “God Rest Ye . . .” but forgot. Someone called for an encore and we tore it up with the minor key holiday classic.

I may have mentioned that I found a dollar bill on a path up from Titus Avenue Extension. Today, walking long the western side of Durand Lake I spotted a twenty and a five curled up on the path. I quickly shoved it in my pocket.

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Being There

Piebald deer in backyard
Piebald deer in backyard

I posted a cropped version of this photo on IG and Jim Mott asked, “Did she just happen to show up on a lightly-frosted day….or have you been putting out corn for months waiting for this shot?” It looks like the latter but as with most situations it is the former. Being there.

We learned Record Archive has paused their back room bar performances because of the current outbreak and the Little Theatre Café is probably not far behind. As it stands, Margaret Explosion will be there tonight. It would be fine with me if no one showed up and they just turned out the lights and let us play our two sets and then we go home and listen to the recordings. I wonder if anyone has even noticed that we deliberately turn the stage lights off before playing. We’ve been doing that for twenty years now. We really aren’t there for anyone else. We close our eyes and listen to each other. The rest is ambience.

This sounds especially selfish. But it wouldn’t work if we were not playing in front of a live audience. They force us to focus and shape the sound into something resembling a song. And I am delighted that enough people like the sound to get us our next gig. We usually come away with eleven or so of these pieces of which one will bear repeated listening, “a field recording of the future.”

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Doubts & Questions

Paul Dodd Untitled Abstract circa 1995
Paul Dodd Untitled Abstract circa 1995

I did a dozen or so abstract, acrylic paintings in the mid nineties and hung onto a few before moving on. I dusted (literally) this one off today and took a photo. I’m working on some flat color, organic form, almost figurative paintings now. Full of doubts and questions but coming up with enough answers to move forward.

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Stir It Up

Cathy Smith paint sticks installation at Colleen Buzzard's Studio
Cathy Smith paint sticks installation at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio

Every visit to Colleen Buzzard’s studio is special. The shows Colleen curates and presents in the front room are top shelf. Every object in her backroom studio space is purposeful or unresolved. The line blurs as they are in the process of becoming an art piece. Your mind clears on entry. You begin to ask questions. You leave stimulated.

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Gimmie That Old Time Religion

Trail off Zoo Road along Durand Lake
Trail off Zoo Road along Durand Lake

We broke a 127 year old record yesterday when the temperatures hit 67 degrees. We ran into our neighbor’s daughter walking her bike along the lake and exchanged pleasantries. Down on the beach we saw tracks from a bicycle in the sand and they stopped where the outflow from Eastman lake crosses the beach. There, written in the sand in large letters, was “Jesus Is King,” clearly the work of our neighbor. I never liked that image of Jesus as royalty. We cut through the golf course on our way back from the lake and came across a sheepish looking golfer standing in the path with his a bag of clubs. He told us he had just been scolded and informed that the golf course was officially closed.

Every long time Rochesterian knows Bat & Don. From their 60’s band, “The Showstoppers,”to their coffeehouse, “Hylie Morris’ Alley,” to their performances with Chuck Mangione and the RPO, they were foundational. Bat skipped his colonoscopies and went out with colon cancer and grace. Don got religion, the kind that says Jesus will take care of you even if you refuse to be vaccinated. He and his wife contracted Covid a few weeks ago and she has since died.

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Dots / Pieces

Shadows on primed canvas in studio
Shadows on primed canvas in studio

Peggi called me down to the basement so I could experience this before it disappeared. I was just getting started on the painting and it looks finished.

I can see how Philomena died, she was 102 years old, but Charlie Coco’s little sister? Philomena spent her last years, hardly her golden, in the same home as my mom. It was interesting to learn she was an Italian translator for WSAY back in the day. And Charlie’s sister had pancreatic cancer. There is too much of that going around.

We didn’t realize one of the branches we picked up in our yard after the wind storm had broken our windshield until we got in the car. We sort of asked for it by not parking our car in the garage. We use that space for more important things. Insurance covered it but we had to bring it into the shop because there are so many electronics in the glass. Who knew?

We made a big batch of applesauce today, enough to put out when we have my family over for Xmas eve. We listened to Roscommon Mitchell’s “Dots / Pieces for Percusion and Woodwinds” while we worked. As cleansing as Morton Feldman.

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Daydream 2

I managed to utilize movie clips I shot in Niagara Falls, Pemaquid Point Maine, Bilbao Spain, Turning Point Park on the Genesee River, Durand Eastman and downtown during the Fringe Fest, all in this one video. And I threw in a short shot of golf balls I found. The time lapse of the sky was shot at Pete and Shelley’s place up in the Adirondacks. I put my iPad out in their yard for a few hours.

I overlapped the clips in iMovie, crunching them until they fit the length of the song, an improvisation by Margaret Explosion from our last gig. Phil Marshall and Bob Martin play guitars, Peggi Fournier plays soprano sax, Ken Frank plays double bass and I plays drums.

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After The Storm

Calm Lake Ontario
Calm Lake Ontario

We couldn’t decide. Rake leaves yesterday when it was in the 60s or wait until after the wind storm and rake today. We chose yesterday and I’m glad we did. It took us three hours to gather all the branches and sticks that had snapped off our trees in last night’s wind.

While we worked I imagined us in Madrid for today’s derby between the crosstown rivals of Atlético and Real Madrid. Of course we will be pulling for last year’s league champion, Atlético, but they are underdogs this year. 70,000 people in a stadium would be too much but a good seat in a crowded bar would be ideal. But how would we scream or drink Mahou while wearing a mask?

We’re happy for our friend, Louise, who appears in this week’s New Yorker. Not an article by her but about her, attesting to how hardship can be a source of good things, up front on the letters to the editor page.

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Los Inmigrantes

"Los Inmigrantes," found drift wood, 15"h x 101"w by Paul Dodd 2021
“Los Inmigrantes,” found drift wood, 15″h x 101″w by Paul Dodd 2021

I collected driftwood this summer, not every day, just when the conditions were right. The lakeshore rearranges itself daily. The waves sift and sort the tiny stones, the small stones, the shells, the seaweed and the sand, and it often presents the ingredients in an array at the edge of the lake. Plastic pieces only wash ashore under the right circumstances. We often see a woman collecting burnished pieces of glass.

Detail of "Los Inmigrantes," found drift wood, 15"h x 101"w x 2"d by Paul Dodd 2021
Detail of “Los Inmigrantes,” found drift wood, 15″h x 101″w x 2″d by Paul Dodd 2021

These wooden pieces, mostly pieces of bark worn by tumbling, are strewn along the beach after a storm. I imagine them coming down the river and then eastward to Durand. They make me think of los inmigrantes who, fleeing North Africa in overcrowded boats, often wash ashore in southern Spain.

I had a hell of time photographing the piece. Facetimed with Duane for help. Nineteen of them mounted on a white wall. The beauty of the wood is the subtle, warm colors but that is not the hard part. I mounted the wood pieces with two finishing nails, one end backed into the rear of the wood pieces and the other into the wall. So the pieces are suspended about a half inch off the wall. I wanted to show that relief but in order to light the wood properly I wound up casting strong shadows that made the pieces look like they were vibrating. Duane solved that for me.

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I’m Your SOB

Joy Wave Cellino & Barnes billboard on side of Joey's in downtown Rochester, NYJoeys
Joywave “Cellino” & Barnes billboard on side of Joey’s in downtown Rochester, NYJoeys

I have a soft spot for Joywave. Their earliest videos, shot while they were working at a mall in suburban Rochester sold me. I like their pop sensibility. I like the fact that they stuck around town to enjoy their success. I love how they push it with their videos. Like Personal Effects, a mere footnote on the Rochester music scene, they choose interesting places to play. Personal Effects played the Top of the Plaza and the Community Playhouse in the South Wedge. Joywave topped that and played the former revolving restaurant, The Changing Scene..

Joywave’s new album drops 2.11.22 and their new ad campaign picks up where the personal injury lawyers, Cellino and Barnes, left off. I played drums in Personal Effects and animated a few of my favorite Cellino and Barnes billboards back in the early part of this century. Long before “Better Call Saul,” Celino & Barnes was duking it out with Moran & Kufta and Jim the Hammer Shapiro. Remember those ads?

“I cannot rip the hearts out of those who hurt you. I cannot hand you their severed heads. But I can hunt them down and settle the score. I may be an SOB, but I’m your SOB!” 
– Jim “the Hammer” Shapiro

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Self Portrait

Styrofoam male heads on shelf at Michaels
Styrofoam male heads on shelf at Michaels

Our nephew and his girlfriend are having a baby, the first in that generation on that side of the family. My sister, Ann, is our go-to contact for baby gift suggestions. She couldn’t wait to have children, she dotes on her grandkids and she works at Parkleigh (I thought it was i before e). She suggested a “Jellycat” stuffed animal which comes with a little book that brings the animal to life. Peggi looked at them online and picked out the Bashful Lamb. I agreed it was the cutest but it was only available on back order, sold out at the Jellycat site and the few left on Amazon looked like fakes.

Plan B, and probably the best plan, was for Peggi to crochet a baby blanket. Peggi has done this before but the last one was for our grand niece who is now living the life on her own in Brooklyn. We called Gloria, who we have hardly ever seen without a crochet or knitting needle in her hand, and she suggested we go to Michael’s to buy the yarn. No more “Ye Olde Yarn Shoppes.” You can get to Webster, where the closest store is, pretty quickly but once you get there the shopping experience is grisly. I decided to go with her and I’m glad I did. I had been tasked with submitting a self portrait to an upcoming show at Studio 402 and I found one on the shelves at Michael’s.

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Titus Avenue Extension

Downtown Rochester as seen from west side
Downtown Rochester as seen from west side

Sometimes we walk to Kathy’s, sometimes she walks to our place. We walk early, she walks late so when she texted that she was stopping by we started a fire in our front yard fire pit. Originally conceived as a safe way to hang out during last year’s winter months it might be doing duty again. I had just bought some of Buffalo’s Hayburner so we each one of those and it was quite comfortable.

Titus Avenue doesn’t stop at Sea Breeze Drive, the former 590 North. It continues down to the bay as Titus Avenue Extension. We walked down there this morning. It is a wonderland as the road winds down to the water. The houses are built into the hillside like in Belair but in this case, they are funky. They look small from the road but when you get down to the bottom and look up at the backs of them they are three and four stories. The whole idyllic setting takes a dark turn when you get to the bottom. Their is an abundance of American flags, most with that blue stripe in them. The biggest house looks like a tacky country club with a giant Trump 2020 flag still flying in the front yard. The very last houses have dogs in the yard, on duty, barking their heads off at anything that moves. The guy in the very last house was in his driveway smoking while his dog barked at us. We were not more than twenty yards from him and I could tell he had seen us but he wouldn’t look at us or say hi. His big dog was at his side barking its head off at us while we looked across the inlet at the two gigantic new houses going up across the inlet at the bottom of Seneca Road. It’s much nicer over there. People are happy and friendly. We’ll stick closer to home next time.

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Fallout

Sign at railroad tracks near Main and Goodman in Rochester, New York
Sign at railroad tracks near Main and Goodman in Rochester, New York

I don’t follow the stock market closely but I have been keeping an eye on Apple because we had made a decision to sell some more if it reached 170. I checked the price around noon yesterday and it was at 169. When I looked back later it had dropped to 164 on news that the long O variant had been found in the U.S. We bought the stock back when we were playing happy hours at the Bug Jar. Our cost basis is around 20 cents. Steve Brown, the Friday bartender and one of the three owners, was selling stock for Merrill during the day.

We had planned to have Thanksgiving dinner with friends but one of them was waiting for results from a Covid test. Turned out it was only a cold. Our nextdoor neighbors had family over for T-day and their nephew tested positive the following day. We stopped by Pete and Gloria’s house but they weren’t home which turned out to be a good thing because they too had been exposed to family members with Covid. Peggi bought a couple of Rapid tests at Wegman’s after we learned we were exposed before Thanksgiving. We showed no symptoms and we weren’t seeing anyone so we never used the tests. We gave them to Pete and Gloria this afternoon and we’re awaiting the results. The positivity rate in Monroe County is now 9.9%.

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Below The Belt

Hoping to finish the Muhammad Ali PBS documentary tonight, just after our La Liga match of course. The “Thrilla in Manila” and Zaire are yet to come. Peggi and I saw the “When We Were Kings” movie with my father at the Little but I remember it being mostly about the music. Boxing should have been outlawed lifetimes ago but I’m glad there is an historical record of how cave men behaved.

“We’re so civilized” – MX-80 Sound

Shadows in basement studio
Shadows in basement studio

I’d like to photograph my “Los Immigrantes” piece. Three of the twenty can be seen on the wall to the left above. I need to shoot at night because the white wall carries a daylight colorcast from the big window to the left. The pieces are mounted a half inch off the wall to show relief. The colors in the wood pieces are subtle but important. They need plenty of soft light so the shadow doesn’t compete with pieces.

I left NYC with a lighting layout designed by Duane, something that shows a white, semi-transparent shower curtain between my lights and the work. I might try the portrait umbrellas Duane gave me with the Lowel lights before ordering a while shower curtain on Amazon.

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La Dolce Vita

View of Irondequoit Bay from Kathy's backyard
View of Irondequoit Bay from Kathy’s backyard

We piled up the furniture on our screened in porch and moved a row of firewood in. I guess we’re ready for the fourth season. This time of year is tinged with loss but then it provides relief with plenty of time for deep dives into projects.

Our neighbors, Jared and Sue are getting a new roof, a metal roof just like ours, but they have a different contractor. This one has a crew from Guatemala. Ours was mostly Puerto Rican. Both crews crank the tunes as they work. This time, instead of reggaeton it’s all Mexicali horns and squeeze boxes. And their roof is a lot cheaper.

Last night we watched the Sparks Brothers movie and loved it. It dawned on me that although they are the Gilbert and George of the music world. I woke up singing La Dolce Vita.” The only Sparks lp we own is 1979’s “No. 1 in Heaven” so we played it first thing this morning.

“This is the number one song in heaven
Why are you hearing it now, you ask
Maybe you’re closer to here than you imagine
Maybe you’re closer to here than you care to be”

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L’art Pour L’art

"Massacre of the Innocents" by Marcantonio Raimondi at Memorial Art Gallery show "Renaissance Impressions"
“Massacre of the Innocents” by Marcantonio Raimondi at Memorial Art Gallery show “Renaissance Impressions”

A show of Renaissance Prints. may not sound all that exciting but just imagine being alive in the early 1500s when images of the ancient myths and religious miracles were mostly in your imagination. The Judgement of Paris, The Massacre of the Innocents, and The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence , where Larry asks his tormentors to “Turn me over, I’m done on this side,” are just some of the fantastic stories depicted in the Memorial Art Gallery’s current exhibit of Renaissance Prints. The show is mind blowing.

MAG Curatorial Assistant Lauren Tagliaferro did a Zoom talk for MAG members the day the show opened and it is now up on YouTube. Peggi and I just watched it a second time. Lauren is a dynamo and she brings art history to life. How we created a beautiful Christ, even eroticized him and the saints to sell the concept, suffering in peace for eternal salvation. How we depict the old as ugly because we are afraid of dying. Tagliaferro is drawn to ugliness as much beauty and she admits a lot of her ideas come from “On Ugliness” by Umberto Eco. She is an adjunct professor at RIT. They should give her tenure now.

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Surrounding Ourselves

Anne Havens sculpture from "Sleeping Around" series 2007
Anne Havens sculpture from “Sleeping Around” series 2007

With all the quarantining going on we only had one chance to spend time with Anne Havens before she left for her winter home. Over coffee, scones, dates and roasted Marcona almonds and surrounded by Anne Havens artwork, it could only be from her hand, hanging gallery style on white walls in her open plan home, we talked about art making, specifically how and why Anne has always made art. It has been a lifeline in turbulent waters. Magical art doesn’t come out of nowhere. We came home with a head from her “Sleeping Around” series.

Every three weeks or so we run into Ernie and his owner out for a walk. They live in the neighborhood and over the years polite talk has turned meatier subjects. He is a photographer and we often talk art. We learned he and his wife acquired some pieces, a print, a drawing and a small painting by my favorite artist in the world. I couldn’t wait to see them. And then the pandemic hit. Our self imposed restrictions have eased and we stopped by on our way home from a walk. I was blown away. On top of that we came home with two of Ernie’s owner’s photos. Warren Philips will work his magic on the frames.

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Floral Arranging

Common Hackberry bush on Walzford Road
Common Hackberry bush on Walzford Road

Walzford is one of our favorite streets. We make a point of going down it or coming back on it when we walk up to Aman’s. The lots are generous, the houses are all different having been built over many years rather than all at once so the street has a complex character. We ran into Marsha here, where she has a part-time job tending to one of the gardens. There is a fair amount of BLM banners and a wrap around porch with a sign overhead that reads, “Porch of Indecision.”

We shopped at both Aman’s and Wegmans so our backpacks were loaded. We could barely bend down without falling over but the pile of fresh flowers near the curb on Culver was irresistible. They must have been used briefly at an event, probably a funeral, and then discarded. White Lillies, purple flowers mixed with Eucalyptuse greens all freshly picked. We picked through the pile and carried an armload home. Peggi arranged four gorgeous displays in various parts of the house. It smells like a funeral parlor in here.

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