Judy Gohringer “Shoreline” diptych, acrylic on wood and Peter Gohringer “Totem” black walnut at Proximity Effect at RIT’s University Gallery
In the wall tags near these two pieces Judy Gohringer’s statement reads, “My challenge is the dance between depicting the recognizable in nature and conveying the essence of it in abstraction.” Her husband, Peter Gorhinger’s, statement reads, “Nature and abstraction have been constant sources of inspiration.” I love these two works and I love how they look together. They are my favorite pieces in “The Proximity Effect,” a group exhibition, at RIT’s University Gallery, up through July 25. The title is derived from the nearness of the artists’ studios in the Anderson Art Building.
Pat Bacon Photogravure, Kozo at University Gallery at RIT
These bowls, on a pedestal in front of Colleen Buzzard’s beautiful hanging drawings, stopped us in our tracks. They look too delicate to touch but at the same time they look rough and ready. Paper thin, well, they are made of paper. Photogravure prints on Kozo paper but how did Pat Bacon, the artist shape them so perfectly. Peggi thinks a balloon may be involved. But how does the paper hold its form once the balloon has been popped?
Hi-Techs performing three songs (Pompei, Screamin’ You Head and A Woman’s Revenge) in Channel 31’s studio in Rochester, NY in 1981
Ozzy connected the whole world. We did a double bill with Ozzy Osbourne on my birthday in 1981. He was beginning his solo career after getting kicked out of Sabbath and he was off to a roaring start with the great Randy Rhoads on guitar. Ozzy and the Hi-Techs were booked on a tv show called “After Hours” that ran on Channel 31 in Rochester.
Ozzy went first and he was still performing when we got to the studio. We were not allowed in the studio. It was loud enough outside. When the band finished they and the roadies all went down to bar on the lower level of the building on East Avenue. We couldn’t get in to the studio to set up and perform until they packed up and that wasn’t gonna happen until the bar closed at two. We didn’t get to play until 4AM. The studio had somebody writhing around during one of our songs but the live performance was pretty good. I think it’s the only video footage of the Hi-Techs.
This video clip from the same night of Ozzy performing “Mr. Crowley” with Randy Rhoads has been viewed 93 million times! It remains the only professionally shot video of Randy Rhoads performing full songs with Ozzy. Rhoads died less than a year after this video in a bone-headed plane accident. RIP Ozzy.
Peggi’s sourdough pizza with truffle oil, Shiitaki mushrooms, caramelized onions, jalapeños and dates
We picked our garlic a couple of days ago, about 130 heads, the same amount as last year. It won’t be enough to get us through the year but almost. It is hanging in the garage now and I have to say the garage smells great. I picked a big bunch of arugula today. It comprised about fifty percent of our salad tonight. I love how bold it is.
Back in the 80’s I would watch professional photographers like Chris Maggio tart up food before photographing it. Sometimes dyes were involved. Lighting and timing were crucial. Nowadays everybody bangs off pictures of their food. I took the photo above back in January. It looks like a hearty winter pizza. Gloria gave Peggi some sourdough starter years ago and Peggi continues to feed it even if she doesn’t have time to make bread. Lately she has been making pizza dough with it. We had a really good arugula pizza a while back but I guess I neglected to photograph it.
Peggi’s sourdough pizza in an early stage with truffle oil, peppers, onion and garlic before cheesePeggi’s sour dough pizza with garlic scape pesto, garlic slices, dates, caramelized onions in an early stage before cheese1 Comment
Forty-nine years ago we had some out of town guests at our apartment on Dartmouth. We partied and Rich and Steve slept on the floor. Norm and Pam probably stayed out at Norm’s parents. Dave and Kim probably stayed out with his parents. Jim and Jan stayed at a hotel. All traveled from Bloomington, Indiana to celebrate our wedding with us. Three of Peggi’s high school friends came from Detroit. Brad and John Gilmore and Bob were all living here. We had a non-denominational service at Colgate Divinity School chaple and then a reception at the University Club on Broadway. We hired a Dixieland band that we had heard in a funky bar on Lake Avenue. We tied the knot after a few years of cohabitating.
I quit my job a few days before the wedding. I was working as a carpenter, roughing new houses, for about a year and a half. My boss, Salvatore Caramana, couldn’t believe that I was quitting before getting married. “Who quits their job before getting married?” I did miss that job. It was so intense, a three man crew framing houses in three days. Someone would call out “wall going up” and we’d drop everything and help lift a new wall. One of us would always go to a deli and bring back lunch. Sal always wanted “butt capicola.” “Make sure you tell them butt capicola, no oil, no mayo.” He would put that down with Genny Cream Ale from his truck and follow it up with a Lucky Strike. We took a three week honeymoon and I found a commercial art job.
We celebrated our anniversary by taking a walk with our niece and two of her kids. They were in town from Colorado. We had some lunch and then went down to the pool. I taught the youngest how to do a can opener.
Peggi and I went downtown for the Good Trouble protest. We stopped in to see my sister working behind the jewelry counter in Parkleigh. We parked at the end of Monroe and joined a big group at Parcel 5. A dj was playing music and then a few people gave a a pep talk of sorts. The group then marched down Main Street to State and then up to the big parking lot where this John Lewis mural is. There was a pretty good drum section pounding out rhythms behind chants like “This is what democracy looks like.” And then some fiery speakers. The group took a different route back to Parcel 5. I thought was a nice touch.
From there Peggi and I walked over to Rocco’s, our favorite restaurant. We sat out on the patio and had a bottle of Primitivo wine, octopus and pesto, grilled radicchio and gnocchi with ricotta, trumpet mushrooms and lamb. Mark, the owner told us the meal was on him. Our waitress said, “It doesn’t get any better than that.” And then added, “or maybe it will later on.”
Last year toward the end of the summer we picked a couple of pawpaws from the cluster of trees on Log Cabin Road. We let the fruit soften up on our counter and spooned it out once it started to turn brown. It is delicious, commonly described as tasting like a blend of banana and mango. We saved the seeds from the fruit and cleaned them off. Then Peggi put the seeds in a small container of moist potting soil and put it in the back of our refrigerator. This is called “cold stratification.” In early May Peggi planted them one inch deep in a pot that sat in our window. Just a few days ago we spotted the spouts pushing the seeds out of the ground. We are watching a YouTube video now on how to plant.
Our friend, Steve, is planning to come up from down south in a few weeks. When he’s here he is always pointing out the rust on vehicles, something he doesn’t see in South Carolina. I’m hoping this truck is still in our neighbor’s driveway when he gets here.
We stopped out at our friend, Brad’s, house yesterday. We volunteered to help set up his new stereo amp for him. We wired the last one and I remembered it being a bit challenges. Brad had two head lamps ready for us. I couldn’t get mine to point in the right direction so I gave up on it.
We started with his cd player, ins and outs (it has the ability to write). Brad had a Frank Zappa disc in. Then the tape deck. Brad had something with Jerry Garcia on it. Then the cord from Brad’s computer. He had some Margaret Explosion playing on his laptop. I found some “tuner” ins for his radio. This amp comes with a remote and Brad was already switching back and forth with it.
I saved the turntable for last. We plugged the wires into the “phono” ports on the amp and noticed there was no ground wire. I put a 45 on to check it out, one from Brad’s old band, “Nobody Famous.” It sounded really distorted. Brad told us he didn’t even play on the record. Peggi suggested Angel Corpus Christi’s “Bewitched” lp. It was all blown out as well. We cleaned the needle and I put on Eric Dolphy’s “Out To Lunch.” Same thing. Peggi got the manual out and read that if the turntable has no ground it needs to be plugged into one of the auxiliary ports. It dawned on all of us at the same time. We had made this same mistake last time!
As we were leaving, Brad told us he had used the homemade tomato sauce that Peggi had given him lsat year. He spread out some Triscuits in a pan, toasted them for a minute, spread the sauce on the crackers and sprinkled some cheese on top of it all before putting it back in the Microwave.
Here I was cheering on Chelsea in the opening minutes of the Club World Cup final only because I thought they were going to give the favorites, Paris Saint Germain, a good game. Our favorite players, Vitinha, Kvaratskhelia, Fabián, Dembélé could not even get their game started. Despite PSG having two thirds of the possession Chelsea walked all over them. It was baffling.
I think the president jinxed the whole thing. Water works for a few minutes and on with the summer.
When someone asks for suggestions for things to do with out of town guests I always recommend parking somewhere in the High Falls district off of State Street and walking across the Pont de Rennes Bridge (named after Rochester’s sister city) for a spectacular view of the falls that put Rochester (the Flour City) on the map with all the mills that harnessed the power of the river to turn their stones. And at the other end of the bridge is one of Rochester’s oldest breweries, Genesee, with a restaurant and a great gift store for iconic souvenirs.
Between the gift shop and the room where they make the specialty beers is a huge arial photo of downtown Rochester, like maybe 15 feet long, with approximently twenty buttonsto push, one for each decade of Rochester’ beer history. The buttons each illuminate locations on the aerial photo of the breweries in operation during that time.
As popular as breweries are today you would think we were at a peak but if you pushed “1870-1880” twenty four locations light up. Rochester hit its high mark in working breweries during this time and the city vied with others for recognition as the nation’s preeminent brewing city. Emil Reisky and Henry Spies ran one of the breweries near the city’s High Falls. They sold the brewery to Mathias Kondolf and he renamed it “Genesee.”
1850-1860 Rochester benefited from an influx of industrious German immigrants. The city’s brewing industry also benefited from this migration and from the growing theory that beer was healthy. (It was sometimes referred to as “liquid bread”.) This frustrated temperance advocates. Lager beer was brewed and sold in Rochester for the first time in 1852. The Germans’ technique of aging beer often produced a lighter and smoother alternative to traditional ales.
1880-1890 The brewing industry employed the developing technology of refrigeration. This allowed bigger brewers to transport beer more effectively and to farther locations, eliminating many small local breweries. Bartholomay emerged as the largest of Rochester’s breweries, employing 150 workers, producing 300,000 barrels a year and utilizing 75 horses to deliver beer throughout the city.
1910-1920 The battle over Prohibition continued as the U.S. went to war against Germany. Politically compromised, large brewers (mostly of German descent) were easily vilified. My grandfather and his partner changed the name of his bar on Thurston and Chili Avenue from “Munich Tavern” to the “Dodd Miller Restaurant.”
1920-1933 While alcohol was illegal, consumption did not stop. Estimates indicate that Americans’ overall consumption of alcohol decreased by only 30 percent. My grandfather ran a speakeasy during this period..
1950-1960 Genesee’s entered the world of television advertising with its most memorable campaign. The “Jenny” girl made her first appearance in 1953.
Bob Smith, for twenty five years the host of “1370 Connection,” used to say, “Follow the money.” By starting there he could explain almost everything. It does sort of make the world go ’round. Lately I’ve been starting with the Business Section of the NYT instead of the A section and I’m finding the articles there, grounded in business practices as they are, bring a certain amount of clarity to the topics that can produce rage in the A section. Tariffs, the Big Beautiful Bill, War in Ukraine, China, Crypto and AI.
When I went away to school I was asked to choose a major. Up until then I had not given a thought to that subject. I really had no idea what my father did at Kodak. A Mechanical Engineer working as a Design Engineer, the lens projects were top secret at the time. I put down “Business.” I guess I was thinking about my grandfather behind the counter in his small grocery store. Turned out my roommate, already a junior, was also a business major. His father owned a jewelry store on the town square in New Castle, Indiana. My first semester I took Business Admin 101. Classes were held in a big auditorium just down the street from my dorm. All I remember about it was the IU football players coming in late, en masse, like someone was shepherding them through the academic phase of their careers. People called it a “pud course.” I switched majors in the first few weeks.
Our president got his BS in bs from Wharton Business School, went into business with his dad and was quickly sued for racial discrimination. He is a talented snake oil salesman with an insatiable appetite for attention. How much money can you make on perfume? Capitalism has its aberrations but I believe it is as good an organizing principal as any. I just wish Trump was a better business man.
China already has global dominance in high-tech industries like batteries, robotics and drones. They control the supply chains for rare earth minerals used in electric vehicles and they have the best electric vehicles on the planet for the best price. If you follow the money you see how the Big Beautiful Bill funnels money to the top, the tired “trickle down” theory. The Chinese government provides financial support for aggressive innovation. Trump is crippling green energy initiatives. China is going to have our lunch.
The building above, on Mustard Street near our old neighborhood, may have been part of the old French’s food processing factory. Once one of the iconic Rochester companies, they left town in the late seventies. I grew up with the stuff and remember how good that yellow streak looked on the hot dog pictured in the billboard behind the center field wall in the old Red Wing stadium.
I poked in front of this build while did my interview with Cal Zone on his WAYO Record Geek show. We video-chatted with Rich and Andrea today and Rich asked if I intended to do any more radio work. (Rich has a wildly succesful podcast series on Elmore Leonard’s books.) I laughed at the idea and said something about the interview and my song taste being kind of mild-mannered. When we hung up Peggi asked why I badmouthed my show. I am really happy that Peggi liked it.
During dinner tonight we found a news story from the Detroit News about Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamster and Cosa Nostra boss who disappeared in 1975. Peggi had taken me by the Red Fox, the restaurant on Maple and Telegraph Road where he was last seen, when we were visiting her parents back in the day. They never found his body and didn’t even declare him dead until 1982. Now fifty years later someone is selling $30 tickets to a multi media presentation on July 23 at Macomb Community College where they will reveal where the body is buried. .
I took this photo a few days ago when it wasn’t a holiday weekend and the temperature was quite a bit cooler. Today this beach and the shoreline for miles to the left would be jam packed. We can hear the motorboats and the music from our house. I took a photo near here on the 4th a few years back that shows a group roasting a whole pig.
We didn’t make it down to the beach today. We got a walk in and stopped at the garden but we had two soccer matches to watch, the last two of the quarter finals of the Club World Cup. The tournament is taking place in the US and for the first time a few US clubs were participating. Miami with Messi even got out of the group stage but US soccer is not there yet. Real Madrid is the only Spanish team left and they won today. A funny thing happened while we watched Paris Saint-Germain beat our favorite Spanish teams and eventually win the Champions League. We fell in the love with the team. The way they pass, attack the ball and clearly enjoy playing the game. They play like a real team and that makes this squad better than they were when they had the three superstars, Messi, Neymar and Mbappé.
Meet the world’s slowest dj. In the course of one hour you will hear three songs and a lot of talking. I was the guest on CalZone’s WAYO “Record Geek” show on July 3rd, the third in a series of special shows that CalZone has produced. The first two guests were WRUR’s Scott Wallace, host of the long running “Rejuvenation,” and Jimmy Filingeri, bass player for The Fox Sisters.
My records really crackle in the headphones. And I had cleaned them before I left the house. I do not have a radio voice. CalZone (my brother-in-law) sounds like a pro. I kept my eyes closed for most of the interview but opened them for this photo. I fielded questions like “How has your record collecting ‘hobby’ improved your life?” I told the story about selling my baseball card collection to my high school math teacher but I never got to talk about my holy card collection. And when we got to how “Bitches Brew” changed my life I neglected to credit Rich Stim for turning me on to it.
If I had my own nine hour block of time I would have spun my “45s2go” playlist: Choose (Apple) or (Spotify)
Once a month we park at the CoOp grocery on South Avenue, just down the street from where my grandfather’s grocery store was. Instead of going in right away we walk downtown, stop at Fuego, and then walk in a loop around downtown before crossing the bridge and heading south to the Ford Street Bridge into the South Wedge. Today we stopped to admire this brick house with the spire. Peggi looked it up on Google and and found that it was built in 1855. We thought about that for a while and then stopped in to visit Pete and Gloria before shopping.
Someday soon AI will be driving our car and we can both look around while we’re driving. As it was on Saturday, I was studying a big boxy jeep in the lane to our right as Peggi was driving, a four seater with a short pickup bed in the rear. All squared off, it was blunt and far from aerodynamic. It moved ahead of us and Peggi said, “It looks like a Hummer. You don’t see many of those anymore.” And just like that a Hummer passed us in the left lane and not just any Hummer but one with a pickup in the back, a larger more obnoxious version of the jeep.
Later we were walking toward the park and I said “I gotta call Mark.” We had called my brother on his birthday and we never heard back so I was getting concerned. Just like that Mark called us.
You know how you look up something on Google and then there’s an article related to it in your news feed? Or you shop online for something and then you get shown ads for for similar products. Or you’re having a conversation about a trip you took years ago and then photos from that trip are your “photo memory” for the day. Well, that kind of stuff seems to be happening in real life now.
We were walking up a hill on a path in the park today. We got to the top and I looked up and saw these two letters carved into a tree.
Leo Dodd watercolor “Feeding the Birds” Washington Square Park
Jeff and Mary Kaye got us tickets to Geva’s “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” Just last week I had noticed new, brightly colored tables (with umbrellas) and chairs scattered around Washington Square Park so I suggested we meet there before the play and have dinner in the park. Peggi and I prepared sandwiches with the ingredients we had ordered from La Tienda and we made a salad from our garden greens. We brought along a bottle of Spanish Rioja and some plastic cups. Monica, next door, let us borrow four plastic plates. Mary Kaye made sorbet with strawberries from their garden. It was somewhere near ninety degrees downtown but the meal was dreamy.
“Beautiful” premiered in San Francisco in 2013 and made its Broadway debut in 2014. It has been produced around the world since and Sony just announced a biopic adaptation starring Daisy Edgar-Jones. The play is set mostly in the Brill Building in NYC, a song factory, where writers churned out hit after hit up until Dylan and rock groups started writing their own. And the story is told through two song writing couples who worked there, Carole King and Gerry Goffin and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
We get to hear “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “Up on the Roof,” “On Broadway,” “The Loco-Motion,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “One Fine Da,” and “Walking in the Rain,” all of which were written by these couples. Of course Carol King goes solo at the end but they mercifully keep that period brief and the play finishes with “I Feel the Earth Move.” The performers, the band and the production were as good as the songs!
In the program the playwright, Douglas McGrath, talks about meeting the four songwriters to discuss his idea-“a musical about kids chasing out the old guard so they could create the new sound of rock and roll. Carole’s face lit up. I knew I had nailed it. She leaned forward to share her reaction. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is completely wrong!’ ‘What?’ I said, almost losing my balance even though I was seated. ‘We idolized Gershwin and Porter and Kem and Berlin,’ she explained. ‘We studied their music’ -Cynthia piped in, ‘I wanted to be Cole Porter.'”
The title of the play comes from a Carole King quote, “You know what’s so funny about life?” Sometimes it goes the way you want and sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes when it doesn’t, you find something beautiful.”
We listened to Cal Zone’s Brian Wilson tribute today, a bit of catch-me-up. We had already done our personal deep dive with a short stack of Beach Boys 45s and then along comes yet another article about Brian. This one by Rob Tannenbaum and it gets right to the heart of the reason for our mourning. Reading this short list slowly (and calling to mind the gorgeous melodies and harmonies) was particularly moving.
"The decisive evidence of Wilson's genius is his melancholy work: "In My Room," "Don't Worry Baby," "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times," "Til I Die" (written, Wilson said, while he was "depressed and preoccupied with death"), "Caroline, No," "The Warmth of the Sun" (written the night President John F. Kennedy was killed), the celestial "God Only Knows," sung perfectly by Carl."
Peggi and I played a respectable version of In My Room in the basement this afternoon.
Street musicians couple with guest at Rochester Jazz Fest 2025
We used to attend every night of the Rochester Jazz Fest. The very first one featured Joe Lovano playing at the MAG. There used to be some really great artists performing and mind-opening discoveries. The most interesting artists didn’t draw that well and it became clear the promoters were not interested in interesting so they kept bringing the same bankable performers back. Anybody ever hear of Trombone Shorty?
We flew to Knoxville in 2019 for the Big Ears Festival and, well, that was arranged by somebody with really good taste. The Rochester festival crash-landed during the pandemic and came back in ‘22. That was the last year we bought a pass and it was worth it, but barely. We saw just a few shows in the last couple of years. Tonight we could have heard Terrell Stafford at Kilbourn, a really good straight-ahead trumpeter, but we decided to just walk around downtown during the festival. Look how big that tip jar is!
The Christ Church by RoCo is no longer a venue. Neither is the Lutheran Church, where the adventurous Nordic groups played. It may not even be a Lutheran Church anymore. There is no stage at East Avenue and Chestnut so we checked out Parcel 5. Just a few people hanging out there. We bought two beers for eighteen dollars on Gibbs Street and listened to the Army band. We saw a couple playing on Main Street (above) that we had seen other years. (2018A & 2018B) They trade back and forth on drums and keys. She was playing the drums while talking on the phone the first time we walked by them and on our way back they had a guest sitting in (above.)
There was a line outside the Little Theatre for an Americana band. As we walked toward the big City stage at Alexander the band was playing a Pat Benatar song. We got in the car and were home before dark.
We were both sitting at our computers last night when we remembered Frying Pan was playing at Abilene. We were out the door in minutes but we had already missed Big Roy, the opening band. Had it not been for the weather this show would have been held outdoors. I would have preferred that. The club can be like walking into a speaker cabinet. I hadn’t even pushed my ear plugs in fully when my watch was warning about exposure to levels above 100 db. The two guitars sounded great, each playing rhythm and lead, sometimes at the same time but always sounding distinctly different. My brother, Tim, was standing next to us. We mouthed, “hello.” I tried to order a beer. I tried a few times and the waitress, sporting one of the biggest beehives I’ve seen since leaving Indiana, had me write my order on a piece of paper.
My order at Abilene
We couldn’t hear any of the lyrics so we asked Pat what he was singing about. He told us he did one sort of political song about “the beast” and another about a trip he took out west. One was about the “glitter girls” he hung around with in high school. I wish the vocals had been audible. Pat said “you could hear the vocals really good in the monitors.” Maybe we should have hopped on stage with the band.
My “45s2go” playlist (Apple) (Spotify) has gotten bigger. Funny thing is, these are clean files and the songs don’t sound nearly as good as they do on vinyl.
I parked in front of this window on my way to a yearly dermatologist appointment. I like being his first patient of the day and this window looked especially nice in the early morning light. Do I have skin cancer yet? He didn’t see any.
Our neighbor, Rick, is out front on his unicycle. He has a clown gig at the harbor this weekend and he’s warming up. He told us he’s having trouble with his “quick mount,” getting up on the bike from a standstill. At seventy-five with a knee replacement I would say he’s doing great. We played horseshoes for the first time this year and we both fell apart midway in the third round. It was tied with a match apiece and we were neck and neck to the last throw but it took forever to get there.
Local strawberries are on the shelves. The season lasts only a few weeks so it needs to be pounced upon. We picked up three quarts at the Brighton Farmers Market and heard Debby Kendrick Project at the same time. They sounded great in the open air. We bought some exotic mushrooms (the proprietor called our attention to the primordial underside) and some locally made mushroom pasta as well. It made a perfect dinner.
