Looking across Eastman Lake out to Lake Ontario Winter
You know it is going to be a good party, and by extension a good year, when someone clears off the coffee table in the living room so people can take turns dancing on it. James Brown got the party started and his “Super Bad” drove it over the top. The band, with Bootsy Collins on bass and his brother Catfish on guitar, is just incredible. They wind it so tight, keeping you in crazy suspense until they reach the bridge, and then the sax solo, where James asks Robert McCollough to “Blow me some Trane” goes over the top. Prince ruled for a few songs, Grace Jones’ “I’m Not Perfect” was a knock out. I couldn’t find our seven inch of “Love To Love You” so I played part of the album version. And with the 45s all in a big pile we finished the night with the Stooges, “1969.”
There were more people skiing and snowshoeing in the park today than we have ever seen. Could be a combination of perfect conditions and a national holiday but I’d like to think more people are throwing off the digital shackles and getting out there.
Peggi’s sister sent us four coffee cups from the Bauer Pottery Company in LA. They look like California and have livened up our mornings.
Duane sent us up a copy of “Leon of Juda,” Robert Frank’s newest book of photos, published by Steidl. I mention the publisher because the book is beautiful. The photos are as well but that goes without saying. I’ve looked at the book (it is without text) everyday since it arrived and it still seems mysterious and fresh.
And a paperback also arrived from Louise in time for the holidays, one based on a 1972 BBC series, “Ways of Seeing” by John Berger. Parts of it are so thought provoking I will never forget what I read.
Berger starts Chapter 3 with a passage from Genesis. Catholics weren’t so big on the bible when I went to school so I was familiar with the story but still not ready to read it.
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons …. And the Lord God called unto the man and said unto him, ‘Where are thou?’ And he said, ‘I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself ….
Unto the woman God said, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee.'”
With these words he makes the case that all of European culture was ripe for the #MeToo movement. With rare exceptions, paintings of female nudes exist for the delight of men. “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakednsss you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.”
And he notes, “other non-European traditions – in Indian art, Persian art, African art, Pre-Columbian art – nakedness is never supine in this way. And if, in these traditions, the theme of a work is sexual attraction, it is likely to show active sexual love as between two people, the woman as active as the man, the actions of each absorbing the other”
He finishes the chapter with a challenge. “Choose from this book an image of a traditional nude. Transform the woman into a man. Either in your mind’s eye or by drawing on the reproduction. Then notice the violence which that transformation does. Not to the image, but to the assumptions of a likely viewer.”
We stood on this point on the edge of Eastman Lake trying to decide if the ice was frozen solid enough for us to ski across. We discussed what it would be like to fall in the water in 15 degree weather and then decided to stay on the path that runs along the shore.
The B section of our local paper keeps getting smaller even though it comes stock from USA Today. Just a few months ago it was reduced to six pages, one spread and an insert. Then it was knocked down to just the spread with entertainment gossip on the back page. And then that last page went all ads. I cut out Mesfin Fekadu’s “Top Ten Albums of 2017” from that section just to see what I’m missing. I hate feeling like the world is passing me by.
I had never heard of SZA but her “Ctrl” album was at number one. It’s easy going with a tasteful headphone ready mix. Lots of space and odd instrumentation. Very listenable, like something you’d hear in the Apple Store. Kendrick Lamar’s, “DAMN,” is Hollywood enough to include U2 but the tracks barely get off the ground. Daniel Caesar’s, “Freudian,” at number three, is way laid back R&B, almost detached make-out music.
Funny Mesfin Fekadu put Jay-Z’s, “4:44” at number 4. It really drew me in with its catchy lyrics, rhythms and samples. I’d put this one at number one. Taylor Swift sounds like she is completely lost on “reputation.” The generic big production swallows up her simple charm. I put Sam Smith’s, “The Thrill of It All,” on while we ate dinner and that was just about right. Soft, gospel tinged dinner music.
Number seven, St. Vincent’s, “MASSEDUCTION” isn’t as exotic as Bjork. I thought I was gonna like her but “Sugarboy” sounds like Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” on the wrong speed. Miguel’s, War & Leisure is old school R&B and various songs didn’t so much remind me of Smokey, the Chi-Lites, Funkadelic and Prince but made me want to hear them instead. “H.E.R.,” by Gabi Wilson under her stage name H.E.R., is more late night, make out chill stuff. And the number ten pick is Haim, “Something to Tell You,“ Three sisters who play pop songs like a lame eighties band.
I’m glad I liked Jay Z. I don’t feel so out of it.
We waited for double-digit degrees before strapping on our skis and we shoveled the driveway to warm up. My ski boots are plastic on the bottom so it makes it exciting just trying to stand up while shoveling. We went through the woods again and were out in the middle of the golf course when our financial guy called. He was home for the holidays but our question couldn’t wait. We were looking for losses to declare before the end of the year, losses in the the best market ever. We needed to offset the financial gains we made with the sale of some art. We were plenty warm until he called.
I love winter. I’m not crazy about how my skin dries out but everything else about it is cool. I like staying in, working on projects, reading by the fire and watching movies at night. But most of all I like getting outside to walk, split wood, shovel or – best of all – ski. And this has been a stellar year for that. Fresh snow just when you need it and temps well below freezing.
I’ve dialed back so far this winter I keep forgetting to check in here. After ten years practice I’m not contemplating a dead end but I could see it happening. What’s to report, or record or review? Well, we’re keeping warm.
Nighttime ski tracks in front of the house of blue lights
We had about eighteen people over last night, all family members but not all of the family. Our niece’s daughter told us she was going to stay up til three in the morning to see Santa. She is about a year younger than I was when my teacher, a nun at St. John’s, asked the class to raise their hand if they still believe in Santa Claus. It wasn’t all that mean. I certainly had my doubts and I get to tell this story every year.
Peggi’s sister sent a photo up of her two sons on the beach in Miami where they have gathered for the holidays. Hardly looked like Christmas down there. That’s the best part about the day for me now and this is a good one. Cold and white. We skied out the door, through the woods and up to the lake. The sky was intensely blue and the wind was blowing so there were fresh drifts up on the ridge. When we got back my brother was in the driveway with his wife. We took a long walk with them. We like to think we’re in training to walk the Camino in April.
Our snow has disappeared so we walked in the woods today. Odd how clunky the trail feels on the bottom of your feet after only a week of gliding through it on our skis. This trail, on the east side of Durand Lake, is a popular one for good reason. These heavily tattooed beech trees attest to that.
I must be running in the wrong circles because I can’t remember the last time I heard a really exciting local band, somebody doing something I haven’t heard before, something from left field. I keep running across bands that are all too eager to provide comfort food, pale imitations of what was once the good stuff. I know they’re out there. Like I said, “I’m running in the wrong circles.”
Black Thought from the Roots is wondering the same thing. “We back again For a couple things we lost in the fire The drive, the desire to perform on a higher plateau I’m at that show lost in the mire Wondering how we got so far from inspired”
Thinking about checking Sirsy out tomorrow night at Three Heads.
Until yesterday we were still using hand-me-down bath towels from Peggi’s parents. They last a long time but you eventually get really tired of the color. So we went on an adventure to Bed Bath and Beyond. Department stores don’t have clerks that work in them anymore. You just pick up a giant cart at the door and roll it around the store looking for what you came in there for. The carts are so big you can’t help but bump into other shoppers.
The towel department is arranged by price. The towels get thicker and longer if you are willing pay extra. Our main criteria was the color and we wanted the whole set. Two bath towels, two hand towels, two wash clothes and a bath mat. We settled on some Turkish cotton Expresso towels.
The store was really crowded because of the holiday and the cashier wanted to know if we needed gift boxes but we told her they were just for ourselves. We had a coupon that saved us ten dollars and gave her that. The woman in line behind us also had a coupon, an extra one, for twenty dollars off. She said we could have it too. I’m really starting to get in the spirit.
Looking across Eastman Lake in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York
Unless my math is off we’ve skied seven days this winter and it’s not even officially winter yet. We had to get out there early today because forty degrees and rain is moving into our region. A good start.
I gave my new 45 case a coat of primer tonight. I plan to paint it black (and I just so happen to have a London Records single with that name). It is about four feet long and two shelves high. A modest collection. I got rid of the duplicates between Peggi’s and my collections from our respective youths and I kept most of the seventies and eighties stuff. I got rid of the crap but kept some stuff that is so bad it’s good. We’re gearing up for another 45 party.
I bought some seven inch wide boards at Lowe’s and cut channels to slide portions into so there are eight chambers in the shelf. A proper ruler would have been the tool for that but I don’t have one. I thought about clamping a straight edge on the boards and running my circular saw, set at a shallow, 1/8 inch depth, though but that seemed like too much work, adjusting the guide for each saw blade width. So I used my table saw and cut the channel on the bottom side of the board with the blade just barely poking up from the table. Managed to not cut any finger tips off. We have Part 1 and Part 2 of that song as well.
Bull’s head over the bar at Ox & Stone on Alexander Street
We spotted our neighbor in Wegman’s buying prescriptions for her mom. We usually see her out skiing in the woods and we told her how perfect the conditions were today. A fresh couple of inches, clear blue sky, newly groomed trails and just 16 degrees. Nothing sticky about that.
The Members Show at RoCo looked really good during the day light hours. Of course in a floor to ceiling, salon style show different things catch your eye each visit. We were there to pick up the Stewart Davis painting we bought from their side gallery. We chatted with Bleu and then headed over to Casey’s new joint on Alexander Street, Lanai. The restaurant wasn’t open yet and we were starved so went across the street to Ox & Stone. It was too early for dinner there too so we sat at the bar under this big bull head and ordered Spanish style tapas.
Paul and Peggi shadows on golf course while skiing
There is a volunteer cross country ski foundation that grooms the golf course at Durand each Winter. It’s $10 for four months and if you are a member you can check out the conditions before leaving the house. They had already groomed a few trails by the time we got down there this afternoon so we were able to ski up to the lake but the ground is not frozen yet so it got sticky. We are supposed to get another foot tonight so that will help.
Protected heating controls In gym at Brighton High School
I like mountain pose.There is not much to it. And I love Savasana, the Sanskrit name for the relaxation pose we do at the end of class. Between those two there is some real work to do in opening up the creaky old frame. I like Jeffery’s class because he keeps you engaged. My tendency is to daydream but I surrender myself to watching and listening to him and two hours fly by.
Tonight he read a short passage from a motivational book at the end of class that I really liked. It was about salmon swimming upstream. You would think they’d choose the path of least resistence but they swim into the strongest current because they know that channel is unobstructed. We are meant to tackle things head on. I see the Bills won in OT yesterday.
Matthew made soup but he forgot to bring it out to the new place where we were rebuilding an exterior wall from the inside out. There was a large can of Campbell’s Alphabet soup out there so we heated that up for lunch and I couldn’t believe how good it was. Is that because of the salt? The first two letters I saw were a “P’ and an “E.’
I’m tired of not being able to reach the 45s on the top shelf of the book case so I’m planning on building a cabinet that will sit on the floor under a table near our stereo. That prompted me to file away some the ones that have been sitting in a stack – black column with no jackets – 45s that Peggi and I had when we were young. We didn’t know each other then but we have plenty of duplicates so I’ve been sorting those out too, keeping the copy with least amount of pops. I can usually tell which one is Peggi’s because she used to write her name on them and in some cases her name plus her boyfriend de jour.
I have a lot of friends who worked in record stores, Martin at Midtown and Record Theater, Kevin and Corrine at Record Theater, Andrea at Discount Records, and they would know the protocol for alphabetizing bands but I’m wrestling with a few things. You certainly don’t file all the “The So-&-Sos” bands under “The” so you drop the “The.” If an artist records under their own name you would file it under their last name but if they record under the name of a band with their name in it like Bobby Fuller Four or Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers I think you file them under the first letter in their first names. Do The 4 Seasons go under “Four” in the “F’s” or “4” at the beginning of the whole alphabet? And what about Little Peggy March or Chubby Checker? Do they go under their nicknames or their last names? Does Dr. John go under Dr. or Doctor or John? I went with Dr. he sits just after The Dovells.
Paul and Peggi silhouettes at Durand Eastman Beach
As you can see from the evidence in this photo, the sun, even in the early afternoon, is way down south. Because the temperature was near freezing we felt safe enough to take our woods path up to the lake. The ticks are supposed to be inactive at 40 degrees. We had not been through the Commons in months. Someone has cleared the fallen trees and the trail is ready for cross-country skiing. We did a little extra maintenance, removing branches and fallen debris. We got all the way up to the lake without seeing any deer. Maybe the bow hunters put a dent in the population. We saw Steve Greive the other day and he said he had shot four on his property. The lake is still supposed to be a foot above normal but there is plenty of beach there.
We went by Vic’s Place to confirm the rumor that we first heard from Duane in Brooklyn. The place is clearly out of business. I don’t quite understand it. They had pulled off the impossible, keeping Vic & Irv’s secret hot sauce recipe alive, making real milkshakes and serving the best onion rings in town. They had a real comfortable place there for few years and they seemed to have a good business going. I don’t understand this world.
We have forsythia bushes out front and in the back. Both are blossoming in December! And our red maple still has its leaves. Cold weather is on the way but the bits of color we have are hanging on. Reminds me of that Vanilla Fudge cover of a Supremes song. I saw them do that song in the Indiana University Fieldhouse. My college career was short but memorable.
We didn’t want to cut out of yoga early so we missed the first piece of Ossia’s “ShadeShifting” program this evening at Kilbourn Hall. It was called “Zugvogal” and it incorporated bird calls. The pieces we heard, all composed in the past twelve years, were spacey and beautiful, just what the doctor ordered after splitting wood for most of the day.
The final piece was stunning. The program notes described Toshio Hosokawa’s “Drawing” as “composed of highly intimate details. The smallest gestures and lines carry great weight. Subtle changes of color contain whole worlds of meaning. Airy canons at the beginning give way to splashes in the winds, until at the end the piece becomes meditative again, disappearing into a wisp of a cloud.”
Performer at John Cage Variations III performance at Visual Studies Workshop
We planned to save the RoCo Members Show opening for last and start our First Friday rounds at Axom Gallery with “NARTCAN: On the Subject of Addiction,” a group exhibition curated by Justin Chaiz, a nurse who cares for people suffering from addiction. I like the meaty theme and the way the artists, who all answered a call for entries, handled it. The multiple black and white photos of one addict were my favorite.
Second stop was the Visual Studies Workshop Auditorium where a good old-fashioned happening was in full swing, a 2 hour performance of John Cage’s “Variations III: For one or any number of people performing any actions.” A lot of familiar faces were participating but like any good happening, just by being there you too were a participant.
Mona Seghatoleslami was playing violin and reading randomly chosen passages from a book. Nuuj had his homemade synth there, Ian Downey was breaking wood with a hammer and his father, Ed, was playing violin in another corner. John Borek was passing out money and then charging you the same amount to make you a play dough gift. Ray Ray from the Little Theatre Café was drawing pictures on small sheets of paper while wearing a mask. Someone was riding a bike around in circles. Scott McCarney had an ironing board set up and he was cutting up pieces of paper and maps while working from a score. He explained the directions he was following but I didn’t understand it. At least twenty other performers were doing their thing at the same time. Drums, flutes, and a lot of banging. It was overwhelming at first but then strangely comforting.
We got to RoCo just before they closed up shop and we plan go back to study the Members Show.
Matthias Neumann “Double Bench” outside at Rochester Contemporary
Is it enough that the artist finds something interesting? I found myself pondering that question last night while talking to New York based artist, Matthias Neumann, at the opening reception for his “Double Bench.” We told him we stopped to study his sculpture on the way in and there was a woman sitting on it. He offered that he was interested in the juncture between non-objective and functional object. And he pointed out that he did call it a bench.
I was really struck by how beautiful the wood looked. His piece is made entirely of untreated 2x4s, held together with wood screws that are for the most part not visible. I roughed houses for a few years and built walls with 2x4s. We’d build them on the deck of the house. Plates, studs, corners and cripplers all built out of 2x4s. If it was an exterior wall we would sheet it, cut out the openings and then someone would yell, “Wall going up and we’d all help hoist it.” They were clearly walls, functional but beautiful.
Double Bench is part of an ongoing series of sculptural interventions that have been installed in public spaces throughout the US. It will on display all winter outside Rochester Contemporary.
Our neighbors, Jared and Sue, came to see the band for the first time this week. Jared was teasing Peggi about watching her split wood during the day and then play sax at night. I’m estimating we have three more days of splitting before all the logs that we’ve gathered will be stacked. Our weather is cooperating. The forties is perfect for working outdoors and it is supposed to be in that range for the next few days.
We had some friends over for dinner last night and we spent most of the afternoon preparing for it. We already had a bag of red peppers or I would have bought some of the “Aloha” peppers (above). Anne Havens and Stewart Davis brought a pomegranate and some dark chocolate. Pete and Gloria Monacelli brought some Australian wine with a mugshot on the label. Our common bond is art so naturally the conversation ran circles around that topic and the night flew by.
Years ago our friend, Kim, sent us a copy of Jim Shaw’s “Thrift Store Paintings,” a book of exactly that, his favorite hand picked purchases. At the time I didn’t realize that he was also an artist who did his own work. The two are not so unrelated. We fell in love with the book and I think we may have bought a copy or two as gifts.
Around that time we were having dinner with the Gardner’s, some friends of Peggi’s parents. I remember a couple of things about that dinner. They were big on some sort of cut of beef and they broiled a whole tray of the stuff. It was inedible. In the living room they had Jim Shaw’s book on the coffee table. They were surprised that we liked it and told us that Shaw was her maiden name and Jim was her nephew.
Margaret Explosion plays the Little Theater Café tonight, last gig there this year. 7-9pm. Hope you can stop out.
Jeffery (with two “f”s, Jeffery) is back teaching. He is easing into it, one class a week on Monday nights in the gym of the school Administration building in Brighton. I love it in there. I love looking up at the lights with their protective shields.
Last night was our third yoga class. It has been over a year since Jeffery was hit by a car in Costco’s Parking lot. He takes his time with each pose and thoroughly explains it while we ease into it. He describes the muscle groups we’re stretching and gives you the Sanskrit name for the pose. He is able to get me to focus even when I don’t want to. His class is supposed to be an hour and a half but he always goes long.
At the end of class he said something about enjoying the remains of the day and the dreamworld we enter in our sleep. Boy, did that last part work out. I had one of my favorite dreams. I was driving and the road opened up to an unfamiliar panorama view of the city. And then it took me into a really old, dense, almost European-looking part of the city, a place that was sort of familiar but I wouldn’t be able to get there if I wanted to.
I had my father in the car and I was trying to find the brick building where his doctor’s office was. We parked the car and watched a group of men swing a large, two storied, wood panel gate across the street between where we were and where we were going. We went into a crowded bar on the corner and sat with a heavy set black man who opened a small box of cigars. I took one for my father even though he never smoked. There was a group of people standing between the tables playing an electric guitar. It wasn’t plugged in. They appeared to be two couples and they were taking turns singing Byrds songs from “The Notorious Byrd Brothers” album. I looked down at the guitar case and there was a Personal Effects sticker on it. Did we know these people?
Back on the street they were swinging the gates open and it became clear that a religious ceremony had been taking place in front of a church. Someone had been speaking but the crowd was dispersing. There were small groups of people with life sized crucifixes, life-sized but with a much longer base, and it took at least three people to hold them up. One of the crucifixes was laying on the ground and I went over to get a close look at it. People gathered around me and helped me lift it up. I was thinking, “Wait, I was only looking” but it was too late. I was struggling to keep this thing upright and almost burst out laughing.
