PopWars

Up here, near Lake Ontario, we have not had an official frost so this seventy degree weather cannot be called Indian Summer. I’m only making that distinction because I stayed quiet when the lady at the voting booth called it such this morning. Somehow it always seems like a nice day when we vote. It probably has something to do with our route to the booths which takes us through the woods in the park, across the creek and up into the neighborhood of small houses between Culver and the park. Why isn’t this the new hipster section of Rochester? That would probably have something to do with number of Tea Party flags flying here. And those little placards in the window that read, “This house is protected by 2nd Amendment.”

The firehouse in Point Pleasant Fire is nestled into the aptly-named neighborhood. And the best part of voting here is getting a peek of the dreamy bar in the next room. Every year I vow to rent the place for a party, one with a band and dancing. We could crawl home through the woods.

We considered going to the Halloween Bowie Karaoke event, “Bowieoke,” at Visual Studies tonight, just long enough to have “Golden Years” stuck in my head. Someone plans to to re-enact the 1976 Bowie/Iggy Rochester drug bust and I would to see that.

I was thinking we had to drop off art work for the RoCo Members show this weekend but that’s next weekend. And Peggi had set aside a coupon for Parkleigh, where my sister works, so we planned to stop by there, mainly to visit but also to take advantage of the coupon. Turns out the sale is next weekend. We’re gonna need the extra hour tonight to get our life organized.

We stopped in the new India House restaurant on Èast Ridge Road. They’re in a strip mall across from Medley Center in a place that was Chinese and then Thai and they are apparently too new to have any customers yet. We were the only ones in the place and we were ordering to go. We told the waiter we were in the mood for something hearty. He said, “What is hearty?” We tried “substantial, meaty without meat, not light, beans” and a few others. He recommended a spinach paneer dish and it hit the spot.

On the way home we passed a group of kids in costumes. I had the idea to yell “boo” so I pushed the button to lower the window. We were around the corner before I got it down.

Away from Lake Ontario, further south but at higher elevations, the Fall colors are peaking or past. Up near the lake we are still coming on. We walked around the east side of Eastman Lake and then back along the western side of Durand Lake today. The paths were partially underwater along both lakes, unusual for this time of year. We suspected beaver action and sure enough we found it about halfway down.

The Buffalo Bills play their NFL game in Wembley Stadium this weekend. And here I’ve been holding out for the English version of football to come this way. We just bought season tickets to Western New York Flash for next year.

I walked with my mom this afternoon. She was too tired to do a lap of the building so walked up and down the halls of her apartment building. There was a real ruckus going on in the big room so we ducked in to see what was going on. A group of woman were playing Wii bowling and we stayed around long enough to watch one of the residents pick off a mean split.

I usually put my iPad in my bike basket but about halfway home I looked down and it wasn’t there. I couldn’t imagine it falling out. I called my mom when I got home asked if she saw my iPad near her chair. She never took to computers and she doesn’t really know what an iPad is so I found myself saying things like, “It’s black and thin and and it has glass on it.” My mom has a little problem with her hearing and lately with her vision so our conversation went something like a Burns and Allen routine. I drove back over there and by the time I got there she had found it.

Rick came over this evening for a few games of horseshoes. We always play best of three and it usually takes the three to determine a winner. Rick’s two and my one. I feel as though I could win more often if I could concentrate on what I’m doing. In a few more years we’ll be sitting in chairs, playing Wii Bowling.

Arthur Dove’s father ran a brick making plant in nearby Geneva, NY. There were as many as ten brickyards in the Rochester area at one time. Henrietta’s town historian invited my father to give a talk on bricks. Specifically, the Brighton Brick yard, which used to sit on Monroe Avenue near 12 corners.

Peggi and I helped by proofing his slides. Peggi caught a measurement labeled with “(inches) rather than ‘(feet) and of course we had to tell my father about the scene in “Spinal Tap” where Nigel does a sketches for some Stonehenge props. I exported my father’s Keynote presentation to his first generation iPad and I sat with the iPad and projector, advancing the slides at my father’s pace. I went the wrong way a few times but we worked pretty good as a team. This was not the first time and my father is getting really good at this. His slides contain the pertinent information, not too much, and he is able to talk to the slides in a comfortable way bring the graphics to life.

Yesterday’s 2PM presentation was held at the Senior Citizens Center on Calkins Road. Last time I was out this way we saw Captain Beefheart with Frank Zappa at the Dome Arena. It was not a good period for either. The Henrietta officials started the presentation with the Pledge of Allegiance, which caught me completely off guard. I should know the words to that damn thing by now. And it was followed by an announced but unexplained “moment of silence.” The florescent lights were washing out the opening slide so I asked the town historian if she could turn them off and she obliged. They gave my father a wireless mic and when he turned it on it screeched with painful feedback. The speakers for the PA were immediately overhead, built into the ceiling, a no-win situation. I asked them to turn the PA down and my father proceeded to use the mic as a pointer so the only time we really heard it was when he touched the screen with it to point something out. “Thump, thump, thump.”

The audience here was really into it. Peggi and I were as well. The guy sitting next to me was taking notes and scrambling o keep up. Ingeniously, my father used a handful of existing photos and early illustrations to pick up scale and measurements of the equipment involved in the brick making process. He used Google’s 3D illustration program,”Sketch-Up,” to create drawings of the buildings, kilns, machinery, molds, transportation systems, rail tracks and even the housing for the workers. And he employed his fanciful side to illustrate with his paintings what these plants must have looked like. He overlaid his to-scale drawings on old maps recreated the past for us. No small feat!