PopWars: Recent Episodes
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Frying Pan at Abilene on 051825We were both sitting at our computers last night when we realized 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 AbileneWe couldn’t hear any of the lyrics so we asked Pat what he was singing about. He told 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.
Window on Union Street in RochesterI 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 wind 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.
Margaret Explosion soundcheck at Highland Bowl June 2025. Peggi Fournier, Bernie Heveron, Ken Frank and Jack Schaefer. The drummer took the photo.We played in the Highland Bowl over the weekend. Maeve reminded us we had played here with her band back in the early eighties. We saw her (and everyone else from our neighborhood) at the demonstration. I recorded the show but the breeze, which was hardly noticeable, wrecked havoc on the mics. Now I remember why that furry thing came with the recorder.
Margaret Explosion’s two half-hour sets were sandwiched between three different poets, each equally engaging. Ralph Black is a Professor Emeritus at Brockport, Kathy Engel is a Professor at NYU and Patricia Spears Jones is the current New York State Poet Laureate. She read a poem about Sly Stone, so timely after his death I thought for sure she had just written it, but I noticed she was reading from one of her books. I took note of the cover. A few pieces later she read one about James Brown that had us applauding. It was from a different book. After the show I stood in line to buy one of her books. I told her I couldn’t decide whether to get the one with the James Brown piece or the one with the Sly piece. She said “buy them both.” I bought bought one and Bernie, who played guitar with us, bought the other. We plan to swap.
We listened to our Beach Boys singles over the weekend. Still have thirteen of them, some with Peggi’s teenage signature on them. And we finished that stack with one album track, “Surf’s Up.” They were so good. I have a shorter stack of Sly singles, about ten, on deck for tonight. Long live Brian and Sly.
“No King” sign at Irondequoit “No Kings” protestLast month’s big protest at Cobb’s Hill was reaffirming. But it was someone’s brilliant stroke to organize yesterday’s demonstrations in so many parts of the city, in so many cities. Of course it made attending convenient and surely brought out more people. The local sites included “Lakeshore at Durand Eastman.” That’s more than a mile long. Where, we wondered?
The beginning of a mile of “No Kings” protesters – Zoo Road and Lakeshore BoulevardWe walked from our house through the park (with others) to the lake. We could hear the cars honking and the crowd cheering. The crowd lined Lakeshore Boulevard from Zoo Road to Rock Beach Road. Someone gave us a small upside down flag. “It’s a distress signal,” they said. Most people had homemade signs, not the mass produced signs you see at a Trump rally. We saw many of our neighbors. I told the women holding this sign that I liked her graphics. We came home with the flags. I feel like we are starting to reclaim it.
Margaret Explosion performs at Writers and Books Poetry Festival 2025 in Highland BowlA few years back Frank DeBlase of City Newspaper wrote: “Margaret Explosion’s music paints pictures in my head non stop.” For Pete Monacelli our music puts words on paper. He sends us his verse after each gig. Here is something he wrote a few weeks back:
Start and stop
Feet on the ground
Song of creation
Floating atoms
Vast fires
Change, Change, Change
Open and close
Not terminal
universal
evolving
Feet on the ground
Change, Change, Change
A black hole
Consuming
Musical notes
To infinity
Feet on the ground
Change, Change, Change
Stir the water
Healing comes
Super nova
Explosion
New beginnings
Change, Change, Chang
Awake
Alive and well
Feet on the ground
Rest
Silence
Change, Change, Change
Desert
Between two rivers
Birth
And death
And birth
Change, Change, Change
Wall under South Avenue bridgeThe crews who go around the world covering up graffitti can’t seem to settle on the right Pantone color for the job. And we are all the richer for that. I love these abstracts. Here’s a few recent captures – one two
Peggi and I were shopping at Wegmans yesterday when a man, somewhere near our age, wheeled by in one of those electric shopping carts. We heard him coming. He was chanting, in a sing-song manner, “Trump is a nazi” over and over again. We first saw him in the produce department and then over by the yogurt. As we headed up to the check-out we crossed paths again. Same song, over and over again.
John Robert Jewelers truck, Sea BreezeI spotted this truck parked by the amusement park in Sea Breeze. I had my España national team jersey on, we walked through the woods and down Culver to Shamrock Jack’s to watch the Nation’s League final with Spain and Portugal. The pre-game was on one of the seven big TVs so we sat right in front of it at the end of the bar.
There was an older couple next to us. We gathered their daughter was sitting next to them and they were having a good time. The guy said something about his birthday and Peggi and I wished him a happy one. I asked if it was a big one, Peggi and I had just celebrated one, and he said, “Yeah, guess how old I am.” I can’t tell anymore and I didn’t want to insult him so I went with 65, thinking he look older than us but was probably younger. “Guess again he said. “Seventy five?” “Higher,” the guy said. “Eighty?” He settled on 83. We clinked glasses again. The bartender said, “Everyone I know who drinks Johnny Walker lives into their eighties.”
The game was pretty good, tied 2-2 by the 40 year old Ronaldo on the hour mark, but it was frustrating for me. Spain had most of the possession but looked like they were scrambling. They clearly had a hard time moving the ball through the center and repeatedly lost the ball there. I was expecting magic. Professional coverage here.
There’s Notre Dame posters and gear all around the bar, the Irish connection, and they are the local hub for the Premier League’s Aston Villa fans but we were the only ones watching the Spain game. More family members showed up to meet the people next to us and they moved to a table. Another couple sat down minutes later. They were clearly older than us and our ears perked up when the woman mentioned something about Ezra Klein. They took forever to decide what they wanted to drink and the guy finally settled on an Amstel Light. It was served in a proper glass with the Amstel logo.
The sound was off on the tv so our squeals appeared out of context. The new couple asked me if I had played soccer. “A long time ago,” I said. They told us someone had given them a gift certificate to nearby restaurant and they went to Margies down on the lake but they were charging admission because there was a band so they were “bar hoping” before dinner. They told us they gone out to hear their son’s band, The Rhino Chasers, a surf band, the night before. We told them we are in a band as well and they acted like they wanted to hear us. We told them we are playing Friday at the Highland Bowl a whole lot of poets, Writers & Books Poetry Festival.
We each managed to nurse a beer the whole 90 minute match but we split a third for stoppage time. The match went the duration and Spain lost in shoot outs. We went home and played music in the basement.
Display case in Barrington Street SchoolCorrine Atias went to grade school here on the Barrington Street in the Park Avenue area. We picked up our programs for the annual Landmark Society House & Garden tour in the school and walked by the apartment on Dartmouth where we lived when we first moved here in the mid seventies. It is now a hideous green. Our first stop was a Claude Bragdon house on the corner of Dartmouth and Park. There was a beautiful painting of the original owners hanging in the stairwell. We were told the small portrait in the woman’s hand was of her first husband who died in a dual. Our favorite house on the tour was a Bungalow style house at 417 Westminster. A recessed, center entrance under a pergola opens to a light filled living room as wide as the large house. The house was featured in a book. The backyard garden with a weeping Atlas Cedar and waterfall was heavenly.
Since we don’t subscribe to Fox Sports we have to find a spot to watch the international final between Spain and Portugal tomorrow. We’re thinking maybe nearby Shamrock Jack’s or Sheffield if they are open at three in the afternoon. We watched Spain beat France 5-4 in Magpie on Park Avenue with Scott and guy named Bob who told us he watched a lot of Rugby. He didn’t have to tell us that. He looked exactly like a rugby player. We were the only ones in there except for the bartender and a guy we used to call “Mike Mohawk” back in the Scorgie’s days. Scott gave us a couple of his books. Peggi is anxious to dive into the one on Detroit.
City of Rochester aerial photo of Kodak and Genesee RiverThere was a Whole Earth like moment when the promise of the internet first became apparent. Creative types could have a website with an address on the World Wide Web. I’m not sure what happened. Peggi might know. She’s been reading “Careless People.” Maybe we were doomed to scroll endlessly.
My favorite Rochester website is Gonechester. We think of our city as always having been the way it is. Do you recognize anything in the photo above other than Kodak Office building? Our city is continually reshaping itself. Geoffrey Zeiner’s posts uncover the rich past of our city. My grandparents both worked at local shoe factories. This history shaped us.
A Heckel Pat. Turn Shank advertising paperweight.The Gonechester site pulls together sources to tell stories about people and places that once were part of Rochester, NY, but now are no longer with us. Photographs, newspaper articles, and primary documents are all included to paint a picture of these lost locations, and the people who lived and worked in them. If deep diving on a well researched website with dreamy photos is not your thing Geoffrey is giving a talk, entitled ”A Walk Through a Disappeared Downtown,” at the Chili Public Library, Thursday, June 12th, at 6:30 PM. He has a video about the History of Rochester’s Main Street Bridge.
Chinaboise Self Conscious Pisser sheet musicWe recently turned to our friend, Rich, for some legal advice. He told us he enjoys talking about the kind issues we like to put off. He was very helpful, of course, but the is the same individual who coined the phrase, “Often in error, never in doubt.” He told us that a song of his, the instrumental, MX-80 version, had caught on in Russia, probably in TicToc circles, and he was recieving respectable royalties from it.
Peggi and I played with Rich in a band called “Chinaboise” before moving to Rochester at the end of 1974. Peggi gave Peggi her first saxophone lessons. Hava Nagila was the first song she learned. We played Self-Conscious Pisser (the lyrics were written about another friend of ours) and I guess I hung onto the sheet music. It belongs in a museum. The Chinaboise, with new members, recorded a 1975 album with SCP on it. Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney left Chinaboise and joined MX-80 Sound. They recorded a version of SCP in 1976 for their “Big Hits” ep. The song was also included in their 1990, all instrumental smash, “Das Love Boat.” And today it is big in Russia.
Margaret Explosion LP “Per La Prima!” EAR 19 on Earring Records, released September 2023Back cover of Margaret Explosion LP “Per La Prima!” EAR 19 2023I wrote a review of Greg Prevost’s fabulous new lp a few weeks back. And at the time I did not want to mention that Greg had reviewed our recent lp. “per la prima.” This wan’t payback. We really love the album, mostly because it appeared to us that Greg had really transformed himself, stepped into another realm. No longer just the former lead singer of the Chesterfield Kings but Greg “Stackhouse” Prevost. Now is the time to reprint Greg’s review of our lp – taken from his Facebook page.
“Really enjoying the latest album ‘per la prima’ by the Margaret Explosion led by Paul Dodd (drums) and Peggi Fournier (soprano sax). I have known Paul since his time as the drummer in New Math back in the late ‘70s; in fact one of the first times I ever appeared in public was with New Math (when I was invited onstage by Gary Trainer and Kevin Patrick) at a Record Archive party circa ‘79. Paul was the drummer at this time so we go WAY back! I met Peggi shortly after this when my former now-defunct band opened for Paul & Peggi’s band, the Hi-Techs at the end of 1980. For those that may not know, the Hi-Techs morphed into Personal Effects who made a number of hugely successful albums and were a staple in the Rochester scene through the years that followed.
Paul and Peggi then re-invented themselves as the Margaret Explosion and are a constant in the Rochester music scene, performing intimate shows at the Little Theater where this album was recorded-LIVE. A perfect NATURAL recording the way albums are supposed to be recorded. Other members appearing on the album are Jack Schaefer (my close friend Bob’s brother, on tenor sax, bass clarinet and guitar), old pal Bob Martin (guitar), Ken Frank (double bass), Pete LaBonne (piano) and the lovely Melissa Davies on cello (thanks to a chance meeting Caroll and I had with Paul and Peggi at Durand Park, Melissa appeared on my latest album). It is nearly impossible to describe the album. If I had to, I’d say surreal, freeform and euphoric. Comparing to other artists would also not do justice since the group is so original, but think on the lines of early Popul Vuh, Lol Coxhill (at times), Ash Ra Temple, Traffic at their most experimental, Miles, Coltrane … Yeah! Hear for yourself! Beautifully mastered and pressed on vinyl.”
Paul Dodd “The Art Gallery” acrylic on paper 2024Drop-off for the annual Members Show at RoCo was this past weekend. I was torn between submitting a photo from my “Portals and Planes” show or the abstract above. Interesting that it came down to those two. They are really very similar. Peggi helped me make the decision and the acrylic on paper has been entered.
Rochester Contemporary Director, Bleu Cease, with copy of Margaret Explosion’s new cd. Photo by Peggi Fournier.While we were there we gave Bleu Cease a copy of the new Margaret Explosion cd, “Field Recordings.” Peggi was struck by the color scheme. I took the color out of East Avenue to heighten the matchy matchy.
Unique Fair double portraits “Pax Plexus & Epoch” at Rochester ContemporaryWe were out of town for the opening of “Queering Democracy,” the current show so we took the opportunity to take in the show. We felt comfortable hanging around because we had parked using the new Flowbird app. You type in your location and the meter starts. It stops charging when gps notes that you left the space. Turns out we never engaged it properly so we parked for free and didn’t get caught.
The double portrait above by Rochester artist, Unique Fair, was my favorite piece. We talked to Bleu again on the way out and I had an opportunity to pass on a comment that Anne Havens wanted me to share with the Director. It is somewhat bothersome to have art shows hinged to secondary concerns, secondary to the visual that is. The wall tags are getting bigger than the artwork.
Margaret Explosion cd cover of “Field Recordings” EAR20 2024With a little bit of editing, looping of intros, abbreviating mid-sections and cutting off the extended, musicianly endings we squeezed seventeen songs onto our new cd,. The Margaret Explosion crowd still buys cds and a few even complained that our last release was only available on vinyl. Our distribution amounts to the record stores in Rochester and the people who come out to hear the band at the Little but they are a reliable market. I prefer streaming and I’m happy to announce that our new release is available on all the streaming services today.
Margaret Explosion cd back cover of “Field Recordings” EAR20 2024Field Recordings includes 17 improvisations recorded live in stereo at the Little Theatre Café in Rochester New York. Various combinations of the following players are featured. I hope you enjoy it.
Peggi Fournier – soprano sax
Ken Frank – double bass
Melissa Davies – cello
Phil Marshall – guitar
Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, guitar
Paul Dodd – drums
“Cloud Library” from Margaret Explosion cd “Field Recordings”
Trump Harris T-shirts on Canal Street copyForty years ago, on election night 1984, Personal Effects opened for John Cale at Scorgie’s. Ronald Reagan was running for his second term. Americans loved that guy, an old, former movie actor. John Cale behaved as if it was the end of the world. He was drinking, a bottle of cognac that Scorgie provided, and he had a TV set on stage with him, tuned to live election night coverage. He bounded on stage, maniacally shouting “Four More Years, Four More Years, Four More Years.” It was sensational. Eight years ago, the night after Election Day, Margaret Explosion played the Little Theatre Café. Another old actor had won the presidency. This time it was like a morgue but I remember it being good musically.
On the A train to JFK we noticed a heavy set man with a big suitcase asking directions with a German accent. Not all the A trains go as far as Howard Beach where we were to pick up the Airtrain and we shared his concern. We decided to get off at the next stop and re-board a later A train. The German fellow did the same. He immediately struck up a conversation with a Jamaican woman and we listened in. She told him she too was going to Howard Beach so we followed her lead.
I took a closer look at the guys’ suitcase. It was one of those bulbous aluminum fortresses on wheels, maybe three feet high, with the Statue of Liberty and American flag printed on it. We told him we were going to JFK as well. He said he had come over on the Queen Mary and had spent a few days in Boston, Washington DC and New York City. He unfolded a paper map and showed us where his hotel was in lower Manhattan. And he traced the route he had walked in the city with his finger. Across town and up to 59th Street where he took the – and here he couldn’t come up with the word, he pinched his fingers together, looked up and moved his hand across the sky. “Tram,” we said in unison.
With delight he told us he had walked over to Trump Tower in midtown. We both groaned but he was beaming. We were impressed by the amount of walking he did and I wondered if he could have possibly walked more than we had. I looked down at his shoes and they were a worn pair of real walking shoes.
Opening for Henry Taylor “no title” show at Hauser Wirth in ChelseaThe first stop on our art tour was the inaugural show at Marian Goodman Gallery, a collection of work by artists they represent. The Denzil Forrester “Two Islands, One World” show on Walker Street included a portrait of Lee Perry and funky scenes of music centered island culture. Robert Pokorny’s “Lost in a Dream” showed pop/surreal, mash-ups of Guston’s building blocks. Peter Kim’s reduced palette of simple organic, almost flat forms felt very familiar to me, like something I was fumbling to do years ago. The small oil paintings by Dorian Cohen on Henry Street reminded me of Holly’s paintings in Bloomington. The galleries are spread out here so we wandered and struck some gold before reaching the lowest portion of the lower east side where we had Basque food at Ernesto’s.
Friday was devoted to mining the galleries in Chelsea. On the train I looked to see what was at Hauser Wirth and learned they were closed until Saturday’s opening. But there are two Hauser Wirth’s in Chelsea so our first stop was 18th Street where they were showing new Henry Taylor paintings and prints, a show called “no title.” We fell in love withTaylor’s work at his Whitney show last year and here we were on opening day with his new work.
The four Henry Taylor paintings in the photo above each started with a print from an edition of his drawing of a young boy. Taylor’s paint handling is so full of life. It is luscious and rough and tumble at the same time. I loved how these four variations illustrate his mastery. The show had just been hung and the opening was that evening. One wall of the gallery was lined with Taylor’s etchings, all done in 2024 and each in an addition of 25. I started photographing them all but I stopped at the third. Something happened to me as I studied it. I was delirious. I asked a gallery attendant how much they were. He took our name and number and said it was ours when the show comes down.
In the book store I breezed through the new Chillida book (written by his daughter) and discovered it was full of pictures so we bought that. They gave us another cloth bag, this one egg yolk yellow. It looked so good on Peggi who was wearing all black. I was floating on air when we left but I kept thinking about how loose the purchase offer remained. Did we really buy it? We decided to go back to opening later that night. Maybe even meet the artist.
A block away I dismissed Kibong Rhea’s silvery landscapes as b&w photos printed on canvas but they were so beautiful we stayed in their company. We discovered they weren’t photos at all but multilayered acrylic and polyester fiber paintings, foggy day dreamscapes. A reminder to keep my mind open. I loved the large Carrie Mae Weems photos on canvas at Gladstone, shown with very little light on them, photos of wall panels surrounding construction sites that over time take on the look of abstract expressionist paintings.
We had dinner at an Italian place and returned to Hauser Wirth in time for the opening. We had a glass of champaign and were assured by Jonathan that our transaction was solid. We hung with the work and got into deep conversations about it with total strangers. We left before Henry showed up.
David Salle, “New Pastoral, Ballerinas,” 2024 at Gladstone Gallery in ChelseaThere are two David Salle shows in Chelsea . He is showing monotypes and paintings of cartoon-like characters at Pace Prints and AI assisted paintings at Gladstone. Salle himself walked into the room as I was photographing his painting above. I’m not particularly fond of his paintings but I really enjoyed his “How to See” book and there is no denying he is a great painter.
According to a New York Times article Salle jokes that he sent a program to art school, teaching it how a painting works by feeding it a balanced diet of his favorites — Arthur Dove for line, Edward Hopper for volume, De Chirico for space, Warhol for color — as well as his own “Pastorals,” before administering a final exam. He effectively reverse engineered David Salle paintings.
Funny thing is in my Photos library my photo (above) has one of those AI “Look up Artwork” icons on it and when I clicked on it it took me to “The Dinosaurs of Avignon” by Martin Davey, a hideous painting that I can only hope was generated with AI. An AI creation misidentified by AI as another AI painting.
Ikebana (Escapism)” 2024 by Alexandre da Cunha at James Cohan Gallery in TribecaHardly have time to post down here, looking at all the new buildings and just looking at everything. The skinny black woman in the “RAW” t-shirt, just long enough to serve as a dress. The woman in black hijab garb with clean white sneakers and a pink head scarf. The Mexican with the pompadour, tortoiseshell sun glasses and glitter speckled sweater. The young couple sitting across from us on the F train. He with a “This Is Who You Worship Now” t-shirt and she with the white dress, blond hair, red lipstick, red purse, red phone and gold shoes. All this before we got to the gallery district in Tribeca.
Campaign sign in NYCWhen Joe Barrett was doing Summer Theatre at University of Rochester he had a part in “Blood Wedding,” the Federico Garcia Lorca play about the big stuff, love, sexuality and violence. The play was in English but I understood very little of it. Years ago we saw a reading of Lorca’s “Poeta en Nueva York” in a bookstore in Madrid. The performer was accompanied by a guitar player and although I understood very little of the Spanish it was memorable because it was intensely dramatic.
Today we saw/heard “Ainadamar,” a dramatization of Lorca’s life and work in flamenco opera form at the Metropolitan. The poet-playwright was assassinated by fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War because of his socialist politics and homosexuality.
I resisted looking down at the translations and let myself get swept away by the modern pageantry. The man who played Franco, or someone like him, sang in a Saeta voice as if he was petitioning the Virgin Mary on Semana Santa. Of Lorca he sang, “He has done more harm with his pen than others with their pistols. “He is a faggot and a communist.”
Lorca, played by a woman, sang “Forgive me Father, even though I have done nothing wrong. Forgive me father for I have sinned. There is no god. Only the bull. There is no god. Only my café.”
Peggi and have been enjoying a mini news fast down here but watching fascism take Lorca out just three days before the election I could not help but think about el payaso, pictured on the streets of Manhattan (above.)
Duane’s padOur neighbor’s watch lost its connection to her phone yesterday. I’m guessing she was trying to find her phone with it and then discovered the disconnect. She knocked on our door for help and I suggested she start by turning off both devices, then turning Bluetooth and WiFi off and on again, the boring stuff. It fixes everything.
We hardly had time to finish our coffee this morning and we were already at the airport. While we waited for our plane I went to the nearby unisex/baby-changing restroom. I looked the door behind me and immediately an alarm went off. I pictured some sort of emergency in the airport but then spotted a phone blinking on top the toilet paper dispenser. I really didn’t want to touch the phone so I left it there and walked down to the Men’s room.
From JFK we took the train to Duane’s place. Before we even reached the turnstile we got a prompt that informed us we no longer needed to double tap to pay our fares. I held my watch up for Peggi to go through and then held it up again for me to pass but it would not allow me to do two fares. I asked Peggi to pass me her phone and I used it to get through.
This is probably a good thing. A few years ago I I tried to pay Duane’s fare and he was busy talking to Peggi and a total stranger slid through on my dime.
Our friend, Pete, was given an old copy of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” with illustrations by Gustave Dore. Really old, like 1878. The pages were worn and brittle at the edges and the binding was falling apart. Pete painted and drew over the top the pages and brought the ancient text to life. Pete is always at the Little Theatre Café when Margaret Explosion plays. He was sitting at one of the front tables a few weeks ago when we came up with this tune. We named it “Paradise Lost.”
Dick and Lucinda Storms were showing their recent paintings. The crowd was more chatty than usual. We trust the conversations were good interesting. We were having our own musical conversation. Paradise Lost tells the biblical story of the temptation of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I have to say the fall of man doesn’t look so bad from our paradise.
Margaret Explosion Big Band with Peggi Fournier, Melissa Davies, Phil Marshall, Ken Frank, Paul Dodd and Jack SchaeferMargaret Explosion plays Wednesday night with the full line-up in living color.
Teen Empowerment Ribbon Cutting with Rochester Mayor Malik Evans“I hear a whisper calling us to rise. Our story, it deserves the light.
They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds. A seed that’s planted in this community, it’s dat rose that grew outta da concrete.
Ensured our futures were so bright. I’m never lost with TE as my guide.
From abandoned and burnt houses on Genesee. To a beacon of hope within these cold streets.“
— I’Aisha Elsaw and Mekka Shareef – Teen Empowerment
We were so happy to be in the crowd on Genesee Street when the Mayor cut the ribbon on the new 4 million dollar Teen Empowerment building. The new building just across the street from their old location in the exotic Valiere building. Duane, who grew up in this neighborhood, turned us onto the place back in the late 70’s. The woman who ran the place sold exotic fabrics from the forties and fifties. Duane’s bachelor pad was outfitted by her.
For over twenty years Teen Empowerment has been a lifeline for the kids in this neighborhood.
Replica of Rosa Parks’ bus behind Van White’s mini Civil Rights museum in Rochester, New YorkEarlier this month the Landmark Society conducted a tour of the Gibbs Street, Selden Street and Grove Place neighborhood just a few blocks from the Eastman Theater. Along with six spectacularly renovated apartments we toured The Center For the Study of Civil and Human Rights Laws, a civil rights museum in what was once Susan B. Anthony’s lawyer’s (Samuel Selden) home.
The 4,000 square foot building located at 18 Grove Place serves as the office of Van White, currently a Monroe County Assistant District Attorney, formerly School Board President for the Rochester City School District, Chair of the Council of Urban School Boards Association and Director of the National School Boards Association.
Motivated by his father’s experiences of discrimination and his participation in the March on Washington in 1963 White embarked on a journey to preserve his father’s memory by collecting books and photographs from that pivotal time. His thriving civil rights law practice allowed him to build his collection with memorabilia like Martin Luther King’s pool table, a recreation of the lunch counter at Woolworth’s and a bus from the same fleet as the one Rosa Parks sat on.
American Dagger in the roadThis little guy was slinking across the street in front us today as we headed into the park. Peggi took a photo, submitted it to iNaturalist and identified it as an American Dagger, the caterpillar stage of a large moth. Such a dandy! We routinely identify leaves, trees, nuts and insects while we walk. Well, maybe once each walk, but I use the word “routine” because we take it for granted that we can identify something with our camera.
In the mid-nineties Pete LaBonne used the earliest text-to-voice Mac voices to create characters he interviewed on his “Ask Mr. Breakfast” show.
Listen to “Ask Mr. Breakfast” by Pete LaBonneFor years, Ken, the bass player in Margaret Explosion has created songs at home that you would never guess came from him. He pitch transposes his voice and uses an alter ego to create vaguely Germanic dance floor smashes. Today he is fooling with AI, submitting his lyrics and selecting parameters for the type of song he has in mind. He lets AI do the cover art while it’s at it. This is the next generation of song poems (without the wait time) and the performances are incredible.
I don’t waste time reading wall tags anymore. I photograph them and convert the photo to live text at home if I want. I’m waiting for curators to eliminate the square footage they devote to explaining the art. Put a bar code there for the curious and use the space to display more art.
We listen to NYT’s articles read by an AI voice while washing dishes or preparing meals. Despite putting too much emphasis on the “J” in Donald J. Trump it does a servicable job. Much better than the fake me I created on my iPad.
This morning we were reading about AI-powered Russian drones picking off tanks manned by Ukrainian forces on the front lines of their battle with Russia. These are brand new, top-of-the-line tanks provided by the US and they are suddenly outmoded. This is a brave new world.
Trio East at Little Theatre Café 2024We were downtown for another reason but grabbed a parking space near the back of the Little Theatre and walked through the Café on the way to our event. We stopped long enough to hear two songs by Trio East, all professors at Eastman School of Music, so accomplished they can do a gig as Trio East even when none of the three principals are available (thanks to their Eastman students sitting in for them). We witnessed one such show a few years ago. They have been playing here longer than Margaret Explosion.
Rich Thompson appears to be the leader. He had the set list, all standards, on his bass drum. Jeff Campbell plays bass and Mike Kaupa (filling in for Clay Jenkins) on trumpet and flugelhorn). They are masters of their instruments and it is a joy to listen to them play. Rich makes his drums sing. Sweeping his snare with his left hand and playing the beat with his right, then riding one of his two perfectly tuned cymbals between quick rolls on his toms, he keeps time with his left foot and hi-hat and accents the one on the floor. A master class.
R.G. Miller graphic painting RoCoThis was a powerful show and you have one day to catch it. R.G. Miller’s graphic paintings were on display at downtown’s RoCo gallery. We heard Miller’s lecture and we stopped by a few times during the run of this show. As tragic as the circumstances were, this is real art, real expression and I’m thankful RoCo showed this work..
“Along with hundreds of thousands of other Indigenous children across North America, R.G. Miller was forcibly removed from his family and community and put into an institution that Canadian officials proclaimed was intended to “kill the Indian in the child.” In the American version of these institutions the motto was “kill the Indian, save the man.” In addition to being deprived of his language, culture, security, nutrition, love, freedom, and community, Miller was subjected to chronic terror and abuse by the priests that administered the so-called ‘school.’ The exhibit includes large oil paintings, mixed media sketches, and collages created by Miller during 2003-2008. This project is intended to show the truth about these “death houses.”
“Be fearless. Don’t be afraid to put paint down. It will tell you if it’s right or wrong. You don’t have to know. You don’t have to think you know. Half the job of an artist is discovering when their accidents are better than what they know.” – R.G. Miller
Thomas Freidman on Charlie Rose show. iPad sketch by Leo DoddI took a painting class with my father for twenty years. We were students of Fred Lipp so this was not a formal art class. It was deeper than that, closer to an experience, one that I felt made his “students” richer as human beings. We all worked in our own mediums on our own projects. There were no lessons or exercises. It was often abstract as to what was being accomplished. Fred would circulate around the room for individual consultation – you were not allowed to talk until he “looked” at your work – and sometimes you would only have a couple of exchanges with him but they were packed. I would often write the comments down when he moved on to the next person. The comments would often appear cryptic the next day but then reveal themselves over time.
When Fred got to my father they would often talk about whoever the guest was on Charlie Rose’s show the night before. Fred came down with pancreatic cancer and died before my father. On his deathbed he told me, “Your father is a trip!”
My father, who often said he couldn’t talk without a pencil, used to sketch the guests on his iPad as he watched the show. Peggi read Thomas Friedman’s column aloud today while I did a few stretching exercises and it made think of my father’s iPad sketch. I put 250 of Leo’s Charlie Rose Drawings online in 2011.
Mary Bloss monument in Brighton Cemetary, Rochester, New YorkThe last time we visited the 1821 Brighton Cemetery was with my father as a guide. We placed our order at Canaltown yesterday and while Pete was packaging it up we walked over here. The cemetery is two hundred years old and with the help of the “Leo Dodd Fund,” Brighton Cemetery is now a designated landmark of the City of Rochester.
Just steps into the cemetery, at the end of Hoyt Place overlooking the Eastern Expressway and the former Erie Canal bed, you’ll spot names that are very familiar to locals. Penfield, Blossom, Watson and Hungerford. William Bloss, a tavern owner turned temperance advocate fought against slavery and for the right of women to vote. There is a monument to him and his wife Mary near the entry gate. I love the inscription below Mary’s face.
“Oh blessed harvest yet to be
Abide thou with the love that keeps
In its warm bosom tenderly
The life that wakes and that which sleeps”
The owners of the former brickyards in Brighton are all buried here with their families. Abner, Leonard, Amos and Hobart Buckland. Although we have no photos of these. In retirement, my father unearthed the history of Brighton’s brickyards and created portraits of the former owners.
Steve Hoy, Karen Mahoney and Paul Dodd in still from Personal Effects “Bring Out The Jazz” videoArpad has been mastering Margaret Explosion files for our new cd and sending them across town for us to review. We listen to some in the car, some on the small speakers connected to my desktop machine and most on the stereo in the living room. The files we sent him were just live stereo recordings and there is only so much you can do but Arpad works wonders.
At the same time Bob Martin in Chicago has been remixing songs we recorded as Personal Effects in 1984. The album, “This Is It,” was recorded forty years ago so this re-release will be the Special 40th Anniversary issue. In this case, there is a lot Bob can do to affect the mixes.
We recorded the album in our house on Hall Street where we used to rehearse. We borrowed equipment from Whirlwind where Bob was working. We ran a snake down our laundry shoot and Duane Sherwood sat behind the board in our spare bedroom while we played in the basement. We recorded on used half inch, eight track tapes that we bought from someone at the Eastman School of Music. Twenty years ago Bob transferred those eight tracks to DAT and today he is remixing the lp.
We have had a string of house guests and it has been hard to keep up with the remixes. When Bob sent the latest batch we told him it would take us a bit to get to the files because Steve Hoy was in town. He asked if it was Steve from the “Bring Out The Jazz” video (coincidentally a song from “This Is It.”) When we said it was, Bob sent us the still (above.)
We don’t remember who did the video. It was shot in our house on Hall Street and someone rounded up a lot of people. It is so bad it is good.
Abandoned car in Four Mile Creek Preserve, WebsterIf you walk every day you crave variety. We take various routes to the lake and sometimes walk in the neighborhoods. We don’t walk in the woods as much as we used to because of the prevalence of ticks. When we get out for an errand during the day we take a walk while we are out. When we go to the Co-Op we park in their lot and walk around downtown before shopping (and visiting Pete and Gloria.) We brought pimientos to my brother’s corn roast and left our splatter screen there. So we returned the next day and took a walk in the park near his house. My brother has never set foot in there.
Abandoned car in Four Mile Creek Preserve, WebsterYou used to see abandoned farm equipment and automobiles in farmer’s fields all the time. It is a long decay process for cars and I’m certainly not the only one who finds them beautiful. Four Mile Creek winds its way through this Preserve and then crosses under Lake Road and passes between the funky cottages and Hedges Restaurant before it flows into Lake Ontario.
Abandoned car in Four Mile Creek Preserve, WebsterThe decomposing cars in there bring a sense of history to the woods. Today’s cars with their transistors, plastic parts and forever chemicals would look hideous in the woods.
45 sleeves in alphabetical orderI always thought the name of that song was “When I Was Seventeen.” It is the key line and that is about the age I was when I first heard The Turtles version. But Frank owns the song and I was happy to find a copy on the 45 table in the back of the Bop Shop. The boxes were overstuffed at the beginning of the sale and it was difficult to flip through. They got cheaper as the sale went on and by the last day you could help yourself. Peggi and I took home a few boxes and we sorted the sleeves by label.
Peggi and I both hung on to our singles from the sixties and continued to buy 45s. When we dumped our lps and cds we hung on to the seven inchers. The two shelves aren’t getting any bigger though so we have continued to prune. The ones from the 70s and 80s brought a decent return and I used the store credit to pick from the mint copies that Tom keeps in the brown sleeves. They look like they came out of a library or something. I’d rather see them in the company sleeve and I am preparing to remedy that now.
Edith Piaf and Giulietta Masina check out new Joywave lpThe store was pretty crowded on Sunday afternoon. I said hello to Tom and went straight to the back of the store where I joined a couple of Black guys, about the same age as me, at the 45 table. They were filling a box and laughing at song titles and singles by Eydie Gormé and Engelbert Humperdinck.
I had already been in the store earlier in the week for the week long “Bop Shop Sidewalk Sale” but I didn’t have anywhere near enough time to work my way through the stacks. The boxes were overstuffed so it made flipping through them rough. Luckily I had to drop a tape for Matt to transfer and it gave me an excuse to flip through the rest. I was there a couple of hour and couldn’t make it to the bottom. The two other guys were still there when I left. The cashier saw my stack and said, “You better get your wallet out.” He didn’t even count them and charged me two bucks even.
“Highest Tightrope Walk” Guinness World Record Holders by Paul Dodd. Paintings from 1989 Pyramid Arts Center show. Acrylic house paint on billboard paper, 54″ wide by “60” high.Phillipe Petite’s feat made it into The “Guinness “World Record Holders” book. I had a paperback copy of the book and made a series of paintings based on the book. Done very quickly I used house paint on the back of big billboard sheets that I used to get from Dave Mahoney‘s father. The paintings were shown in 1989 at the cavernous Pyramid Arts Center in Village Gate. John Worden was the director and Kathy Russo the assistant. She brought Spaulding Gray up here and left town with him. They spent the rest of his life together. It is so easy to digress.
Phillipe Petite will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this feat in a performance in Manhattan this week. If you haven’t seen the 1984, Academy Award-winning documentary, “Man on Wire” now would be a good time to track that down.
My brother, Fran, doing a flip off diving board with Brad Fox in 1968We have been watching mostly soccer at this Olympics but Peggi did watch the Artistic Swimming event last night while I was showering. In my freshman year at IU I took a diving class with Hobie Billingsley. He was the Men’s Olympic diving coach at the time and I loved the way he got us to trust him on the first day of class. He had each member of the class climb the ladder of the ten meter tower, walk to the edge of the platform, turn around so our heels were just touching the edge and then fall backwards while keeping stiff as a board. If you did that you would do a perfect 360 and enter the water feet first. I have told this story many times because it was such a dramatic experience for me.
The filmmakers, Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck, capture that moment beautifully in their short film. “Our objective in making this film was something of a psychology experiment: We sought to capture people facing a difficult situation, to make a portrait of humans in doubt. “
HOPPTORNET (TEN METER TOWER) by Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van AertryckMy youngest brother, Fran, never went to college but he would not have flinched if he was in my diving class. He came out to Bloomington to live with Peggi and me for the summer between his junior and senior year in high school. You can see how fearless he is this photo of the two of us jumping into one of the quarries.
Paul and Fran jumping off edge of quarry 1973
Cover of April 1984 issue of Pat Thomas zine “The Notebook.” Cover picture shows Pat Thomas interviewing Allan Ginsberg.We reconnected with Pat Thomas when he gave a talk at Record Archive about his recent books on Allen Ginsberg and Jerry Rubin. Pat lives in the Bay Area now and told the crowd that he quit his job at Kodak when he realized “the world was much bigger than Rochester,” something that never dawned on us. I was thinking back to Pat’s magazine from his time here and I remembered keeping a copy of one issue where he reviewed one of our records. When I got back home I found it and this picture of Pat interviewing Allen in Rochester in “84.
Marc Weinstein was at Pat’s talk. He has recently moved back to Buffalo but he still plays in Pat’s band “Mushroom.” Their recent double lp has a fabulous 18 minute track on it entitled, “Marc Moved to Buffalo.” Pat’s Ginsberg book, “Material Wealth,” is fascinating. Pat came over for dinner the following night and I showed him my copy of his magazine.
Personal Effects album “This Is It” on Earring Records 1984 EAR 1PERSONAL EFFECTS “THIS IS IT” BY PAT THOMAS APRIL 1984“Personal Effects new album “This Is It” is a pop masterpiece in its own right. Recorded by the band themselves at home, the production is basic, yet smooth and flowing. The songwriting and musicianship is first rate, the lyrics and music complementing each other throughout the album.
A catchy guitar riff with a haunting organ background starts off “I Had Everything,” the opening song and one of the album’s more memorable melodic songs. (And one that I would strongly recommend for airplay.)
The alienation concepts of “No One Can Get To You” are lyrically, reminiscent of Jack Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums,” “sit in the woods for three days.
One of Personal Effects’ more popular songs follows, “Bring Out The Jazz,” a happy upbeat tune celebrating the joys of life with Paul’s vocal perfectly projecting the mood of the song. “Bring Out The Jazz” sums up what Personal Effects are all about. A fun, creative band without pretensions or falsehoods that make good, danceable, intellectually and physically stimulating and satisfying, pop music.
Other highlights include “Drifting Apart” – easily the best song on the album with its psychedelic feel, low-volume guitar providing just the right touch – a great mix and production that captures the spirit of the band and their live performances.
Another surprise follows, “What’s The Attraction.” Bernie’s lethargic vocal and intelligent lyrics tell an increasingly intense story of a religious-cult gathering or concert. The vocal line builds and builds as Bernie works himself into a nervous frenzy that is fantastic and genius.
In rock music’s existence, musicans and bands have influenced each other time and time again, sometimes to the point that everything begins to jell into one, evident thru MTV and FM-Top 40 radio stations. The best thing about Personal Effects and “This Is It” is summed up in one word; “UNIQUE.”
Duane Sherwood at the board in our spare bedroom on Hall Street. Bob Martin is listening to playback of “This Is It” sessions.The liner notes on the back of This Is It read: “This record was recorded and mixed at home on borrowed equipment by Personal Effects with help from Duane Sherwood.” Duane sat up in our spare bedroom with a borrowed board and a half inch eight track recorder. Bob borrowed a snake from Whirlwind where he worked and we ran it down the laundry shoot of our Hall Street house to the basement where the band played. Duane has our cat, Pia, in his arms.
Peggi recording Farfisa track for Personal Effects lp “This Is It”
Cover to “Personal Effects Nothing Lasts Forever – A Collection Part 2” Digital release August 6, 2024Today, August 6, “Personal Effects – Nothing Lasts Forever” drops on all the streaming platforms. The song itself is forty years old and the band members are even older (coincidentally Bob turns seventy today). The band released five albums in the early eighties and nineteen of those songs were collected for a cd/digital release in 2008. Nothing Lasts Forever includes eighteen more songs from the same period.
Personal Effects Nothing Lasts Forever – A Collection Part 2 can be streamed at Apple Music and Spotify and all the streaming services.
Listen to “Nothing Lasts Forever” by Personal EffectsPersonal Effects ‘”A Collection” CD on Earring Records released in 2008Cover to “Personal Effects Nothing Lasts Forever – A Collection Part 2” Digital release August 6, 2024
Four newly cut widows in South WedgeKevin and Jeanne went back to Nashville today. They were up in Rochester for the last month, staying at an airbnb in our old neighborhood, the neighborhood that got so hip after we left. We were there for 27 years and I preferred it when it wasn’t hip but it’s nice to see such a resurgence. We visited them at their place and had them over for dinner a few times. We went out to eat with them and met them at the Little to see a couple of bands. We heard Bernie, who played bass in Personal Effects for a while, playing guitar with the Paul Nunes Band and we heard Pete playing drums with the Debbie Kendrick Project.
Kevin used to do sound for the Hi-Techs and Personal Effects and he played bass on Personal Effects’ last two records. We FaceTimed Bob Martin when Kevin was over. Bob played guitar with Personal Effects and has been working on a remix of the “This Is It” sessions. Kevin gave Bob his secret for mixing my snare in live situations and wrote down the formula. “Pre-delay the snare by about 80 ms and send the delayed signal into the reverb. (of course Kevin traveled with his own spring reverb unit)That way the reverb doesn’t obscure the actual snare sound.”
The studio version of “Single Minded” was recorded in 1985 for Personal Effects “Mana Fiesta” lp. It and another song didn’t fit on the lp so Restless Records suggested putting them on the cassette version. It is almost forty years old and I only wish I could be as single minded as the theme of this song.
We finished cleaning the windows in our bathroom and I moved on to the next item on to-do list. I went out to the garage to get a spare light bulb for light in our kitchen. I turned the light on in the garage and stood there for it like five minutes before I could remember why I was out there.
Anne Havens Art Giveaway at Colleen Buzzard’s StudioIt was the best show ever at Colleen’ Buzzard’s Studio. So much Anne Havens’ work it was arranged in stacks, leaning against walls and piled on tables. And it was all insanely priced. Attended by mostly artists we heard, “She was so prolific,” at least five times. We had been to an event similar to this at Jim Thomas’s where we were instructed to pick piece’s we liked from his life’s worth of work. It is a creepy feeling, while the artist is still alive, but then it is just as beautiful.
Anne, for a long time now, has been my favorite Rochester artist. Beyond prolific, she is free, wildly expressive, funny and mysterious. And what I like most about her work is that every piece, graphic, print, drawing, book, painting or sculpture has her touch all over it. It belongs in an Anne Havens Museum but we don’t live in an ideal world.
The first Ornette album I bought was “Science Fiction.” It blew my mind. I bought every album he made after that. Ornette had a singular voice and he was supported by the best drummer in the world, Ed Blackwell, and best bass player, Charlie Haden. It was like a religious experience hearing him play live in New York. This one song from one of his last albums captures the joyous spirit of his music.
August Sander photo of father and sonsI’ve kind of gone off the deep end with August Sander’s portraits. I’d like to buy every book available of his photos or maybe just download every photo I find by him from Google image searches. The Nazis put the kabash on his social commentary tainted portraits so he switched to landscapes under their noses. I love the portraits, the brick laborer, the piano teacher, the dwarfs, the couple, another couple, the chef, the artistand the man women.
Peggi’s Seeded Multigrain Sour Dough bread (Gloria’s recipe)I didn’t notice the concentric circles on Gloria’s bread at first. It was maybe the third or fourth time we had some. She gave Peggi some of her sour dough starter a year or so ago and Peggi has managed to keep it alive by feeding it and making bread every other week. Often it is French or semolina loaves but my favorite is the Seeded Multigrain, Gloria’s recipe. But Peggi’s bread never had the rings on it until today. The secret is a wooden proofing basket called a banneton.
The Milwaukee convention was depressing. I copied this line from our local paper’s coverage. “After finishing a prayer, the pledge and a rendition of “God Bless America,” the delegates raised their fists and immediately began chanting: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” I spent too much time thinking about how the good lord spared Trump and yet made a quick decision not to protect the fireman seated nearby him. I’m so happy Biden is hanging up his cleats. We can finally move on with wild speculation and positive energy.
John Travolta in John Carpenter’s “Blow Out.” Personal Effects is the name of his video company.We worked our way through three Criterion Collections of Noir movies and we just dove into one called “NeoNoir.” We started with John Carpenter’s “Obsession” (thumbs down) and then “Blow Out.” We had seen this one in the theater. Bob Martin had just joined our band, formerly the Hi-Techs, and we were looking for a band name. Bob was with us in the theater and we all looked at each other when John Travolta opened the door to his film studio. Travolta’s character witnesses the assassination of a governor who was running for president and enters a tangled web of conspiracy.
The activities of a bullied Pennsylvania kid with his dad’s firearm and the many articles on Shelley Duval that we’ve read in the last week put Robert Altman’s “Nashville” on on our “Up Next” list. We saw that in Toronto when it first came out. Interesting watching it with a theatre full of Canadians. I remember people smoking cigarettes all around us. We saw “3 Women” in NYC and left the theater feeling as if we had had an out-of-body experience.
Don’t you hate it when politicians tell us, “This is not who we are?”
We usually included one cover song when we played and this Skeeter Davis song was a favorite in ’83/84. I have a folder of movies from those days and no idea who took most of them. With long distance help from Bob Martin I located three performances that included the song. Two were labeled Scorgie’s Early ’83 and just Scorgie’s ’83 and the third video was a complete mystery. It looked like a sound check somewhere. I put some of that footage at the front of this (above).
The one I liked the best showed Peggi singing the song without playing her Farfisa. The resolution was rough and the camera person loses track of Peggi a few times. She floats out of the frame but you can hear the crowd and just barely make out bodies moving in front of the band. I used that audio but the video cuts out when we get to the bridge so I had to cut to another version for the audio. I patched it all together by overlapping the three versions of the visuals and Peggi and I struggled to get them all in sync. But if it really is the end of the world it doesn’t matter much.
Found sand sculpture along the beach at Durand EastmanWe’ve been preparing to paint our house for the last month. Had to repair some of the concrete blocks and let that set up before painting. we finish work by dinner time and eat while watching soccer. We. usually have the summer off but this year the Copa America and Euros were happening at the same time. We don’t have cable anymore so we started out with Sling. in order to record the matches, stay away from the news and then watch them one at a time. We dumped Sling about halfway through. They were trimming the games, starting the second half at 70 minutes or so and then cutting away with four or five minutes to go. We settled on Fubo and now we are paying as much as we did with cable but we’re doing it without Spectrum. We will dump it after the finals tomorrow, both on the same day so we”ll save the Copa final for Monday. Posting here has taken a back seat. Did I mention that Spain is going all the way. Peggi will wear the Jersey tomorrow!
One of the most popular 45s in our house is Nature Boy by Bobby Darin. We might have Nat King Cole’s version on an lp. I know we used to have it. Bobby Darin does a swing version and his backup singers almost steal the show. Of course Coltrane’s version is beautiful. Elvin Jones al most sounds melodic. And Etta James does a great version. But “who wrote this thing?” we wondered while out walking.
I looked it up when we got home and that led me down a long rabbit hole. Known by the lower case moniker, eden ahbez (1908 – 1995), he was possibly one of the first hippies, long hair and a beard, white robes, sandals, he lived outside under the first “L” in the Hollywood sign. He left the sheet music to his song with Nat King Cole and it went to number one in 1948.
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return
Tesla Cybertruck in front of Hollywood TradersWe had taken our friend, John, to his doctor in Geneseo and we stopped at Schaller’s on the way home so John could pick up a bacon burger. As we were leaving with the goods we spotted this silver spaceship of a car. It pulled into the parking lot next door and the driver got out and went into Hollywood Traders (“We Buy Gold”). I stopped to take a picture of the car. I wasn’t the only one doing so. Two teenagers were grinning, flashing hand signs and taking selfies in front of the beast before I got out of the car. The license plate read LKY 8466. Peggi looked up the price and found they are north of 100G
On top of our existential crisis the president has forced people my age to confront our eventual demise. If he doesn’t step aside and let the Democrats nominate a vital, clear headed woman (like Gretchen Witmer) in the next week we’re going to be forced to have a Trump Bible in every household. Maybe she could initiate campaign finance reform and get rid of the electoral college. Great Britain, France and even Iran have all shifted leftward. I want to be optimistic. When asked about stepping down Biden said: “If the Lord Almighty comes out and tells me that I might do that.” We are overdue for the second coming.
Cool Bus on 104 near GoodmanIt was hotter than the Fourth of July this fourth. We walked to the lake, lounged at the pool and watched France beat Belgium in the Euros. We are all in for Spain in this one. Our favorite players from La Liga are all on the national team. Young for the most part, really young – Lamine Yamel joined FC Barcelona’s youth academy when he was seven years old. He’s sixteen year old wunderkind now. Peggi made Shrimp Adobo from our Miami Spice cookbook. We watched “The Stones and Brian Jones” after dinner and then fireworks from the town hall out on our deck.
We found obituaries from two people we know/knew in the paper. We first met Julie when she was going out with Brian from the Paper Faces. As HiTechs we shared gigs with Faces in Buffalo and here. Peggi remembers dancing with Julie when Brian Horton’s band was playing at the Firemen’s Exempt on Saint Paul. She took her bra off while dancing and Peggi still doesn’t know how she managed to do that. Her funeral mass is Monday.
We got another call for help from our friend, John. He’s been having a hard time lately and he got to weak to get out bed. I microwaved a Chicken Teriyaki package for him, washed his dishes and fetched him a clean pair of underwear.
Musical equipment on way to gigIt is hard enough for Peggi and I to get the Zoom recorder set up and running before oyr gigs and then harder still to remember to write the files before unplugging it. On top of that the batteries stopped working so if someone trips on the cord we loose the recording. And now it sometimes shuts off in the middle of a set so we bought a new one, the Zoom H4essential. It comes with an eighty page pdf manual and whole new interface. We spent most of the day before Wednesday’s gig trying to record us saying “hey” into the mics at home. We used the old recorder at the gig and it worked.
The gig was hectic, the day before the 4th, but we managed to find some nice space on a few songs. We had relatives on both sides of the family there. Our niece, Lora, and her son, Dylan and his girlfriend were in town from Colorado. And my cousin, Colleen, was there with her friend. Peggi bought some beers at the break. I get woozy if drink while we play. It was especially hot in the Little and I pretty much chugged the beer when we finished. We came home and took a midnight swim in the pool down the street.
Lora came over the next day with her two other sons, Lucas and Jude, and spent the afternoon in the pool.
Chris Schepp with Sea Breeze pennant.Chris threw a “grill thing” in his backyard, just blocks from where I grew up in the city. He picked a rainy day but we surmounted it by hanging out under a tarp and in his detached garage where he was cranking the tunes, old WAYO radio shows of his. Arpad and Danita were there, Joe from Nod, Gary from New Math, Pete and Gloria, Kathy and Jan and Chris’s brothers, the Floating Anvils.
The Schepps grew up in West Irondequoit and Joe lives there now. We spent some time discussing the difference between East and West Irondequoit. We couldn’t come up with much other than different water districts. Our water meter recently stopped working. Sea Breeze Water Authority sent us an email that read, “Either no-one is living at the this address or the water meter is broken because it has had the same reading for six months. Please call our office.” Someone came out a few days ago and fixed it and told us we probably wouldn’t be charged for the water we used in that period.
Irondequoit is a Native American word for “where the land and waters meet.” The town is bordered by Lake Ontario, the Genesee River, Irondequoit Bay, Lake Ontario and the City of Rochester. It is close to heaven.
Turkey vulture with dead raccoon on Triphammer RoadI had dream that Peggi and I were working with someone who was doing orchestral arragemnts for songs on the new Margaret Explosion record. We just sent sixteen files across town to Arpad for post production and I’m afraid the dream came out of the hours I’ve spent editing the live songs. I’m kinda stuck on the orchestration idea now.
Peggi and I drove our friend, John, down to his doctor in Geneseo, a small college town about an hour south of here. We hadn’t been down here in years. My brother Mark went to school here. He roomed with Chuck Cuminale, aka Colorblind James. We drove past John’s old house on Triphammer Road and stopped to look at the new metal roof and red door. John built the place with the help of his friends back in the day. Peggi and I will never forget his party when the house was finished. John, shirtless, sitting up on the hood of a car, singing “Crown of Creation” at the top of his lungs while the driver circled the house. We drove past the Statesman where John and Catherine used to play pool every other Friday and dropped John off at his doctor.
While he was in the doctor we went down to Main Street and stopped in Sundance and Buzzo’s place. I studied a promo shot of a young Buzzo playing trumpet with a jazz band while his assistant went in back to bring out a box of 45s. I found a KC and the Sunshine band single and a George Jones song. On the way home we stopped at Schaeler’s so John could pick up a bacon cheeseburger for dinner.
Larry Champoux, Pat Thomas and Dick Storms at Record ArchiveI’m still trying to figure out what it was that held Thursday night’s cultural mash-up together. Pat Thomas was in town on a short book tour. I’m not even sure what the most recent book is. Either the “Material Wealth: Allen Ginsberg” or “Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin.” Larry Champoux, a former director of Pyramid Art Center, Writers & Books and Action for a Better Community, skillfully directed traffic.
Dick Storms, the owner of Record Archive, told his San Francisco stories. He went out there in ’67 and found the scene already over. He sold copies of a bogus underground newspaper to tourists and kept the profits, enough for a banana and a pack of Pall Malls. Mark Weinstein was sitting next to us. Dick’s wife Lucinda took a fantastic photo of Dick and Mark. Lucinda posted it to her IG page.
A poet named Anderson who works with Black Box Theatre on Joseph Avenue, read five poems, one a response to Nina Simone. This may have had a connection to Pat’s book, “LISTEN, WHITEY!: The Sounds of Black Power.” Pat played a track from a record he reissued from 1968 that sounded every bit as fresh as the Last Poets – a band called Watt’s Prophets, all vocals with no instrumentation. Stream them when you get a chance! And buy one of Pat’s books!
Pat played drums with Absolute Grey back in the eighties. Their first lp was on Earring Records. His bandmate, Mitch, was in the audience with his two daughters. We all had dinner back at our place on Friday and had a great time.
Osprey with fish snatched moments ago. Photo by Fred Sanfilipo.We’ve been walking early this week, before our second cup of coffee that is, in order to beat the heat. We were amazed at how many people were already at the beach on Juneteenth. You run into different people at that hour. This morning we ran into Fred Sanfilipo. He said he had been taking photos in the park since six.
Fred had his own agency back in the Mac II days and each year we’d see him in the front row at Jazz Fest. A couple of years ago we ran into in the park. He brought our attention to an unusual bush with magnificent flowers, a Harlequin Glorybower. He gave us the address of his Flickr page and said he would put us on his mailing list. Now three or four times a week we find an email with a nature photo, just the photo and a witty subject line. These two photos are recent examples. Almost all his photos are taken in Durand Eastman Park and all are something special.
Korean dogwood. Photo by Fred Sanfilipo.Fred says he hates Facebook (we seconded that) but he loves sharing his photos. If you would like to be added to his mailing list comment here and I will pass your email address along to Fred.
Construction of “Brief History of the World • Vol XXIII”We kept the last disc we rented from Netflix and we have yet to watch it. The “Muscle Shoals” documentary is still sitting by the tv. Funny how antiquated that process looks already. I know newspaper home delivery is just a matter of time. I went to the NYT site to report a no show for our paper this morning and found this message when I logged in. “We’re sorry, but we’re unable to deliver your paper today. However, we’ll redeliver it tomorrow.” Redeliver? They’ve already fired their copywriter.
We stopped out to hear Wren Cove at Red White and Brew on State Street. It was the same night the Yankee sensation was on the mound at nearby Red Wing Stadium. They had a record attendance that night and the bar was nearly empty. Wren Cove is just a duo so they only sounded better. Melissa, the cello player (she also plays with Margaret Explosion) turned 40 that night so we a card for her. After the set Melissa told us she feels so old now. We laughed. Andrew, the guitar player in Wren Cove said, “You’re a musician. Musicians are 29 forever.”
I’ve taken over the table in our place with the construction of another “Brief History” episode. It takes about a year to collect the images (please redeliver) and a few idle hours for the match-making. And then I will take my time with the digital release.
Found photo (speed boat) – $1 at Lucky FleaThis Sun Ra Sunday (link) was a gorgeous sunny day. So sunny I felt the back of my neck burning as we sat on a blanket in the middle of Parcel 5. Gentle Sun Ra music was coming from a blue bag and Jason was reading what he described as an Appalachian gothic novel. It was a small book with wide leading. An envelope with found photos spilling out of it was sitting in front of us. Each was a jewel, intriguing for completely different reasons and each prompted digressive conversation.
The second musical selection was a collection of Arkestra tunes featuring June Tyson. My head was swimming with memories of Midtown Plaza and the promise revitalization shows. The Manhattan Restaurant, the stores that used to surround this area, the friends that worked in the buildings around us. The music was transporting us.
Tents lined Broad Street, near where we were sitting, a flea market overstuffed with vintage gear. I bought the found photo (above) for a dollar. On the back of the photo was a handwritten description, “Bob’s new boat. He built it. It will go 70-80 miles per hour. This is at Millerton.”
Jet Ski and swimmers at Durand EastmanWe have been putting together songs for a live cd (is there any other kind?) and a few of the tracks are from a night when Peggi couldn’t play because she had broken her finger. She is playing around with overdubbing (I know that would make the track not quite live) electronic sax parts. I shared the songs with her from my Apple Music (formerly iTunes) app and Peggi found she could only play along with the first 30 seconds of each song because of some sort of copy protection. I sent the songs to her directly from my hard drive as a workaround.
We watched the Apple Event, not live and not the whole thing but enough. The presenters were creepy, even Tim Cook. If I have the gist right Apple has borrowed ChatGPT, branded it as Apple Intelligence and incorporated it into their family of apps, all of which we use. The stock went bonkers and we sold some more. We bought our first shares back in the 90s when we were playing the Bug Jar happy hours. Steve Brown, one of the three original owners was tending bar and selling stock.
Our neighbor, Rick, bought the Lou Reed tribute lp at Record Store Day and he just let us borrow it. We have watched the Keith Richards “Waiting for My Man” video many times. It turns out it is the best thing on the album. Second best actually. The cover is the best thing. A Mick Rock photo of Lou with a mirrored reflection printed on a silvery stock. I was looking forward to Joan Jett’s track but it was a flop. Mary Gauthier does a beautiful version of “Coney Island Baby” and Bill Bentley writes the thoroughly enjoyable liner notes.
Bentley talks about working for Warner Brothers when Lou recorded “The Raven,” an album we never caught up with for some reason. So this morning, before our walk, we streamed The Raven! It is sensational!
“8/12/22” by Judy Gregory at Richard Margolis StudioIn Judy Gregory‘s artist statement at Richard Margolis’s Gallery she says, “Throughout history, regimes and individuals who have felt threatened by words have done their best to eliminate the sources from which those words have come.” Gregory was in the audience at Chautauqua Institution on August 12, 2022 when Salmon Rushdie was nearly killed by a knife-wielding attacker. In response to that experience she created the piece “8/12/22”, a panel made from transparent used tea bags in which “WORDS turn into SWORDS. “
Sheet of paper on wall in hallway of Anderson Arts BuildingOn the wall, in the fourth floor hallway between Margolis’s space and Colleen Buzzard’s space, I found this sheet of paper taped to the wall. That is indeed where the magic happens – between the spaces.
Jon Gary photos in “High Contrast” show at Colleen Buzzard’s I liked Jon Gary’s photographs at Colleen Buzzard’s, particularly these two. The show was called “High Contrast” and I was thinking about that property when I said to Jon, “So, these are high contrast.” Jon said they were but also he was thinking of the contrast between the photos he had separated into pairs when he hung this show. Even I was drawn to the pair above I had missed that aspect.
In the back room of Colleen’s, where Hucky holds court, art books are typically laid out on the big table. An open invitation to browse and ideally, prompt art talk. Hucky said they were in NYC last week and I’m guessing they stopped by Printed Matter. I found a Laura Fields book in which each spread had the top half of the front page of an issue of the New York Times with one color photograph on the left and a reproduction of a flat, abstract painting on the right. I flipped through the book a few times and was drawn to the paintings but I could not figure out the connection with the newspapers. Peggi pointed out that Fields had picked up a detail in the NYT photos, a linear pattern, whether it be from a piece of cloth or made of metal pipes, and created a painting with that motif.
Small wooden wheelOur brakes have been squeaking, not when we use them but when we go around corners. Pretty it is just rust build-up due not using the car much. It prompted us to look at the little stickers on our windshield. Not only was our car overdue for an oil change, it was months past due for NYS inspection. We dropped it off at B&B Automotive at 8 this morning and took a walk in Seneca Park while they serviced our car.
We walked by John Gilmore‘s house on the way to the park. The shades were all drawn and he surely was sleeping so we walked on by. We stopped at a garage sale on his street and bought an orange ceramic bowl with turquoise trim, perfect for a summer salad. It was two dollars and there there were two of them. We settled on one. We told the lady we would be back in an hour or so to pick it up.
John’s street ends at the zoo. We skirted the boundary and walked along the big wooden fence that keeps the freeloaders out and the animals in. We stopped every few minutes to look through the cracks and and at the far end would found some knotholes in the wall. one at Peggi’s height and one at mine. On the inside but behind a chain link fence were three zebras. As they moved about the fence and the stripes played moire tricks with our eyes.
Alan Ladd, William Bendix and Hugh Beaumont in “The Blue Dahlia” 1946“The Blue Dahlia” was Raymond Chandler’s first original screenplay. The 1946 American film noir starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and William Bendix is a masterpiece. Made just one year after WWII, three army vets get off a bus and head straight to a bar for a scotch with a scotch chaser. Then the married Alan Ladd character goes home to his wife whom he had suspected had not waited for him. The movie unfolds so fast with one colorful character after another. William Bendiix tops his performance in “Lifeboat” with this role, a shell shocked veteran with a metal plate in his head. I didn’t want this one to end.
Warehouses on Atlantic AvenueWe stopped out to see Brad yesterday. He was playing songs from a playlist on his laptop which he has wired to his monster stereo system and we found him in good spirits. I looked at the playlist and it was all Spyro Gyra songs from various albums. He told us they were his favorite band. Peggi brought along her electronic sax and she played examples of twenty or so different settings. Brad liked the baritone sax the best.
We’ve been editing songs for a new cd and I wanted to hear a couple of them on Brad’s system but I struggled to AirPlay songs from my iPad over his Roku setup. I went to my Dropbox page on his laptop and streamed them from there. I was really struck by how rough the live, improvised music from Margaret Explosion sounded compared to Spyro Gyra. We sounded like a punk rock band.
Wings of Desire viewing party, photo by Peggi Fournier We had seen Wings of Desire back in the eighties and for some reason it went right by. We decided to take a break from Noir binge although we’re finding that is not really possible. We are so deeply emerged the the whole world feels noir now. Even the sunny days. Shot in mostly in black and white in Berlin Wings of Desire fits right in there. In fact the movie is closer to a dream state.
We watch angels, invisible to those in the film, observe and listen to the thoughts of the characters. One angel falls in love with a trapeze artist and decides to abandon his eternal, incorporeal existence and become human. Peter Falk, playing his John Cassettes character self, wanders through the film as former angel and makes a connection to both worlds. The Berlin night club scenes with Nick Cave are sensational.
Invisible Idiot (aka Margaret Explosion) “Outta Sight, Outta Mind” black, blind embossed cd cover 1998Invisible Idiot (aka Margaret Explosion) “Outta Sight, Outta Mind” digital cd cover 1998Although the 1998 Invisible Idiot cd has been a steady seller at our gigs it never received digital distribution until now. The album has always been something of a dark horse but it is still one of our favorites. It features the original Margaret Explosion lineup (Peggi on sax, Pete LaBonne on bass, Jack Schaefer on guitar etc., me on drums and Shelley on shakers.) We played every Friday evening at the Bug Jar that summer but we didn’t find time to record until later in year. By then we had a different Margaret Explosion line-up for our live gigs so we recorded as Invisible Idiot and called the cd “Outta Sight, Outta Mind.”
listen to “Son of Telly Savalas” first song on Margaret Explosion cd “Invisible Idiot”Invisible Idiot is now available at all the streaming services
Spotify | Amazon | Apple
“Flat Fix” sign along Main Street in Niagara FallsWe’ve stayed at the Giacomo in Niagara Falls so we were ready for funky. The building was built in 1929 and is owned by Carl Paladino who ran for NYS governor on the “Take Out The Trash” platform. The radio in our room was tuned to a Toronto jazz station and “Blue Monk” was playing when we arrived. There was a Gideon bible by the bed. I opened it to a random page and landed on Psalm 19.
Give unto the LorD, O you mighty ones, give unto the LORD glory and strength.
2. Give unto the LoRD the glory due to His name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.
3. The voice of the LoRD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LoRD is over many waters.
4. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the LoRD is full of majesty.
5. The voice of the LoRD breaks the cedars, yes, the LoRD splinters the cedars of Lebanon.
6. He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7. The voice of the LoRD divides the flames of fire.
8. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the LorD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.
9. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”
10. The LorD sat enthroned at the Flood, and the LoRD sits as King forever.
11. The Lord will give strength to His people; the LORD will bless His people with peace.
Our friend, Pete, illustrated the Psalms. They read like journals from psychedelic trips. The voice of the LoRD thunders over the waters. And we were just two blocks away from the Falls. We had walked along the river gorge from Whirlpool State Park to the Falls and back. We cleaned up and headed out to my Uncle’s wake. I have a big family and he was our favorite. My brother and his wife came up from New Jersey and we had dinner with them in the historic Red Coach Inn. I love Niagara Falls, the New York side, but parts of the city are so run down it will make you cry.
The young priest made my Uncle’s Mass of Christian Burial meaningful and welcoming. The organist was a one woman choir. As he shook the incense burner over my uncle’s casket the priest said, “May the martyrs come to welcome you.” I remember my Uncle Bob picking out a Thomas Merton letter to share with my dad when he was dying. He lived his faith.
When we got home we watched Marilynn Monroe in the 1959 movie, “Niagara.”
Standing, left to right: Mark Dodd, Paul Dodd, Greg Williams, Chris Williams, Ray Tierney, Leo Dodd with Fran Dodd in his arms, Mary (Tierney) Dodd, Bob Oliver, Jack Williams, Ray Tierney Jr., Rita (Ritzenthaler) Tierney, Jerry Austin, Mary Austin, Jim Austin, Martha (Tierney) Kolb, Ed Kolb, Kathleen Kolb, Debby Tierney, Nancy Kolb, Patty Tierney, Janet Kolb, Ann Dodd, Ann Williams, Theresa Austin. Seated: Far left, John Oliver, Ann (Tierney) Oliver, Isabel (Tierney) Williams, Ray Tierney Sr., Mary (Maime) Tierney, Rita (Tierney) Austin, Dick Austin. Between the tables, back row: Jim Williams, John Dodd, Mary Williams, Mary Ann Oliver, Catherine Oliver, Gerard Kolb, Tim Dodd. Front row: Tom Williams, Liz Tierney, Rosemary Tierney.There are three generations in this photo and it is only one side of the family. My maternal grandparents are sitting in the middle surrounded by their five children and their spouses (the next generation) and all of their grandchildren at the time (my youngest sister was not even born). The grandchildren shown here have their own families now and some their children have children. The grandchildren in this photo are sitting in my grandparents’ shoes now because the last the middle generation, my parents’ rung, is gone. My Uncle Bob, one of our favorites, shown top row, fourth from the left standing next to my mom, has passed away. We’re heading to Niagara Falls for the funeral.
Wrought-iron chairs in front of blue houseKathy came over yesterday to have a tick removed by the expert. It was a tiny nymph tick, still alive, but attached to Kathy’s stomach and Peggi successfully removed the beast with our tiny tweezers. Her doctor started her on the ten day Doxycycline routine. Coincidentally I was on the last day of my ten day course. We used to we walk in the woods all the time. Now when we do go in our LL Bean socks are tucked into our Permethrin treated pants. And when we got out to pick invasive weeds or chop wood we wear our LL Bean Permethrin hoodies. We take a shower when come in and check ourselves for ticks.
I never thought to do a tick-check when we came home from dinner at our friends’ house along the river. We sat on the porch and they have outdoor cats. This guy had drilled into my stomach by the time I woke up. Peggi got the body off me in two pieces and I pulled the snout out. We put the three pieces in a plastic bag and sent it off to the Upstate Tick Testing Laboratory. The tick was diagnosed as female with Lyme. I’m hoping it didn’t pass the desease on to me. Still waiting for the vaccine.
Building on Atlantic Avenue near railroad underpassI way I understand it Pete set his phone down on a table next to where he was giving a talk. Richard was walking about the room taking photos of the crowd while Pete talked. Near the end of the track Richard set his phone down on the same table. And then picked it up again. But he didn’t pick up the right phone. Pete put what he thought was his phone in his pocket and went home.
Richard could not get into his phone so drove out to the Apple Store. They wiped Pete’s phone clean and and restored Richard’s phone account. Sometime later Richard got a cal and Pete’s phone rang. It was a call for Richard. They both went out to the Apple Store and straightened it out.
Video created by Stephen BlackI ran into DanielArmbruster, Joywave’s lead singer, in the Bop Shop while I was previewing 45s on the turntable. I told him we really liked the two songs from their new lp that were pre-released a few days before. That lp is out now and if this commercial doesn’t get you to click the “Buy” button nothing will.
Joywave premiers a short film in Little Theatre 1 tonight. We’d love to be there but Margaret Explosion is performing in the Café at the same time – 7pm. As it happens we are also premiering a short film today as well. Stephen Black created this gem with one of one of our shortest songs (under two minutes).
Wall in railroad underpass, Culver Road RochesterAlong with the “Funky Churches,” “Manly Arts” and “that’s Italian” sections the old Refrigerator website had a section with pictures of the walls in Rochester railroad underpasses. On Saturday we walked under the one on Culver Road for the first time since lived in the city. It was under here many years ago where I learned to never hold out a limp hand for a stray dog to sniff. This dog tried to swallow my hand and I shredded it as I tore it out of the dog’s mouth. Built in 1909 and fortified over the years the walls under here are still a wonder.
The photos below were taken in the early 2000’s and were formerly on the Refrigerator site.
Sign for Peter Monacelli’s Artist Talk in conjunction with his “We Are One” show at Richard Margolis StudioWe were at the Anderson Arts Building an hour early for Pete Monacelli’s talk. Plenty of time for a walk down Atlantic Avenue, under the railroad bridge on Culver and back up University Avenue (UR was originally located on this street). We even had time for a cup of coffee at Scratch Bakeshop.
Pete started his talk by reminding us we are all matter that can only be rearranged. He referenced the Nebula for Walt Whitman and Joni Mitchell’s “Stardust” and then the caves in Altamira, Spain that GK Chesterton wrote about in Everlasting Man. Those ancient drawings were with Casin, the same milk based paint that Pete used in the pieces in his show, “We Are One.”
He recapped his Renaissance Man bio. He studied to be a Chemical engineer. He worked as one meat cutter, an insurance agent and then a carpenter, a career he found to be as fulfilling as being an artist. He taught art classes at night at MCC for thirty years. Of course he is also a musician and one of our best friends.
He missed last spring, the lilacs, the whole thing. He went in the hospital for what he thought would be three days and didn’t come out for five months. He had a near death experience, “went into a crack where everyone was content.” He looked around and decided not to stay. He filled three books with drawings in his hospital bed. Art took away the pain.
Northern lights over Lake OntarioWe had already walked to this spot earlier in the day. This time we came by car and barely found a parking spot. The beach was crowded and although you couldn’t see people in the dark you could smell the pot. Just before ten everyone, nearly in unison, exclaimed, “Oh my god!” We had just watched “Melancholia and I felt like we were the lead characters in Part 3. The eclipse and now this in one month!
Silver Bells, Durand Eastman ParkAs beautiful as the setting sun is tonight we are told a strong solar storm could disrupt power and communications. It also may set the stage for a northern lights viewing. Years ago we were down at Marge’s with our friend, Duane, and we caught a sensational display of green light. So we might just head down to the lake, for the second time today, once the sun goes down. I don’t think I can handle Marge’s though. We’ll head right to the beach and look toward Canada.
For the last. month I’ve been bearing down on a project that has sat around long enough. We usually record our Margaret Explosion performances and we put all the songs in a big playlist. Most don’t stay in there long though. We keep the ones we particularly like and dump the rest. We recently got a little more aggressive with our pruning and we got the list down to thirty songs.
I have been addressing one song a day and I have just a few left. You might wonder what there is to do with a live track but there is so much tidying up I can do in Garage Band. I dodge the wild peaks, mostly my errant percussion. Since the music is improvised we stumble into both the song and the arrangement so I often grab the bass and drum intro and then cut to the first solid section. Once the tune is established there are middle sections that can get halved. If the song goes on too long I remove the wank. Sometimes any editing at all disturbs the flow of the piece. The songs on our “per la prima’ album were like that, six or seven minute organic constructions. This time, with pieces on the virtual editing room floor, the songs are all around the three or four minute mark. From these edited finals we’ll prune the group further and put the rest on a cd. Working title: “Cloud Library.”
Peggi playing sax in the art roomI like to think the Rochester Red Wings are named after the Red winged black birds that hang around in the tall weeds of the Hoffman Road marsh in Spring but I know if I looked it up I would be disappointed. They are a joy to watch as they open their wings with each call to one another and then fly to a nearby cattail, gently bending the weed as they land.
We intended to water our garden for the first time this year but we couldn’t figure out how to turn the water on. A Baltimore Oriole overhead as we looked for kink in the hose. Our early greens were tall enough to pick a few sprigs for dinner, a mixture of Prance lettuce, arugula and spinach.
Peggi is playing sax now and I’m headed down to play with her.
Glitch on scale at WegmansWhen a mango 99 cents at Wegmans why does the customer have to put the mango on the scale, enter the PLU code and then reply to a “How Many” prompt? I understand that most produce is sold by weight but why couldn’t they put a sticker on the mango that rings up as 99 cents? But I have already digressed.
I had not seen a Windows error log in quite a while. Back in the early html days when we were coding websites and writing if IE clauses to work around errant behavior we had a few Windows machines with which to preview what we call “Worst Case Scenarios.” I used to take screen captures of these “Error” messages and work them into the sites we did fun. The internet used to be fun. Code: 800705DE, Source: Null, Error: The event log file is full. OK.
Main and Clinton on April, 28 2024When I spotted Jason Wilder’s Wilder’s Sun Ra Sunday post I knew what we would be doing to celebrate my birthday. We were about a half hour late leaving the house and the police and fire department had Culver Road completely blocked off for some reason. They directed all the traffic into a neighbor where there were ‘No Outlet” signs on every street so there was a traffic jam in there. And then it started raining. It had not been forecast. There was a half marathon going on downtown and it stopped raining by the time we parked. There was a band playing in Parcel 5 and by the time we got to Cornerstone Park Jason had pulled the plug on his event.
We took a walk around downtown and crossed the river and walked along it for a few blocks. We stopped for coffee at Feugo and sat out on the sidewalk. I had to take another photo of Main and Clinton. I waited til all the traffic passed to accentuate the bleakness.
We had dinner last night at Rocco’s, my favorite restaurant. We split a fantastic strawberry vinaigrette salad, octopus appetizer and a smoked salmon and ricotta pizza.
We saved the Atletico / Athletic Club match for tonight. We’ll pair that with dinner and some Spanish wine. Atleti’s coach, DiegoSimeone, is celebrating his birthday today as well. The stars are aligned for victory.
Orange cone at storage lockers SodusOur second (and final) stint of storage locker duty fell on an absolutely gorgeous day. There was frost on the grass inside the wire fence that surrounds this complex and the sky was perfectly blue. The grass under the fence, about six inches away on either side, was dead. It had obviously been sprayed with a nasty chemical. When we were out here last month we FaceTimed with a representative of the moving company. They wanted to see the boxes of the locker so they could provide a quote for shipping the contents to our friends in Hawaii. This time we we stood there as they logged each box in a notebook and slowly loaded them onto a truck bound for the west coast. These were hourly employees, in no hurry at all, just putting in their eight hours. I stepped outside, determined to find a photo, and I struck gold.
Red overhead door on Hudson Avenue with Film Noir filterI don’t usually use the filters that come with the Photos app but I stumbled on the Noir filter the other day and tried out on this red door photo. We’ve been binging the film noir movies on Criterion. We started with a collection called “Holiday Noir and then “Gothic Noir” and now we’ve working our way through “Peak Noir.” Every one of the movies in this section were made in 1950, the year Peggi and I were born. The movies in this collection make the case that this was indeed some sort of peak. We are celebrating my birthday this weekend and we kicked it off with Gloria Swanson and William Holden in “Sunset Boulevard.”
Cherry blossom petals on pavementRorbach’s “Different Animal IPA” and “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus” may seem like an unlikely paining but it worked for us last night. The deeply meditative movie was screened in Little Theatre 1 last night and Peggi and I had perfect seats, dead center just eight rows back. It felt like we sitting next to Sakamoto on his piano bench. We had been fans of his since Yellow Magic Orchestra days and this beautiful b&w solo performance was how he chose to say goodbye.
No matter how big tvs get movies are still better in the theater. We saw “Civil War” on Friday, a completely different experience. The seriously dystopian movie is either a warning of how easily these things happen can all over the world or just a preview of what’s around the corner. The open scenes unfolded to an Arthur Russel track and two Suicide songs were played in their entirety while the action unfolded. Only took the world fifty years to catch up to their genius.
There was one item on the RSD list I had to have, a Pharaoh Sanders 45, an edited version of my favorite piece by him, “HarvestTime.“ So I headed over to House of Guitars when they opened at 9. They were open but only so many people were allowed to enter at one time. I stood in line with Stan Merrell and we caught up on world affairs. My neighbor Rick was in line ahead of us and snagged the only copy of the 45 the HOG got. It is a serious slab of vinyl, seems more than 180, and it sounds great.
Lacebark Pine trees in Durand Eastman ParkThree of the eight teams in the Champions’ League quarterfinals this week were from Spain. Our three favorite teams, in fact. Only Real Madrid will go on to the semis. The matches took a lot out of us and we were only watching. And screaming at the tv.
We saw an outdoor table we liked at Pottery Barn but they didn’t have any in the store so a huge box arrived by UPS. Peggi read the directions while I put it together with the tiny Allen wrench they included. It took about two hours. The instructions showed four small feet that screwed into the bottom of the legs in order to level the table but we couldn’t find them in the mountain of cardboard. We called the store where we ordered it from and they connected us to a national help desk. That person said they couldn’t send us the parts but they could send us another table! And they couldn’t guarantee that the feet would be in the new package. I asked if they could refund us for the missing feet and I was put me on hold for about five minutes before they agreed to credit our card twelve dollars.
We only have one bedroom in our place so for years guests sleep in our finished basement on a roll-up mattress. When we asked how they slept they all said great. We had high wind warnings a while back and Peggi and I slept down there. It was not comfortable. So we bought an inflatable mattress and pumped it up for guests. Can’t remember why we slept down there again but the mattress was either too rigid when fully inflated or too bouncy. When Peggi’s came to visit we gave her our room and we put the roll-up mattress on top of the air mattress and it was more comfortable than our own bed.
Cherry blossoms with butterflyGlorious spring days like this one could convince you. Cherry trees in full blossom line a stretch of Log Cabin Road. We stood under this one for quite a while as it was alive with bees, butterflies and color. Up on Zoo Road we found the most of the white magnolias over already. The wind and rain of the last few days hurried them along. But the pink and yellow ones are still gearing up. We continued on through the fruticetum where fruit trees of all sorts were beginning to show their stuff.
The park is understaffed by design these days but they manage to get the job done. We run into volunteers, master gardeners and members of the Cornell Cooperative Extension, all the time as rid evasive species from portions of the park. They’re always ready to take a break and talk about weeds. They update the park kiosks as well with information about seasonal features of the park. Today we read how to distinguish cherry trees from apple trees by their bark.
These people have a sense of humor too. Under the photo of horizontal lines in the cherry tree’s bark they had this passage. “And the myth about George Washington and the cherry tree – exactly that. In the story Washington damaged a cherry tree with his hatchet. When questioned by his father, he said “I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” The story was invented by a posthumous biographer to demonstrate Washington’s honesty.”
Magnolias in early April at Durand Eastman ParkA previous generation claimed the title but this is the golden age of radio.
I sat down to clean up some Margaret Explosion recordings this afternoon, just trimming the front ends and drawn out endings – maybe dropping a few middle bars, but I still had WAYO window open and I clicked on the live button. I was drawn into Alla Boara playing live in the studio. They are a Cleveland band that does modern arrangements of Italian folk songs and they’re playing tonight at the Lovin’ Cup, another Bop Shop sponsored show. Kyle Brown’s “Up on the Roof” (soul, jazz, doo-wop, rhythm and blues, instrumentals and other oldies-but-goodies) sucked us in for the next hour and led right into Jason Wilder‘s “Fantastic Voyage.” Jason had reached out to me yesterday to say he was planning to play a Margaret Explosion song and he wanted me to suggest a Sun Ra song to follow it up with. I chose “Lanquidity.”
We regularly listen to our brother-in-law’s WAYO “Magic Radio” show on Wednesday’s and sometimes Joe Tunis’s show on Fridays. Our neighbor, Rick, has a cool show on WITR. Then there is Howard Thompson’s “Pure” show on WPKN and Kevin Patrick’s late night “So Many Records.” Armand Schaubroeck’s show on Rochester Free Radio is always a blast. Long live radio!
Ivermectin Roofer“I will stop the killing, I will stop the bloodshed, I will end the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country.” – DT on the campaign trail
His jeans are slung low. He wears a white t-shirt and a red bandana. He’s a bit beyond middle age with a scruffy beard. He looks like one of those guys that stormed the Capitol. He started working on this roof during the pandemic. Back then he had two other signs in his windshield and he was cranking right wing radio while he worked. The roof was never fished. Scaffolding and bundles of roofing sat on the roof through two winters. We thought Covid had killed him but he’s back – with one of his signs.
Fetal Voting Rights!
No Borders!
Stop Government!
Mandatory Carry!
Make America Pray Again!
Miracle Worker movie poster at George Eastman MuseumThe George Eastman Museum has pretty cool show of movie posters, “Crashing Into The Sixties: Film Posters From The Collection.” A large portion of the posters were designed by the great Saul Bass. I don’t I’ve seen “the remember seeing “The Miracle Worker” since I was really young but the poster struck me as just as moving as the movie was back then. My favorites, not to say I think they would drive throngs to the theatre, were the Eastern European ones. “Reszta Jest Milczeniem” translates to “The Rest Is Silence,” Hamlet’s last words.
I left the show with the Brogues “1965 song “I Ain’t No Miracle Worker” stuck in my head. I only know that song by Rochester’s Chesterfield Kings.
Eastern European posters from “Crashing Into The Sixties: Film Posters From The Collection” at George Eastman Museum
Peggi and Teri at Pat Lake for eclipseWe had no idea Peggi’s sister was an umbraphile. The day she arrived from LA it was snowing and when we dropped her off at the airport this morning the temperature was headed into the mid seventies. In between we had some gorgeous spring weather except for that one window when the moon passed in front of the sun. We walked in different directions each day scoping out locations to watch the eclipse from and settled on this spot overlooking Pat Lake.
About a dozen people were gathered around a tripod on the north side of the lake when we arrived. We watched a man sit back in his lounge chair just as it collapsed to the ground and we struck up a conversation with a woman from Oakland, California. These people were settling in with food and blankets while we sat on a bench under this tree. We couldn’t even tell where the sun was without an app so I scurried home and grabbed some cheese, crackers and a beer to split. We never put our glasses on but we’ve seen that bit before. The real kick was how quickly it got dark, like a full scale, real time lapse. There is a marsh right next to the lake and the peepers started singing within seconds. It was magical.
two hour dreamscape
Big oak on the way to a millWe caught up with two phenoms this morning by watching a highlight reel of Caitlin Clark from Iowa’s victory over LSU. I love her. And then the new Beyonce album, the whole album. It is a monster although at the hour mark I reached overload on the multitracked vocals.
Woodchuck Tree Service has been working at this house for five days! They toppled of this giant. We’re guessing the trunk is headed to a mill. We were headed into the park to looking for a good spot to view the eclipse. We found a perfect spot in the empty lot across the street from Bruce’s house. I was thinking I could stop by the House of Guitars and ask. Last time we were in there Armand, Bruce’s brother, was pacing up and down the aisles while his radio show was playing through the sound system. He was saying “the name of the place is I like it like that” over and over. I assumed we had just missed that classic. Armand sounds really great on the radio. His show airs at these times .
We get chicken mushrooms at the base of this tree every year. When I took this photo there flies and insects crawling all over them. I thought they were past prime. Later looked down as someone stopped his car and picked the lot. Peggi speculated that he might have taken them for the spores. The … Continue reading "Spores"
Paul in empty swimming pool. Photo by Peggi Fournier.The swimming season came to an abrupt end this year when emptied the pool in order to paint. This only the second time the street pool has been painted since it was put in in 1960. I took the opportunity to try to get the underwater light out so I could repair the short. It worked when we first moved here and it is especially nice on warm summer nights when we bring friends down.
Peggi and I sent out a bunch of emails yesterday, inviting friends to the opening of my photo show at the Little Theatre on Sunday. We setup a shared email list some time ago and then recently. got one of those really confusing messages from Apple asking if we wanted to merge or discard conflicting contacts lists. We clicked merge and wound up with duplicates and old discarded email addresses in one big mess. Consequently we inadvertently spammed our friends wit duplicates.
So we buckled down and riddled our contacts down to only people whose name we recognize, who we wouldn’t mind hearing from, and those who are still living. The people at companies we used to do business with they all went. Peggi and l laughed as I read the names before selecting “delete.” Henri@snippetmaster.com! Bill@visibleware.com! All the DuPont addresses. Our original email address – sunra@aol.com! AOL hell we used to call it. MortimerShy@rochester.rr.com and all those who left us. Sparky, our next door neighbor, never had an email address but his street address was in there. Our list has dropped from 2500 to 400 and I’m still working it.
“Portals & Planes: Pictures by Paul Dodd” announcementThe title image, the one I’m using to promote my photo show at the Little Theatre Café, is a picture I took on my way to Editions Printing where Peter was making Giclée prints of the the images I had chosen for this show. Funny how that worked. It fit the thread of the theme I was working with perfectly. It encapsulated it. I was running back and forth to his State Street print shop and taking different routes each time when I stumbled on this warehouse on Hudson Avenue.
I carry a camera with me at all times, not a cellphone but the best Sony that will fit in my pocket. I had a lot of photos to look at before selecting and plenty of time to think about what my favorites have in common. It is the picture plane. I like to flatten it and square up my subject matter. Point blank. I’m not opposed to centering the subject. I keep my wide angle lens wide open. I never zoom. I walk up to the subject and compose the shot by repositioning my body. I don’t crop my photos either. The composition is done in camera.
“Portals & Planes: Pictures by Paul Dodd” is at Little Theatre Café for the month of September. The opening reception is Sunday afternoon, September 10, 2-4pm. There will be a short musical performance by Peggi and me at some point and I have some giveaways! Hope you can stop out.
You can preview the show here if want to spoil the fun.
Gays Against Guns placards representing local Rochester women killed by gun violence in “Unconditional Care” show at Rochester ContemporaryFirst Friday’s art circuit was surprisingly quiet last night. The hot weather and the holiday weekend may have been factors. But it was easier to spend time with art rather than socializing.
Rochester had the 4th highest rate of homicides in the U.S. with firearms as the most common cause of death.’ There were 351 shooting victims last year. As a result, the city has been under an official gun violence state of emergency since July 21, 2022. The ten placards shown above are part of “We Remember” an installation by Gays Against Guns, currently on view in a show called “Unconditional Care” at Rochester Contemporary. Although this is certainly more pressing than any art concern I expected more of an art spin in this setting. Maybe the the take-away is we should address this issue first and then make art.
Nancy Valle Correspondence art at Studio 402Over a Studio 402 I was knocked out by Nancy Valle’s section of wall in a group show. Cut, folded and inked cardboard pieces based on envelopes of all sizes were mounted to the wall. They were intriguing, playful and organic all at once. And then, where you see the blank spots, Nancy had hung three rectangular mono prints created with these playful pieces. Nancy was standing nearby and I couldn’t help but offer an observation. I suggested she separate the three rectangular prints from these beauties. Nancy took the tree pieces off the wall and plans to rearrange the Correspondence pieces.
Steve Hoy at the Grand Canyon 1980Today, if you are college bound and planning to live in the dorms, you provide the school with information about yourself that pretty much guarantees your roommate will share your interests. I feel lucky that some fifty years ago this decision was left to chance. There is so much more out there. As a freshman I arrived in Bloomington three days before my roommate. The name “Hoy” was on the door and in my first call home I told my mom, “I think my roommate is Asian.”
Steve was already a junior and he had this college thing down. I helped him unload his car, a white Barracuda with an eight track player and Led Zeplyn’s first. Our room had two desks and Steve asked if it would be ok to put one of his huge stereo speakers on my desk. The rest was academically downhill for me. My intentions, to turn a new leaf and apply myself, went out the window. But my priorities were set straight.
When we left the dorms we moved into a small, coal fueled house in town. Steve wrote a paper for me, a creative writing assignment, and chose a Sci-Fi theme. Entitled “The Fourth Dimension,” I got an “A” on it with a note from the professor that read “Very nice Mr. Dodd.” It was the best mark I got in that class.” The landlord kept the deposit because he said we had “painted the rooms hippie colors.” Who wouldn’t want a black ceiling?
Steve and Paul. Photo by Rich Stim.Later we lived into a trailer near the Monon Railroad tracks. Steve bought a guitar and I had my drums in the back room. The Chinaboise were born. Steve was our spiritual leader but Rich was the real leader. The band merged with MX-80 and moved to the Bay Area. Steve was the best man at our wedding. Peggi and I met him in New Orleans in 1980 and drove to San Francisco in his pickup. We slept in the back of the truck. Peggi brought her sax along and rehearsed Hi-Techs songs on the way. We stopped in the Grand Canyon and Steve crawled out on the ledge (pictured above.) Peggi and I were standing behind the fence while people around were pointing at Steve. “Look at that guy out there!”
Steve is inquisitive and he loves to talk, about anything. He is so much fun to listen to. His Hoosier accent is part of the fun but it is mostly the way he connects the dots. We were talking to him a few months back. Peggi had her phone on speaker and I recorded a snippet of the conversation on my iPad. I played it for Steve when he was up here last week. He laughed.
Steve Hoy’s bread recipe
Ensemble Aztlan performing at the Little Theatre Café with Paul Dodd photos on the wallBands perform in the Little Theatre Café every night but Tuesday. On Tuesday they took down last month’s art show and put up the new one, “Portals and Planes – Photos by Paul Dodd.” I check the Little’s calendar to see who would be playing there while the photos are up. Ensemble Aztlan was there last night so we stopped out. It was some sort of cosmic alignment that had my photo of a musician in a white shirt strumming a guitar as he crossed the street in Merida hanging directly behind a Mexican guitar player in a traditional white shirt.
The six musicians in Ensemble Aztlan play guitar, bihuela, guitarron, jarana, trumpet, violin, cajon, bass, saxophone and a donkey jaw. They were muy tipico and a pure delight. My opening for the photo show is scheduled for Sunday afternoon on September 10th, 2-4 pm. Peggi and I plan to play a very short set at some point. Margaret Explosion plays while the show is up on Wednesday, September 13.
Our living room is still in World Cup mode. Olga Carmona, shown hanging from our candelabra and who looks like she stepped out of a Francisco Goya painting, came out of the back to score the winning goal in both the semifinal and the final. Aitana Bonmatí ruled the midfield like the great Iniesta. Jenni … Continue reading "Espana!"
Clarissa Street was much more than Rochester’s Black Wall Street. It was the cultural hub of a rich community until the city’s urban renewal schemers took a bulldozer to it. This highway (490) plowed through the heart of the community and destroyed The Pythodd, Rochester’s legendary jazz club, along with Shep’s Paradise and the vibrant … Continue reading "Taking Back The City"
We met this guy on the next street over. Conner and Miguel are babysitting him while his owners are away. I can’t remember his name or the mix of breeds but he is something else. My horseshoe game has definitely improved. I know Rick probably thinks his game is off but I’m quite sure mine … Continue reading "Horseshoe Secrets"
Every year we talk about visiting Storm King, the outdoor sculpture museum in the Hudson Valley. Some friends of ours were just there and they loved it. I love Calder, Serra, Noguchi, Chillida and Moore but I have a hard time with steel beams and cute stuff. I’m thinking of the items that litter the … Continue reading "Mini Storm King"
When Peter at Editions Printing asked when my show was I was almost embarrassed to tell him “September.” It was so far off. What artist has their work all ready to hang months before a show. Well, now I’m just weeks away and I have five more Giclée prints to frame before I can think … Continue reading "Black Heads"
I don’t even want to know what went on in this hospital room but I like the presentation. We were up there to visit our friend, Pete, who was home for a little over a week before checking back in for a tune-up. He ordered some more posters. Peggi ran those off this morning and … Continue reading "Oh, That Guy"
Yesterday the beach was quiet (above). Today it is packed. We can hear the power boats from our house. Every picnic shelter in the park is full. Sound systems are cranked. Skunky weed is in the air. Groups, clustered by nationality, are picnicking along the lake and the beach itself is crowded. We found ourselves … Continue reading "Go Roja!"
Margaret Explosion played for the Highland Park Conservancy in Highland Park Friday evening. Bob Martin, pictured on the right above, was back in town for the gig. Pete LaBonne, shown above on piano, Jack Schaefer on bass clarinet weren’t there but Mellisa joined us on cello. Phil Marshall, our primary guitarist, played on the opposite … Continue reading "Stereo Guitars"
Yesterday’s match was nerve wracking. Japan, a typically possession heavy side, frustrated the hell out of Spain, a way heavy possession side, by hunkering down in their own half, 5 4 1 style, and picking moments to breakaway. They scored four goals in what seemed like only ten forays into the Spanish end. Spain had … Continue reading "Clash Of Civilizations"
We were both sitting at our computers when one half of a rain soaked double oak came down about thirty feet from our window. This one didn’t take out any power lines stop any traffic so it will sit there for a few years before we have room for any more firewood. Its good to … Continue reading "Big Top"
Liberace photobombed my shot of our garlic drying in the garage. He performed two nights at Canandaigua’s Performing Arts Center in 1985. We didn’t see the show but I snagged the poster from Record Archie once the dates had passed.
We upped our garlic game this year. We planted one hundred cloves last October. We picked the scapes in July, roasted a few batches and made pesto with the rest. Today we picked the heads, one hundred of them. I built a rack in the garage, just two long skinny boards tacked to the rafters … Continue reading "One Hundred Heads"
Propeller Recordings releases a collection of early New Math songs today and the band will play at 3 Heads tonight. We won’t be able to make the record release party but we caught the band on Wednesday night at the Record Archive’s back room. The place was packed with familiar faces. We were standing next … Continue reading "Props To Propeller"
That’s Australia’s Alanna Kennedy next to the US’s Lynn Williams, New Zealand’s Abby Erceg and Sam Mewis from USWNT when they were all playing for the Flash, our local soccer franchise. I glommed onto a professional photo of the team at a dinner for season ticket holders. Samantha Kerr, Marta, Alex Morgan and Christine Sinclair … Continue reading "In The Pink"
Our friends, Matthew and Louise are settled in their swanky new place in Waikiki. And their car is no longer in our driveway. A driver from Hot Car Go arranged to meet us near the cemetery where he loaded their car onto this mile long truck. He is bound for Oakland where the car will … Continue reading "Hot Car Go"
After recommending it for years we rewatched “August, Osage County” and it was just as good as we remembered it being. Fantastic script, amazing cast, it feels real and maybe that’s why no one has thanked us for the recommendation. Our friend, Pete, asked us to pick up some paper at Rochester Art Supply – … Continue reading "Back In The Saddle"
The first boathouses lined The Canandaigua City Pier was built in the 1848. By 1888, over eighty small wooden structures lined the pier. In 1903, the pier was enlarged to accommodate train and trolley tracks to service the steamboats transporting farm produce and passengers along the lake. As cozy as they look today the Boathouse … Continue reading "Another Notch"
Pete and Emily were out walking before Peggi and I this morning and they sent us this picture of tires that someone had dumped in the park. The two piles had been cleaned up by the time we got there and we spent some time trying to figure out how they got into the park … Continue reading "Uneeda Tire"
The Erie Canal made Rochester a boom town so of course we all sang this song in grade school. At dinner last night I asked Kevin if he sang this song growing up in Massachusetts. He said, “Of course. It is a classic American folk song.” The canal stopped at Buffalo but the lakes allowed … Continue reading "Low Bridge, Everybody Down"
I remember canoeing along the shoreline of a lake in the Adirondacks and somehow disturbing a beaver. I don’t know if it was a nest or a damn but the beaver followed us like it was chasing us away from its project. We’ve never seen a beaver in the park but every year we see … Continue reading "Persistance"
In January of 1975 Peggi and I left Bloomington and moved to Rochester, where I grew up. We lived in an apartment in Tim Schapp‘s house on Dartmouth Street. Peggi worked in my uncle‘s supermarket when not working as a substitute teacher. She monitored a study hall in my brother, Francis’s, class. He had lived … Continue reading "Modern Lovers"
I have a lot of nieces and nephews. The photo above, from the late fifties, is just one side of my family. Not all of my siblings or first cousins were even born yet. Peggi, on the other hand, has one sister and her two sons are the only nephews (or nieces) we have on … Continue reading "The Bear Ad"
This is how I pictured summer, the way it was in Costa Rica last winter. Instead, we’ve had a couple of weeks of smoke filled air surrounded by rain. We don’t have air conditioning so we count on opening the windows and turning on a fan but the air outside smells like an ashtray. Our … Continue reading "Summertime"
I’ve decided to show photos instead of paintings at the Little Theatre Café in September. Everybody takes photos and there are probably more photos in the world than at any other time you can think of. So how do you tell a good photo, one you might print large, put in a frame and then … Continue reading "A Lot To Think About"
Whenever I went anywhere in the city with my father he would point out places that used to be something else. In an attempt to draw me in he would personalize the location. “That’s where your great Uncle Paul used to live.” I could hardly imagine a time when the city wasn’t what is was … Continue reading "In And Out Of The Moment"
The air smelled not so much like smoke but smoke flavoring, like the stuff they put on smoked almonds. So we walked with masks on. The air quality was at 145 when we left and that number kept dropping as we walked. Still unhealthy. Our friend Pete has spent enough time in the hospital. He … Continue reading "Multitudes"
Peggi and I got to the Bop Shop a half hour early to insure we could get a seat down front. The show was sold out but that doesn’t mean much when you can stand in the aisles of records. We found seats behind the counter just off to the left of the stage, close … Continue reading "In My House"
I’m thinking the Nduduzo Makhathini Trio’s performance last night at Kilbourn Hall was the best thing you are going to see at this year’s Jazz Fest. I don’t know how anyone could top it. They had it all, in the tradition of the giants like Pharaoh Sanders and Sun Ra. We arrived about twenty-five minutes … Continue reading "Talking To The Gods"
Peggi’s reading Chris Frantz’s book about his time with the Talking Heads. She was telling me about an issue with song writing credits for an early song of theirs. I went to look it how it was settled on their lp and found that we don’t have any Talking Heads albums anymore. Kept the singles … Continue reading "And The Days Go By"
A big toad was sitting in the middle of our path when the solstice officially hit at 10:57, just sitting there while we looked at it. I scratched the bumps on its back and it hopped away. We saw a few deer and they too just glanced at us and went about their business. As … Continue reading "Poets And Painters"
We met our neighbor, Jared, at the mailboxes. He pulled a pamphlet from “In Touch Ministries” out of his box and gave it to us. He told us he didn’t know why got these and he said he had sent them an email to ask them to take hi name off their mailing list. An … Continue reading "Tangled Up in Blue"
Three nearby streets had a community garage sale today so we headed over that way on our walk. Some people had already thrown in the towel and put all their junk out at curb by the time we got there but we heard the cars were lined up earlier in the day. Peggi bought a … Continue reading "Eternal Garage Sale"
The only reason I am able to identify these blossoms is the iNaturalist app that Peggi has on her phone. This Mountain – laurel was in the garden of a house on Clover Street, just across the street from a brick Don Hershey house with rounded corners at the entrance. The Landmark Society’s tour started … Continue reading "Mother’s Little Helper"
Our neighbor, Rick, is a dj. He had a weekly slot on WRUR for years, he substitutes on “Open Tunings” when Scott is out of town and he has a show on WITR in the Fall. He builds his shows around artists’ birthdays and he plays music by the artists and versions of their songs … Continue reading "Angel Vs. Luna"
It might as well be summer. It hasn’t rained in weeks. Our garden has been especially dry, many of our seeds never germinated. And wild fires, raging to the north in Quebec, have bathed our skies in a warm, smoke filled glow. On our way to the beach we ran into Greg Prevost and Miss … Continue reading "Extra Warm Filter"
Marigolds and catkins on the table out backTry as we may to hang on to spring May is behind us and we are already surrounded by the sounds of summer. From our house we can hear the motor boats on Lake Ontario to the north as well as the motorcycles on Kings Highway to the west. If we try we can hear the dull roar of tires on the Bay bridge to our east but that is louder in the winter when the trees are bare. We sleep with the windows open so besides the coyotes we hear the sirens south of the Ridge.
A neighbor down in the valley called the cops on his neighbor because her gas powered leaf blower was too loud. She is a really sweet lady, I wish the guy had just tried to work it out with her. They are incredibly loud, and illegal in California because of the pollution, but my beef is the start stop action. When it’s roaring you eventually tune it out. Each time it stops you think, ahh, that’s it, and then it starts up again. The final matches of La Liga season are set to unfold tomorrow, most of them set to kickoff at the same time to cut down on the funny business. I will miss it, of course, but it will free up a considerable amount of time.
We have been eating an assortment of lettuces from our garden for the last week. The street pool is open and the solar cover has been especially productive so the water is warm. I’ve played horseshoes with my neighbor five times (and won four). I can boast because he manages a narrow edge on me most years. That is a welcome sound, the clang of the shoes when they hit each other or better yet the stake.
High Falls from walking bridge in 2023I am still amazed that the City tore up the eastern half of the old InnerLoop. I never thought it would happen. And I am amazed how quickly it was redeveloped. That part of the city is enjoyable to walk in again. The other half of the Inner Loop is even more divisive but the talk of demolishing it has died down.
High Falls, the geographic reason Rochester was planted here, is just a short walk from midtown but getting by the wall of highway concrete is so unpleasant most people have given up. Artists are being chased out of their warehouse spaces on East Main as developers see bigger bucks in rehabbed living spaces and there are so many empty industrial buildings, former restaurants and storefronts along and off State Street, right near the falls. I have seen a glimpse of Rochester’s future. In another twenty years this area will be thriving again.
We were in this part of town to approve a print Peter at Editions Printing ran for us. Peter asked if my father was an artist. He said his wife had purchased one of Leo’s paintings from a show at Rochester Contemporary and it is hangs in their living room. That night he emailed us a photo of the painting.
From Editions we walked by Obatala & Shango Religious Goods and picked up a couple of candles, Santa Barbara Africana and Santo Niño de Atocha. The owner of the shop asked if we wanted our candles blessed. I said no at first and then asked, “Does it cost anything?” He said no so I agreed. I was expecting a quick sign of the cross but he put a couple drops of a scented oil at the base of the wick and then sprinkled a few dried herb flakes on it. We continued on, across the bridge, stopped in the Genesee Brewery gift shop and headed back to our car.
Saint Stanislaus church on Hudson AvenuePeggi sang in a choir for a few years and one of their performances was inside Saint Stanislaus on Hudson Avenue. The church was the epicenter of the Polish section of the city at one time. I don’t know how active the parish is anymore but the magnificent building is still standing. The clocks have stopped working, I can tell you that. Our Holy Trinity grade school basketball team played St. Stan’s back in the day and they were a formidable opponent.
Peter Monacelli “We Are One” posterPete has sorted out the world from his hospital bed. Four weeks in now, but close to being released, he has turned lemons into lemonade as the adage goes. He has art supplies at his fingertips and stories to tell. He cares about each of the hospital workers, the ones that are in charge of his care, and that opens new channels. They take their breaks in his room or stop by to visit after their shift is down. We have witnessed this and it is really quite remarkable.
He wrote this beautiful poem (above) and asked us print fifty copies so he could give them to his caregivers. As Pete said to us, “Imagine how different the world would be if we all took care of each other.”
Debby Kendrick Project playing without Peter Monacelli on drumsPete was hoping to be out in time for his gig with Debbie Kendrick on Friday but it didn’t work out. Peggi and I caught their second set. Debbie dedicated “You Send Me” to Pete. Lamar from Sons of Monk sat in for Pete along with Jahaka Mindstorm on congas. They were great but to my ears the songs didn’t sound as sweet or soulful with Pete on drums.
Spread from “Ray Johnson c/o” bookDia Chelsea is an oasis of sorts. Not only do they have great art shows, they have a bathroom and a bookstore. We were there to see the Chryssa show but I spent some time with this book on the Chicago Art Institute’s collection of Ray Johnson work, mostly collages and mail art. The book feels like the original Whole Earth catalog, one foot in the recycling bin, but the more I looked, the more I wanted to see.
Born in Detroit the same year as my parents, he doesn’t fit neatly into any movement but he heralded several simultaneously. A pop artist, earlier and more fluid than Warhol, a performance artist before the category existed and certainly a conceptual artist. He made fun of them all. A queer street artist well before Keith Haring. His collages looked like the best of the punk era a decade before they were born. He made fun of it all. He blew up a deal with Gagosian when he priced his collages at one million each.
At ease with appropriation, Johnson was quick to make connections between everything. As a student at the legendary Black Mountain College, his art was in dialog with his teachers, Joseph Albers and Robert Motherwell and his friends John Cage and Jasper Johns. He lived like a monk and made art with magazines, Xerox machines and the post office. In the sample spread above he spoofs the intellectual Abstract Expressionist, Barnett Newman.
Most of all I see my friend Rich Stim’s work in the humor. And the post cards that Pete and Shelley sent us over the years – rectangular pieces of cereal boxes with cryptic messages for the mailman to decipher before we tucked them away.
“Some people just didn’t get it, and other people like me thought he was an absolute genius,” said the painter James Rosenquist, with whom Mr. Johnson corresponded for years, often asking him to forward mailed artworks onto Willem de Kooning. “Sometimes I did what he asked and sometimes I just couldn’t part with them,” Mr. Rosenquist said, adding: “I really miss him because I accumulate all these strange things that I’d like to mail him, but I can’t because he’s not there.”
Blimp over Sparky’s house in 2002For whatever twisted reason the first Captain Beefheart song that got under my skin was “The Blimp.” And then “China Pig.” And then every song on “Trout Mask” and any song he touched. I went backward for the whole catalog and picked up every new release in real time. Well, the blimp is in town. Last time we looked, it was the Met Life blimp. It was still the Goodyear blimp when I took this shot of it over Sparky‘s house in 2002. I thought of that song today when we spotted the blimp as we came out of the hospital where we were visiting Pete. The PGA Championship is in town.
Oak Hill, the swanky country club on the east side of Rochester, last held the PGA in 2013. We went to that one. These sporting events keep getting bigger. In 1989 when the US Open was there Peggi and I (4D Advertising) did a brochure that featured all the branded swag. We took a box of sample product to Chris Maggio’s studio on Saint Paul and he photographed the lot. We designed a commemorative book called “The Crown Jewels of Oak Hill” as well. Today the merch tents are as big as a department store and you can bet no two bit local agency was responsible for any of the action.
Old campfire on Seneca Park trailWe drove right over a dead raccoon this morning on our war way to B&B Automotive. Not with our tires, it was right between them. We dropped the car off and went for a walk while they worked on it. We walked south on Saint Paul and into Seneca Park. We started heading down the steps to the bridge over the river and we came face to face with another raccoon. This one was alive. We scared him and he turned around but he had nowhere to hide so he turned back toward us. We ran up the steps and decided to take the trail along the east side of the Genesee.
The park is named after the Native American tribe that settled here so it seemed fitting we would come across this ceremonial fire pit. I was glad to see kids still hang out in the woods and leave signs of their mischief behind. Peggi’s phone says we went nine miles but it hardly seems possible.
Plastic covered windows on South ClintonWe spent most of the day on the hillside out back pulling garlic mustard, wisteria and barberry bushes, a threesome of invasives. We each had a big bag to put the stuff in and I was carrying a shovel. The wisteria roots go way down and they often connect to underground runners. We thought we rid our property of wisteria years ago but it keeps coming back.
The barberry is just plain nasty. They sell it at garden stores and it’s labeled “Invasive” but people plant it anyway. It’s covered with prickers and you have to remove the entire root system. If any is left in the soil, it will re-sprout. Barberry has denser foliage than most native species so the plants retain higher humidity levels which ticks love. Invasives love invasives.
The garlic mustard comes up easy, roots and all. If you miss one plant though you’ll have a patch of it next year. Shelley and Pete cook with it.
We have so many beautiful wildflowers this time of year and the invasives are just as pretty but once you know they don’t play nice, there is no going back. I’d like to think the next caretakers of our property will keep this fight up but I have my doubts.
Vines on the wall outside LumiereI am reminded again of why I like winter so much. The warm weather months are too full of activities (tasks that sat in the job jar all winter) and there is no time left to check in here or think about art projects or read a book.
The garden is going great guns. The direct seed lettuces, spinach, carrots, chard, cilantro and arugula all require daily doses of water. We had a setback with the plants we started indoors and had to toss all our little tomatoes and pepper plants after the seed company contacted us to say one tomato seed variety, one that we were trying for the first time, was infected with a virus. Luckily, it didn’t affect the kale or collards. We bought more tomato and pepper plants at Cases, ones that were bigger than the plants we threw away, but they didn’t have any Padrón pepper plants. Kathy gave us some elephant ear plants a few years back and each year I dig the bulbs out the basement and replant them.
Rick and I opened the horseshoe season. I won the first round 21-1 but Rick quickly found his groove and beat me the second. We had to settle things in a third round and I barely squeaked by. La Liga is not finished. We have three matches to watch this weekend. And our neighborhood group is opening the pool this week so I spent most of the day vacuuming the bottom.
I’m so tired at night I can’t even stay awake for an old Hawaii Five-0 episode. Oddly, I found Igmar Bergman’s “Winter Light” riveting. That will be one of our last red envelopes before Netflix closes their dvd arm.
Anne Punzi oil paintings from “Current Events” show at Colleen Buzzard’sWe couldn’t leave the house until the Atletico/Cadiz match finished so we got a late start on First Friday. Our first stop was the Wilder Group opening at Lumiere on College Avenue. George Wegman had sold about half of his beautiful pencil shaving drawings before we even got there. Pete Monacelli was having some repair work done so he wasn’t able to attend. His drawings on digital prints of his work added yet another dimension to his dynamic work.
We headed over to the Anderson Building and ran into a couple that had just come from Lumiere show standing beside their Hyundai. The passenger side glass had been smashed but nothing was stolen. They surmised the thief had been scared off. Their car was scheduled to get the theft protection software upgrade in two weeks.
We loved Ann Punzi’s paintings at Colleen’s. Her show, called “Current Events” features gorgeous abstracts based on environmental disasters. In her statement she says, ” While researching information on climate change I discovered information on Blue Carbon Ecosystems and this presented a hopeful direction for this series.
Peggi drinking a Mint Julep at the Kentucky Derby on our first date, 1973, the year Secretariat won.I guess it wasn’t a traditional first date. In 1973 Steve Hoy suggested we go to the Kentucky Derby, not even a two hour drive from Bloomington. I invited Peggi. We were just getting to know each other. Thankfully we are still getting to know each other. We plan to watch the race tomorrow, just after the Copa del Rey final. We’ll celebrate with a bottle of Spanish Rioja and toast to our golden years.
Secretariat won, setting a record that still stands fifty years later, and went on to win the Triple Crown. NBC just posted restored footage of the race. I suspect they used a version of the AI app that Duane Sherwood is applying to Suicide footage.
Fallen pine in Durand EastmanThings are so green now I can barely see the neighbor’s house. I can see the cardinals’ nest in the small tree not more than ten feet from my desktop. It really attracts my attention when the male lights on it. It wouldn’t be this green if we hadn’t had all this rain. We put lettuce, spinach, carrots and cilantro in and we haven’t even had to water yet.
They say the season you were born in is most often your favorite. I can attest to that maxim. April 28 is still early spring so I can remember some brisk walks, some warm sunny days and my tenth birthday when I got a new baseball bat but there was still snow on the ground.
Margaret Explosion performance at Little Theatre Café on Sunday, April 16, 2023For twenty years Margaret Explosion has played Wednesday nights at the Little Theatre Café. A few weeks back we played our first Sunday night gig there. There were many familiar faces in the crowd but the vibe was different. Here are six songs performed Sunday March 16th for the first and only time.
Listen to Cloud Library
Listen to Evidence
Listen to Lake Effect
Listen to Pawpaw
Listen to Readymade
Listen to Reconnoiter
Peggi Fournier plays soprano sax, Phil Marshall plays guitar, Ken Frank plays the double bass, Melissa Davies plays cello and Paul Dodd plays drums.
Crystal Z Campbell’s “Lines of Sight” video installation at Memorial Art GalleryI had planned on entering some work in the biennial Finger Lakes Exhibition but I spaced out the deadline. I was going to enter two of my pieces from “Manifestation.” I’m working on pieces for a Little Theatre show in September and enjoying the blank slate.
We stopped by the Finger Lakes show yesterday and found some things we really liked. John Griebsch had a beautiful arial photo of a row of trees. I voted for Bill Keyser’s painting on found metal as my favorite and later wished I had voted for Eric Kunsman‘s black and white photo of two pay phone at the four corners of Webster.
The Gap Band’s “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” is like magnet drawing viewers onto the media space at the MAG but we only had time to duck our heads in and grab a still shot. We made a note to visit Crystal Z Campbell’s “Lines of Sight,”a take on he 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, at a later date.
Hermann Nitsch alter installation at Pace Gallery in ChelseaTwelve years ago we stumbled onto a Hermann Nitsch performance at Pace Gallery in Chelsea. This wasn’t one of his bloody crucifixion performances, this was a musical performance of Hirsch’s composition for strings inside Pace Gallery where Nitsch’s paintings were on display. Nitsch, himself, sat in a chair in front of the quintet.
Last week, while popping in and out of galleries in Chelsea, we stopped in at Pace, just as they were turning off the lights for the day. It was six o’clock and we were cramming in as much art as we could digest. They turned the lights back on and we discovered we were at another show of Kitsch’s. He died last year and his paintings looked particularly somber but even more beautiful. His altar installation in the back of the gallery knocked me out.
Mark Bradford piece at Hauser Wirth in ChelseaI love the fact that Mark Bradford gets all his art making tools at Home Depot. I love our local outlet as well, even though the owner supports the T-man and they don’t take Apple Pay. The place is full of art supplies. We saw his show in Chelsea last week and I particularly like “Manifest Destiny,” above. The idea that the United States is destined by God to expand and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent is so bloated it is laughable. But then here we are. Underneath Bradford’s piece is a large billboard for a Los Angeles entrepreneur that reads, “Johnny Buys Houses.”
Earlier in the day I took the photo below as we worked our way through TrBecCa.
Leftover posters on a wall in TriBeCa
Paul changing the filter in Jared’s pondI have a few photos of our neighbor, Jared, in the wet suit, the waders that come up to your crotch and the yellow gloves that fit over your elbows. He looks like the frog man. Today Peggi took a photo of me in the gear. The filter in his pond was clogged and Jared needed help getting it out. The bottom surface of the pond is lined with rubber and it slopes toward the center so it is as slippery as can be. Jared has fallen in a few times. He told me the trick was to get all four limbs planted. I kept trying to grab one of the fish but they are too quick.
Our neighbor Rick went to the House of Guitars on Record Store Day and he bought me a record for my birthday, a live Nico album from 1980. Eleven of the thirteen songs were written by Nico and the other two, the ones that put her on the map were written by Lou Reed. The first song was brand new at the time. The performance is majestic. We were so surprised to hear her in such good form, a completely timeless, singular voice. She is backed by uncredited musicians, a keyboard player, a percussionist and a drummer and they contribute to the dark mood with the gentlest touch until the last song, “Femme Fatale,” where they overstep their bounds and rearrange the song only to sabotage it.
Rick is covering for Scott Regan’s radio show this week and he asked me if I had a Ron Carter album. Apparently it will be Carter’s birthday that day. Damn if I didn’t still have a copy of Eric Dolphy and Ron Carter’s “Magic.”
We sold most of our records years ago. We hung on to the 45s and a few stacks of lps and cds and we subscribed to a streaming service but that new Nico album is precious. So is the new Nod cd, “Fly, Fly, Fly.” Even though they’re a local band I bought the cd by mail from their Bandcamp site. I think that means they get more the proceeds than they would if I bought it in a store. The trio’s new music reads more like an internal dialog than a guitar, bass, drums performance. Joe plays clarinet as well as guitar and both he and Tim play keyboards on the disc. Brian’s drums sound gentle I can’t believe I just said that. The otherworldly artwork is by Chris Schepp making it a must have physical package. The seven songs are short but if you loop it you won’t even notice.
Plastic covered door in Midtown Manhattan 2023Walking around Manhattan, popping in and out of galleries, digesting rectangular artwork on rectangular walls does something to your senses. It puts them on alert to possibilities. And they are everywhere.
Black doorway in Chelsea 2023
Chryssa “Cycladic Book Nos. 2, 5, 8” 1955 Dia ChelseaDia Chelsea’s two large spaces are currently filled with big work by the Greek artist Chryssa. Her light sculptures were in the first dark room and her large newspaper like pieces are hanging in the the light filled space. I love her little plaster, terracotta sculptures from 1955.
Gerhard Richter Abstract Drawing at David Zwirner in ChelseaGerhard Richter has stopped painting for now but he is still working at the top of his game. His show at David Zwirner in Chelsea is a showstopper. In addition to some some of his last paintings there are rooms of pencil drawings, ink and wash drawings and watercolors. Peggi and I spent quite a while in front of this one (his third drawing from September 12, 2022) marveling at how he layers abstract textures and then dramatically plays with the space by adding ink lines.
Duane on the Williamsburg BridgeOne of the advantages of taking photos with a camera is not being able to scroll through them immediately like you would with a phone. It takes me days to get the Raw images off my card into PS Elements and into the Photos app. And in that time I get to relive my trip.
We arrived at Duane’s apartment in Brooklyn on a beautiful blue day with no agenda. Peggi had spotted an article on the way down entitled “100 best restaurants in NYC,” a listing that included moderately priced places, not just high end joints. We picked one in Williamsburg and Duane suggested taking the train from his place into lower Manhattan and then walking across the Williamsburg Bridge back into Brooklyn. We walked for miles around Williamsburg, by Duane’s old place and restaurants we ate at back in the day, all now just figments of our memories. We walked along the waterfront and finished at Number 39 on the list. We shared two incredible appetizers – baby artichokes (grilled and sauced with mint salsa verde) and marinated leeks (dressed with anchovies and pistachios) and a bowl of pasta.
John McLaughlin painting at Van Doren Waxter 2023We had tickets for a Broadway play in the old Studio 54. The building was originally an opera house and I can’t imagine how the space ver worked as a club. The play was a matinee so we I made a short list of Midtown galleries to check out before the show. We struck gold in three of them, I don’t remember the fourth and we discovered the fifth was had closed, permanently. The John McLaughlin show was fantastic (above.) Had never heard of Markus Lüpertz but the picture in Time Out drew us to his “Et in Arcadia ego” show and we loved his funky, luscious paintings. And at Hauser Wirth we discovered Winfred Rembert‘s dye on carved and tooled leather work, a revelation.
The play went deep into family relationships. Just three actors, all great, performing a script developed from the text in photographer, Larry Sulton’s book, “Pictures From Home.” That text is mostly transcriptions of dialog with his parents as he involved them in a series of photos of them in their home. He turned the tables on his parents who documented him as he grew up. What he uncovered was rich and moving as his parents pushed back on “art project.”
Male toad serenading a mate in Jared’s pondWe’ve been sleeping with our windows open for the past week or so, falling asleep to the sound of toads singing in the creek down below. I love that sound, so primal, like a native ceremony happening in the next village. In most cases it is many toads singing but yesterday we witnessed a solo performance by this guy in our neighbor’s pond.
The female toads, who are usually larger than the males, answer the call. The way Jared explains it the male hops onboard, the females let a string of tiny black eggs loose in the water, the male excretes his milky sperm and in a few weeks the pond is full of tadpoles. His pond was like some kind sex club. Toads splashing around on the floating plants in twosomes, threesomes and even foursomes. The females, having answered the siren call, seem to be trying get away, to shake the male on their back. We watched this one pair climb out of the pond and up the waterfall where they ran into a frog.
One frog and two toads mating in Jared’s pondJ
Looking up with Leo Dodd in Edmunds Woods 2015You won’t find Edmunds Woods on a map of Rochester. This tiny, mostly overlooked wooded area was once part of the Edmunds farm property on Westfall Road. The woods is nestled between highway cloverleaves, medical buildings and Town Brighton recreation fields. My father fell in love with this place while unearthing Brighton’s neglected history and he gave it the name, “Edmunds Woods.” Right now, before the trees (shown in the photo above fill in, the forest floor here is full of wildflowers. It is a privilege to recall visiting the woods with him.
I imagine my father would be all over this AI chatbot technology. He was excited about what was coming down the road and always ahead of tech curve. He had a Mac II before us. We set type on his computer before getting our own, machines that revolutionized our lives.
As people worry that the A.I. chatbot technology could flood Facebook groups with disinformation, degrade critical thinking and erode the factual foundation of modern society Cade Metz from NYT says “Think of the chatbots as jazz musicians. They can digest huge amounts of information – like, say, every song that has ever been written – and then riff on the results. They have the ability to stitch together ideas in surprising and creative ways. But they also play wrong notes with absolute confidence.” And why shouldn’t they. Miles already told us “There is no such thing as a wrong note.”
Slide at Memorial Art Gallery talk by Yale’s John Hogan on the artwork of Sol LeWittJohn Hogan, a long time Sol LeWitt business partner and friend, spoke at the Memorial Art Gallery last night in conjunction with the recently installed “Wall Drawing #957, Form derived from a cube.” He explained how LeWitt’s thinking evolved as artist, how he thought of himself as a composer and how he came to the realization that the idea is the art, not the execution.
His first wall drawing was installed at Paul Cooper’s gallery in New York in 1968 as a benefit for the Students Mobilization Committee to End the War on Viet Nam. He sold the concept without a maquette. The buyer received paperwork like the one shown above (the title to Wall Drawing #957) and then hire craftspeople to produce the drawing on a wall as the MAG did.
We have seen many of LeWitt’s drawings over the years and I am always stuck by the way the isometric rendition of the forms plays with my senses. His forms don’t recede to any diminishing point. I came home with action points. Look up “Sol LeWitt – Sentences on Conceptual Art,” “Download Sol LeWitt app from the App Store.”
Pete Monacelli “Rock of Ages” sculpture on storage room floor. Piece including base is approximately 4″w, 6″h, 4″dWe helped Pete hang his recent show at the Little Theatre. The show was a mini retropective and it included large paintings from the 60’s and 70’s so Peggi and I helped him move the lot. We left one item behind, a plaque given to Pete in honor of his work in creating the space that is now the café. Pete’s Renaissance Man resume includes rehabbing half the city as owner of Monacelli Construction. Pete’s sculptures line the shelves of his storage space and “Rock of Ages” (above) caught my eye.
Arpad at the controls recording Margaret Explosion “Civilization.” Paul Dood, Jack Schaefer and Peggi Fournier listening. 2016For the last Margaret Explosion record (a cd) Arpad set up a work station in our home and we piled up the tracks. This time, like most of the other ME cds, we are simply compiling songs that were recorded during our live performances. But this one is being released on vinyl only so the tracks need to be mastered. And that’s where Arpad comes in.
Arpad’s home studio is mostly analog. He is toying with writing our recordings to tape with his tube amp and then bringing them back to digital. He would be happy if the whole world was in mono. He has suggested that we just hang one mic over the band the next time we play. We might just do that.
Claes Oldenburg vs. Damien Hirst from Rick Hock “Artist vs. Artist” drawings at Rochester ContemporaryA sure way to for me to get sucked down a rabbit hole is to dig into my photo library for something. Today, searching for something else, I came across photos of the drawings Rick Hock did, from a show at Rochester Contemporary in 2015, just after Rick passed. They drew me in all over again. Louise Bourgeois whomping Cindy Sherman. Claus Oldenberg with a Damien Hirsch doll. Hysterical and biting, caricatures so good they hardly need labels. William Kendrick scolding Ed Ruscha. But who is beating up Julian Schnabel? Walton Ford? Rick liked Walton Ford?
I wished I had photographed every piece in the show so I went to Google to see more. I found a picture of Rick, from PopWars (I hate it when that happens) and my post from 2015. I already wrote what I was about to enter here today so I’ve copy-pasted that post below. But I was delighted to find a listing for a $10 VSW book of Rick’s drawings, published after he passed. I ordered that.
Rick Hock, Visual Studies Workshop Director, 2011SEPTEMBER 6, 2015
We got to know Rick Hock a little at a time. Steve the mailman would talk about him as “another music nut,” someone we should know. Rick lived the next block over, on Barry Street. My cousin lived on that street too and we never saw her. Steve used our bathroom because we worked out of the house. He’d bring us cookies that the ladies at Elite Bakery would give him when he delivered their mail and he always had the new Neil Young record on the day it came out because he friends with Kim at the House of Guitars. Steve kept telling us “we had to meet this guy.”
We met Rick’s wife first and she offered us a kitten, one born to a scraggily white cat that lived under their house. Stella, who is solid white like her mother, is seventeen now and a real sweetheart. Every time we saw Rick we’d tell him, “we still have that cat.”
Rick was someone you wanted to get to know. He was intriguing and opened himself slowly so that each encounter was an adventure. He played guitar and jammed with Peggi and me in our neighbors’ (Willie and Ethylene’s) driveway while they were having a garage sale. Rick was an artist, he converted the attic in his house into his studio. He worked at the Eastman House and curated some of our favorite shows there.
Rick was dark and sweet at the same time. He was very bitter about the Vietnam Nam war and it didn’t take much to get him going on politics. He was frustrated about a lot of things but always looking for an opening or a way to express the madness. The last few times we saw him were heartbreaking as we learned he had cancer. He died when he was on a roll.
His drawings, on display now in the small gallery at RoCo, are explosive. I hear these are some of the last things he did so the show was put together without Rick’s guidance. The large drawings portray pairs of artists locked in battles. Joseph Bueys beating up on Warhol etc. RoCo has made these pairs out to be winners and losers, favorite artists putting posers in their place, but I like to think they just portray the struggle, to make art, to create, to be successful in the market or true to the creative gods. Artists vs. art.
There are ten of them here, even one that Rick didn’t title which RoCo has turned into a contest to identify. I cast my vote and am pretty sure I have the answer.
Bruce Nauman, Kara Walker, Anselm Kiefer, Francis Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Walton Ford, Claes Oldenburg, William Kentridge, Louise Bourgeois, Andres Serrano Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, Elizabeth Peyton, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Julian Schnabel, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha and Cindy Sherman are all there. Don’t miss this show.
Here’s the Meredith Davenport’ statement that accompanies the show:
“Drawing was a fluid way for Rick McKee Hock to metabolize ideas and to connect with people, whether he was sketching his frustrations out in a meeting or sharing complex feelings through the loving marks on a birthday card, it was the process of drawing that was a primary connection to the world around him. His fascination with the mark and to visual language combined with his intellectual complexity would move him towards the photographic images he is so well respected for.
But the drawings are essential. They are artifacts of the conversations he was having with the world- sometimes profound, occasionally banal and most times they were very funny. A few times they were also terrifyingly prescient. He struggled with the limitations of his drawings. Were these “cartoons”, truncated one-liners that could not transcend into the deeper things he felt and observed and tried to express? How could he imbue these marks with more? It was a constant struggle for him because he loved the mark and the paper and the pen even more than the silver image.
Like many artists before him, Rick located himself in the creative cosmos through the artists he admired and he made reference to them in his work. Maybe it was a way for him to commune with their ideas or to pay homage to the impact they had on him? He made an early set of small engravings of photographers he respected and his polaroid works reference writers like Ezra Pound and William S. Burroughs. In these drawings, he was into deeper questions about contemporary art through narratives he created via the artists he admired and hated. The marks and humor were a way for him to think about and distill their work and their careers. They are a beautiful expression of his own labor to resolve the tension between his big brain and his skilled and intuitive hand.
For me these drawings are also a love letter. When he made them, I was in New York City taking two‐week drawing course at the Studio School. Each night, after eight hours of classical figure drawing, I would receive a photograph on my cell phone of one of these drawings that he made during the day. It was his way to be with me. He knew that I also battle with similar questions in the contemporary art dialog. He worked with artists I admired like Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman. In his drawings their authenticity always defeated the charlatans. We were somehow all in this fight together!”
– Meredith Davenport
Lakeshore Boulevard from trail around Durand LakeThe trail along Durand Lake was especially beautiful this morning. We scared a beaver and didn’t see another soul in the park. Maybe because they were forecasting thunderstorms and the sky was already rumbling. We watched a swan glide across the lake without creating a ripple. Durand Lake drains into Lake Ontario, just beyond Lakeshore Boulevard, and there were more white caps on the big lake than we had seen in while. It is just a few inches above its longterm average but the waves made the beach impassible.
The Magnolia blossoms are just getting ready to pop. The wooly buds are starting to shed their outer skins and bright white is just below the surface. The Park people had put a new bench in, overlooking the Magnolias and it didn’t look level to us. Peggi used the level app on her phone and confirmed that it was.
Larry Sultan photograph, “My Mother Posing” 1984When you photograph someone you go for a picture of how you like seeing them. Parents tell kids where to stand, what to wear and when to smile. And then they capture their idyllic image.
One of the old newspapers we read after returning from Mexico had a familiar Larry Sultan image in it along with an article about his series, “Pictures from Home (1983–92).” Some of the images are currently on view in Chelsea and a play based on the dialog in his book of the same name is running on Broadway. The back story was so interesting to us we bought tickets and plan to travel to NYC soon. Sultan turned the tables on his parents and returned home to photograph them. He collaborated with his parents on this project capturing candid shots and staging others as a way to break down the barriers between reality and fiction. Sultan talked about “”Pictures from Home” when the photos were shown at SFMoMA.
Museo de la Cancion Yucateca in Merida, MexicoThe Museo de la Cancion Yucateca in Merida was as magical and gentle as the Yucatan people. Peggi started making this video before we had even paid our 50 peso entry donation. The temperature was in the upper nineties but like most places in Merida the huge open doors, high ceilings and open air courtyard drew the warm air out of the building.
This courtyard was surrounded by rooms that featured different chapters in the history of Yucatan’s unique music. The papel picado (perforated paper or pecked paper) was plastic in this case and it made the prettiest sound as it flapped in the breeze. Shadows from the papel danced on the floor of the courtyard.
Colorful Lake Ontario in late MarchOur neighbor, Dan, took in our mail while we were in Mexico. That and the newspapers filled an Amazon box. I n the pile were two some boxes, 45 mailers. I was expecting the one. Our copy of “Is That All There Is?” skipped and I don’t want to live without that record. The MX-80 single was surprise. Guitarist, Bruce Anderson, left the planet but not before the band recorded this gem. Produced by Steve Albini, “When Tully Flew the Coop” is a vintage MX pile driver. We fell in love with the slower, moodier b-side, “Snowing in Amsterdam.” The brilliant Rich Stim lyrics put it on the same shelf as the Peggy Lee classic.
“When she starts to daydream
Her mind turns to the dead
Go back to bed instead
She wants something
But doesn’t know what it is
There’s a place in the ocean
Where my father’s shoes lay
Malevolent tides
No warning sign
His judgement day
And while his life was slowing
It was snowing in Amsterdam”
Margaret Explosion plays the Little Theatre Café tonight.
Mariachi band at Salon Gallos in Merida
Fernando García Ponce art in Merida Contemporary MuseumCulture is art and in Merida you don’t have to go far to find it. Museos, galerías, mercados and even the government buildings. The Yucatan people are so proud of their heritage they have turned the city into somewhat of a gastronomical paradise. In fact, we had dinner in a restaurant called Museo de la Gastronomía Yucateca, an open air courtyard with full grown trees in an ancient building. It lived up to its moniker. Bands performing traditional Mexican music played every night of the week in a rotating parque schedule. The churches are still active. The Spanish made an impression.
Three crosses near the back door of the Cathedral in MeridaI’ve not checked in with PopWars since we returned. It wasn’t jet lag or anything, it was getting back in the swing. We had a backlog of La Liga matches and we couldn’t wait to get to El Clásico so we watched a match a night. And last night’s El Clásico was fantastic! We have a Margaret Explosion gig coming up so Peggi and I have carved out a slot to play each day. There were no hills in Mexico so we had work a little harder on our walks. And with the leftover time I have been plowing through my photos. The street is where I found most of the art.
Abandoned building in Merida, Mexico
Alex and Luci’s wedding at a hacienda outside MeridaMy sister-in-law told us she played with AI for suggestions on what she might say when she took the mic the night before her son’s wedding. This was day three of festivities and most of the 150 guests had arrived in town. This event was being held in an old food processing plant, now a complex that included the restaurant, a bar, an art gallery, a dance hall, a movie theater and a lounge. The AI was a bust for her and from what I could hear of her talk it could only have been generated by the groom’s proud mom.
The wedding itself took place at a hacienda outside of Merida. The guests gathered in Parque Santa Lucia and boarded two full size tour buses for the forty minute ride. The setting was gorgeous and the ceremony was wildly perfect. Our neighbor can legally marry people. I’m not sure what the term is for those that can officiate a non religious ceremony, but this one was a friend and he did a great job. Although I couldn’t help thinking about AI during his talk. We’ve known our nephew his whole life and his vows were so sweet and tender. I thought, “take that AI!” It was my favorite part of the four days.
Painting in speakeasy, MeridaSomeone, somewhere is re-releasing New Math’s “Die Trying on an lp.” This will be the fourth time. It has already been released on Reliable, CBS and Archive Records. Since I was only in the band long enough to record it and the B side, “Angela,” they asked if I could write two sentences for the liner notes.
So it’s 95 degrees here, I’m sitting in an open air courtyard with a Negra Modelo and I came up with this. “I loved how Gary and Kevin arranged Die Trying. I can still see Kevin air drumming my parts.” I don’t think I ever really got what he heard.
N. Señora del Segrado CorazónOur daily Merida pattern has shifted gears and now centers on the main attraction, our nephew’s wedding. He and his wife to be are chefs in Miami where one of their two restaurants has earned a Michelin star. They love Merida and the food here is an inspiration to them for good reason. Approximently 150 people are gathering here from all parts of the world for their destination wedding.
We checked out of our hotel yesterday and are now staying in an Airbnb with Peggi’s sister, another nephew, his partner and their daughter. We met the groom to be for dinner last night and a much bigger group of early arrivers met for lunch today. Tonight after dinner we’re joining an even bigger group at a rooftop bar. Each of these establishments have been carefully selected by the chefs. All have easy going and top notch.
We still found time for yoga this morning and and then a walk around town. We stopped at a sweet little church where a mass was going on and I grabbed this photo of N. Señora del Segrado Corazón.
Musician crossing against the light in MeridaThe Mayans developed the concept of zero. Bow down.
I don’t think we were even living together yet when we decided to go to Mexico for the first time. It must have been in in the summer because Peggi was still going to school. I remember saving money for the trip in a little box and the total wasn’t more than a few hundred dollars. We were living in southern Indiana and we drove Peggi’s orange Vega to Oaxaca and Salina Cruz at the southern tip of Mexico and back to Indiana.
Our first stop, in Paducah Kentucky, was almost as memorable as Mexico. We spent the night in a campground and someone there told us about a carnival down the road. It was one of those really creepy affairs where you pay to get into small attractions where all sorts of strange curiosities were on display. I will never forget the animals with extra legs.
In Mexico we continued to sleep in the back of the Vega until we learned that hotels were just a dollar or two a night. We are still astounded at how cheaply you can eat and entertain yourselves in Mexico. We took a bus to Progreso, on the coast about 30 miles north of Merida and the round trip for two was 4 dollars. We walked on the beach and swam in the warm turquoise waves before stopping for a Negra Modelo.
Yellow building, blue sky, MeridaMerida is an architectural details freak’s paradise. Buildings from a few different centuries, the really old, the contemporary and the long neglected, sit side by side sporting fanciful wrought iron, eye popping tile patterns and ornate woodwork. Old stonework anchors the surfaces and looks as attractive today as it did a few centuries ago. The surfaces are layered in tropical colors and adorned with signage and typography that is distinctly Mexican, a combination of Aztec, Mayan and Spanish influences.
Mayan head in Museo de Antropología e Historia, MeridaOur hotel is named after a saint and the rooms all have Mayan names. Our room is “Kabah,” named after the Mayan city that sat where Merida is today.. Our hotel took its name from the old church next door. And just a few blocks from it sits the oldest cathedral in the Americas, from the 1500s. As if that’s a big deal. The Mayans had an advanced civilization here well before the Spanish arrived.
I’ve added to my holy card collection since we arrived and we’ve been in and out of the old churches but we’ve also been to the Museo de Antropología e Historia and the Palacio de Gobierno del Estado de Yucatán with its magnificent but gruesome murals depicting the conquest with firearms, horses and the cross. The beautiful old stone “false idols” are destroyed and with their auto-da-fé the conquerors forced the Mayans to worship Christ. Even the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Ateneo de Yucatán threw these ugly truths in your face. Merida today is wildly friendly and safe place but we carry load of guilt around with us.
Musica en el pargue, Merida, MexicoCatrin is a lively spot. There was a dj playing songs from a laptop in the front of the restaurant and the tables in the open air courtyard were all taken or reserved. We sat in the front room under a silent tv with the PSG Brestois game on. We had not seen a match since we left Rochester so we were thrilled.
We are in the habit of of making a meal out of sharing one appetizer and one entree and skip dessert. In Merida even that is too much. The tortilla chips were on the house and they were served with four distinctly different dips, all manor of hot sauce. The shrimp tacos were sensational and the catch of the day came with a fresh salad and a pile of cilantro. We tried anther local IPA, this one called “Mastache,” and we were very happy with it. The score was 1-1 in the sixty fifth minute when someone at the controls, switched the channel to Los Tigers, a Mexican team.
On the way back to our place we came across a guy singing traditional Mexican music in the park. Peggi had our swimming ear plugs in her pocket so we put those on for a few songs, not for the music but the volume. We walked by a vegan restaurant with a Cumbia band playing. We could see and hear the band from the sidewalk so we stood there for a while. A four piece, the bass player sang and played in a dub style. Someone was playing congas and another guy a cowbell. A trombone player carried the melody.
Servicio Aeropuerto driver, MeridaThree flights sounded like a nightmare but they all went smoothly and we were poolside at a lovely little hotel in Mérida, Mexico by 2 pm. We found a restaurant with great reviews just 800 ft away but found they weren’t serving until seven. We chose another two blocks away but on the way to that one we found the intriguing Museo de La Gastronomía Yucateca, an open courtyard in the center of an old building with huge doors, the kind you would see in a Vincent Price movie.
They started us with two ice cream sized scoops of whipped beans con salsa verde. We each ordered a Cerveza Patito IPA and we split a bowl of Sopa de Lima. We shared a serving of Pollo Pibil, baked in banana leaves and didn’t have room to pick the bones. We ate like kings and the bill was not even thirty US dollars. Quizás, Quizás, Quizás by Celia Cruz on the sound system topped it off.
Four “Untitled” entries to Rochester Contemporary 6×6 Show, carved pine, Paul Dodd 2023Rochester Contemporary’s annual 6×6 Show provides an opportunity to revisit the small format. So many of the show’s parameters are fixed, the size (36 square inches), the $20 price, the 100 per cent take by RoCo (a donation) and yet there are so many possibilities. I particularly like working in multiples, letting my four submissions play off each other. And beyond that I enjoy competing with or complimenting my pieces from earlier 6×6 shows. Win/Win and all that.
Paul and Peggi’s band equipment outside the Little TheatreIt was SRO all afternoon at the Little Theatre Café for Pete’s opening. Zanne Brunner visited Pete’s downtown warehouse space and curated a mini retrospective of his work entitled, “Thread – Art of Seven Decades.” The pieces she chose spanned 56 years a period of non-stop creation for Pete Monacelli and he is by no means done. Anybody who know Pete knows he is a dynamo. And everyone, it seems, knows Pete. He connects us to one another. He is the glue that holds our community together in Rochester.
Pete only misses a Margaret Explosion gig if he has one himself. If he wasn’t the man of honor yesterday his band would have been working the room. We were honored he asked Margaret Explosion to perform. It may have been the loudest room our quiet band has played but it was a treat.
Members of the Pete Monacelli Fan Club at Pete Monacelli “Thread – Art of Seven Decades” opening at Little Theatre Cafe
Gloria’s multigrain sour dough breadPeggi manages our Netflix dvd queue and I usually bring the mail in and so it is always a surprise for me when I open the red envelope. “Devil Girl From Mars” from 1954! I read the description: “With the male population of Mars on the decline, the future of the red planet rests squarely in the hands of a long-legged alien named Nyah (Patricia Laffan), who’s come to Earth in search of virile, able-bodied men.” That hit the spot.
On Sparky’s recommendation we took our car to Jerome’s Automotive. His chief mechanic, the miracle worker was Igor and he spoke very little English. The guy who installed our alarm system, Vlad spoke English with a heavy Russian accent and dropped most pronouns. His helper, Al, was an intellectual. He took note of my art books and easily went off topic, telling stories that he laughed at. Our niece, a real sweetheart, was born in Moscow and her siblings still live there. I have a soft spot for Russians so “Nalvany” blew me away.
The Leonard Cohen documentary focused on “Hallelujah,” his masterpiece. Funny how Columbia’s Walter Yetnikoff turned the song down. John Cale released a beautiful version on a Hall Wilmer album accompanied by only his piano. For some reason Jeff Buckley took it mainstream. And it now the most popular song at weddings.
Angel recommended “Dinner In America” so we gave that a try. We bailed after fifteen minutes but the rental was good for 48 hours so we continued the next night. The obnoxious characters from the night before turned almost charming. The Watermelon song was the highlight.
White Amaryllis in living roomWe heard the red-winged blackbirds’ song but we couldn’t spot any of the birds in cattails along Hoffman Road. The outlet from Durand Lake has cut a swiftly flowing stream through the beach on the big lake so we were unable to cross. The roads through the park are all so descriptive. There was a zoo on Zoo Road and there is a pinetum along Pine Valley Road. Lakeshore Boulevard is aptly named. There are ferns on both sides of Sweet Fern Road so there must have been a log cabin on Log Cabin Road.
Gottlieb “Forgotten Dream” at Johnson Museum, Cornell campusPhilip Guston “Key-Wall-Sea” 1978 at Johnson Museum, Cornell campusIt wasn’t until we were back home, looking at my pictures, that I realized how similar these two paintings are. Both artists were Abstract Expressionists but Gottlieb’s painting was done in 1946, before that movement had been established and the Guston painting was done after Guston had moved on. Both artists, of course, took what they had learned with them as they broke barriers.
Gottlieb called the pieces he was doing in the forties “pictograms.”Almost like a box of curiosities, the elements interact and tell a story. Guston calls the elements in his paintings “forms.” His piece is more three dimensional than Gottlieb’s but his forms are pushed to the surface. They are in your face.
Both paintings continue to tell stories long after they were completed.
Blue tarp installation along road to Ithaca, New YorkToday is a perfect winter day. Temperatures in the low twenties, a hint of sunshine, a gentle big-flake snowfall which after a few hours left enough fresh powder on top of the iced over ground cover to permit skiing. For only the second time this winter. We skied up to lake and turned around. We’ll make a fire and watch the Madrid Derby, a La Liga match between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. They are two of our favorite teams but when they meet we’re all in for Atletico. Our red led lights will be on for the evening.
“Rosary” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 05.15.19. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Pete LaBonne – piano, Phil Marshall – guitar, Paul Dodd – drums.
Johnson Museum on Cornell campusI.M. Pei’s Johnson Museum, at the top of a hill overlooking Cayuga Lake on Cornell’s campus is real treasure. We make a point of visiting Ithaca every winter, usually in conjunction with a cross country ski but not this year. We park in the public lot behind the library and walk through the Commons and then uphill to the Johnson, the citadel. Ithaca is not only gorges it has some serious hills, like San Francisco. The alumni have contributed mightily to the collection and they have some real gems from Giacometti, Arthur Dove, Otto Dix and Philip Guston.
Matisse “Nausicaa Episode” illustration for James Joyce’s “Ulysses” at Johnson MuseumI’ve been reading James Joyce’s short story collection, “The Dubliners,” and am struck by how his vivid depictions of that era feel so contemporary. James Joyce’s “Ulysses” was inspired by the ancient Greek epic the Odyssey and Henri Matisse was hired in 1935 to illustrate an edition. The Johnson Museum has some of the original, soft-ground etchings on display. I love Matisse and found these to be especially beautiful. And then I read the nearby wall tag.
“Matisse seems not to have read Joyce’s novel, instead taking inspiration directly from the Odyssey. In the Circe and Calypso Matisse outlines an entanglement of limbs, representing Odysseus’s amorous encounters with both women. In each case, it is the female figure who seduces Odysseus, while his wife at home remains faithful. In the Odyssey, Nausicaä is self-conscious of being seen with the naked Odysseus, yet Matisse chooses to render the female characters nude. In fact, Matisse seems to suggest it is the women who are actually in the position of power, towering over Odysseus. While Calypso and Circe instigate their encounter with Odysseus, the relationship between Nausicaä and Odysseus is platonic in the original text. However, Matisse still chooses to illustrate Nausicaà as a sexual aggressor.”
Funky Sign contribution from Pete and ShelleyYou know how you have habits, activities and hobbies and then one day discover you have let them go? I used to have a Funky Signs section on the Refrigerator. I moved it to PopWars but I have not added a new one in quite a while.
Johnny used to contribute. Anne Havens sent us a bunch. Our friends, Pete and Shelley, are still on the lookout and they sent us this beauty the other day. See FUNKY SIGNS.
Durand Lake from Log Cabin in FebruaryWe walk through the park and along the beach most days and prefer it when we have it all to ourselves. But then I love seeing the picnic shelters full on a hot summer day. We’re certainly not the only regular walkers so we see familiar faces and say hi as we pass. Most of the dog walkers are as friendly as can be, especially if you pet their dog, but once you have been bit a few times you get shy so we mostly keep our distance. A subset of the dog walkers ignore the “Dogs Must Be Leashed” signs and let their dogs take a dump wherever it likes while they talk on the phone. They are special and the rules do not apply to them or their dog. When their off-leash dogs come at us we call for their owners put them on a leash.
Today’s paper had an article about a small dog that was attacked and killed by another dog in Durand Eastman. The dogs were off leash. Someone called the cops while the attack was going on and the police responded and fired a shot at the larger dog when it ran toward them but they missed.
Just for the record, we’ve had dogs. We love dogs, especially Arya across the street. I wish it wasn’t up to us to enforce the “Dogs Must Be Leashed” rule.
Ethnic Heritage Ensemble at the Bop Shop February 13, 2023Already one week since the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble was here, a yearly affair for the last twenty or so. This performance was their sweetest yet. They had just played in New York and were and in the middle of a month long tour. Their last record was nominated for a Grammy so they are on a roll. They played the London Jazz Festival with Don Cherry’s siblings and their upcoming record will be dedicated to Cherry. It also includes a reinterpretation of my favorite Pharaoh Sanders song.
At the Bop Shop they opened with Kahill’s “healing song”A Time For Healing” and then Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” Coltrane’s “Resolution” and “Great Black Music” which Kahill wrote for the Art Ensemble. This trio is amazing. I love how they cover so much musical terrain with a skeletal crew. Their room in their sound for you to savor how masterful each of these players are. Kahill’s kick drum, with a full front head tuned low and loose, sounded so good in there. And it is a joy to see how much fun they have with it all.
Lake Ontario 02.15.23The six part Showtime series, “George & Tammy,” is so good. When we finished the last episode we called our friends in Nashville, to encourage them to find a way to watch and just to talk George. Jessica Chastain, made a fantastic Tammy Faye but she makes a better Tammy Wynette. Michael Shannon doesn’t really look or sound like George Jones but he embodies him. And both actors are so good it is treat to watch them go for it.
The George and Tammy catalogs, both separate and together, form the foundation of classic country. Their life stories are legendary. They are untouchable as talents and stars. Chastain and Shannon sing their own parts in the movie knowing they can’t touch the originals. They pay tribute in their performances. We are all so familiar with the original versions of these classic songs, we can hear them in our head as Shannon reaches for notes only George could find. And it is fine that he can’t put as many notes in one syllable. No one but George can do that.
It is the same reason Karen Black in is so good in “Five Easy Pieces” when she sings Tammy’s “Don’t Touch Me” to Bobby.
Guardrail along road on way to Aman’sNot enough things rust anymore. It’s beautiful. This guardrail has served it’s purpose for many years and it is now recycling itself. Plastic will be around forever.
I was grabbing some firewood from the porch when I spotted my neighbor, Jared, heading up to the mailbox. I called out him to save him a trip. “Good luck finding your paper this morning.” None were delivered again. They can’t find a carrier. He hollered back, “The paper has gone to shit.”
I picked up my piece from RoCo’s Members Show and we took a walk around downtown. Fuego was closed by the time we got over there but it was warm and sunny so we just wandered. The city center just keeps changing anti is getting better in small ways. The stately buildings are all past their prime but could be saved. The oldest of the funky ones, at Main and Clinton, are begging for a rehab. The converted office space is all nice and the brand new apartments look livable. But why are we still looking at an empty lot where the Manhattan restaurant was? Parcel 5, dead center, is ready for a windstorm. It’s not just the old pictures, it’s the ones in my living memory bank, where the streets were crowded with life that I can’t forget.
Conifer Lane in early FebruaryI don’t think it is my imagination. I am getting better at going down rabbit holes. Our devices facilitate the ease, of course, but I have always preferred daydreaming to, well, just about anything. I installed the Bing app on my iPad this morning to check out its AI assisted super-powers.
I had scene the headlines about LaBron James toppling Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record earlier and that prodded a few memories loose. Brother Tracey, my homeroom (and math teacher) at Bishop Kearney was always going on about his one of his former students, how when he was teaching at Power Memorial in NYC he suspended Lew Alcinder and that cost the basketball team their only loss in four years. Tracey was a short, wiry, little guy but mean disciplinarian. I remember him throwing a fellow student out of class for wearing cologne and I’m quite sure he was one of the Brothers who dished out the spanking that took place in the coatroom by the doors to the gym. So my first Bing search was for “Brother Tracey.”
I found an obit from 2010 and learned he left the Irish Cristian Brothers order and moved to Geneva where he taught at DeSales High School. He married a woman named, Beryl, and had three children. His brothers-in-law were listed as Blaine, Bruce and Armand, the legendary House of Guitars bothers.
Pier at Charlotte Beach on Peggi’s birthdayWe were ready to take a walk and I couldn’t find my black polar fleece jacket. It wasn’t in the closet, the bedroom, the living room. I looked everywhere before settling on one I wear when we chop wood. We took our walk and when we came back I realized I already had the jacket I was looking for on, under the one I had just put on.
For two days I layered a long sleeve t-shirt, a Smart Wool shirt, a cotton sweater, a wool sweater and then the polar fleece jacket I was looking for. I wore my wool hat in the house, I slept with it on. I had chills, a crushing headache, every joint was sore. I felt like someone had beaten the shit of me. And then Peggi tested positive, just in time for her birthday.
We had planned to stay overnight in the Finger Lakes, maybe look for some snow to ski on, but we cancelled those reservations. We took a walk at the beach and could only get halfway out the pier before the ice got too dangerous. We plan to start a fire out back, open a bottle of Spanish wine, cook our meal out there and then watch Real Madrid play. The sunshine is the perfect birthday gift.
“The Periphery of Memory” Madeline Coleman at Colleen Buzzard’s 2023The first thing Colleen said to us was, “This is the first time I’ve seen you here without masks.” We didn’t think we were being that cautious. She was standing by the door of her studio on First Friday and we were there for the opening of Madeline Coleman’s show, “In The Room Over.” Oddly, at that moment I was in the incubation period of a case of Covid. The place was packed when we played on Wednesday so I probably picked it up there. Peggi has escaped so far and I’m just coming up for air.
A young man and woman handed us a pamphlet as we entered Colleen’s studio. I assumed the women was the artist but I don’t like having to read something before I look so I didn’t take one. The couple turned out to be the artist’s parents so that was understandable. And I’m so happy Peggi took a booklet. Rather than explaining the pieces we looked at, the pamphlet was an additional treat, sketches, poetry and more questions. I hope you can get up to see this show, it is sensation on many levels.
Fishing boat on Irondequoit Bay in January 2023I have been thinking about recording methods from the past as we set up our new Scarlett 2i4 interface. The first records we made were well rehearsed songs, banged out live in a studio. The early eighties brought in all this technology – electronic keyboards, midi and the ability to trigger prerecorded samples for a so-called “big sound.” Then in reaction to that we got caught up in the DIY movement. In 1986, with a gig playing three months of weekends in the Rochester Planetarium, we were tasked with syncing our music to a laser light show. We bought an Atari ST at Leon’s Typewriter on Clinton Avenue (there were no Best Buy’s or Apple Stores at the time) and an EMU SP12. We collectively wrote (Fournier, Dodd, Martin, Edic) songs based on improvisations, sequenced the basic tracks and then performed live, playing additional instruments and singing on top of those tracks. We put two of the songs from the Planetarium Show on the Personal Effects cd compilation released in 2008.
At the Colorblind show this weekend Chris Schepp told us he played a song of ours on his WAYO show and someone Shazamed it but didn’t get any result so they called the station. The song, “Melting Pot,” was one of those Planetarium songs that were only released on cassette. I put it online this morning.
Personal Effects 90 Days In The Planetarium release from 1987.Listen to “Melting Pot” from 1987 Personal Effects 90 Days In The Planetarium.
Kathy’s grow light glowne day away from February and we finally got a proper skin in thanks to the lake effect. It was a little stick in the low lands but we made it up to the lake.
Of course we listened to Marquee Moon when heard that Tom Verlaine had died. We had just played it a few months back and we always have the same reaction. This still sounds fresh! The melodic interplay of the two guitars and Billy Ficca’s drumming remains timeless, beyond genre and unlike Tom it will live forever.
Wooden fence behind Abundance CoOpIn Netflix’s extras for the new Pinocchio, Guillermo del Toro’s shows us some of the puppets used in the making of his retelling. Many are at different scales to suit the character Pinocchio is being stop-motion-filmed with, but there are dozens at the same scale, each with a different facial expression. Del Toro says they were printed so I assume they are plastic. I had a Pinocchio mask when I was young that I wore on Halloween. I loved the Disney version, the trip to the bad boy island was but am almost afraid to watch it again. I’m quite certain del Toro’s is much richer, no matter what your age.
The Colorblind James band, the classic lineup without its leader, performed again at Abilene. There are no new songs in these performances as there was in the heyday when Chuck was consistently churning out classics but these songs have a whole lot of life left. They transcend Chuck’s self-described “circus rock” genre. I took that as classic, old world aspirations. Chuck was a troubadour and his poetic lyrics transcend time. His songs, performed by his band, sturdy musicians who have only gotten better over time, continue to touch your soul. Chuck’s songbook is in the most capable hands of his son, Mark. Mark is better singer than his father. Chuck would love that! He handles the material respectfully and the same sly, wry humor shines. Long live Colorblind!
Yellow house with blue shutters in South WedgeI’m quite sure that early on the shutters on either side of a window could be closed and latched to protect the inside of the home from the elements. But a some point in the relatively recent past shutters on windows became entirely decorative. Without hinges or latches, they were just nailed to the wall. Furthermore, if they did swing shut they would no be big enough to cover the window. We still see examples of functional shutters on old houses and it is always a treat.
Peggi and I finally got our Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 setup. It allows us to record two tracks of instruments or vocals, one for each of us. Of course we could layer to hearts’ content. The red box had been sitting next to my computer for the past two years. It has been easier to just catch the whole band in one live take.
“Clouds To Part” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre Café on 04.06.22. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Phil Marshall – guitar, Paul Dodd – drums.
Pine tree stand on golf course in JanuaryWe never really know where our daily walk will take us. Even though we live on a dead end street we have options and often surprises before our loop is closed. The outlet from Durand Lake is always rearranging itself as it cuts through the beach at Durand and for the last few weeks, with all the rain we’ve been getting in lieu of snow, it has cut a pretty deep, quick-running stream in the sand. So we have had to turn around and double back in the same direction there. The lake is about a half foot above its long term January average.
Yesterday, instead of heading out in the morning we waited for the snow to accumulate and then left on skies. We were hesitant to wax our skis first time out. (We got them so slick we had lost control in the past.) The ground still hasn’t frozen so the snow stuck to the bottom our skies, an experience similar to walking in spiked heels. We skied/walked the length of one hole on the golf course. A victory of sorts over this wimpy winter.
Amaryllis flower coming out of the top of our cupboardThe Amaryllis blossom above is in a most unlikely location. I only discovered it while standing on a stool. The cool blueish-grey horizontal band is our white ceiling, the middle band is our muslin wall and the murky brown base is the dust covered top of our living room built-in cabinet. We usually tuck our Amarylis plant behind the photo albums in the top cabinet for about a month in the winter so the bulb can go dormant but we forgot about it this year and the white stalk grew out the crack between the cabinet and wall where it found enough light to blossom.
1975 and 1999 were also Years of the Rabbit where luck, hope and good fortune are in the offing.
Horses behind Jeff and Mary Kaye’s placeI predict the future will be really exciting. This morning’s paper had an article about Deep Fakes that included this nugget. “Some experts predict that as much as 90 per cent of online content could be synthetically generated within a few years.” Critical Thinking will be more important than ever and that is where the fun comes in.
We helped Jeff and Mary Kaye clear a path along the river for cross country skiing (if we ever get snow again.) It started snowing on our way back but it quickly turned to rain.
I saw the drummer for Sadistic Mika Band and Yellow Magic Orchestra died. That set us off on rabbit hole dive that ended with this mash-up gem, their version of Archie Bell’s “Tighten Up” performed on “Soul Train.”
Empty horse food bags out by the roadDave Ripton asked if I spend much time thinking about death. I said, “Not really,” but I wondered at the same time if maybe I did. He said he’ll go down a road and think, “This is probably the last time I’ll go down this road.” Do thoughts like this indicate depression or is he just being realistic? He added, “It’s probably the Black Irish in me.” I have a good bit of Irish in me but had not heard this term. I took it to mean dark thoughts. If that assumption is correct, “The Banshees of Inisherin” is Black Irish.
I loved the movie and all its contradictions. The idyllic, island setting, the cozy pub, the fiddle music, the simple life set against the loneliness, the boredom, and the sense that time is running out. The laugh-out-loud comedy interwoven with the despair. The confessional scene was music to any former Catholic’s ears. The self mutilation was a bit much. The whole cast was brilliant. Best Picture in my little book.
Fresh snow in the backyardThe number of times we’ve have walked through Durand Eastman Park and only today did I pay particular attention to the sign that reads “Picnic Grove.” It’s always been there, by the yellow gate on Log Cabin Road, the gate they swing open in the winter because the road is off limits to vehicles. In the summer months it swings closed keeping cars off the stretch that connects Log Cabin to Zoo Road. All good in my book. I like the park rules,”Dogs must be leashed,” “No bikes on trails.” The Picnic Grove sign is in this section.
My mom would often pack picnic basket, sometimes with just peanut butter sandwiches, and we would come down here when my dad got off work. All the roads were open back then. You could drive on Horseshoe Road, which is now grown over. There was a zoo on Zoo Road and the road connected to Wisner to take you right out of the park. I remember my dad driving slowly to pick out a spot where my mother could spread the blanket on the ground and it was often right here in Picnic Grove.
The Spanish SuperCopa final was thrilling. We follow three teams and Real Madrid and Barcelona are two of them but there was never any doubt who we were pulling for. Barca almost pulled off a 3-0 shutout. They controlled the ball in midfield where Madrid used to be dominant. Busquets, the captain, Frankie De jong and the teenagers, Pedri and Gavi played magic triangles around Madrid’s midfielders as if teasing the champions and we loved it.
We zoomed with our friends, Matthew and Louise in Hawaii. They told us about a canal near them where they walk their dog, Tricky. That night we watched an episode of Hawaii Five 0 and a chase was filmed on the canal.
Frederick Douglas statue in Highland Park, Rochester, NYAccording to Visualising Slavery: Art Across the African Diaspora, this Frederick Douglas monument was the first statue in the United States that memorialized a specific African-American. It was installed in front of the New York Central train station in 1899 but then moved to Highland Park in 1941 for some reason. More curiously, it sat not where it is now but down in the bowl, just off to the left in the picture above. In 2018, on the 200th anniversary of Douglas’s birth, the city commissioned Olivia Kim to construct a series of life sized replicas of the statue. The statues were placed in throughout the city in locations that were important to Douglass’s legacy. A nice idea but the fiberglass replicas look cheap compared to this one. Douygflas deserves a fleet of bronze statues.
State Street in Rochester, New York 1952 – photographer unknownSteve was already sound asleep in his seat aboard a flight back to Detroit when the flight attendant informed him that the plane was grounded due to a nationwide FAA meltdown. Peggi and I had already gone back to bed after dropping him off at 5:30 but we were happy to have him stay with us for a third night. He was in town for a meeting with the Strong Museum of Play on an AR project. Steve is super productive and we rise to the occasion in his midst.
We were psyched enough to see Noah Baumbach’s new movie, “White Noise,” that we planned on going to the theater. But on the same day it opened here, Netflix announced the moviet was available to stream so we stayed in. I didn’t read the book it was based on and I didn’t have the patience to watch the movie. This was no Squid and the Whale, Greenberg or Meyerowitz Story. The movie felt like a complete mess, a cop of Altman, Buñuel and others, built on a book about modern life in the eighties. I fell asleep and missed the whole murder section.
We watched Truffaut’s “Day for Night” the next night and found it completely satisfying. And so much fun. His nods to his favorite directors, Hitchcock and Orson Wells, pay tribute. And last night we started “Tar.” Kate Blanchett is a force of nature. The music is fantastic and the script is timely and witty. I can’t wait to get back to it.
Beaver work along Eastman LakeWe would rather eat at home than in a restaurant but we’ve been following the story of Noma’s chef closing shop to be reborn as a “giant lab.” What comes after tiny dishes prepared from locally foraged ingredients? Our nephew and his partner own a restaurant in Miami. They earned themselves a Michelin star during the pandemic when the fine dining business was forced to reinvent themselves. We hope to have reservations there someday soon.
Based the evidence we find along the small lakes in Durand Eastman beavers are not all that fussy. They take down poplar, aspen, birch, willow and maple trees to eat the bark. Contrary to popular belief they don’t eat fish. They are strictly herbivores.
We are in an early winter cruciferous stage. We finished our walk today at the garden where our kale, collard greens and Brussels sprouts are still producing. We brought back an armful for dinner.
(Above) Page 2 from Anne Havens “Studio” eBookJoyce’s “Dubliners” was referenced in something I was reading this morning so I downloaded a public domain copy and read most of the first story. The eBook library on my iPad is stocked with books I have only partially read but I have devoured the artist’s books in my collection. My favorites are are from friends, Anne Havens and Pete Monacelli. Strangely, they were both born on the same day in the same year.
Anne Havens is in the habit of making an exhibition book for each of her art shows. The printed versions are long out of print so she gave me pdf copies of the original files for seventeen of her books. I converted them to ebooks and they are available as free downloads here. In Anne’s “Graceland” book there is a statement from her that points to why I like her work so much. “I borrow from biblical themes, and play with the BIG questions in my quest for Beauty and Truth – and usually find my resting place on the fence between the sublime and the ridiculous, the priest and the jester.”
Cover of Anne Havens “Ceramics” 2020Download “Ceramics”
Cover of Anne Havens “Early Sculpture” 1992 – 1997Download “Early Sculpture”
Cover of Anne Havens “Graceland” 2010Download “Graceland”
Visit “Artists Books” page for more free eBook downloads.
Frank Gannett plot at Mount Hope CemeteryFrank Gannet died after a fall in his Sandringham Road home in 1955. He built the mighty Gannett newspaper chain, now USA Today. Rochester’s two newspapers, the Democrat & Chronicle and the Times Union, rolled off the presses in the bottom of the Gannett building on Exchange Boulevard for many years. The editorial offices were upstairs. They moved the offices to a new building in Midtown, left the heat off during the pandemic and the pipes in sprinkler systems broke open. The printing facility was moved to the western suburbs and they recently announced they would be laying off some 700 workers there. What’s left of the paper will be printed in Pennsylvania. We still subscribe. Our carrier delivers the New York Times as well. Our NYT edition is printed in Buffalo so it was understandable that they weren’t able to get the papers here during the recent snowstorm.
This morning, a mild mid-winter day, there were no papers in our box. We called our carrier, Marie, and she had left a message on her phone that informed all that were calling about “missing papers” that she drove into a sinkhole on Titus Avenue. Her car was stuck in the hole and she recorded the message while walking back to her house. We could hear her breathing hard as she walked and her story was heartbreaking. Sort of a metaphor for newspapers.
“Shard” 2023 by Paul Dodd 46in h, 3 1/2in w, 2 1/2in d, pineThe wind storm last week took down a huge pine tree on Zoo Road. The core of the trunk was slightly discolored so maybe it was compromised. It snapped off at the base throwing large pieces of wood in all directions. I found this piece, carried it home, put a couple of wood screws in the back with a short wire and hung it on the wall. It is my first art piece of 2023.
Oil and rain water on pavement at Aman’s Farm MarketWe stopped by Aman’s on our way out to Brad’s house yesterday. It was raining when we stepped out of the car and the parking lot was electric with a mix of oil and water. I bought a clean copy of “Clear Spot” at the House of Guitars on Record Store Day and we were saving it to play at Brad’s, on the giant speakers he inherited from Gary Bennett. It was like the old days, sitting in comfortable chairs with our eyes closed, while Beefheart’s voice filled the room. Brilliant lyrics, phenomenal playing and a voice that makes all others sound small and lacking in expression, there are easily five Top 40 tracks on this album for small parallel universe.
Ticket for Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band at Red Creek Inn November 3, 1977Brad was sitting with us when we saw The Captain at Red Creek in 1977 and you can hear him shouting as the band starts “Low Yo Yo” from the Clear Spot album. Here’s my cassette recording from that show. As a bonus it includes Beefheart’s explanation for why Drumbo left the band.
New Math at Orange Monkey 1977I guess it was that podcast about Scorgies that planted the seed, the host talking about New Math at the Electric Circus. A couple of years ago Gary Trainer dropped off a cd of old New Math tracks, something labeled April 1977. It was recorded our rehearsal space above the adult bookstore in the Cox Building, just a block from Scorgies but before he opened his doors. And I knew I had some old Super 8 footage that Peggi shot of the band from back then, dark, live footage from the Orange Monkey without sound, Kevin, Gary and I in front of the first Record Archive store on Monroe Avenue and then some goofy stuff from Mount Hope Cemetery. I put it all together with some crossfades.
There weren’t many places to play before Scorgies, the Penny Arcade up at the lake, Electric Circus on Dewey, Big Daddy’s, some place along the river that Howie from Six String Sales booked and the Orange Monkey on Henrietta Town Line Road, down the road from the Red Creek Inn. Pierre ran the Orange Monkey. It was a glam rock palace. Cheap Trick was playing downtown one night when were playing the Monkey and Rick Nielsen joined us on stage after their gig. We did Gloria and something else. He was wearing the hat.
Witch hazel in full bloom on Zoo Road in Durand EastmanWe keep an eye on this witch hazel tree. It’s right at the top of the hill on Zoo Road so we pass it often. It is one of the first witch hazels to blossom and it is also the most fragrant, like butterscotch or, more accurately, those butter rum suckers they used to sell at Charlotte Beach when we were kids. These blossoms usually come in February and we read them as the first sign of spring. We already moved the first day of spring up to Saint Patty’s and now we have the first sign on New Year’s Day.
Ice formations on on bedroom windowMike Russell contacted me to make us aware of a podcast he did about Scorgies. I would probably recognize him if I saw him because it sounds like he was at many of the same shows we were. He starts this episode before the Scorgies scene with a description of the a New Math show at the Electric Circus on Dewey Avenue. I was playing drums with them at the time and Mike brought right back there.
New Math and John Mooney Blues Band at Electric Circus on Dewey Avenue in Rochester, New York 1977He played three Personal Effects songs after that when he back announced “Fascinating Game” he said, “I think that song sounds better now than it did back then.” I think he might be right. I love the dreamlike, hypnotic pace and Peggi’s exotic Farfisa organ and snake-charming soprano sax. Martin Edic wrote the lyrics which were based on a dream.
Listen to “Fascinating Game” by Personal EffectsWe might try an instrumental version of the song tomorrow night at the Little Café.
Margaret Explosion poster for December 22 gig
Dodd family at 68 Brookfield Road in Rochester, from left: Tim, John, Paul, Francis in my mom’s arms, Mark and AnnI’m guessing this photo was taken by my father on Easter Sunday. You can see my mom’s artistry in the clothes she picked out for us and herself. I treasure these old photos because they crystallize the fuzzy memories I carry around in my head. That place, that time, the relationships, the happiness along with the craziness.
My sister, Amy, who was a few year’s off when this photo was taken has the family’s slide collection in her front hall closet. I hung my coat in there last night and saw the stacks of carousals. She selected 600 some slides and we had them scanned so we could all have a copy, the evidence of our childhood. There was a Kodak slide scanner under her tree last night. More revelations are in store. We’re having dinner with Mark (shown above to my left) again tonight. It has been a real joy to to spend time with my siblings at Christmas
Christmas Tree with gifts 2022My brother Mark and his wife, Amy, had a rough trip up to Rochester. They shared their location and every time we checked on their progress their ETA had moved to an hour later. They brought their little dog with them and snuck her up to their room at the top of the Hyatt. We had reservations downtown at 6:30 and I moved the reservations three times before we met them there at 10. The temperature was 6 degrees.
We took a long walk on Christmas Eve and moved several fallen branches off the road before deciding to bring a large pine branch back to serve as our Christmas tree. We had my my brother, his wife and their tree grown children, my sister Ann and my brother Fran over for dinner. Peggi made manicotti that was out of this world and we had a grand time.
In the morning we found a gift under the tree from Mark and Amy, Ada Calhoun’s book, “Also A Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me,” about her difficult relationship with her father, Peter Schjeldahl and his difficult relationship with the poet, Frank O’Hara. Meaty material. Peggi’s sister sent us some bowls from Bauer in LA and Duane sent up an incredible book of June Leaf’s rough and tumble multi disciplined artwork. We devoured large portions of both. We bought the New York: 1962-1964 book for ourselves. The show at the Jewish Museum was on our short list of things do in the city but we ran out of time. The book is jam packed with snapshots of American culture in this narrowly focused tipping point.
Holiday train set at Amans Farm MarketAman’s was hopping on Friday before the storm. The holiday train set is the big attraction. It takes them three weeks to set it up. I was there for some fresh greens, Schutt’s apple cider and a six of Clausthaller. No one was panicking either. Wegmans was nuts. I got caught up in a crowd of shoppers in the spice aisle. One woman kept asking “Does anyone know where the poppy seeds are?” I was looking for vanilla extract but I switched to poppy seeds just to shut her up. I found them alphabetically and she asked, “How much are they.” I told her six dollars and she said , “That’s too much. I don’t even like them.”
Mural designed by Leo Dodd at UR Laser LabI could never remember whether it was fusion or fission that my father was working on. His engineering division at Kodak was lent out to UR Laboratory for Laser Energetics in the mid seventies and one of his first projects was designing the mural pictured in the photo above. He was responsible for painting it too and he enlisted help from my brother’s and sisters and their friends. The room was empty at the time. Peggi and I pitched in and I remember Duane Sherwood up on a ladder with a bucket of blue paint. My father hired Refrigerator artist, Chris Schepp to create a large, air-brushed illustration of the UR laser process.
Chris Schepp airbrushed illustration of Omega laser process at URMy father met Moshe Lubin there, the founding director, and would continue to work freelance for him into the nineties. Lubin started his own company, Hampshire Instruments, in the old Stromberg Carlson building (where Radio Social is now.) Every year my father and I worked on a slideshow for Hampshire, a crazy high pressure, last minute affair as Hampshire did battle to win the X-Ray lithography race to etch semiconductors. The business eventually failed and Lubin was said to have committed suicide. Before my father passed he sent me links to online speculation that Lubin was murdered so someone could make off with the technology.
My father loved his work at UR and took another off campus job at Los Alamos Laboratory in the early eighties, still officially working for Kodak. He had to wear a badge there, one that would light up if he exceeded his maximum dose of radiation exposure. Peggi, Steve Hoy and I drove out to visit my parents in New Mexico while my father was working at the famous lab, the one where the world’s first nuclear explosion occurred in 1945.
Detail of UR Laser Lab mural by Leo Dodd from Democrat & Chronicle articleThese projects that my father was involved with were fusion related, the cleaner (no nuclear waste) of the two f words. Leo would have been so happy with the recent news. Although clean energy from fusion is a long way off they finally were able to generate a greater amount of energy than they put in.
Peggi’s junior high cat sculpture in window with two deer out backThe tiny amount of snow we had a few days ago melted and then froze so our driveway is treacherous but once we got out on the road the sun had melted the street. We walked through the park and along the beach. I would be happy if the snow holds off until after the holidays. My brother and his family are coming up here from New Jersey and my sister will come over after she gets off work at Parkleigh so we’ll celebrate Christmas Eve and Hanukkah. And then it can snow.
I remember looking for a broadcast of the 1994 World Cup when we came across OJ’s low speed chase. We watched that for an hour or so and I don’t remember if we ever found the match. This World Cup was the best one ever as far as the matches went – so many upsets and tight games that kept us on the edge of our seats. I was having feverish soccer dreams near the end of the tournament so I guess I had my fill. We were thrilled to see Argentina outplay the French for most of the final and we feel lucky to be alive to watch Messi lift the trophy.
Fish head on the beachReferring to Messi, Ronaldo, Lewandowski and soccer’s golden generation, Rory Smith, writing in the Times, says, “This generation shone too brightly for anything to grow; it was only when their shadows had lengthened, just a little, that conditions proved amenable.” For Gavi and Pedri of Spain, Argentina’s Enzo Fernández and Kylian Mbappé of France of course. All under 23, it is as though soccer skipped a generation.
“It is perfectly fitting that it should have worked out this way: that their final stand should come in a tournament of unparalleled gloss and superimposed glamour, played out in lavish, gilded arenas, monuments to a world where money is no object, paid for with the sweat and the blood and the lives of people too poor to be part of the spectacle, rising above the desert sands in a country drawn to the game because of their irresistible appeal, their star power, their sheer fame.”
We were happy to see Morocco beat our number one, Spain, and then Portugal. The US did ok. Two of our favorites are still in, Argentina and France, so Sunday’s final will be fun. We’ll start out rooting for Argentina (Messi, DiMaria, Alvarez, Corea and DePaul) and we’ll switch allegiances when France goes ahead. Half of their team plays professionally in Spain. It has all been good from our vantage point, the northwest corner of our house in upstate New York. We tacked a large piece of leftover material up behind the tv to block the sun. We don’t usually have that thing on in the daylight.
Beaver damage on fallen tree in Durand Eastman ParkA beaver felled this tree with his teeth and left it for us to marvel at. Interesting that he or she started gnawing at the trunk nearer the ground and then moved up a bit. Once the trunk was down the beaver stripped the bark off the top side for food. They usually topple trees nearer the lake in hopes of damning the outflow but this one is quite a ways from the shore. It is striking as art piece, an installation in the woods.
We called Brad and he had a joke for us, just like in the old days. But this one was pretty bad. Brad plays drums (he taught me everything I know and that is not much) and he favors musician jokes. “Why did the trombone cross the road?” We gave up. “To get to the other slide.” He told us he gets his jokes from Alexa now. I picture that as a bank of generic jokes. An artificial inteligence joke app is just around the corner.
Ken Frank has been fooling around with AI art sites. He picks styles, dictates a description, sits back and asks it to generate an image. He did a mind-blowing, surreal version of the stations of the cross for me. And last night he sent along portraits of Margaret Explosion’s band members. Here’s what the drummer looks like.
Paul Dodd – drums by Ken Frank and AI
Pete and Shelley’s wood pile 2008Pete and Shelley set the standard by which we judge woodpiles. Off the grid in the Adirondacks, they thin their property for heat in the long winter months. Their stacks are worthy of a Chelsea art gallery installation.
Jared’s wood pile 2010Our neighbor, Jared, a retired chemist for Eastman Kodak, puts wood up not like an artist but like a scientist. We turn to him for advice on all matter practical.
Our woodpile in 2020After two 75 year old oaks came down out back this spring Peggi and I had a record of wood, more than in 2020 when the picture above was taken. Instead of walking we’ve been chipping away at the pile each day for the last two weeks. We strap on our Home Depot noise cancelling headphones, cut the trunks and limbs into log length with a chainsaw, fire up the Heathkit splitter we inherited from our former neighbor, Leo and then stack the split logs. This is where it all comes together Physics, geometry and risk. We have had only one pile tumble over in twenty years.
Kurt Ketchum installation at Colleen Buzzard’sKurt Ketchum slideshow at Colleen Buzzard’s StudioKurt Ketchum walks a fine line well. His fine art work comes right out of his advertising work and engages you like a good ad but leaves you with questions rather than answers. To me this feels very comfortable, a space where everything around you could be an art piece. He has a finely tuned sense of color and uses it sparingly. White he uses loosely and liberally. His show is up at Colleen’s until the end of the month.
Still from moving image documentation of Ana Mendieta work in “Elemental” at RIT City Space GalleryI found the video of a talk and slide presentation by Ana Mendieta at Alfred University in 1981, currently showing as part of a show called “Elemental” at RIT City Space, particularly engaging. I watched it three times before moving on to the five videos of her recently restored one hundred films, most documenting her “earth-body” work.
Still from moving image documentation of Ana Mendieta work in “Elemental” at RIT City Space GalleryMendieta worked in drawing, sculpture, photography and video and the wall text summarized the themes in her work as “exile, displacement and the return to the landscape.” Why had I never heard of her and why did she die so young? I turned to Wikipedia.
In Cuba Mendeta (1948-1985) attended an upper class, all girls Catholic school. She was able to escape Castro’s dictatorship but her father spent 18 years in a political prison in Cuba. Ana Mendieta died on September 8, 1985, in New York City, after falling from her 34th-floor apartment in Greenwich Village at 300 Mercer Street. She lived there with her husband of eight months, minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, who may have pushed her out the window. She fell 33 stories onto the roof of a deli.
I kind of like Carl Andre’s work, I modeled the base of our outdoor fire pit on one of his works, but not anymore. “Elemental” runs until February. Don’t miss it.
Peggi and I both noticed how beautiful the back end of the Puntarenas Ferry looked. I went down to the lowest level when we were furthest out in the bay, when the ship was really starting to sway. I got really sick on a ferry years ago and I didn’t want to take any chances. … Continue reading "Small World"
So autumn lasts forever now. We split wood yesterday. We have a serious amount from the two oaks that came down this spring. With temperatures in the fifties today it was too warm to split we so moved a few face cords onto the porch in preparation for winter’s fury. We tried a new setup … Continue reading "In The Groove"
Sol Lewitt’s art is more than the final piece. It is the plans, the installation and the temporary display on a wall. One of Sol LeWitt’s iconic “Wall Drawings,” has been generously gifted to MAG and it is being rendered directly on a wall in the Vanden Brul Pavilion by a representative of the LeWitt … Continue reading "Big Dose Of History"
We had parked our car at the Poughkeepsie train station and took a Metro North train into the city. I was driving when we passed these teepees along the New York State Thruway so I couldn’t very well snap a shot. On the way back Peggi was behind the wheel and I was looking down … Continue reading "Passage Of Peace"
Anselm Keifer’s show at Gagosian, entitled “Exodus,” features extremely large paintings based on the Hebrew book of Exodus. I stood in front of the one above for the longest time, drawn in by the glass filled walls on either side but then never really landing in the space before the back wall. I loved the … Continue reading "Penumbra"
An article in the paper just before we left got us to New York’s New Museum for the first time. Theaster Gates “Young Lords and their Traces” fills three floors with found, rescued and reworked objects of cultural significance. He calls it “generative care”— tending to the past by carrying its lessons into the future. … Continue reading "Generative Care"
Alex Katz was right up there with Andy Warhol when I was in my twenties. We used to stay with Charley Coco at his place on 43rd when we came down to New York back then. He took us over to see Moondog passing out sheet music on the corner and to Times Square in … Continue reading "Spoiler"
The tall invasive weeds have died back enough for us to take the paths though the park that parallel the golf course. We’re still waiting for that tick vaccine. Yesterday it seemed they had closed the golf course too early. Today, that decision looks prescient. I never get much reading in before falling asleep. And … Continue reading "Turning The Page"
If we are lucky we will see some Carroll Dunham paintings on our upcoming trip to NYC. I’ve been reading “Into Words – Selective Writings of Carroll Dunham” and really enjoying it, especially his probing interviews with artists. Since the 1990’s he has written for Art Forum, Bomb and various artist catalogs. According to Wikipedia Dunham … Continue reading "A Perfect Storm"
All summer I swam with ear plugs. I forgot to bring them to Costa Rica and sure enough I got water trapped behind the wax in my ear. I couldn’t hear out of my left ear at all. I went to my doctor when I returned but she was not able to flush it out. … Continue reading "Bad Patient"
We are having a most unusual autumn in New York. On the day we left for Costa Rica it was as warm here as it was down there. Social media posts confirmed that it was beautiful weather while we were gone and almost two weeks later it still is. We picked more tomatoes on our … Continue reading "Upside Down"
During the flight down Peggi sat next to a talkative little guy with a “Pickleball Getaway” cap on. On our way back the woman sitting next to us asked me if I could open the 16 oz Pepsi bottle she had bought in San Jose. I couldn’t. It was sort of embarrassing. But then again … Continue reading "Slipping Away"
I can’t imagine how boring these last few entries would be to read. Nothing happens here, by design. There are big decisions being made behind the scenes. How long to hold the plank? Which way to walk down the beach in the morning, whether to have coffee before or after and where to take a … Continue reading "Recharging"
We set the alarm the past few days to make sure we didn’t miss the sunrise. It’s not as dramatic as the sunsets. We’re on the western coast and the sun sinks into the ocean with a blaze of colors. The sunrises sneak up on you. And the color of the light keeps changing as … Continue reading "Black Flag"
Everything comes to you if you wait long enough. We were out front of our place, watching the sunset, the best one yet, when we heard barking coming from somewhere in the direction of next door. It wasn’t barking, it was seven howler monkeys right over our bungalow. They call them “Congos.” Our necks were … Continue reading "Highlights Magazine"
We find ourselves in another one of those situations where the hospitality workers want to practice their English while Peggi would rather use her Spanish. And I like hearing Peggi speak Spanish. The woman behind a desk was telling us about a “chuttle” and we asked her to repeat it about three times before we … Continue reading "Bread House"
The only thing on the white walls of our open plan bungalow is a big round mirror, maybe ten feet in diameter. The design of this whole place is minimal, just the way we like it. Floor to ceiling windows slide open to completely remove any barrier between the room, the patio and plunge pool. … Continue reading "More Minimal"
There are two high tides here each day, of eight or nine feet. And as spectacular as the beach is, it is almost too dangerous for swimming. Big rock formations line the small bays. The waves are huge and loud enough to drown out the air conditioners at night. Wading is possible but I didn’t … Continue reading "Sunny Side Up"
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Other than NYC and Buffalo we hadn’t been anywhere since Covid hit. A travel article we read in the depths of winter made this small hotel on the rather remote Pacific coast of Costa Rica sound like paradise. So we booked for late October never imagining … Continue reading "Paradise"
Why did I have to go all the way to Madrid to discover Leon Golub, the tough as nails New York painter, husband of the tougher than nails painter, Nancy Spero? So American, Golub’s critical eye is on the page and his work was almost rude in Spain. It occurred to me that Golub is … Continue reading "Go Golub"
Joe from Paperface Magazine brought Wreckless Eric to town last night for a show at Lux. I was surprised to see Steve Grieve there because I remember him getting caught up in a ruckus at Lovin” Cup when Eric and Amy were playing. It was so long ago I can’t remember the details but I … Continue reading "Full Of Surprises"
John Gilmore emailed after our Wednesday gig to tell us how much he enjoyed the night. We played with Melissa Davies, a cello player, and John thought she helped take us to “A different Universe!” I had announced that Jack Schaefer might be there with his bass clarinet but that didn’t work out. Last time … Continue reading "The Margaret Explosion"
I know this yellow. It has to be Rustoleum Sunburst Yellow. I used this paint on the metal chairs that sit outside our house, the ones that were white when my grandmother gave them to us. And I used this paint on my bike. Far from melancholy, the color looks especially good on this red … Continue reading "Melancholy Mood"
President Eisenhower officially opened the St. Lawrence Seaway (Highway H2O) in 1959. It allowed oceangoing vessels to carry goods from the Atlantic Ocean to the western end of Lake Superior. A boom for some and bust others. Grain from the Midwest moved right through Buffalo and down to NYC or overseas. Buffalo’s grain silos have sat idle … Continue reading "Highway H2O"
The screen saver on our Apple TV is a slideshow of our panorama photos. We have the transition set to the Ken Burns effect so the long photos slide across the screen. We need more early morning appointments. We dropped the car off at B&B Automotive on Lake Ave. and went for a walk along … Continue reading "Screensaver Refresh"
Playground 2022 was in Buffalo’s Riverworks this year. Twenty or so artists were selected to do an installation in the old grain silos on the Niagara River. The silos have just sat here since the St. Lawerence Seaway opened. Before that Midwest grain was milled and processed and loaded on trains bound for New York … Continue reading "Funky Playground"
I was so good to see clothing displayed on mannequins again in the window of the former Sibley’s building downtown. The current show at City Space, an RIT gallery, on the ground floor was curated by Unique Fair-Smith and featured a group of emerging artists living and working in the city. Erin Nesmith’s says her … Continue reading "Gallery Hopping"
We started out searching for an old horror movie, maybe a Vincent Price movie we hadn’t seen. Some of the best of those were directed by Roger Corman and his name led us to “The Trip,” his 1967 movie written by Jack Nicholson, starring Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern and Dennis Hopper. Not exactly horror but … Continue reading "Mycelium"
“For most of the year, challah is formed into long braids made from multiple strands. But on Rosh Hashanah, the loaves are always round.” So much for that tidbit. Peggi made these long loaves for Rosh Hashanah when my brother and his family were up for our sister’s birthday bash. They watched their New Jersey temple service … Continue reading "Freezer Is Full"
We walked up to Wegman’s this morning to get another shot, this one to protect against the flu. On the way up there I called Pete to get clarification on his origin verses beginning thesis. In yesterday’s post I mentioned that Pete drew a distinction between the two in similar fashion to the way Mondrian … Continue reading "Addendum"
Peter Schjeldahl, writing (still!) in the new New Yorker about Piet Mondrian says, “Intuition was everything for him—versus “instinct,” which he deplored as an ego-inflating snare and came to associate with, among other derangements, the brutally repressive mystique of Nazism. ” Going forward I will pause long enough to make that distinction. It is alumni weekend … Continue reading "Equals One Hundred And Eighteen"
We picked the perfect day to do our monthly co-op shop. Before going in the store we took a walk around the city, Down Averill to the river and then across the Ford Street bridge, along the newly refurbished West Side Riverwalk to the Broad Street Bridge. We expected the lid to have been removed … Continue reading "Welcome To Our City"
My sister, Ann, is a big Bill’s fan. She watches each game at at her daughter’s home. That’s my sister’s son-in-law, John, at the left in this photo and that’s Ann at the lower right. The ones with the gear are people she works with. Ann’s other daughter lives in Colorado and she planned a … Continue reading "Bills Lose Without Ann"
Our neighbor down the street told us he caught twenty-six raccoons this summer. Early on, they were digging trenches in his lawn so they could get at the grubs below. He found some sort of natural grub treatment and they stopped burrowing but they continued to stop by and shit on his deck so he … Continue reading "26 Racoons"
We walked over to Kathy’s yesterday but she wasn’t home. We met the brand new baby, Vida, in her mother’s arms on the front stoop of the house next door and then wandered around the neighborhood. This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city, so laid back it feels like vacation homes unless … Continue reading "Sleeping Through The Holocaust"
We had just read “The Transcendent Power of Walking” before heading out so we were primed for automaticity. We entered the park on the short path at the end of the longest street in our neighborhood of dead ends. A music stand was set about ten feet away from an array of percussion instruments as … Continue reading "Sounds, Trees, Meadows"
Anne Havens did a series of life-sized plaster heads called “Sleeping Around.” We have one of them on our bookcase. Peggi and I spotted this rock down at the pool this afternoon, I think it may have been used as a door stop for the pump house, and we thought of Anne. She is stuck … Continue reading "Cloud Library"
I’m thinking this guy, in the middle of Hoffman Road, is praying he won’t get run over. Almost a week since I checked in here. Where did that week go? The weather changed and the summer job jar was near full so we took advantage of the cooler temps to tackle household/yard projects we had … Continue reading "Power Of Prayer"
Arugula likes Rochester. It’s hardy and rugged. It has a biting sense of humor. We generally do three plantings. It pops out of the ground in early spring, mid summer and early fall and you can start picking it almost immediately. It adds character to green salads where you would be hard pressed to taste … Continue reading "Arugula Rules"
These canvases are the same size but they don’t look it. One is just a little closer to the camera. I like how this photo conveys the simple technique employed by artists to convey a sense of space in a 2D work. You could, for example, make one eye bigger in a portrait and it … Continue reading "Turn Up The Volume"
I came awake with “Rock Steady” going around in my head. I don’t remember hearing it recently. I couldn’t even remember who did it. Was it a Reggae song? There was a whole genre called Rock Steady. I could hear Aretha Franklin’s song by that name but that wasn’t it. I had too look it … Continue reading "Golden Hour"
Do butterflies have sex in midair? The bottom one was following the top up and down the row of Sue’s Zinnias and unlike the top one it didn’t seem interested in the nectar. I could look up the answer to my question but its more fun to imagine that they do and I don’t want … Continue reading "Tech Service"
At dinner last night, in Kathy’s backyard, Jan mentioned a recent house fire in which someone had died. It was on Garford Road, one of the streets off Culver, and we were trying to place it. We walk in a different direction most days so if it is nearby we have been down it many … Continue reading "Off Landmark Society Tour"
Despite the recent rain the lake level is .7 feet below its long term August average. The outlet of Eastman Lake had cut a deep chasm through the beach. We took our shoes off to wade across and it felt great. While we waited for our feet to dry I collected a handful small smooth … Continue reading "Endless Summer"
Colleen’s gallery space included this small white wall in the back that I was originally going to leave empty. But why. How many opportunities does one get show your work? So pulled these b&w abstracts out of a box pinned them to the wall. They were taken in 1976 and were part of a much … Continue reading "Not So Recent"
Andrew Cloninger contacted us about playing a gig with his band, Wren Cove, at Joy Gallery on West Main. We didn’t know him or his band but of course we said yes. Galleries are a good place for our band. The floors are usually bare and the acoustics are clear and lively. The people in … Continue reading "Art Rock"
Don’t mind me if I continue to talk about my show at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio. In another ten days most of it will be in boxes. “Los Inmigrantes” are featured on the brightly lit, white wall directly in front of you as you enter the gallery. If you were to turn 270 degrees to your … Continue reading "Disparate Dots"
Duane lives in Brooklyn but came up for a wedding. He missed the opening so Peggi and I gave him a private showing yesterday afternoon. Colleen was working, adjusting a cloud of steel wool, so the studio was open. We turned on the lights in the gallery and then set up the slideshow while Duane … Continue reading "Clean Slate"
I had the best seat in the house last night, surrounded by my favorite musicians as Margaret Explosion performed in the long hallway of the fourth floor in the Anderson Art Gallery. The ultra-short throw projector, mounted in the ceiling, threw a crisp twenty foot wide image on the white wall well in front of … Continue reading "Quadrophonic"
I stopped by the Bop Shop yesterday for the annual sidewalk sale. There was nothing on the sidewalk so I masked up and went in. I worked my way through a few racks of one dollar 45s (Tom said he would sell them for 50 cents if I bought a bunch) and I found a … Continue reading "Art Gallery Gigs"
The utility pole in this picture is brand new. A big delivery truck, bigger than the one shown here was delivering something to the house on the corner last week and while turning around it took out the power lines and pulled down the utility poles in both directions. The neighbors down here were without … Continue reading "Escaping"