Tom Orsini painting at estate sale on Turk Hill Road
I like this bird’s eye view of a house on Turk Hill Road. Us humans get to look up at it on a hill. Peggi was alerted to the sale by our friend, Kathy. She saw the listing described as a Don Hershey house. Peggi has been cataloguing the homes that Don Hershey built in this area on her website, DonHershey.com, and she did not have this one. The previous owner did this painting of his house. An $800 item, it was my favorite piece. This arrangement below was the only place in the house where I could rest my eyes.
Items at Turk Hill Road estate sale
Practical things were pretty expensive here and the unpractical items were as loud you can imagine. Lime green and purple walls, lots of glassware, a tabletop display of sun glasses you could imagine Elton John wearing, extra large tropical style shirts, dozens of unopened packages of cute cocktail napkins.
It bugs me when we pass somebody who says, “Nice day for a walk.” I always want to shoot back, “Any day is a good day for a walk.” That being said, we could not have picked a better day to walk across the swing bridge into Webster. The bridge closes on April 1 and we had not been down this way in a bit. We walked to the end of our street, into the woods, out to Culver and then down to the lake where the road gently curves and follows the lakeshore as Lake Road. In the photo above the bay is behind me and the lake is on the other side of this mound, the old Hojack rail line. We turned around at the end of the new Sandbar Park. There was a time when we walked all the way around the bay in preparation for the Camino. Turning around here would make for eight miles or so.
Culver Road is my favorite road in the city and the north end of it is the coolest. In the day it ended on Hot Dog Row. Today it has more of an international flair. The bowling alley has changed hands. The mural outside slants youthful. Their sign in the window is looking for bowling league members. The Parkside Diner was packed at noon and the Asian place was all lit up. We went to the door of Frametastic to check on Joan but a small note on the door read, “Out for Lunch.” The parking lot for the Irish bar was full. Union Tavern looked like they were open. Nick’s, where my father met his Kodak buddies for lunch for years, had a sign that read, “Open for Dinner Only.” The pizza place looked busy and Anatolia’sl was hopping. We would have had lunch at the Bayside if they hadn’t torn it down. We stopped at Don’s Original on the way back for a chocolate Almond Custard. It was stuffy inside so we sat outside in the sun.
March snow showers on Broad Street Bridge
I mentioned above that any day is a good day for a walk. Yesterday was too. We parked at the CoOp and walked downtown. The city looked like an expressionist painting.
We spent a day in the garden before getting back to “our project,” one that took us the better part of three days.
First, the garden, because that was a breeze. We went down there intending to plant lettuce and arugula but we discovered our mache lettuce, sometimes called “corn salad,” had survived the winter. It had spread from its original location so we transplanted the clusters back to where they belonged. We did a bit of weeding and and turned over the earth for two new rows of lettuce and arugula. Peggi counted at least a hundred garlic sprouts. She picked some collard greens to bring home. They were left from last year as well. We tried to do a little raking but it got too windy to keep all the leaves in one place. So windy in fact we heard and then saw the top of large white pine snap off and land in our neighbors’ yard.
Yesterday we finished “our project.” One of our oak trees fell, away from the house, and it landed in a way that one of the branches kept the tree mostly off the ground. A lot of really good firewood, except we had enough firewood. So we let the tree lay there for three years before tackling the project. I cut the branches off and we carried them down our hill and piled them up by the road. I made log length cuts in the trunk and let the chunks roll down the hill. Peggi was down there but safely off to the side, making sure there were no cars coming by. It was impossible to control where the big logs would roll. Some crashed into trees on the way down, others careened across the road. We rounded them up, rolled them up a board into our car and drove them up to our woodpile.
While we were down there I took a photo of the new road sign. It’s kind of an eyesore.
Madison and Bennie at Little Theatre Café for Margaret Explosion gig. Photo by Jason Wilder.
I saw Jason Wilder recently at a Margaret Explosion gig and told him I missed his blog. For some reason it had gone dark. He told me he had switched hosts. I checked back in today and found he had made a few new entries and one was about that gig. I particularly like Jason’s photos. They are full of mystery. I grabbed the one above from Jason’s post.
Bennie, standing to Madison’s right, often sits in with Margaret Explosion on a few songs. She usually travels with at least one Brazilian percussion instrument. Here she is instructing Madison, our number one fan, on how to play the cuica. Madison already has a drum set and she just purchased an imitation P-bass. She plans to take lessons form Margaret Explosion’s bass player, Ken Frank. Someday Madison will able to sub for Ken.
Andrea and Rich standing, Dave, Peggi, Paul, Kim and Steve down front, San Francisco 1980
Not sure who took this photo. Kim had a journalism degree but her camera is in her lap. I’m thinking it was Rich with a timer. He looks like he just slid into place and is trying extra hard to be nonchalant. That is just a guess. Rich and Andrea had a darkroom. Peggi and I did too but there is no way I could get that comfortable after releasing the shutter.
Peggi and I had driven to Mississippi where Steve was living and the three of us got in his pickup and drove all the way out west. We slept in the back. I remember Peggi playing her sax back there while Steve drove and I rode up front, not the whole time of course, but long enough to nail the Hi-Techs recording of “Boogaloo Rendezvous” when we got back.
We stopped in LA to spend some time with Peggi’s sister and then drove up the coast to San Francisco where Kim and Dave and Rich and Andrea were living. It is time for another visit, planning stage anyway. And we are adding another leg to see Matthew and Louise in Honolulu. We will do this one by air.
Red-tailed Hawk with snake in its claws.. Lake Ontario can be seen in the background.
While out walking yesterday we ran into a neighbor who told us he had seen an eagle’s nest in the tall trees behind his house. He said he hadn’t seen any action in there yet. We found the nest, above the marsh, and stared at it for a while but didn’t see any activity either. We had just seen an eagle sitting on a nest along Lakeshore Boulevard on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Our neighbor told us he had taken a picture with his drone of a hawk flying above his house. He said he has since learned that bird watchers frown on the use of drones because it bothers the birds. He added, “for good reason.” But he said before learning this he captured a hawk flying above his house with a snake in its claws. He told us he would send the photo.
His photo hardly looks real but the most dramatic thing about it for me is how well you can see the lake from a bird’s perspective.
Webster vs. Gates Chili. Paul Shriver, Punk Watson and Paul Dodd (center) on the front line for Webster 1967
Back in grade school at Holy Trinity Joe Barrett’s brother Tom coached our 6th grade soccer team. We beat the seventh and eighth grade teams and it was thrilling. I fell in love with the sport.
I went to high school at Bishop Kearney for two years and played there. I remember trying out for the varsity team and stealing the ball from the central midfielder, John Numetko, but getting kicked in the shin with his cleats. They were those hard plastic football style shoes back then and I still have a scar on the front of my leg. At the same time I was playing summer soccer in Webster at the old high school. Most of that group was older than me and I learned the European style game under Ralph Wager.
My father used to scour the FultonHistory site and he had a subscription to Newspapers.com. He was always doing research on something. On a family tree related search for info on his uncle, Paul Dodd, a semi pro ball player, he found Paul’s box scores and an article where his Uncle Paul got busted for playing craps. He also came across articles where my name was mentioned when I was playing soccer. He gave me the articles. On match days in high school my father would often stop by on his way home from Kodak and he took a few photos of our matches. About twenty years ago my high school girlfriend sent me the clippings she had saved when we were going out. So I’ve been sitting on this stuff long enough. I have posted it all here.
Margaret Explosion plays Wednesday, March 19 at Little Theatre Café
If the temperature reaches 77 today we will reach a record set in 1903. Margaret Explosion seems to draw better in unpleasant weather. It could be a quiet night tonight. And we used a photo of Peggi and Melissa to promote the show only to learn Melissa can’t make the gig tonight. And just an hour ago we learned Jack will not be able to make it so no bass clarinet. We will perform as a trio.
“So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things. We’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke. There’s no more woke in this country. NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA – ONLY THE BEST,” – you know who.
These quotes still make me laugh. Is there a better way to deal with this onslaught?
When Peggi’s mom was living up here we used to go down to Silk O’Loughlin’s on Kentucky Derby Day. We would sit outside and watch the boats go down the river and there was always someone selling tickets for a chance to win on a horse. There was some serious green in there today when Peggi and I walked in. The owner was holding court, of course (in the wool sweater. ) We ordered a sandwich and a beer and sat in the back. Peggi found a green sweater to wear but the best I could do was an olive green Bug Jar t-shirt.
We had parked at the last lot along the beach and walked down Lakeshore to the river. We caught one of the eagles sitting on top of the big nest and watched him (or her) for a while before walking down Rock Beach past the Edic’s home. We looked at a few homes down here back in the day. Summerville is such a dreamy, funky neighborhood with easy access to the beach.
We looked in the new Fifth Frame Brewing on the way back. Surprised it didn’t open til four when all the other bars were full. We ran into Diane White walking her Basset hound. When we lived in the city we would go down to Carroll’s on St. Patty’s. Once we moved we did Shamrock Jack’s for years. Then that got crazy. The monster tent in the parking lot and bus loads of partiers and then the five and then ten dollar cover charge. We moved on to the Bayside. It was a nice walk across the outlet bridge. But then Webster decided to improve that area by tearing the place down.
Just in time for the Atlético vs. Barcelona match on Sunday, here is some footage from both cities, Madrid and Barcelona set to a song from Margaret Explosion’s latest cd. This was a lot of fun to put together. I hope you like it.
Butterfly Knot party on Old Browncroft Road in 2007
I feel lucky to have experienced many of the first generations of digital cameras. My first Kodak, the DC40, took just one half meg photos. I went through a few versions of Sony’s Cybershot and the Nikon 5100 and 7100 before settling on Sony’s RX100. But back in the day the photos required a little Photoshop work before I kept them. I would then save them as .tiffs but the early Mac OS didn’t put the suffix on the files. For the last ten years or so I haven’t even been able to view the files. Occasionally I would search by file name and add the .tif to each file and click confirm, a tedious process just to see the photo. I’m probably the last person to know about “Automator.” The app the comes with the OS and allows you to batch process in seconds. I converted thousands of old photos yesterday and found a few surprises.
In 2007 Margaret Explosion was hired to play a party for the investors of Brian Strine’s “Butterfly Knot” movie. Some cast members were there and the event was held in the funky party house on old Browncroft Road. I had not been inside that place since the fifties. The place itself felt like an old movie set. I took the picture above of bass clarinetist, Jack Schaefer and saxophonist, Peggi Fournier at the bar and had not seen it since 2007.
Bill Jones in our bathroom about to have his hair cut by Peggi 2006Bil Jones getting a haircut from Peggi 2006
Bill Jones posing as Velazquez while getting haircut from Peggi 2006Bil Jones getting a haircut from Peggi 2006
Peggi often cuts my hair. She has cut the hair of most of our friends at one time or another and in 2006 she cut Bill Jones’ hair. I think he had just got his webmaster job at Lawyer’s CoOp. Peggi cut his hair in our bathroom before we had remodeled it. I especially like Bill’s Velazquez pose in the upper right of these four. Bill is gone now so these were especially sweet to find.
We walked to the end of Seneca Road yesterday. It comes to an abrupt end in the parking lot of the Newport Marina. When we first moved here there were all sorts of funky homes down here, some only seasonal and some abandoned but the neighborhood is moving on up. We found a brand new home next to last year’s new home at the very bottom of the hill. Ice still covers the bay but it won’t last long in these sixty degree days.
Today we walked to the end of Hoffman. one of our favorite walks. The marsh that looks so forlorn in the winter is starting to sing with birds. Peggi opened her Merlin app and in the first minute she recorded a Red-winged Blackbird, House Sparrow, Downy Woodpecker, Mourning Dove, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Finch, Black-capped Chickadee, Northern Cardinal, White-throated Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker and a Blue Jay.
Bennie J. performing at the Spirit Room on March 10 2025
Bennie used to lead the drum section at the Flash matches. She often sits in with Margaret Explosion, playing one of her Brazilian percussion instruments. Martha, Bennie’s long time partner, wrote poetry before she passed and Bennie set them to music. She performed them, mostly on ukulele, to a packed room last night at the Spirit Room.
Inspired by the poetry of John Milton and Lord Byron, most of the poems are metered and rhyming. Major themes include death, love, sex and religion – often in the same poem – as well as the pain of lost love and the various manifestations of mental illness that she wrestled with most of her life. Despite the dark subject matter, many of the poem/songs were funny and irreverent. Bennie says, ” The experience of presenting these songs to an audience with honesty and vulnerability has helped me grow as a person in ways I could never have imagined.” It was a beautiful performance.
Alice Neel “David Bourdon and Gregory Battcock” at Blanton in Austin Texas
This 1970 Alice Neel painting, in the collection of the Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas Austin, looks like it was painted yesterday. Except it couldn’t be. No one can paint like this today. I came home with this photo and got my Alice Neel book out, the one I picked up at the Alice Neel show at the Whitney in 2000. This painting was there. It was at that show, where Peggi and I struggled to see one of her paintings. A guy in a wheelchair with an aide in tow was planted in front for the longest time. The aide finally spun him around and we were face to face with Chuck Close.
Our first night back in Rochester we met my brother and his Vietnamese lady friend at a new Asian restaurant just blocks from our house. The place was slammed and the service suffered but we had some delicious “Tom Yum” soup and brought a papaya salad home for lunch. Maureen Outlaw and her husband were sitting behind us and we learned the waiter had been on our flight for Atlanta the day before. We laughed about the announcement that our pilot was still in the parking lot while we were already on the plane.
It was sunny today with the temperature in the forties so the park was especially crowded. The lakes were still frozen but the witch hazel is in full bloom. We’ve not heard or seen any red winged blackbirds yet but the Winter Aconite is out. Saint Patty’s, the unofficial first day of spring, is just around the corner.
Mount Bonnell, the highest point in Austin, Texas, with an elevation of 775 feet above sea level.
We saw Lady Bird’s bowling shoes yesterday at the LBJ Library along with an especially moving exhibit about one month in LBJ’s presidency, March 1968, when Peggi and I were still in high school. The Tet Offensive, a massive surprise attack, was a pivotal moment in the Vietnam War. More American troops were in Vietnam Nam than at any other time in the war. Our casualty rate was proportionally high, a nightmare, vividly recalled on multiple video screens by soldiers who were there for the battle.
The photo above is not how I pictured Austin. We walked up to Mt. Bonnell this morning and got a great look at downtown in one direction and the homes along the Colorado River in the other. We learned that just after the Civil War General Custer and his wife, Libby, picnicked up here. The Custers noted that the summit was too steep for a cavalry horse to climb, so it had to be climbed on foot.
Ellsworth Kelley “Austin” at the Blanton in Austin, Texas
Before leaving our nephew’s home this morning we searched for galleries and decided on the Blanton and the LBJ Library for the AM and then the small contemporary galleries in the afternoon. Reading about the Blanton I remembered that Ellsworth Kelley had designed a pagan church here.
Originally conceived in 1987 for a private vineyard in California, he gave the plans to the University of Texas and renamed the piece “Austin.” The 2,715-square-foot stone structure, stained glass and interior artworks are inspired by the many churches Kelly visited in France and draw from religious themes in art history. Reminiscent of the Romanesque style, twin barrel vaults intersect at right angles. Its floor plan is known as a Latin cross. The exterior limestone is from Alicante, Spain.
A freestanding, 18-foot-tall wooden Totem sculpture commands attention at the end of the main aisle. The location, form, and material allude to the cross normally placed at this spot in a church. Like all the artist’s Totems, the form also recalls ancient Greek figurative sculptures. Made from California old-growth redwood logged in the 19th century and salvaged from the bottom of a riverbed. The stained glass windows reflect light differently depending on the time of day and season. The 14 square panels are Kelly’s abstract versions of the Stations of the Cross, a series of scenes that depict the story of the crucifixion.
Kelly masterfully abstracted the Christian church and its symbols. Unfortunately he died before Austin’s completion so he never saw it. I can’t say we saw it either. They were rebuilding the weighty entry door and the building was closed. Made of repurposed native Texas live oak, it needed some repairs. We were only able to walk around the building and imagine.
It takes a special kind of person to rock cowboy boots and/or a western hat and there are quite a few people walking around town that don’t look all that special. We’re guessing they, like us, are from out of town and they just bought the gear at one of the many shops we’ve seen. The annual SXSW is just gearing up and some people are already walking around with their badges.
We talked to Rich last night and he expressed interest in going for a ride in a Waymo next time we visit. We saw one in Miami Beach and we just watched one float by while we were walking up and down Congress. Maybe we’ll trade our car in while we’re down here.
I love reading news like this while I’m trying to have a good time. “Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the E.P.A., has recommended that the agency reverse its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare, according to three people familiar with the decision. That would eliminate the legal basis for the government’s climate laws, such as limits on pollution from automobiles and power plants.” Kathy Hochul whomped him when he tried to run for governor and Trump saved a spot for him in his cabinet of gangsters.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in Miami. The water level in the canals that run through the city is at the top of the retaining walls. People drink a lot bottled water here. There’s no return deposit on the plastic. I better stop. We’re on vacation.
We had some Manchego cheese and wine back in our room that we planned to make a small meal out of but it turned out the little CDB and Beer store near our motel didn’t have any bread or crackers. We asked the clerk if there was a store nearby that was open on Sunday and he told us there was a convenience store about ten blocks south. On the way we walked by a Subway and stopped in there to see if we could buy one of their rolls.
The only employee there was wearing a mask and mopping the floor. When she finished I pointed to one of the rolls on the rack behind the counter and she took it out, put it on the cutting board and cut it in half. We said, “That’s it, how much is it?“ It became clear she didn’t speak English. I tried “solamente pan” and she looked at us blankly. She wanted to know what we wanted on it. We were thinking of the scene in “Five Easy Pieces.” Somehow she caught on that we only wanted the bread and she shook her head. “No.”
We continued on and found the 24 hour convenience store. The door was locked and there was a woman outside who told us the store was open but the clerk was going to the bathroom. He unlocked the door and we asked him where the crackers were. This was the kind of store where the owner buys big boxes from Costco, cuts them open and sells the individual packets, the way they sell one cigarette in some stores, so we picked out a packet of what looked like Keebler Club crackers, no label, just a clear package. At the counter. He told us the packet was one dollar.
It was getting dark by the time we got back and I took the photo above.
We walked up Biscayne, across the bridge over the inlet, and then turned directly to the bay. We could only glimpse the water before the road turned into a bridge to North Beach. We turned around there and hugged the streets along the inlet. Every third home or so was for sale. A narrow empty lot had been turned into a park (we could tell because there was a small sign that read “Park.”) We watched a motorboat come slowly up the channel and still manage to create a wake large enough to come over the banks. The low-slung, grade-level-entry houses were barely above water.
Back at the motel we researched “art galleries.” Where were they? Doesn’t Miami have a big art fair every year? We took an Uber up to the “Design District.” Every big designer brand you can think of has an outlet here. But no galleries. We got a cup of coffee at Pura Vida, a really good “cortadito,” and walked out of that area into Buena Vista, a comfortable old school residential neighborhood.
We crossed the tracks and decided to walk by the two restaurants our nephew owns. We had not hooked up with him yet. We were on the wrong side of the street when we realized we had walked right by both of them. I had taken note of the graphic on the side of one building, line drawings of young people dancing. I took it for an old fashioned teen center. It was Walrus Rodeo. Boia De, in the same strip mall, has such a low profile it took us a few minutes to realize we were standing right in front of it. At night, when their brilliant explanation mark of a logo is lit up it looks like my photo above. Our nephew was there attending to a plumbing issue. With a Michelin star Boia De is booked months in advance but somehow he arranged for us to get a table that night.
Our server, Tamar, told us they usually recommend six dishes to share per table. We decided on two, “Confit Octopus” and “Ricotta Gnocchi Alla Norcina”and two half orders, “Luci’s Chopped Salad” and “Lamb Ribs Fra Diavola.” All four were phenomenal but the salad was the best. We couldn’t finish the Gnocchi and brought it back to our motel room. Classic R&B music set the perfect vibe. In the bathroom, Curtis Mayfield’s “Future Shock” sounded as timeless as ever.
