Category: Lopsided Observations

The Question Bridge show at Rochester Contemporary is very good, not so much as an art show but as a real dialog on important stuff that just doesn’t get talked about. The dvd presentation of black men asking and answering questions about race is very thought provoking. They stay on topic and it gets real and deep. It would be more artful if it didn’t feel like a side show in the dark with seats. Couldn’t they figure out a way to project those talking heads on the white walls of the gallery instead of that scrim?

Tonight’s related presentation with dance company director Garth Fagan, artist and teacher Luvon Sheppard and Carvin Eison, the director of RCTV, was intended to work the local connection to this topic but they mostly avoided the direct talk about race. It was interesting to here them talk about being creative, that is always an interesting conversation, but their talk was not as insightful as the presentation.

The highlight of the night for me was when Garth Fagan said the the difference between painting and directing dancers is a painting doesn’t talk back. Luvon told the Lion King choreographer he was wrong. His paintings do talk back.

Heather Erwin was closing up shop by the time we got over to the Hungerford Building. Brittany Williams, who shared the “Hair Don’t Lie” show with Heather, was on the way out the door but we did get to chat with Heather and talk about her painting of Brittany.

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Voting day provides an opportunity to to walk through the woods into Matthew and Louise’s neighborhood and then across Sea Breeze Way and down Point Pleasant Street to the firehouse where where fill in the little circles. Someday we’re going to rent the funky little bar that is on the other side of the room divider in the hall We’ll have a party, maybe get Margaret Explosion to play and then spin some soul, blues and country records.

Hard to believe the size of the paper ballot in New York. And filling in little circles like we did in grade school on tests. At least we don’t have to show picture IDs yet. Instead of a massive amount of voter fraud we have a massive amount voter indifference. After all the mudslinging I imagine the typical voter feels like this little dog.

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Peggi and I were camping out in our neighbor’s backyard when a storm came up quickly and forced us to take refuge in the back corner of their garage. We were huddled together on the concrete floor, wrapped in sleeping bags when I woke up. The neighbors, Mike and Carna, were standing over us. It was kind of cozy and all I could think was, “I’ve had this dream before and I want to go back there.” But it was beautiful out. Again.

Days with gorgeous weather are bad for making art. At least that is my experience. Beautiful days are made for wandering around town with no agenda or taking a walk in a new direction. My father emailed me us reminder of a sale Rochester Art Supply was having today. They had a tent set up in an empty lot near their store on West Main and they had some incredible deals on paper and packages of raw canvas. Richard Harvey was there and Liz Durand, artists loading up on supplies. When the weather does turn we’ll get down to business.

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I had a 9PM appointment to talk to Stephen Black in SPOKEN gallery.sg, an online mix of art, creative writing and virtual reality. I was given instructions to download this Unity gaming app but when I launched it I was told it could not be verified. I may just have to visit Singapore to hook up with Steve.

I’m thinking this may be the last weekend this year for the swimming pool on our street. There is so much color creeping into the greenery it makes want to try landscape painting.

We stopped into Hart’s, downtown’s newest grocery store, for the first time. They seemed a bit overstaffed or maybe there just wasn’t enough shoppers there. We were there at noon so we bought a yogurt and listened to the Mambo Kings who were playing in the parking lot. My grandfather, uncle and cousin (all three of them named Ray Tierney) were grocery store people. I shopped and worked in their stores when I was growing up and it seemed like a tough business with tiny margins. Hart’s seems like a dream. I hope it works out.

We left Hart’s to do our monthly shop over at the Abundance CoOp where as one hundred dollar shareholders we get 10 percent off once a month. They are planning to move to a bigger and better location on South Ave. and I wish them the best as well.

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My father recently commented on how we never read the bible in Catholic school or in church for that matter. We had our Missal and there was plenty of scripture in the Mass but the Catechism was our bible and the Pope had the final word. Protestants are always going around quoting the bible, the literal word of god, and us former Catholics (if that is indeed possible) are left in the dust.

I was reading an online article about ISIS and one of the comments referred to Deuteronomy 13:6–10 to justify some damn thing. I had to look it up.

 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

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I’m so happy Louise invited us to “Museum Hours” last night at the Dryden. We met for a drink beforehand at Carrol’s and Mathew wore his “Dean & Britta shirt. There was some sort of retirement party so we sat outside. The mosquittos chased us out just before showtime.

I was the first to raise my hand when they opened the floor to questions from the director, Jem Cohen. I was bugged by the moderator’s lengthy discussion of of the relationship between the museum guard and the visiting Canadian. I didn’t think that was what the movie was about and I was hoping to hear the director bring the discussion around to art, appreciation of it and an understanding of where the urge to create comes from. I ran circles around that thought and confused myself more than him. He takes his time and gives very careful answers, the exact opposite of my process.

I loved how he dove into the paintings in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisch and cut to his hauntingly beautiful scenes of the dreary, winter city. Back to the the museum, the Rembrandts and especially the Bruegals and then to the museum guard studying the patrons the way we studied the paintings. That connection to Bruegal’s process picturing museum goers as subjects for paintings crosses centuries of art making urges. I thought it was quite powerful and beautifully expressed. A fine tribute to fine art.

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Forbes Magazine ranked Rochester second on its list of “opportunity cities, places where it is possible to have a business impact, build a successful career and make a comfortable living in a relatively short amount of time.” Delmonize Smith, commissioner of neighborhood and business development for the City of Rochester, is quoted as saying “The creative class that’s here that typically has to make this choice between expanding on their passion or their creativity or paying their bills–they’re able to find a decent place to live, pay $400-$450 a month and focus on their passion.” This is exactly why we’re here.

But as lucky as we are to have such a healthy cultural scene the housing would not be so affordable if the city proper did not have real economic problems. Half of its children live in poverty for starters.

Meanwhile Attorney General Eric Holder announced the arrest of a Rochester convenience store owner as the first American to be charged with recruiting fighters for ISIS and plotting to kill returning servicemen.

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The mailboxes for four nearby houses are clustered between two big oak trees across the street from us. We repaired some potholes out there earlier this summer and set aside today to dig a drainage ditch right in front of the mailboxes. I took a photo of our neighbor’s layout for the project a few weeks ago. There is a depression there from the mailtruck and last winter it filled with melted snow and turned to a sheet of ice. It was especially dangerous in my slippers when I’d go out to get the papers.

The hole was about three foot deep and we filled it with leftover stone that another neighbor had lying around. Peggi usually drives the tractor but she was still at yoga when we started. Manual labor like this counts as exercise so we skipped our walk today and will probably go to bed a little early tonight.

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I used to like baseball a lot. I played it. I collected the cards. My favorite team was the Milwaukee Braves. This was all a long time ago. Fred Costello is still grinding the organ but everything has changed. Gone are the Knot Hole afternoon games when you could get out of school to see the game. Gone is the game itself.

The Red Wings had a good crowd tonight, eight or nine thousand, but no more than a handful were watching the game. The whole world has moved on. The management provides distractions between every inning because no one is watching the game. And that may actually be backwards. No one is watching the game because the management is bent on providing distractions. The guys that used to sell popcorn, peanuts and beer can’t even compete with the concessions stands. We watched people walk up and down the aisles with piles of food, ice cream sundaes and 25 ounce beers for the whole game. It was all rather startling to an old timer. There was a game here but nobody gave a shit.

There is no hole in the home rum fence waiting for a ball that would give the hitter a brand new car like there was on Norton Street. The outfield is an LED overload. They blast snippets of the Violent Femmes, the Ramones and Queen. If they played more than forty five seconds they would have to pay royalties. If this was a soccer game you couldn’t take your eyes off the game. Maybe that is the whole point.

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With a little bit to a lot of rain everyday we have perfect mushroom growing conditions. Our walk in the woods last evening was interrupted by samples of several species. I think we finally spotted the Chanterelles that we were looking for last week. We were told they grow near the Coral mushrooms and that’s right where we found them. They are supposed to be delicious.

We spotted the one above in a clearing and took this shot with a flash. I sent it to my father and he identified it from one of his many resource books as a Yellow Amanita Muscaria. It’s poisonous but it has some serious Psychoactive properties. There is so much mushroom lore to sift through. I found this description on Shroomery.org. “Used correctly, it is pleasurable at its worst and limitlessly creative, intensely ecstatic, universally beneficial and incredibly healing at its best! You’ll probably puke all over the place, so be prepared!” And this from erowid.org “the experience I was having was a simulation of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion. I understood that I had to keep pounding these nails out of an invisible cross which I was nailed to. I would be free once the task was completed.”

We buy our mushrooms at Wegmans.

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I could not figure out what was wrong with the Flash last night. Claire Regan asked me as much while we were sitting with her. I didn’t understand why Adriana wasn’t starting in the midfield. She is a real workhorse. Zerboni, who is usually dominant in the center, was off her game and Carly Lloyd was not much of a factor so the middle just fell apart. Boston, the last place team in the league, scored four goals to the Flash’s two. Abby was still sidelined from the injury we saw a few months back but we have hardly missed her. Samantha and Jasmine are fun to watch as they fill in down front.

Maybe I jinxed the team by cheering for my favorite player on the US national team, Boston’s Heather O’Reilly. She had two goals and two assists. This was a must win if the Flash wanted to go to the playoffs so this will probably be my last WNY Flash post this year. In the meantime, I wish the City could find some way to promote the Flash. There are only eight NWSL teams in the country and this one is really a jewel.

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Annette Lein from the Democrat & Chronicle followed Peggi and me through our jazz fest routine yesterday. She started as we whizzed through the day’s offerings and made snap decisions on what to see/hear and then she met us downtown outside our first venue. She must have shot an hour’s worth of footage and later last night she had edited it down in Final Cut and posted it to the D&C’s site. She is a pro. We are not.

Annette’s edits and transitions are as smooth as silk. What looks like an edit is me jumping in before Peggi had a chance to explain what we look for. My favorite part is the shot of us trudging down the street. Unity Health has been giving away pedometers at the Jazz Fest and Peggi has been logging our miles. We walked over two last night and we never got over to Lucinda Williams in the Park. I was reminded of what my dad said when I sent him a link to a movie of us putting up their awnings. “Do we really walk like that?”

I’m keeping track of the Jazz Fest in a separate space.

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When you get political you kinda wreck everything. But then everything is political. Who would have guessed that the environment, marriage, guns, prayer, birth control and evolution would be political issues. A stance on any of these issues puts you in the blue or red camp. Now, the decision to go to war in Iraq again, that’s a political issue.

Meanwhile, the guy who got us into this mess is blissfully painting portraits while Obama gets stuck with the cleanup. I’m happy that President George H.W. Bush had a soft landing on his 90th birthday but I’m not gonna let him off the hook for announcing after the first Gulf War in 1991, “The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula.”

I, too, avoid politics for the most part. I’m listening to the great “Money Jungle,” an lp produced by Alan Douglas, who just passed away on Saturday.

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I am counting down the hours to the World Cup. Of course the US is my first choice but I’m happy there are thirty-one other teams in the tournament to root for in the later rounds. America’s national team coach, former German star, Jurgen Klinsmann, said the US “would have to play the game of our lives seven times to win the tournament. It is not possible.” Sam Borden in the Times said “such candor seems un-American.” What does come after “America First?”

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