Light installation in the former Xerox Corporate Office Building
This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen at the Jazz Festival. It is between flights in the stairwell leading to the auditorium in Innovation Square, formerly Xerox Corporate Headquarters. As good as Dan Flavin.
Does it seem that every building in Rochester has a stronger identity connected to its former life than its present incarnation? Or is that observation just a reflection of my age? We skipped the Jazz Fest again last night. Kind of a luxury skipping three of the nine nights. We check the sound samples and follow our ears and there was nothing to follow on those nights. I’m keeping track of what we have seen over here.
Ravi Coltrane Freedom Trio performing at the 2022 Rochester International Jazz Fest
Ravi Coltrane travels in good company. His trio included Jonathan Blake who we saw at Hochstein with Tom Harrell and Esperanza Spalding. He sets his drums up low, everything waist high and level. He plays two snares, one crisp and the other sloppy. We had a hard time finding something interesting enough to leave home for on Tuesday so we skipped our second of the nine days. I wish the promoters leaned toward inventive and away from studied. This year we have to work a harder to find things we like.
The neighborhood is humming again. Another large oak, maybe 80 years old, fell over behind our neighbor’s house. It damaged the gutter on the house next door them but left but their house intact. It tore down the lines running up the hill and the neighbors’ generators kicked on. The trees, especially the oaks were severely stressed by the Gypsy Moth infestation the last two years. They’ve moved on and changed their name.
Mi Hacienda Jalisciense in Alton (just past Sodus) is open again. Serving mostly migrant workers from the nearby fruit orchards, they have the best Mexican food in town. Mui tipico. When I was in grade school my mom and my brother and I went out to Wayne County as volunteers from Holy Trinity. I played basketball with the migrant workers’ kids. They were all black back then.
“Negro Riot” headlines in Rochester Democrat & Chronicle from 1964. “Clarissa Uprooted” exhibit at City Art Space in former Sibley building downtown.
The euphemism, “urban renewal,” was used by city planners as a catch-all for grand plans, like tearing down whole neighborhoods to put a highway in to whisk white suburban workers in and out of downtown. Interstate 490 tore right through Rochester’s 3rd Ward, a thriving Black community.
The “Clarissa Uprooted” exhibit at City Art Space in the former Sibley building downtown is too much to take in in one visit. It is too much to take in period. Black people were only allowed to live in two of Rochester’s 24 Wards, the 3rd and the 7th, so where else would they put a highway? And while they were at it they tore down far more homes than they had to. The empty lots are still there.
The exhibition organizers have recreated the stage from the Pythodd Room (named after the two social clubs, the Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows that shared the space.) Located at the corner of Clarissa and Troup Street, it was a regular stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit in the late fifties and early sixties. Alice McCloud (Coltrane), Jimmy Smith, Art Blakey all played there along with Rochester musicians, Gap and Chuck Mangione, Pee Wee Ellis and Ron Carter. and surrounded it with photos (Susan Plunkett is pictured down front) and videos the club in the day. There was band playing on the stage on opening night.
The oral histories, video interviews Teen Empowerment made with current and former residents, (Shep from Shep’s Paradise), Rochesterer’s first black policeman, lawyers and community elders are the heart and soul of this exhibit. They clearly had a good hing going here in the day but there is plenty of personal stories of police abuse, one about guy who worked two jobs, the second being as a gas station attendant at night. He was closing up the station on South Plymouth Street when the cops pulled in and accused him of breaking in. He told them he worked there but they beat the shit out of him
Duane asked if Lakeside Hots was still open. We said yes reflexively. The alternative is unthinkable. The Sea Breeze restaurant is the closest we’re going to get in the 2000s to the legendary Vic & Irv’s. We walked through the park this morning and then down Culver to the lake just to verify. Because Duane is on FB and we’re not he sometimes finds out about things in our hometown before we do.
I have been so busy the last few weeks I was unable to find time to read the pdf of “Fiery World,” Louise Wareham Leonard’s upcoming book. Peggi has read it twice. Today was the day. We sat under one of the umbrellas down at the pool and read. My iPad as portal did not take us far. The setting for her book is the nearby park, the fruticetum, the pinetum, the flowering trees and the small lakes.
The main character, grieving the loss of her sister, meets an amorphous mystic in the park. He tells her, “You think you’re mourning because your true life is behind you. But it’s before you.” His wisdom comes from literature and they trade favorite passages. She almost becomes dependent but then he sets her straight. “I do not exist to give you meaning.” ” . . . you cannot live for me.” A healthy, happy ending to a poetic whirlwind.
We had the good fortune to be following this girl in stripes for two blocks while we were in Boston.
In other news, our nephew, Alex Meyer and his partner, Luciana Giangrandi, have earned a Michelin star for their Miami restaurant, Bioa De.
Peggi bought a few Wemo devices and I can now turn the lights over our couch on and off with my watch.
Other than that, I been taking screen captures of my “Brief History of the World” eBooks. I plan to project them as a slideshow on the large wall outside Colleen Buzzard’s Studio during the month of August when I will be showing some recent work in her gallery space.
I remember my mom calling my attention to a letter to the editor that my sister’s husband had written about how Whites (I’ve noticed they capitalize this word now) in his department at Kodak were being passed over for promotions so they could reach a quota for minorities. This sticker, at the corner of Culver and Durand, near the Parkside Diner, reminded me of that sad letter. It’s fun to sip coffee at the counter in there and pretend you’re back in the 50’s but why is the tv always tuned to Fox? I’m guessing one of their patrons slapped this sticker on the trash can.
So now we learn the Binghamton mass murderer considered Rochester before choosing Buffalo. I love both those cities. I cry for the innocent victims.
“Licorice Nibs & Ballpoint Pen Springs” 2011 original drawing by David Greenberger. Ink and colored pencil on paper. Purchased on eBay.
“Astronomers announced on Thursday that they had pierced the well of darkness and dust at the center of our Milky Way galaxy to capture the first picture of “the gentle giant” dwelling there: a supermassive black hole, a trapdoor in space-time through which the equivalent of four million suns have been dispatched to eternity leaving behind only their gravity and violently bent space-time.” – NYT
On the same day a package arrived from David Greenberger, the artwork we bought on eBay after receiving an email that alerted us to the listing. We paid $14.99 and David threw in one from his drawing/collage series of drummers, with a postage stamp heads sitting on drummers’ bodies as they sit behind a kit. Ours featured an Indian stamp of Gandhi.
We see Larry and his dog, Ernie, every couple of weeks. Now that Spring is here he has “Cooler by the Lake” back on. We experienced the micro climate phenom last night when we went downtown to see the Garth Fagan Dance performance in Innovation Square. My watch said it was seven degrees warmer.
Last night’s program consisted of “Duos and Duets.” We looked up the distinction and found duo to be the performers and duets to be the pieces. The performance was flat out beautiful. We had seen “Griot New York,” a 1991 piece for which Wynton Marsalis wrote the music, years ago but it was especially moving now that the performers have aged. “The North Star,” from 2018, named after Frederick Douglas’s Rochester-based newspaper used a familiar tune from the Melodians based on Psalm 137 (Frederick Douglas’s favorite psalm.) “Carry us away Captivity require from us a song.”
Our good friend, Pete Monacelli, has been creating a book with one spread devoted to all 1550 Psalms, the psalm on the left and a painting on the right. He is on 140 so he just fished the one I mentioned. I have digitized two of Pete’s books and I just put “Quatrains,” the new one, online today.
I read the newspaper, I look at the news so I guess I”m a bit of a political junkie.. But I don’t usually talk politics here. It is so unsavory. I posted a picture of Junior’s girlfriend, one I took off the tv during the Republican Convention, and I posted an earlier idea for a Don Jr. t-shirt. That post got eight comments but most thought it was a bad idea.
The other day I got an email from “Mr. Donald Trump Jr.” with the subject, “Can I tell my father you stepped up?” “There’s nothing the Left won’t destroy, including the future of America and its allies. Only YOU can stop them, Paul. I know my father would appreciate the support of a TOP Patriot like YOU.”
I tweaked my t-shirt design. Thinking about a short run for the summer. Comments are turned on.
Yellow snow plow in parking lot. Rochester, New York
History is ongoing. Our myths will need to be explained to future generations. Someone has to record them now. And just as historians continually reinterpret the history of our ancestors they will surely struggle to understand our timeframe. I am lightening their load by compiling a visual record of our days in a series of artists books entitled “A Brief History of the World.”
Book cover for artist book “Brief History of the World • Vol XX”
Download Volume XX of “Brief History of the World”
7 of the 21 volumes in this series have been converted to eBooks and they are available here as free downloads. I just uploaded Vol. XX today and I invite you to take a look. The file will open in the book app on your desktop, tablet or mobile device.
I call it “baclava” just for fun. Boris Johnson would call it a “letter box.” Peggi told me she was going to be cavalier this morning and not wear her balaclava while we skied through the woods. And then she added, “That’s a funny word.” It conjures up muskateers with me for some reason. There was restaurant with that name downtown on Clinton in that block where they built the Chase Lincoln tower, now the “Metropolitan.”
My brother and I would stop there for breakfast on our way to Bishop Kearney. We both had paper. routes and if weren’t done delivering by the time the school bus came (conveniently) we would take the city bus downtown and transfer to the Portland Ave. bus. That transfer time gave us plenty of time to go to restaurants, the record store and even movies when the RKO/Paramount was still open.
It was warm this morning, upper twenties and full sun, so I took my hat off and stuck it in my pocket. My ears were soon got cold and I looked for my hat but it was gone. We like to out out and come back in a big loop rather that backtrack but we did. It was easy enough to find. It’s bright yellow.
We ski through the woods and then out onto the golf course and we were lucky enough to catch the groomer this morning, dragging his apparatus behind a snowmobile. We waved and thanked him. He’s a new guy and especially creative. His tracks have all sorts of interesting curves and slopes.
Detail from Joan Lyons “Nathan”s Darkroom 2021 at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio
Overheard at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio: Someone asking a visual artist how they were holding up in the pandemic. “It’s been a little quiet but I have a beautiful house, a nice studio and plenty of time to do work” or something to that effect. I wanted to second that but stayed quiet. And then at RoCo, later that evening, we ran into a writer who told us how they couldn’t get anything done during the pandemic.
Granted this thing is not good for depressive types. Someone in the Truman Capote doc that we just watched said, “All writers are voyeurs.” So maybe it is without people to observre a writer could be lost. But that is all broad brush nonsense. Truman did really blew up though with his “Answered Prayers.”
Joan Lyons “Portraits” 1980-1983 Diazo Prints at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio
It was really good to get out, to see new art and laugh through a mask with friends. Joan Lyons show at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio is a real treat. A wall of photos created on Nathan Lyons (who died in 2016) old photo paper, some of it as old as his 40 year old darkroom. Joan doesn’t just click the shutter, she paints with the photo chemicals and exposes the paper to items from Nathan’s darkroom. I particularly liked her Diazo Prints, “Portraits,” made in conjunction with members of their family in the early eighties.
On the first page of Pete Monacelli’s book, Origins,” he defines “origin” as “The point or place where something begins, arises or is derived. Source, inception and root.” With verse, Casin paint and ballpoint pen he shares, over 94 spreads, some his origins. It is an astonishingly beautiful book, too good to sit in a drawer in his studio. I offered to create an eBook version and it is available here as a free download.
Front cover to Peter Monacelli “Origins”
Click the cover above for a free download version “Origins.”
I was recently helping my brother, Fran, with a computer issue. He is surely up in the Adirondacks now with his snowmobile while Peggi and I watch snow slide off our new metal roof. And I was reminded of this movie, my first and only concept film. My father bought the Super 8 camera for me from Kodak’s Camera Club. It was eighteen dollars.
The movie, sequenced and edited in camera, is only three minutes long. My brothers helped me flesh out the concept and we wrapped it up before the film ran out. Fran is featured sliding off the roof with his friends and my brothers, Tim and John, play instruments in our driveway. The movie was silent but I added an Invisible Idiot song to the soundtrack.
Paul Dodd 1A Selective Service draft card 1970
I’m guessing this was 1970. I had dropped out of school and moved back home for a year. Without my college deferment I was ready to go to Canada and then that ping pong ball drop lottery happened. Fran was always a daredevil. He definitely steals the show here. Peggi has always thought he looked like Iggy Pop.
We walked in rain coats this morning. The streets were quiet. Even The marsh off Hoffman Road looked especially beautiful. Back home I started a fire while Peggi read a few articles from the NYT website. Our local paper paused print production for a few days by putting the Saturday Real Estate section in with the Thursday weekend edition. And because our local carrier delivers it and the NY Times he is letting our copies sit at the warehouse until Sunday. Rochester hung in there but this is the beginning of the end for print journalism.
I played ten 45s while we opened a few gifts and then created a short Xmas Playlist in Apple Music so I could share the audio track of our Christmas.
Love Me Tender - Elvis Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton Fool #1 - Brenda Lee Make The World Go Away - Ray Price Solitary Man - Neil Diamond Family Affair - Sly & The Family Stone Nature Boy - Bobby Darin The Twelfth of Never - Johnny Mathis Why Can't We Live Together - Timmy Thomas I'm Stone In Love With You - The Stylistics
Blue skies, yellow tree and white house on Dewberry Street
Manuel Cáceres Artesero, better known as Manolo el del bombo, is Spain’s national football team’s most famous supporter. He was in the stands in Sevilla beating his bass drum when Spain secured a spot in next year’s World Cup by defeating Swedon. We watched the match on ESPN and plan to watch the US tonight when they meet Jamaica in a a qualifying match.
We have walked along the lake most days this year. It is such a cool feeling to get there and realize we can’t go any further north without a boat or a passport. We met three women who had just taken a fall plunge this weekend. They were all wrapped up on the beach and bubbly. Peggi said, “You just went swimming didn’t you?” One of the woman said “Yeah, that will really wake you up.”
Today we followed a few paths through the park and never made it to the lake. We came back through the Commons and inspected our ski route/ We found one new tree down in the path but we found a way to ski around it when the time comes. The weeds are all spindly now as the die back and there is theoretically less chance of bringing a tick home on our clothes.
I wish the US team had a Manolo instead of the obnoxious American Outlaws and their bombastic U S A chants.
Wings of Progress on top of the Times Square Building as seen from the Broad Street Bridge
“Oh, the wives of the saints have troubles of their own.” Chuck’s lyrics pop into my head all the time. Hearing The Colorblind James Experience perform forty of his songs over the weekend has reopened the floodgates.
The titles alone of Colorblind songs come complete with their musical hook. “Considering A Move to Memphis,” “A Different Bob,” “Euphoria Jones,” “Rocking’ As Fast As I Can,” “I Saved Your Life,” “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself,” “Show Me” and “She Took The Ring Off A Dead Man’s Finger.” The lyrics unfold like parables. Or poetry.
In high school Chuck and I were both friends with a brother and sister, the girl from his class and her brother from mine. When they moved away Chuck drove down to visit the guy with Peggi and me. I’m not using their names for a reason.
One night between Colorblind sets at Schatzee’s I told Chuck a story that the brother had recently shared with me. I was not supposed to tell anyone about this but I did. We were both friends with the players so I told Chuck and said, “Please, don’t tell anyone.”
The girl was working as a nurse when they brought a body into Emergency. The famous (very famous) person was pronounced dead and the hospital staff told her to sit with the body while they notified the family and authorities. She slipped a ring off his finger as a souvenir. Chuck thought the story was fantastic and a short time later the band was performing “She Took The Ring Off A Dead Man’s Finger.”
I helped Chuck put the artwork together for “Solid Behind the Times,” the album the song was on. Chuck always wanted his lyrics printed out on the lp but the company didn’t have it in the budget so they wound up on an insert. Twenty years later the girl caught wind of the song by her classmate. She back-pedaled a bit and said, “It wasn’t his ring. It was a lighter.” Not as poetic. I don’t believe her.
“Or would he want her to have it Oh, he might very well”
Old concrete wall holding back the Genesee River in downtown Rochester, New York
Our neighbor was right. We did almost hit 80 today. And everyone on our street, it seems, had the same idea. “Let’s mow the lawn.” Peggi’s sister is visiting from LA next week and we plan to have friends over tonight so the neighbor should be in tip top shape.
On a good year we can get through the summer with only one mowing. We have a large oak canopy above our house. Most years I mow twice, once in the spring before the trees have filled out, and the weeds and scattered grass in front of house takes off, and then again in the late summer. This year with all gypsy moth damage and the trees struggling to put out a second set of leaves a lot of light has gotten through.
We plan to cook paella in the backyard tonight. Our pan is big enough for eight and we spent the rest of the day preparing a the Spanish themed event. Vegetables needed to be split, the cheese is out, seeking room temperature. I have olives in small dishes, some Rioja on the counter and 8 glasses in a cluster. Our Spain playlist is already on shuffle and all 1000 of our photos from Spain are shuffling on the tv. We will start with a fresh batch of Pimentos de Padron from the garden. Hope they aren’t so hot they damage our guests.
Yellow and white wrought iron chairs in front of house on Culver Road
If I was a few years younger I would have been at the Joywave show last night at Parcel 5. And if I was even younger than that I would have loved to hear Roy, son of Margaret Explosion guitar player, Phil Marshall, playing drums with Spencer, one of the four opening bands. It was a perfect night for an outdoor concert. Our windows we’re open but we couldn’t hear the sound system.
I sort of remember when this willow tree split apart. The back half fell across the creek and died but the front half continued to thrive. New branches have sprouted from the top side of the trunk. I’m so glad the laissez-faire owners have left it alone.
We intended to take a walking route that would finish at our garden but got talking and turned the wrong way. Peggi was telling me about her dream. We were at the Jazz Festival and she was holding front row seats at Kilbourn Hall for me. I was late for some reason (which sounds about right) and then the whole first row of seats began falling backward. People were screaming and that might have been when Peggi woke up.
We spotted a photographer up ahead of us on Log Cabin Road. I wondered if it might be Aaron Winters because of the way he was walking, lumbering under the weight of his camera equipment and long lenses. It turned out to be Fred SanFilipo who coincidentally often sits in the front row at Jazz Fest where he is one of the official photographers. He recognized us from Jazz Fest and then introduced himself to us.
I had met him many years ago back when he had an ad agency with someone named Younger. I was in their studio when the two partners were having an unforgettable blow-out. Today he seems much happier. He told us about a beautiful nearby bush he had discovered, one that attracts humming birds. Peggi told him about her Jazz Fest dream and he said it sounds like the beginning of a novel.
