Posts

Posted on

Outside The Box

Magnolias in bloom in Durand Eastman Park
Magnolias in bloom in Durand Eastman Park

With temperatures predicted to head into the eighties this weekend everybody is talking about the weather. Or at least everyone I saw today including the dental hygienist and my wife and Pete and Shelley. This will kick Spring into high gear and probably kill off the crocuses and the other early Spring flowers. Things move so fast this time of year that is mandatory that you get out there to watch. We walked up to Durand Eastman and checked out the magnolias. Shelley gathered some Pondarosa pine needles for the tiny little baskets she makes.

Pete LaBonne sat in with Margaret Explosion last night on the grand piano and Jaffe was there to watch. Tom Kohn from the Bop Shop was there and Scott Regan from WRUR. The band was on their best behavior and we made the bonus.

Leave a comment
Posted on

I Like Lucinda

Timothy Horn's "Nerites" currently on view at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY
“Nerites” currently on view at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY

It figures we would run into Lucinda Storms at the opening of the glass show at the MAG. She was ogling Timothy Horn’s big jewelry piece entitled “Nerites” after the Greek god of shellfish and it was my favorite piece in the show. Lucinda was wearing her own creation – beautiful, organically shaped glass beads.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Losing Ground


Click photo above for a movie of Ab Baars Trio with Kern Vandermark at the Bop Shop Attrium in Rochester NY

The Ab Baars Trio with Ken Vandermark was a treat for the ears last night. They are about twenty dates into a US tour. They played New York last night and are clearly on a roll. There was physical space around their instruments, I swear. You could hear each instrument clearly and the dialog was fascinating. I turned the movie function of my camera on about halfway into this Ken Vandermark piece called “Losing Ground”. The band is taking the train to Buffalo for a gig tonight and then they play Ken’s hometown, Chicago, for a few nights and that’s it.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Peeper Symphony

Wetland humming in Spring
Wetland humming in Spring

Besides the eye candy, Spring comes with equally impressive scents and sounds. The nearby wetlands vibrate like a post modern symphony with small frogs (peepers) gurgling in unison to attract mates. It is as calming and beautiful as Tuvan throat singing monks but more organic, freer in time with overlapping monophonic harmonies. This is way beyond om.

3 Comments
Posted on

You Are Stuck With It

Easter display in house on Culver Road in Rochester, NY
Easter display in house on Culver Road in Rochester, NY

I rode my bike past this display in the front window of a house on Culver Road and couldn’t resist stopping to take a photo. Even after reading how that guy came out of his house and shot that kid. Someone who puts Easter animals in their window probably wouldn’t tote guns would they? This display is either a week late or these people are on the Eastern Orthodox calendar like our neighbor, Helen.

Raised as a Catholic, and still mystified by that whole thing, I was never taught the significance of the bunny and chick. You can hardly even speculate anymore with Wikipedia right at your fingertips but I would have guessed that the chick has something to do with being born again. And maybe that’s why Catholics scoffed at these pagan symbols. You are born Catholic and then stuck with it. You don’t have the option of being born again. I certainly knew the bunny showed up with the an overdose of candy just after we had given up candy for Lent but this guy was suspect too. The focus, of course, was supposed to be on the most suspect of all Catholic legends, the resurrection.

4 Comments
Posted on

Modern Art

Jem Vinxi painting currently on view at the Little Theater Cafe
Jem Vinxi painting currently on view at the Little Theater Cafe

Remember when modern art looked and was contemporary? It doesn’t matter, it still looks good and JEM Vinxi who is currently showing at the Little Theater Cafe almost makes it look fresh. Not quite landscapes or representational but structural and decorative. They’re old fashioned modern art paintings and I like them.

Margaret Explosion got stuck in a few ruts last night and it wasn’t the paintings fault. Somehow we managed to shoot ourselves in the foot. There is still a fine line between modern art and junk or spontaneous composition and jamming.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Sparky Doll Discovery

Sparky Doll purchased at Small Word Books on North Street in Rochester, NY
Sparky Doll purchased at Small Word Books on North Street in Rochester, NY

Sparky Doll purchased at Small Word Books on North Street in Rochester, NY

It wasn’t even a close call to pick our favorite Sparky doll from the fourteen on display at Small World Books on North Street. Peggi picked this one up for two bucks. The owner, Rocco, let me photograph all fourteen while we hung around talking. He told me these things are pretty common in New England.

Sparky Dolls found at Small World Books in Rochester, New York

I had to call Sparky this morning to check in on him. We were neighbors for twenty some years and I kept track of him when we lived in the city. We even developed a mythological site devoted to him and I’m sorry to report I don’t have any new episodes for it.

2 Comments
Posted on

Maybe It Is The Packaging

"Jenny" as pictured in a Genesee Beer promotional item
“Jenny” as pictured in a Genesee Beer promotional picture

This morning’s “Beer Guys” column in our incredibly shrinking newspaper was about seasonal bock beers. Legend has it they were originally brewed by monks in Germany during Lent and that the bock beer had extra nutrients for the those who were fasting. They reviewed a few bock beers and I agree with their opinion that the locally brewed Genesee Bock is one of the best. And I was happy to read that it is selling briskly. At $5.99 a twelve pack at Wegmans (w/ Shoppers Card) it should be. When I worked as a stock boy at the old Super Duper they sold Genny Beer and Cream Ale for $1.09 a six pack as one of their “in store specials”. These were products that were sold at or below cost to get people into the store. That was a long time ago. The yesteryear price of the back beer matches the retro packaging perfectly.

My uncle worked for the old Topper Brewing Company, they also brewed Standard Ale, and I have always pulled for the local companies. I don’t understand why they can’t come up with a good craft brew. Both Rorbach’s and Custom Brew Craft put the Genesee/High Falls/LaBatt’sUSA product to shame. Our friend’s, Pete and Shelley drink Genesee Cream Ale, and I gather it is more popular in the mountains than it is here. I like it but I have a hard time with their packaging. Maybe they should bring back Jenny.

Jenny seemed wildly exotic when I first tuned into her. The dark hair, the slinky low cut barmaid outfit, the red lipstick smile, the choker necklace, the mole. I couldn’t wait to meet her in a bar but I was only ten or eleven. I found this picture of her over at Small World Books on North Street.

2 Comments
Posted on

Pasta Fazool

Marc Chagall self portrait on the cover of Time in 1965
Marc Chagall self portrait on the cover of Time in 1965

Rob Storms from Sound Source called us on Saturday afternoon to invite us to Small World Books for some homemade pasta fazool. This invitation came right out of the blue and we accepted it. Small World Books is in a beautiful old building near downtown on North Street and it specializes in used, rare, and out of print books.

Rocco runs the place and he made the soup. They do most of their business online so it is no surprise we had never been there. We wandered around the building for for an hour or so and I came across this magazine from another era. There is a beautiful light filled gallery upstairs and a small performance space. We’re thinking, we’re thinking. I bought a Matisse book for five dollars and Peggi bought a Sparky doll. I might post a picture of that tomorrow.

2 Comments
Posted on

“Don’t Compromise Honey. That’s All You Got.”

Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company at the Syracuse War Memorial in 1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick
Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company at the Syracuse War Memorial in 1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick
Janis Joplin Syracuse War Memorial in 1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick
Janis Joplin at the Syracuse War Memorial in 1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick

Janis Joplin with Big Brother & The Holding Company at the Syracuse War Memorial in1968. Photo by Kevin Patrick. Click photo for another shot.

That quote is from the opening scene of  “Love Janis” at the Downstairs Cabaret. All the lines in the play are from Janis Joplin’s own words, her letters and interviews, and it takes two actresses to deliver them, sometimes at the same time. This works well because just as you’re not buying one, the other takes over. The band members tour as Big Brother now so the show rocked. First play I’ve been to where they pass out ear plugs.

Coincidentally Kevin Patrick primed the pump for us with his recent entry with these sensational photos of Janis.

1 Comment
Posted on

But What About?

Art Music blackboard message at the Ctreative Workshop
Art Music blackboard message at the Ctreative Workshop

When I showed up for class at the Creative Workshop I found this message on the board. I have an interest in the two disciplines. I know Fred Lipp has a day class on Tuesdays and I wondered if he might have posted these notes. The only time I remember him addressing the class with chalk in hand was when he drew a diagram of his winter accident. He is not the demonstration kind of teacher.

When he showed up last for class (he is that kind of teacher) I asked him if he wrote the note. He said no and and asked if there was something I wanted to add. I said, “Improvisation”, and he wrote that on the board.

Leave a comment
Posted on

That’s My Dad

Orchard in front of the Stone Tolan House in Rochester, NY painted by Leo Dodd
Orchard in front of the Stone Tolan House in Rochester, NY painted by Leo Dodd

My father likes to say he “can’t talk without a pencil” and it is pretty much true. Armed with a pencil he talks better than anyone I know. He knocked this painting off in our last class and it knocks me out. It’s a sketch of the orchard in front of the Stone Tolan House on East Avenue and it was done from a sketch in one of his many sketch books.

2 Comments
Posted on

Anne Havens Open Source

Ann Havens’ art

These are not Anne Havens’ colors but they could be. Peggi and I bought this piece years ago at a Pyramid Art Center show and I photographed it tonight in very low light. It hangs over our washing machine in the basement in the laundry slash band room. I love this piece and I was immediately attracted to it. Still am and don’t know why but that is the fun of it. I still don’t know who won the game of tic tac toe. It’s almost like I don’t want to know. It is too nicely drawn to look at what it depicts. And I love the beaker!

We were very fortunate to have Anne try out her “I’m moving to Florida routine” with us at the recent RoCo opening. It was delightful. She explained that she just gets so depressed in the dark winter months that she doesn’t want to do it anymore. She told us she only wears black here but wears white in Florida and she said it like she wasn’t ashamed to admit it. She told us she  “is thinking of changing her name to Annie.”

We are very happy for her.

Leave a comment
Posted on

I’d Like To Thank My Mom


click photo for Maira Kalman’s advice

Maira Kalman speaking at Rochester Institute of Technology
Maira Kalman speaking at Rochester Institute of Technology

We bought copies of Maira Kalman’s “The Principles of Uncertainty” as a Christmas gift for Peggi’s sister and for our friend and neighbor, Monica. We don’t own it our selves but it seemed like a good gift idea. I followed Kalman’s blog on the NYT’s website and loved it. So why should we pass up a free lecture by her at RIT? We couldn’t think of any reason.

It is always cold and windy on that damn campus. They designed it that way. It and the giant sprawling mall give Henrietta a bad name. No amount of wind is going to blow that Albert Paley down though. We sat next to our siter-in-law. She teaches a design class out there and had told her student to come but she only saw three of them there.

The person who introduced Maira said that she and her late husband ran the influential design company, M&Co. I never connected those dots before. Maira Kalman said her mom is the centerpiece of everything she does. She explained that her mom simply allowed her to daydream and never pushed her in any sort of practical career direction. She recently illustrated a new edition of Strunk’s The Elements of Style and she projected slides of that work from her MacBook while she told funny stories like how she’d marry Lincoln in a nanosecond.

The Memorial Art Galley has a show of her work (play) opening on May 2nd so she will probably be back in town for that.

Leave a comment
Posted on

From High Brow To Low Brow

Mercury Cougar cruising on Culver Road in Rochester, NY
Mercury Cougar cruising on Culver Road in Rochester, NY

Remember when state license plates were distinctive? Remember when cars didn’t all look alike? I was following these guys yesterday as they cruised down Culver. I never get tired of this drive. I’m guessing this car is a 1968 but I could be way off.

I ripped some old vinyl over the weekend. Screamin Gypsy Bandits from Bloomington, Indiana, Sun Ra Italian pressings on Horo that never came out on cd and a live Archie Schep from Germany (I borrowed these from Tom Kohn) and Dr. John The Night Tripper lp, Gris-gris, that I heard in Rick Simpson’s basement and just had to have. And then Brad Fox called a while back singing a song from an lp that we used to listen to. I recognized the tune as being from a Keith Jarrett/Jan Garbarek lp called “Belonging” so I ripped that for him. And then I thought I would might as well make a digital copy of the Hi-Techs singles.

When I took the shot above I was headed to the Eastman Theater to pick Peggi and her mom up at the opera. I was listening to WPXY and kept the station on as we cruised back down Culver to our house.  We were all singing along to something that had the refrain of “You’re a womanizer, womanizer, baby”,”You spin my head right round when you go down” and “you’re hot when you’re cold and you’re in when you’re out”.  Top Forty is a little raunchier than the Invictas “The Hump” was in the mid sixties but it’s still based on the same catchy melody/riff/rhythm thing.

2 Comments
Posted on

Beautiful Urban Decay

"A Lot Besides" by Ricky Sears at Rochester Contemporary
“A Lot Besides” by Ricky Sears at Rochester Contemporary


Detail from “A Lot Besides” by Ricky Sears at Rochester Contemporary. Click photo for full shot.

RoCo’s new show opened last night with “In Between”, paintings and sculpture by Brooklyn based artists Malin Abrahamsson and Ricky Sears. Bleu Cease, RoCo’s director, introduced us to both artists last night and we had a nice chat about their work. Malin said she felt as though Rochester was a third contributor to the show because their reaction to the city was right there on the walls.

I’m not sure if i ever would have determined that this work was based on Rochester if I didn’t read the blurb in the small round room that was stuck to the wall above a delightful book that the the two artists had put together as worked on this show. Malin’s paintings were done on canvas and Ricky’s were done on glass, old window panes in fact, and they are quite beautiful.

2 Comments
Posted on

Cold Call From India

House construction
House construction

Peggi had a few problems with her hard drive and before we ran the disc utility we confirmed that we had back-ups of everything. She found a bunch of photos from a few years back and we got sidetracked looking at them. The one above is of the main part of house getting redone by us before we moved in. We scraped the stalactite like textured ceiling off and we repainted and pretty much reworked the whole place. I love the way it looked back then (click the photo for full effect) and I’m wondering if we can go back there. It was such a blur at the time but it It looks like an art installation now. I’m glad I photographed it. Then again, I photograph just about everything.

Today started like most with a cold call from India. They wanted to talk to us about graphic design or something. I have very little patience for these guys and hung up on him. Next call was from a sweet sounding woman who wondered if we did the the little programs that they pass out at funerals. Despite the rotten economy I turned her down. I’m wondering if a listed phone number is still a good idea for a business.

Last week we did a quote for lawn care company. They wanted a logos for their trucks and business cards etc. I love doing logos but these guys had four letters in their name and they wanted graphics in each of the letters. I told them I didn’t think that was a good idea but I couldn’t talk them out of it. So we gave them a quote and never heard back. We do have work so I’m not worried yet. If it does get bad I’l hear one of these Indian guys out.

1 Comment
Posted on

Exactitude Is Not Truth

Four drawings-portraits perhaps - by Matisse in 1947
Four drawings-portraits perhaps – by Matisse in 1947

I only have a few days left with the “Matisse Portraits” book that I checked out of the downtown library. I’m going to have to remove all the bookmarks and give it up. It is so jam packed with sensational drawings that it took me a few weeks before I could even read the copy. Peggi has been page turning Ann Rule’s “Every Breadth You Take” while I stare at drawings until I fall asleep.

Now that I have been able to get to some of the text I’m finding that Matisse is as articulate with words as he is with the brush. In an essay for the catalog for a collection of his work entitled “Exactitude Is Not Truth” (a Delacroix saying)he wrote,

“Among these drawings, which I have chosen with the greatest of care for this exhibition, are four drawings-portraits perhaps—done from my face as seen in a mirror. I should particularly like to call them to the visitors’ attention.

These drawings sum up, in my opinion, observations that I have made for many years about the charactcr of drawing, a character that does not depcnd on forms being copied exactly as they are in nature or on the patient assembling of exact details, but on the profound feeling of the artist before the objects that he has chosen, on which his attention is focussed, and whose spirit he has penetrated.”

It kills me how much volume Matisse gets in these line drawings. He devoted his life to careful observation of nature and dilligent hard work in order to make drawings look this easy.

Leave a comment
Posted on

Tap Tap Tap

Tree foaming in the woods
Tree foaming in the woods

This probably happens every year but if you’re not in the woods when it happens – you know what they say about hearing trees fall out there. At first glance we thought it might be sap pouring out of the trees, maybe even maple syrup, but these weren’t maple trees and the foam wasn’t sticky. Our friends, Pete and Shelley, spend a good bit of March “syrupping down” so it can’t just bubble out of the trees.

Leave a comment
Posted on

For One Oh Nine

We put together a few cdrs of old Personal Effects records for Steve Lipincott and he sent us a short stack of things to listen to. It was a really tough call as to what to pop in first. We went with Miles Davis Nonet Boston ’72. Amazing three dimensional sound with Mtume Forman playing percussion in one channel, Badal Roy in the other and Pete Cosey’s wah wah guitar out there.

I’m looking at Miles Davis Quintet, Stockholm, playing “Bitches Brew” material or Captain Beefheart “Spotlight Kid Sessions” next.

Leave a comment