architectural form

Chip was right... it is quite telling that amongst the renderings and floor plans for the Eastman Theatre addition (still questionably called "completing George Eastman's vision"), a full photo of Doug Lowry takes center stage. A highly architectural photo, I might add.

rochacha

Easy as it is to dismiss my former hometown, there are definitely things I miss about it. Not about living there, but the delightful parts of living there. Most of these aspects of Rochester have their corollaries here, but to my surprise that doesn't make them replaceable. Most of all, of course, I miss the organ culture. That can hardly be replaced anywhere.

fini

It's a quarter past eight ante meridiem and I am done packing. Only I know what it took to reach this point.

John Ashbery was born a Rochesterian. Certainly makes me feel a little better about this place.

Snow is pouring like heavy rain on pavement that was clear this morning and winter-sun-drenched yesterday. I could have been wearing sunglasses yesterday had my eyes not been raw from nonstop paper writing.

I suppose if I had a fireplace to cuddle beside reading a good book, and I could sustain this activity through the entire winter, the Rochester weather wouldn't seem so dismal to me. Alas, this is not so.

A full page feature on the carillon summer series appeared in Currents on July 2.

I'm not insane after all. I do get fatter the moment I set foot back into the United States -- and so do immigrant children. Take the example of 13-year-old Adrian McHargh, who grew up "active and skinny" in Kingston, Jamaica and put on 30 lbs upon moving to Atlanta. 30 lbs on a 13-year-old is no small change, and it was accompanied by hypertension, high cholesterol and high risk for type 2 diabetes.

We live in a country of plenty. Plenty of junk.

In other news, Rochester is one of the least congested metropolitan areas in the country. That doesn't make me like the transportation infrastructure of Rochester any better, although it makes me suspect that population loss is freeing up space on an infrastructure built to accommodate more people. The study estimates that drivers wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic, and that a total of 4.2 billion hours were whiled away in 2005, up from 4 billion the year before. I'm sad to say that San Francisco ranks 3rd on the map for worst congestion.

Speaking of San Fran, I just came across architect Pietro Belluschi and learned that he is responsible for the BofA Building, Davies Symphony Hall, St. Mary's, as well as... Juilliard.

Vanishing Point: 50 Years in Photography

Oh my goodness I'm glad I receive the George Eastman House's mailings because even with the flyer right in front of me I nearly missed the fact that one of my favorite photographers is coming to town for a lecture in October: David Plowden!

yellow skies

There's a rainbow arcing over the parking lot, perfectly steady as the wind rushes the trees. The atmosphere is unreal in color, a strangely intense yellow tinted with pink, much as it was at the end of the day in Cambridge, England. Today wasn't the first day of brilliant skies. Driving out to Batavia yesterday evening, Nicole and I swept through the most gorgeous New York scenery I'd ever seen, dotted with solitary barns and silos and lit by dramatic clouds of contrasting shapes and a fiery orb that looked ten times its normal size wrapped in clouds near the earth. On the way back, although we never encountered rain, we headed towards the most intense lightning storm I'd ever seen. I counted up to seven bolts per second, some that illuminated a quarter of the sky though eerily hidden behind clouds. Funny that I should have spent the summer talking about wanting to see a good lightning storm -- I got my wish without even getting wet!

Matilda and her boyfriend hosted a lovely party with varied guests -- composers, med school employees, a music ed instructor, and even a hamster. Nicole fell for the hamster immediately, and Jairo was positively a magician with it. It's good to have a slice of summer left to enjoy.

Today after Mex with Jeff and a surprisingly deft run at the carillon, I found myself in the Friends of Rush Rhees Library book sale, rifling through volumes ranging from 50¢ to $1.00. I must have unintentionally browsed for an hour, because suddenly a lady was handing out plastic bags for the final $3-per-bag clearance. I was beside myself in the mad rush to fill my bag. 17¢ per book later, I had a somewhat-full bag with treasures such as the Stinking Cookbook from my favorite SF restaurant (and straight off my wishlist to boot) to several volumes of poetry, literary history, art (including a massive hardcover volume of American art), Yale memorabilia, San Francisco memorabilia, almost-antiquarian mini-volumes in German, gifts... The literary bargain shopper's dream come true!

Pink is infusing the yellow light and this blog entry is coming to an end. As a contrasting last note I want to observe that the fashion for hoodies this summer has involved prints that are amusing because they don't work as prints. Said hoodies are also made of nearly useless thin material, and the only store that stocks properly warm zip hoodies seems to be the eternally overpriced A&F. It's infuriating to think that someone in Amsterdam is probably wearing my 5-year-old Urban Outfitters military hoodie with its fake medals and gloating. But maybe this book bargain is my payback.

The next obvious step after choosing to cook with what's in season is joining a CSA. This will have to wait until I have a home and free time in the evenings to learn to cook new things or devise recipes with what I have, but it's something to look forward to.

Finally went shopping at Ocean Garden for Asian groceries and scoped out India House. The latter is quite promising, if I can ever learn to cook Indian food properly (anyone want to give me a cookbook for Xmas? :), but I wish amongst their Tibetan bells and things there had been some colorful prayer flags to liven up my whitewashed place.

Speaking of making things interesting, why doesn't the Eastman School of Music have any decent photography on its walls? Besides the Music Ed floor, there's really nothing, and certainly no student space.

the glory days

Observe that trams, cyclists, and pedestrians once ruled the roads of Rochester.

epodunk is worth a browse, not least of all because of its name.

And please don't forget The Refrigerator. Great collection of signs and roadside tours, including this retro pedestrian crossing sign in which the child seems to be running away and the parent is carrying a violin case or something else very long.

Rochester day 1.5

It's lovely to wake up in your own sun-drenched room after a long night of sleep. Especially if you have the Rochester Public Market to look forward to. By American standards, it is a pretty long-standing tradition -- in continuous (if itinerant) operation since 1827. This is young relative to my alma mater, but even the latter seems juvenile now that I've walked through university dining halls at Cambridge that have served continuously as dining halls for 600 years. In Dorset, I settled down with Naomi's latest copy of Cambridge Alumni Magazine and read and reread the final sentence on the back page: "And now for a literary return to 1350's Cambridge." For the new dean of a college to operate atop a stack of so many centuries of history, and to simply take it in stride and enjoy a fictionalized version of it at the end of a long day... does she not find joining such a vast academic family tree intimidating? At least in a post-Modern sense?

I digress. The post office is now issuing Louis Comfort Tiffany stamps, which I happily stocked up on in nominal vanity. The Rite-Aid pharmacy was next, but closed again -- in fact, shut on Saturdays until further notice. Lame factor doubled. After popping in cheerfully at the Little Bakery, I trekked out to the Public Market and emerged with a large backpack and two tote bags worth of fresh produce. But this wasn't my usual style of shopping. I arrived with no shopping list, only a mind determined to scope out what was in season and to buy it. It was a liberating experience, made possible by my experience of cooking with garden-picked produce in Belgium. And a better choice for the environment.

I can't say that the Eggplant Catalana recipe I dug up and tried to make with my fresh loot was quite a success, but that's because I'm still incapable of cooking the eggplant itself. The recipe should be worth a second shot.

John and I ran joint shopping errands and spent some time at the sample iPhone at the Marketplace Mall. EMS had some good discounts on clothing I may revisit if I somehow scrounge up the cash. As usual, the Wegman's there disoriented me a bit, but what disoriented me most was John's brief history of grocery shopping in Rochester. Neither of us buy into the Wegman's fan club or appreciate that its only city branch is on University. But Wegman's used to have stores in the center of town. Yes, in the center of town! But take a look at your average joe on the downtown sidewalk. He is the not person Wegman's is interested in serving. So although these stores weren't unprofitable, they were closed in favor of more educated, higher income populations in the suburbs--leaving us with nary a neighborhood grocery, as those couldn't compete when Wegman's was in town and don't have the capital to start up now. Trader Joe's was recently courted for the empty space across from RoCo by the parking lot, but wasn't interested in areas in which less than about 40% of customers have college degrees. Central Rochester's figure? Half that.

Assessed Values, Rochester NY
The "Crescent" is clearly visible.
Originally uploaded by Mikros.

All this informal history aside, no grocery store seems to think that opening in central Rochester would be profitable. There are plenty of models of successful city groceries. There's a Whole Foods on one of the hillsides by downtown SF. Exiting at Putney Bridge in London, I noticed that a good 75% of the business people were going home from central London with one or two Sainsbury's bags although they lived on the outskirts of town. Antwerp has a GB outside the station beneath the cinema complex and Wagamama, a stone's throw from the city's most exclusive fashion shopping, as well as an organic grocery off the Meir. People drive out to the middle of nowhere Rochester to buy groceries. What makes supermarkets think that they wouldn't drive into Rochester or stop in after a day's work in downtown? They've been buying produce at the Public Market for 180 years, and nowadays it's in a rather worse spot than the area Trader Joe's examined beneath premium condominiums.

Speaking of which, the tremendous traffic jams at the Public Market are entirely counterintuitive. The sale of local produce is just not the sort of operation that inspires visions of urban sprawl's worst problems. But there you go--no decent public transportation and nary a bicycle rack. The amount of fuel and energy you save by buying locally grown produce is pretty much offset or overwhelmed by the exhaust you release waiting in traffic and cruising around in search of a parking space.

Reverse culture shock. It's back.

lame libraries

Pardon my density, but what exactly is the point of a library book drop that is inaccessible when the library is closed?

Thanks, Sibley. I suppose however that this is a Rochester tradition. The BofA ATM near the Metro Mall is only accessible during business hours, which partially defeats the purpose of it not being manned. In some ways this place is worse than Belgium when it comes to opening hours.

Rochester is the only hometown that has refused to issue me a library card without proof of residency such as an electric bill. Since I don't normally carry electricity bills around with me (and in fact have never seen one because it's included in our rent), I still don't have a library card after 9 months here. Also lame.

The weather changes every twenty minutes, going from thunderclaps and high winds to peace and sunlight before one has a chance to note the difference. Much like the changing facets of the shimmering gem I envisioned Franck's Prelude, Fugue et Variation to be in order to visualize its constantly morphing shades of mood, flitting from momentary hope to darkening disappointment but restless, never settling.

Finally received my graduate award letter. My pay and time has been increased slightly, thanks to Allan's conveying an idea of the real number of hours we do, meaning I'll actually be able to pay the rent next year. Imagine that!

Took home more colors of vegetables from the public market this morning than I've had in my fridge in a long time. Sunlight improves quality of life vastly.

Many were stranded by the nor'easter that blew through this weekend. Most of us have made it back, but at least one Brit is still in Britain!

het rochesterse weer

When I awoke (late) this morning, snow was falling almost as quickly through the air as rain -- sleet. When I looked outside a moment ago, the largest glops of snow I'd ever seen were tumbling through the air. Now, a moment later, medium-sized glops are falling almost as quickly as sleet.

The endless variety of Rochester's weather. To think that yesterday was a spring day.

sudden dusk

It's remarkable how suddenly a white, snow-covered environment reveals and exaggerates the sudden transformation of the world to pink and purple hues just briefly before the onset of darkness. With my sheer white curtains from college up, I can keep those godawful blinds open and admire the world outside while enjoying my privacy Belgian-style. But in Belgium I hardly cared if someone would have looked in my window. In downtown Rochester it's a different matter.

All day the snow has been pouring down and blowing about as cars and snowplows battle in brief, human-length spurts with the world's patient steady gathering of feet of snow on the ground. The strength of the dusk's hues to color everything in sight reminds me of New Haven's orange skies. The only intense point of color beyond my window is the neon red sign for the "Chinese restaurant" across the street glowing hotly through the chill white flurry.

The Warners' Architecture in Rochester

Call me an architecture geek. Go ahead, do it. I can't help it if I'm super excited by this page about the architect whose work I first noticed in the form of an English church at at the end of Park Avenue during on of my Thanksgiving bike tours. The work of the Warners spans a delightful range of American architectural styles of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and J. Foster Warner even collaborated with McKim, Mead & White at least twice, once on the George Eastman House. How is it that I've been to the Eastman House twice and never been informed of the architects? Rochester needs to do a better job promoting its architectural heritage. The Warners are also responsible for old Sibley's, the Rochester Savings Banks that apparently is well worth entering, the city hall, Downtown Presbyterian with its Tiffany windows and out-of-place Italianate towers...

It's good to have reasons to look forward to returning to Rochacha.

rochesterian

I wonder why I usually blushed after eating home-cooked dinner in Belgium, but haven't done so here. Tonight it happened, although the food was hardly any good. I know precious little about baking, especially when it involves Greek orzo casseroles, and it doesn't help when the instructions read, "Bake at medium heat for about an hour."

I'm finally feeling as if I've become a part of Rochester. We had another Indian summer day, and after practicing for 3.5 hours in Schmitt Hall, I took off on my bike for Starry Nites Cafe for brunch followed by grocery shopping, which I had not managed to accomplish since Thanksgiving. (Why the stores in that area insist on improper, "hip" spellings such as "Nites" and "Essentialz" is beyond me.) As I carried my vanilla frappe into the back room, I was greeted by the sight of a young man sporting a nifty hat and typing furiously at his MacBook. Ryan had three papers to finish this week on film, photography, and heaven knows what else. But for someone under pressure, he was still good-natured and reiterated that I had to visit Aquarius Records in San Francisco. I resolved to take Ingrid and Adrien along if they hadn't already been in order to check out their best-sellers, including sculpted box record sets à la Duchamp "Box in a Valise" and symphonies of musically trained elephants. I insisted on sitting at a different table to not distract him from his work and lost another pencil in the process of trying to look busy, but I trust a worthy bohemian at the cafe found it and used it to surreptitiously sketch students working at their laptops.

I guess I also felt at home stopping into Image City Photography to see the newest exhibit, which included some extraordinary travel photos of seascapes in brilliant colors framed by decaying windows and walls in brilliant colors. It's so liberating to be involved with a place unassociated with the U of R. Speaking of which, Andrew and Doug and I ended up in a slightly sketchy little ESM-student-free dive last night to celebrate the former's 21st birthday. The irony that led us there was that I'd forgotten my ID, although I was the eldest of the group. It was a good place -- they had Stella on tap, and the bartender was lip-singing with a bottle substituting for a mic. I hadn't drunk in a townie bar with fellow cyclists since... New Haven.

Tonight I finally watched the videos Gary Hilburger had sent me of the Rochester Poets' visit. The memories overwhelmed me a little, as did the renditions of "Image No. 2" and "Een Aangename Voois," which were better than I'd imagined. Especially "Image No. 2." The carillon doesn't sound so bad at all when you're not sitting there playing it! And to see the reactions of my audience through the lens of Gary's great sense of cinematography, and the strangeness of watching my hands from a different angle... What a gift.