Rochester Writers

   It was oh-so-nice to have temperatures hit the mid-60s on Monday, but Mother Nature was just teasing us all. It's not spring around here under the Red Wings' second homestand of the season -- mid to late April.

  In the meantime, no grumbling about the Rochester weather, especially since we're powerless to change it. Save the effort and energy for the aspects of life that we can change -- crime, poverty, economic development, education, smarter use of tax money, etc.

   Cheers.

When I was invited to post articles here, I was told that the general theme would be "how you experience Rochester."  Well, experience comes partly from perception, and perception is largely based on our senses.  So what happens when people sense the same world differently?

No,  George Bush came to town yesterday for one reason:  to save Randy Kuhl.  Randy's seat in the 29th district, which gerrymanders into Southeast Monroe County, is no longer the safe seat that it's been for the last two decades.

Though local commentators have already tagged Randy as troubled, I'll go one step further:  in 2006, as Kuhl goes, so goes the House.   

Amidst the motley crew of local auto lot spokespersons, only one can be king…and that one is a man I like to call Dick.

Over the years, I've heard a lot of talk about fighting The Man.   Most of this talk happened after a few drinks, and it rarely survived the hangover.   

Last summer, a group of Rochester activists went far beyond drunken table-pounding.  They took on the biggest Man in town: Wegmans.  Some of them ended up in court and out of work.   

Since I freely admit that I don't have the guts to take on The Man, I wondered whether they thought it was worth the effort. So I caught up with one of them and asked.

  God is definitely a woman. I know that for a fact because only a woman could mess with a guy's mind the way She messes with mine whenever I ask The Supreme Being to send me a sign. As an aside, I'm done asking for signs for at least a little while.

  OK, I digress. Let me start at the beginning (logical, eh?). Amber and I were struggling with our relationship a couple of years ago -- she was too young for me, I was too focused on work and family concerns, our friends had suspicions about our respective motives, etc. -- and we weren't particularly married to the idea of continuing the relationship but neither of us was ready to call it off.

  We agreed to take a brief timeout, and after two weeks I couldn't decide whether I was more miserable with or without her. "Send me a sign," I begged of The Supreme Being. God steered me into a drinking establishment that unseasonably  warm spring evening and compelled me to sit down next to a beautiful woman who, moments later, fainted. Not quite into my arms, but close enough.

   We revived her. I asked what her name was. Naturally, she responded, "Amber." It was clearly the sign that I asked for, but the message was mixed at best. Was God telling me to go back to "my" Amber? Was she introducing me to this Amber for a reason? Was she telling me to leave Her alone and deal with trivial matters like this by myself?

  Arrrrrgh. Don't mess with my mind like that!

   (An aside: I didn't end up with either Amber. I gave my phone number to my new friend that night but she never used it. As for "my" Amber, we've more or less moved on with our lives. We still talk once a month or so, and she gives me a reality check when I need one. I help her with her taxes and proofread her papers -- she finally decided to pursue a degree, at an out-of-town school -- but we now see each other maybe 2-3 times year.)

   OK, now returning to this "God is a woman" thing . . .

   I started getting a little bit restless about my career just before the holidays. Although I was still kind of enjoying what I was doing, I was getting bored by it and started asking myself what I wanted to be doing a year from now and 10 years from now.

   The answers were slow in arriving, so I made the mistake of joking with friends one recent night at that very same drinking establishment -- yes, I know, I should have learned my lesson -- that I was waiting for a sign from God.

   Mistake. Big mistake. I think she's messing with my mind again.

   In the last three weeks, a co-worker of mine for nearly 25 years has decided to retire and another colleague has accepted a nice promotion that will allow his family to return to their home state. On top of that, another friend has decided to pick up and leave for North Carolina -- which brings the number of acquaintances making that exact move to four in 22 months.

   Friday  was the proverbial last straw. As happens to me once or twice a year, I got cold-called by the manager of a pretty decent out-of-town company after a brutal week of work. And that, of course, is the catch. I can't leave town right now, nor do I want to. So I'm pretty sure God's message this time is that I should knock off the whining for a little while and just keep a low profile.

But neither is City News.  The difference is that the Insider knows it.  Like Hot Topic, City doesn't.

Maybe it's the warm weather, or cars are just getting better at fighting rust, or maybe gas is too expensive for older cars.  Whatever the reason, I haven't been seeing as many winter beaters around.  And I miss looking at the rust.   

It is gorgeous. You wouldn’t expect weather like this on Thanksgiving weekend, but here it is, all bright and crisp and warm and clean, seemingly out of nowhere. I complain ad nauseum about the weather in this town, but then a day like this comes along and just shuts me right up. I am certain that the southwestern high desert town that I called home before moving to Rochester is experiencing similar weather right now, but I can guarantee I wouldn’t be appreciating it as much as I am this day, in this place.

I didn't grow up in Rochester, so my experience of Kodak isn't the same as many natives.  When I think of Kodak, I don't recall the golden days of iron-clad job security, or the big bonuses and their impact on the economy.  Instead, my memories of  Kodak involve freedom, open experimentation and a whole lot of fun.

Kodak's impact on mass-market photography is well documented.  From Brownie to Advantix, Kodak worked to make the consumer's photographic experience an effortless one. Cartridge-loading, dirt-simple cameras were the Kodak norm, and the goal was to produce snapshots without muss or fuss.

But there's another side to Kodak that isn't much talked about today: its innovative and dominant role in black-and-white photography. 

Clouds aren't the only reason why we don't see a lot of stars in Rochester.  Light pollution makes it tough to see the stars under the best conditions.  If you're wondering about the darkness of the night sky where you live, you might be interested in joining the  Globe at Night project.  Starting tomorrow night, observers around the world will follow the instructions at that site and report their observations.  Since it is March in Rochester, the amazingly accurate Clear Sky Clock will help you decide whether you'll see stars or clouds.

Rochester offers the average slob like me plenty of opportunities for envy.  And I'd be lying if I said I don't sometimes gaze fondly at vehicles like the Hummer and wonder how it feels to own the biggest, baddest thing that money can buy.

Well, the good news is that I found away to have that warm, overstuffed feeling of conspicuous consumption without the expense and parking issues of an oversized SUV.  It's called the Gillette Fusion, and it set me back a mere ten bucks. 

    I've wondered how long it would take for a critical mass of Rochester bloggers to coalesce into some form of meta-blog with multiple contributors and a general theme.  I've also wondered who would be ambitious enough to put it together, knowing full well that the logistics of such a task were one that I was ill suited to perform.  I think all the contributors here owe Rottenchester a good deal of gratitude for lending voice to thought and getting this going, at the very least, into its first generation.

    So to some extent, you've got to look at what is currently being done here not as the sum of what is put on the page, but instead of what it could all potentially become.

    Anyway, enough of the flowery prose.  Let's get into something with a little more substance, but ironically in the same vein.

    Rochester has been trying hard for the last decade to give itself a little update akin to “Extreme Makeover- Home Edition” except without the obnoxious antics of Ty Pennington and a pre-paid Sears card.  The results and the reception of the attempts have been somewhat mixed, if considered without the Fast Ferry.  When you throw the big boat into the mix, well it's difficult to see the good through the bad. 

    I think it's something worth looking at.  I intend on looking at Ren Square, housing, area promotion, and businesses.  But we should start at the heart of the matter.  The meeting place for those both young and employed.  Let’s look at the bar scene.  Let’s discuss High Falls.

   You might as well start the clock on the demise of one or more zoned editions of the Messenger Post Newspapers now that they've started begging for money in a fashion that makes public television membership drives look dignified.

   I picked up my free copy -- yes, that would be problem number one -- of the Gates Chili Post this morning, and it contained a four-page insert, the front of which was an ad from MPN. The verbiage made it look like a request for suggestions on improving the chain of suburban Rochester weeklies, but it concluded with a solicitation for $5 donations to "further enhance the quality news and advertising product you've been accustomed to and make continual improvements . . . "

   Aside from the fact that the cost of the newsprint will undoubtedly be higher than the donations that the ad generates -- problem number two -- this was a horrible idea. Undignified and desperate, a plea in search of a plan.

   While some editions of the MPN remain solid, the Gates Chili Post has long been awful. Its coverage of Gates is sparse, letters to the editor dominated by a handful of community gadflys and its sports "news" just painful to read. If not for the weekly columns from the respective town supervisors to keep us abreast of the spectacular job they're doing, it would be a total loss.

   It's an edition that deserves to die and perhaps soon will. Going from a 75-cent newsstand price to free distribution wasn't so much a business strategy -- make up the circulation revenue loss by jacking up the advertising rate card on the premise that more people will pick up the paper -- as much as it was an admission that there was little that the reader would be willing to pay for.

    Put this dog out of its misery and sign me up for the local pennysaver instead.

The Chase-Pitkin in my area shrinks in shoppable area every day – on my obligatory Saturday visits, I’m greeted with an ever-dwindling choice of stock, and there’s another aisle just to the exterior of where the stock is concentrated that’s been roped off. The store is contracting, as if when the last straggler walks out of that store, the walls will fold in on themselves, and the store will implode, leaving just a pile of screws and the vague scent of sawdust in its stead. Each Saturday, I feel like more and more of a lecherous vulture, circling the kill, waiting for precisely the right moment to begin feeding. Sometimes, though, I just bide my time:

“Hmmm…$6.47 still seems like a lot to pay for a quick-clamp. Maybe if I come back next week, they’ll be even cheaper!”

Lawrence Lessig, the Rock Star of Copyright Law, spoke at RIT today.  Lessig, who is the founder of Creative Commons and the author of a number of books on copyright in the Internet age, gives riveting presentations (example) .  There was way too much going on in this morning's to do it justice here, but there's one theme that struck me: lawbreaking as a part of life, and it's effect on democracy.

I spellcheck my RocWiki posts in OpenOffice before posting them now. Today, OpenOffice kept trying to spell check 'intellegent' to 'telegenic' (instead of 'intelligent').  I tried it a few times, and I can't tell if it's some programmers joke, or if it really is the automated spell checker trying it's best. 

For some reason  which I can't readily  put into words, this resonates with some of my more pessimistic feelings about Rochester.

There's something surreal about listening to Lawrence Lessig and buying a new cell phone in the same week.  It's like looking at pictures taken from the pages of Bon Appetit and Gourmet, followed by a meal of roadkill and moldy bread washed down with a jug of T-Bird.

Last week I still found myself shivering and setting the heat to full blast as soon as the keys were turned in the ignition. Living in the North, although we know that spring will inevitably follow winter---I think that part of us remains skeptical. Yesterday and the day before I found my car warm upon entering, warm enough now sitting beneath the sun through the day that my first action is to roll down the windows, let in winter's remaining cool air to steal away the excess heat. It is cold enough still that after only a few brief moments of fresh air the windows are again closed, but it is a reassuring sign of the warmer weather still to come. I can't help but feel every year that spring might not come, that maybe we weren't good enough this year. I worry that we don't deserve it. And then I feel the sun warming myself and the earth and dismiss any thoughts that maybe this year there will be no presents under the tree.

I was amused by his analogy comparing dramatic openings of media and culture to the awakenings of the catatonic encephalitis patients portrayed in the aptly named Awakenings.  These awakenings were facilitated by a drug known as L-DOPA, which Lessig noted to the audience. Why is this amusing? Reading a step further into the analogy, it is hard to ignore the psychiatric side effects associated with this drug, which are altogether not unlike the symptoms of schizophrenia. I have little doubt that this was not Lessig's intent, though at the same time I can't help but wonder if there might not be some accuracy in reading too far into his analogy, in both minor and significant ways.

"...a typical Rochesterian psyche, less civic boosterism than civic dumpsterism. Indeed, last June a number of local organizations offered a "Reality Tour" of the city's poorest neighbourhoods.
Ms. Miller offers her own blightseeing tour. At the ferry docks, she points out abandoned buildings. "The beach is polluted," she says over the roar of front-loaders."

-Janet Wong (of Toronto Globe & Mail)

Historian Blake McKelvey points out in the preface to the second edition of his influential book Rochester on the Genesee that this is a long standing characteristic of our city, though with an entirely different interpretation. He qoutes a September 1910 article from American Magazine that comments "If Rochester to-day possesses any preeminence over other cities of its class, it is due not to any material prosperity, but rather to the extent and earnestness with which this spiritual dissatisfaction has been expressed."

"Rochester is last in jobs and first in homicides. Rochester is last to rebound from the recession and first in (school) dropout rates; Rochester is last in state aid and first in child poverty rates."

-Mayor Bob Duffy (of Rochester, New York) [context]

3.) Any and every billboard for Cellino & Barnes The Barnes Group.
Steve Barnes, you need some fangs. Before he and Russ Cellino had their tragic breakup, I often thought a welcome addition to the firm (and subsequently the billboards) would be Max Schreck, in full Nosferatu makeup.

2.) McGruff the Crime Dog Billboard, St. Paul & Upper Falls
This one may be playing in other parts of town, but in case you haven’t seen it: The board reads “When you know your neighbors, the bad guys stand out.” McGruff stands off to the side in front of a series of cute, 50s-kitsch style line drawings of anthropomorphic dog portraits. The last drawing is a human with the requisite “bandit” accessory: the black-cat eyemask. There’s a fair amount of white space in which I would love to paint “Four legs good, two legs bad.”

1.) The City of Rochester’s Defacer Eraser
Just on principle  alone.

Firefighters were called to Hutchison Hall just before 2:30 p.m. Sunday after several stretches of the white substance were found in the building and outside, said Battalion Chief Rick Chesterton of the city Fire Department.

Unsure what chemicals might have been tossed about throughout the building, the firefighters responded with hazmat units and fire engines.

"We've got to play it by the numbers," Chesterton said.

Shortly after 4 p.m., hazmat specialists were preparing to run some of the powder through chemical tests to determine just what it was.

"We knew it wasn't anthrax because there isn't that much anthrax around," said Lt. Mike Dobbertin of the Fire Department's hazmat team. "We knew it wasn't ricin because there isn't that much ricin around."

-D & C: Exciting conclusion and full article text (3 - 27 - 06)

I'm sitting in a hard chair in an auditorium listening to a middle school principal tell us how everything is going to be OK for our little darlings.  He's detailing the 37 clubs, 29 intramural sports teams, and the 80 different one-day classes in which our precious angels can participate.  He shyly defends his practice of letting students run around outside on occasion during one of their rare free periods.  His defense is couched in terms of "stress relief" -- the word "fun" is not uttered once during the entire presentation.

Most of us are sitting back listening attentively.   But, as with any other function I've attended at this suburban school, there are always a few parents who make me wonder if they are raising children or forming robots.

With regard to City Newspaper's recent article Rail to trail: Creating an urban green space, I have no insightful commentary to add. I can say, however, that earlier today my car was struck in an accident involving Tom Frey, former Monroe County Executive, who is featured in the article. Yes, that's right---today I exchanged insurance information with none other than Thomas Frey.  I am moving up in the world. I feel your envy.

[I was unharmed, and Mr. Frey was exceptionally friendly. I neither struck his car, nor he mine. A third party was involved.]

This whole 'Social Software' thing is a big pain in my ass.  I personally think it's an alien race's attempt to divert the resources (time, and programming skill) of us foolish talking-meats into pointless wastefulness.  Just like TV.  Somewhere, our Grey overlords are laughing at us.

The Internet, in case you forgot, was so great because it spanned formats, and technological niche's. Want to talk to someone on a Mac? Sure. Want to view a website on a Unix Box? Sure.   So why, in 2006, do I have to visit 6 different 'social software' sites to see what friends and acquaintances are up to?  How come I end up scanning 4 different calender websites to find events going on?

I know, I know. There are good, reasonable causes and reasons for this stuff. And someday the magic of RRS will fix it, and save the wales, and turn LED's into Gold. Still, it's a pain in my ass today.

On Saturday night, the moon will occult (cover) some of the bright stars in the Pleiades, a star cluster also known as the Seven Sisters. This event will be visible from Rochester, starting at sundown.  If we aren't clouded out,  I predict that women will faint, babies will cry inconsolably, grown men will wail and gnash their teeth, animals will run wild in the streets, and some will be forced to question our very place in the uniiverse.

Well, not really.  Though this may seem like no big deal, it is actually quite rare that the Moon occults a bright star, and tomorrow night at least four stars that are going to be occulted, which is rarer still.   If you're interested in natural phenomena, then you might want to see at least one of these in your lifetime.