Mark W Tiedemann

Category: Art

  • A Message From Florida

    For anyone who can spot it and decipher it.  (Yes, this is frivolous, yes, it was fun, yes, sometimes I have no deep thoughts.)

    I put up a new gallery of images from our trip.

    One of the things we did since returning was go see Santana at the Fox.  Stunning show.  Carlos has always been one of my favorite musicians.  His sound…well, I can’t get enough of his guitar sometimes.  But this night.  My ghod, what a performance!   I’ve seen Santana more than a couple of times and they have never been better.  If I never see another major show like this, I would, I think, be content.  The emotions wrung out of me during the show…

    Anyway, we noted that Hamilton is going to be there next year.  Donna expressed interest, so while we waited for the doors to open I pulled up tickets on my phone.

    We shan’t be going to see Hamilton.  Not at those prices.  We’ll wait for the dvd.  (Though it would be very cool to see it live.)

    Being now in the midst of our annual sauna, I have plenty to do indoors.  So I’ll leave you with another photo just for grins.  Stay cool.

  • One More

    …and then later I’ll write about the trip.

  • Back

    And you didn’t even know I was gone.

    We went to Florida for an extended weekend with Donna’s sister.  Right now, I have little to say about it other than we had a very fine time.  I just want to leave some images here to show you a bit of the flavor of the trip.

     

     

     

     

  • Striking, Stellar, Sunburst

    For the weekend, something I just completed. Enjoy.

     

  • Light

    Just musing on the amazing quality of light.  I’ve been reading several science books lately, one in particular (The Invention of Science by David Wootton) that goes into considerable depth about actual Seeing as essential to the transformation of culture from a pre-scientific to scientific basis. But all of them deal with light as a founding subject for the apprehension of the world. Einstein won his Nobel because of the work he did on photons, Newton began with a study of optics, and quantum mechanics wouldn’t be giving both the joys and headaches of our present understanding of nature if not for the whole revelation about quanta and photons and wave functions…

    It is essential to everything we are, whether we can see it or not.  As Carl Sagan said, we are made of star stuff and you  cannot think of stars separate from the light.

    So a couple of images for you, showing the marvelous manifestations of light.

    Caught out the window of the car on our way back from Pittsburgh.

    And…

     

    Stepping out of my car in an underground garage, early morning, where an opportune window let this beauty in.

    Have a good week.

  • More To Follow (he cryptically promises)

  • Concrete!

    At long last, in the fulness of time, it came to pass that the patio needed attention. Yea verily, the walkway from patio to garage lay sore in need of a makeover. The lineaments of the former had become a vexation to those of us who walk upon  it daily.  As can be seen and attested by this image, while in most ways decorous and even of distinctive character, the stones which we had set down to replace the joke which had lain from pad to door when we originally moved in had lost their charm. Winter especially proved awkward and we agreed that this was but an accident waiting to happen.

    We’d inherited those stones from my parent when they redid the concrete around their house. They had formed a wall around a garden plot in the front of their house. Dad just wanted to pitch them. Donna immediately said we’d take them and we spent a hot summer weekend digging a trench and placing them as you see. Donna’s nephew Dan helped. I’m not sure I could do it again, certainly not in one weekend. I was proud of that walkway and it has done it’s job for over 20 years.

    But it was time. Something a bit less picturesque and a lot more practical was in order. So we made our plans, got in touch with the man who did my parents’ concrete work, got a quote, and set  date.

    First problem. Because we’ve had a rainy spring, the date had to be flexible.  As it turned out, we had a window. They showed up on a Friday, after almost a solid week of rain, to do the prep work.

    Scott Schilling and two young men arrived around nine and went to work. They moved all those stones, piled them up, and started excavating. I spent the time doing other chores and some writing and occasionally emerging to document the process. (Because, like the kitchen remake, I knew I’d be writing one of these.)

    It rained that day anyway, though barely. Not enough to cause a massive disruption. During the heaviest part, they sat in their truck and waited for it to pass, which it did.

    Our backyard is…idiosyncratic? It has character. Over the years we’ve acquired a variety of objects which Donna has rather wonderfully incorporated. One major change this time is  Coffey’s old digging  pit.  She hardly uses its anymore, so we had them dump the extra dirt in it and Donna went to work later remaking it.

    Below is a series of shots from that first day.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The gravel laid, the forms in place, we just had to wait for another dry day to complete it. Fortunately, Sunday was gorgeous, so when they arrived Monday morning it was ready to receive the magic elixir of impenetrable solidity.

    There’s something beautiful about wet, freshly-smoothed concrete. I almost wish it could have remained so gleaming.  But in the rain and during winter ice, that could be dangerous.

    It took them till almost noon to get it done. I had to go to work that afternoon. We did not use it for two days, despite assurances that it would be walkable by the next morning.

    I almost wish we had opted to get the entire patio done at the same time, but that would have stretched the budget a bit too far. A project for a couple years from now.  We will certainly use the same contractor.

    Now, then, came the work to restore some semblance of order and charm to the wreck of the yard. Repurposing those stones was the first set of decisions.  Some, we knew, were destined for the front of the house. I pulled up the wooden ties that had framed the small flower bed to the left of the porch. Replacing them—which was inevitable, as the bottom of the two ties had already turned to mulch—gave us a slightly larger area for flowers. I moved the stones carefully. A few of them weigh upwards of sixty or seventy pounds.

     

     

     

    Shifting the remaining stones in the backyard was a more studied project. Some of them returned to their former positions, but now only as borders, with a trench for—yep—more flowers.

    As for the extension of the patio, Coffey approves. At some point I intend to get a new grill, as we now have somewhere to put one where it can be semi-permanent and easily usable.

    The rest will be an ongoing project, to be completely (mumbled-snook, farfle) later.

    Just in time for the full spring bloom.

    And I managed to get my improvisational bit of lawn art more permanently fixed.  Donna added a touch (the dish) and things are falling into place.

    Therefore, we conclude this report by admitting to be pleased with the results.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Further Explorations of Backyard Flora

     

     

     

  • A Single Iris On The Verge of May

  • Concerts!

    So there’s a meme going around on FaceBook about concerts.  Basically, list 10 concerts, 9 of which you have actually been to and 1 you have not.  Your friends are supposed to guess which one is the false claim.

    I love music.  I mean, if I could I would have a soundtrack backing my daily movements. I’ve been playing an instrument, either keyboard or guitar, since I was nine, and I have been buying albums (as opposed to 45 rpm singles) since I was fourteen. I went to my first honest-to-gosh-wow concert when I was thirteen (I’ve written about that before and will not repeat it here, because it was an anomaly) and started regularly attending at fifteen.

    I have not seen a lot of live acts.  Compared to some, I am woefully deprived of live concert experience.  But I treasure the memory of all the ones I did see, which, mulling over my list for this silly/fun meme, turns out to be not too shabby.

    I have seen Yes—my standard, musically—about eight or nine times. The first time was their Close To The Edge tour back in 1972. Poco opened for them.

    Opening acts are very important.  I mean, we usually go to see the headliner, but those opening acts are sometimes more significant.  I only saw Gentle Giant because they opened for Rick Wakeman on his first solo tour, for Journey To The Center of the Earth.

    I have seen Emerson, Lake & Palmer at least five times.  My other standard in terms of music.

    Jethro Tull five times. And here opening acts matter.  I have seen, opening for JT—Brewer & Shipley, Journey (pre-Steve Perry), and The Band.

    I saw a more or less forgotten British prog group that was AMAZING opening for Yes—Gryphon.

    I saw Livingston Taylor, who opened for ELP (and a sadder pairing I have never seen since—no one gave a dove’s fart about Livingston Taylor at that show).

    I have seen Kansas three times, Styx once, Starcastle once, and REO Speedwagon once.  Of course.  I live in St. Louis and am over forty.

    Cat Stevens.  John Denver (thank you, Vickie).

    The Eagles, once, before their whole Hotel California period, but more importantly Dan Fogelberg opened for them.  He was all by himself, no band, with a single guitar and a piano and he blew the Eagles away.

    Joni Mitchell.  Crosby, Stills, Nash (never Young). The Grateful Dead, twice.  Santana (three times?)  Deep Purple.

    Phish twice.

    Uriah Heep, Fleetwood Mac (twice), Jeff Beck (twice), Jefferson Starship (twice), Jan Hammer, Ted Nugent (before he decided he was more than just a good guitar player)…

    Earth, Wind, & Fire.

    Asia.

    Mark-Almond. Focus. Billy Joel (twice).  Renaissance. America.  Wishbone Ash.  Hot Tuna.

    The Moody Blues (thrice).  The Beach Boys.

    Harry Chapin (twice).

    Genesis (thrice).  Robert Palmer (opening for Jeff Beck).

    Led Zeppelin.  And then, many years later, the Page & Plant tour. David Bowie (once, early, the Ziggy Stardust tour).

    Todd Rundgren’s Utopia.

    Sting.

    The Who (twice).

    Unfortunately, opening for the Who was Lynard Skynnard.  That is one of the downsides of opening acts, from time to time you will see (and suffer through) a real disappointment.  Opening for Uriah Heep I saw an outfit called Tucky Buzzard, which was the only time I preferred a Stones version to the cover.  (Sorry, folks, I know the Rolling Stones are up on Olympus for a lot of people, but I can’t stand them.  Love their songs—done by other people, except this time.)

    Then there were a whole roster of Other Acts that may surprise.  I saw Neil Diamond, who is a consummate showman.  I saw Liza Minnelli.  Ferrante and Teicher.  Arlo Guthrie.

    Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson, and Count Basie, all in the same night.  Branford Marsalis.

    Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis (you can Google them and then acquaint yourselves—superb jazz guitarists).

    At this point I would have to go unbury all my saved ticket stubs.  I have missed a few, I know.  More than a few, maybe.  So I’ll probably have to do this again.

    But it sent me down into the archives and I came back with some terrific memories. We stopped going because the scene grew progressively less tolerable.  First when the drug of choice changes from pot to beer.  I’m sorry, it’s true—sitting in a crowd of several thousand beer-swilling people can be a bit dangerous.  Whatever else you might say about it, marijuana makes for a much more pleasant audience.  Then the security situation got ridiculous.  I don’t care to be patted down just to see a concert.  And to be fair, I don’t care for big crowds to begin with.

    But occasionally, you just have to go see a performer you love.  So this summer we’re going to see Santana.  Again.

    So thanks for the meme—er, memory.