October 15, 2007 by MoPat.

Marti Gorman loves Buffalo, and her e-newsletter shows it, big-time. Here is an excerpt from an email I received with her September Buffalo by Choice (”For those who are in Buffalo by choice, and those who aren’t but wish they
were”) e-newsletter:

“It is such a quintessentially summer evening in Buffalo tonight — block party on Mariner, slip party at the Hatch, a walk along the waterfront with that great across-the-lake breeze, and now hearing the summer sounds out my 1870 Allentown Victorian arched window — voices, and fireworks and music wafting in from LaSalle Park and the yard across the way… I wish you could be here with me in Beautiful Buffalo right now….”

Me, too, Marti. Me, too.

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October 7, 2006 by MoPat.

In late summer, there are butterflies near the water, beautiful creatures whose fragile looking wings belie their ability to fly thousands of miles when it’s time to migrate. One day in early September, a butterfly flirted with me on the beach at Sunset Bay. I viewed it as a messenger: “Don’t be sad, Maureen!” Maybe it really was angel confetti, or maybe it was just an insect foraging in the washed up seaweed for its lunch.

Either way, it was lovely–shimmering golden orange, velvety black, electric blue, and so graceful and considerate. The next day I took my camera to the shore and waited. Two monarchs showed up. I watched them air dancing for a while, and when one landed on a seaweed pile, I perched in a squat, composed the shot and focused, and waited for it to open its wings. When it did, I took a picture, then relocated to the next stop in the butterfly cafeteria and waited again.

This went on for about forty minutes. When I got the slide film developed, I realized I had about twenty shots of the dull underside of the monarch’s folded wing, and only one or two decent shots of the full butterfly, but those images were kind of overwhelmed by the seaweed.

I got sore knees from hovering on my haunches, and instead of getting the image of a lifetime, I got frustrated because the creatures were too quick for me to capture their full beauty for my book. So what’s the message here?

Is it the adage: “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes softly, and sits on your shoulder”? Or is it: “Next time try a tripod, a beach chair, and some faster film”?

Being from Buffalo, I’m thinking maybe it’s more like, “Beauty, like the summer, is fleeting. So when you come across it, breathe it in, appreciate it, and replay it in your mind’s eye often. Don’t worry so much about trapping it in two dimensions.”

Beauty, like the Buffalo Bills, will come back.

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October 6, 2006 by MoPat.

Every time I visit Buffalo I stop at the Albright Knox Art Gallery. What a place! I have heard that it has the second largest collection of modern art in the world outside of New York City.

The pieces always inspire, amaze and delight, and some remind me of my childhood–the same pieces I saw back in the ’60s and ’70s, strolling through with my dad, or after riding my bike from Kenmore, or taking art lessons there and painting with really cool temperas (water paints). I remember being overwhelmed by the size of some of the paintings (Clyfford Stills) and how cool the sculptures were (by Louise Nevelson, Joseph Cornell, Robert Segal, Jean Arp among others).

Does what we look at as children affect who we are as adults? I think it must. I think if more kids sat and stared at Gottlieb’s huge red and black circles over a mishmosh of black swirls (”Dialogue”) or got up close to Camille Pisarro’s pointillist paintings to marvel at how a bunch of dots could turn into a warm autumn evening’s harvest scene, the world would be less violent and people would be much happier. I think if everyone could enter the Mirrored Room by Lucas Samaras (which is back at the Gallery after a hiatus who-knows-where) and see the endless reflections there, the concept of infinity would make sense, and humility as a virtue might make a comeback.

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August 29, 2006 by MoPat.

I used to hate humidity, until I grew a little older and lived in a place that has none, or very little to speak of. People say of Arizona, “It’s a dry heat.” It is. And so is the blast that comes out of your oven when you open it to take out the cookie sheet. Membranes dry out, skin scorches, eyes holler for moisture. Little furrows form in the smooth places on your cheeks and chin and forehead. They become big furrows before their time.

In contrast, walking out of the Buffalo airport into the summer evening air usually yields a cool, soft, moisture-laden wisp or gust of wind, the scent of water in it such a contrast to the scent of dust I’m used to. It’s like walking through an invisible mister.

The times when the humidity is as high as the temperature in Buffalo are murder, especially if it doesn’t cool off at night. But that’s fairly rare, and I remember those times as special–my mom would bring the big box fan in to try to blow the hot air out of my little second floor bedroom window. It didn’t work, and it made a lot of noise, but God love her for trying.

My past dislike of humidity wasn’t just tied to discomfort, though; it was more tied to vanity. Humidity made my hair frizz.

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August 20, 2006 by MoPat.

I don’t know what the things that pass for tomatoes in the grocery stores out west really are, but they sure as heck aren’t the red, luscious, fragrant, firm, juicy fruit that I remember canning with my parents or eating right from the baskets we bought in the country each summer. We’d travel just outside of Buffalo, where the houses were farther apart than they were in the city, and where trusting people left baskets or jars out for produce-buyers to drop money into. I miss the smell of those “real tomatoes.” I miss the taste and texture, the ripeness that arose out of rich, dark soil and someone standing in the evening light with a hose, patiently watering the vines.

How dare merchants use the same label for those pinkish, flavorless products heaped in mounds in the stores!

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August 13, 2006 by LIZAinBUFF.

And as for eleven year old traveling by themselves to a foreign country on a bus, I also did that in the 70’s. I asked my mother about it 20 years later because I couldn’t believe she would allow us to do this. She said I conveniently left out the part about an unchaperoned bus and she thought we went to “Kenmore Days” with my friend’s father!

I approximate this adventure with the stories of the teenagers who meet someone on-line today and secretly take a plane half way around the world to meet them. Technology has upped the ante.

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August 10, 2006 by LIZAinBUFF.

A “twist” is chocolate and vanilla frozen custard twisted together so it looks purdy. And, if you are from buffalo you know that ‘beef on weck’ stands for Roast Beef on a Kimmelweck roll with salt on the top. The coolest thing I’ve seen lately are the old sugar waffles and suckers from Crystal Beach which closed down at least a decade ago.

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August 9, 2006 by MoPat.

I just realized I mentioned Anderson’s twice in the last two postings. I swear I am not a shill for Anderson’s. It just always tasted so GOOD, and it was such a special treat to go there.

I used to ride my bike the half-mile or so (could it have been a mile?) over there, twice a day sometimes, for ice cream. And I remember feeling really embarrassed when Barbie Cohen and I were about 5 years old, in the back seat of her dad’s car, and I whispered to her, “Ask your dad if he’ll take us to Anderson’s,” and then I saw him looking at us in the rear view mirror and knew he had caught me asking for something I shouldn’t have. (But I’m not sure why I felt I shouldn’t have. I guess because you weren’t supposed to ask anyone to spend money on you? Weren’t supposed to tell secrets? Weren’t supposed to be bossy to your best friend? I felt just awful. But her dad did take us to Anderson’s.)

Anyway, the old Sheridan Drive sign will be featured in the Missing Buffalo book (see a preview of some of the art work at www.mpkane-art.com). (Geez, looks like I’m three for three now.)

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August 8, 2006 by MoPat.

My dear friend Sandy just was in WNY and we agreed that we Arizona residents really, really miss the change of seasons. Summer is the alive time in Buffalo, full of life and festivals and fun. It stays light late and everybody can play outside, even if they work all day in an office.

I’m dreaming of an Anderson’s hot fudge sundae, or lemon ice, or black raspberry or pistachio frozen custard cone. Sandy brought me a box of Macintosh toffee, shortened to Mack in this 21st century, but still tasting like summer days at Crystal Beach. Hard to believe that parents let us kids ride the bus from the Kenmore West and Kenmore East parking lots up to Crystal Beach on our own for Kenmore Day in Canada. Imagine: 11-year-olds with no supervision taking international excursions to a beachfront amusement park and being just fine with it!

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July 31, 2006 by MoPat.

In Phoenix, the temperature has risen to 118 degrees already this summer with lows in the mid-90s (plus humidity), and we have a serial rapist/murderer on the loose, plus a nutcase who shoots people riding bikes or taking walks at night, and everyone I know feels indoor-bound.

What I would give to be able to stroll around Delaware Park, maybe catch a Shakespeare play one summer evening, sit out on the porch or in the driveway and say hi to the neighbors, go to the Albright Knox and take in the paintings and sculptures and weird new video art, watch the sailboats at the Marina, take the trolley through Forest Lawn, and top every night off with an Anderson’s frozen custard hot fudge sundae or black raspberry cone or lemon ice.

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July 16, 2006 by MoPat.