Weekly Rochester Events #246: Death of the Eighty Degree Boiling Point

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Last week was the first time I deliberately went junking. That is, sometimes I'll pick stuff up that people are throwing out, but last week was the first time I hitched up the trailer and deliberately sought out junk that people were throwing out. I was specifically searching for dishwasher parts—mine broke, and although I had ordered the parts (one incorrect gasket, and a second order hopefully with the right parts) I figured it would be fun to get one for the gasket and all the nifty things on it like switches and the water valve. I didn't find one, but I did get one of those equpipment lifters. It has a long hydraulic jack that lifts an arm. This one seemed only to need more hydraulic oil and it lifts about 750 pounds from 2 feet to about 7 feet. On Saturday I used the lifter to pull out some small trees I've been meaning to get rid of. The first one caused the lift to spring about two feet and almost hit me in the head. I was more careful on the other two.

I kept looking for that dishwasher.

I've been going to Lori's Natural Foods (900 Jefferson Rd.) instead of Pittsford Wegmans (3195 Monroe Ave.) because they played that "bait-and-switch" game with Mount Hope Wegmans (1411 Mt. Hope Ave.) Earlier this year Wegmans said they were going to remodel the Mount Hope store, which was great news for the area. A few weeks ago, they said it would be closed forever before Thanksgiving because it wasn't profitable. I figure they knew about its profitability and decided to power-play the city into giving them money to improve the store to "save the neighborhood." Me (and hopefully others) took this kind of behavior to be un-neighborly and started shopping elsewhere.

Well, someone mentioned to check out Abundance Cooperative Market (62 Marshall St.) since that's where they go—they said they'd check out Lori's. Well, it's better lit than Lori's and the selection is not the same but comparable in scale, and the aisles are wider. I do find it curious that with all the things done with soy, Betty Crocker makes Bac-Os out of it, and it seems that there's no organic equivalent. I can't find it at either store. I asked someone at Abundance about it and they only had the un-flavored textured soy, but nothing that's similar but also vaguely bacon-flavored. She felt it was necessary to tell me that soy is good for you but bacon is bad for you.

I didn't say anything about it then, but I was rather taken aback. I realized later that bacon is in a special category like alcohol or candy—not something you'd eat all the time, but it tastes really really good. Well, as long as you think it tastes really really good. I bet if you swallowed a quarter-cup of uncooked rice, you'd need surgery to have the blockage removed, and therefore I should say, "well, you know rice is bad." Maybe I will ... at least after I confirm that gastrointestinal obstruction theory.

Oh, but the important part was that right around the corner on Broadway, someone was throwing out a dishwasher. I picked it up the next day with the trailer. I used my apparently keen junking instincts and found a house in South Wedge where they were throwing away, among other things, a bike frame and dishwasher parts—including the precious pump assembly. I got all my loot home and stripped some of the electrical parts off the dishwasher (and took the bottom rack because it was better than the one in my dishwasher.) I managed to get the scrapped pump assembly apart and rescue the gasket I needed. Well, it wasn't the same size or anything, but it did fit, and upon reassembling my dishwasher, it didn't leak. Of course, in flipping it upside down, I managed to get some crud in the contacts that turned on the water valve which took an hour of messing around to get working, but I did get my dishwasher working again. Hooray!

That night I didn't sleep too well. I had this weird dream:

I went to this antique shop/bookstore. I picked up a couple items and there were people behind me who also had large things ... one of them had some kind of exercise equipment. I had to wait for this woman to finish buying whatever she was buying and she left her address book which was a nice leather-bound one. Someone asked me if I wanted it but I didn't because I already had a Palm Pilot. A cute blonde-haired girl rang me out and took the leather book.

I went back to the store several times and the cute girl explained some of the things in the book. Apparently it was about a technique written by Leonardo da Vinci, and it was possibly an original. It was about a way to make money by rigging a childrens game in a peculiar way. Essentially you'd make some of the dice-like things out of sugar or some other material so when they were thrown, if they landed a particular way, they would bond with the playing table and temporarily stick, much like the way polished glass lenses can be snapped together under pressure if they're perfectly polished enough. In the dream I correctly identified this as stochastic properties (which, in reality, is entirely wrong.)

I had been following her around telling her how much I appreciated meeting her because she was so smart. The store had all this stuff in the back rooms, including these large blocks of wood carved with text and arranged like tombstones and "edited" over the years using blocks of wood to change the flow—pieces of wood would block out parts of the sentences, particularly the ends of sentences. It had its own form of punctuation using architectural elements.

There was also this odd guy who'd show up periodically. He had some kind of physical deformity and had some kind of springy wood contraptions on his legs which were very tight and hard for him to get into. He adjusted them often, and it apparently took considerable force to do so. One of the things about the book the girl had read was that it included instructions for building some complicated machine, to which each person who owned the book would do a little work on. Anyway, this guy would would come back and check the progress of the machine periodically.

At one point he got behind me while I was sitting on a couch and was pretending to stab me with a wood-handled stubby screwdriver hanging from his hair. He was stabbing me in my mouth and I kept trying to get him to stop becuase I had to keep my mouth open to prevent him from actually striking my teeth. Thankfully the screwdriver was dull and didn't cut my tongue, and he eventually stopped.

I think that guy was the devil and he used the straps to bind his legs so he'd walk like a man instead of like a goat. When I noted that to him, he looked at me agreeing and I woke up.

I think most people would read into this pretty far, but it's just boring stuff from my past creeping up. The antique shop is the one by Starry Nites (696 University Ave., formerly Moonbeans) which I stopped in during the Artwalk event a few weeks ago. The girl is a composite of several women I know. The tablets with the edited words is my view of the Bible and how it's been edited over the years. The book and the children's game was a reference to Hudson Hawk. The part about glass sticking together was something I discussed with a guy at work. The guy with the weird legs was a cross between Kenneth Branaugh's character from Wild Wild West (he had no legs and had some contraption that he strapped into) and virtually any image of an upright goat-like creature. I'm not so sure about the screwdriver in the mouth thing. Most people would point to some gay theme, but it was more like dealing with those guys who fake a punch to see if you'll flinch.

So, ha! Completely unremarkable.

T H U R S D A Y

Over at Verb Café at Writers and Books (740 University Ave.), Jack Garner will introduce Sunset Blvd. about the rise-and-fall-ness in Hollywood. Tonight at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) is the Unsung Heroes benefit for The Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong featuring giveaways and short sets from metal band Sulaco, Word As a Virus, Avulsion, Downdriven, surf-rock from The Isotopes, Hemi, pretty good metal from Warblade, Bailey, Mason, Lickers, and Excoriation all starting around 6:30 p.m. Dave Attell (of Comedy Central's Insomniac show) Lewis Black (as seen on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) and Mitch Hedberg will be at The Auditorium Center (875 Main St E.) I bought a ticket already ... you can skip all the crap at the Comedy Central site and just go to TicketMaster and get reamed buying tickets like I did. The Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) will be showing Tystnaden (The Silence) starting at 8. A Swedish film about a generic war-ravaged European country where a two sisters and a boy are stranded in a spooky hotel. Over at Johnny's Irish Pub (1382 Culver Rd., still smoke-free) starting around 9:30 p.m. is acoustic rock pianist Todd East. Over at Comix Café (3450 Winton Pl.) is Dom Irrera and Steve Burr at 8:30, then Friday and Saturday at 8 and 10:45. Pure Kona Poetry Open Mic Night is at Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) tonight starting at 7:30.

F R I D A Y

Tonight at The Club at Water Street (204 N. Water St.) is a CD Release Party for Nobody Cares, Thatcher, FiveStar Riot, and Before I Go starting around 8 p.m. Tonight at Johnny's Irish Pub (1382 Culver Rd., still smoke-free) is the great acoustic cover guitarist John Akers starting around 5:30 p.m. and again at 9:30. Comedy troupe The Second City Chicago Touring Company will be at Nazareth College (4245 East Ave., campus map) starting around 8 p.m. Over at Montage Grille (50 Chestnut St.) starting around 9:30 p.m. is Ciara Lynn. Water Street Music Hall (204 N. Water St.) will be hosting punk-rock-groove band The Edge of Jupiter, groove-rock jam band Junction Five, and Tony C and the Truth starting around 9:30 p.m. Updated: Oops ... forgot about these guys this month. Nuts and Bolts Improv Troupe (see their site at ImprovAmerica too) will be at German House (315 Gregory St.) tonight starting around 8:30. Fat Moe's (4419 Dewey Ave.) will be hosting modern rock and covers with Uncle Plum starting around 10:30 p.m. Over at Spenders (1600 Lyell Ave.) starting around 10:30 p.m. is modern rock and covers with Better Days (or click here to skip their irritating Flash intro).

S A T U R D A Y

Lunch today is at Skippy's (742 South Ave., formerly Slice of Life) starting around noon ... they open at 11:30. Sponge, and Klear will be at Water Street Music Hall (204 N. Water St.) starting around 8 p.m. Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) will be hosting Kinloch Nelson Artist Series with Allen Power, and Maria Gillard starting around 8:30 p.m. The Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) will be showing The Unbearable Lightness of Being starting at 8. Director Philip Kaufman will be on hand to introduce the film and to discuss it afterward. The film follows a young woman as her community's collective life is changed by invading Soviets in 1968. The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) will be hosting Demolition Dollrods, The Everyothers, and high-energy punk-rock with The Audios starting around 10:45 p.m. Tonight at Monty's Krown (875 Monroe Ave.) is rock-and-roll with Don Anonymous and the Jessica Han Dynasty Superstars, The Irthlings, and eclectic rock with The Earl Cram Revue starting around 10:30 p.m. Tonight at Fat Moe's (4419 Dewey Ave.) is rock and disco covers with The United Booty Foundation starting around 10 p.m. Millennium (2235 Empire Blvd.) will be hosting modern rock and covers with Uncle Plum starting around 10 p.m. It's the Naples Grape Festival in Naples (Main St.) today and tomorrow from 10 to 5. Over at Alexander Palestra at The University of Rochester (River Campus Map) starting around 11 p.m. is the awesome funk band The Filthy Funk.

S U N D A Y

Over at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) starting around 8 p.m. is The Spiders, and the young, thrashy punk band The Dismissed. Dan Liberto (of the The Comedy Company) hosts Open Mic Comedy Night at Duels Café (17 E. Main St.) starting around 7:30 (theoretically.)

M O N D A Y

Tonight at Water Street Music Hall (204 N. Water St.) is The Unsung Zeros, The AKA's, and Bear vs. Shark starting around 6:30 p.m. Pretty normal blues-driven old-school rock with Mr. Airplane Man, The Limes, and insane female-sexual driven rock with Your Mom will be at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) starting around 10:45 p.m. Tonight at The Little (240 East Ave.) is the Emerging Filmmakers Program #2 (apparently the second one this month.) It features four short films from New York State filmmakers or shot in New York. Show starts at 9:30.

T U E S D A Y

Tonight at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) is jammy groove-rock band (albeit with interesting instruments) Drums and Tuba, and awesome funk-rock band Astronomical Unit starting around 10:45 p.m. Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) is hosting an Acoustic Open Mic from 8 to 10. For this one, there's no microphones and it's pretty open ended.

W E D N E S D A Y

The Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) will be showing Faustrecht der Freiheit (Fox and his Friends) starting at 8. A guy wins the national lottery and his life is thrown into chaos ... featuring the music of Leonard Cohen. Updated: Acoustic rockers The Earl Cram Revue, and then Rock the Clock will be at Spot Coffee (East Ave. and Mathews St.) starting around 8 p.m. Tonight from 8 to 10 is an Open-Mic Comedy Night at Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) While once it was a workshop type of environment, it's now more-or-less a regular open mic ... by default it's still a place to try out new stuff.