A photo from this morning and one from the recent archive.
8/11/10:
Yesterday felt more like a mid-Autumn day than a late Summer day, some leaves are already turning, the Lake temperature has been slowly dropping. Hopefully a warming trend will return so the Lake doesn't get too cold too quickly, it would be nice to be able to swim into October with the Lake at a comfortable temperature.
While rowing early yesterday morning the Caretaker came up with a quote, he doesn't know if someone else has already long since come up with it, and he is still toying with the final wording but here it is:
"There isn't much room in an empty stomach for integrity." Or is pride perhaps a better word, or just as appropriate? Hm...
Anyway, below are three photos. The first photo is the original, the second is that one photo mirrored over and joined twice, and the third photo is the same as the blog cover photo which is the original photo flipped around and joined 9 times.
After talking about the closing date for the Island, which is always a sad sort of conversation because it is a definite sign of the end of the Summer and nearing the end of the season for the Island, the Caretaker struck upon a great idea while dropping off the last group of people from the weekend. The Caretaker will not be doing a sixth Winter here on the Island, as of right now it is a tie between the NYC area or Florida, Northern California thankfully is off the table and as of right now the plan is to return to the Island for next Summer. However, he does feel it makes good sense to leave the Island as if he isn't coming back next Summer incase that is indeed what happens. One thing the Caretaker was thinking of doing was writing a Care & Feeding guide for the Island which would be of help to the replacement caretaker, however, writing one would probably take a long time and the Caretaker is short on time. BUT, he does have time to shoot a bunch of short video tutorials, AND he will be able to post some of them to the blog, as you can imagine they will be informative but also rather comical in the same sort of Lake George Chicken way but not as nonsensical. Some of the tutorials will have to be withheld in order to protect the innocent, but there will certainly be enough to post. Which reminds the Caretaker, he needs to get rid of more lousy photos to make space on his hard drive. Anyway...
So, where to begin? The Caretaker certainly has much to catch up on, perhaps it is best to start with the most recent events and work backwards. The Caretaker had quite a busy Labor Day weekend. He left on Thursday for New York City to visit with his brother to discuss a family matter, that went well and was uneventful as expected. He was running a bit late but not too late so he stopped in at his new favorite bar, the 55 Bar for a martini before popping over to his brother's apartment. Friday night the Caretaker and his good friend Clinton Hobart (very talented painter of portraits and still-lifes, there's a link to his website over on the left hand side of the blog), the two of them went to Iridium to see Bjorkestra, the band put on an absolutely great show. Saturday the Caretaker returned to the Island for a dinner party over on Crown Island, that was a very pleasant experience. Sunday was the Macanudo Open, a long standing croquet match (34 years) between this Island and Crown Island, for those who are interested--Crown Island lost, B. & T. represented the Island, S. opted to stand this one out.
There isn't much else to report on regarding the latter half of the weekend, but Friday night, quite a bit. If you even remotely like Jazz, you really should make a point to see the band Bjorkestra, an 18 piece jazz group that does jazz interpretations of the music by Bjork. The Caretaker can honestly say that if you miss a chance to see and hear Bjorkestra play you missed a great opportunity to hear a really great band play some really great music. How can the Caretaker be so sure of this? Because frankly, the Caretaker doesn't really care for Bjork's music. If the Caretaker was given free tickets to see Bjork play live he wouldn't go too far out of his way to use the tickets, but the Caretaker would go out of his way to PAY to see Bjorkestra--again. Unfortunately they don't currently have any NYC dates booked in the near future at this time.
So, how did the Caretaker come to have an interest in seeing Bjorkestra when he doesn't care for the music of Bjork? The full story will come later, the short story is that back in July the Caretaker was made aware of a singer named Becca Stevens and her band the Becca Stevens Band, he heard her band's music and really liked it, Ms. Stevens is an exceptionally talented singer with a really great voice. The Caretaker had already planned to come down to NYC for at least the evening on Thursday to meet with his brother, and when he saw that Becca Stevens would be singing for Bjorkestra the following night he saw no reason not to stay another night to hear the band. He is so very glad he did, it was a really great musical experience. The musicianship of all the band members was quite stellar. All of the solos where great, but they're were two that stood out the most, at least to the Caretaker's ears, the solos by one of the trombonists (the Caretaker didn't think to remember his name), and the solo by the Baritone saxophonist, (and of course he didn't think to remember her name either).
Her solo, the Caretaker would have to say, he enjoyed the most, the woman totally wailed on it. Given the size of the instrument and thus the range, the Caretaker can honestly say it was one of the more entertaining sax solos he's heard live, the sound was great. The Caretaker should probably make a point to see if she has any solo recordings, not to mention maybe find out her name.
Anyway, you should definitely make a point to see Bjorkestra play live if you ever get the chance, the Caretaker and his friend Clinton Hobart stayed for both sets, both sets were great. In the second set they played mostly different songs from the first set but they did repeat a few songs from the first set. At first the Caretaker was a little bummed when a song was called to be played that he heard in the first set, however, once the playing got underway he was just as pleased with the second playing as he was the first because the song was changed up a bit, mostly by giving solos to different musicians on different instruments which made the second playing of a song sound almost like a completely different song. At least to the Caretaker's ears and you must remember, he has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to pretty much anything.
You really should check this band out:
http://www.bjorkestra.com/
http://www.myspace.com/travissullivansbjorkestra
After Bjorkestra finished playing, the Caretaker said hello to Becca Stevens and bought a few more of her band's albums to give away to people he thinks would like the music. Clint and the Caretaker then headed outside to walk South on Broadway, they had come up through Times Square getting to Iridium to see all the tourists looking at all the lighted billboards, etc. However, they could not return through Times Square, it was blocked off entirely with police tape, police officers and police cars, firefighters and fire trucks. They never found out what exactly the problem was but given the history of the Caretaker's luck he figured it wasn't worth while to hang around and find out the hard way, so instead they cut over a block and kept heading South.
That about sum's up Labor Day weekend for the Caretaker. In tomorrow's post he plans to backtrack even further and write about the events of the day leading up to the sad and bizarre story of how he killed a deer this past Tuesday the 31st of August.
Sidenote: After a short bit of research just before posting this, the Caretaker learned the name of the baritone saxophonist, Lauren Sevian and she does have a solo album, "Blueprint", and her next gig with her band "Lauren Sevian's Eb Quartet" will be performing at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, CT on 10/7/10 at 5 pm. Her solo this last Friday night sold one of her CD's, when the Caretaker gets it in the mail and gives it a listen he will let you know what he thinks of it. If he likes it he will probably make a point to catch her band's show at the Mattatuck.
Before there was the blog the Caretaker sent out posts via e-mail, the following is from the Caretaker's second winter on the Island:
IIR 7/16/07
Lake Temperature: Water-ish.
First and foremost the Caretaker would like to say thank you to all of you who showed such great concern for both the Caretaker's intellectual rights and his representational rights (in physical appearance).
Secondly the Caretaker would like to apologize to all of you who showed such great concern for both the Caretaker's intellectual rights and his representational rights (in physical appearance). The Caretaker had intended to keep the ruse up, but when people started e-mailing about collecting donations for a legal fund the Caretaker knew that the joke had already gone too far.
For those of you who got the joke right off the bat, I hope you laughed, for those of you who didn't, I apologize, I figured that from such previous stories as taping lollipops to beer cans to then give out to school children would have laid the ground work for everyone to realize that as crazy as the Caretaker is, the truly outrageous is beyond his means in real world practice. Then again, maybe not--this is crazy in and of itself. Be that as it may, the Caretaker does willingly live on an Island for 6 months out of the year with no running water in the winter--if that isn't at least odd, what is? Not that it should serve as an excuse, he is sorry to any and all who were hoodwinked and didn't see it as funny.
Now, on to serious business, attached are two photos from the same shoot using different camera settings. For those who feel inclined, the Caretaker would appreciate feedback as to which one you like better. Or, just enjoy them both. Or, hate them both, whatever.
Side Note: What the different camera settings were for the above two photos are the Caretaker cannot remember, it may very well have been just that the flash was used in one while the flash was not used in the other.
--The Caretaker
No comments:
Post a Comment