Art, music, food - what more could you want?

SWMBO and I did something we rarely do anymore, we went out at night. We went to the Raven for an opening of an art show by several artists.

Some of the art can be seen over the head of a singer who entertained the crowd.

On another wall . . art of a different sort. The artist is on the right in the photo below: Bill Cramer.

Also in attendance were the BRD . . .

and her Beau . . .

I must say the noise level was way too high for my old ears. But I took a climb up the stairs to see the newly opened rooftop deck. Very nice. I should have snapped a picture but didn't.

After that we traveled over a couple of blocks for a lavish east Indian dinner at the newly-opened restaurant Taj Mahal. The Taj has recently moved from Frontier Village to a downtown location, which most recently was Zuma's restaurant on north Montezuma street. Again the camera stayed sheathed as we all dove into food.

Rosy poetic snippets

"The first red rose

sent out of season"

--Barry A. Lanier

"Rose

Your looks are so captivating

Rose

You are everything to me"

--Aldo Kraas

"A rose could not

bring us together.

A rose could not

keep us together.

A rose by any other name

is still just a rose."

--Rory Hudson

"A rose is a rose is a rose."

--Gertrude Stein

Funny!

I have to thank Joan at Charleston Daily Photo for this wonderfully funny link.

New Old Church

As I was motoring over to Sedona this past weekend, I discovered a new church in a distinctly Colonial architecture just outside of Cottonwood.

I didn't have time to stop then but I did on the way home to snap a photo. While the style goes back a few centuries, it is a brand new building with construction equipment still sitting alongside.

For the details, here's a photo of a sign out front.

Several more businesses bite the dust

The Little Cafe (very aptly named) has fallen on hard times. Previously it was Apple Pan 2. Before that it was Uncle Sal's sandwich shop. In its latest incarnation, it has been closed for about a month.

No one, it seems, can make a go of it in this tiny location, which is fairly close to where I live in Prescott Valley.

A sign on the front door explained the reason this time.

Meantime, in Prescott, Granny J recently noted the passing of the Stepping Stones thrift store. I dropped a box of dishes off at the store in Prescott Valley this morning and asked an employee what had happened. While acknowledging that the Prescott store had only been open for a few weeks, he said no one knew why it had closed or if a new location would be found. As he put it, "no one tells us anything." So the mystery continues.

And another closing has been reported in downtown Prescott. Sweet Tarts, a restaurant with delicious home-made French pastries, also has closed its doors. No word on why, except for "the economy."

Musical Sunday

I drove over to Sedona today to hear a group I had read about. ZAZU calls itself a gypsy jazz band, modeled after the likes of Django Reinhardt and Stephanie Grappeli and Le Jazz Hot in the good old days in Paris. With only two guitars and an upright bass, they recreate the sound beautifully.

The players are, from left to right, Larry Czarnecki, Steve Douglas and Ken Aurich. A great group.

But my big surprise of the day occurred on the road back to P.V. from Jerome. There's a large overlook down the canyon into the Verde Valley. Usually there are many cars there with tourists oohing and ahhing and taking photos. But today . . . there was something different.

That's right. A very accomplished drummer with his entire kit blasting out rhythm over the canyon. When he finished playing I said "that was great but where's the rest of the band?"

He responded, "Oh, they're always late. I'm always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave."

But then he grinned and said he just didn't have a gig this weekend and needed to get his jollies. As I left, he was beating out more sounds on his drums.

Facebook Follies

Oh, my god.

I have warned friends about this.

But now I have succumbed.

Facebook has taken over my life.

I finally got into it and now I have found multiple former friends, people I used to work with, some of them for a long time, some of them very briefly.

But now.

Thanks to Facebook.

They are my friends.

And I am finding that I am checking the page tens, hundreds, thousands of times a day.

What have I become?

Okay, gotta go.

Got to check Facebook.