Salon predicts another election disaster in Florida. Actually, the trouble has already started — lots of people have reported the early-voting problems the article references (why anyone would want to vote as soon as possible escapes me), we have brand new voting machines, droves of new voters, and this cockamamie new “no match, no vote” law (which is almost like Charlie Christ looking for a way to make himself less popular (but nevermind, because I got my address change in, so I’m good to go)).
Category: Miami
WTF?
A certain shady South Florida “museum” has been sending me spam at regular intervals with the following message affixed to the top of the message:
This e-mail has been classified as WHITE MAIL by AOL (America On Line).
This mail is originated by a 501©(3) non profit cultural organization and cannot be considered as Spam. You have the right to be DELETED from our mailing list sending back this email with the word UNSUBSCRIBE on the subject. This mail has been sent with the authorization of AOL (America On Line) and according the U.S. laws. Thank you.
Is it just me, or is this weird three ways to Sunday and back? Anyone seen anything like this or have any explanation whatsoever?
Arthop, Miami, October ’08
We begin at Gallery Diet, with Samantha Salzinger’s spectacular photos. By the way, I just built her a website. Anybody else want one? Get in touch.
Peggy and Harumi make stones at Mark Kowen’s show at Dorsch.
The rest of the gallery is filled with several dumptrucks worth of sand dunes, and a catapult/crossbow type device where you can launch someone else’s stone after you’ve made one of your own.
In the smaller space, an impromptu Classroom. The schedule is filling up.
Hernan Bas delivers new work at Snitzer — several spectacular large-scale paintings, and a large series of fairly abstract pencil drawings.
Clifton Childree’s installation at Locust Projects, the result of a two-month residency. Try to stop in at Locust if you haven’t seen this — they’re open Saturday afternoons until 5.
The chicken person, unmasked!
Looked like break-dancing to tribal beats to me. Major festivities in the streets despite a partial ban on alcohol. Apparently word got out (perhaps partially my fault), and during the September gallery walk crowds of fools showed up with the sold intention of getting drunk for free, got all sorts of rowdy, and knocked over a sculpture in World Class Boxing, resulting in aforementioned ban. I don’t give it more then one more month.
Towards the end of the night, a legion of cyclists showed up, their rides chained up in twos and threes up and down 24th. Check: one of the three bikes pictured has brakes.
Carless in Miami
A recent car accident took out my car, and I’ve been using my parents car, as they were out of the country. They returned on Wednesday, but I’d decided to try living completely without a car. I’ve been commuting mostly by bike for about a year anyway, and this seems like the next step. It’s an ideal time of year to try it. I’ve figured out a lot of the practicalities of getting around on a bike, such as dealing with breakdowns (knock on wood) and hauling moderate loads.
But of course there’s a big difference between getting around mostly on a bike and relying on it as one’s sole transportation. There are rainy days, large packages, and days when you just don’t wanna. But part of the joy of riding is overcoming obstacles, so I’m looking forward to dealing with all of that. Let’s try it for a few months and see how it goes.
Lion Country Safari
Here are some goofy photos of animals from Lion Country Safari. LCS is worth a visit once every decade or so, just avoid the tourist-trap “Safari World” unless you have kids. It’s worth driving through twice, which you can do at no additional charge. (Regular admission is $23 per person, a $5-off coupon is here.)
Dropical Tepression
Labor Day. This is when I love Miami. Just as Fall starts to set in just about everywhere else, with the leaves browning, animals and people stocking up for the winter, here it is the opposite. Bring in the first tentative indications of the subsiding of the sweltering of the Summer. Bring in the first trickles of snowbirds, returning from the four corners of the world (but mainly Canada) to which they’ve retreated from that sweltering. And bring in the peak of the hurricane season, when God fires the low-pressure storms like bowling balls, one right after another. I’m not even remotely close to kidding, either:
To the left we have Gustav, Category 2 Full Blown Hurricane, currently hitting New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana, maximum sustained winds of 110 mph, and as we speak keeping me in terror of turning on the TV. (But seriously, can you imagine? — an entire city built under sea level, so that in times like these, 100% of them there populace has to evacuate, (and despite the much-publicized few holdouts, I believe most of them in fact have), and the city is presumably empty but for (futile?) looting-prevention squads of National Guard, waiting to be hammered like a fat kid at best, or at worst — what? — wiped off the face of the Earth?)
Next up we have Tropical Storm Hanna, maximum sustained winds of 60 mph, currently doing its business to the Bahamas, and strengthening as it moves towards Florida, the cone of danger veering wildly from the north to the south from advisory to advisory (the NHC really should archive its advisories and maps, so we can see just how well their computer models have done over the years), but with an excellent chance of ruining next weekend for me.
The next low-pressure system appears to have split up into two areas of crappy weather. They may continue to move westward, but they’ve forfeited any chance of blooming into cyclones. Not much, but what heavy weather they bring will be seen as a resting point between volleys.
. . . hot on the heels of which is currently Tropical Depression 9, maximum sustained winds 35 mph, and so probably by the time you read this to be proclaimed Tropical Storm Ike. Doesn’t look like much, but by next weekend it’ll have likely covered two thirds of the distance between its present location and Miami. Are you starting to see my point?
And of course we have the seemingly big orange blob, officially “a strong tropical wave,” where the butterflies are currently doing their fluttering between the coast of Africa and the Cape Verde islands. Orange indicating here “medium potential for tropical cyclone formation,” natch. It too is moving towards us, 15 to 20 miles per hour. OK, so I turned on the TV for a bit. Something about a little bit of good news, and but “some of the levies may already have been breached.” Spawning tornadoes.
But wait, I was talking about why I like this time of the year. The danger I guess is part of it. We don’t have those browning leaves down here to remind us, yadda yadda, of the circle of life, the Forces at Work, on this planet. We have these volatile storms that always look like they’re just bearing down on you, and sometimes they do bear. There is a level of danger, but it’s what’s called a tolerable level. There are warnings, and there are possible preparations and evacuations, and the damage is usually the kind that you can put just dollar signs in front of. My heart goes out to the city of New Orleans. Hope you’re safe. But this, as they say, is part of it.
(Sorry about the high-school-newspaperesque fever of my writing here. I’m just getting back into it, ok?)
Testosterone at its finest
Friday I was riding my bike South down Pine Tree Drive after the rain had stopped. I’m dodging puddles, mud, and slippery wet grates, and so I’m farther from the right curb then I normally would be, but no worries — there are two lanes going in every direction, and the namesake pines give the road a relaxed sort of mood. Suddenly comes honking from behind me. Incredulous, I turn around, flip off some asshole in a silver sports/luxury car, and move farther over into the lane, just to make it perfectly clear that I have a right to be where I am and he needs to back off or get over and pass.
Dude chooses the latter, then merges over and proceeds to mess with me by braking in front of me, fist slowly and then when that doesn’t particularly faze me, sharply. I move over to pass him on the left (the rest of the cars have passed now) he moves over too, cutting me off. I then stay on the left side of the left lane. There’s a big median with those big pine trees, and now I’m not really letting his shenanigans get to me he, unwilling to actually run me off the road, speeds off.
As it happens the red light up ahead is a long one, and I pass him again, zipping by his driver’s side window and shooting him a dirty look. I run the red light but now I’m in a bit of a dilemma, with no good idea of what this guy is going to do when he gets a second chance to pass me. I move over to the sidewalk for the next block. Sure enough, he slows on passing me.
“That’s more like it,” yells he.
“You’re a real tough guy against a bike, asshole,” yell I back at him.
And he zips off. Good times. At Washington Avenue I cross a bridge that’s under construction and closed to cars, and I’m almost home, crossing another intersection when a car standing at the red light on the cross street pulls a few feet out into the pedestrian cross walks and honks a few times. I’m light wtf, but then I look up, and it’s the same dude, who I guess had to go the long way, except now he’s suddenly my buddy, smiling and giving me a thumbs up. I give him a quick nod and I’m gone. Whatev’s.