Fay

I am trying to think of this as a good practice run for hurricane high season which is upon us, but it still sucks. It's early for the Tropical Storm predictions to make much sense, but at the moment it looks as though we are bang in Fay's path with possible arrival Tuesday. Our fearless leaders will spend an anxious weekend trying to figure out what our response as a community should be. If they order a mandatory evacuation bang go the tourists and all their money with them...and if they don't order an evacuation someone will cry foul after the event.

We haven't had a storm warning since the gruesome 2005 season so this hopefully will be a preparatory run for everyone to remember what to do when the weather goes squirrely. I go to work my wife heads north. Sigh.

Statues In Paradise

I find these things profoundly weird. I was walking through the heart of tourist downtown, the ante chamber to Mallory Square which is known as the Sponge Market, or Number One Whitehead Street, and suddenly it dawned on me; I was surrounded by statues: These papier mache things are everywhere around there, posed and staring fixedly into a future that will never come. It is bizarre, but at least some of the visitors think they are great fun:

Most of them are mounted on little platforms with wheels so they can be rolled indoors to safety at night. It doesn't bear thinking about what people prowling at three in the morning might do to these defenseless salesmen:

On the other hand were I to come upon this profoundly grotesque sponge Sasquatch in the dark of the night I'm not sure what I would do, have a heart attack in all likelihood. Let's face it he doesn't look that wholesome by sunlight:And this guy isn't a statue at all, he just looks a bit like one owing to a slight lull in the flow of customers:This next one looks like a New England purveyor of tinned seafood more than a rugged Key West Conch hunter. I don't suppose the punters really care one way or the other, it's just me being fussy:And this one with his idiot's grin plastered forever on his vacuous face has overtones that dare not speak their name:I am probably just too sensitive for this sort of thing. I needed something pure and innocent and traditional but the best I could come up with was this, though what the hell this little tableau is all about I have no idea:

Speaking of traditional this is pure Key West though whether it is Art or even statuary is debatable in some circles:And though it is decidedly traditional some critics argue the Pez Garden is not Art. It all defies definition if you ask me. The Pez Garden is the local name for the Sculpture Garden wherein some notable heads from Key West history are on display:This is Commodore Porter who vanquished pirates and buccaneers from around Key West and set such a high moral tone locals petitioned the Department of the Navy to get him out of there:He ended up a mercenary on the Barbary Coast helping North African governments deal with their own piracy problems. Which goes to show virtue is definitely not its own reward. I need to be invited to write school history textbooks, the little dears would get quite an eye opener.

Further along we find El Meson de Pepe, which sells decent Cuban food from its strategic location and along with that its share of corn:

And their garden has its own special overseer:

Around the corner another group of visitors was having fun with a cardboard cut out of the type no tourist town would be seen dead without:

And across Mallory Square, a young man was busy impressing a young woman:

I am well aware of the fact that throwing cartwheels along the waterfront isn't really being a statue but, in a moment of pure sentimentality, I thought it was worthy of inclusion for the less rigid and doctrinaire among us. Which leads me to the final statue photo of the day which is my Bonneville at rest:Hemingway had his movable feast; I have my movable statue. Home James, and don't spare the horsepower!