Art At The Fort

Evening at Fort Zachary Taylor, as close to the southernmost point of the (continental) United States (excluding Hawaii and Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa) as makes no difference.

Fort Zachary is a state park centered on the old brick fort that was built as an island and got surrounded by dirt they dredged out of the harbor to make it deeper.

I decided to go and check out the annual sculpture exhibits that used to be known as Art in the Park and are now known as Sculpture Key West. However the shine seems to be off. This bicycle isn't an exhibit though I was tempted to pass it off as one as the pieces on display seemed to be in short supply.

These folks seemed more organized than me as they were reading some sort of guide. I haven't seen anything published in the paper about this year's sculpture exhibit except a couple of photographs. In years past there were lots of obscure and interesting pieces from all over the country. This year we have to make do with less, which is I suppose a suitable theme for this period of graceful economic decline into shabbiness. Except, it turns out, the organizers of the Sculpture Key West have decided to take three dozen exhibits and scatter them around town. Some at the Botanical Garden, some at the Garden Club and just a few still at the state park. I suppose that creating a successful tradition at Fort Zachary means that suddenly everybody wants a share and so make a mess of what was a good thing. This looks like a rump sculpture show to a philistine like myself. There again I don't have my ego wrapped up in gardens elsewhere in town.

The sail is not actually an exhibit either, it was just somebody sailing out of the Key West harbor taking advantage of an unusual westerly breeze. The house shape is an exhibit as is this, one of six located in the waterfront field at Fort Zachary:

I can only wish Ron had come up with a more descriptive title for it. And I'm pretty sure it's made of concrete, not concerte, whatever that might be. I doubt they can afford the services of a proof reader and not many people are as anal as I am.

Besides I have the assistance of spell check and cock ups still find their way onto the page. This next one looked like an iceberg (the ship I hasten to add is not an exhibit though it might look like an iceberg if you had been drinking heavily).This picture I waited to compose and Cheyenne was not happy. That dog gets very impatient on her walks sometimes.

I asked another viewer if this looked anything like an Ambit of Faith and she remained sturdily gormless in the face of my apostasy. Either that or she was a foreigner. That happens a lot to me in Key West. I imagine they have something wrong and really they just don't speak English, which is bad enough for them I suppose.

I don't want to seem like some Neanderthal but what in the name of all that's holy, is an ambit of faith? And how does that relate to a paper mache sculpture?

That's the thing about Art in the Park it always ends up challenging you. The wooden twig representation of a giant hula hoop and a similar effect,... even for people who got up close to study it.

That is Sunset Key in the background across the harbor (also not an exhibit, needless to say nor is the yacht shown below for effect).The hula hoop is actually called Forest of Souls and came with detailed explanations which made it the hit of the afternoon for me. The idea is to have people write the names of things they miss, or people who have died and embarrassing emotions like that as a sort of public memorial. The rules include such limitations as nothing rude or inappropriate, though the fact that writing rude words has to be mentioned at all continues to surprise me.

I made my contribution though I did see lots of mentions of the cause of the week, the survivors in Haiti who did not get that much press when they were reduced to eating mud cakes while starving less publicly a couple of years ago.

This next one is the title of one of my favorite movies, though what it actually represents only the artist knows:

This is not an exhibit but a little beach that used not to be so heavily fenced off. As I recall some people used to use it while not wearing any clothes. Which probably made no money for anyone so these days the clamor is for an official nude beach.

And out to sea a man, a jet ski, a floating sculpture.

This was an exhibit, Three Card Monte, and gave me the opportunity to get my annual self portrait in at the art event.

The idea is that one of the frames has no mirror in it, like the card shuffler, I suppose, asking you to turn up the Queen.

Normal park activities continue even as the sculptures go up. Fishing is not an exhibit, as far as I could tell though it is not generally an activity filled with motion.This field through which Cheyenne was stumping along has been, in the past, filled with exhibits. Perhaps there will be more to come next year when someone figures out that spreading a show across five miles, in a four mile long town is a stupid idea.

And let us not forget the fort itself which deserves a view a sit is the host of the proceedings.

And very nice it looked as usual in the setting sun. They also charge a third the cost to get in here than they do at the Botanical Gardens. Very plebeian I'm sure.

Night Pearl

Pearl Street at two o'clock in the morning. We're one block north of Truman Avenue, in that neighborhood known as the Meadows. It looks like Old Town, but it is not, it's a separate neighborhood. Looking toward Truman from Albury Street:There is something quite magical about standing around in your shirtsleeves on a January night (if you aren't wearing a mesh motorcycle jacket with armored padding) and listening to the sounds of silence.These old cement markers survive on many intersections though they could do with a lick of paint in most cases. The street name facing you is the name of the street...facing you!Modern homes looking good in the lights cast by the occasional street lamps. There are lots of picket fences around here and bigger barricades as well:I enjoy wandering at night because the mundane is rendered mysterious by the lack of light. This one, by way of contrast, illuminated by uncompromising flash: Spending money illuminating the porch all night is not a problem for some people, which is nice for me on the rare occasion I happen to be there in the night ready to snap a picture.

Burning the midnight oil:

Palms rising out of the gloom.

A porch ornament of exquisite colored glass:

More harsh flash photography:The Chabad of Key West, a very Orthodox Jewish outfit used to have their meeting place here, but they sold the land and moved to some place near the Key West Bight I think. Anyway the space got taken up by another of those developments "in the Key West style:"I find Pearl Street has it's subtle enchantments at night:

This house is made of unpainted Dade pine and I have photographed in daylight before now. It epitomises old Key West to me. A motorcycle in the driveway.

What more does one need ( if one doesn't have a dog)?

Franco's Deli

It happened that the night we had a rather fierce fire on this, the 1200 block of Duval, I thought Franco's Deli might have burned down. As I sat and listened to the radio talk between the firefighters I wondered if this deli might be gone before I had even had a chance to check it out.As it turned out the fire burned an empty house, scorched some apartments and the strip club, but spared the deli. This is a recent arrival in Key West operated by a couple of brothers whose last name is, appropriately enough Bologna, the city that gave it's name to the pressed meat called baloney...When I asked him if his name forced this career onto him brother Peter ( which wa show he identified himself) looked at me a bit old fashioned and said "No," in a gruff New York style. "I could'a been anything. This was my fate." I wondered if he could have been a contender too but kept that thought to myself. His brother Franco paints in between making sandwiches:I have no experience of New York style delis having spent most of my adult life in California. However one night I got a call at work from Officer Sellers, she who likes to call me "Mr Conchscooter" after the time she spotted her neighbor's house on my blog. "What's the name of the deli on Upper Duval?" she asked, anxious to show her friends a good time. "Er..." I said in the manner of one who is mistaken for a person who knows everything. So when this Key West native started extolling the value of Franco's I thought I'd better try it. After the fire intervened I got my skates on and scooted over:Peter Bologna (unless he was pulling my leg and he is a shy painter called Franco) in the yellow cap, saw the camera and asked if I was a restaurant critic. "No" I said. He grunted when I said it was just a record for my blog. "I would'a bribed you..." The thought hung tantalisingly in the air. I wondered what a Bologna bribe looks like. Perhaps a bottle of virgin olive oil or some capers from the Old Country?I grew up somewhere in the middle of the Italian boot and we never had sandwiches like they sell here. The Italian sandwiches I ate as a kid were two pieces of bread with a piece of meat or a piece of cheese, no condiments, no mayonnaise no lettuce no nothing. No wonder Italians emigrated en masse to America. It wasn't that the streets were paved with gold, it was that Italian heros had all the ingredients one could imagine between two slices of bread.And Illy coffee isn't bad at all though I've never seen it sold out of a Thermos in Italy. New York maybe but I only ever spent one night in New York 29 years ago so I know nothing about the Big Apple. Franco's deli charges 50 cents for a cup of ice and only let's customers use the restroom. That's a Key West thing, else the bums will set up camp there.They proudly use Boar Head meats and I guess that was what I got because I wanted to try the basic cold Italian combo.They also produce Italian pasta dishes and stuffed vegetables. I was planning on eating the sandwich at the movies so I wanted something easy to deal with. Look at that sparkling clean kitchen:They don't have anywhere to sit except a couple of stools on the porch which make a nice spot to observe life on Upper Duval. The yellow awning marks the Banana Cafe next door which used to be my favorite Italian restaurant in Key West called Carmine's which had to close as the landlord went nuts and doubled the rent or something. Very annoying as I liked the Banana Cafe better in it's old cramped intimate quarters. A crepe at the counter was a great lunch for one. Now I have Franco's to test:Notice the prices are not especially high and one has to wonder what a sweet Italian sausage or a chicken cutlet would taste like. They also use this abbreviation for parmigiana which I first heard on a TV show called The Sopranos where they abbreviated everything and cut off the last vowels of Italian words. So that becomes "parm" which would shock the residents of Parma no doubt, which is where the cheese is from. Abbreviating is not an Italian thing to do. Unless you are in New York or New Jersey or somewhere.They sell salads too and they have stuff for breakfast which sounds enticing. It's as well I live outside the city I think, this is not low calorie food.For eight and a half bucks I got a sandwich big enough for two meals.I wonder what a New Yorker would make of it?