Famous Dead People

I got a map at the sexton's office and set of across the 19 acres of cemetery looking for a few select graves. The Key West cemetery is quite the popular tourist spot though some people find that odd. Indeed some readers call me "morbid" when I take pictures of the cemetery. However this place is a repository of Key West history, You can even get a docent of the Historical Society to give you a tour. I've done it and it's well worth it.

The cemetery is mostly above ground as the water table, even in this relatively high spot on the island, is not far below the surface. As a result you get a cemetery that has a look very similar to that of the more famous burial sites in New Orleans. Unlike New Orleans cemeteries which can be dangerously violent (thanks to roving gangs of the living) the Key West cemetery is no more dangerous than any other place on this island. Indeed this makes for a lovely park.

First up Mario Sanchez Key West's most well known home grown folk artist, who developed his own form of wood intaglio wherein he depicted scenes of island life from memory and recorded Key West from decades ago. He came to prominence during his life but ended his years alone and in utter poverty after he entrusted his wealth to a woman who, I am told, dId not have his best interests to heart. Which is reflected in the poverty and lack of style of his "tombstone."

"May the work I've done speak for me." As good an epitaph as any and I suppose the fact that he has no decent headstone and his grave is hidden among many and facing away from the well worn path is a reflection on those left behind and how they feel about the artist who lost his fortune to a gold digger.

Ironic it is that two retrospectives of his life's work, that does speak for him, are underway right now at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City Exhibitions, and also at the more modest Museum of Art and History here in Key West's Customs House. New York I shall skip, Key West I shall see.

It was only through study of the map I found the next grave often quoted in guidebooks yet never seen by myself in years of searching at random, this time in the Catholic Cemetery.

And a sweet one it is...

... famous beyond this city only for her epitaph:

Frequently I see the One Human Family stickers plastered around town after some wag has chopped the thing up to rework the phrase, more or less wittily. In this case the phrase struck me as appropriate for the next well known character whose passing is marked in the Key West cemetery.

This plinth is new, and dedicated to a financier who came to Key West and did what so may want to do, or so they say. He started painting, like Sanchez in a whimsical folkloric sort of way. They called him Captain Outrageous, and what he did with his life was outrageously cliché'd and I'm glad he's got his mark in the cemetery now.

Key West Diary: Captain Outrageous

And we close with what may be the most quoted epitaph in Key West's above ground cemetery, "I told you I was sick." Apparently she was a notorious hypochondriac in town and at the tender age of fifty, got the last laugh, as it were:

The Key West cemetery, worth a visit:

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Key West Farm Labor

A cold overcast day in Key West is not going to be the best day to try a new outdoor experiment in sales. Especially considering there were two other festivals going on in town, celebrating conch and some other thing, but I wanted to check this one out.

They call it the Bone Island Bazaar and the idea is to have some sort of farmer's market in Key West on that much disputed empty space called Truman Waterfront. I am hoping this thing works out and I'll tell you why.

Ever since the Navy spanked the city and closed the water basin adjacent to the waterfront the future of the park proposal for these thirty four acres of former Navy Base has been up in the air. One proposal has always called for a city garden and farmers market plan, landscaping, community agriculture and a natural park environment, perhaps even by membership to keep the bums at bay.

The city has been inching toward a more upscale park plan with expansive landscaping and facilities including an amphitheater and possibly an upscale marina. The idea proposed by the developer was that the marina would generate income to fund the park, an idea that seems dubious to skeptics in the community, whose skepticism is increased by the notion that the developer would run the marina for the city and pay the city any left over profits.

Now that the marina plan has been scotched by the Navy, the city's park plans are up in the air. If it were up to me I would landscape the place with fruit trees benches and community gardens and convert the Navy warehouse to an indoor market arrangement and call it good but I am a man of limited ambition. I guess the answer then must be a bond issued by the city and full speed ahead with their plans for an elaborate landscaped suburban park with brick paths, landscaping tennis courts and all the other folderol beloved of energetic people.

In the meantime Truman Waterfront remains an open space and now Saturdays may see the sale of fruits and vegetables and dust catchers until the heat of summer overpowers ambition.

I know that a Saturday morning in the mid 60s doesn't sound like much when competing with arctic temperatures in places where going outdoors is a life and death adventure but for around here it's cold, especially with a brisk north wind blowing damply off the water.

Check out the long pants and fleeces, heavy winter clothing for Key West, and I was no different, my pink Crocs replaced by sneakers and socks, long pants for shorts and my windproof vest and a watch cap on my skull. Tuesday it's supposed to be back in the eighties, but till then the reverse cycle air conditioning is blasting at my house and my commute requires my padded heavy winter riding jacket making me look like an arctic explorer on my motorcycle.

My wife was looking for vegetables and though organics were nowhere to be seen she got some pesticide free fruits and vegetables from the growers though I was surprised how far they drove to make the sales.

 

I did hear some grumbling about the cost of the space, a hundred bucks a table I'm told, but I fear the ever present corporate insurance bugaboo is mostly to blame for that. The city requires insurance and that never comes cheap, and Commissioner Weekly owner of Faustos food market was reported by the newspaper to be in opposition to the whole plan based on the insurance issue. Not that his market also sells vegetables or anything.

Cheyenne was fairly unimpressed by the whole shping adventure not least because cold weather perks her up and turns her into a hundred pound puppy. We went walking across the waterfront open space and even after the shopping was finished and the walk was steered back to the car she was not ready to end our stroll.

I like the open space and take any opportunity I can to come down and enjoy the freedom of nothingness.

I know it has to change, does Truman Waterfront, but I do like the market idea and I do hope it catches on.

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Sugarloaf Key

It was not as though there are no spaces to park along an empty stretch of Sugarloaf Boulevard. The idea is to park away from the right angled corner in order to allow distracted drivers to make the turn without creaming your Kia Soil while you are out strolling Sugarloaf's Loop Road. But as usual the idea of having to walk fifty yards to reach the trailhead is too much, far better to park here and sue someone else when your metallic green pride and joy gets creamed...

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. When I was a callow youth I developed a taste for decorating my room at school with roadsigns borrowed from the county council. Some friends and I would steal silently from the school buildings in the dark of night and crawl through hedges and dodge snoozing cows to reach a set of roadworks where we would purloin a few warning signs and rearrange the remainder to keep the flow of traffic moving after we were gone. My efforts at the end of the school year to get the signs home by "secretly" stuffing them in the large trunk of my father's Rolls Royce were thwarted when he discovered them. I was surprised he thought it a huge joke to set up our own roadworks on a quiet lane in the Somerset countryside which was the last I saw of my stash of road signs collected over my last year trapped in a English boarding school. Had we shared more such conspiracies i might never have emigrated far away. So the rather plaintive nature of this relatively new sign at the very end of Sugarloaf Boulevard engendered some wry sympathy in me. All I can recall was a set of red diamond reflectors marking the end of the road. I wonder who wanted them and went to the trouble of unbolting them from their posts? It must have happened quite often to require the placement of this sign...

While I am ready to admit that on occasion I have been taken short in the woods I will never admit to making a foul mess like this with bits of paper scattered to the four winds. I highly recommend daily doses of psycillium to keep the bowels moving freely and toilet paper free, but in any event there are ways of shitting in the woods and there are decidedly ways not to. This is one such way to behave badly in public.

Right off the trail too. Savages! How to Shit in the Woods, Second Edition: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art: Kathleen Meyer: 9780898156270: Amazon.com: Books A useful manual for those that can't see the obvious for themselves.

This used to be state road 939 and it runs for about four miles through the mangroves till it dead ends in an old bulkhead that would have projected a wooden bridge across the sound toward Bay Point. Cheyenne and I walked it all a few years ago. Actually I walked It all and ended up carrying her a bit as she was exhausted past caring. The whole episode got my wife fairly pissed at me too as I recall.

Key West Diary: A Short Walk On Sugarloaf Key

This outing we were decidedly unambitious and we walked less while I played with my camera as Cheyenne sniffed around. I got some fairly startling effects too which I forgot to note so I have no idea how to reproduce the blue mangroves shown above.

Despite the recent half hearted attempts at rain the mangroves were quite dry so I decided we should take advantage and get off the main trail into the salt flats below, usually quite wet. I was quite surprised to see evidence of tires larger than those of bicycles marking the dry mud.

The thing about the backwoods in the Keys is that no matter how hard you try to fool yourself you are never a true pioneer. Someone has always been this way before you.

Another camera fidget and I created a mountainous valley where non exists. This place is of course as flat as a pancake and really looks like this to the naked eye:

Like I said these deserted back woods are never unexplored. For some people they are, or used to be, trash dumps. How this engine block got here I couldn't say. A few yards away some giant truck wheels were rotting away, possibly related to this crumbling vestige of twentieth century Keys' life.

I never cease to be amazed when I am told a tin can will survive in the environment for five hundred years or some such notion. Now, I'm not in favor of dumping trash willy nilly, but clearly this was no medieval vehicle and it has pretty much returned to its original chemical components.

No doubt some eagle eyed observer will figure out the year make and model of the machine it used to be. To me it was a lump of iron leaching rust into the rocks beneath. A not uncommon sight off the trails in the woods around here.

There is a county rule that one may not discharge a firearm anywhere in Monroe County unless at a range. So, you'd think if you were coming out here to do just that you'd remove the evidence. Not a bit of it! At least it's not used toilet paper.

We have been bracing for a cold front all week with promises of cold temperatures rain and outdoor nastiness. Yesterday it sure was overcast but there was no biting north wind and 66 degrees was t shirt weather for me.

We are told temperatures will go below sixty Sunday night and Monday night so that would make this the second real cold front of this astonishingly warm winter. My wife and I are planning a road trip Up North before the end of the month else we fear we may forget what it feels like to be cold. Cheyenne will enjoy it no doubt.

 

 

 

 

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Sculptures At The Studios

With the restoration of proper winter weather last week, a breezy eighty two degree afternoon would be perfect for a stroll around White Street to check out the latest offerings at The Studios of Key West, a center for the arts and performances. I never even got inside the old Armory building converted to these more pacific uses.

The gate was open to the outdoor sculpture offerings in the delightfully shaded garden alongside the building. First up was a bizarre and wonderful sculpture of ...clothes pegs!?

It seemed to use PVC pipe at it's core and the pegs were attached to the skeletal shape underneath. Whatever the technique the effect was surprisingly arresting.

Further up I cam across a rather sinister looking spider-like object made of more utilitarian material, possibly gutter pipes?

And those two were just the start.

On my way to the exhibits in the rear I passed a woolen snowflake caught in the branches, not apparently the least affected by the heat of the day. No sign of melting:

The building is huge and imposing but it is also surrounded by tall trees which somehow mask the effect of the overpowering walls and creates a feeling of being deep in a forest.

The rear of the building was showing off a couple of tubular metal sculptures in the garden.

The Studios are designed to encourage artistic development and they put on energetic shows as well as inviting artists to work here and teach. I seemed to have stumbled upon an al fresco studio which was a bit intimidating but I focused on the sculptures.

There were some fish from Maine.

I caught sight of another couple of visitors who seemed undecided about the value of the free, discreet art show apparently put on for their benefit as no one else was there. He had no interest and sucked it out of her apparently, because they shuffled off. I was thoroughly enjoying myself as I always do at this place.

The stone sculptures we're created by a local man Bill Lorraine who used to program classical music on a local radio station when such fantasies were possible.

He explained in his show pamphlet that the sculptures are made of oolite, a local rock of particular luminosity which used to be commonly used to prop up Conch cottages in the manner of this modern cement block:

Apparently some local contractors have agreed to save these stones for Lorraine to use to create these works of art.

And such is the lack of space in this small town that neighbors go about their daily chores right there next to all this artistic goodness.

Great stuff as usual from the Studios on White Street.

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