Seward's Folly

The statue in the foreground is admiring the proportions of the figures in the background, and it's all part of the public art display outside Key West's Customs House Art Museum. Sculptor Seaward Johnson calls it "Weekend Painter" and he stands, perpetually, in front of Key West's Customs House.

You might think the Customs House is an oddity of its own in Key West. In the 19th Century it was standard issue Federal design for Customs House, US, for the use of. The fact that it was built of brick, heavy to import to Key West, that the pitch of its roof was designed to shed snow, had nothing to do with it. Canada, Mexico or Cuba, Federal trade revenues were collected in the same style of building.

Now whether or not the bizarre orange folly is improved by Johnson's sculptures is for ypu to decide. You can't miss the embrace at the front, engaged in by a couple slightly larger than life size. The figure to the right is an unremarkable image of a youthful fishing Hemingway while the one in the middle is my dog.

There's the cruise ship in the background and here's the sad tearful farewell in the foreground. One is real, the other isn't.

This guy, in expensive foul weather gear carrying a coil of rope and dragging a sail bag is called "Wharf Rat" a very decorous and proper New England style of sailor. A Key West wharf rat has salty spiky hair, a dazed look in his eye from the weight of his hangover and an a lean leathery tanned body clad only in ragged shorts and weathered flip flops.

Johnson has his own sense of humor, and he exhibits it from time to time in his titles. This next is "Copyright Violator" which you might suppose is a title he might apply to himself. He specializes in making three dimensional representations of famous works of Art while adding his own impish details.

Here's the copyright the "painter" violated, a picture within a picture within a picture.

For corn fed cruise ship visitors this kind of scene has got to confirm, upon their arrival in "exotic Key West" that this town is different. In a country where a few years ago the US Attorney General ordered classical statues covered up as their aesthetic offended his private prudery, it has to come as a shock to be greeted by nekkid wimmins cavorting around a happy lad. I'd have been smiling too had this happened to me at that age, but there we are. Parents cover your children's eyes as you stream off the Disney Magic.

Seward Johnson was born into the tycoon family that sells you baby powder so I'm not completely sure he has much of a clue how the rest of us live. I sort of doubt he worries about getting fired, losing his home or figuring how to pay for a new transmission. His "Lunch Break" sculpture seems to reflect a bygone era, a time when Americans built things and worked in a time when wives stayed home and filled thermos flasks and lunch boxes for their men to take to the mines or factories or railroad. A modern cubicle lunch break never looked like this.

Nor did most break room views look like this:

If you explore his website you may be surprised not only how far flung his works are, but also how Seward Johnson and his work are always out front and in the public eye. Statues that look unique to Key West may not necessarily be precisely that. But they do look like they belong.

He first came to local attention when some of his life sized statues started crowding the southernmost point and that raised some local hackles (including mine, I must admit). Southernmost point | Flickr - Photo Sharing! from javajem's website in 2007. They've now put the simpering family above the entrance to the airport for people walking off their planes to enjoy.

The Customs House has the proper title of Art and History Museum and I like it very much. I go there frequently to enjoy the ambiance of wooden floors and quiet reflection in the high cielinged rooms. I can check up on the real history of Hemingway in Key West, the works of Mario Sanchez and I can also remember the Maine.

That I have to dodge the "Weekend Painter" and little Miss "Yum Yum" always eating her sandwich is no problem when I want to visit the Customs House.

Reflecting on all this statuary and then photographing them takes time and my dog got bored. Time to go, she said by standing up.

One last picture I pleaded, "Holding Out" an elderly shopper not driving but walking.

Yup, no hardship at all to enjoy these eccentric pieces of public art. It was about time I stopped to take a proper look at them and if you decide you ever want to they will be there, stuck in time, glued to the ground, and according to their owners they are to make us think. Hmm!

The Sculpture Foundation : Exhibitions & Leasing

Key West on Dwellable

 

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Morning Thunder

Summer is rainy season, and rainy season is thunder and lightning season.

It's cloudy season when the skies are filled with drama. Frequently you wake to cloudless skies and by the time breakfast plates are washed wind rain and gray skies fill the kitchen window.

And when it all dies down as it does in a hurry the seas go flat and the horizon disappears.

Back on Earth the commuters are rolling every morning but on those days when rain falls or threatens to fall the motorcycles evaporate. I'm not sure why, but it's warm even in the rain and the modest challenge of riding in the wet is rewarded by the clearing skies and sunshine.

Cheyenne isn't that fond of walking in the rain. Shell go out on the porch, look around, and turn back. Suits me.

Rainy season is hot and humid season and we all feel it to a greater or lesser degree.

Did I mention I like the cloud drama of rainy season?

 

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Island Time

It's a funny thing living on an island. I live near Big Pine Key and "my" island has two entrances, where the highway comes in over a bridge and where it leaves over a bridge. That's life along the Overseas Highway. Key West is technically an island but the one bridge in and out makes Key West something of a wide spot at the end of a very long peninsula. People here are fond of noting they live closer to Havana than Miami, with the added cachet that Cuba is forbidden to freedom loving Americans. All that notwithstanding residents of this hundred mile long peninsula like to quote the rather nebulous concept of "island time." Peninsula time doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Island time expresses a zen state of mind where being is more importantbhan doing. Island time is a concept celebrated in song, and this lotHoward Livingston & Mile Marker 24 - Key West #1 Band sing about Key West time, a state of mind where nothing much matters. It's a place where you sit back getting a menial job while drinking cocktails with your feet in the sand. Let's face it, Jimmy Buffett who started his career in Key West has made a mint off island time. Island time, whether you're a bum or a pigeon means hanging around not worrying about a thing.

It's got it's allure hasn't it? Living in Key West without a care in the world, a bicycle for a car, sandals for shoes and no winter clothing. However people who do live here do not live a tourist life of course. People ask me what to do should they want to move. My advice, which I dispense sparingly as advice is rarely adopted, is to burn no bridges and abandon all ambition. All the good professional jobs are taken. Anyone who is any good and shows up on time gets the manual labor. New arrivals start at the bottom which is tough to do when you are middle aged. Having fun at the Green Parrot is easy.

Having Sandy's at your beck and call twenty four hours is a double edged sword. It's great to have Cuban sandwiches whenever you want them but Cuban cooking makes no concessions to modern fads. Live at Sandy's red counter and your girth will explode. Skinny drinks? Hell no. Gluten free? Forget it. All the way at Sandys means butter and mayonnaise if you feel like it on both sides of your lard baked Cuban bread. Great for a vacation break, but when you live here self control needs to beat island time every time!

I like spending time here at the Tropic when I'm on peninsula time. Watching movies with subtitles and trying to avoid the wine, beer and pastries in the concession stand. Coming out of the Tropic after dark and feeling the warm night air envelope you is sometimes the best part of going to the movies, especially in February.

I spent quite a lot of my youth learning to cope with village life in an isolated valley. If you went there in the mountains of central Italy you'd think it was Shangri La. But for me it was a nightmare of conflicting emotions, ancient family grudges, twisted motives and no privacy at all ever. It really didn't suit my rather withdrawn personality. So when I see people celebrating their Key West roots, full blown Conchs born and raised here I am filled with a mixture of respect for them and embarrassment at myself. To be a Bubba, a "brother" is to be a local, with roots that can't be bought or earned in the community. On the one hand they grew up in a small town on the ocean in a tight knit community, and unlike me they thrive in that environment. I'm embarrassed sometimes because I am acutely aware that I am here from somewhere else. I don't like the idea that I am intruding in someone else's family gathering. Yet this is the modern world and to some extent all of us are from somewhere else, and people whose roots are in one place have also invited outsiders in. The insiders sell the outsiders the land and the homes they need to put down their own new roots...

Not all the arrivals in town are welcome. Some people take the concept of island time a little too far and as much as they annoy it seems like we are stuck with them, as much as the Conchs are stuck with us, the seekers of a modicum of island time in an otherwise mainstream life.

I learn my island time attitude from my dog. She sleeps a lot, likes her routine and even though I'd like to think she doesn't worry I rather think she does. She was pretty stressed when I met her and I wonder how much she thinks about the way things were versus the way they are. Nowadays she eats like a horse, sleeps like a dead dog, and is always ready for a walk. I don't know for sure about her stress levels but being with her for sure reduces mine.

Island time ends when work time begins. For some it's after a week or two, for others it's after a weekend.

Island time as an excuse for being late aggravates me. Island time as in taking the time to enjoy the beauty in the world around us is something completely different.

Island time. What a concept. What a reality.

 

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Lunch Break

I have been trying to adapt to getting up to the merry sound of an alarm clock waking me before dawn every work morning. It's not easy even though the pre-dawn ride into work is fun as there is very little traffic on the highway at five in the morning. By the middle of the day I am ready to get out of the dispatch center and enjoy some of that sun and air I can see through the office windows.

I am reading an omnibus edition of three Aurelio Zen mysteries by the late Michael Dibden, who wrote a series of novels about an Italian detective working in late 20th century Italy. The English author has captured the feel and politics of the country like none other, and I really enjoy the travel stories combined with the murder mysteries. So I chose a picnic table at Rest Beach to sit in the shade, breathe fresh sea air and read my book. Except people kept passing by and distracting me.

Rest Beach is next to Higgs Beach on the south side of the island, thus it's a fair distance from Duval Street, and only the hardiest visitors make it out here. That it's not far from Sandy's Café and all those Cuban coffees and sandwiches can be an advantage or not depending on your ability to resist caloric temptation.

Rest Beach technically isn't named for putting your feet up. It's named, of course, for a local notable, but what the guide books will tell is this place used to be a slaughter beach. The cows which were kept on neighboring Stock Island were brought here by boat and sent to their reward so islanders could eat beef (we'll skip the gory details). The guide books will also tell you people find bovine jawbones on the beach as a souvenir of times past. I think that's rubbish by now. If anyone could find a semi-submerged jawbone it would be my constant companion, but Cheyenne has never settled into the dead seagrass to gnaw happily on a bone from along dead cow. That piece of history is history.

The Rest Beach story is a bit like the wild chickens of Key West story. They say the chickens are descended from fighting cocks brought from Cuba. Which begs the question: how did they reproduce and become the citywide plague they are today?

These are imponderable mysteries and far too complicated to unravel on a mere lunch break. Back to work for me. My wife sent me a picture on Sunday when I was at work and she wasn't. Apparently Cheyenne spends her lunch break quite differently from me.

I don't wish I was a dog. Cheyenne spent 8 years being unhappy for no fault of her own. It's a bit different now but she was just got lucky two thirds into her blameless life. Every day I feel lucky I know her.

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The People Of Duval

I have said the streets of Key West tend to empty out in August after family summer vacations end, but that is not to say Duval Street is completely empty.

By winter standards when most people see this famous street these crowds are pretty thin. People have time and space to check street side menus and coming attraction boards:

Lunchtime in the Bull has seating to spare...

...and there's plenty of room on the sun drenched Conch Tour Trains:

I was intrigued by this couple taking their pictures with their backs to the iconic landmark. I actually posted this picture on Facebook where GarytheTourist immediately noted the irony.

I hear people say it's "too hot to ride" a phrase that fills me with wonder. Sometimes it's too hot to ride comfortably but that is an entirely different thing.

Key West is where people ride two wheels to get around, usually rented wheels, bicycles or scooters, and they go home and resume maneuvering their tanks around town and forget the joy of freedom.

I have had a Young Person explain the concept of Coyote Ugly bars which started in New York where being rude is de rigeur because Coyote Ugly was where the schtick was for employees to be rude to patrons. It's surviving in Key West where it adds nothing much to my quality of life. Nor does it detract either.

People watching; I do it walking while some do it seated.

Water adventures on a 90 degree afternoon sound good.

Not too many people to watch just now.

Lots of time to pause and catch up. 23,000 people on a four mile island have lots to talk about.

have you noticed how people attract people? One stops to look, which doubles and two are stationary then four and pretty soon Conchscooter is at the back craning to see what's what.

This is a permanent display offering raffle tickets for a classic car or a Harley Davidson I believe in an effort to somehow reduce drunk driving. The offer is real, one of my colleagues was once the proud winner of the motorcycle.

Sun worship has its side effects. I'm not sure the picture captures the full leathery effect. He looked like a turtle without its shell, God knows what it feels like to have skin like parchment.

Studying the map, rubbing over-heated feet, a typical day's walk on Duval in August.

I went back to work. Day time is not my favorite time to be working but it does have its advantages for photography. I will do this again.

 

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