All Is Lost

I went to see All Is Lost earlier this week at the Tropic Cinema and I went with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity. I'd seen the trailer a few times and I was curious to see if he survives his sailboat sinking under him - the trailer suggests not. I was also curious to see how well a sailing movie would depict the dark art of crossing water under sail. There was also some trepidation because a) I wasn't sure the movie could hold my interest and b) if it was any good would I get flashbacks to when I had my own problems at sea? Judging by early reviews in the respected West Coast Sailing Magazine Latitude 38 the movie sucks:

 

 

From this website http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/LectronicLat.lasso we get this review:

 

November 4, 2013 – Movie Theaters Everywhere

 

Well, shucks. Hollywood has the chance to really represent sailing accurately — relatively speaking, of course — and it appears they dropped the ball . . . yet again. The debacle that was The Perfect Storm or even the ridiculous 'rescue' scene in Dead Calm were painful enough but now we have another epic fail to add to the list. We have yet to watch the film for ourselves, but reports from sailors are flooding in about Robert Redford's 'tour de force' performance in All is Lost and the reviews aren't favorable.

 

**SPOILER ALERT**

The one-man show that boast a grand total of approximately three words follows the harrowing trials of a sailor whose boat sinks out from under him in the Indian Ocean. The trailers looked exciting and passably accurate but we're told the rest of the film is a disappointment. "From the moment his boat gets rammed by the free-floating container to the last scene where he decides it would be a good idea to start a bonfire in his WWII-vintage rubber liferaft to create a signal fire," writes Corte Madera's Linda Muñoz, "anyone who has ever gone on a Bay cruise on pretty much any type of vessel would agree that you don't want to go sailing with this guy. He's only adrift for eight days and barely has any food, almost no water, no PFD or lifesaving suit, no GPS or radio, and no flare gun. Redford does his best but unfortunately, the massive number of inaccuracies and unbelievable situations ruins the movie for anyone who has sailed."

 

 

Hugo Landecker, who sails his Westsail 32 Alexander out of San Rafael, agrees with Linda. "There were so many mistakes in this film but I didn't have a pencil and paper to record the countless errors. He made navigating with a sextant look so easy! Just wave it at the horizon and voila! You have a plot fix on the chart! There were so many inaccuracies that this serious 'thriller' turned into a comedy for me. My poor wife's arm was bruised by the time the movie was over for all the times I nudged her when there was a mistake. I'm sure non-boaters would enjoy the drama, but after seeing this film, they'll never get on anything resembling a watercraft."

We'd been looking forward to seeing All is Lost on the big screen but after hearing these dismal reviews, we'll just add it to our Netflix queue and pop Captain Ron into the DVD player. It may not be that much more accurate but at least it was meant to make us laugh

- latitude / ladonna

 

 

I am very fond of Latitude 38, the best boating magazine anywhere, and when I used to live aboard and sail Northern California, Latitude 38 was the monthly required read. This was before the advent of the Internet yet even in this electronic era the free monthly paper magazine seems to be flourishing. Having said that, I must respectfully disagree with the sailors' comments above. I lived aboard and sailed for a decade, and I in fact sailed to Key West from San Francisco at the turn of the century taking nearly two years to sail to Panama and up the Caribbean side. That was where I met my own couple of storms whose memory this movie so powerfully evoked.

 

 

Personally I was astonished by the power and effectiveness of this film and it was in my opinion the best I have ever seen about the sailing life. Let's not forget it is a movie and film makers have to make artistic compromises one way and another so to expect absolute authenticity is unrealistic and, excuse me, a little bit stupid or naïve. Frankly I think sailors are showing off if they want to nit pick publicly about the movie's sailing shortcomings. Robert Redford's unnamed sailor hits a floating container in the middle of the Indian Ocean in a flat calm and he methodically sets about fixing the hole in his boat's hull and trying to repair his radio. The sailor is as calm as the ocean he is floating on but, like the biblical Job, one thing after another goes wrong. It's often said among sailors that one failure will lead to the next and this sailor has clearly pissed off all the gods within range because he gets no breaks. Silently and efficiently he responds to everything that goes wrong with a measured and planned response. It is a mesmerizing performance especially as there are but three pieces of dialogue throughout the almost two hour movie. First, as a voice over, he reads his goodbye letter to his family ending with the haunting phrase "all is lost" and then in flashback the whole nightmarish eight days unravel. During that part of the movie the sailor tries calling on the radio till it dies definitively and the final moment of dialogue comes when he screams a long drawn out curse as he discovers his fresh water supply is tainted with seawater. That's all the dialogue there is and yet the movie is totally absorbing, riveting and the pace never flags.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are a sailor and go into this movie looking for nits to pick you will find them. I got completely lost in the story and I had no time to see any of them. I loved how the sailor's boat and equipment was worn and actually looked used. He was a perfectly middle class average sailor just like any of us and suddenly "all is lost." I thought it was a fabulously absorbing drama all the way through. I guess there are a lot of sailors in Key West, or perhaps Robert Redford still has magnetic movie star powers because the theater was almost full when I went to see the film. I'm very glad I did as I cannot get the story out of my head. You should go too whether or not you know how to sail. This film will reward you and put you off sailing!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Let It Snow In Key West

Winter has beset Key West, the first real cold front of winter is upon us. Nighttime temperatures almost hit sixty degrees and daytime highs yesterday barely reached seventy. Quite a few people were wearing long pants and jackets around town during my afternoon lunch break from work.

Thanksgiving had its own neutralizing effect on the city. Sandy's 24 hour Cuban cafe was closed though Andrea snuck down there before the three pm closing time and brought reviving con leches to the communications center. The rolled down white door is a sight rarely seen on White Street.

It was generally a gray day yesterday, reminiscent of California's summer time marine inversion when cold sea air mixes with warm desert air and the day disappears behind a gray wooly blanket. Colors were muted, an unnatural condition in Key West. It wasn't actually snowing but it felt like it should have been.

People from Up North take great pleasure in mocking us for our inability to cope with temperatures below seventy degrees. All I can tell you is anyone who has felt cool temperatures in Key West will tell you they have never before felt so cold and damp at that temperature, whatever it may be.

The lowest temperature recorded in Key West was 41 degrees and I have seen 42 official degrees in town and it seemed frigid. Snow has been seen, feeble enough and momentary in Miami. But frost has never been seen in Key West. Winter temperatures in Northern Florida can dip to freezing, but down here never.

And just as well as the city is poorly equipped to cope with cold. Few homes have heat, fewer residents have much in the way of warm clothing, as I shall show when a strong cold front hits and weird pathetic scarecrows take to the outdoors in whatever woolen scraps they may have. Life on a boat can be frigid lacking proper equipment.

I take pleasure in the first drops in temperature that break the cloying heat of summer. Yet I soon tire of the cold.

I was astonished by the large crowds lined up for a "sunset" cruise on such an overcast blusterous day as was yesterday. On the water, the chill is even colder. I wonder if the tourists were aware of that?

Waterfront dining at Conch Republic Seafood is usually an open air affair, but when needed they can close off diners from the cold.

I expect the sunset cruisers were having fun out there. They probably saw an iceberg or two.

You might be forgiven for thinking that Kermit's Key Lime place on Elizabeth Street had snow shutters, but it was just styrofoam ably camouflaged.

What an odd sentiment to use for advertising I thought as I strolled by. I expect it works as I know nothing of business.

Every time I walk downtown and I see cruise ships towering over our little town I wonder how our leaders could imagine that vessels even larger admitted to our docks could benefit this modest island.

And now Thanksgiving is past and so it is on to the next holiday, Hanukkah for my wife and her people, Kwanzaa for African Americans, Christmas for Christians, and shopping wildly for everyone else.

For me, lacking as I do any belief in anything I cannot see or touch, I now face the long dark winter lived Up North, thrusting people down here to find sunshine, a fact that needs no belief, and I am not even a shopper. Soon I shall start to look forward to summer's heat and peace and quiet, even though tomorrow it should be close to 80 degrees, sunny and properly pleasant once again. Cold and gray is all very well, but the sooner the sun returns the better. Enjoy your seasons Up North.

Key West on Dwellable

}

 

Posted with Blogsy

Thanks Be To All, And An Alligator

Call it irony but the Florida Keys this week are being ravaged by a solid cold front bringing rain, high winds and night time temperatures close to sixty degrees as we celebrate The Fall Holiday. What the hell I thought, I've got lots to be glad about so I assembled a few pictures from my store of who knows how many pictures in my picasa files and figured I could share these with those of you sneaking away from family gatherings to consider how life might be in Key West today. Pretty much like it is wherever you are I guess.

Cheyenne is in the Florida Panhandle with my wife so the home has been empty all week which has been rather weird. My wife and I communicate because we are human and we made the decision for her to go and be with friends; Cheyenne, who cannot talk or text, just saw me drive away after I dropped her off with my wife for the trip Up North. I've said plenty about Cheyenne on this page so let me just say she is doing well despite my benign neglect that shocks the more attentive dog owners in our stress filled world, and remember she came from the pound because someone else didn't want her. Why buy a dog when you get lovely animals for close to free from your local shelter? Does Cheyenne look like damaged goods to you?

Even in the Keys, even here life is a bunch of compromises and though I get to ride every day the ride is a trifle limited. One highway, flat straight and unvarying so I do my daily riding here and take to the road for mountains purple majesty whenever I can. I'm grateful for my sister in law in Asheville home to many winding roads, and my great rides last September in the Dolomites. This time of year all those lucky sods who get to ride in the most beautiful places all summer long have to put their machines away. I don't. I like riding even during the rain or a cold front. And I'm not alone on the road at least when the sun is shining.

I am not fussy either, I like riding slowly and I like riding fast and I even enjoy riding my wife's scooter, as I wait for my own P200 to come home from the restorer's shop. Gratitude to my wife for indulging my absurd nostalgic two stroke desire when she lets me ride her more modern Vespa as I please:

Sand sun and gentle ocean swells are the chamber of commerce view of life in the Keys. Throw in lots of alcohol and the sybaritic eating out lifestyle and you have nothing that remotely resembles daily living in the Keys. Funny that, life here doesn't live up to the sales image.

However let me point out that life is good here in the Lower Keys, it just isn't what you think it is. It's a mixture of work, always important if you don't have a private income, and time to yourself. Work is tough because this is a tourist economy and jobs aren't careers. Careers in the Keys are already taken by people who grew up here or got here before you did. How I found the best job of my life in Key West I cannot rightly say, but I work for the government which is the only other option in the Keys. If you're a welder you could open a welding shop...but then you come up against the high cost of living and cut throat competition from established business. Low quality housing, high rents and out of town millionaires buying up the best housing stock is not a pretty picture if you live in a McMansion Up North and want to trade snowdrifts for this:

The great thing about Key West is not just the waters but it's also the resources in town. It's a by product of the weather but in winter poets and musicians and actors and artists like to get a paid vacation in the sun and the city bustles with cultural events. The seasons here are marked as much by the tenor of public events as much as by the changes in temperature.

Our jobs have turned into a source of pleasure and accomplishment in our lives. It's not that work has taken us over but my wife loves her new adult education job and her boss seems to value her. My boss values me and for the first time in my life I have no desire to quit and move on. Next year marks ten years at the police department. How lucky is that?

We are both grateful for our union membership, health insurance, defined benefit pension plans and the prospect of social security and Medicare (single payer, finally! Ten more years!) if the one percent don't manage to steal that too. I have positioned myself as well as I can with a job that I hope can never be outsourced to India...

In my job you hear people being profoundly nasty, the inhumanity of humanity is in evidence in 911 calls, believe me. And then I remember how lucky I am. I send them help, no matter how nasty they are, and I get to ride home to my real life. And when I'm out and about I see all those people who didn't curse at me last night living lives like mine, meditating on the value of the timeless simple things in life.

I am grateful for the flat waters and astonishing seascapes I see every day in these islands, colors and shapes that most people in our high stress society get to see on magazine covers.

For your amusement I include a picture of everyone's favorite fearsome Keys dinosaur. You'd be astonished how many people live in fear of snakes sharks and alligators, monsters under the bed, an attempt to make the excessively civilized little islands grow in stature by virtue of their danger. People constantly warn me of the danger of rattlesnakes when out walking Cheyenne but they are simply story tellers as their fears keep them far from the dangers of which they speak. That snakes exist there is no doubt but of all the predators in these islands humans are the most rapacious.

But food for humans is better when prepared in. A coffee shop...When I first encountered Caribbean food I was surprised by the lack of flavor in Latino countries, simple meat rice and beans and not much flavoring the way Mexicans cook by contrast. British Caribbean countries used curry and fried pastry in a creditable imitation of being stuck in the 1950s. Cuban food in Key West is full of fat sugar and salt and caffeine. What's not to like? I'm grateful this tiny town turns it out by the ton. I live here so I can only eat it sparingly but here it is and I am grateful for it:

I get to live where other people want to vacation. I know, everyone hates tourists, but these people bring the money that fuels the city. Tourism has changed since the crash, and that was inevitable. Tourists are older, more respectable and employed. Everyone else gets to stay home. Thank your corporate bankers and their derivatives. I miss the good old days of wild spending and optimism as grateful as I am for my job and my small place in this society. The benefit of the graying of tourism is there are fewer drunks being rowdy around the city of a winter's night, but the trickle down effect is trickling less abundantly.

When you live in the Keys one thing that gets confusing is how much seasons Up North change. In the Keys in winter cool weather and rain come and go and t-shirts remain the informal wear of the vacationer. We know its cold Up North because more people show up on Duval Street suddenly. People make fun of us because we say that sixty degrees is cold. It is cold here and if you are ever here when a cold sea breeze is blowing and the air is damp and you have no heat in your room you will feel cold. I've seen it happen over and over again. People from Up North look surprised and say, hmm it does feel colder than sixty degrees does at home.

Key West is also home to gross bad taste. It gets tiring watching people let everything, literally, hang out, but like getting yelled at on the 911 line observing this side of human nature reminds me to be grateful that I live here. Diversity is a pain in the ass, let's face it, learning to cope with other people's quirks and absurd beliefs, but the fact is my firm conviction looks like a nutty belief to you, and because we live in a nation built on a set of laws, not a common culture, we have to learn to get along. And Key West is a great place to learn the lessons of tolerance. If this guy walked your Main Street dressed like this would he draw no attention at all?

I like seeing mountains and I like riding them but sea level is where I feel best. I hear people remark that dry heat is better than high humidity, but I know the feeling of straw like hair and brittle finger nails in the dry air of the mountains. I loved riding up to Passo Giau last September, huge gratitude, but when the time comes to get home to sea level I feel no lingering regret.

Unlike Italy, which abides by EU requirements, I like having the choice to ride without a helmet and I treasure this Florida choice, the only thing that makes me remotely grateful to Republicans. I wear it most of the time but sometimes I don't. I grow weary of the need for absolutes in a world which is ruled by uncertainty and I would rather choose for myself. Whe. I remember reading a comment by a scooter rider who was toying with the idea of coming to Key West and renting a scooter to add to her life experiences but was out off by fear of looking weird wearing riding gear in a town where such behavior is hardly ever indulged. It seemed such an odd position to take I have never quite forgot the story.

I am grateful for the chance to do something good with this stupid blog. I get messages from people trapped just like me by the spiraling failures of our New World Economic Order except they aren't here and wish they were. I have gone out of my way not to sell out, not to pander and not to talk down to anyone who reads this page. The one time I was persuaded to change I found myself in a strait jacket. Never again. Writing my daily essays is not an act of pure altruism, it benefits me to record my days, to express myself and to have this electronic page on which to do it. Ah gratitude, you start to bore me so let us end it here.

Happy Thanksgiving wherever you and your dog and your motorcycle may be.

Live every day as though it were your last for one day you are sure to be right.

Key West on Dwellable

}

Posted with Blogsy

Key West Homes

Real estate in the Keys is supposedly getting more expensive again. One can only wonder about such "news" considering how well packaged information is all around us. I saw this façade held in place to create an illusion of restoration for a house which will be, to all intents and purposes new.

Key West has lived through uncountable cycles of boom and bust since it was formally founded in 1828 and the story is told of how in the Great Depression a plan was mooted to give up and evacuate the islands where eighty percent of the population was "on relief." Since the 1960s when the Navy cut back and the city plunged into another depression, real estate has fueled a rise in the city's fortunes, and tourism has created a web of connected jobs and business and attractiveness.

A small sub tropical island filled with exotic vegetation, a large collection of preserved wooden homes and a near perfect winter climate has to attract people with money. I believe modern communications have enabled the continuous interest in this little town in the Gulf Stream. If you read the hundred year old newspapers when the railroad came to town you will read comments opposing the railroad connection as it would change the fundamental isolation of the island, for the worse they feared.

Prior to Flagler's railroad arriving in January 1912 you could take a boat out of Key West or drive a winding dirt road and a collection of wooden bridges and take two long ferry rides, a very long all day affair to get to Homestead if you even had such an exotic thing as an automobile. The train took seven easy hours to get to Miami in comfort for anyone with the modest price of a ticket. I'd say things changed a bit in sleepy Key West!

When I first came here it took five hours on my Vespa to ride the old two lane highway built in 1938 on the old railroad bed and bridges. In 1981 Key West was the back of beyond. The internet brings the world to one's door for business and pleasure. Satellites brought TV for those that watch the infernal box, and a new modern highway built in 1982 puts Key West within three hours of Miami for a determined attentive driver who knows the road. Modern planes fly in and out despite the short runway and mail and package services offer overnight delivery even from here, on the fringes of reality. To live in the Lower Keys today is to be integrated into the electronic world of North America. You can run your business from a winter porch here as well as you can from Up North. Most of the time anyway; sometimes lack of reality intrudes long enough to make type A people a little frustrated!

Gay men were attracted to a navy town in the fifties when the love that dare not speak its name needed outlets out of the mainstream of public consciousness. That period led to an appreciation of the physical beauty of the crumbling Old Town. Conchs were delighted to sell up and buy modern comfort in ranchers in New Town. The era of openly gay Key West was born, but the beautification of Key West pulled in straight money too. Nowadays Key West is pricing itself out of the Youth market, gay or straight. Old white people with money can still afford million dollar part time cottages and they come in droves now, making winter time Key West resemble Boca Raton and Royal Palm Beach more than one might like.

Soon the empty palace shown below will reopen for a few blessedly short weeks, the car will be uncovered and part two of the well heeled life will resume for the coldest months. This is not the Bohemian craziness of literature that intrigues the modern day visitor, the seekers of an alternative life style fueled by Art and alcohol and student digs and altered consciousness seeking a new and better way to reinvent the wheel. Key West today demands a well regulated life for long term working class residence.

If I were young I'd still choose California as I did 30 years ago, the Golden State still leads the world in innovation and youthful energy. Perhaps I might prefer a center of exuberant study, Austin with its amazing music scene and oil endowed university, or New Orleans and it's truly particular culture, or Boulder and it's Great Outdoors, or New York for true lack of affordability combined with excitement and opportunity. Key West simply costs too much and offers too little to the young and ambitious.

Key West still attracts young people of course, but the restless kind seeking a break from reality, sailors and bar staff, a nice break year, safe in the US making a small living instead of hiking the Andes or taking trains round Europe.

I think I have one of the best jobs going in Key West and clearly I am not alone. Our turn over rate has pretty much stopped as no other work offers the combination of pay and benefits of police dispatch a high stress job in a town determined to be laid back. Of course not many people can work in a 911 center it turns out, it takes peculiar talent apparently, but I am the oldest dispatcher at 56, the other dozen employees range from 45 to 25 roughly, and our latest trainee is in her 30s married no children and shocked by the high cost of living compared to life in Chicago. The youngsters mostly have family support in town but overtime is highly sought out to support life in Key West.

My own love affair with Key West has been been one of those slow fuse entanglements that has grown on me. For a lot of people one visit ignites a desire to live here that will not be denied whether or not it is ever fulfilled. For my wife and I settling in Key West was a long drawn out decision, as my wife had deep roots in California and I too had found a decent life in Santa Cruz, a town that in those distant days was more weird and more stimulating than most, so a move to Key West was not made in an effort to escape boredom. We sailed into town tired after two years traveling with a need to make money and a desire to return overland to the Golden State whence we had set out on our catamaran.

But we landed here in the boom years and jobs were abundant, optimism was burning up the city and yes, the weather was delightful! My wife the attorney had always wanted to try teaching and so desperate were they in Key West for a professional willing to trade affordable living for good weather she grabbed a job, her arthritis hurt less and we sold our California home. Now we live in a millionaire's playground and gentrification has left us working people far behind. Wealth inequality in the US is real and growing and affecting all of us, though we pretend to ignore it.

You know Key West is special because the more you try to define its charms the further they skip away. Climate change is finally being taken seriously by some radical types like scientists who suggest most of the Keys could be drowned in fifty years. Not surprisingly in our short term culture the idea that sea levels may rise mightily in a few decades is pretty much ignored in daily life here. Sure, we make uncomfortable jokes about rising seas but real life goes on. And helicopters will lift the part timers out of here at the last minute and take them to their compounds on higher ground. Gentrification continues of course along with the graying of a funky little seaside town with perfect winter weather, lovely architecture and astronomical prices.

Key West on Dwellable

}

Posted with Blogsy