An American Street

"The Americans" was a photography book published in 1958  by the photographer Robert Frank who died recently and has thus launched attention on his life's work with a camera. Wikipedia repeats the frequently made assertion that Frank struck an hisotric note with his photos taken across the country, apparently at random. The Americans was a seminal work as they say which Wikipedia says ".., earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society." 

Of course I wouldn't dare compare my modest pictures of my home town to anything as seminal as a de Tocqueville circling photographer, but over the past dozen years I've collected quite a lot of pictures from around here. And though lots of them are crap and others aren't brilliant and early digital cameras were pretty peculiar I still enjoy wandering and taking pictures.

Key West has so much stuff to look at, small street side stuff of no consequence and yet in the end I see the consequence of all these nooks and crannies and they make up an interesting town. Oh by the way the picture below was a little joke. They all say "...of the dog." So I wanted to leave a little doubt about this one. It was of the dog in this case too, I confess.

This one put me in mind of a recent auction extravaganza:

David Hockney's picture of a swimming pool rendered in rather simple lines and colors was sold for better than 90 million dollars. The sort of money that would go a long way to restoring Great Abaco which is getting about five million dollars so far for their  Hurricane Dorian difficulties.

Angela Street alongside the cemetery. September is the quietest month in Key West. Eateries close and European visitors don't make up in numbers for the crowds who show up in winter. Like they say you can shoot a cannon around here and not hit anyone.

Bicycles in color...

And in Robert Frank moody black and white.

Catholic Lane in glorious sunshine.  It's so named as it is placed about the height of the Catholic section in the cemetery. 

Shade and sky and white clouds: that's September in Key West when the rest of the country is watching the leaves change color.

I stood in the shade feeling the breeze and taking pictures of the still life:

And this? I have no idea. Perhaps a new way to reserve a parking space for all I know.

September Walk

It was a breezy day and naturally the palm fronds would cooperate as I stood hunched up trying to get the camera and motorcycle and palm in one spot all properly lined up. The good news is I can stand hunched these days something I wasn't sure would happen again as I lay in my hospital bed this time last year. I wanted to call it Tropical Harley and so I did. It's an older model Harley Davidson Road King I've seen parked around town, well used.

The black arrow pointing across the street straight at the opposite corner. This one took an age too with bicycles scooters and cars ruining the effect by having the temerity to actually drive down Southard Street!  

It was a hot day mitigated by a  strong east wind created by the latest tropical depression in the Caribbean. They come and go and sound frequently more fearsome than they are, and instead of wreaking wholesale destruction they drop rain after wind and move on. But the pre- strom front breeze is often delightful.

I saw a poinciana tree still blooming on Southard Street and it looked lovely. The twenty mile an hour speed limit looks idiotic but that's because I pay attention when I drive, but I suppose the theory is that those who text and drive or drive without seat belts will do less damage if they are trundling at wheelbarrow speeds.

Breezy  yes but still hot.

Sometimes people like to "reserve their spots" in front of their homes so they fill the space with garbage cans or scooters or anything that comes to hand. While a garbage can isn't legal; a scooter is, though it is still pretty cheesy. If you live in Key West parking in front of your house is a remote possibility. I'm glad to see electric scooters gaining acceptance though. 

Shadow art. Pretty slick huh?

Flower art. Not as slick but fun to stop and struggle to photograph. I have to use manual focus to get this close in, and manual focus in 100% humidity ends to produce sufficient concentration to fog up the viewfinder. I think I nailed this one though:

White picket fences: the all American town. Southard Street toward Duval:

Southard Street toward White Street. What a pretty town.

Olga Manosalvas

 The Museum of Art and History in the Custom House has put on one hell of a show!  Apparently this prolific yet private artist has a second show underway on Stock Island's Front Street at Key West Gallery. 

She has reportedly studied art in Spain and whatever it was they taught her she doesn't hold back. This was quite the juxtaposition to the genteel water colors showing down the hall.

 From the museum's literature:

Olga Manosalvas is a polyglot, of sorts.

Take a trip through her work and you’ll see that she speaks multiple languages through well-defined explorations, artistic styles and mediums.

Her obra de mano, or handmade work, reveals her divergent paths, observations and tics. Olga’s work is a garrison of grotesques, saints, sinners and bawling babies. No one is left untouched — characters pulled from the commedia dell’arte, zaftig cubanas and brasileiras, indigenous madres latinas.

Olga resurrects images seared into her primordial (and to family members, frighteningly accurate) memory. She harnesses found objects and bends them to her creative will. She breathes life into a menagerie of fantastic creatures created from insanely detailed, embroidered fabrics, dressed over crimped wire.

Art is not just a vocation or calling. For Olga it’s her diet, her nutrition. As with her artwork, a simple meal prepared by Olga turns into an exploration of alchemical herbs and ingredients, resulting in something you may have dreamed of, but never before tasted. A stroll to the market becomes a moving meditation, a pilgrimage. She logs a million artistic Fitbit miles in everything she does, transforming quotidian chores into exquisite and finely attuned daily rituals.

Alonzo's Updated

When asked I replyme preferred place to eat fish is at Alonzo's on the boardwalk in Key West Bight. 

I was not alone in that preference as thay had a loyal following. I use the past tense advisedly as they are not currently open and mussels - alive! alive oh! - must be pursued elsewhere.  

It's proper name is Alonzo's Oyster Bar and they offer live oysters from all over the place as the modern fashion will have it. I am not a fan of eating live snot balls, thanks and I limit myself to my general principle that if I go out to eat I expect the chef to have applied heat to the stuff. Cooked not raw is my motto. 

 Apparently Alonzo Cothron and Berlin Felton decided they need a waterfront fish house in 1947 and in those days the fishing fleet tied up in Key West Bight so this was the obvious spot.  From the Florida State Archive this picture of the "good old days:"

I ambled by a few days ago and wasn't I surprised to find the place torn up. Give them credit, considering they were founded in 1947... a freshen up was probably in order. Mind you it was pretty nice by my estimation before it got cleaned up. 

 If you want oysters they are still available round the corner.

 As the work continues inside.

 And there is a crane out front tearing up the docks near the Conch Republic Seafood restaurant.  So much so they put in a  detour round the back which was a different way to walk. Small changes in routine amuse me. Which is just as well as I'm working day shift  now and I sleep at  night like a normal person. That's taking some getting used to but I'll manage.

I included a picture of the Galleon Resort across the way just because...The Bight waterfront is owned by the city which leases the land to the businesses. There is a city board to regulate the rents and I have to say it is a brilliant plan as the city pulls in rent every year and the area is vibrant and busy and a great attraction. Even with marinas filled with recreational boats rather than more colorful working shrimp boats which have moved to Stock Island.

And here they are lining up for the Ultimate Controlled Adventure on a giant catamaran known in the trade as a "head boat" - because they carry many heads and they count heads before they come back to the dock. Leaving customers floating around at dive sites all night is bad for business.  So make sure your head gets counted if you take a trip on one of these boats. They are low key and people enjoy them I'm told. In my world the Ultimate anything is the final or last one. I trust it wasn't for this crowd.

Overlanding

When I told my friend Webb Chiles that Layne and I were planning to start our retirement in three years in a camper van, he said thoughtfully " I could live easily in something like that." He is the man who has sailed around the world in a boat almost the size of a conversion van so when he looked at the plans and said he could live like that I believed him. Our modest van will have amenity such as he will never have in Gannet, his world girdling Moore 24 which is three feet longer than our mere 21 foot Promaster van.

Webb gets it and when I see him in Chicago this weekend I am sure we will have a laugh together at how much amenity my Promaster 3500 will be lugging around the world for us compared to his tiny little boat. But for other people of my acquaintance the idea of cramming two lives into a small space has the air of deprivation that they could not stand. My wife and I have talked about it and she is totally enthusiastic, just as she was when we lived and traveled on a sailboat  together twenty years ago. She's ready to go again. But we both agreed a van would work better this time as we want to see more of the land cultures and I don't want to worry about my dog as we travel. Taking a dog on a sailboat journey requires massive amounts of time and effort to exercise the poor creature on the land and give it the chance to stretch its legs and mind. A van require simply opening the door...to get "ashore." Much easier!

So when I published the picture above I started to get all sorts of messages referring to Van Life, the faddish lifestyle hashtag now populating social media. I have to say I am puzzled, especially as the tone of the articles is always negative, on the order of "You Don't Know What You Are Getting Into." Which I suppose could be fair enough if you didn't know my history but anyone who knows me knows I am used to traveling by the seat of my pants. I have motorcycled in many strange places around the world and after I got married my other preferred means of locomotion, a sailboat seemed the best compromise to seek adventure together.

Van life as conceived by social media is something completely different from the journey we have envisioned. As in this article, somewhat tongue in cheek from Overland Outbound:

"Go ahead and do a search for the #vanlife hashtag on Instagram. I’ll wait. There you will be regaled with photos of beautiful people in front of their beautiful converted vans. Waterfalls flowing in the background, their perfectly tanned bikini bodies glistening in an eternally-glowing golden-hour. The text below the photo contains some inspirational pontification about living your life to the fullest, while the sly smiles on their faces hint that they might just have found the fountain of youth and secret to eternal happiness."

Let me put it this way: if anything about the above paragraph puts you in mind of myself and my wife perhaps you are not where you think you ought to be on your Internet search. While I appreciate the awful warnings the firmly settled people are sending to me I am looking forward very much to returning to being a nomad. By my traveling standards the van we are having built for us by Custom Coach Creations in Deland, Florida is going to be a very comfortable home on wheels. It will be 6 feet wide and twelve feet long with ample headroom but there is nothing about it that speaks to me of deprivation. Not my build but we will be getting something like this next year:

There is the predictable backlash against what was a trending phenomenon and now the press is hounding the Van Life thing as undesirable. If you, young person think you can avoid your responsibilities to get into debt and settle down think again. Van Life Sucks. It requires you to manage your own life or as we see here in the case of one poorly prepared Van Lifer:

 “We started to see people post things about safety, and that you need to have mace or a gun, and if you have a gun you can’t carry [it] across state lines,” she said. “That started to really spook me, especially traveling with a young girl, our little daughter.”

Even if an emergency situation were unlikely, it still “spooked” her, Lisa said.

Then she started thinking about the time of year. “I like to be comfortable,” she said. “If we’re going to stay in this van, how am I going to sleep when it’s June? I don’t care if we’re in Lancaster — no matter where you are, it’s hot.”

Suddenly, she found herself looking into the cost of campgrounds. With electricity and water hookups, some of them were almost as costly as hotels, creeping up to $50 or $60 a night, she said. Plus, they’d have to pay for gas to put into Van Halen along the way.

“When I added all those costs up, it was cheaper to fly,” Lisa said.

I guess I find myself taken aback by anyone who would imagine that I follow fashions or fads. I haven't yet and I don't propose to start now that I am 61. I guess the best I can tell you is that for a while, and I don't know how long that may be, my stories and photos will be from somewhere else unfettered by the need to be diplomatic or to protect my job status, and when we do return to Key West I see us choosing to live out our years on a boat. My dream would be to have a low cost simple (always simple!) retirement home afloat, a single engine trawler, with which we could cruise the Bahamas, go swimming and live on the margins of society with our world girdling van in the parking lot to use for trips on land. But the joy of my life is not knowing for sure what comes next.  This was our Gemini catamaran anchored in Pebble Beach Cove California at the start of our two year trip to Key West, Florida, 6,000 miles away.

My wife and I have spent the past two decades conforming, working, saving our pensions and planning to retire self sufficient and with dignity, but neither of us has forgotten our youth, so travels with adventure and uncertainty beckon. It may be that we have to change our plans, that van life does suck even as envisioned by us but what we want to achieve, in any form, are a  few mind altering experiences before our inevitable deaths. The point is as Webb Chiles has said more than once, for the artist to go to the edge of human experience and send back reports. You don't have to leave your armchair to go along for the ride. But for those of us that crave the journey, 20 years of being settled and sensible is enough. I'll write the reports, right here.

One friend of mine said to me that at least we have Rusty, as he will protect us from all the evildoers we will meet along the way. I rather expect to meet interesting kind and thoughtful people along the way. I'll leave the evildoers where they are now, in the streets and neighborhoods of the big cities where cruelty and alienation allow them to rule the roost. I have sunsets to see and hikes to hike in the back of beyond from my cramped unsanitary home on wheels.

For a  taste of what I mean look at this article based on buying a large RV and trying to live in it as though it were a fixed in place home. None of this article makes much sense to me but I have lived on the road and I have lived in a  home fixed in place so the disadvantages of both are readily apparent. Still for a one sided view check out this perspective from someone who has never lived on the road and is writing about financial issues not living life issues:
Yahoo Finance And RVs