I did too much.  I’m taking a break for a couple of weeks.

This is all I can think of...

Back soon with more subculture tours.

I apologize, readers; I am running way behind. This happens every season. The events of the cooler months gallop past me. I keep up for a while, but then, one little stumble — one lost afternoon when cousin Greg shows up with his wife, best friend and best friend’s wife and… well, the work I had scheduled falls behind.

Of course, this time of year, with winter blizzards and frozen floods raking the “temperate” zone, all my mid-latitude friends and family will turn up on the gangplank. So now the end of the season is looming and I’m panicked — there is so much I haven’t seen or done!

Fortunately, both the downtown theatres have another play — I haven’t even mentioned them lately. We’ll be getting to that soon.

Meanwhile, one of the most active places in town:

TSKW – Part 1
The Actual studios at The Studios of Key West

I’m curled up on a shaded wooden bench in the breezy sculpture garden of The Studios of Key West. A grey cat has consented to my presence.

Inside the landmark Armory Building, a workshop has just concluded. Lauren McAloon, facilities coordinator, is quietly, efficiently moving chairs around. Folding up the workshop tables and moving the flowers to the side. She is preparing the room for the regular Wednesday evening figure drawing session. The figure drawing session will be next week’s subculture tour.

This week I wandered through the second floor artist studios — the actual studios that give the organization its name. Director Eric Holowacz has his office up there on the south side of the building, overlooking the sculpture garden. He is looking forward to the upcoming transformation Rick Worth has planned for the office. It includes a picket fence wainscoting, a tree and some grass so the office will have the ambience of the out-of-doors. The window by his desk overlooks the sculpture garden where I am sitting with my laptop.

Lauren McAloon in her studio

In the northwest corner, McAloon shares a tiny light-filled studio with 15-year-old Jean Azard, recipient of the Budding Artist Scholarship Fund award. Manifestations of McAloon’s unusual perception of her surroundings hint at sculptures to come.

Perhaps this balmy, low humidity 74-degree sunny day under a brilliant blue sky with soft white puffy clouds makes everything seem peaceful and glorious, but the studios, strewn with tools, project parts and starts, and reference materials have a fresh, expansive feeling in spite of their small size and visual clutter.

Marc Caren was pondering recently finished work when I encountered him. Caren has been in Key West two decades and has a recognizable body of oil paintings that feature perfect drawing, and sophisticated painting techniques. The lively surface textures make his work a rich viewing experience. The colors in recent paintings are more vivid and warmer in tone than his early work.

“I had a studio on the south side of the building,” said Caren, “but the sun was always changing, creating glares and shadows. Now I have a north light studio and it’s always like this,” he said gesturing toward the soft reflected glow saturating the room.

Downstairs, Elena Devers mans the entry while quietly wreaking PR order from a chaos of materials. Always calm and always efficient, Devers is the sunny face of TSKW.

Studio residents currently include, in addition to McAloon and Caren:

writer Mark Hedden, and artists Debra Yates, Letty Nowak Peter Vey, Marky Pierson, Andy Thurber, Guillermo Orozco and Sherry Sweet Tewell.

The Studios of Key West is at the corner of Southard Street and White Street in Key West and also at: www.tskw.org.

Bonnie Hirshman bicycles to Salute for Subculture Tour #4

This  beachside shack at Higgs Beach that once was a hot dog stand is now a lively, sandy, friendly hangout run by the folks who brought you Blue Heaven, the Bahama village restaurant known for its feral chickens, among other attributes.

It has two patios so you can pretty much choose to be in the sun or in the shade or in the wind or out of the wind.  There’s also an inside with a bar if all that outdoorsy stuff is not your thing.  Big plus for bloggers — it’s a wifi hot spot.

A glass of wine and some great antipasti and you’ve got an excellent way to waste an afternoon.

The beach path skirting the patio is populated with sand-covered kids, bicycles, parents with strollers, older couples holding hands and, well, it’s a real variety.

Just across the path is the perfect sandy beach with volleyball going on during most daylight hours.

The restaurant has changed hands multiple times and almost qualifies as a “kiss of death” location– one of those places perhaps built on an indian burial ground or some other magic spot where success just isn’t possible.  Each incremental ownership improved the site, however, and now Salute seems to be thriving at the beach.

The neighborhood includes tennis courts, the Astro City playground, the dog park, the AIDS Memorial, White Street Pier, and the Garden Club.

Newcomers may wonder why the playground is called Astro City.  The climbing gym and springy ride-’em things were originally rocket themed, presumably from the Cape Canaveral ’60s era when Florida was the birthplace of Western Hemisphere space travel.

Higgs Beach is actually a county property, which has come out in the controversy over the homeless population that hangs out nearby.  Twenty years ago, it was a heavenly beach with sloping shores for toddlers to play in and a smooth sandy sea bottom good for windsurfing and Hobe catting.

The wooden pier at one time curved out offshore almost in line with the Garden Club’s West Martello Tower. In the 1970s and ’80s it was surfaced just out to the bend, then the bare pilings curved on, each a seat for cormorant, pelican or sea gull.

A huge and ancient Australian pine -- a tradition on Florida beaches.

The dock itself was(and is) a popular sunbathing handout, with steps down into the water.  Jumping off the pier into the water and slopping back up the steps was something you could do all day.

Snorkeling along the pier was rich, too.  I saw my first moray there one sunburned afternoon.

The click of dominoes was the sound track for the big round pavilions, when I first arrived in 1976,  The local latinos gathered there to match dots and pass the time.  The pavilions are shady and surprising cool, and if there is a breeze, you’ll feel it. Picnic tables were the fashion, but my memory also sees card tables and chairs brought from home.

Unfortunately, now, any comfortable accessories have been removed to deter homeless encampments.  In addition, the sea water tests poorly for pollution. According to CitizenJane.net, Higgs Beach was closed 91 days in 2006, second only to South Beach — the other sandy bottom beach (alas, most of our beaches are rocks, mud and clay.)  This means families don’t bring the kids down like they used to and picnics are rare.

The little concrete picnic huts used to be quite a social center.  Grills were matched with each one and locals spent evenings lazing under the huge and ancient Australian pines; kids splashed and ran and played on the swings that were right by the water and the merry-go-round near the huts.  Additional trips across the street to the jazzier Astro City spiced up the long summer evenings for the little ones — and I have to say, plenty of adults enjoyed the swings, too.

In recent years, a flock of homeless have tiptoed into one corner and make the picnic huts a shelter from their own down-’n'-out storms. They generally stay to themselves and rarely intrude on the restaurant or the volley ball or the bike path.

The unsavory nature of their presence, however, has enlivened local discussions. It IS a public beach and the public includes all sorts, but the social environment can be polluted and then the whole area could change.

Nevertheless, the glass is more than half full, Higgs Beach is a delightful spot.  The sunshine and ocean, palm trees, sea gulls, the scent of coconut oil and, near the restaurant, good food — that’s all good, very good.  A glass of chardonney, a tomato and mozzarella salad and fresh pisano bread with goat cheese makes the world look perfect.

Did I mention it’s dog- friendly and there’s ample parking?

Reen Stanhouse with nearly finished cat and rooster for the Gato Pocket Park conch house.

Iron artist Reen Stanhouse just got her studio up and running again after the 2005 hurricane season.  She crafts neo-art nouveau metal gates, stair rails and other architectural and sculptural items from music stands to elevator doors.  The concrete block studio at the “Magic Ranch” on Ramrod Key is perfect for processes that involve welding and pounding heavy objects.

After Hurricane Wilma’s storm surge, the insurance inspector looked at her numerous pieces of large, complex machinery rusted into expensive scrap from salt water flooding and queried “but I don’t see a water line.”  “That’s because you’re looking down,” Stanhouse responded.  The water line was seven feet up.

Still woodsy, the surrounding forest was thinned seriously by the summer of storms.  The Magic Ranch lost 5 mango trees, 11 royal palms, 40 pines, and all the ferns, Stanhouse reports.

Now the studio has been rewired with the electrical work up high and plans for a pulley system so the new equipment can be raised to the roof in storms.

And she’s back in business.  The studio, a former stable, has five rooms — and a project laid out in each one.  Doors open out to the trees and breeze in every room.  The walls are freshly painted bright, clean white and the Buena Vista Social Club is blaring from a sound system.

Stanhouse and Steve Schuman examine a welding point.

A drawing table in the “drawing room,” complete with an oriental carpet,  is covered with sketches on brown paper for a large gate spanning a driveway with an overhead title frame (Casa Karma) worked in a Tibetan eternity knot motif with zen grasses and design elements.

Propped everywhere are pieces half finished or waiting for the next stage of work — the final assembly or the power coating or the finish detailing.

Leaning against the wall near the drawing table is the sample piece for the recently installed elevator doors in the new Freeman Justice Center in Key West. The aluminum doors were computer etched in a design begun by Terry Thommes and completed by Stanhouse after Thommes death.  Stanhouse augmented Thommes’ mangrove concept with finely drawn keys images: an osprey nest, palms, a conch, a grouper, a turtle, a barracuda, a frangipani blossom, a roseate spoonbill, dragonflies, seagrapes (with grapes), and banana leaves.

Large drawings in the final size, are ready for a fountain project laid out on a plywood and saw-horse table in the yard.

Around the studio, rusted and sometimes antique steel artifacts are nestled among big trees and viny plants on the two-acre lot.

More projects — the Louie’s Back Yard After Deck gate, some Ocean Reef designs — wait for attention among the compressors, bins full of who knows what, wheeled carts with laser cutters, motors, monster clamps and snips, gloves, welder’s helmets, industrial boots, painting materials, anvils, and shop vacs. Plus the ride-on mower, the pressure washer and the lawn mower.

Stanhouse surveys a fountain project ready for assembly with studio visitor Steve Schuman.

Stanhouse was finishing up a cat and a rooster for the Gato pocket park conch house display that was dedicated last week.  She is also doing an 8-foot cigar with an elaborate cigar band based on historic designs used in Key West cigar factories.

Leslie at SoDu Gallery where she is a partner.

Leslie Kanter guessed where the next subculture tour is.  “IS IT OF: one of kEY WEST’S favorite Gals — Metal Sculptor , Reen Stanhouse’s studio near the Blimp up the Keys ????” she wrote.
YES, Les, that’s it!  It’s a tricky question since the studio is in a very remote area where you not only need a car, but a sturdy car, to get there.  And I would be extra cautious at high tide.

Joel Blair leads discussion at Tuesday with Art.

The first Tuesday of January I went to the Tropic Cinema at 5:30 out of curiosity.  I had gotten word of a film and discussion about kinetic “happening” artist Jean Tinguely and wondered who would turn up at such an event.Click here to see one of his sculptures in motion.

I happened to be a fan of the eccentric Swiss iconoclast who staged a Dada self-destroying sculpture presentation, Homage to New York, at the Museum of Modern Art in 1960.  However, it is a small art niche.

So I was surprised to find the small back theatre at the Tropic filled.  Sculptors, art lovers, a peculiar group of people who were as intrigued as I was about a pinnacle artist, now mostly obscure — definitely not a household name.

Subsequent Tuesdays with Art films and discussions followed the kinetic art theme to Theo Jansen (See one of his \”beasts\” here.), Dutch YouTube creator of wind propelled “beasts” and then to Tim Prentice, a Connecticut architect who designs metallic panels choreographed on air movements in ingenious repetitions that create an organic machine.See an astonishing glimpse here.

That discussion was particularly lively and included short video clips of Helen Verbanz’ motorized Seagrass sculpture at The Studios of Key West and Ralfonso, the Swiss artist who winters in Palm Beach County, FL, and brings a jarring dose of narcissism to the mix.

The free series, Tuesdays With Art, part of the Key West Film Society, meets at the Tropic Cinema on the first Tuesday of the month through May 5, 2009. Films about the artists precede a discussion of the movies and the current artist.

The next film is April 7 and features The Way Things Go, a Rube Goldberg chain reaction by Swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss.Sneak preview here.

Rereading this makes me want to visit Switzerland.

I’m back at Sippin’ Internet cafe, 430 Eaton Street, for my Wednesday On The Road interlude that explores subcultures.

Outside, three magenta and turquoise cafe tables host a six-pack of northern tourists.  They are debating whether there are more Ohioans or New Yorkers down here.  Four of them are from New York — five if you count the toy poodle. They swear they hear a lot of New York accents.

Personally, I see so many people from Ohio here in the winters, I always ask them who is taking care of Ohio while everyone is in Florida?

Inside, multiple languages mingle with the music (see last On The Road). Two twenty-something guys with headsets are watching a soccer game on a laptop; an anonymous novelist invents a new world in a corner and several people tap away at the computer stations.   A well-dressed local realtor and her client just finished their scones and left.  A quiet legal conference between lawyers is going on near me.  I am trying not to eavesdrop.  A skinny young gal with bumper stickers all over her laptop just plugged in from the sofa.

This Wednesday, March 4, I will be at Salute on Higgs Beach, 4 to 5 p.m., for Subculture Tour #4. Come by and I’ll put your picture in the blog.

Wait til you see #3, which will be up Wednesday afternoon!  The photo here is a hint of #3.  Anyone guess what it is?  Correct guess gets their photo in the blog.

Like decorating a Christmas tree, Sculpture Key West ornaments the island of Key West each year with an incredible array of contemporary sculpture.

This year’s festival of 3D creativity begins with eight artists’ work at the Key West Garden Club Headquarters at West Martello Tower on Higgs Beach.

Cling wrap
From the road you can see a Jetson-style space formation stretched into the landscaping.  Up close you realize it is constructed of cellophane!  The Parisian artist, Ludwika Ogorzelec, has crafted an oversize string sculpture wrapped to the environment and weighted with garden rocks.

This is a new look at Saran Wrap (I’m not really sure that is the brand).  It bends light in fun ways and the cleverness of the design is a marvel.

Aunt Helen’s Doilies

Inside the brick fort, Weston, Florida, artist Liliana Crespi has spun crocheted spider webs in the trees.    The same traditional tablecloth patterns my Aunt Helen churned out by the trunkload in Crespi’s hands become a garden screen stretched amid the trees.  A Pineapple pattern wheel flies high, casting superb shadows.

“Flowers Don’t Grow Out of Nothing”
An Addison Walz organic installation features sprouting plants and newspaper papier mache “to expose the shortcomings of memory.”

Also on the grounds a New York artist used polyester felt to “create layered community collaboration and comments on mapping, mark making and memory.”
Sound figures in other “trumpet” pieces made from local plant materials. Video and clay and corrugated plastic express other sculptural concepts.

Porcelain Scavenger Hunt
Inside the garden club rooms, Julia Handschuh provides a porcelain scavenger hunt.  She released 100 light-as-air porcelain objects into nature at West Martello and at Fort Zachary Taylor and invites us to find them, sharing with her where they were recovered.

The Fort Zach portion of the exhibit opens March 1 with 25 installations around the beaches, Australian pine grove and the fort exterior.

In addition, 11 pieces are scattered throughout the city in pocket parks, ponds and municipal buildings.  The work will be on display until April 18.  Pick up a catalogue with easy-to-read maps and take off on your bike for a thought-provoking adventure.

The Blog Goes on the Road!  Wednesdays, I’m out and about with my old white travel computer (the one that reminds me regularly that my hard drive is nearly full and I am running out of memory) (Okay, I just deleted 2283 items that were in the trash.  Let’s see what that does.)

This week I am at Sippin’ Internet Cafe, 424 Eaton Street.  A cafe con leche and biscotti fuel a couple of hours of blog posts and give me a chance to absorb some of the subculture.

Sippin’ was Key West’s first true internet cafe as far as I can remember (Correct me if I’m wrong) — although there were a few computer outposts here and there –  and when it started in the 1990s, we all wondered if this new-fangled concept would — COULD — work.  When my friends Penny and Onett took it over three years ago, I secretly worried for them, but look at them now.

A sophisticated sound track this afternoon makes me think I’m on the television set of House. The music — what genre?  I can no longer define it.  Ages ago it either jazz or rock or classical or folk, etc; then the crossovers complicating it — folk rock, smooth jazz, contemporary classical.  Add in hip hop, rap, metallica and I gave up trying to keep up.  The musical background at Sippin’ though is contemporary, interesting without being distracting and augments the solitary nature of computer work while still offering a sociable atmosphere.

It  tones the room with an urban intellectual feel. Back to House, if you’re not a fan, it’s a med-drama about eccentric genius Dr. House.  Theme is by Joe Cocker — I know what you’re thinking: He’s still alive and singing? –and the music is, well, cool.

A steady stream of folks lope in here at Sippin’, get their coffee and treats and settle somewhere for a transient interlude.  All ages, from Goth teens to septuagenarian novelists camp at the computer desks or slouch under their own laptops on sofas or at teeny tables.
Quietly tapping out who knows what, the patrons inhabit their own intensely private worlds, while pausing from time to time to observe occasional antics.  A group of youngsters wander in — all skateboards, Ipods and cellphones, one toting a guitar larger than her torso.  They are in and out, up and down, lounging on the sofas, sharing games, videos on various electronic devices and then, poof, they are gone.

A few outside tables host families with strollers, tired tourists and sidewalk cafe enthusiasts. Regulars wander in regularly, calling out greetings, making the place seem like home in the dorm.

I’m going back to Sippin’ next week, too.  Come by and chat.  I’ll be there Wednesday, from 4 to 5 p.m, maybe longer.

The Studios of Key West continue to amaze and tantalize us. Alliterative Second Sundays showcase works-in-progress by local creatives. I breezed into February’s event, celebrating the easing of that nasty cold spell — although people were still carrying jackets and wearing their “winter flip-flops.” Inside, before the presentation, a happy hour atmosphere enveloped a unique group of artists, writers, performers and audiences for those genres. See more at www.tskw.org.

The Storm Cycle assemblages of Thomas Mann hung on the walls, providing reflective material for pondering and guaranteed conversation-builders. The 20 shadow boxes are created by the New Orleans artist from New Orleans Hurricane Katrina debris.

Accompanied by thoughtful narratives reflecting on the devastation, the panels enforce the art/life connection. Each work contains a removable, wearable piece of industrial chic jewelry of the sort Mann is known for.

The show hangs through February 23, opening officially Friday the 13th at 7 p.m. with a talk by the artist.

Nancy Hoffman

Nancy Hoffman, last noted in this blog during the New Year’s Dachshund Walk, wandered through the crowd playing her versatile accordion. Then, as if by magic, she was on the stage and we were all sitting in chairs and the presentation began.

Nancy entertained us with a French ballad and the Barack Obama Polka, which turned into a sing-along, further enhancing the easy-going ambience.

Writers
Juliette Gray and Bonnie Doerr read from novels and the effervescent Cricket Desmarais, with her five-month-old daughter in the audience, read her new rhyming children’s story.

Steve Keene
Eric Holowacz, director of TSKW, reviewed the remarkable Steve Keene residency, in which the artist came to Key West, painted over a1000 paintings the week he was here and sold them for $1 to $5. He is reportedly closing in on 300,000 paintings. He rose early each day, walked an area of Key West, then returned to his studio and painted 30 or so paintings on plywood. There were several end-cut and other odd-shaped paintings left-over that served as free party favors for the evening, so I now own a Wisconsin-shaped Steve Keene original.

Bocce — the movie
The concluding act was Chris Schultz and two stunning Michael Marrero film clips. A perfect storm of video pros has evolved into this group: Schultz, Marrero and Digital Island Media. They played a trailer for their Quit your Job and Move to Key West series and a promo for the Southernmost Bocce movie.


Click here to see it: bocce_trailer
Southernmost Bocce: a Documentary is a dramatic portrayal of the characters at the Southernmost Bocce courts at the end of White Street. We knew there were some quirky personalities there, but in Marrero’s telling, they become legends. If you are feeling generous, they are looking for donations to fund the full heroic film. The fundraising is also somewhat heroic — www.boccemovie.com says they have $1,005 of $150,000 they need.

The confident, skilled figures drawings and other recent works by Annamarie Giordano will be featured at Bone Island Appraisals for the Feb 19, 6 to 9 p.m. Walk on White. The works will hang through March 13. If you appreciate strong figure drawing, this is your ticket.

SoDu Gallery, of which I am proud to be a partner, presents the ocean-inspired “Groovy Pots” of Blue Ridge Mountain potter Jim Whalen, founder of Paradox Pottery.

Whalen has developed dramatic glazing techniques in both his Groovy series and his pit-fired vessels.

The Groovies distill the motion of the ocean into rolling waves of clay mounted on mollusk motif pedestals. The bubbling surface glaze he mastered for them appears ready to convert to sea spray in the first briny breeze.

His traditional pit-fired pieces are classically graceful vessels glazed in earth-tone patterns with a technical difficulty of 10.

Whalen controls the random flares and streaks of the raku process into patterns that are “sometimes mathematical, sometimes emotional, but always drawn from within.”  The mathematical designs result from grids of vertical and horizontal lines that define diamonds, hexagons, etc. “I can never get over how strange it is to put a straight line on a curved surface,” he says. The swirling, shadowy pit-fired pots carry names like “Dark Matter,” “Dreams of the Evolving Planet” and “Meterorite Shower.”

See the pit-fired work at www.paradoxpttery.com. See more of SoDu Gallery at www.1100sodugallery.com

The show at SoDu Gallery, 1100 Duval Street, opens with a reception 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday February 4, and runs through mid-February. Call 296-4400 for more information.

The five sentinels of the Key West cemetery fall to the State
Exotic Plants policy. Because the stately Washingtonian Palms have been deemed not to have been in Florida when Columbus squidged ashore, the evangelical botanical staff rules them outlaws. (Poincianas also are not native.)

This is the same policy that threatened the Australian pines at Fort Zachary Taylor. These theories of inferior lineage are augmented by warnings that, in the case of the Australian pines, they fall over in storms — the fact that they have been there a documented 40 years or more, notwithstanding.

One of the five landmark Washingtonians has been reduced to a stump. Another is clearly feeling its age and leans as if crippled on the brink of collapse. The remaining three arboreal elders, however, oversee the generations of southernmost souls with dignity and elegance. To think they face their end at the hands of bureaucrats — que lastima!

My personal theory is no one should be allowed to cut down a tree that is older than they are.

Click here to hear their music:  Kettle Moraine

Southernmost bluegrass fans look forward to the annual visits of Piper Road Spring Band.  1970s Jimmy Buffet hippies danced to their fast-paced tunes at the Royal Standard Pub on Duval (now Antonia’s) back when the 600 block and beyond was an urban wilderness.

Since the bicentennial, the cold Wisconsin winters drive the banjo/fiddle/bass/guitar pickers to our balmy islands, where a solid core of fans awaits.

Hear Al Byla on fiddle and vocals; Bob Mason, of Nashville, on mandolin and vocals; Andy Trout on guitar and vocals; John Widdicombe on string bass and vocals and Bill Kangaroo, a Florida keys snowbird, on washboard and vocals.

Piper Road was nominated by the National Bluegrass Music Industry awards for the Best ld-Time String Band and have won the Wisconsin Area Music Industry (WAMI) award for the Best Bluegrass Artist four times, most recently in 1998.

Go to their website (www.piperroad.com) for the long list of musicians they have played with.  It includes Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Osborne brothers, Lester Flatt, John Hartford, Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Doc and Merle Watson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Roy Orbison, in part.

Their keys schedule is:
Friday     30 January      CRAZY FISH, Big Pine Key (MM31), 6-10 pm
Saturday 31 January     SHRIMP SHACK @ FISHBUSTERZ, 6840 Front St. Stock Island, 5-7 pm

Sunday   1 February    PICKIN’ PARTY to benefit HABITAT FOR HUMANITY, Big Pine Key (MM30), NOON
Thursday 5 February     GREEN PARROT BAR, Key West  (MM0), 10-2 pm
Friday      6 February     BOONDOCKS, Ramrod Key (MM27.5), 7-11 pm
Saturday  7 February    HOGFISH BAR & GRILL @ SAFE HARBOR, Stock Island, 6-10 pm

The Yellow Submarine Recumbent Bike

Here is the pod-bike we have all been seeing around town (photo by Mike Hancox).  I have not yet connected with its owner, but people tell me the roof used to be a cooler device with blowers that provided a home-made a/c.  There are side panels than can enclose it more, but in this climate, who needs that?  The slot in the front and another in the back are dachshund porches for the rider’s pets.  You see a pointy little silhouetted snout sticking out the front and another at the end of the S-curve by the rider’s right shoulder.

I’ll tell you more when I know more.  Stay tuned.

Key West Six-Toed Cat Cam Click here to see it.

Now they will all be wanting one.  And I certainly am curious about where Marmalade sneaks off to.

Tinsley Advertising, the Miami advertising company that promotes Key West for the Tourist Development Council, just today released a new TV spot to promote the wild and crazy nightlife in Key West — with the undercurrent of how unusual normality is on this two-mile-by-four-mile island.

It is 32 seconds of a six-toed Hemingway cat descendant (Aurora) prowling the bars on Duval Street.  You get to meet the people she meets and see the party life from her perspective.

“We thought that seeing Key West from a cat’s point of view would be different from what you would normally see in a tourism commercial and we all know Key West would never be accused of being normal,” said Dorn Martell, Creative Director at Tinsley.

It’s a clever ploy:  it mingles the nocturnal life of cats with Duval Street night life and pulls in the Hemingway theme, the Mallory Square cat act and also illustrates a latitude attitude that offers animals a citizenship equality.

The incomparable 1978 Key West: The Last Resort guidebook by Chris Sherrill and Roger Aiello offers this advice to tourists, “And if a cat is curled up on the only ‘unoccupied’ bar stool in a tavern, it’s to your advantage to remember that he was there first and he’s probably got more friends in the bar than you.  Key Westers live harmoniously with a lot of animals.”

The spot cleverly ends with the cam cat purring out at the viewer (she obviously has her own camera crew in addition to the nifty helmet cam) as the narrator notes, “Key West, because YOU only have one life to live.”

The spot runs on national cable TV as part of the Florida Keys “Come as You Are” campaign.  It is also on YouTube.

While you are prowling around YouTube and the web, searching for “cat cam” turns up some quirky sites (and some tedious and boring).  You can also find sources for the little cameras.  We could soon have a fleet of cat cams.

Similarly, another video on YouTube, titled Key West Cats Come Out, chronicles a simple evening stroll down the street by an island resident and her three felines.  It starts out without enough light, but be patient, once they are under the street lights, the visibility is fine.  It is a sweet little episode.

Valerie Hoh is back. Designer Valerie Hoh presented her fashions, ceramics and whole-life vision at Pandemonium, a uniquely creative emporium on Duval Street at Olivia Street for many years.
Wearing her love bird, ChiChi like a fashion accessory, often in her hair, Hoh presided over an empire of industrial chic and tropical funk merchandise for wearing or living amidst.  She created the ReWorx Museum adjacent to her store that was a concept before its time — a museum of recycled items fashioned into trend-setting furniture.  Sculptor Cynthia Wynn (www.iamfurniture.com) opened the museum with her stunning furniture made from steel factory cast-offs.  You can find Wynn’s work at Lucky Street Gallery now.
Hoh relocated to Asheville, NC several years ago, where she works in her home studio in a cliff-hanging house overlooking the city. Every year she revisits Key West with a new collection of her exotic fashion wear that features modern fabrics, ragged-edge applique and inverted seams.  Her singular use of tropical and earth tones sustains the evolution of her style.
This year, her free fashion event is at The Gardens Hotel, Sunday, February 1 from 1 to 6 p.m.  From 5 to 7 p.m. Skipper Krippitz and Gordy Michael’s are scheduled to perform jazz with a guest singer.
See a sneak peek of Hoh’s Jazz Collection at hohcouture.com.

Interesting coincidence: In the last post, I featured two Key West mentions by Forbes Magazine and added an Andy Newman photo of Blue Heaven from Florida Keys News Bureau.
The photo caption from the News Bureau includes this note:  “In the 1930s, author Ernest Hemingway officiated boxing matches at Blue Heaven in Key West’s historic Bahama Village.”  That reminded me of the Bahama Village resident and boxer, Shine, who qualified as a “character” in our island history. His real name was Kermit Forbes, but probably there is no relation.

Bill Fountain, 1994 winner of the Hemingway Look-Alike contest with Shine Forbes, right.

Shine, a Key West native, died at age 84 in 2000 and news media around the world recorded his passing.  His fame came from his boxing history with Ernest Hemingway. Local historian Tom Hambright called him the island’s last living link to the great Pulitzer-prize winning novelist.  After “taking a poke” at the author in a dispute over a boxing match at which Hemingway was referee, the two became friends and sparring partners.
Shine, a former prizefighter in the US Army, was often a participant in the private rounds at Hemingway’s backyard ring. A London Independent obituary notes that the fighters in the author’s garden earned 50 cents a round, or after a good workout, “he’d shower $20 bills on us.”
Shine told the Miami Herald the year before his death that Hemingway “was no fighter. What he was was big. You’d run into him and just the weight of it would knock you down. But he never tried to hurt us. He always pulled his punches.”

Photo: Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau

Forbes Magazine mentions Key West fairly frequently.

In a January 9 article under the headline “Worst Small Towns to own a Home,”  Key West turns up in Paragraph Three.  There’s comfort to be had that our island city was not in Paragraph One with the two worst cities where housing costs for over 73% of residents  “eat up more than 35% of citizens’ incomes, according to the Census Bureau.”
But here is author David Sutton’s quote for Key West and it’s Paragraph Three companion, Melrose Park, Ill: “Their home ownership costs suck more than 35% of incomes — which are $51,722 and $38,166, respectively — for 71% and 69.2% of residents.”  We are only slightly behind the frontrunners.
He cites the second-home syndrome taking up 40% of the market and inflating prices, and the low-paying tourism industry in his grim statistics.
Back in October, however, when the economic sky was falling and no one knew where to hide, Rebecca Ruiz wrote in Forbes that Key West is among the least vulnerable towns in the nation, alongside Helena, MT and Seaford, DE.
Ruiz quotes a high median income, low unemployment and a well-educated workforce as the standards for invulnerability.
The most vulnerable towns were Lancaster, SC, Palatka, Fl and Shelby, NC.

Photo:  Andy Newman, Florida Keys News Bureau

New Year’s eve in Key West at noon on a sunny, breezy shirtsleeve day — half a day away from the transition hour — 165 dachshunds paraded with their owners from the County Courthouse on Whitehead, Fleming and Duval streets, and back again.    They brought their owners, of course–leash laws being what they are.  And the owners brought the ubiquitous plastic bags to ensure the parade left no evidence.
Ruth Reiter organized the parade of dachshunds for the third year.  There were short-legged, pointy-nosed canines of all types:  brown, black and tan, grey and black spotted, long-haired, short-haired and wire-haired.
At the corner of Duval and Fleming Streets, Nancy 3 Hoffman and Pepe provided appropriate Oompah accompaniment on accordion and washboard.  The repertoire included “Doggy in the Window” and the Oscar Meyer Weiner song among others.
The event captured the essence of Key West — quirky, laid back, amusing and surprising. “Key West embraces this sort of silly event,” said Reiter.  “It’s a ridiculous spectacle.”
About 50 non-dachshunds  — “wannabes” — also attended.  Some were “sibling dogs” as Reiter puts it; some were mixed breeds (she cites a dachshund/pitbull); and some were just so silly they were annexed to the breed.
“There was a white fluffy thing in a hot dog costume,” says Reiter, describing the buns and make-believe mustard.  “They went the extra measure so we let them join.”  There was even a cat dressed as a dachshund. “We have very loose standards,” she added.
Who would have guessed so many wiener dogs wintered here? And who really realized, among the canine casual observers of which I am a member, that dachshunds came in such a variety of flavors.  I even owned one as a child, (the classic, short-haired black-and-tan version).  I was vaguely aware of rumors of long-haired types, but spotted?
Most of the dogs were trotting happily at the end of a leash; some reclined aloft in their owner’s arms.  Three well-traveled dachshunds rode in special compartments of an orange pod-like recumbent bicycle.  The bike is a fantasy custom two-wheeler that acts as a pedalled Airstream travel home for its owner-designer.  Obviously, the guy is going to be a bit eccentric, but if so, it’s only natural he finds his way to the southernmost island dachshund walk.
His fiberglas shelter resembles the Yellow Submarine in style and tows an auxiliary trailer of household necessities. Two small cubbies, fore and aft, with cushions and windows are for the three dachshunds he shares his travels with.
The delightful parade was over in no time, with the dog owners left to roam Old Town en masse, making the historic area seem like a Fellini clip. I missed most of it due to a nasty traffic snarl related to a vehicle accident in the 700 block of Duval that routed cars to Whitehead Street, which I thought would be a sure-fire shortcut.  Still, I’m glad I caught a glimpse.
Reiter is poised to do it again next year, and determined to keep it simple — no paperwork, no fundraising, no organization to speak of.  “Just an email file of people with dachshunds.”  It’s a generous gift for us all — a kid-friendly, free event for the holidays.
Next year I’ll take a bicycle so travel will be more graceful and parking not so frustrating.  Maybe I’ll dress up my cat to look like a spotted, long-haired dachshund.