Showing posts with label fringe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fringe. Show all posts

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Time of the Auguries



A sign can be an object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else.  



Loaded with irony, a sign can also be a source of amusement or distress.


Signs of disconcerting hilarity are abundant in the swamp, and in the beauty salons.


For this augur, the interpretation of omens is a Sunday pastime.
I predict uniforms will be back in style and Diana Vreeland's movie will come to Miami soon.



A sign of the times is something judged to exemplify or indicate the nature or quality of a particular period, typically something unwelcome or unpleasant such as the hair loss on your head.


Signed, sealed and delivered means formally and officially agreed and in effect.
For bloggers it means hit the publish button.



Hard to ignore, signs are often notices publicly displayed giving information or instructions in a written or symbolic form, as with this political add asking you to pull the lever for Hardemon.




But a sign need not be printed words boldface on placards.  Signs are also something regarded as an indication or evidence of what is happening or going to happen, as with the cranes that tower over the swampscape.


A sign of the cross is made in blessing or prayer by tracing a cross from the forehead to the chest and to each shoulder, or in the air in the hopes that all goes well for god's chosen few, such as the new museums dwntwn.



Signs are also each of the twelve equal sections into which the zodiac is divided, named from the constellations formerly situated in each, and associated with successive periods of the year according to the position of the sun on the ecliptic.  The Design District is a Scorpio.



South Beach is a Pisces by day, a Gemini by night.


Whatever the horoscope says, the signs are clear.
South Florida and all its chipmunks will be underwater in 100 years.


But we are too busy replacing perfectly good sidewalks with some version of new and improved WTF.
This corner crossing has been people un-friendly for over a year.


A sign of abandonment, boarded windows near the ocean indicate that someone or something is not present where they should be or are expected to be.



Pigions and sea gull provide other signs of wild things to come with their tracks and droppings  adorning a gutted hotel near the ocean.


A sign of privatization of public commons, South Point in SoBe typifies action or reaction that conveys something about someone's state or experiences, particularly developers and politicians.




Public art in private places, a monumental crankshaft up ended is a metaphor for excess capital.


This contraption is another sign of perceived security, a pataphor, a gesture or action used to convey information or instructions,  such as big blubber is watching.

 

Alas, a sign can also be a miracle regarded as evidence of supernatural power.

In Swamp We Trust.

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Down(and out)Town


On any given Sunday afternoon Downtown Miami is a ghost town, just a few obscure shops open for clueless tourists lured by cheap merchandise and luggage. Downtown street rhythm is mostly a mainstream tick-tock schedule of Monday through Friday 9am to 6pm.


Just taking up public space, all county and federal buildings are surrounded by inhospitable walls and barricades, presumably to keep bad people out.


On the weekends it seems that most people on the STREET are homeless, and there are plenty out there comforted by the mild South Florida winter climate.


Like great sundials of progress, unoccupied condos loom in the near distance casting their long imposing shadows on Camillus House and parking lots.



No meter maids here. Of course , more people on the STREET... until the sun sets and the party people bring life back to a city center, but downtown nightlife is for another post. Sometimes quiet is good.

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Friday, December 16, 2011

It's New to You

Yard Sale



Design District Annual Multi-Artist Rummage Bazaar

Saturday Only December 17

12 noon until sunset

3809 NE 1 Court


It's New to You !



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Friday, November 5, 2010

Pumpkin Pie in Your Eye


Marco Screwbio Landslide !

As the sun sets in South Florida, it has become abundantly clear that the political landscape is painted in clashing shades of camo and dayglow. The atmosphere could not be more befuddling. There will always be winners and losers so for those who are disillusioned with the constituency at large, let's be content for now with counting our losses and crossing our fingers that the "tide of the teaparty" will retreat with predictably disappointing and classic gop ineptitudes and scandal.



Season of Austerity

With the change in weather comes a change in number of tourists that visit the swamp.
Like migrating geese, the throngs of well-heeled patrons that are anticipated during ABMB andArtWeek in Miami will surely leave a few eggs in our baskets but not without leaving some droppings behind as well. This year promises to be rather austere in terms for pillow taxes, tipping and all the other ostentatious displays of affluence we have come to rely on and expect as year-round residents of resort town.


Helvetica Regular

All aboard the Bus of the Bourgeoisies. There is something amusing about the medicated middle class enjoying the spoils of a celebrity culture. Two days and three nights of distraction are a sure gamble and the gamings is rigged by the house on wheels. The status quo is a juggernaut of jaundiced jackasses in pinstriped suits.


Dumbo Buffet

In the shadows of the glistening condo towers that dot the swampscape glamour and sparkle begin to fade quickly. With flip-flops on the ground boots at our behinds here follows a brief sideshow of Miami's not so finest.


The Beagle Has Landed

Departing from Miami Beach westbound to the mainland is tantamount to leaving Oz in a twister bound for a cuban kansas. This truck sign leads the way.


Elevated Snarls

It may take more than a GPS to navigate the dizzying matrix of highways that slash to and fro. From Moral Gables to MocaRaton, from Overtown to Little Haiti visitors and natives alike will need to contend with an obstacle course of never-ending roadwork, red-light cameras, inept cab drivers, grandmas and teen drivers. The good news is the weather is lovely the ladies are fine and the gents all dance tango.



Bayside Behimoth

To survey the mainland we wander a short walk from the waters edge. Just west of Biscayne Bay are relatively curious enclaves of disenfranchised neighborhoods currently under a diluted case of gentrification. What is it that makes this place unique? perhaps it's that old "Je ne sais quoi" that keeps visitors guessing what miami is exactly.


New Urban Wynwood

Some one sign painter channels the Scull Sisters with this colloquial version of what Midtown might already be... a thumping latin manhattan with homemade corporate foods.



Eduardo Hopper

These views of the Shoe District are practically paintings disguised as snapshots.


Box With a View

Overlooking the magnificent I-95, this two family townhouse is available to gentrifiers or squatters and bank foreclosures.


If One Is Good...

Supplement your income with a giant billboard totem in your yard. Never mind the visual pollution when there are bills to pay.

Homage to Why Not.


Over There Town

We continue driving west under the over-pass and south across the tracks toward DWNTW to a well worn part of town. This is a neighborhood like so many others that can be easily avoided at best and intentionally isolated at worst. Isolated like a squirrel in a pumpkin patch, a screw in a box of nails, the color purple in a jar of grape jelly.




Out of Their Gourds

In closing this rambling tour of the tropics 2010 post mid-term election debacle, one thing that come to mind is Henry Miller's words...




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Sunday, July 18, 2010

Wait n Sea



Fathom This

"... the discovery of a seep and the unspecified anomalies suggest that the well could be damaged and that it may have to be reopened soon to avoid making the situation worse." NYTimes



Fickle Finger of Fate

The story of the Little Dutch Boy teaches us that a a small trickle of water soon becomes a stream and the stream a torrent and the torrent a flood sweeping all before it...







New Clear Option

If the latest containment efforts by BP fail, obama has announced that the US navy will take over with an elite mysterious team of aquatic assets that will stop the gusher once and for all.


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