It always looks darkest just before it gets totally black"
Charlie Brown
South Florida is much more than glorious beaches and teflon highways. It is also home of the thematic week. Contrived conventions like music week or boat week or art week or wine and food week are promotional events that reduce experience to a novelty that runs contrary to the cultivation of place and purpose. For most it may be nearly impossible to truly understand the swampy world we inhabit, and it sure is a distracting spectacle to watch.
No grand charade is complete without plenty of noise, flashing lights and dust shaking. The circus of modernity will soon be in your neighborhood also.
And with every main event there is a cost that fluctuates... mostly upwards as with this message menu on I-95 luxury fast lane.
Progress is by far the over arching drive. It take a formidable work crew in orange vests and hard hats to move the swamp forward. I can almost say it is affordable and worth it.
Great weather, curious people and progress have a knack for attracting returning visitors to Miami. One such repeat offender is my odd pal Kenny Scharf. He once lived here in a time when Dade was desirable and Broward was a backwater. It was a time before Britto.
Last week Scharf was back in South Florida to put the finishing touches on his whirlwind of projects. I had a chat with Scharf recently, posted here.
Back in 2000 while working in North Miami, Scharf got a call from sharp eye Mindy Shrago director of Young At Arts Children's Museum in Davie asking if we would build an attraction for the Broward County kids. Kenny was flattered to help out so we created the Cosmic Cavern #18 in an old hanger of a strip mall on State Rd. 84. Today the Museum will share an impressive new facility with the public library set to open in May. Along with a slew of new attractions, visitors can enjoy Scharf's Cosmic Cavern #32!
Down in Dade's Wynwood neighborhood, interested gawkers can also enjoy another Scharf Mural, the latest addition to a growing museum of street art courtesy the Miami Arts Awakening visionaries such as Tony Goldman and Brook Dorsch.
Meanwhile in Little Havana the main event awaits. Yankees VS Marlins! the much anticipated first game at the new Marlin Stadium and parking jamboree in what some are calling mega crock-pot on the site of the dear old Orange Bowl.
Forget bottled beer. This place not only has central A/C and sonic flushers, it also has a system of pipes and valves that deliver ice cold beer to a network of dispensers on every level. Truly the light is sweet, and so is the lager.
Nothing sells brands better than bobble-heads. I heard someone say the Marlins have already sold millions in Tshirts, caps and other disposable stuff. But some stuff is not exactly throw-away.
While Red Grooms and Arsham grapple with Art in Public Places for placement of their art in the swampdome, Scharf has wrestled very skillfully with team owner Jeffery Loria for the creation of this outrageous and monumental giant banner i call ode to all things baseball.
In the realm of the Field of Dreams there are three possible outcomes. There is the HomeRun, the one you imagine and long for. Then there is the Bunt and the three strikes.
"There are three things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire and a Zamboni clearing the ice."
Charlie Brown
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