Saturday evening I went to the Broward Center to see Bob Dylan. I wouldn’t have gone if he’d been in a big arena, but I liked the fact that he had chosen an elegant concert hall that was almost literally down the street. I still regret not seeing Sinatra when he performed there in the ’90s, even though his voice was shot by then. For Dylan, a shot voice was signature, and immutable.
Though I had heard of concerts where he didn’t even try, treating his audiences with a kind of contempt.
A multigenerational crowd loitered in the lobby. Men outnumbered women, a few of them paunchy in black, declarative T-shirts. My seat in the mezzanine was between two large males. Rick, who introduced himself first, was with his wife; Steve sat with his wife and 20-something daughter. “She told me about the concert,” he explained. “I didn’t even know she listened to Dylan.” Then he launched into a detailed history of the music scene in Detroit.
The curtain went up, thankfully, a little after 8, revealing a dimly lit stage with Dylan seated in the center at a piano. A more dignified pose, I thought, than sitting with a guitar (à la Willie Nelson). Without introduction, the band launched into the first song. Followed by the next one. After about the fourth, a woman shouted “Like a Rolling Stone!,” which of course Dylan ignored. “Gods do not answer letters,” John Updike wrote of Ted Williams’ refusal to come out of the dugout after hitting a home run in his final at-bat.
A couple times people started clapping rhythmically to a melody, then quickly stopped. They craved the shared, raucous communion of a rock concert, but the so-called Rough and Rowdy Ways tour had more in common with a recital. People listened silently, reverently, straining to make out the words of a laureate. Up in the mezzanine, I failed miserably; the most success I had was with a song about Key West.
But the voice – that voice that has been wailing in the background of my life for more than half century – had a hypnotic effect. The hall at times took on the stillness of a dream, not least because I was hearing Bob Dylan on the banks of the New River.
Outside, afterwards, I passed a middle-aged couple speaking Spanish. The woman was from Costa Rica, the man from Venezuela, though they now lived in Hallandale.
“Did you have trouble understanding him?” I asked.
“Yes,” the woman said. “But he was still great.”
I asked them about the final song. Dylan had played the harmonica and it had given me chills. I told them I thought I had heard faint echoes of “Blowing in the Wind.”
“That’s because you wanted to,” the woman informed me.
Waiting for Hania to pick me up, I saw a young man in troubadour attire – black jeans, black jacket, black hat – standing by the gate of the dressing room parking lot. He was a friend of one of the band members, he told me, and had caught only the tail end of the concert. I confessed that this was my first Dylan show.
“It’s good you came,” he said. “It’s important that we pay our respects.”
At the Tarpon River Civic Association meeting last night, Mayor Trantalis addressed the debate currently going on between the city and the county on whether the FEC tracks over the New River should be handled with a new bridge or a tunnel.
A bridge would be cheaper to build – but not to maintain – and its construction would be much more disruptive. It would further divide the city, stretching for more than a mile and rising as high as the 17th Street bridge. A tunnel would take the tracks and make them disappear underground – in effect, removing the division that exists today. It seems the obvious answer, and I was encouraged to hear that the mayor is behind it.
The Greek Festival (at St. Demetrios Church) opened yesterday at 5 pm – I was there at 6. While waiting for my friend Joe I bought an ouzo and a bottle of water, then stationed myself by the flaming cheese. Looking at the program, I noticed with disappointment that no dance performances were scheduled for the evening. I am always impressed by the sight of high school students – some of the boys in skirts – doing the dances of their ancestral homeland, though I assume not a few of them are coerced into it by parents.
Joe arrived and we stood in a short line for pastitsio and roasted chicken – served, as always, by friendly church members. Then we found two spots at the end of a long table. Greek music played softly (I think the volume goes up on the weekend) allowing for audible conversations. At one point I turned and saw the dance floor was animated by a long line of young people. They wore dark blue Greek Festival T-shirts, linked arms at the shoulders, and moved to the music in a synchronized row. In many ways, it was more moving than seeing them in costume, for they were dancing voluntarily, not for show but for love of dance of love of their culture. They were demonstrating their pride in being Greek, which made me proud to be an American.
I can’t remember such a long string – for nearly a month now – of mostly sunless days. It’s like living in a warm Belgium, “the flat country” with the low grey skies that Jacques Brel sang so passionately about.
My essay about Florida is now available on The American Scholar website: https://theamericanscholar.org/florida-man/
It is a defense of the state (for the most part) against the people outside it who continue to make fun of it and the writers inside it who insist on sensationalizing it.
Saturday morning we drove up I-95 to West Palm Beach, parked on Clematis, and walked down to what USA Today named American’s #1 Farmers’ Market. There are surely bigger farmers’ markets, but probably not many with more perfect settings: Starting on the last block of the city’s main street, the market spills into the triangular park at the bottom, with luxury yachts providing a backdrop.
After lunch in the triangle – crabcake wrap and pulled pork arepa – we drove across the bridge to Palm Beach. Worth Avenue was disappointingly quiet, though at one point Santa strolled down the sidewalk.
We drove A1A to Delray Beach and checked into the Colony Hotel, where we bought drinks at the bar and then sat on the terrace to watch the Holiday Parade. Gracing the first float was Coco Gauff.