I was saddened yesterday by a text from a friend informing me that the Books & Books on Lincoln Road was closing its doors. Then I read the article in the Herald, which cheered me up: The owner, Mitchell Kaplan, was not leaving Miami Beach; he was looking for another location on a more interesting and affordable street. Knowing Mitchell, I assume he’ll open an even more impressive store in a neighborhood that will be transformed.
Yesterday I drove to Hummus House in Victoria Park to buy some hummus. Stopped at the light at the intersection of Broward and SE 15th Ave., I saw a man walking toward me wearing a mask and a bright red T-shirt that proclaimed “meh.” I tried to get a picture of him but the cars turning left into 15th Ave. got in the way. Then the man turned away from me, as people you wish to photograph often do, and headed down 15th in the direction of Las Olas.
The light turned green. I headed straight and then took a right onto 16th Ave., and then another one onto 1st St. I waited as the man got closer to the intersection – happily, no car appeared behind me – and rolled the window down on the passenger side. Then I eased across 15th, stopping as soon as I cleared the traffic. A woman walking her dog, oblivious to the stealth street photographer in her midst, walked into the first shot, but I took two more before heading on my way. The better of these will appear tomorrow on Instagram. There’s a good chance the reaction of people who see it will be “meh,” but they won’t know what I went through to get it.
The thing about having an iguana in the tree outside your window is that you get up every 20 minutes to check on it.
Last week, news of Don Shula’s death made the front page of the Miami Herald. Today, the obituary for historian and preservationist Arva Moore Parks – the woman instrumental in saving the Biltmore Hotel, the Venetian Pool, and the Freedom Tower – appears on 8A.
Driving around Miami Saturday we stopped by one of our favorite restaurants, Xixón on Coral Way, for gazpacho and tortilla Española. It was a little sad seeing the lively Spanish restaurant reduced to takeout, like finding an opera singer making money as a busker.
The view from Florida, by way of Poland: