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.
The Winter issue of The American Scholar is now out, with my essay "Florida Man." It is a defense of the state against the people outside it who continue to make fun of it and the writers inside it who insist on sensationalizing it. The full essay is not yet online, but here is the beginning: https://theamericanscholar.org/florida-man/
Friday we went to the Stranahan House to hear a lecture about Mary Brickell, and yesterday we went to the Museum of Art to see a documentary, Taking Venice, about the U.S. entry of Robert Rauschenberg at the 1964 Biennale. (It was part of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.) After the movie, we went for dinner to Big City Tavern and when the waiter welcomed us to the restaurant I thought he said, “Welcome to the big city.”
Went to the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival last night to see The Barolo Boys, a documentary about the group of Italian winemakers who broke from tradition and put the Nebbiolo grape wine on the map. Before the film, pasta and garlic rolls were served in the courtyard, courtesy of Gianni’s restaurant in Pompano Beach, and afterwards, people lingered around cocktail tables on a closed-off 6th Street. A large screen rose at one end of the street, and I asked one of the attendees if they were going to show a movie on it. Not a movie, he said, the Thursday night football game.