I was on assignment this past weekend in Palm Beach (the reason for my absence here on Friday), and Saturday afternoon, strolling down one of the vias off of Worth Avenue, I came to a small jewelry shop where an English bulldog sat watchfully in front of the main case with an even sterner than usual don’t-mess-with-me expression. On the door was a sign: “NOTICE! We take security seriously.”
The Miami Open begins this week:
“They come every spring. In a city that values appearance, they are taller, leaner, fitter than the rest of us. They spend their days outdoors. They don’t (for the most part) waste their night clubbing. They show up on time.
“They make a mockery of our much-vaunted diversity.”
- from "The Subtropical Open," from the June 2024 issue of The Miami Native: https://www.miaminativemag.com/articles/the-subtropical-open
My friend Don first came to Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break sometime in the ’60s. Now, living in Boca, his annual tradition is to come to the Elbo Room for a nostalgic beer. I joined him on Friday, and we stood on the second-floor balcony overlooking the traffic and the battalions of young people gathered on the beach
The clientele at the Elbo Room skewed much older. After we finished our beers, we took a stroll up A1A. The bars along the strip were packed exclusively with young men and women, one of whom wore a string bikini with a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. I began to feel very much out of place. But it was an entirely self-generated feeling; no one looked at me as if I didn’t belong because no one looked at me. More than out of place, I was invisible.
Yesterday I gave a friend my tour of Miami, which I hadn’t given in a while. This one, unlike all my previous ones, began at the historic Gesu Church downtown, where Andy had attended 8:30 mass. I had never been inside before and, looking for the men’s room, we nearly entered a confessional. Andy commented on the ceiling, which he thought was surprisingly low for such a large sanctuary, and wondered if it was because of hurricanes. The church was built in 1922.
From there we headed to Coconut Grove, Andy taking pictures of some peacocks, and then – because he expressed an interest in coffee – to Calle Ocho. Unfortunately, a large section of the street was blocked off for the weekend festival, eliminating a good number of ventanitas, so we settled for Versailles, where a group of women from Argentina queued for cafecitos.
Refreshed, we drove down Ponce de Leon to Coral Gables, turned right on Miracle Mile, and then left onto Columbus Avenue with its fairy tale tunnel of sculpture-like ficus trees. At the Biltmore we strolled through the cool, high-ceilinged lobby – admiring the birds in their cages – and the never-ending swimming pool (at one time, the largest in the country). On the way out, we spoke to the receptionist at the spa, who was born in Russia, adopted, and then grew up in Austin, Texas. She had moved to Miami a few years ago from Minnesota. She looked to be in her 20s and had already lived an interesting life.
Brunch at Bulla, which has some of the best eggs Benedict in South Florida – though they call them huevos Benedictinos. (Take that, Trump.) Our waitress was from a small town outside Havana. Then we stopped at Chocolate Fashion for a flourless chocolate cookie.
A spin up Coral Way, to admire the thick green line of banyan trees, and then on to 95 to the Design District, a quick drive through, and then Wynwood, where we parked and walked the streets crowded with tourists. At Panther Coffee we saw a man doodling quite beautifully on an iPad. I asked if he was an artist, and he said he was. I asked if he lived in the neighborhood, knowing that few artists do these days. No, he said, he lived in Brooklyn.
The recent photo of Elon Musk standing in a cabinet meeting in T-shirt and ballcap brought back an unpleasant memory for me.
In the spring of 2008, I was summoned to the managing editor’s office to discuss a redesign of the Travel section, which I had been editor of for 18 years. The m.e. sat quietly at her desk while a ballcapped young man I had never seen before explained his plans for my section. These involved discontinuing long travel narratives – three of which had landed in The Best American Travel Writing anthologies – and diminishing my presence. My column, he noted blithely, would now appear below the fold and jump inside.
I had no idea who this man was. I wondered, naturally, about his background – his knowledge of travel writing, his experience of travel. I assumed they were slim, and that he had been given the job of remaking the section primarily because of his age and his presumed ability to connect with younger readers (an oxymoron even back then).
I sat mostly speechless, and with the sudden realization that the world had changed, at least in the newsroom, and that people like me were no longer welcome. A few months later, I was laid off.
Saturday afternoon we drove to Savor Cinema (about a five-minute trip) to watch the live action shorts nominated for an Academy Award. We see them every year; some years they’re better than others; but we’re always grateful for the opportunity to watch them, as well as other movies mainstream theaters ignore. Next month, at Cinema Paradiso in Hollywood, we will see Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which was shot in secret in Tehran, and is also up for an Oscar. These two little theaters, run by the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, have hung on while other art movie houses, like the Tower Theater in Miami and The Living Room in Boca Raton, have closed. Movie lovers in Broward are lucky to have them