Went to see Blue Moon at The Gateway yesterday and, after being bombarded with commercials, ear-splitting trailers for Coming Distractions (Jamie Lee Curtis screaming therapeutically in a romantic comedy), additional commercials (and Hollywood wonders why people don’t go to the movies anymore), we were treated to the conversational sallies of one of the greatest lyricists of the 20th Century.
Last week I gave an old friend a tour of Fort Lauderdale. Dan has a sentimental attachment to the city, having started a family here (in Wilton Manors) and taught English for years at Fort Lauderdale High School.
After lunch at Coconuts – where he had drunk but never eaten – we drove down Las Olas and into the canyon of office and residential towers. (Fort Lauderdale’s much-vaunted urban connectivity.) We darted through the disaster that is Himmarshee Village and headed north to Sistrunk, where we stopped at Kimchi Mart, the sparkling new Korean supermarket. I bought some kimchi (the delicious, house-made one) and red bean mochi.
Next, I showed Don the IcePlex in Holiday Park, which was relatively quiet – just a few skaters, including a young woman practicing figures with a coach.
From there it was a short drive to the recently renovated Jimmy Evert Tennis Center. It looked fresh and clean – with all new fencing – but something seemed off. I thought at first it was the absence of benches around the clubhouse, which I assumed had not yet been replaced. Then I noticed that the fences, with tarp in the middle, enclose the courts and destroy the air of openness. You used to be able to stand in front of the clubhouse and look down the whole row of courts. There had been fencing behind the baselines of course, but nothing between the courts save for small pavilions with benches. Now, all you see are what look like cages, connected to other cages. The courts are now giant chain-link cubicles, hiding the players hitting inside. I assume the changes were instituted to make the facility more professional, in an attempt to bag more tournaments, but the old neighborly feeling of the place has been lost.
I wonder what Jimmy Evert would think. Chris apparently will be there on Dec. 8, so perhaps she’ll tell us then.
Reviewing Look Closer: How to Get More Out of Reading in The Spectator (Oct. 28), Charlotte Stroud presented her own reasons for reading, which had nothing to do with finding greater empathy or, God forbid, relatable characters. “I want to see,” she wrote, “what C.S. Lewis calls ‘the myriad eyes’ of literature. So if a reason to read must be given, it is that books are one of the few things in this world that meet our hunger for more life.”
At 5 pm yesterday we drove to the beach in hopes of seeing the full moon – the super moon – rise up out of the ocean. When we arrived, the horizon was a wall of clouds. We ducked into El Vez for some tortilla soup, and when we emerged, small pricks of light were visible through a frayed fabric.
We crossed the street. A full moon party was in full swing in front of the Four Seasons. Eventually, the honored guest escaped from the clouds and glowed brightly in the dark sky.
Saturday’s Day of the Dead event started off slowly. Instead of a Mexican children’s choir, a DJ occupied the gazebo in Esplanade Park, playing a mix of American and Latin pop music, some of it quite old. (Nothing takes you out of the spirit of the holiday like “The Monster Mash.”) Families filled the park, few of them in costume. Though a long line stretched in front of the face-painting tent. And more Spanish was spoken than in previous years.
Around 6 pm things started to gel. A man came on stage and credited Jim Hammond with creating the event. (Hammond, a professional puppeteer, was not involved this year.) And more people appeared in elaborate costumes, including a wedding party in flowery dress, a group of women in black who resembled The Furies, and the Grim Reaper. One man, his face painted in a skeletal grimace, wore a matador’s suit of lights. They all joined the procession that headed down SW 2nd Street, then turned south along the railroad tracks, before turning again when it reached the river. There were fewer puppets than in the past, but the air of macabre creativity, lavish solemnity was as sublime as ever.
Saturday night’s Dodgers-Blue Jays finale was, according to many, one of the best game sevens in World Series history, which is little consolation for Toronto’s fans, in whose ranks I counted myself. It was partly the disparity in salaries; as my friend Ben Crandell, another last-minute Blue Jays fan, wrote of the Dodgers’ championship, “It couldn’t have happened to a richer bunch of guys.” And I usually pull for the underdog (one of countless things that distinguishes me from my president). Finally, I thought it would have been fitting for Canada to have the World Series trophy while Florida has the Stanley Cup.