South Florida is a place of sunshine, fresh produce and a healthy simple lifestyle. But once a year when Art Basel comes to town a darker more sinister climate descends upon the swamp like a heavy fog of doubt and dare i say debauchery and delirium.

The service was good and the views are unparalleled. As it is well off the main road, the water views are quiet, peaceful and are a good reminder of why the Keys are such a wonderful place to live (or visit).

Would I go back? In a heartbeat.

You’re a seasoned live painter. How do you prepare? Do you ever get nervous?

Painting is my passion. Usually I gesso my canvas to prepare for painting. Gesso is applied to smooth the surface in order to ensure an easy and level painting area. Once this is done, I like to sketch the general dimensions of whatever subject that I am painting. On two occasions in my art career I found myself nervous. The first time, I was painting for a charity event in front of about 60 people, and I could barely hold my brush. I was shaking so badly I had to stop and take a break. Thank goodness I had a friend to calm me down from the anxiety attack. The other time I was painting for an Art Nouveau event in West Palm, and the cure was a PBR and a few cigarettes. But overall, I find painting for an audience to be an engaging experience. The vibe is positive when you have great feedback, and the rush is rewarding.

Musicians’ union members plan to distribute leaflets at a concert Friday night in Fort Lauderdale of the South Florida Symphony to protest the struggling orchestra’s failure to pay musicians for previous concerts.

Jeffrey Apana, secretary-treasurer of Local 655 of the American Federation of Musicians, said the orchestra still owes musicians about $25,000 in wages and travel costs for concerts last season. He said the orchestra recently made payments to musicians of $200.

I hope that Sound Bite will be a notebook, a workshop and a conversation about food in South Florida. It’s where Nancy and I will share sights and sounds of food in South Florida and our collected scraps as we work on new projects. It’s also where we invite you to help us answer the question, “What does South Florida taste like?” and to share your thoughts, ideas and photos.

According to Soto he wanted to, in a public arena “break the barrier of how people set aside their own space.” When folks go to the beach, the towel is their real estate for the day. He said, “I wanted to subvert that with a big ass one that is for everybody. It’s everybody’s beach towel.”

In the end, though, EVA & ADELE identify foremost as living art, as suggested by their catchphrase: “Wherever we are is museum.”

The fact that wherever they are is often actually a museum is besides the point. EVA & ADELE are worth the price of admission.

It's got an old-world elegance about it, sort of the 1920s. At least, that's what I get from seeing the bar and the main dining room layout, a vison of designer Francois Frossard, the master artist behind Miami Beach's The Forge, Liv and Arkadia.

The list of failures is long: the administration failed to be more aggressive pushing for a stimulus, it failed to demand, much less get, an equity stake in the banks you and I paid to bail out, it failed to do anything at all meaningful to help underwater homeowners, and did next to nothing to punish anyone responsible for the financial debacle economically — much less criminally. Those are clear, real failures, they were not (with the possible exception of the stimulus which required Republican support that certainly could not have been guaranteed even with a more confrontational strategy) hard to foresee nor all that hard to prevent. Nor, unlike the underlying economic problem itself, are any of them things you can blame on George W. Bush.

That the GOP seems poised to choose its nominee between someone utterly unprincipled and someone crazy and dangerous as well as unprincipled, suggests Obama may be lucky. That luck may get him re-elected. It’s a certainty that if re-election happens, it won’t be because of his handling of the economic crisis.

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Even the Losers



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12/06/2011

 

Head8k has been doing a nice job capturing some of the wall mural images [like the one above] that have been created around Wynwood for this year's Art Basel.

Make sure you check them out.


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12/06/2011

Being a Starbucks fan [and not being ashamed to say it], I was well aware that they underwent a logo change back at the beginning of the year. I've seen "The Siren" on their cups since then and I quite honestly didn't have any feelings towards it. But this past weekend I passed by one of my favorite Starbucks on  SW 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale and what did I see?

Gone are the familiar, block letters that spelled out the brand name. In their place was the above logo.

Wow.

I don't think I like it. There's nothing there that's says "coffee," literally or graphically, and I just don't have a mental connection between the product and this logo...yet.

Maybe it will grow on me, but for now I'm just not feeling it.

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A- Sun-Sentinel: Chan Lowe.

B- South Florida Business Journal: No more Bally's.

LA Fitness has taken over the 13 Bally Total Fitness location left in South Florida.

Fitness International LLC, an affiliate of L.A. Fitness International LLC, struck a deal to acquire 171 Bally clubs for $153 million, which will leave Chicago-based Bally with 100 clubs. Bally has been downsizing in South Florida as it negotiated its way through Chapter 11.

C- CBS4: Bubba still packing them in.

CORAL GABLES (CBSMiami) – Hundreds of people waited, some for hours, to see former President Bill Clinton who was in Coral Gables to sign his newest book. Some wanted to talk politics, but others just wanted the chance to meet the man who was once leader of the free world.

[...]

Thursday’s signing event was sold out, but even with a ticket people still started waiting in line at 10 a.m. for the afternoon event.

Even though Clinton was there to sell books, he couldn’t resist a question about the Republican presidential race.

“It looks like a process of elimination,” he said with a grin. “It looks like they keep bringing one up and knocking one down. “

D- CBS4: Video, a real ice rink at the Hotel Intercontinental.



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A- Food for Thought reveals Part Two of His Art Basel Dining Guide.

B- Artlurker explores Re-framing The Feminine, which is currently showing at The Girl's Club in Fort Lauderdale.

It appears that the female relationship to the camera – the woman and the machine – deserves a little historical revision and scholarly attention in light of the shifting voices of feminism. Re-Framing the Feminine is a concise survey of such a dialogue that deserves further exploration. It’s exemplary of the power of a simple survey exhibition to raise questions rather than offer watered down answers to monumental questions. However, instead of “re-framing,” it would be nice to see forthcoming explorations go beyond the frame, and back to the machine and how women command it both in front of and behind the lens[.]

C- Twenty new photos are up at The Street.

D- Go Hydrology! graphically looks at the disbursement of hurricanes over the last few years.

E- Bark Bark Woof Woof shows us how far the U.S. actually is when it comes to how much taxes we pay and how the Republicans just voted down another decrease for most Americans...yes, you heard that right.

F- The Reid Report posts a couple clips from last night's interview of Ginger White, the latest woman who claims a relationship with Herman Cain.


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