Florida Dreamin’
13 Ways of Looking at Southwest Florida
(with apologies to Wallace Stevens)
1. Follow the golf carts across the grass, alive and green with Scotts Turf Builder and early morning sprinklers. Listen to the ping and chatter.
2. Scan the gumbo limbo tree for the mockingbird, singsonging and warbling high above the 16th tee.
3. Watch the kids of the bucket brigade—gathering waves, slopping them into carefully dug craters, creating for a moment a personal ocean.
4. With the waves at your back, crane your neck to count the floors of the condos glowing white against the sky.
5. Walk the crowded streets past the real estate storefronts glowing with ads for the Florida lifestyle. Count the zeroes.
6. Veer off into the back alleys and find the silver saw palmettos, the clusters of firebush and frangipani, the hibiscus trumpets poised to sing.
7. Peruse the sidewalk menus framed like works of art: Tuna Tataki, Grilled Branzino, Pappardelle Mare e Monti. Wonder at the “Market Price” of a Japanese Wagyu steak.
8. Take a perfect orange from a weathered hand at a farm market stall. Sit on a shady bench and feel the oil slick your thumb as you pierce the skin. Inhale
9. Watch the young parking attendant hand over the keys of the Bentley Flying Spur, nodding a thank you for the five-dollar tip.
10. See him bike home at midnight on the deserted eight-lane road.
11. Find patterns in the cirrus wisps as the sun drops below the firm line of the horizon.
12. Watch the gulf swallow your ankles then pull away, sinking you slowly into the sand.
13. Count the mailboxes along the graceful curve, each one marking a sweet. modest, lifelong dream.
Click on the squares for a full sized image.
Oscar post-mortem
Plenty of print and pixels spilled already about the Oscars. Knock yourself out debating the why's and wherefore’s. I do have a couple of movie-related thoughts..
He’s Just Ken.
—Per the broadcast itself, I’m a little puzzled at the “meh” reaction from the press. Things moved right along, so much so that Jimmy Kimmel and the Best Picture winners had to fill time at the end of the show (maybe that was due to Al Pacino giving the Readers Digest version of the Best Picture announcement). The music numbers were short and sweet—save “I’m Not Ken,” which got a deserved, full-bore Busby Berkeley treatment. The speeches were sometimes charming, (the giddy, barely translatable love song from the Godzilla Minus One F/X crew), sometimes inspiring (Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s tearful thank you’s), and occasionally moving in their gravitas (20 Days in Mariupol, The Zone of Interest).
Not so Marvel-ous?
—Does the good feeling of the Oscars translate to a sunny cinema future—I don’t think so. Even in the year of Barbenheimer, the estimable film critic and historian Mark Harris finds little to celebrate in the hallowed halls of Hollywood. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed, he looks into a bleak and cloudy crystal ball and sees an industry that is slow to innovate and is thus not prepared to handle the changing viewing habits of a Tik-Tok world. Streaming services are no longer the panacea Hollywood expected, and artificial intelligence looms on the horizon. In Harris’s thinking, studios are in need of a creative shift, similar to the rise of auteur cinema in the 1970s or the rise of the indies in the 1990s. But, he argues, the kind of creativity required for such a transformation is in short supply. More superheroes perhaps? Probably not. As Harris writes, “The days when audiences would faithfully trot out for every interconnected chapter of a cinematic-universe saga are over. That’s no longer entertainment. That’s homework.”
Jury Duty
The real Ronald Gladden (center) and the actor cast of Jury Duty.
In an increasingly Balkanized world, we rarely get the chance to step outside of our various bubbles and interact with a cross-section of America. But if you’re picked for a jury, you’ve got to sit with a group of folks from across the political and social spectrum and collaborate on an important decision. This fact was clearly in the mind of Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky when they created the brilliant and warm-hearted Jury Duty, which you can now see on various streaming services.
A reality-comedy hybrid, Jury Duty follows a trial from start to finish. We watch the court proceedings and the deliberations and follow the jurors to their sequestered hotels and their occasional nights out. But everyone associated with the trial—jurors, lawyers, court personnel—are actors. Except Ronald Gladden, who is a real live person believing he is participating in a real live trial.
Ronald Gladden ponders the situation.
Eisenberg and Stupnitsky cut their television teeth on The Office and that show’s knack for the everyday absurd is on abundant display here. The writers throw all sorts of bizarre but human scenarios into Gladden’s orbit: a sad sack defendant whose lawyer turns against him, a B-list movie star (James Marsden) who goes ballistic after not landing a big role, a “transhumanist” oddball who shows up wearing what he calls “chair-pants,” and a host of others.
The “cast” are skilled improvisers who have to contend with occasional unexpected turns along the way. But the star of the show is Gladden, who is indefatigably sunny and generous of spirit in the most absurd situations. The final episode is all about the reveal, featuring peeks into the hidden control room, bloopers showing where things almost went south, and much love and admiration from cast and crew for the remarkable Gladden, an American hero for our fractured age.
Viva Verdi
Guiseppi Verdi.
I’m headed to the multiplex this week to see/hear La Forza Del Destino, the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s epic tragedy. I’m going primarily to hear Lise Davidsen, a soprano declared by many to be the next big thing in the opera world. But I’m also happy to keep a little Verdi in my ears. He was my way into opera way back when. Since I don’t have an opportunity to see or hear opera too often, his work reminds me of it’s pleasures. If you’re opera curious, I suggest you start with him.
There’s plenty of help to help you along. Opera companies around the world are eager to bolster the population of Verdi fans, so there are many “introductions” to be found in the internet ether. The New York Times “5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Opera” includes a few Verdi excerpts. Garry Wills’s wonderful and readable Verdi’s Shakespeare will get you seriously acquainted with three of Verdi’s greatest works: Macbeth, Othello and Falstaff. Recently, former New York Times music critic published a lovely travelogue a few months ago, “A Pilgrimage to Verdi-Land,” which integrates short highlights from his operas to accompany his life journey to Verdi fandom and his recent tour through Verdi’s Italian stomping ground. Happy listening.
The Body Politic
Orhan Pamuk.
Even though I avoid it, political news seems to seep into my brain by osmosis. I try to do my part (they do call it a participatory democracy, after all), but also try to remember the deepest part of “the political.” This quote from Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk helps keep the right idea front and center:
Novels are political not because writers carry party cards-some do, I do not—but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the "art of the novel" lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist.
Be well. Look for a new Friday Five on March 22nd.