toy store

No matter where you go, there you are.

artman's alphabet - B

turtle soup

I intended this ghostly image of the tower because it speaks to an historical footnote.
Throughout human history and especially since Europe's exploration of the "new world" in the 1500's, Green Turtle meat has been considered good eatin'.
In 1896 a French chef named Armand Granday moved from New York to Key West and opened a turtle soup cannery - apparently the the Rockefellers, Astors and other elements of the burgeoning American snob culture were willing to pay good money for turtle steaks and consommé.
The turtles were were captured off the Cayman Islands, shipped live to Key West on schooners and released, sometimes 800 at a time, into Granday's "kraals" (the African word for corrals) where they would live until the cannery workers were ready to
butcher them.
So what about the tower?
Well, Granday's cannery was still operating in the 1960's when Florida's economic base was shifting from turtle murder to tourism. Cannery management reasoned that it just wouldn't be good PR for the cannery axmen to be seen doing their work by groups of squeamish tourists and so the cannery built the tower as a diversion. The idea was, charge admission to the top of the tower where the tourists could look down and thrill at the sight of all the turtles swimming around in the kraals. Then, on their way out, the cannery could sell the tourists turtle soup or steaks from the gift shop at the base of the tower.
All that went on until 1971 when the American government banned the killing of Green Sea Turtles. By the time I got to Key West in the year 2000, you could no longer climb the rusty old tower and more recently, for safety reasons, it has been taken down. The cannery building now houses the very fine Turtle Kraals Restaurant which is one of my very most favorite places to eat.

right of way

Now let's see, I'm sailing off his leeward rail and that gives me the right of way, I think. . .
Well, let's look at this another way. . .
He's 110 feet of oak under full sail at 20 knots, I'm 18 feet of fiberglass. . .
screw the right of way, he can go first!

nautical antiques

On those occasions when I want to give a gift, I usually come here to find something.
Sure, the place looks like a garage but that's "local color".
Coming here I know I'll find something more than a tchotchke; I'll find something that attracts good luck.
My thinking is that anything that spends endless years at sea and survives long enough to be called a nautical antique (rather than flotsam or jetsam), had a lucky life at sea and on to the person I'm gifting, that luck will rub off.

fleet's in

Being only 90 miles north of Cuba it's not hard to believe that the most powerful (and paranoid) government on the planet has an enormous naval presence in Key West. Every morning F-14s based on Boca Chica strafe the beaches, battleships and destroyers are ever present and at least twice a year an aircraft carrier will anchor out in the straights to shore-leave 6,000 of the brightest and healthiest young men and women you ever met.
Personally, I've never been big on battle flags, armed conflict or the politics that wave or wage them but, right - wrong or indifferent, I do have a healthy respect for the men and women in uniform and their choice to be out there getting it done.

overview

Standing on the top floor of Key West's tallest building, The La Concha Hotel (7 stories), I'm looking west toward the Gulf of Mexico (in the background).
In the foreground, bottom left, is the terra cotta tile of the hotel roof.
Below that, the Bougainvillea that lines much of that block of Duval Street and behind them, St. Paul's Episcopal. (St Paul's claim to fame in my life is the midnight mass on Christmas Eve; a beautiful service I haven't missed in years.)
Beyond the church, under all those trees, is a portion of the oldest residential section of the city, appropriately called Old Town.


click the cartoon to enlarge

white girls

Just having a bit of fun. . .

I came across these two goddesses on my way to a meeting at a bed and breakfast this morning. . .

. . .and yes,
I did put that look in
her eye.

art-on-ashe - VIDEO

Located in Old Town Key West, Art-On-Ashe is an artist's studio and gallery.
Inspired by the tropics, the current collection of 40 original works of art by artist Arthur Winstanley includes his abstract acrylics, photographic studies, aquarelle illustrations and watercolors.
Visits to the gallery are by appointment. Please call the number at the end of this short clip.

"every picture tells a story", run time: 6:06

snow roofs

Built by the Fed in 1891, the Custom House has been a courthouse, post office and government center, back when shipwreck salvaging (wrecking) had made Key West the richest city, per capita, in the United States. Today it's an art galley and museum.
If you've noticed the pitch of the roofs, at first blush, you might have thought that once upon a time, our Federal Government had a sense of humor. After all they are snow roofs, angled so steeply that when snow comes down on them it slides right off again. They were a bit more costly to construct than conventional roofs but at least there'd be no collapse from the weight of the accumulation and everyone working underneath them would be safe.
Except it has never and, unless global warming has it's way with the world, will never snow in this sub-tropical climate.
Maybe someone forgot to mention that to the Washington bureaucrats of the day or maybe, and I'm just spit-balling here, some politician's pal took unfair advantage of a lucrative government contract.
Hmmm. . . Imagine that concept.

brand new day

Sitting out here on the White Street Pier most mornings with a con leche and a sketchbook, I watch the brand new day rise out of the Atlantic.
I may use the time to talk things over with the Creator or reflect on the pleasures of the night before or just consider what needs doing in the day ahead. Whatever it is, it's always with gratitude for another opportunity.
Every new day is another opportunity. . .
To learn something new - or not, to be productive - or not, to make someone smile - or not.
Whatever happens by the end of the day is never really as important as the feelings of wonder, enthusiasm and gratitude for the opportunity to try again.
Every morning, for just a little while, the day is mine and the opportunities are endless.

snapshots from sunset

rocky and daisy-mae seemed entirely unimpressed by the banter between the dancing bear and the british queen. . .

"lord he was born a ramblin' man. . ."
(so quoted for the old allman brother's tune he was singin' at the time i took the picture)