Here comes the sun

Big, bright and happy - what's not to like. And I say . . . It's all right . . . which reminds me of a scene I witnessed at a redlight, taking my daughter to school the other day.

Sirocco

She enters as motion
At the corner of my eye
Left to right
In a solar arc
All elbows, knees, and jiggling excess
Bold as brass
Dark as bronze
Big as a Sousaphone

She takes to the streeet
As if it were a stage
In her own private parade
Dancing to beat the band
With a hyperbole of gesture
No doubt scripted for aerobic effect

She takes her time
Taking in the moment
When she reaches the refuge of the far corner
A car honks
And it looks, for a moment
As if she might return for an encore
But she continues on her way
After a simple jig
Blowing west
In a cloud of construction dust



The good stuff:

Takin' care of business
The light at the end of the tunnel
Double rainbow
Big hairy audacious dreams
Good old-fashioned elbow grease
Comic books
Sultry looks
Yogurt-covered pretzels
gingerbread
volunteers

Alleluiah!

There's a big old cross around the corner from my house that towers high over the landscape, poking up into the rarefied air reserved for skyscrapers, cell towers, water towers, and Mormon temples. Early odds had it that this monument was, in fact, a cell tower. A couple of other churches in town had already monetized their monuments, and given the prime location next to the cross-town expressway, it seemed a logical step. Except this cross was no golden idol. Central Florida Baptist Church built it as a beacon of faith -- and a nifty navigational landmark. "Look to the cross," and turn right.

At first I wasn't sure what to think about having my neighborhood high ground, near Gotha, turned into a gol-darned Golgotha, until I saw the cross backlit one stormy evening at sunset. I keep meaning to get back and stake out a spot the next time the light is right. But in the meantime, this will have to suffice. I shot this back in August, but have been holding onto it for the right moment. After Darlyn and I went to hear the wonderful free performance of Handel's Messiah last night at The Bob Carr, the time seemed right.

The Good Stuff:

Sacred Music
Renaissance Art
Cinnamon pecans
Freshly washed cars
A week full of possibilities
Holiday spirit
Morning rain
Sunny and 70 degrees
Hot apple cider
Crawfish etouffee

Azaleas

Florida fall is in full effect - sycamore leaves twirling in the wash of passing cars. Acorns crunching underfoot. And color! Sweetgum, sycamore, red maple, sugarberry, persimmon, black cherry, sassafras, and the flowering dogwood. The West Orange Trail this weekend was a riot of color. But my favorite season, by far, is just around the corner, when the camelias will bloom, followed by the azaleas and magnolia. Paradise! 

The good stuff:

A well-organized office

Handel's Messiah - FREE!

Facebook - in moderation

A good book (or three)

A well-stocked library

Scrooged

The morning paper

A job well-done

Dandelion fluff

Maple seed helicopters

Juvenalia

Spent yesterday going through my home office, digging down through the layers - the art from the refigerator period, the various tools and paraphernalia of the scrapbooking period -- all the way down through the college textbooks I saved because I thought I'd need them, but never did, and into the stuff I did when I was a kid, that my parents shipped me in a big old box to get it out of their house period. This picture was not from any of those periods, but it captures the essence of all of them -- demolition derby, monster trucks, mayhem . . . beer -- rendered as a cartoon, suitable for even the finest refrigerator.

The Good Stuff:

Clean closets - No. REALLY clean.

Old photographs

Sharpies and Post-its

Toy telescopes

Late-night guitar sing-alongs

Vodka and cranberry juice

Venetian masks

The way everything, always seems to get done, eventually

Blue skies, smilin' at me ...

Puppies in passing cars

Winternacht

Cold air is just made for walking at night, bundled up in a long black felt overcoat, snuggled down into a baby-soft cashmere scarf, hands in pockets, shuffling down empty streets beneath a stark, fat moon like a character from a Leonard Cohen song. On cold nights, we are all gifted with rabbit ears, as sound, unfettered by the baffle of humidity, travels fast and far to bring news of things unseen. The chicken-chatter of children, the suspicious report that sounds like gunfire, but is probably only a taxi backfiring. The cell phone conversation on the fire escape, and the fight in B-12. These are the nights for which neighborhood bars with fireplaces and Irish coffee were invented. Comfort food is mandatory.

The Good Stuff:

Long weekends

More leaves on the ground than on on the trees

Fall colors

The sorting hat

Confessional poetry

Passing the phone at Thanksgiving

Getting organized

Tipping points

Poinsettias

Big pots of spaghetti

Moto

The good stuff:

A long walk on a cool night

A fire in the fireplace

12-cold drinks and a powerful thirst

Leftovers

Improvisation

Three kinds of dessert

Purple and pink sunsets

Traditions

The smell of cookies baking

Breeze

Bicycle Boulevard Barcelona

Just one of many beautiful vistas in Barcelona. This one, from the Parque de la Ciutadella, looking through the Triumphal Arch toward Tibidabo.

The good stuff:

Coffee on a cold day

The celophane sheen of lake ripples at sunset

Anhinga roosting

Fountains

the village at Versailles

baking cookies

vanilla

the irrational exuberance of dog owners

the potential of libraries

the opposite of conspiracy theories

Two - redux

As with the butterfly a few months ago, these two wouldn't let me get away with just my original altered picture. They wanted me to show them as I found them.

The Good Stuff:

campus visits

The Swamp Restaurant.

The Swamp

university libraries

Hari Krishna lunch

racoon bandits

pipe organ

carrilon

marching band practicing

balcony seating

El Gallo

More Key West, more watercolor. There's just something about that place.

The Good Stuff

Urban assault chickens

A night out

rainy days

Mondays

Cuban coffee

etouffe

balloon arches

swans at night

the vulnerability of a sleeping vagabond

dueling guitars in the park at dusk 

World Wide Web

The big blue marble in this pic - actually a blown-glass fishing float - reminded me of the big blue marble we live on. I spend a lot of time, professionally, thinking about this marble - writing about sustainable water strategy and advocating for healthy lifestyles, diversity, and sustainable development. It's easy, in my line of work, to get caught up in all that is wrong on our marble, but like the net in this picture, we are all connected. Yesterday that point was hammered home for me.

I started my day with whole wheat toast, and honey - harvested, as you know, from the killer bees in my yard. Darlyn and I met up with a group from Bike/Walk Central Florida and Commute Orlando to ride our bicycles to the Winter Park Harvest Festival - a celebration of locally grown food. On the road, along the way, to and from, we passed people we knew, some also on bikes. They smiled and waved. Sometimes we stopped and talked, and it struck me as wonderful, the way a couple of winding residential thoroughfares, connected by a paved park path, is rapidly becoming a bicycle highway - well-travelled by a growing number of faces - faces I recognize, because we're not all flying along at 55 miles an hour behind tinted glass.

The recently installed bike racks in Winter Park's Central Park, were filled to capacity. And all around, I saw families on foot - parents pushing strollers, kids lolling in the grass conversing with bugs. Everywhere we turned, we found people we knew. And when we got home, there were emails from friends we'd missed, who had heard we were there and wanted to say they were sorry we'd missed each other.

Next to the Harvest Festival, which was new this year, was the Winter Park Farmer's Market, which is held every Saturday -- fresh produce, homemade breads, beaugainvillea and bromiliads. Hard to find fault there.

Later, in my car, I passed the venerable Citrus Bowl, where the Florida Classic, the annual match-up between Florida's two predominantly black universities, square off every year in one of the nation's truly great Football traditions.

I was on my way to Clermont, where bike club officers from around the state gathered in a conference room at the base of The Citrus Tower - a tourist attraction dating back to the days before Interstates, where, when roadside attractions thrived. When I moved to Central Florida, in 1985, you could still go to the top of the Citrus Tower and see mostly citrus groves below. These days, you see mostly houses, and varicolored ribbons of cycling clubs, churning and burning their way up, down and around the region's verdant rolling hills.

The meeting was organized by one of my clients, The Florida Bicycle Association, which was reaching out to ask club leaders how they might better serve the cycling community. It was a great dialogue, followed by a reception at the Cycling Hub bike shop, headquarters for the Horrible Hundred, a ride named for both its 100-mile distance, and the challenging hills on the course. The ride itself took place today.

Just 24 hours - one turn of the marble between the thumb and forefinger of God. So much hope. So much life. So much to celebrate.  

The Good Stuff:

The Horrible Hundred

Community

The Cycling Hub in Clermont

Cycling Savvy

Five Guys hamburgers

The Winter Park Harvest Festival

Blue Jays at breakfast

meeting friends at the park

momentum

college visits

Apothecary

I've always liked this photo. Not sure why. I'm going to the dentist this morning, so I'm not feeling particularly creative. I'll post The Good Stuff when I return.

The Good Stuff:

Van Morrison played during a root canal

Quiet waiting rooms

Flexi-straws

Walking around with Elvis lip --Thank you. Thankyouverymuch.

A break in a hectic schedule

A fire in the fireplace

The anticipation of mail

Big gnarled oak roots

Snow birds headed south

Butterbeer recipes on the Internet.

Heron Gone

Great Blue Heron -- they don't pose for pictures, but man are they pretty.

The good stuff:

Kids on bikes

College campuses

Green transportation

Stomp the yard - for real

Fraternity row

Revision

Crocuses

Swallow swarms

Goalies

Goonies

Wild Blue

One of the art world's dirty little secrets revealed here for the first time: Because Picasso's blue period preceded his green period, the famous artist, in the fashion of the day, simply plucked the blue periods he needed from several large exclamation marks and left the discarded tops upended in this public park. Later, he would realize the error of his ways and become an avid recycler, crushing all of his refuse into convenient, disposable cubes. Thus, Picasso would go on to become known as the father of cubism.

The good stuff:

A forgiving audience

Dilbert

Designer sheep's clothing, for wear-wolves

Free speech - with purchase

FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!

Patents pending

Self-cleaning ovens

Self-cleaning babies

Count Count

A Muppet Christmas Carol

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde

Whenever he'd go out, he'd hear the people shout: "There goes Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde! Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da." . . . Which was unfortunate, and more than a little disturbing. Plus it wouldn't fit on the book jacket. So he shortened it -- his name, that is, not the book jacket -- that would have been silly, like having yourself buried in an Art Deco Egyptian modern tomb within kissing distance of your famously flamboyant fan base.

Little known fact:: He was born with three middle names. One he had surgically removed. The others he sold for food and firewood during one particularly harsh Paris winter.

A favorite quote: "People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately."

The good stuff:

Big Hairy Audacious Grave markers

Jambalaya, crawfish pie, and file gumbo (that's fee lay)

Bluesville

The Writer's Almanac

Cedar Waxwings -- I just like the name - very Icarian.(would that be vicarious?)

The Fringe Lottery

Peach yogurt

Crunchy ice cream

Free deli samples

Anything cinnamon

 

Orchid angel

Orchids do well in Florida. It's not for nothing that Ponce de Leon named this place Florida - which means "flowery" in Spanish. You can argue till you're blue in the face about how pretty the leaves are (for two weeks) in New England, but I'm here to tell you, we've got color year-round. From the tawdry red of the hibiscus, to the delicate pink of the Moth Orchid, Florida is a feast for the eyes. The camelia outside my dining room window is bursting with buds, ready to blast open into a fuschia orgy of the most beautiful lush flowers you could ever imagine. They look good enough to eat. This moth orchid lives at Le Petit Cadeau, a paradise on Big Pine Key, where Darlyn and I go, when we're lucky, to write and count the deer and iguana. Once, we were fortunate enough to go out on a boat with the cottage owners, Dan and Katherine Vaccaro. I reached into the muck and pulled up a perfect - empty - queen conch shell, that sits today, like an orchid, on a pedestal on Darlyn's porch. 

The good stuff:

Time to waste

flip flops in November

geese gaggling

Excedrin

Eden Brent singing Goodnight Moon

Boogaloo Ames

muses

Chinese fortune cookies, with fortunes - in Spanish

Hulu

hullabaloo  

Hogwarts

Amazing use of perspective almost makes you feel as if you're in the book.  Hope y'all aren't sick of my Harry Potter pics yet. Lots of good fun

Last night, I attended Jazz on Edge, a wonderful event produced by Joseph Hayes and Jennifer Greenhill Taylor, featuring creole cooking from the Roux Memories cookbook by Belinda Hulin, who was on-hand to share stories with us, and phenomenal Django Reinhardt-style Gypsy guitar music from Jason Cook and  The Cook Trio. Poet Sharon Hoffmann rounded out the bill, filling in ably for Summer Rodman, who was unable to attend.

Great night! Great food! Great people! Great fun! Thanks Joe and Jennifer.


The good stuff:

A full weekend of local entertainment
Frogen Yozurt
Squirrel Honey
Colombian Burger with Pineapple
Coffee, coffee, coffee, starts with C
Elaborate inside jokes - that you keep to yourself.
eggs and grits
guacamole
The Cook Trio
Django Reinehardt

Got butterbeer?

Cheers! And speaking of cheers, Darlyn and I ventured to New Smyrna yesterday for the 7th Annual Wham Bam Poetry Slam -- a crazy-good event put on by the great folks at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Fifteen poets, three judges, no preparation, and five minutes to compose an original piece, based on a prompt drawn from a brandy snifter. Three rounds, and cash prizes. Darlyn had been asked to judge this year. I was a tag-along, who decided, at the last minute, to sign up and compete. What fun! The event was conducted in three rounds, with us writing and performing each piece before continuing to the next round. Each performance was scored, and three winners were selected based on total combined score. This year's prompts were: "Turning the tide," "That's money," and, "Washing my hands."

Here's my favorite, of the three I wrote:

Bard

Washing my hands

I turn and churn the bar of soap

Slip, sloppy suds

And I wonder

As the bar erodes

How much of that is soap

And how much is me

Swirling and gurgling down the drain

10 times a day

for 48 years

365 days each

plus 12 leaps

There must be a whole me down there

collected in the bend

And I wonder what my doppleganger would be like

If I were to crack open the works

And gather me up

All those soapy bits

And squeeze them together

Into a new clean and shiny person

99 and 44/100ths percent pure

Bar Brad

I'll call him Bard.

The good stuff:

k.d. lang singing about the big-boned gal

poetry under pressure

cardinals dogfighting in the crape myrtle

Atlantic Center for the Arts

Bonfires at biker karaoke bars on U.S. 1.

crazy, quirky poets getting their muse on

tiny, cozy cabins amid the palmetto and cabbage palm

deer on the swale

dressing up - for a radio show . . .

biscuits and gravy at It's All Good, New Smyrna.

 

Queue-riosity

Here's something you don't see everyday -- an empty queue line at Islands of Adventure. Oh, sure, everyone was lined up waiting to buy a wand at Olivander's, but still, you have to appreciate the beauty of it. This was taken at 11 a.m.

The good stuff:

Cold beer

Hot deadlines

Old friends

Bold type

Rold Gold Pretzels

Shiner Bock

Finer rock

No socks

Talk

Spock

Sidewalk chalk

Hang on

More random beauty from my trip to Islands of Adventure. Yeah, I know, there are other things to take pictures of, but few as worthy as this lone hibiscus flower, the only sign of life on a leafless skeleton of a tree. I felt as if I were photographing the last star in a dying galaxy. I wondered if this one flower was all that stood between this plant and the compost heap. As an entrepreneur, gritting it out through sometimes sparse cash flow, I could relate. I thought, "Hang in there, Buddy." I suspected this heroic effort would be for nought. In tourist world, even the foliage is expected to perform. Still, like the tiny wrens in yesterday's post, this close encounter of the wonderful kind made my heart race in a way that Spider Man and Harry Potter never could.

The good stuff:

Faith in success

Random peacocks

Ends meeting

Meetings ending :)

Arlo Guthrie's City of New Orleans

Creative noise

Local heroes

Dinner delivered

Time in a bottle

A Wrinkle in Time

Two in the bush

As much as I liked the new Hogsmeade area at Islands of Adventure, it's this picture I keep coming back to -- two wrens, keeping house next to the exit to the High In The Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride. They're right there at eye level, and easily within reach. I guess there's so much going on all around that two small brown birds don't peg anyone's whoopee meter.  

The good stuff:

Doing it all, and then some

Shopping for comic book illustrators

Date night

1,000 pictures . . . that's what, like a million words?

Lions, and tigers, and beers

The first Christmas song of the season

The LAST Christmas song of the season

low-hanging fruit

double coupons

village squares

Instant bestseller - just add writer

Dear literary agent,

As you can see, my next best seller has all the makings of a classic -- a manual typewriter, strong coffee, and lots of leather-bound notebooks. I've even thrown in a clipboard and an uncomfortable chair, to show the quality of my research, and my ascetic work ethic. I have yet to write the first word. But having assembled the essentials, the rest is merely a matter of putting letters on the page and moving them around until they form sentences. There are only 26 letters. How hard could it be? I'll be sure to send you a copy, as soon as I know what it's about.

p.s.: I would prefer direct deposit for all my royalty checks.

The good stuff:

The hundreds of drivers who DIDN'T almost hit me on my bicycle yesterday

Going to bed early

Leftovers

The serenity of a quiet house, when even the dust motes hold their breath

The Dalai Lhama speaking at the University of Miami

The question: Does a designated deity have "human" rights?

The first fire in the fireplace

Austerity

Private sector cheese

Self-portrait

Mama always told me it was important to make a good impression. Here's an impressionistic interpretation of your blogger.

The good stuff:

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Butterbeer at Hogsmeade Universal Orlando

Pumpkin Juice

The Three Broomsticks

Hogwarts castle

69 degrees and sunny

Chocolate Frogs

The Incredible Hulk roller coaster

Spiderman, the ride

Short lines at theme parks

Hey, Hey We're the Monkeys

Took the last train to Clarksville and look who met me at the station. Guess that'll teach me to be a daydream believer. I should have known. Good day Saturday, signing books at the Altamonte Mall to raise money for Adult Literacy. Thanks to all who stopped by! Great fun. Great cause!

The good stuff:

Steak and bourbon mushrooms

Florida resident discounts

Pumpkin Pie Blizzards

New projects

Islands of Adventure

Stalagmites and stalactites

Putting faces to names

Colombia -- St. Augustine

Blown glass jellyfish

Trying out catch phrases

Drum line

I love, love, love roadside tourist traps. They're just chockful of these ticky-tacky tchotchke gems. Somebody actually set up a production line where they said: Okay, what we need it to glue these cowrie shells together, give them straw hats and stogies ... and, oh yeah, a drum. I found this drum line at the Florida Citrus Center in St. Augustine: "Home of the 13' Alligator!" I loves me some Stuckey's Pecan Log, and growing up, I remember a place, in Nebraska, or thereabouts, called Horne's Corners, that had a beehive behind a glass wall. Without these places, I wouldn't know about Sea Monkeys, Magic Rocks, Mexican Jumping Beans and Saltwater Taffy.

The good stuff:

Pecan Logs

Jawbreakers

Mexican Jumping Beans

Sea Monkeys

Magic Rocks

Saltwater Taffy

Horne's Corners

Truck stop pancakes

Novelty trucker caps

Bobbleheads

Russians Love American Music

Blue
From Three Houses Copyright 2008, Brad Kuhn & Darlyn Finch

There's a shade of blue
I call "Wild Blue"
that makes me think of France
or Kansas
depending on how pretentious I'm feeling
or how much I've been thinking about wine
"Cornflower" they'd call it
in men's shirt catalogs
"Cerulean" to poets and
fashion-forward writers of couture copy
I guess because it's hard to get people
to break off an extra $20 for "Yonder."
It's free in November
Sky

There's a shade of blue
I call "Sweet-Jesus"
that makes me think of dancing in biker bars
hands cupped on the denim-clad curves
of a big-boned gal
hanging on for dear life
eye to eye, knee to thigh
grinding her gears
She sucks breath through clenched teeth
as my fingers find and linger on
the thin spot
that makes her think of past mistakes
and ones she'd like to make again
Indigo

There's a shade of blue
I call "Lucille"
that makes me think of Kansas City,
New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago
Digging glassy-eyed Buddhas with their mad, mad mudras
using horns and crying guitars
to rip the hearts out of suckers like me
who pay for the privilege
of having the surgery performed by professionals
instead of the dull knives of the back-alley butchers
back home
Cobalt.


Blues, jazz and tag art (the russian sax man was painted on a construction fence in Key West)--a few of my favorite things. Here are a few more . . .

The good stuff:

Folk songs sung at the top of our lungs, with a Bob Dylan accent.
Playing guitar till it twangs out of tune.
Swapping family stories and laughing until our faces hurt.
Loud, clumsy, wonderful sibling reunion.
Being reached via Facebook, because my phone is on silent.
Watching my daughter leave for school, driving herself for the first time.
Getting a phone call from my daughter (unsolicited) and hearing she arrived safely.
One day off
With four bottles, you get a wine bag, free!
St. Augustine

Kokomo

In the Florida Keys, there's a place called Kokomo. At least that's what the Beach Boys say. They made that up. But if there were such a place, I figure it would look like this row of Key West cottages. My Key West photos look great by themselves, but, as with yesterday's bagpipe busker, I'm finding that water color seems to capture the vibe of the place --- reality in a blender, served with a slice of lime. I was half-tempted to photoshop a red bike into the picture, just because.

The good stuff:

Rain on a tin roof

Coconuts - unless you've parked beneath a palm tree

Banana daquiris

Mango groves

Key lime pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Family reunions

Rites of passage

A well-stocked library

Ceiling fans

Big fluffy bathrobes

Mallory Square

"Jumping the Shark" is an entertainment term inspired by a later episode of the 70s sitcom Happy Days, when writers, desperate to hang onto a falling audience share, had Henry Winkler's character Arthur Fonzarelli, jump over a shark tank on a motorcycle -- for reasons that have been lost to time. Today the term is broadly applied to any form of entertainment that tries too hard. Of course, if jumping the shark were an actual form of entertainment, you'd probably find it at sunset at Mallory Square in Key West, and the guy or girl jumping the shark, would also be juggling fire. I don't know whether fire juggling is required to get a busking permit in The Conch Republic, but everyone does it. A guy on a unicycle limbos under a stick, juggling fire. A few feet away, a guy on stilts juggles fire. And across the square, a magician does card tricks and, . . . you guessed it. A troupe of trained six-toed cats . . . no, THAT really would be jumping the shark -- besides, cats don't have thumbs. The guy I feel sorry for is this fella, who trained his whole life to be a Key West fire juggler, only to discover, upon arrival, that he had to learn to play the bagpipes if he wanted to stand out. Personally, I'd have been more impressed if he'd juggled flaming bagpipes. That would  have been entertaining -- and noble.

The good stuff:

Circus supply stores

Afternoon naps

Dessert first

The way sportscasters' heads explode during the week that professional baseball, football and basketball seasons overlap.

Calliope tuners (who juggle fire)

Dueling dulcimers

Rain, out of season

Charity that begins at home, but spills over into the community

Flannel pajamas

Flan

 

Eventually zebra came to regret the condo

The good stuff:

wrens

juxtaposition

song parodies

candy corn pumpkins

sitting side by side because across the table is just too far

planning a family visit

dreaming of Tuscany

exercising the right, and privilege, to vote

dancing through life

the first honk of geese

the last honk of geese

Feliz Dias de los Muertos!

A detail from one of the Day of the Dead dioramas Darlyn bought me on Olvero Street in Los Angeles.

Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico can be traced back to the indigenous cultures. Rituals celebrating the deaths of ancestors have been observed by these civilizations perhaps for as long as 2,500–3,000 years.[1] In the pre-Hispanic era, it was common to keep skulls as trophies and display them during the rituals to symbolize death and rebirth. more

The good stuff:
 
Trick or treating by pedicab.
Only 24 more hours of political ads
Renewing acquaintances
Family reunions
A buck by the lake at dawn
Sandhill crane couples
Morning fog
Wrestling a goal to reality
Fondue forks
fondant icing