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There are times when the sound of the gulls echoes just right; when the humidity, temperature, and strength of the breeze is just right; or when perhaps you see some little visual reminder; and, you remember just where you are, living on a peninsula between a huge bay and an even bigger gulf (next stop…Mexico).

When I was a kid and the family would make its yearly treks southward to visit family, sometimes we were lucky enough to come on down past Mississippi into Florida and Tampa Bay. I remember, distinctly, one archetypal image that always said to me, “You are now someplace special.” That was the ubiquitous oyster shell covered driveways. Sometimes, whole roads were covered in oyster shell. (Back in those days, not all roads were paved…well, I guess they’re still not!) I’m not sure why they fell out of favor, but oyster shell roadways are gone. But every so often, I’ll see some sand amid a mix of pebbles by the edge of the sidewalk and remember that, really, we’re just living–quite temporarily–on what was once the bottom of the ocean floor.

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Sometimes our awakening is caused by a building from a bygone era. Much of downtown St. Pete has living postcards that are still in use such as the old open air post office pictured here. Take a few minutes and check out these collections of vintage St. Pete postcards belonging to my friend, Fran Sims. Almost everything pictured in those cards still exists and is in use in some way.

• Florida Postcard Gallery 1
• Florida Postcard Gallery 2
• Florida Postcards Pass-a-grille
• Florida Postcard 1920 foldout
• Florida Postcard foldout 1
• Florida Postcard foldout 2

Usually, we glide right past these places. Then sometimes, some chance occurrence–we’re on foot when we usually drive, we’ve taken an unusual route, the light angles a certain way–then we see the place anew and realize where we are. We see the traces of women with parasols and men with straw boater hats still drifting along the colonnades.

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Sometimes the cue to remember will be under our feet. For me, it’s when I realize I’m walking on Augusta brick. Sometimes it’s the hex block sidewalks found in different neighborhoods. Or…PINK STREETS, a phenomenon found in St. Petersburg on the extreme southern tip of Pinellas Point.

All of us who live here are less than 15 minutes from some water’s edge (often far less than 15 minutes). How recently have you visited the water’s edge? No time? Take your morning coffee there on the way to work. Sit there alone and wake up to surf sound. It’ll help you remember why you even bother to go to work. And, if you don’t live here, wherever you do live there is something (or even more important, someone) special and unique to that place. Now, I’m talking to myself as much as you: if we let more than a week go by without remembering where we are–and visiting its special offerings–we’re letting something precious go to waste. Let’s take some time this week to rediscover where we are.

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FIRST ANNUAL ARBORS RECORDS INVITATIONAL JAZZ PARTY

Recently, I had the opportunity to photograph backstage at the Arbors Records First Annual Arbors Records Invitational Piano Jazz Party at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort on Clearwater Beach. There’s a lot of jazz in Florida and a lot here in the Tampa Bay Area. One of the biggest supporters of jazz in the area is a niche recording label, Arbors Records.

Arbors Records specializes in classic jazz. So, what is “classic jazz”? That’s tough to answer because it’s not even possible to define “jazz.” But, everyone knows it when they hear it. I would suggest that a workable definition of classic jazz is jazz up until the early 1940s, or pre-bebop (pre-Charlie Parker, pre-John Coltrane, pre-Miles Davis, pre-Ornet Coleman, pre-Dizzy Gillespie). You might also use this more descriptive definition of “classic jazz” from the Classic Jazz Society of Toronto.

The opportunity to shoot backstage at First Annual Arbors Records Invitational Piano Jazz Party was made possible by the invitation of a good friend and professional colleague of many years, Gary Baldassari. I first made Gary’s acquaintance when working the NFL Super Bowl pregame show as its music director during the 1990s. Gary was the audio specialist and audio engineer for Best Productions, for whom we both worked, that produced the shows. Baldassari worked for many years for Walt Disney productions and is the author of numerous technical articles on recording techniques. He is a frequent audio engineer for the Pori Jazz Festival in Pori, Finland, and has long been associated with Arbors Records, recording many of their albums and running sound for their various events such as their famous jazz cruises and their classic jazz festivals.

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GARY BALDASSARI MIXING AT ARBORS RECORDS JAZZ PARTY

According to the Arbors Records website:

“Arbors Records was founded by Rachel and Mat Domber in 1989 to record and preserve the classic styles of jazz. It originated because of their desire to record their friend, the outstanding reedman, singer and composer, Rick Fay, who had been in the music business for over 40 years mostly as a performer at the Disney parks in California and Florida, but had never previously recorded.”

I’d had the good fortune working with Rick Fay on one of the NFL Super Bowl pregame shows I was the music director for. It was for one of the New Orleans shows and Mr. Fay did played our soulful clarinet intro of “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” leading into “The Saints Go Marching In” for a beautiful, archetypical classic jazz recording I still cherish. It was Mr. Baldassari who introduced me to Mr. Fay and secured his services for this recording.

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OVERHEAD CLOSEUP PROJECTIONS AT ARBORS FESTIVAL

Continuing from their About Us page:

“Since the release of their first recording, Rick Fay’s Hot Five: Live at Lone Pine, in 1990, Arbors Records through the summer of 2002, has put out almost 160 CDs…Another 30 to 40 CDs have been recorded but are still in production…Arbors Records is also the producer of the acclaimed March of Jazz weekend jazz parties, held in Florida the third weekend in March…Arbors Records is also a sponsor of the Suncoast Dixieland Jazz Classic, in Clearwater Beach, Florida. In addition, Mat Domber is a board member of the American Federation of Jazz Societies and a co-founder of the Statesmen of Jazz, a touring ensemble group of senior musicians who perform at jazz events and give clinics in the schools…Starting with the original dixieland recordings by various Rick Fay groups, the label now embraces traditional jazz and contemporary classic jazz and the swing styles of the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and beyond. But regardless of style, all of the recordings have in common a love of melody, improvisation and swing.”

This event–The First Annual Arbors Records Invitational Piano Jazz Party–was beautiful music. I got to hear the most astounding two-piano performance by a pair of European artists, Louis Mazetier (Paris) and Bernd Lhotzky (Munich). I adore good two-piano classic jazz work. Many a night have I listened to the Marian McPartland show on NPR. What was always so unbelievable to me was that her wonderful series of guest and she would, completely extemporaneously, perform together on two pianos. It’s much easier to imagine one piano and a single line instrument, such as saxophone or clarinet, doing this successfully…but two-pianos!? There are so many notes on a piano and it is so easy to get in each other’s way, to step on each other’s musical toes. The challenge is to not create acoustic mayhem.

Mazetier and Lhotzky are even all the more amazing because they are both premier “stride piano” experts. “Stride piano” is early classic jazz in which the left hand of the piano player is constantly jumping huge distances to play, with just that one hand, a very melodic bass part as well as an inner chordal accompaniment. Add to that a florid melodic invention on top with the other hand and one pianist manages to sound like three musicians! So, put together two famous stride piano musicians and you’ve got the effect of six musicians with just two people. Exciting barely covers it. One’s body twitches and bobs continuously. It’s impossible to hold still.

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LOUIS MAZETIER and BERND LHOTZKY

According to Hot House Florida, the Arbors Records Second Annual Invitational International Piano Party will be January 15th, 16th and 17th, 2010. They say:

“The all event price is $250.00 per person. (No individual event tickets will be sold) Seating is limited to 200 people at 20 tables of ten. A 10% discount will be given for 10 reserving together. Seating will be arranged in order of reservations.

“The Sheraton Sand Key Resort is located at 1160 Gulf Boulevard, Clearwater Beach, FL 33767. Telephone: 1-727-595-1611, FAX; 1-727-563-6004: TOLL FREE: 1-800-456-7263. A limited number of hotel rooms are available at the special rate of $199.00 per night, single or double occupancy, plus tax. Please make your hotel reservations directly with the hotel and mention Arbors Records Invitational.

“Arbors Records is located at 2189 Cleveland Street, Suite 225, Clearwater, FL 33765. Phone: 1-727-466-0432; FAX: 1-272-466-0432; TOLL FREE: 1-800-299-1930. Visa, Mastercard, American Express and personal checks accepted.”

You can order CDs directly from Arbors Records or from a variety of their distributors such as Webster Records Jazz by Mail. An excellent article on Arbors Records is this all about jazz article from 2004. The Arbors Records website has an excellent page of jazz links that is very informative.

Hot House Florida, out of Palm Beach Florida, is a blog associated with Hot House Artists that “provides insight into select local and national jazz, Latin and blues artists that will be performing in our area.”

Another classic jazz local classic jazz resource is Puppy Jazz Distribution, out of Sarasota. One of the distributors who carries Arbors Records, Puppy Jazz specializes in classic jazz and hard to find labels. They have a free newsletter available by email or online.

For more information on coming Arbors Records events, such as the 2009 Jazz Cruise and The Second Annual Arbors Records Invitational Jazz Party, be sure to visit the Arbors Records website or contact them by email, snail-mail, or phone.

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ARBORS JAZZ PARTY at the SHERATON SAND KEY

(Note: all the individual pictures in this post link to larger images in Flickr; just click on the smaller images you see here.)

CHILEAN FLAMINGOS

A BOTANICAL EXPERIENCE

That’s the “tag line” for the St. Petersburg Sunken Gardens. It’s well chosen. The afternoon I first visited the St. Petersburg Sunken gardens, was following a particularly stressful job interview and negotiations. I bought my ticket to the gardens—actually, I bought a year pass which I’ll discuss shortly—and entered into four acres of solitude and reflection right in the heart of downtown St. Pete. Slowly walking along winding paths that conceal then reveal verdant surprises, the tranquility helped me make up my mind about how to proceed with the issues that led me to seek some respite. The experience totally satisfied my need for garden paths, ivy covered rugged stone walls, miniature water fall fountains, and koi ponds. The Sunken Gardens botanical experience was exactly what I needed that day.

It was apparently what other people needed, too. A small troop of kindergarteners immediately fell silent upon walking into this magical world. A middle aged woman and her mother spending an afternoon together walked about. A soon-to-be bride and groom and their best-man and bridal attendant where there checking out the area where weddings are conducted. The occasional other single senior, such as myself, moseyed about, taking pictures, sitting on benches, or just standing, listening to the birds.

BOUGAINVILLEA	CAMELLIA
HOSTA	CURCUMA GINGER

HISTORY

Here’s a quote from the Sunken Gardens brochure about the history of the attraction:

“Sunken Gardens has been a landmark in St. Petersburg since 1935, when it officially opened as Turner’s Sunken Gardens. In 1903, the four acre property was purchased by George Turner, Sr., a plumber, who was an avid gardener. He drained a shallow lake, that dropped 15 feet below street level to provide a rich soil to grow fruits and exotic plants from all over the world. By 1924, his amazing garden was attracting visitors who paid 25 cents for a stroll through the beautiful, lush gardens. Papayas, citrus and exotic plants brought the tropics to this subtropical area. Grover heaters were brought in to heat the magnificent Royal Palms, bougainvillea and other cold sensitive tropical plants during the winter. The garden became world renowned for its unique collection of plants and colorful blooms. In the 1950s, exotic wildlife was added to the growing botanical attraction… In 1998, Sunken Gardens was designated a local historic landmark, and in 1999 it was purchased by the City of St. Petersburg.”

There are 24 different areas of the botanical gardens. My personal favorites are the Chilean flamingos, the parrots and other exotic birds, the bromeliads, the lily ponds, the various koi ponds and miniature waterfall fountains, the Japanese garden, the arched bridge, the little spots to meditate and rest, the tropical fruit garden, and the butterfly garden.

Adjoining the gift shop for the Sunken Gardens is the Great Explorations Children’s Museum. Although it is adjoining the gardens, it is completely separate physically so the quietude of Sunken Gardens is preserved.

LOTUS BLOSSOM (WATER LILY)

WATER HYACINTH, NOT YET IN BLOOM

WEDDINGS & PRIVATE PARTIES

Another quote from their literature describes their facilities for weddings and private parties:

“Since 1935, Sunken Gardens has been a favorite setting for exchanging those special vows…The Garden Room, a great location for your banquet or reception, is located in the historic 1926 main building. It was designed keeping its history in mind, creating a loft-like feel with high wood ceilings and metal beams. Overlooking the exquisite gardens, this special room’s uniqueness makes it unlike any other wedding experience.”

BENCH AMONG FERNS AND PALMS WITH MONSTERA VINE GROWING UP TREE

MORE LINKS FOR ST. PETERSBURG SUNKEN GARDENS

The following are the best links I found for additional information and reviews of the Sunken Gardens.

• official website
• Classic Gardens
• About.com’s Sunken Gardens entry
• RoadsideAmerica.com’s Sunken Gardens entry
• Wikipedia Sunken Gardens entry

ONE OF MANY WATER FOUNTAINS

OTHER GARDENS

I find it particularly interesting that the Sunken Gardens began as a non-commercial enterprise, the private garden of an individual expressing their love of the garden experience. My sister’s website, Lava to Lilikoi (lavalily.com/) covers her own garden and farming on the side of a volcano on the Big Island (the Island of Hawaii) in the state of Hawaii. Weekly, she chronicles her gardening in photos and narrative. She has also had posts on private gardens of other people (mostl in Hawaii) that show the kind of personal devotion to gardening George Turner, Sr. had with what became, eventually, the St. Pete Sunken Gardens. Please take a peek at these posts of Lucy’s on some lovely private gardens:

• Yard Sculpture
• Shangri-La Hawai`i Style
• McDaniel Farmette
• From the Alps to the Tropics
• Happy Birthday Inga
• A Self Proclaimed Neophyte
• The Velvet Touch

I know absolutely nothing about plants or flowers. I’m just a person who loves to bask in their beauty and oxygen. But, Lucy is the opposite in that regard. Horticulture is definitely one of her things! She helped me identify the flowers in the pictures I took for this post. But, even she wasn’t entirely certain of a couple so if we made a mistake, please let us know.

WATER FOUNTAINS AND STONE WALLS

YEARLY PASS BENEFITS

I don’t buy many yearly passes to local attractions, but I bought one for the St. Petersburg Sunken Gardens. For a senior, it’s only $35 ($40 for non-seniors; $50 for Family, that includes membership for two adults in the same household and dependent children through the 12th grade or two grandparents with their grandchildren—which I think is a lovely idea). The annual membership is much, much more than free admission for one year. It also includes invitation to members-only events, discounts on special workshops, 10% discount in the gift shop, the newsletter and access to horticultural information. What sold me on buying an annual membership, however, was the free admission to over 145 botanical gardens participating in the American Horticultural Society Reciprocal Admissions Program (reciprocal program brochure). In Florida, alone, there are 16 participating gardens, including the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens just across the Skyway Bridge down in Sarasota and the Florida Botanical Gardens up in the northern part of the county that I covered in the Inkwatu Florida Botanical Gardens post.

KOI

BECOMING A BENEFACTOR (INDIVIDUAL AND CORPORATE)

There are also joint plans that combine the gardens with tickets to Great Explorations. It is especially important in a depressed economy that those who can donate to educational causes such as the Sunken Gardens do so. They have a variety of options from Contributing members at only $100, that gives you a family membership plus 5 free admissions guest passes, up through Private Benefactor, that includes quite a number of special privileges, and Corporate Benefactor, that includes such really nice features as a special employee day with free admission and special activities, company signs during special events, complimentary individual memberships for employees, and several other benefits.

CALADIUM (ELEPHANT EAR)

COMING EVENTS

There are a number of workshops and special shows throughout the year, most of which are either free with the annual membership or offered at a discount with the membership. One coming up in March which I plan to attend and cover in Inkwatu is the Orchid Festival, Sunday, March 22, 10am to 4:30pm. which features commercial orchid growers from Florida, lectures throughout the day and thousands of orchids for sale. It will be free with paid daily admission: $8 adults, $6 seniors (55+), $4 children (2-11) or free for annual members.

Sunken Gardens is located at 1825 4th St. N., St. Petersburg, FL 33704; general information 727-551-3102; wedding and rental information: (727) 551-3106. It is open Monday through Saturday 10am to 4:30pm and Sunday, noon to 4:30pm.

PELARGONIUM (GERANIUM)

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FRAN SIMS BEADED HANGING (SHOWN HORIZONTALLY)

Arts & Crafts

Whenever I’ve felt like “running away from home” (from responsibilities, from humdrum, grinding routine) I’ve fantasized about quitting all jobs and surviving by selling homemade art (water colors, photos, prints, whatever) along the side of the road. So far, I’ve not actually done that, but people, indeed, do just that. There’s an en plein air (Fr. open air) oil painter who sells his wares along the Gandy Causeway. He has my admiration.

Locations such as Florida, Hawaii, any beach town, certain picturesque cities (New York, San Francisco, Paris, Santa Fe) seem—for some reason—to foster artists and craftsmen. I think it’s the romanticism of the locale. It brings out the urge to create. (Or perhaps, it’s that romantic locales attract people who like to create things.)

Back in the early 70s, if you mentioned “crafts” one immediately thought of the dreaded macramé wall hanging. Thankfully, crafts have moved beyond that into a plethora of cottage industries—the products of the arts and crafts themselves as well as the supplies for those crafts. Some examples of crafts are quilting, weaving, knitting, tatting, glass blowing, pottery, sewing, and stained glass.

Think about that list for a minute: they’re all time-honored activities aren’t they? Their roots are in pre-history, skills that enabled us as a species to survive the elements. Therein lies the answer to the question that always arises: what’s the difference between “arts” and “crafts”? For me, “crafts” are arts that facilitate survival and “arts” are crafts that make life worth living. To make life worth living is to facilitate survival. It should be clear there’s little difference between the two. Imagine a beautifully hand-crafted wooden boat; it gets you across the river, but it’s a beauty to behold. I believe, there’s really no meaningful difference between arts and crafts beyond the fact that some arts are more utilitarian than others—it’s all still art. Examples are the absolutely gorgeous jewelry designs of a friend of many decades, John Beeman, and the works of Full Blown Glass mentioned in the Inkwatu article on the Creative Clay Folk Fest. They’re all utilitarian; they’re all art.

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FRAN SIMS BEADED CUTLERY AND BOWL

Shows & Stores

Arts and crafts have a long history in all countries, including our own. I’m thinking of beautiful Shaker furniture, Amish quilts, Appalachian dulcimers. And, it’s not just “folk” arts. Tiffany, Steuben, Fabergé…commercial? Of course. Crafts? Yes. Art? Definitely.

The values of arts and crafts found expression in the “official” Arts and Crafts Movement in the early part of the 20th century. Inkwatu covered that movement in the post on the Craftsman House. If you want to see some outstanding, locally produced glass and pottery do check out the Craftsman House and while you’re at it, get a light lunch there.

In another Inkwatu article, we covered the St. Pete Shuffle Holiday Crafts night. I’ve been to two of those so far and have found items to purchase I’ve enjoyed. There are many such venues for craftsmen to locally display and sell their work. One of the biggest and best attended is, of course, the St. Petersburg Saturday Morning Market (Inkwatu article). There are numerous annual events such as the St. Pete Beach Corey Area Art & Craft Fair that just concluded on 1/31-2/1, 2009. For a complete list of Arts and Crafts shows in our part of the country visit Where the Shows Are!!!–over a hundred in Florida, alone. Last year, I attended a private crafts show presenting works of about eight different craftsmen in the home of the artist, Fran Sims, whose beaded jewelry is featured in this post.

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ASSORTMENT OF FRAN SIMS BRACELETS AND NECKLACES

Fran Sims

Fran’s specialty is beading, an ornamental craft. Each piece has a personal history such as the hanging pictured at the top of this post that depicts significant images in the life of the person for whom the item was made, or the stones in the necklaces in the picture at the end of this post, necklaces made of beads created by a women’s project in Kenya. About these beads, Sally Adams, of St. Petersburg’s Buttons, Bangles, and Beads, writes:

These colorful, oh-so-smooth beads are made by African women at a women’s project in Kenya. Although they have had little formal schooling, they are highly skilled at making these beads and, in some cases, are the sole providers for their children and extended families.

The project was started over twenty five years ago, and has supported hundreds of women, who, otherwise, might have been unable to provide this support. They receive fair wages, have excellent working conditions, receive assistance from the project for their children’s school uniforms and tuition, and are provided medical assistance through a weekly clinic on the project’s grounds. The project has been accepted by the World Fair Trade Organization—an accolade for projects in developing countries.

Sims, is currently headed to Tucson for the world’s largest bead show, the Tucson Bead Renaissance Show, where hotel rooms are turned into vendor rooms. Conferences, shows, and events for all of the crafts I listed in the lead of this article abound around the country. Locally, St. Petersburg.com‘s listing for “craft stores” yields 41 entries, from national chains such as Michael’s to many small specialty crafts shops for specific arts.

I recommend an excursion to one of these stores to just wander around and see if something strikes a resonant chord somewhere in your being. Such an experience is what happened to Sims who, while visiting her brother in Alaska discovered the fascination of beading during two days of unrelenting rain. Later, while visiting other cities as part of her profession, she began to visit beading stores in those various locations. And…an obsession is born. That’s how it is with crafts.

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ASSORTMENT OF FRAN SIMS BRACELETS

Beads & Beading

If beading, specifically, interests you, Sims recommends these two magazines:

• Bead & Button Magazine
• Bead Style Magazine

There you’ll learn about the world of beads made from almost every conceivable substance including—but definitely not limited to–crystal, glass, wood, clay, polymer, shell, and metal. Stores, such as St. Pete’s Buttons, Bangles, and Beads offer classes in specific crafts.

There’s simply no excuse not to get out there and have some fun either by visiting a show to view and maybe purchase someone else’s work or by creating and displaying your own. Even though I poke fun at macramé, maybe you’ll be the artist to change my mind about that medium!

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AFRICAN BEADS IN FRAN SIMS JEWELRY

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GRAND PLAZA HOTEL

Most locals have their favorite beach hotels and/or beach cottages they like to escape to occasionally for a few nights’ stay, even if they live within just a few minutes of the beach. One such place, for me, is the Grand Plaza Hotel (5250 Gulf Blvd., St. Pete Beach, FL 33706; 1-800-448-0901). It’s an older hotel, but it was completely renovated in 2006. Even since then it has undergone tremendous improvements since it moved into its present ownership.

The Grand Plaza has many things to recommend it besides its pretty reasonable rates (tip: the rooms not facing the Gulf, but facing north or south along the beach, are much less expensive and, to my eye, offer a much more interesting view than the more expensive Gulf-side view). The Grand Plaza is, literally, right on the beach. You step into the sand from the rear doors. The easy parking and close walking proximity to different seafood and breakfast restaurants make this a real getaway treasure. But, there’s really no need to leave the premises to eat because there are three restaurants within the Grand Plaza that all offer quite competent food—not gourmet, but pretty darned good.

The main attraction of the Grand Plaza, however, is Spinners Bistro Restaurant on the very top of the building, the Florida Gulf Coast’s only beach-side revolving restaurant. It’s a special experience. Everyone, without exception, who I know who has gone there reports the same pleasure in eating there. It’s such a simple, 60s retro thing (think 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and the Space Needle–excellent old photos), but it’s unique and tons of fun. It transforms the restaurant experience. As one friend says, “It’s not like being in a restaurant.”

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Spinners has a bar, appropriate prices, a pleasant service staff, takes all credit cards, and, on holidays boasts an excellent buffet which is so popular it requires reservations days in advance. PDFs of their daily lunch and dinner menus are online. Lunch is served from 11:00am to 4:00pm and dinner from 4:00pm to 11:00pm.

Aside from the holiday buffets, it’s never packed because most folks don’t really know about Spinners or have forgotten it’s there. I would like to see it thrive so I’m hoping more locals discover (or re-discover) it and come to love it as my friends and I do. It’s the place to bring out-of-town company because it offers a visual perspective on where we live that can’t be had otherwise. It’s a special treat. The kind that makes memories.

Another tip: One complete revolution of the restaurant takes about 90 minutes, so my favorite time to arrive at Spinners is about an hour before sunset. That way, you get to see the city from above during daylight, then watch the gradual transition through the Florida pastel sunset on into the night with the enchanting lights of the entire Tampa Bay area and its bridges spread around you. You can even see the Skyway Bridge from Spinners.

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INSIDE SPINNERS

After all the holidays there’s an emotional let-down. The money is a little tighter due to special expenses. There’s physical and mental exhaustion. We are depleted in almost every way. We are experiencing “low tide.”

The human mind seem hard-wired to notice patterns, to have creative interpretations of the environment around us, to perceive our world as metaphor.

Living near the water, tides are a fact of nature, especially low tide when the water recedes from the shore, exposing wide areas of beach. This outward flow, this low ebb, deposits debris and living creatures on the sand. Items which, only minutes before had been floating in the water, now lay helpless in the air.

We see the effect of tides on other structures as well, such as the accumulation of rubble against the boulders of a breakwater, or on the pylons supporting a dock, where barnacles attached to the pylons are exposed during a low tide. Barnacles are a metaphor all their own; witness the name, “Barnacle Bill,” who is seen as an old sailor, encrusted with years of hard work and fast living.

If you’d like to investigate the phenomenon of tides further, I recommend these three sources:

• Tide (Wiki)
• Saltwater Tides
• Tampa Bay tide tables (TBO)

The rise and fall of emotions approaching and following a holiday—or any of life’s highpoints–find perfect analogs in the rising and falling of tides.

What I particularly like about this metaphor is that, at low tide, one usually discovers the most interesting things exposed on the beach (in your heart, in your life, etc.). That’s true for any “low” time, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the low tides, we’d never see these jewels, we’d never find beautiful seashells, never find new directions, never learn new lessons. They would always be obscured by the high tides of water and life. The detritus exposed in our lives (on the beach) during low tides–sad though they may make us temporarily–really are treasures eventually, aren’t they.

I love to walk the water’s edge at low tide.

If you’re reading this blog, the chances are pretty good that you’re reading lots of other blogs, and if you’re doing that, the chances are even better that you’re a Reader (upper case “R” in case you missed it) and you read real books, too, and reading books has been an important part of your life since childhood. I’m a reader, too. Thousands of hours lying on the floor reading in all kinds of bad light, far too closely, and at an extremely bad angle, left me myopic and overweight, but it also left me with a passion for reading and books and the world that can be created between our ears that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

The main character of John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway “Bookman” novels is a former cop turned bookseller/appraiser who, in one of the novels, classifies folks—such as you and I—who have book collections. Cliff Janeway says one of the types are those who collect books just to posses them as a compulsion without regard to their individual significance (almost any books on the shelf would do as long as there were many of them).

If you’ve never read any of the “Bookman” series, you’ve a treat awaiting you. These are mystery novels a cut above most. Publishers Weekly calls them “compulsively readable.” That’s the truth. I suggest buying them all at the same time, because you’ll want to pick up the next one in the series to read, immediately upon finishing the first one.

You and I are definitely not in Cliff Janeway’s indiscriminate collector category. I’m sure you’re like me in which each book in your or my collection has a significance of its own and has not only been read once, but probably many times. That significance can vary, of course. Sometimes it’s the information in the book. Sometimes it’s its commercial value (such as a rare, signed first edition). Sometimes its power to move us (fiction or non-fiction that speaks to our heart). And sometimes it’s nostalgia.

I don’t have many nostalgia books, but I have a few. The story of my discovering the pleasure of owning a book for nostalgia’s sake began while recently living part of a year in New Orleans. Around the corner from the place in the French Quarter where I was staying was a tiny bookshop on a back street, Kaboom Books. As bookworms will do, I wandered around looking at titles, just enjoying myself, with no purpose other than simple exploration.

I came upon two old editions of Horatio Alger novels. Not being particularly valuable editions, they were cheap enough I felt I could indulge myself and buy some books that had shaped my father’s generation. I had heard about them but never read them, so my motivation was probably more curiosity than nostalgia.

Now, old books—and I mean really old books—have been a part of our family’s life for generations since my father, sister, both paternal and maternal grandfathers, and possibly even a few more beyond that were Methodist ministers who all had extensive libraries in their homes which included frighteningly old Bibles and, my favorites, ancient hymnals. So, old books are a comfort “food” for me. But buying the Alger novels kind of sparked a new slant on the meaning for me of old books. I began to see, now that I’m an old “book” myself, how my own life arch intersected old books I discovered.

The next solid step on this path of personal archeology came at a charity silent auction where I bid on two books I remember reading in grade school. I actually remember sitting in the little southern Illinois town’s public library reading them. I remember even the quality of the light from the windows above me while reading, the dust motes in the air, the tactile quality of the wooden chair, the pre-air conditioning air. I was particularly fond of the Indian book and would fantasize for hours about being in the woods with my bow and arrow and loin-cloth. Fortunately, I won the bid at the auction and have been able to read the books again.

(An aside: I think the folks who write fiction and non-fiction for kids deserve a lot more thanks and appreciation than they probably get. They’re the ones who shape generations of readers. Without any Doctor Dolittle, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, or Nancy Drew, chances are there wouldn’t even be anyone primed to read War and Peace.)

Which brings us to the book pictured at the top of this post: Dave Dawson with the Air Corps from the Dave Dawson War Adventure Series. Now, one of the facts of life about being in the family of a rural minister was that you were also poor. You lived in a house provided by the church, called a parsonage, and it wasn’t considered seemly (or necessary) to give the preacher much of a salary. Sometimes, they just gave you leftover foodstuff. Or whatever else it was they wanted to get rid of. So it was that I wound up owning all dozen or so of the Dave Dawson books that were published during WWII. Although they were published a couple years before I was born and I was reading them 10 years after the war, I loved these books. I think it’s because of them that, today, I enjoy suspense and adventure fiction so much.

This past year, the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair was at the Coliseum here in St. Pete. (The next one is March 13, 2009, and you can be sure I’ll be there, camera in hand.) As I wandered up and down the aisles of the 2008 book fair, I happened upon the stall of Lighthouse Books, ABAA – owned by Michael & Cathie Slicker (1735 First Avenue North, St. Petersburg, FL 33713; 727-822-3278; LighthouseBooksABAA@verizon.net). About twenty years ago, I had been in their tiny St. Pete store but had not been back since. So, my curiosity was aroused. I stepped into their book fair stall and discovered one of the reading passions of my youth: Dave Dawson (pictured at top of article). I bought it. Beside the joy of owning it, I found it also prompted me to re-explore Lighthouse Books itself.

I’ve always measured the culture of a town in the ratio of taxidermy
shops to independent bookstores. In this regard, St. Petersburg fairs pretty well. I’ve covered two other St. Pete bookstores that I haunt, Wilson’s Bookworld and Haslam’s Book Store. Lighthouse Books is right up there with them in my personal pantheon of local independent bookstores.

Their copy says they have ” Floridiana, Americana, Caribbean/Latin American History, Southern Literature, Maps, and General Antiquarian books.” That, for sure, and much more. Every wall in this tiny, one or two bedroom cottage where they have been located since 1984 (before that it was farther downtown) has a floor to ceiling bookcase. In front of each bookcase there are books stacked several bookshelves high. You literally have to turn sideways to wiggle through the warrens of Lighthouse Books. Nothing’s haphazard. Everything is quite organized, but there are more books in one space than you might think possible.

There was half of one whole wall devoted to the Civil Way that my Mississippi Cuzn Don would have loved. Another cranny was dedicated to genealogical books among which I noted several for research into the, I’m sure, frustratingly tangled roots of African-American ancestry. And…an entire room of antiquarian children’s literature!

They were all there. Dave Dawson. I treated myself to a $3 one and a $6 one. I’m hooked, aren’t I.

Lighthouse Books is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10.00 am – 5.00 pm.

NOTE: Nitally’s has relocated to bigger and better quarters at 2462 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, FL. Same good food, just more of it and more space and parking too!

Nitally’s Thai Coffee House (1040 4th St. N., St. Petersburg, FL 33701) offers something I have never heard of before, nor could I find it anywhere on the Internet: Thai-Mexican fusion cuisine.

I found Thai fusion. I found Mexican restaurants in Thailand. But not this—Thai-Mexican fusion. It’s a natural. Both cultures share one important spice: cilantro. They also share a taste for spicy foods, although, of course, Thai is typically much spicier. But the owners, Nit (Thai) and Ally (Mexican), have created a concept that I hope makes them famous and an entrepreneurial success.

Consider these dishes:

• Chorizo Fried Rice
• Panang Burrito
• Green Curry Burrito
• Yellow Curry Burrito
• Spicy Basil Beef Taco
• Spicy Basil Chicken Taco
• Panang Mole

Just contemplating them makes my knees weak. Culinary beauty,

Of course, Nitally’s has the usual authentic Thai offerings. You can download a PDF of their menu here. This visit, I chose from those and had the chicken salad, which was a perfect blend of red peppers and lime juice. It was extremely good. On my next visit, and there will be another visit soon, I’m headed for the Spicy Basil Chicken Taco…or maybe the Green Curry Burrito…or maybe the Chorizo Fried Rice.

In addition to the usual hot teas and Thai iced Tea, iced Coffee, and iced Tamarindo, they carry something dear to my heart: pearl tea, also called boba tea, or bubble tea (see SPIFFS — 2nd Annual Asian Pacific Rim Festival 2008 for a full explanation of boba tea). Nitally’s selection of boba tea flavors is considerably wider than usual: Espresso Mocha, Cappuccino, White Chocolate, Green Tea, Honeydew, Watermelon, Strawberry, Thai Tea, Thai Coffee. Some of those I’ve never seen used as boba tea flavors before. If you’re never had boba tea, give it a try. It’s a textural treat as well as a flavorful one.

Nitally’s is very small: exactly two tables inside, four stools along a bookcase width wall counter, and one table on the sidewalk for alfresco dining. Parking is also minimal; just a couple spaces in front and then along the side avenues. But, it’s worth the trouble to find a place to park. This restaurant really is a “find.” I hope they succeed. Their concept and product are first rate.

Nitally’s will make most entrees vegetarian or vegan upon request. They also have a myspace page: myspace.com/nitallys. In addition to their 4th St. restaurant, which is open Tuesday-Friday 11am-2pm/6:30pm-9pm, they also have a stand at the Saturday Morning Market at Al Lang Park.

Have you ever wanted to run away from home? Join the circus? Run a hot dog stand (we’ve talked about this before)? Sail away to Tahiti (you know: Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti,” going native like Gauguin, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Bali Hai“)? Of course; me too. Usually, my escapades are limited to day dreaming over a travel book. Just as one can gain a surprising amount of pleasure from drooling over the pages of a beautiful cookbook—the huge ones like you find on discount near the entrance of Borders—one can also vicariously experience the remote location of one’s desires in a good travel book.

As a kid, I remember reading Thor Heyerdahl‘s Kon Tiki: Across The Pacific By Raft (1950) and Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island (1958). At the same age, I also read multiple books about snorkeling. One in particular stuck in my mind. It was a non-fiction account of a family, with children my own age, who moved to an island in the Caribbean. It was filled with beautiful underwater photos of their snorkeling adventures.

I never made it to Easter Island. I never became a snorkeler. I never made it to the Caribbean…yet. (Although I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express!) But, I know my motivation to visit the places I did manage to visit was fueled by those early travel books. Such books still have a place in my life and I hope they do in yours too.

I was pleased to have recently made the acquaintance of an honest-to-goodness travel writer, David Stanley. Stanley, who is described as “the dean of travel writers,” writes primarily for Moon Handbooks, although he has also authored books for Lonely Planet. Just on the South Pacific region alone, he has three titles with Moon Handbooks: Moon South Pacific (Amazon link), Moon Fiji (Amazon link), and the title I want to discuss here, Moon Tahiti (Amazon link). Here are just a few of the features that attract me to this book:

• maps of entire islands and villages that are clearer than usual;
• wide ranging discussion of the cultural aspects of French Polynesia;
• constructed the way one actually uses a guidebook;
• ordered like the actual travel experience (planning, arrival, etc.);
• visually intelligible layout;
• budget options for every situation;
• an examination of each island group and island;
• historical perspectives;
• vital services and health references;
• practical technical charts;
• additional reading broken down into important categories;
• discussion of language skills;
• information on the arts;
• a discography of folk music of the area;
• good Internet links for further exploration;
• some user content (feedback provided by past readers);
• based only on un-sponsored, anonymous visits.

Those are things that are meaningful to me, the kind of things that catch my eye and make me choose one guidebook over another. But, that list, long as it is, falls short of describing all the features he provides. There is so much to recommend in this book and, I assume, other Moon Handbooks by Stanley. A lot of thought and many years of first-hand experience went into the creation and design of this book. I wish I had had as useful a book for other places I’ve visited. Be sure to visit David Stanley’s South Pacific website (http://www.southpacific.org/) for more information on that region and on other Moon Handbook titles.

Next post, we’ll continue this theme of escaping from the cares of our world by visiting the N. E. Taylor Boatworks in Cortez, Florida. There, they refurbish very large boats including ocean going sailboats capable of crossing the Pacific to Tahiti. The opening picture in today’s post is of just such a boat I photographed at the Taylor Boatworks. The flowers pictured above are plumeria (or frangipani). These, I shot at my sister’s home in Hawaii, but they are equally common in all the South Pacific islands, including Tahiti, as well as here in Florida. The following picture I took from the very southern tip of the Big Island of Hawaii, looking directly toward Tahiti and our shared, pacific dreams.

SADLY, PHO 97 IS NO MORE–IT WAS A CASUALTY OF THE DIFFICULT ECONOMY. IT WILL BE MISSED

Blogger Quests

Every so often, a blogger—especially a food blogger—takes a photo of which they are enormously proud. An example is the first photo. It’s a snapshot I took of a banh mi sandwich from Pho 97 restaurant, here in St. Pete (3090 34th St. N., St. Petersburg, FL 33713; 727-526-1997). The moisture on the pickled veggies makes my mouth water just looking at it.

Bloggers often have little on-going quests to amuse themselves and to give structure to their endeavor. One of mine is “eating the length of 34th Street.” By that, I mean eating at every interesting restaurant on a street that, in St. Petersburg, has a large number of excellent restaurants, especially Asian ones. So far, there’ve been Inkwatu posts on two Asian ones on 34th Street: Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant and A Touch of Heart. I’ve only covered one non-Asian 34th Street restaurant, to date: Skyway Jack’s.

Pho 97 Banh Mi

The picture above is of Banh Mi Thit Heo Nuong (Vietnamese Grilled Pork Sandwich) from Pho 97. In The Land of Missed Sandwiches post, I had Banh Mi Xa Xiu (Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Sandwich) from Cantho Oriental Market. Similar sandwiches in that both are on a baguette and feature pickled veggies and meat; different in that one is grilled pork, the other barbecued pork. Both Pho 97 and Cantho’s sandwiches are very tasty, but I think my preference is for the barbecued pork, although I preferred the Pho 97 pickled veggies. That’s not to say that I don’t like their grilled pork, I really do, but I’m more fond of it in another dish: bun thit nuong (Pho 97′s bun thit nuong is pictured below).

Bun Thit Nuong

The order in which posts appear doesn’t necessarily correlate with the relative most-favored-restaurant status of a particular restaurant. A case in point is The King and I which I didn’t get around to writing about until this past week but is one of my favorite places. So too, Pho 97. Their bun thit nuong brings me back time after time after time, but it’s not until now that I’m finally getting around to writing about it.

Wandering Chopsticks, one of my favorite bloggers, has a post on bun thit heo nuong, which is a slightly different version of bun thit nuong, in that it also includes shrimp and egg rolls. I also highly recommend her post, 100 Vietnamese Foods to Try for which she has links to articles of her own for almost all of the 100 dishes in the list.

Bun Nem Nuong

If you took a peek at the Pho 97 sign below you may be wondering what “bun nem nuong” is. It’s grilled meatballs with rice vermicelli. That recipe link is from Tia Nguyen‘s Recipe and Photo Journal website. Wandering Chopsticks also has a good recipe for nem nuong.

Bun Bo Hue

If you take another look at the Pho 97 sign, you’ll see “bun bo hue” listed. Wandering Chopsticks has a recipe for bun bo hue. I haven’t tried this dish at Pho 97 yet, but will eventually. Although I’m a fairly adventurous eater, I’m a little put off by the thought of the congealed pig’s blood in the recipe. But…I don’t know know why I should be. I absolutely adore Mexican morcilla and German blutwurst. I’ve never had what the English call black pudding, but I’d be willing to give it a try. So…why my hesitation to try bun bo hue? I suspect it’s the texture…I like the morcilla so much because it’s fried and crunchy. That’s no excuse. Next time I’m at Pho 97, I’m giving it a try. Can’t let Andrew Zimmern have all the fun!

Planning Ahead

Part of my purpose in writing these blogs is to encourage folks to explore new activities, foods, and places so that they discover new things to enrich their lives. I especially want to encourage folks who may not be in the habit of frequenting restaurants of an ethnicity other than their own to give those restaurants a try. Usually, the reason people don’t try new restaurants and foods is that they don’t know what to order. It’s often that simple. Here is a link to a typical Vietnamese restaurant menu. If you don’t have a paper take-out menu from the restaurant you’re thinking of trying, I’d suggest printing out this menu, making your choice before you go, marking the menu, and taking it with you. In no time, you’ll be ordering with confidence. Here’s a short Guide to Vietnamese Menu Items that is helpful.

Dong A Market Near Pho 97

On the way home from Pho 97 this last time, I stopped by the Dong A Market (5200 34th St. N., St Petersburg, FL 33714; 727-526-8594‎) which isn’t too far from Pho 97. They had banh mi cha lua (a cold-cut banh mi made from a thinly sliced steamed pork roll)—next time I’m there, I’ll buy one (…or two or three!). I think, soon, I’m going to have the courage to start making my own different kinds of banh mi at home. The only ingredients I haven’t yet found are the rice and wheat flour baguettes. Dong A had a huge barrel of fresh baguettes from a local French bakery; however, they were made of only wheat flour, not the combination of rice and wheat flour I’m looking for. I may have to learn how to make my own baguettes, too…if I can find the rice flour. Another quest!