Alex Sink: stay home! ... by gimleteye

In a Tampa Bay Times report on the Charlie Crist conversion to Democrat, former Dem. candidate for governor Alex Sink is quoted: "I don’t go anywhere without strangers walking up to me on the street and asking me, and sometimes begging me and sometimes crying about their desire to see me run again..." Want to hear a cry, Alex? Try this:

We can't say this enough or repeat it often enough: Alex Sink, stay away from Florida politics. You had your chance. You ran a terrible campaign. It is time to move on.

(I gave to Sink's campaign at a fund raiser held at the home of Claudio Osorio, focus of a Herald report today on his indictment on federal fraud charges. I urged Sink, as the state's CFO, to investigate abuses at the state administration fund that cost taxpayers over $150 million in losses. She didn't.)

Art Basel: The Traffic ... by gimleteye

Maybe you noticed. Retreating from Basel beach venues to Midtown, the MacArthur Causeway beach-bound was jammed all the way to 95. I headed north, to go south, and finally drove home to the Gables through Liberty City in order to avoid the interstate. My spirits were lifted at NADA way up at 67th and Collins. If you are driving from Miami, best to take the 79th St. Causeway and head down. Have patience. If you don't have Xanax: you'll have company if you take one of these ...

We got a Shout Out from CBS 4. By Geniusofdespair

It appears my graphic of Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia as a baby is a hit. CBS Channel 4 News used it:

"If the word childish comes to mind, the blog Eye on Miami has gone to great length to demonstrate it. The site features a picture of a baby with Garcia’s face, who’s 75, attached to the baby body."

Apparently Pedro Garcia is, oddly, using it as his screen saver.

Let's go to video tape Eye On Miami is near the beginning:

Pepe Diaz Does a Good Thing? By Geniusofdespair

This Ordinance sponsored by County Commissioner Pepe Diaz will be heard in Committee on December 12th:

ORDINANCE CREATING REPORTING REQUIREMENT FOR COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL CANDIDATES REGARDING PAID AND VOLUNTEER CAMPAIGN WORKERS PARTICIPATING IN ABSENTEE BALLOT RELATED CAMPAIGN ACTIVITIES; PROVIDING PENALTIES FOR FAILURE TO REPORT AND FOR OTHER VIOLATIONS OF ABSENTEE BALLOT LAWS; PROVIDING FOR ENFORCEMENT BY THE COMMISSION ON ETHICS AND PUBLIC TRUST; CREATING SECTION 12-14.1 OF THE CODE; PROVIDING SEVERABILITY, INCLUSION IN THE CODE AND AN EFFECTIVE DATE

Okay, you bet I am suspicious. So I looked at the WHOLE PDF of this legislation and I really don't see anything wrong with it. It is a positive step to combat absentee ballot fraud. It might even help stamp it out. This from County Commissioner Pepe Diaz? Who would have thought it. Maybe Rebeca Sosa twisted his arm? Whatever happened, it looks like (gulp) something good came from Pepe Diaz.

Art Basel and Questionable Value ... by gimleteye

I went into the shallow end of the Art Basel pool and came out, unrefreshed. It is not just the feeling I've been there before, of cultural deja vu. I wasn't the only one.

Yesterday I posted an iPhone photo: "Best Art Of Questionable Value That Is Not At Art Basel". It was of an orange colored paper flame, its motion propelled by a small concealed fan, indifferently lit and framed by faux brick. On reflection, posting the photo was a cri de coeur. I found the object at a barber shop on the MacArthur Causeway, a faded strip of blocks once made famous by the Rat Pack.

Who remembers the Rat Pack anymore than 98 percent of the art in the many venues of Art Basel will be remembered fifty or seventy five years from now? Does it matter?

This nagging question will be bravely answered best by a large international salesforce: love it, buy it, live with it. Besides, in buying you support artists, their families and communities. You are boosting culture, whoop-whoop.

Perhaps.

Design Miami is one of my favorite stops at Art Basel. It is adjacent to the main fair in the convention center. I favor its exhibitors showing iconic design in useful forms. There was one Parisian gallery filled with furniture salvaged from Le Corbusier's monument at Chandigarh in the 1940s. I was taken by a couch and two chairs and asked the price. "130,000 euros." (That's about $200K for those who don't speak euro.)

Of course, the price is notable. It reminds of the widening wealth disparity around the world. In other words, only a few years ago you could have bought it likely for 50,000 euros. I guessed the VIP buyers had already left the tent yesterday afternoon. Perhaps not. Art Basel has a way of pressing even existential questions into commodities.

In the main fair, the democratic flow was made visible: senior citizens, students, well-heeled art tourists, the occasional fashionistas, attractive gallery hostesses, and the scattered young and rich, identifiable by art pheromones.

I keep coming back to Art Basel, nonetheless. I could mortgage my house for that couch. I can gawk too at this huge mirror -- larger even than Anish Kapoor could imagine -- reflecting our cultural footprints, fingerprints, and other telltales. Like Miami. (For more on the Le Corbusier/ India story, read the UK Guardian story here.)

Art Basel Miami Beach, December 6th. By Geniusofdespair

Watch the damn video. I took about 12 videos and had to splice them all together. It wasn't easy. Too much work if no one is going to watch my videos. You can increase the DPI to 480 with the little wheel below the video.

Best Art of Questionable Value That Is Not At Art Basel ... by gimleteye

Royal Palm Barber Shop, 40th St., Miami Beach ... "Paper Flame With Faux Brick" ...

Design Miami 2012. By Geniusofdespair

For those of you buying me a holiday gift, I made two choices at the companion show to Art Basel,  Design Miami. I took into consideration your price range.

This side table made of aluminum (I think) is only $50,000. I want to put my TV on it.

For the budget mined, you can get me one of these blown glass guilded bowls for $5,000.

I didn't really understand Design Miami. It had a lot of jewelry and vases, industrial looking furnture and some wacky chairs made of carbon fiber. There was also a light fixture with hairy bulbs on it (I guess I should have taken a picture, each bulb looked like a dandelion but I am sure the hairy bulbs don't help boils and diarrhea like the real thing). The fuzzy bulbed fixture, I want that too. But I am sure it is out of your price range.

There wasn't that much to see at this venue.

Sleepless Night 2012 Canceled: Well this sucks. By Geniusofdespair

I have been to Sleepless Night twice and it was great, I am sorry to see it has been canceled this year because of lack of funding. Sleepless Night was when most of the venues in Miami Beach opened their doors for free. There were mini concerts, outdoor performance events, free admission to museums such as the Wolfson, etc. People were everywhere, it was festive and Sleepless Night went on way past my bedtime.

Where is the Knight Foundation when you really need them?

Hay Theft Boosts Food Costs ... by gimleteye

December and sixty plus degrees in NYC. Record warm weather in the American midwest. Super high tides climbing over tourist beaches in South Florida. And food is about to get a whole lot more expensive.

NPR's "Crime On The Farm" Hay Thefts Soar As Drought Deepens" is worth a listen and thought. The deepest drought in the heartland since the Great Depression hasn't dented GOP radicals like Oklahoma's wacky senator James Inhofe whose fulminations against science clearly have harmed his own constituents suffering under historic drought conditions.

Florida's aspiring GOP presidential candidate, Marco Rubio, won't even meet with climate change scientists.

Then again, according to a recent poll by Public Policy Polling, 49 percent of Republicans believe that ACORN stole the 2012 presidential election for Obama, despite the fact that ACORN has been shuttered since 2010.

When hay is valuable enough to steal, food is not far behind.

Sour Grapes at Property Appraiser's Office? By Geniusofdespair

Is outgoing Miami Dade County Property Appraiser Pedro Garcia being a big baby?  I have heard rumors that he not helping in the transition to the newly elected appraiser, sort of like the U.S. Presidential staff stealing keys on the computers on the way out the door.

Carlos Lopez Cantera won. He will be the Property Appraiser soon but he is having a hard time trying to get Pedro's cooperation.  Yes, I know Garcia was angry by the close countywide election (only 5,000 separated the two men and Pedro lost only on absentee ballots). He was even considering a lawsuit to throw out the absentee ballots but Pedro gave up on that idea when his attorney (Stephen Cody) bailed on him and Joe Martinez. Now it is time to move on.  Maybe Pedro Garcia has a taste of how Gwen Margolis felt when she won the primary but was forced into a runoff with Garcia and lost. So very close to victory and she too felt it was stolen from her.

Anyway, I think you should help Lopez Cantera for the sake of the people of the County. Buck up Pedro, do the right thing.