Orlando has made its name as a tourist destination; god knows why; but they do have the Urban Think bookstore for the progressive consumer in the trendy historic Thorton Park downtown district, if you're willing to take your coffee & good books within a bourgeoise atmosphere. The entire Thornton Park / old-town downtown neighborhood, despite the people pursuing the "loft lifestyle", actually has a lovely lake to walk around, and people and characters congregate in the park beside it.

Lake Okeechobee sounds neat-- a big lake-- but prepare to be depressed, as this part of the country is nothing but cane fields & mediated landscapes (see the Belle Glade travel guide for commentary). You might as well stick to one of the resort-lined coasts. West Palm Beach is ultra-commercial-trendy... athough, tucked in a strip-mall along Dixie Hwy (7500 block?) there is a very curious esoteric bookshop... Lake Worth and Hollywood both have walkable downtowns with some character; and Stephanie Yap Sensei runs a hardcore aikido dojo in Hollywood... there's a good Cuban nightclub on this same strip (Hollywood Blvd)., just listen for it. If you'll be in Fort Lauderdale, consider staying at Floyd's Hostel and Crew House, a good number of interesting internationals come through there. West in the sprawl lies Weston (see below), which has the best Italian restaurant I've ever been to-- Piazza Benvenuto (2600 Glades Circle, tucked in strip mall)-- the expansive family runs it, gorgeous dark-eyed men making cappucinos, real pizzas to die for. If you're this far south, you've made it through the worst of it and might as well keep on going to the Keys-- this chain of islands is probably the best place to kick it in south Florida, though I haven't explored Everglades National Park since I was a child-- it probably has its treasures, too. Hummocks and sawgrass, anyway.

featured florida destinations:
belle glade
tallahassee
jasper

field notes: palm beach / 3 may 2005 cruising down Ocean Drive in Palm Beach, southern Florida, past endless mansions and gated castles-- they have a monopoly on the Sea-- no, they do not-- break out of the car, run into the surf in my clothes, covered with sand, playing in the sea, squishy wet shoes--

i walk about the manicured restaurants, watching the posh people dine as the rain drizzles down. i have a beer with this South African playboy and his native West Palm Beach friend. an international bum, he's just sold another company and he's on holiday. claims to be descended from royalty. his friend is wearing a Spanish doubloon around his neck, edged with gold that he bought in the Middle East. why on earth an international player in a ritzy neighborhood would want to pick me up, wet and covered with sand in already dirty clothes, i cannot say. i thought only goth boys kissed women's hands, but apparently not. "have you ever seen the show Nip and Tuck?" -- no, i don't have a television -- well you've got to see it -- that was about all i could stand before i left my half-finished Guinness on the table...

field notes: weston, florida / 25 may 2005

"If you were going to get rid of a body, where would you dump it?"
"I'm sorry, Officer, that had never crossed my mind," I replied.
"Well, you should start thinking about these things." (I should?) "The Everglades are just a half-mile that-a-way. You ever hear that saying about if a tree falls in the forest, who's going to hear it?"
"Yes, Officer."
"Well, that tree is you. Nobody's going to hear you scream."
I did my best to look concerned. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was in a dangerous area."
He changed his tone. "Well, now, I don't want you thinking our town is dangerous. Weston is a very nice town. You just have to be careful out here. You've got to promise me, miss, that you'll never do this again."

"This" was walk around in a vacant mined-out lot (which I had permission to be in from the Assistant City Manager). (In Florida the cops are VERY concerned about anything the least bit un-routine. They stopped me for running, and they stopped me for being stopped, too).

...See, at this point, I still didn't know I was in a town. I thought that the reason Weston wasn't on my map was because it was too small to show up-- like Six Mile Bend, which had been a bend, but not six miles from anywhere, far as I could tell... I was going to this vacant lot in Weston, which I won't go into here. And I didn't realize Weston was an actual town until the next day, when my icky rental SUV cut out on the middle of the interstate and I ended up waiting for a new car in Weston.

So, why I am writing about Weston, anyway? Well, it wasn't that the map had omitted it because it was too small... it wasn't on the map because it was too new. I drove into Weston and it immediately felt Different... familiar. Way too familiar. I loitered outside the grocery store and saw suburban boys reading the Onion; I walked to the strip mall and got a cappuccino from an Italian family restaurant, okay, fine... but it was the vibe that was totally familiar. After the charming men from the car rental company delivered me a new vehicle (which promptly began to flash its Perform Maintenance light), I returned back to Lake Worth and did some research...

The City of Weston: It Just Keeps Getting Better.
ahh, another town with a Slogan...

The City of Weston is the Nation's Premier Municipal Corporation.
now, i thought Columbia, Maryland had the title on that one...
median income $80,920... oh yes,
they have a Town Center of course...
created by the Arvida corporation, once a subsidiary of Dinsey
by ARthur VIning DAvis, and the main road is Arvida Parkway,
100,000 acres that were quietly bought & held until development moved westward... waiting for the right time into bring Weston into being.

from an interview with the mayor:
SFCEO: If Weston is a corporation, what is your product?
HERSH: Our product is quality of life and property values.

yes, but... none of this reflects the eerieness and the virulent nostalgia i felt, walking the streets of Weston-- I wanted it to be real, for a minute, I wanted it to work, I wanted Columbia to work, this whole suburban safe dream, this well-planned communiyt, this easy life--

the vision was shattered minutes later, but with the blue sky & palm trees & kids on the black asphalt -- a longing -- It almost worked -- no? Planning a community -- why not? All the costs are deep, silent, hidden, beneath a drained-out swamp, beneath an oil field on another continent, the costs are invisible & so it looks glossily like it Works-- It's All Here, Now -- It Just Keeps Getting Better --

field notes: live oak, florida / 21 april 2005 I was driving through the little town and there was a girl running along the sidewalk to her dance rehearsal with a pink ribbon bouganvillea flopping in her hair, little girl, what will you remember of this time; a cloud drifts through the blue sky; I listen to the frogs in the pond outside; it all seems so impossible that this will pass

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