I’ve been crate digging again, not for records, not for books, not for green turtle steaks but for a graveyard plant, the ephemeral flow of lush lore. Florida in words, images of Florida, praise songs for Florida. So, hats off to the local records stores that also sell books and the books stores that also sell records. Hats off to the crocodiles’ eye, the Floridians who take in more sunken treasures than they can harbor, surviving like ageless seashells. Anything can be read: tea leaves, real estate ads, a patch covering an eye. I’m no Lit Tommy-Come-Lately. I rarely entertain one artform at a time. The triple matrimony of bookworms, shutterbugs and vinyl junkies is neither new nor radical. The age of ideas confined by borders is over. Needle to groove, this turntable is a platter of mangroves, a 33 1/3 rpm page of roadside produce, the scratchy skip of black wax caused by rock reef. Reading is a river not a rainbow, so I offer a non-streaming playlist, a bundle of rods with a hatchet through it, the first three book review meant to be sung––to play and record, fast forward and rewind all at once, heads spinning like a disco ball of maduros, my rosy periwinkle remix.
Track 1: “The Key Lime,” a brilliant shrub of a poem. Track 2: “A Game of Anagrams,” a listening party favorite for theme park lovers. Track 3: “Woman with Car from St. Petersburg Alligator Farm,” kills gator, knits a gator skin purse, packs a pistol. Track 4: “Trouble with Miami,” a bluesy lament on the temptations of paradise, a tinge of resentment, poetic voyeurism meets the sun blocked wings of Icarus. Track 5: “God’s Hint,” because “Wreck ashore! Wreck ashore!” sounds like Wrecka Stow / Record Store, an unintentional reference to Prince’s, “If you wanted to buy a Sam Cooke album, where would you go?” Track 6: “Caged Baboon, Circus Winter Quarters,” kills me softly, makes me wish it would rain.
The books are Florida (2000) by Walker Evans, Florida Poems (2002) by Campbell McGrath and Key West Tales (1993) by John Hersey. Photographs, poems and short stories, my rosy periwinkle remix. Evans deserves a soundtrack. McGrath, a mixtape. Hersey, several live mashups. Play mode on Shuffle, but first, because book covers are faces, let’s have a look at those lighthouses! Rising, setting, or stuck like a promise waiting to be peeled, the orange on the cover is the citrus offspring of the sun, a slave to the sky. Like a cover song, the paperback cover of Key West Tales is far more oceanside than the hardcover. A beached fish tank: ironstone picture regurgitates nymph, bellboy watches. A fleet of surf foam, no Spoonbills along the thrift shop shore. Moby nears. For Walker Evans, the J. Paul Getty Museum has chosen large vacationland lettering for the title. The cover image, taken in Sarasota in 1941, is of a trailer in a camp. Anyone who has confronted the Tamiami timeline from Tampa to Miami has felt this portmanteau of tones, my rosy periwinkle remix. It’s explorer-boring but honest, a pour-over. The color graphic suggests a View-Masteresque adventure the black and white photograph cannot deliver, but this was when the west coast of Florida was predominantly gray noir.
Track 7: “Because this is Florida.” If you desire an insurrection or a bar brawl, this be the villanelle for you, a pop-up Mason-Dixon line for the readers who don’t dance and the dancers who don’t read. Track 8: “Amends,” a war-torn Jefferson Davis, poker face in tow, survives an assassination by sapodilla fruit. Track 9: “Antebellum Plantation House,” Hardworking manager, an industry plant, a female vocalist and male backup singers. Track 10: “Hemingway Dines on Boiled Shrimp and Beer,” braggadocious mic drops where there should be caesuras. Track 11: “To End the American Dream”. Favorite brushstroke, “Just pat it.” Favorite chewy doggerel, “Such beauty should be given back to the sea intact.” Track 12: “The Florida Poem”. I’d roadie for this opus. It’s widescreen. A rewarding coastline, no pink hotels.
No Name Pub no mistake, no other dancefloor offers a wilder reading experience than Florida. If you like eavesdropping, the boom box normalcy of tropical drama, this midnight special of Greatest Hits is for you! The exotic wallflower of tattoos fades from skateboards like played-out stickers, my rosy periwinkle remix. Neon blooming nature, plaster front yard birds, and beaches named for cities named after places from Classical Literature. Naturally stubborn, only Florida can question Florida. In fact, it claps back like a glossy fingernail half submerged by tides whenever it’s blamed. “Florida: It’s here and it’s for sale!” says McGrath. Buyer beware. Worth determined by the waters of the back country where the language is loyal to the land, my rosy periwinkle remix. •
