Last call for anyone crazy enough to meet me (and a couple of other folks) at Haulover Beach Sunday morning. Sunrise is listed as 7:07 AM, so I'm planning to get there around 6:15-6:30. If you don't know me, look for the chrome-dome with a tripod in the sand.

The King Mango Strut was — as usual — cheap, tawdry, and fun. More photos will follow, but the quality isn't great. I was put off my game by having to take an hour-long emergency e-mail support call from my frantic CEO while waiting for things to get under way. Ah, the things we do for love money.

Jim DeFede, local commentator and ex-columnist for the Miami Herald, and this year's Grand Marshall of the Strut

Celebrate responsibly, but try and have a good time, too!

It looks like I am finishing up the year with a cold, possibly blowing away my plans for a year-end wrap up. I will try to complete it Saturday, but writing will be competing with the 2005 King Mango Strut for my time.

For those of you who have expressed interest in joining me to watch the sunrise on the beach Sunday morning, I'll be there. A few people have told em they plan to be there, so don't worry about ending up alone on a dark beach with some creepy dude, (unless those are your New Year's Even plans). Leave a message here in the comments and I'll contact you with a more precise location.

On my way to work each day I pass Miami's Federal Detention Center.

The construction fence across the street from the facility is clearly visible from many of the cells, making it ideally positioned for families to use to send messages to their loved ones inside.

Hand drawn or professionally printed on poster board, pizza boxes, or pillow cases, or just written in blue masking tape on the sidewalk, the emotions are obvious and painful.

The past few years I've made an effort to watch the first sunrise of the new year at the beach. It takes a bit of extra effort to get up at that hour, but since I no longer ring in the new year at all-night parties, it isn't an insurmountable task.

So far I've always gone to Haulover Beach (no, not the nude part), and it's been wonderful. I bring my camera, tripod, a thermos of coffee, and if I get up early enough I grab some Krispy Kreme on the way. (Nothing like starting the new year with a fat/sugar/caffeine buzz, I always say.) It's strangely relaxing, starting the year listening to the surf on a nearly deserted beach.

Pre-sunrise, New Year's Day 2005, Haulover Beach

Anyone interested in joining me? I'll bring extra coffee.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate that, and Happy Kwanzaa to the followers of that more recent tradition. Oh, and Merry The-Stores-Are-All-Closed Day to those who aren't celebrating anything. May you have an easy capitalist fast.

I spent the day with my father and brother in nearby Plantation. While I always enjoy seeing them, this Christmas was particularly fun as I got to pull off a minor scam as regards our gifts. I asked my father if he wanted to split the cost of a basic computer for my brother, who essentially didn't have a computer any more. (Technically he had a Pentium 1 or something like that.) My dad thought that was a good idea, so I told him I would handle it. I then called my brother, and asked him if he wanted to split the cost of buying my recently retired father a laptop. That way he could sit on his screened porch to play on the web, instead of being cooped up in his tiny home office. Scott agreed, so I went to Best Buy, found a nice (and discounted) Toshiba laptop, and said "I'll take two."

So I got to win three ways. First, I get American Express points and Best Buy points for two laptops: not too shabby. Second, I don't have to wrestle with my father's old clunker PC choking on updates, or worry about my brother getting fired for web surfing at work. Third, I got to experience that marvelous expression of utter confusion on my brother's face when he opened his gift and saw it was the manual for a new laptop, and my father trying to puzzle out why he would need a wireless router when my brother was the one getting a laptop, not him. Evil, perhaps, but it's the little things which make life worthwhile.

Now I'm home, and I think I'm going to take a little time for myself. I have a lovely bottle of Gosling's Black Seal here, and a new DVD of Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre. I think I'll pretend I'm a sophisticated mastermind and enjoy a little culture.

I hope you enjoy these candy canes and Hot Wheels cars in lieu of actual content today.

• Personally, I would class this as Art: Zbigniew Libera's Lego Concentration Camp.
• This has been around a bit, but as a productivity class drop-out I enjoyed The Adventures of ACTION ITEM!
• Because we all enjoy a bit of imbibing this time of year, don't let your obsession with flavored vodka or single malt cause you to overlook Thunderbird, the American classic!
• In the realm of the odd and unknown (to me), here's a look at a very different form of military camouflage: Dazzle Painting.
• Our compatriot the Friendly Bunny baked cookies and lived to tell the tale.

To those who have been visiting here any length of time, it will come as no surprise that this entire "war on Christmas" thing infuriates me. I'm not going to bother with any links, since the story has been played to death for the last few weeks. I will just say this: if you seriously believe that there is any kind of organized attempt to eliminate references to the Baby Jesus Birthday Party from American society, you are just too fucking stupid to breathe without instructions. Oh, and if I happy to see you, I'm a polite kind of guy, so I'll not laugh in your face. I'll just wish you happy holidays. 'Tis the season.

On to another heartwarming subject: the clown in the White House. I realize that if you are a true supporter of the man, nothing I can say will change your mind of his divine inspiration, but saying this will make me feel better. All of you South Floridians who think that some hallucinatory "war on terror" gives the president the right to lie to us and our allies, steal from the poor for personal gain, detain and torture people who have not been charged with any crime, appoint incompetent cronies to critical government positions, and spy on the very people he was ostensibly elected to protect, then let me suggest a local island paradise with similar powers granted to its leader: Cuba. Emigrate now before the old bastard dies. I think you'll find it suits you, and there's less pretense of civil rights.

Last thing for now, before I break my rage meter. I try to buy as many gifts as I can on-line, because I hate going to malls under the best of circumstances, and this time of year Bush could save money by sending his swarthy suspects to Aventura as a cheap form of torture. And I tend to spend too much money, because while I try and give gifts to my friends throughout the year, I am not immune to the year-end spending frenzy invoked by the media and marketers. (I also spend too much money because I have poor impulse control, resulting in buying as many new DVDs for myself as for my friends. I mean really, who would know to buy me the Faerie Tale Theatre collection? No-one. I had to buy it for myself.) But this year most of the dot-coms have let me down with their crappy inventory management. In spite of the web pages assuring me that the items selected are available for immediate shipment, nearly every order I have placed has ended up with a significant percentage of backorders. Thus I find myself scrambling to cancel the unshipped items, girding my loins, and venturing forth into the frothing sea of ill-tempered and violent holiday shoppers.

Bah, humbug, indeed.

As I've mentioned before, Critical Miami is one of the best new Miami-based sites around. Unfortunately, Alesh has also broken (to my mind) new ground, in that his writing resulted in his firing from a job before he started work there.

Critical Miami has been very interested in the "coming soon" Miami Performing Arts Center for quite a while. He has given insight into why this is important to Miami, and while he has been a bit frustrated with some of the directions the project has taken, he has been enthusiastic, almost to the point of cheerleading. Given all this, I wasn't at all surprised to find out that he had interviewed for and received a job at the MPAC.

But I was taken aback to find this morning that he was fired right before he was hired, based entirely on his writing about the center. Rather than retell the story, read what Alesh has to say about it here: Critical Miami: Miami Performing Arts Center says NO.

What is fascinating to me about this saga is that he told them up front about his site, going so far as to list it on his resume, and they didn't bother to read it until he was about to start work. And even in that final "interview," they didn't correct any of the alleged inaccuracies in his reporting. I guess the simple fact of having an opinion and a web site is enough to scare away an employer, particularly if you're an employer with fat government contracts who will need to suck up to Miami politicians every moment of your miserable existence just to survive.

Corporations are just figuring out how to handle the Internet on a commercial level; they are years away from dealing with it on a social and human resources level. My own (deliberately unnamed) employer has a policy that employees are never allowed to discuss their employer or job in less than glowing terms in any forum, whether private party or televised interview. While the Internet isn't explicitly named in the policy, it's clear that it, too, is forbidden.

Frankly, I don't have any illusions about my anonymity. I use my real name here, and any recruiter worth a damn will Google an executive-level candidate just to see what comes up. And Florida's a "we don't need a reason to fire you" state, anyway, so they wouldn't even need to mention Hidden City as security walked me to the door.

Which is pretty much the state of Corporate America, anyway. The nature of the world is such that you surrender most of your civil rights as soon as you accept employment, and increasingly the disintegration of those rights extends outside the workplace and into your private life, as long as you are an employee. Not all diabolical contracts are signed in blood, you know.

The next few days I'll be publishing mini-reviews of various bits of media I've consumed over the last few weeks. Perhaps you'll find something of interest here, for you or for someone on your holiday shopping list.

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

This was a Book Fair purchase, made primarily because Atwood was such a charming person, and also because the book sounded much better as she described it than as described in the trade press. A retelling of The Odyssey from the perspective of Odysseus's wife Penelope, what could have been a rather trite modernist sneer at the ancient world, turned instead into an interesting, if still somewhat slight, look at the role of women in society. Her deft literary skills have given Penelope, as the narrator, a strong and entertaining voice, and the new perspective on the events of the old tale sent me back to re-read the story as we know it today.

The Twilight Zone, the Definitive Edition, Vol. 1-4 (DVD)

I don't think it is possible to overestimate the effect the original broadcasts of The Twilight Zone had on culture. Almost fifty years later some of the phrases and images have become so widely known that they have entered the modern mythology; many people recognize the panicked cry of "It's a cookbook!" without knowing where it came from, and Bernard Herrmann's avant garde theme music has become audio shorthand for any eerie or unexpected turn of events. With all this weight behind it, the series was not originally treated well in DVD release. Fortunately Image Entertainment has gotten it right with the definitive editions.

These sets are benchmarks for what should be done with a truly classic and groundbreaking series. In addition to marvelously clear transfers and sharp audio, the discs are packed with extras. There are episode commentaries from the actors, writers, and directors still alive, and audio interviews from other sources with those who have died. Isolated music scores are available for many stories, as are recent radio adaptations of the classic scripts. Many episodes include Rod Serling's "next week" promos and the sponsors' end-of-show ads. There are even PDF files reprinting the 1960s Gold Key comics adapting the stories! If there is material that isn't included, I can't imagine what it might be, other than actual shooting scripts (which are available from another publisher). If you have an interest in great storytelling, and a look at the medium of television at its most innovative, give these sets a try.

Sigur Ros, Takk

I like this Icelandic group's spare, ethereal sound, unlike anything else I know. Three of their other albums, agaetis byrjun, svefn-g-englar, and (), have been in my playlist since I first got them, and I have a feeling Takk will end up there, too. Their sound if so different from what most people know that it would be a waste of time to try and describe it. Fortunately, the band kindly makes several of their tracks available for free download from their website.

They will be touring the US next year starting in February, even performing on Conan O'Brien. Needless to say they won't be coming to Miami, keeping their limited schedule to more culturally enlightened venues such as Nashville and Louisville. Okay, that isn't fair, as those are both cities that deserve to be in better states; my only consolation is that this time they are skipping Atlanta, too.

Oh, and why is it, I wonder, that I seem to have a musical affinity with Iceland? If Bjork hadn't moved to New York and married Matthew Barney, I would need to emigrate.

Under normal circumstances Fairchild Garden is closed after dark. However, from 6-8:00pm each Thursday night during the run of the Chihuly exhibit they are opening the garden to visitors for Tropical Chihuly Nights. This event is not part of the standard garden membership, and carries an additional fee: $20 for Garden members, and $30 for non-members.

Many of Chihuly's works have been specially illuminated for the evening shows, often beautifully, and the garden itself is entirely new after dark. (Sometimes dangerously new — watch that you don't stick your foot into some creature's burrow by the water.) And although the fee is somewhat high for two hours of walking through a very large park, this is a good fund-raising vehicle for the hurricane-ravaged garden.

Nonetheless, there are some problems, beginning with the timeframe. Unless you are free from the constraints of the traditional work day, getting all the way to the garden before the night ends will be difficult. Instead of 6-8:00, 7-9:00 would be easier (and draw more guests).

Lighting is also a problem. Several of the pieces are illuminated by spotlights, and if you don't stand in exactly the right location, you see more halogen than art. The towering stadium lights needed for the lowlands parking area also end up destroying the mood for some sections. As I walked back to the car at the end of the night I actually had a headache from the glare. That's not something I would expect from a night time walk through a garden.

And it suffers a bit from missed opportunities. As an example, the garden has fabulous water — small lakes, reflecting pools — yet these were largely ignored. Perhaps the technical aspects would be too difficult to manage, but I was hoping more would be done with the reflections of glass and light on water.

I am certain they are aware of these issues, though, and will correct them as much as possible during the six month run of the show. I hope they will, anyway, as when the exhibit works, it is simply stunning.

I recommend that you visit the garden during the day first, to see the art at its best. But if can work out the timing, you may want to come back in the evening to see it again, particularly once the temperature cools down, maybe in January.

Updates will continue to be light while I work out a little medical issue. We'll be right back!

I'm having some technical difficulties today, so this isn't as pretty as I would like. Nonetheless, my Chihuly at Fairchild photos are now available for your review.

While I am putting my Chihuly photos into a rough semblance of order, here are a couple of weekend amusements for you.

Stuck on the Palmetto links to a marvelous video which may as well have been shot in Hallandale. And Hella Frisch tells the tale of his efforts to find a yoga class that suits him in confessions on a yoga mat. I was considering taking up yoga, but this tale makes me feel a little better that recent events have made it imprudent for me to start.

Ah, the marvels of modern technology! I took the day off today to attend the premier of the Chihuly exhibit at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and through the tireless efforts of the data elves, I am able to sit in the shade beside the Victoriana amazonica Pool, relaxing to the sounds of falling water, and update Hidden City, all at the same time.

But because I am not a data elf, but rather remarkably and fallibly human, I left behind the tools I need to get the pictures off the camera and on to the web. So for now you'll need to make do with this shot from my pocket camera.

The exhibit is amazing. If you live anywhere in this area you owe it to yourself to experience it. It isn't just that the glass sculptures are cool, it's the way that they are integrated into the garden environment. I was walking down one of the paths and a flicker of light caught my eye. I looked up to see a six foot spiky glass... fruit, I guess, hanging overhead. No ropes, no curator's notes, just hanging there. The entire place is like that.

If only I could work out a way to be this relaxed at my day job....

At the moment, Miami is all about Art. People have come in from all over the world for Art Basel, a huge exhibition/trade show for all kinds of big-A Art. It's all anyone is talking about.

Well, all anyone is talking about in the media, anyway. It is a refreshing change from Miami news being all about corruption, hurricanes, and the UM administration being a bunch of toadies to the Athletics Department, I admit, but it rings a bit hollow. Outside of the media, no-one I know seems to be aware the Miami is now one of the centers of the Art world. Of course I do travel in rather Philistine circles, being a Philistine myself.

I should come clean: I know almost nothing about Art. I enjoy going to museums, I like reading about artists, and I spend altogether too much money getting prints framed, but I have no working knowledge of the esoteric world of Fine Art. When I see something, it either moves me or it doesn't; I can't even claim I know what I like beyond mentioning specific artists (Ivan Albright, Dave McKean, Rene Magritte, Frans Masereel), Henry Darger are a few).

So while it would be fascinating to do a little people-watching at the approximately 10,000 parties and galleries and shows this weekend, it would all feel a little too Dian Fossey. But there's always next year. My hope is that through reading Critical Miami and Miami Metblog coverage enough Art appreciation will rub off to make next year's event less daunting.

Over my long on-line years I have encountered many personal examples of mis-tells, those cases when you accidentally send an instant message to the wrong person. Most of the time they resulty in a moment of confusion and nothing more. Occasionally they are embarassing, as when you send a message saying "I'm chatting with some jerk" to the jerk in question. The most embarassing has to be when you send something rather personal to someone who shouldn't know quite so much about your personal life. Occasionally, though, they are just funny because they are so far out of context.

A case in point from this week. I received a text message on my phone the other night, which is rare enough for me, being an old geezer. The body of the message, though, threw me.

If u see a big fat man puttin u in a bag d0nt be scared i t0ld santa i wanted u 4 christmas

Leaving aside the fact that if a big fat man tried to put me in a bag I would simply assume I'd wandered into the wrong bar again, I was puzzled by this message. The phone number looked vaguely familiar, but wasn't named in my phone, and I certainly don't know anyone who would waste a letter to Santa on me.

Checking my Palm I discovered to my amusement that it came from one of the women who work for me. Sensing a mis-tell, I replied with a simple "is that so?" Her confusion answered my question, and when I responded with a mention of "last night's message," her embarassment was obvious, even through text messaging.

So all you texters and chatters, if your paramour has a common name, make sure you are pitching woo at the right person, okay? My fragile ego can't handle too much more disappointment.