About the only exercise I get is running through the whores of The Palace--oh, I mean HALLS--and shopping. So with only a limited number of whores and halls at The Palace, I used my day to shop, although reconnaissance might be more applicable as I just get so confused. Then I went to the Wolfsonian Museum, which contains the rather remarkable private collection of Mickey Wolfson of Art Deco. It's another one of those Miami things: a private colleciton so valuable and stratified that only a city like this could attract (case in point, Naomi's Erotic Musuem two blocks up.) The current exhibit, "Modernism in American Silver", displays (along with many other pieces) this cocktail shaker to which I was strangely drawn.

While there I ran into two friends, Ken and Steven who are both involved in the arts and we decided to take tea in the museum shop and chat although we weren't offered this service, pictured here. For some reason we honed in on its poor, underfunded sister, the Jackie Gleason Theater, who like all whores is trying to sell herself to the highest bidder. The Beach voters wisely voted down its demolishion and the erection of a new theater for Circus du Solei ( I LOVE Le Cirque, but they wanted public tax money for a private venture and all their horseshit didn't fly with the voters, who are finally smartening up to City Hall antics for kickbacks and such.)

Ken is already deeply involved in the theaters of The Beach and said his focus is on maintaining and restoring those buildings to their original Art Deco design. But we all agreed that The Gleason was a fine attempt to maintain the deco feel, but was showing some age. Steven wants to re-do the whole building in "Art Deco Egyptian", like The Egyptian theater here in Hollywood, only "with an interior of gold leaf, the proportions of which would be mesmeric". Ken rolled his eyes (he, too, knows what The City and it Design Review Board is like). So we ended it over a few cocktails at nearby Twist, that I (yes, I'm at City Hall so much that everyone thinks I "know" people there) would check with powers I do now in other realms to see if we can have a local design contest. Those always amuse me because they tell you so much about the people you live around; I already know they're crazy and just would love to see sketched down on paper, or papyrus if they are really good and crazily. THEN, I would hire you.