On Friday the 31st Art Deco Weekend begins with this year's event themed around Broadway musicals of the 30's and 40's and entitled "Anything Goes". There was never a more appropriate title for a South Beach party.

This year's new treat is "an interactive performance station" where anyone can sing their favorite Broadway song and be given a DVD of it; I can only imagine how difficult it will be to get Matty May off the stage, or Andy for that matter. After about fifteen Kettleone's even Jeremy might be inclined to sing "Annie" and Mrs. Stuyvesant-Fish and I will sing "Buxom Buddies". I can't picture Riley singing, but as a star tap dancer in his childhood we expect him to be gliding across the stage like Nancy Kerrigan across ice. We'll put them all together on a DVD which will outsell the one of The Countess's native dances, currently the hottest in the Berkshires.

Ocean Drive will be closed for three days of fun, more circus than history, but fun. If it doesn't rain, that is; Art Deco Weekend is cursed in that way, so they move it every year in the thought that they can fool Mother Nature. We'll see; I can hear Riley's taps now, rain or shine.