An American Visits America: Photography Show In Miami

The time came again for me to sail off into the turquoise sea and land in Miami, which is actually in America. Really! People may speak a lot of Spanish with Cuban, Peruvian, Columbian, Spanish, Basque, Nicaraguan, and even Mexican here; but America it is. There is French and Creole and myriad languages from Pakistan (Urdu, I think), India, and the sun and style-seeking Europeans.

America is a grand melting pot still. Versace was here, after all, but gone now — which sadly happens in our world that has embraced so much violence.

Miami is international. Tampa, where yours truly comes from, is not. Pensacola and Tallahassee, pretty as their Indian names are, are not. I am, I guess a little international, since I am presently expatriated and speak some of this and that. Luckily I still remember my English (well, American English) pretty well.

It is not my first visit in the nine or ten years I have not lived back here, back home in my native land. I may still be 110% American more or less, but this new America always comes as a surprise. It has changed - my America, the South, Florida. Maybe the world has changed as I aged and not perhaps for the better, even if there are iPods and iPhones and an I-Net.

This gives me a chance to write a bit of travel and a bit of art criticism (Miami is growing its cultural identity almost as fast as the condos are being jig-sawed together with big cranes and tons of pre-formed concrete panels), some restaurant reviews and, when the cataract is sucked out, I will be able to photograph again.

So this is Miami. These are the thoughts of an American seeing America anew, a Southerner back home in the South, my mobility limited to public transport in a world of the car culture from which I came, who drive at least one car at a time. Judging by the horrendously growing traffic, some may be driving two or more at a time. I haven't seen that yet, but something must fuel those eight or more lanes of revving monsters just waiting for me to slow down as I (gasp!) walk across the highway.

Article Author: Howard Dratch

Howard writes on science, books, movies and news for Blogcritics and on his own blogs from the border of North and Central America.

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