Destination. Culture.

RESERVATIONS

The Hotel Victor in Miami, Fla., is located in the Art Deco district of South Beach. Featuring an Ocean drive address and overlooking the beach, this boutique hotel is adjacent to the Versace Mansion and within one mile of the Lincoln Road entertainment district and the Atlantic Ocean.

The lobby's cool mint green and purple decor invites guests to relax in plush, curvy chairs and sofas, and each area is separated by long, flowing drapes to ensure privacy. Public areas are aromatized, creating an enhanced sensory experience.

by Vixynth

I sweat for days waiting for the singular ugly colored blue Cadillac to drive up the driveway.

She scared me, and then I glimpsed her face. Tanned, lips painted with “Orange Flip” lipstick, her one and only, and the dreaded be-hive up-do. Oh God! My mother was going to kill me. I liked cool clothing at 11 years old. I wanted the red kilt for school, with the matching kilt pin like all the other girls. Instead, I wore a mustard and gray Italian knit skirt and matching top. While she was away, I was seduced by these new black stretch pants I’d received for Christmas. They were cool, and I had to wear them. I would feel gorgeous as I walked with apathy by the boys on the snowy hills in New England.

I knew how to iron from ironing my brother’s socks. He was quirky about what he wore too. I set up the board, heated the iron, and in the emptiness of my house, with my adult sitter, and my brother always absent, I went to work. It happened so fast. The iron napalmed the ski pants into the silver covering on the board. There it was. It became one, the black heavy iron, pants, and board. I collapsed the board and hid it under my bed. It could have been a Rauschenberg. It sat there for days.

And, now, I had to confess. I ran out to the driveway screaming, terrifying my mother that something terrible had happened. I told her in one sentence, clenched my fists and bit my tongue. Then, I was yelled at for alarming her. Maybe, she thought for a second that our sitter wasn’t vetted well enough. Asking her if she could cook anything would have been a good place to start.  Relevant too. My mother’s daily index cards with recipes written in her perfect feminine handwriting remained in their elastic band. We only knew how to make green beans and some hamburgers. My brother cooked for us.

My mother had fallen in love with Miami Beach. And, they never parted. She stayed at the finest hotels on Collins Avenue and dreamed of owning a house there one day. She would never forget the Bal Harbor boutiques across from her hotel. Nor, could she stop talking about the pool boys. The job for all young guys in Miami. If you could walk straight, were a bit of a looker, and could carry a fresh towel, you made a decent living. In the morning when the women took to their self-designated chaise-longues, while the husbands golfed or went to play elsewhere, the pool guys, on cue moved in to take care of their ladies.

They say good things come to those who wait, and for those who have eagerly anticipated the debut album of Sinem Saniye, that wait has come to a merciful end. Featuring 11 tracks, all full of the same heartfelt passion that has won Sinem a string of prestigious songwriting awards since 2005, When I Don’t Sleep shouldn’t disappoint. The perfect blend of world and mainstream pop music, When I Don’t Sleep, like Sinem herself, features a diverse range of musical influences, beautiful in their individuality, yet easily accessible across genres.

With a voice that calls to mind the likes of Nelly Furtado and Nina Persson (of Cardigans fame), even the most cynical of listeners will have to admit there is more to Sinem than meets the eye. While her subject matter doesn’t stray far from feelings of longing, romance and seduction – hardly new ground to break – Sinem addresses these subjects with an air of sophistication that eludes many of her contemporaries.

Following a natural progression, Sinem expresses a longing for guidance and acceptance on I’ll Confide, a track that brings to mind the Cure’s In Between Days, and Peter Frampton’s Baby I Love Your Way. From here, she transitions to a seductive need for release on tracks like One Woman and A Certain Kind of Lovely. Finally, on In My Slumber, Sinem has reaches a place of mature reflection. Should her career follow the same trajectory, Sinem Saniye could be a name to remember for years to come.

www.sinem.net

Just Missed the Past

Michel Delgado is a self-taught Senegalese artist now living in Key West.

Delgado paints emotionally and expressively, conjuring other-worldly narratives of memory and spirituality. His direct vision reveals an understanding of the pain and solitude of immobility and silence, as well as joy, learning and love. Like other Outsider artists, Delgado’s approach can best be described as honest, refreshingly straightforward and visionary, ever powerful.

Observe Your Choices

After leaving Dakar, Delgado spent time in Paris surrounded by the world's great art. Perhaps such a worldly artist cannot be called naive but, like many brut artists, Delgado seems influenced by everything and nothing equally. Depending on the observer's frame of reference, his paintings may conjure prescient references to a number of artists. A mash-up of Picasso + De Kooning. Or perhaps Pollack + Dubuffet.  An earlier series found him wandering the streets of Key West photographing chewing gum stains on the sidewalk. He drew inspiration from the graphic gum shapes, silk-screened them onto water-color paper and inked one of a kind compositions, adding surrealism to the repertoire.

Michel Delgado’s paintings have received many honors and awards since he first began exhibiting professionally fifteen years ago. In 2004, the Artist’s work was featured in a museum exhibition at the Miami Art Museum curated by MAM Curator, Lori Mertes. Delgado was awarded the prestigious 2004 South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists, where he was selected from a field of more than 350 applicants by a national panel comprised of experts from American arts institutions from the Art Institute of Chicago, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Brooklyn Museum of Art New York City, Third World Newsreel New York City, and UCLA Hammer Museum Los Angeles.

Website: MichelDelgado.com

KEY WEST HISTORICAL TOUR INCLUDED