Profile
The Last Set at the Green Parrot
A Key West saxophonist who never learned to compromise, and the barroom on Whitehead that let him get away with it for forty years.
Continue reading →Vol. I · No. 24 · The Weekly Issue · From Key West to the Panhandle
The FloridianReporting, fiction, criticism, poetry, and cartoons — from the peninsula
Profiles
The people behind the peninsula's stranger by-lines.
Close portraits — invented and true — of the artists, scientists, and eccentrics shaping the week.
Also in profiles
Profile
The Ybor City Chef Who Cooks Only What Her Abuela Named
A café con leche counter with fewer than a dozen recipes and a two-year waitlist for the flan.
Profile
The Cartographer of St. Petersburg's Alleys
She's mapping every unpermitted mural in Pinellas County. She has three years to go.
Profile
The Cape Canaveral Astronomer Who Left the Launchpad
He gave up the rockets for a Brevard middle school. He says the seventh-graders see farther.
Profile
The Letterpress Printer of Micanopy
In a converted citrus-packing shed off 441, a small press turns out books the algorithms can't find.
Profile
The Green House
In the humid nurseries of Homestead, an amateur botanist races to cross-breed a long-lost swamp orchid before the developers arrive.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Metal Type
An independent printer in Tampa’s historic cigar district preserves the heavy, mechanical art of wood type in a digital age.
Profile
The Net Casts
On the shallow flats of Apalachicola Bay, a veteran fisherman defends the ancient and unfashionable craft of gill-netting from a small wooden skiff.
Profile
The Serpent Bearer
A scientist in Big Cypress National Preserve tracks the invasive Burmese python with an unusual tool: her own acute sense of smell.
Profile
The Time Keeper
In the oldest city in America, a horologist struggles to synchronize the historic public clocks, despite his own chronic lateness.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Hammond Draw
A legendary organist keeps the classic sound of the Hammond B-3 alive in a shrinking circuit of North Florida blues clubs.
Profile
The Bone Seeker
A retired geologist searches the shallow, tea-colored waters of the Peace River for the black teeth of ancient sharks.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Hand Roll
In a small shop on Calle Ocho, a master torcedor keeps the traditional craft of the Cuban cigar alive with a sharp knife and a wooden board.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Melted State
An artist in the Gulf Coast’s glassblowing hub wrestles with the volatile, liquid beauty of molten sand in a blistering studio.
Profile
The Ground Beneath
An amateur seismologist in Ocala spends his retirement mapping the unpredictable limestone voids that threaten to swallow the town.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Highway Art
A retired schoolteacher in Fort Pierce works to catalog and preserve the vibrant, fast-painted landscapes of Florida’s historic black artists.
Profile
The River Doctor
An aquatic veterinarian in Crystal River spends her winters treating injured manatees while arguing against the tourists who love them.
Onward and Upward with the Arts
The Neon Line
A neon craftsman in Miami Beach fights to preserve the glowing, gas-filled tubes that defined the city’s mid-century skyline.
Profile
The Deep Harvest
In the historic Greek enclave of Tarpon Springs, a veteran sponge diver descends into the Gulf with a heavy copper helmet and a hand-made hook.
Profile
The Night Watch
An astronomer in the dry flatwoods of Kissimmee Prairie Preserve defends the state’s last remaining dark sky from encroaching development.
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