MIAMI 2025
(the Magic City)
(La Ciudad Mágica)
by ivica
a virtual exhibition in December, 2024
and now an eBook January 31, 2025
(mainly English but with some easy Spanish)
ivica podnar©2025
118 pages:
unretouched photos paintings digital art stories architecture music design
(PRICE: us$12.00 or can$16.50)
This is a (signed) numbered eBook.
(Your eBook is unique: a little bit different from all the others)
Use your PAYPAL: paypal.me/ivica18
Or email me:
and I'll send you a credit card PayPal invoice:
(or pay your way)
(satisfaction guaranteed)
Tell me what NAME you want on your personal numbered eBook.
(questions? comments? ideas?)
*If you buy this one, you can also buy another one at a discount:
photographs+poems by elis + ivica
tokyoSpring by ivica
miniPlays by ivica
shortStories by ivica
Notes from the Underground by ivica
the europaCafé (lost in the middle of europe)
some SAMPLES:
..
Miami Beach (83,000 in 2020) is a long north-south island city
with bridges and causeways over Biscayne Bay
to the rest of the Miami metropolitan area (6.18 million in 2023).
Miami might be under water in ~30 years
because it's only ~16 feet above sea level
half of Miami (and Miami Beach) is 0-6 feet above sea level.
..
feelings are a prison
and life is a prison
y una prisión es una prisión
(so)
fight the good fight
..
(all you really need to know in Spanish)
2 odd vowels:
i + y sound like an english e
e sounds like the e in olé
:
(h has no sound)
and really really roll your r’s
(that’s just the way it is)
(the capital letters show the accented syllable)
sí no quizá (ki-SA)
yes no maybe
por favor + muchas gracias (GRA-sjas)
please + thanks a lot
gracias + de nada
thanks + you’re welcome/it’s nothing
hola + hasta luego (O-la) (AS-ta LWE-go)
hi + see you later
bueno + buena (BWE-na)
good
bello + bella (BE-ya)
beautiful
guapo + guapa (GWA-pa)
good-looking
perdón ¡cuidado! (kwi-DA-do) loco
pardon careful! crazy
¡salud! (sa-LUD) ¡ay! (Ai) ¡dios! (djos) ¡guau! (gwau)
cheers! ah! gawd! wow!
¡adelante! (a-de-LAN-te) ¡dale! (DA-le) ¡olé! (o-LE)
go ahead! let’s go! ole!
¿qué pasa? (ke PA-sa)
what’s up?
..
oye, i'm super hungry
let's do lonch
and then some choppping
(we buy and we buy and we buy)
.
yeah, no
just a hundid dollars
just until Monday, my brother
.
croquetas again?
where's your diet?
maybe some mojo pork?
the 3 shrimp tacos, por favor.
(we eat and we eat and we eat)
..
a cortadito
is a cuban espresso
1:1 dark espresso to hot milk
a sweeter smaller version of
the spanish cortado
which is like a smaller stronger
café con leche
but nothing is exactly the same
between different languages
a miami coffee is not really a tokyo coffee
and
a kiss is not a kiss
a sigh is not a sigh
as time goes by
Dm G7 Cmaj7 C7
..
..
the (full) Moon over Miami
..
“Thank you,” the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.
Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea
Hemingway lived in Key West, south of Miami.
His last work The Old Man and the Sea was written
in Cuba in 1951.
..
Miami is one of these great places that is a really sensual, physically beautiful place.
Michael Mann
What’s the point
if you make something
that’s not you,
and you’re successful?
Gloria
Estefan
Blow horns you sure sound pretty
Your violins keep movin' to the nitty-gritty
When you hear the scratch of the guitars scratchin'
Then you'll know that rhythm carries all the action
..
..
somebody help me cross the street
he said that a dozen times already
okay I’ll go
here grab my arm
so where you want to go?
west
is this lincoln road?
yes. here’s the curb
where you from?
toronto
I always wanted to see toronto
heard there were good people there
maybe half of them
good people in miami too?
not really
they’re all jerks
..
..
2 Fast 2 Furious 2003
Director: John Singleton
"What do you say we kick it a nickel?" A Miami movie. Sometimes sequels work out quite fine. A comedy-drama-fable. Another drug dealer has to be put down. (Are these drug dealers in every town?) But the hero has a boyish charm and the movie has plenty of wild chase scenes in furious cars. Guau!
..
Art Deco
put some style in your form:
modern geometry
modern man-made materials
white or pastels
straight lines replaced with
aerodynamic curves
(NY Empire State Building
+ Chrysler Building
+ Rockefeller Center)
..
try the chords
C F G G over + over again
you'll soon start singing the Cuban:
Guantanamera:
hey, yo, i think she's eyein' me from afar
and if you still keep on going again
C F G G over + over again
you'll start singing the Mexican:
La Bamba:
una poca de gracia
(a little bit of grace)
..
(a miami lullaby)
he stares into the old distance
she studies her red designer nails
he takes his third coffee break
she reaches for another thick slice
his balding cigar crackling
her blonde dreams crackling
another día in paradise
(no falling allowed)
..
Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño)
A play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1635) one of the bright lights of the Spanish Golden Age from 1590 to 1681: El Greco, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope deVega
also in other languages at this time: Thomas Hobbes, Shakespeare, bashō, Margaret Cavendish, Samarth Ramdas, Molière….
Pedro Calderón de la Barca was born in a boat (they say), became a soldier and a priest.
This play deals with: honour, freedom, reality. Usually with an ironic twist or some outright cynicism. A baroque attitude. Right and wrong and the relationship with power. Life and death and the relationship with free will. The rich and the poor.
Our dreams and the reality of our situation. Men and women…well you get the picture. Oh yeah, politics and philosophy and fate. It was my first real intro to the Spanish language and I was impressed, knocked over. Gracias.
..
the Gumbo Limbo tree
is a semi-evergreen
has a shiny red peeling smooth bark
it can photosynthesize through its bark
like Quaking Aspen, Beech, Silver Birch, Paper Birch
(like through the young twigs of a lot of trees and bushes)
(and also through the stems, flowers and fruits of many plants)
tiny pores allow carbon dioxide and oxygen to pass in and out
..
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes:
two subjectives with an objective, but they wake up.
Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"
made its American debut at the Coconut
Grove Playhouse in Miami in 1956.
Two subjectives (Bert Lahr + Tom Ewell)
forever waiting on an objective in Miami,
but they never wake up.
Most of the audience then woke up
and left by the end of Act 1.
(Someday I hope to write a play like that.)
Beckett later admitted the characters of
Vladimir + Estragon were him + his future wife
when they were stuck in WWII.
(Which would explain a lot
about a lot of couples that I know.)
..
South Beach Fire Rescue
....