Fine Art Fair Brings Old Masters, New Works – and Eggs by SCOTT SIMMONS 65 Vendors

INSIDE WEEK OF FEBRUARY 2-8, 2012 www.FloridaWeekly.com Vol. II, No. 17 • FREE Cautious May we be Frank? Steve Lippia finds inspiration in optimism the sounds of Sinatra. B1 w Is the area finally beginning to get its head above water after four years of economic crisis? BY SCOTT SIMMONS [email protected] f it’s February in Florida, then that means there’s a little nip of spring in the air. I Oh, there are no tulips, no dogwoods and no frost in the morning. So what is there to greet the latest flock of snowbirds flying in to town? It’s just a bumper crop of orchids savoring Networking the cool night air and palm fronds swaying in a See who’s out and about in sunny breeze. Palm Beach County. A16 w Or maybe a ribbon-cutting or two to suggest perhaps the winter of recession is beginning to lift, and the mood, like the sky, is beginning to brighten. Ed Chase, president of the Northern Palm Beaches Chamber of Commerce, sees success in ribbon-cuttings. “Just from our calendar for the past two weeks, we’ve had more ribbon-cuttings and openings than in a long time,” he says. “And they’re spread out from Tequesta to North Palm to Lake Park to Juno Beach, and we haven’t had a ribbon-cutting in Juno Beach in a long time.” SEE OPTIMISM, A8 w Antiques Mission style isn’t just about straight lines. A15 w Fine Art Fair brings Old Masters, new works – and eggs BY SCOTT SIMMONS 65 vendors. It’s smaller, but we did that on pur- [email protected] pose to be more selective.” Continuing last year’s format, there will be a Pets The American International Fine Art Fair is full schedule of activities to coincide with the placing all its eggs in one basket — literally. exhibitions, including lectures from museum This pup and other animals Now in its 16th year, the event will bring curators and art experts, as well as cocktail need a home. A6 w Peter Carl Fabergé’s famed imperial eggs to the parties and other social events. show, held Feb. 4-12 at the Palm Beach County Among the highlights is “Fabergé: The Convention Center. Rebirth of an Icon,” an exhibition and lecture This year’s show will have 65 exhibitors, series featuring Geza von Habsburg. It will Download fewer than in previous years. focus on a new collection of egg pendants, Les our FREE “It’s going to be such an interesting show Fameux de Fabergé. App today this year,” says Ashlea Heck, spokeswoman for But it’s not all about the baubles of European Available on International Fine Art Expositions of Bonita royalty. “Vanessa Redgrave,” a 1968 silver gelatin print by Victor Skrebneski, the iTunes App Springs, which produces the event. “There are SEE FINE ART, A9 w offered by Holden Luntz Gallery. Store. w PRSRT STD ROGER WILLIAMS A2 REAL ESTATE A17 NETWORKING A16 U.S. POSTAGE LINDA LIPSHUTZ A10 ARTS B1 PUZZLES B8 PAID FORT MYERS, FL PETS A6 EVENTS B6-7 SOCIETY B10-11,14,18 PERMIT NO. 715 BUSINESS A13 FILM B9 CUISINE B19 A2 NEWS WEEK OF FEBRUARY 2-8, 2012 www.FloridaWeekly.com FLORIDA WEEKLY COMMENTARY Let us celebrate the utterly useless, which makes life worth living whichw they study, for money. It’s an old lesson they keep learning “That’s not only because of countless That was one. anew — never go into politics unless you terms that derive from Greek and Latin, rogerWILLIAMS Second, a well-known professor of envi- plan to shed blood (witness the last week in but also because the rigorous and sys- ronmentalr studies and politics at Oberlin Florida). Here, Macduff has just been told tematic thinking of an Aristotle or Plato [email protected] — he’s speaking at Edison State College in that his family and servants have all been anticipates the forms of legal argument a couple of weeks — suggests that without murdered. (Aristotle pioneered the study of for- We must now celebr ate the utterly use-use a comprehensive education in the arts and “All my pretty ones?/ Did you say all? mal logic) and the methods of scientific less. sciences for a lot more people, we might not O hell-kite! All?/ What, all my pretty little inquiry (both Plato and Aristotle are con- At least once a day or once in a lifetime, make it as a species. The kind of education, chickens and their dam/At one fell swoop?” cerned with the quality of evidence and we must now champion the unproductive, he says, that allows us to make connections Beautiful. the validity of argument — an argument the mute or voiceless, even the silent. between seemingly unrelated notions. But it didn’t give me the answer to the is both valid and sound when it employs We must nourish, in effect, an unem- That’s some real cause for optimism, isn’t question: What difference does knowing a non-fallacious form and also has verifi- ployed word, jobless in the dictionary of it? Well, no. But oddly enough, it is cause for something useless make? able propositions). daily life. hope, he says. So I picked a thing that seems, on the “But if we expand our notion of useful- And what’s more useless than jobless? The man’s name is David Orr, and he put surface, to epitomize uselessness: classical ness to include any tools that can help us When I think of useless, I think of the it like this, in an essay called “Optimism and Greek. flourish and be happy, the argument for blue in skies. What job does blue have? Hope in a Hotter Time:” And like many an insufferable pragmatist studying classics becomes even stronger. I think of love — not simply the impera- “People must see the connections skeptically eyeballing his youngers, I asked “The writing of Roman stoic philoso- tive need to reproduce, but love. Com- between what they drive and the wars we my nephew, Nick Romeo, why the hell he’s phers like Marcus Aurelius or Seneca pletely useless. fight, the stuff they buy and crazy weather, spending the last years of his 20s studying provided some of the best self-help advice I think of a breeze, a necktie, a musical the politicians they elect and the spread classical Greek when he could be out work- ever penned long before the genre even note, the stars, a piano concerto, the cinna- of poverty and violence. They must be ing in Walmart or something. existed. They provide practical advice mon-chestnut hue of a good gumbo roux. taught to see connections between climate, Nick wrote “Driven: Six Incredible Musi- on how to be happy with what we have The liberal arts. environmental quality, security, energy use, cal Journeys.” And he can read and write and overcome the fear of death, two chal- All of them are jobless and thus useless, equity and prosperity. They must be asked Greek almost as if he were born 5,000 miles lenges which, if achieved, can transform by the insistent do-something, get-a-job to think and to see. As quaint and naïve as away and 3,000 years ago. He is trying to quality of life.” definition of American culture. So in practi- that may sound, people have done it before make the connections and here’s what he Because in one fell swoop we’re through, cal terms and like all art, they’re entirely and it has worked.” said: whether we transformed the quality of our unnecessary — at least at first glance. Thinking and seeing. Are they genetic “There are many ways to justify the lives or not — whether we burned up the But somehow they remain indispensable equipment, like blue eyes and blond hair, or study of classics and Ancient Greek in planet or not — when death comes. Which to living. Perhaps, somehow, they’re the key do you learn them by studying the physics particular. One strong argument is that happens to be the title of a poem by Mary to our survival as a species. of stars, or the violin, or the art and applica- inflected languages like Greek and Latin Oliver and employed in part by humanities This ruminative hiccup was brought tion of English words, or the geology and are rigorous and complicated systems, and Professor Wendy Chase, to celebrate her upon me by a collision of coincident biology of the southern Everglades, or the learning to master their rules sharpens our graduates once at Edison State: moments, all of them chunked like sausage Greek language all in one fell swoop? general mental acuity. “When it’s over, I want to say, all my life/ into a pot-boil of ideas about education. There’s a useless phrase for you: “One “Of course, Chinese and Arabic could I was a bride married to amazement./ I was Newt Gingrich, I learned, has said that fell swoop.” Fell (a jobless word these days), plausibly do the same while also providing a the bridegroom, taking the world into my poor young teenagers should become jani- means fierce or even savage — at least as more obvious utility in the world. But Greek arms.” tors in their schools, pulling themselves up Billy-boy Shakespeare employed it in the and Latin are also eminently useful: Law or To consummate such a marriage, we from poverty by cleaning the schools in mouth of Macduff, who challenged the medical school would be made immeasur- must now celebrate the utterly useless.

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