ChoreoNotes
A Meditation on Miami

By Letty Bassart

	Downtown Miami at night  Photo: Robert Figueroa

For those of us who experience the world in metaphor, sifting through visual clutter is a daily task. Discerning  the “it just is” moments from the “this means this” moments is an act of sheer willpower.  In the quest for meaning, nothing is harder to resist than the convergence of symbols—the conspicuous apparition of the car you are about to purchase, pregnant women, babies, doves, vultures, cockroaches.

The most recent of these phenomena has been the emergence of a single word: speculation.  Last Saturday, my friend Laura brought this word to my attention.  That same day, it was mentioned on my audio version of the World is Flat, on page six of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and by Tigertail Production’s Mary Luft for a New York Times interview about the Carnival Center. Luft’s quote reads:  “Miami is a land of speculation.”  As a native resident and lifelong beholder of Miami’s struggle to become, I cannot agree more. All too often, the PR is better than the product or vice versa.  During my research for Flower Chronicles, knowledge of 17^th century tulip mania filled me with an intense desire to place a tulip bulb in every empty luxury condo window.

For as long as I can remember, Miami has vied to be perceived as cosmopolitan. It defines itself through comparison.  Neighborhood X is like New York circa 1981.  Area Y reminds me of L.A.   It is rare to hear people say they are Miamian.  More often than not, they will say, I live here, but am from (fill in your country of origin) or I am living here, but plan to move to (fill in a more desirable city).

Obviously, speculation is not just a Miami thing. For good or for bad, expectation is a common driver.  Entities such as Madison Avenue are happy to help us along. My generation is well acquainted with the exhilaration of false scarcity.  Children, whose parents waited in line for Cabbage Patch dolls, became the adults who formed lines to secure iPhones and Wii’s.