Yesterday, I reread the old Dream Country Sandman story about the writer who kidnaps a muse. I also went to the comic book store with my buddy, listened to some of the music he’s been working (electronic, club sort of stuff), and then wandered down to the Art Walk in Miami with him.

It amuses me that the old Fashion District has morphed into the Wynwood Arts District (though the old “El Barrio” series of warehouses does look prettier with the colorful graffiti than it did with the cyclone wire and bad dog signs). The cyclical nature of certain city areas interests me. That if the economy continues to tumble downward, the art students will have less of their parents’ money to spend on cute dresses and skinny jeans and art, thus the area will deteriorate again. If the economy picks up, the hipsters will grow up to be real estate developers and convert the whole area to trendy lofts and overpriced condos.

For now, it’s a hotbed of this sort of thing:

My buddy kept asking me if anything was inspiring me. He meant visually because I’ve also been known to shoot a lot of photos in my day. I’ve also had a tendency to experiment with old cameras, Polaroid transfers, etching, solar prints, pin hole cameras… you know all the hipster foolishness that has turned “shitty” photography into an art form because digital made non-shitty photos too easy.

 

I’m not sure it inspired me visually, but I did file a lot of things away. Or, the “hamsters” I joke do all the filing in my brain filed things away.

I do have a character that lives down that way. I haven’t revisited him in a while because I’ve been working on a different story at the present. Makes me wonder what he’d think of the changes. Methinks he’d be amused, too.

Plus, if I keep roaming the streets of Miami and the like, I won’t need to kidnap a muse for ideas.