Waste not, want not

A string of boats appears with a sound like a freight train, decorated in flashing rows of green and red like Disney Land's/World's nightly electric parade. Miami Beach is awash in cash while brackish water seeps onto the street. Every night it's the end of the world.
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Meg Webster is exhibiting "Food Stamp Table" at Art Basel Miami Beach. The minimalist still life -- one head broccoli, an egg, Ramen noodles and Campbell's soup on a simple wooden table -- is the artist's critique of the recently slashed food stamps program, according to a placard next to the work. Sale price: $12,000.
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The swanky Shore Club pool became a scene of mayhem when The Black Lips started to play. The bassist cannonballed into the water and later projectile vomited a reddish liquid onto the swimmers. More and more people shed their clothes and jumped into the pool, greeted with beer cans the band members' threw from the stage.
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A clear night, the waxing sliver of moon makes it look like there's an entire universe above the material orgy down below. Monty's is packed, Ocean Drive is obscene. There are photo shoots on the rocks in South Pointe and strange corners of illumination on the otherwise inky beach. A white tent in the distance houses a wren of galleries, a work with Andy Warhol's visage ominously visible through a transparent plastic window.

Leaving the ocean, a woman dancer shimmies under the neon blue lights at the Clevelander. The noise seems to follow me down into the residential area away from the hotels. A man in a brown police uniform who appears to not speak English asks which way's the beach? Todo derecho, I offer, pointing in the direction opposite to the one he's walking in. A probable visiting artist in white and black stripes, owl eyeglasses and a sappy smile cycles on one of the Beach's rented bikes. The visitors luxuriate on the soft subtropical grasses with the moon beaming and subtle fragrance arising from the plants and shrubs and trees. The hotels and Star Island rentals are lit up and fully occupied. The city is more alive for this one week than any other time of the year and even nature seems to know it.