Diversions 09.12.13

Diversions YourObserver.com

A&E

Take a long, strange trip with sci-fi writer Marty Fugate.

PAGES 2-3

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 , 2013

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Read Pam Nadon’s film review and Popcorn Bob’s Movie Magic Reviews at YourObserver.com.

HOME&GARDEN | home of the month

Black Tie

Guest Fashion Editor: Lauren Graham PAGE 6

by Robert Plunket | Contributing Writer

The spirit of the Ringling era lives on in a historic Indian Beach home.

Landmark

Courtesy photos

HOME&GARDEN COVER STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

// Arts&Entertainment: Space case

Out

by Mallory Gnaegy | A&E Editor

of this

world Writer Marty Fugate has an infinite, sometimes terrifying, and hilarious knowledge of an imagined future, which he occasionally turns into science fiction anthologies.

Mallory Gnaegy

Science fiction author Marty Fugate thinks this cosmic statue in Selby Five Points Park looks like a portal to another dimension — ideally, he would have positioned himself in the center of it.

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// Arts&Entertainment Things you didn’t know about Marty Fugate:

Five things that inspire Marty Fugate: 1. My friend Su Byron — She inspires me because she is always in touch with her imagination and gets more done by breakfast than I do at the end of the day.

2. Harlan Ellison — He inspires me because he is fearless in his writing, and it shows me that it can be done. He really stands for Bill Hicks, George Carlin and all the fearless writers and comedians who have their say and don’t compromise their values.

3. Dreams — As long as I keep dreaming, I know I’ll never run out of stuff to write about.

4. My father — Because he published his great novel, “Drum and Bugle.” It was kind of a comedic exposé of the military academy he went to as a young guy. He showed me it could be done.

5. The whole crew — Specifically my mother, my sons, my aunt and everyone else in my family, because they are constantly encouraging me to get off of my ass and keep writing.

Online

For more information about “Cosmic Debris” and Marty Fugate, visit martyfugate.com. Be sure to also check out his blog, badfuture.blogspot.com.

See a clip of Marty Fugate reading an excerpt of his book, “Cosmic Debris,” at YourObserver.com.

Yorkers just won’t shut up, for infinity, about where the best bagel can be found in New York. The “mother-jumping, nasal-talking, remember-when, do-you-know, have-you-seen, yeah-I-did, fuhgetaboutit” New Yorkers are completely unaware of what’s going on around them.

The idea was sparked from an overheard conversation: “I thought, ‘You could take these two, put them on a flying-sauceralien-spaceship and they wouldn’t notice it (was taking place),” Other seeds for these stories were planted by a television special on steroid abuse; the Olympics, the Clinton administration; and even a fever dream he had in college.

“I have ideas that are basically comic; I have some ideas that are awe-inspiring; and some ideas

that are terrifying; and sometimes they’ll jive together,” he says. ”It’s not always the same color.”

But, with Fugate, it’s always colorful.

He has also written three longform novels: “ImagN,” “As a Matter of Fact, the Past is Dead” and “God Sell.” The first two are long-form sci-fi, and and the latter is a satire of televangelists of the 1980s.

He’s working on a new novel, involving a character he compares to fictional Italian mob-boss Tony Soprano, set in the future. He does his best impression to demonstrate and turns a few heads at a quiet downtown coffee shop.

The book centers on the end of privacy in a ubiquitous world of information technology — his biggest fear for the future. Specifically, the fact that someone can see, as he says, that he bought ice

cream three times more in a week and that he has been to the gym two times less than normal, so he must be depressed; that means someone will send him an ad for depression meds.

If you ask him where he comes up with this kind of stuff, he’ll tell you there’s a service out of Missouri that you can sign up for, and every week a truck with a light on the top comes to your door and gives you this idea box, which he thinks they possibly outsource to China. And, then, he’ll pause for a length of time and laugh, and it isn’t until then that you realize Fugate has duped you with his extraordinary gift of imagination.

“I don’t think I’m predictably weird,” he says. “I think everybody is weird. Everybody is a dreamer, and everybody likes to see the humorous or weird side of life.”

• Fugate’s father, Terence Fugate, was the theater and film critic for The Sarasota Scene, and Marty Fugate would often accompany his father to the theaters. “It began with my father,” he says.

• Starting in 2000, Fugate did everything from ads to business feature writing to A&E writing at the Observer Group.

He’s remembered for putting on one-man plays in the office.

• Fugate practices yoga four or five times a week, and he also practices karate weekly.

• Fugate will occasionally perform at stand-up-comedy and open-mic nights around town.

• Fugate is working on an animated cartoon called “Hotel Strange,” featuring a cast of characters living in a hotel in South Florida. Some of the characters are normal kids and some are aliens, of course.

• His grandfather gave him his first anthology of science fiction stories by Koran Bluth, “The Marching Morons and Other Stories,” at age 12.

He’s been consuming science fiction since.

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arty Fugate lives in his own universe.

At any given time, the native Floridian could switch into a Russian accent or an impersonation of a persnickety old man unadjusted to the modern ways of the world; or a page from a large Rolodex of pop culture could be pulled, including everything from Garrison Keeler to “The Jetsons” and every dusty, little-known corner in between. One either has to stay on his toes or think in a similar, associational pattern to follow him from one thought to the other without getting lost.

In this universe, one thought might conjure another completely obscure thought.

“It’s hard for everyone to carve out that side (of their brain) and go where the sidewalk ends,” Fugate says. “That’s a reference to Shel Silverstein, by the way.”

Fugate’s universe is built right on the edge of the sidewalk, where it merges with the futuristic worlds of science fiction.

In fact, Fugate has the perfect thought pattern for writing sci-fi short fiction — and any highly creative output for that matter — which is why it makes sense that he’s a writer-comedian-cartoonist.

Normally, Fugate likes to do the interviewing because he doesn’t like to talk about his creativity; he just likes to use it. He freelances art-related articles for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and a monthly home feature for Scene magazine.

Most recently, he’s used his creativity to publish a sci-fi book of short fiction, called “Cosmic Debris.”

The first story, “New Yorkers in Space,” begins with one character being jettisoned through a wall-less, bright universe via an alien slave ship, where two New

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2013

// HOME&GARDEN : home of the month

by Robert Plunket | Contributing Writer (continued from page 1)

The spirit of the Ringling era lives on in a historic Indian Beach home.

Landmark K

eeping a legend alive and flourish*** ing can be either a pain or a pleaThough the house has impeccable hissure. For Pat Taylor, it has torical credentials — the Whitfield fambeen pure joy. This is a lady who ily built it, most likely in 1925 — no loves her house. She loves keepone is quite sure who the architect ing it beautifully maintained was. Most historians agree it was and in top repair. She loves fureither Dwight Baum (who denishing it in the perfect — and signed the Cà d’Zan) or Thomas perfectly appropriate — manReid Martin, who built many of ner. Most of all, she loves sharthe town’s more impressive older ing it with others. homes.

It’s one of the best-known The Whitfields, of course, houses in town, not for its size need no introduction. They or pretentions, but for its beaudeveloped much of northern ty. It’s a perennial finalist in Sarasota, and their name lives every “prettiest house in Saraon in several subdivisions and sota” contest. Of all the Spanish a major avenue that meanRevival homes that set the tone ders past the Sarabay Counfor what was to come back in try Club and out east to Palm the boom of the 1920s, Taylor’s Aire. The home’s second ownhouse is generally regarded as ers were a family named Black, Photo by Heather Merriman who bought it in 1943. Taylor and the most successful.

It certainly has the best location.  Servant’s her husband, John, purchased it As you travel west on Indian Beach bell register from them in 1978, for $135,000.

Road, through a hammock of tall, It wasn’t the highest offer, but old ancient oaks, you see a glimmer ahead Mrs. Black sensed a kindred spirit in Tay— the bay — and then, as the road takes lor, someone who she knew would love a turn toward the north, there it is, with the house as much as she had. the sunlight playing on its elegant façade.

She was right. The home and its new Any house at this premium spot would be owner were a perfect match. Taylor is an noteworthy, but the Taylor house, cheer- old-school Southern lady from the antefully yellow and subtly embellished with bellum Alabama town of Decatur, famous such refined details as Juliet balconies for its old Victorian houses. It was a town and crisp awnings and a copper-roofed where, as Taylor recalls, “People still left sun porch, lives up to setting. People love visiting cards and were at home from to drive by it every once in a while, just be- three to four, serving homemade banana cause it makes them feel good. bread.”

Courtesy photos

The living room features decorative columns and a wood-burning fireplace. Furnishings and art work reflect the owner’s love of tradition and comfort.

Photo by Heather Merriman

A large brass chandelier from India lights up the downstairs office. It originally hung in The Acacias, a bayfront mansion demolished in the1980s.

A former maid’s room now serves as a butler’s pantry. A second has been converted to a laundry room.

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// HOME&GARDEN Under Taylor’s care, the home perfectly reflects the traditional aesthetic of the small-town South. The furnishings are family pieces supplemented over the years by estate-sale finds and a couple of spectacular wild cards, such as the 12-foot-long mahogany, onyx and Tiffany-glass sideboard that once served as a part of a drugstore soda fountain. Several of the chandeliers come from another old Sarasota mansion, The Acacias, which was demolished to make way for the Sarasota Bay Club.

But what makes the home special are all the original details that are still in place. The wood floors, the wall sconces, the doorknobs and other hardware, they’re all still there, along with the 1920s bathrooms, complete with arched bathtub niches, glowing pastel tiles and pedestal sinks. There’s even the old servants’ “bell register” in the kitchen, which, like the apparatus on Downton Abbey, tells the maid which bell is summoning her. Even the garage doors are original — and in perfect working order.

Taylor’s home has served as a decorator’s show house so many times that she has lost count. Several times she has been forced to say no to the individual designer’s ideas — one wanted to paint over the original stenciled cypress ceiling in the sun porch — but some of their decorative touches have been kept. The stair hall now features a mural of tropical birds along with matching curtains.

Likewise, the living room fireplace was opened up on the other side to face the kitchen as well, thus providing a cozy space for coffee and perusing volumes from Taylor’s cookbook library.

“This is a house for entertaining,” Taylor says. “But I’ve never had a party catered.” She does all the cooking herself, including the biscuits.

“And yes,” she confides in a stage whisper, “I use lard.”

The servants’ rooms off the kitchen now serve as a butler’s pantry and additional workspace, and a laundry has been installed.

“When I bought the house I asked Mrs. Black where the laundry was, and she said, ‘The laundry? Oh, the maid takes it home with her,’” Taylor says.

*** As the home nears its centennial, Taylor has decided it’s time to move on. Her husband died several years ago, and though her real-estate career is sill going strong — she’s been one of Sarasota’s top Realtors for almost three decades and has sold more than 400 houses in the immediate neighborhood alone, some four or five times — it’s time for a smaller house.

The new owner of the Whitfield-Taylor House will be getting not just a Sarasota classic but a piece of American history — it’s been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Along with its carved fireplaces and original roof tiles (when the roof was replaced the barrel tiles were removed, cleaned and then reset) it has perhaps the greatest oddity of all for a Florida home — a real basement. And, no, it’s never flooded, even though the bay is just across the street.

Chances are Taylor will be one of the neighbors.

“I see myself in a little cottage, small, sweet, maybe with a white-picket fence and a vegetable garden, living happily ever after,” she says.

Those who know her can’t imagine her leaving the museum area, the sundappled part of Sarasota where she raised a family, built a career and, for 35 memorable years, lived in the prettiest house in town.

2704 Bay Shore Road is priced at $2.99 million. For more information, contact Pat Taylor of Coldwell Banker at 941356-1013.

The kitchen boasts a commercial gas range and a cozy fireplace, perfect for looking through cookbooks while enjoying a cup of tea.

A sunset from the screened porch. The cypress ceiling has traces of the original stencil decorations dating back to the 1920s.

A lilac-hued second floor bedroom is furnished with antiques collected in both Sarasota and the owner’s native Alabama.

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// BLACK TIE

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

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