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Weather: Patchy fog in the morning. Mostly sunny. Highs in the mid 70s. South winds around 5 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Patchy fog after midnight. Lows in the mid 50s. Southeast winds around 5 mph. See the daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
Today at a Glance:
In Court: Circuit Judge Terence Perkins hears a pre-trial motion in the case of Andrew Sharp, whose trial on a half dozen capital or life felonies, on allegations that he raped two children, 8 and 9, begins next week. The motion hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today: Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin will talk utility bills and why they’re going up in the city. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM and 1550 AM.
Palm Coast Open: A USTA Pro Circuit Event: At the Palm Coast Tennis Center, 1290 Belle Terre Parkway, Palm Coast. Check daily schedules here. In its 13th year, the Palm Coast Open features elite men’s tennis played on our hometown stage. Competitors worldwide travel to Palm Coast for a chance at winning a total of $15,000 in prize money and points toward their ATP ranking, a merit-based method to determine tournament entry and seeding based on men’s tennis rankings.
Nature Walks with Urban Forester Carol: 10 to 11 a.m. Join City of Palm Coast Urban Forester Carol for a nature walk and see our trails through new eyes! Carol will talk about flora and fauna, and reveal interesting facts about protecting and maintaining our natural spaces. The February and April walks will take place at Waterfront Park and feature a native butterfly release. Our nature walks are free to the public, but we recommend registration to communicate about weather issues. For more information or to register, please visit parksandrec.fun.
Rummage Sale at St. Thomas Episcopal, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m: Clothes, shoes, books, Jewelry, decorative items plus more! Baked goods for sale!
The Blue 24 Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
LGBTQ+ Night at Flagler Beach’s Coquina Coast Brewing Company: The monthly LGBTQ+ social for adults is scheduled for every second Friday of the month from 8 to 11 p.m. at Coquina Coast Brewing Co., 318 Moody Boulevard, Flagler Beach. “Come together, make new friends and share some brews. Going strong since Oct 2021! We feature many genres of local LGBTQ+ talent in our community; comedy, burlesque, belly dance, drag, musicians, bingo games, etc. There is never a cover charge but donations are greatly appreciated! When you register, your email is used to keep you up to date on future LGBTQ+ friendly events.
‘Tuck Everlasting,’ at Limelight Theater, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. Tickets: $22.50. Book here. 7:30 p.m., except on Sundays, when the show is at 2 p.m. What would you do if you had all eternity? Eleven-year-old Winnie Foster yearns for a life of adventure beyond her white picket fence, but not until she becomes unexpectedly entwined with the Tuck Family does she get more than she could have imagined. When Winnie learns of the magic behind the Tuck’s unending youth, she must fight to protect their secret from those who would do anything for a chance at eternal life. As her adventure unfolds, Winnie faces an extraordinary choice: return to her life, or continue with the Tucks on their infinite journey.
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy qualify. |
Notably: There are conjunctions between the moon and venus, rare but more awesome ones between Jupiter and Saturn, and of course there are correlative conjunctions, which don;t concern us here. Rather, this semi-fabricated conjunction does. I saw this cloud formation, of all places, while pumping gas at Bucee’s last weekend, after a torrent of storm had barreled through the area:
It did not make me think of Tchaikovsky this time, as was the case last September on I-95, but it reminded me of this, from Hubble, the so-called Pillars of Creation, as NASA a bit too cheekily called them:
You wouldn’t think that in astronomical years, 20 years would make much of a difference. But they have. The picture above was taken in 2015, 20 years after Hubble transmitted the first image of the Pillars, making it its biggest hit then or now. Here’s what it looked like then, captioned thus: “Undersea coral? Enchanted castles? Space serpents? These eerie, dark pillar-like structures are actually columns of cool interstellar hydrogen gas and dust that are also incubators for new stars. The pillars protrude from the interior wall of a dark molecular cloud like stalagmites from the floor of a cavern.”:
Since then, the James Webb telescope has transmitted its own sequel. See below.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
This ability, to give life to the lifeless, to create a world where that which is closed opens itself to us, is ennobled in literature, for in principle there is no difference between what happens when I open one of the books here, say Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and when the children unwrap their presents tomorrow. A little ink on a page wakens a tempest of emotions and causes everything else to vanish, as also happens when the robot takes a few steps across the floor or the rabbit is pressed close and ardently kissed. The bridge between those two dead worlds, that of literature and that of toys, is perhaps the wish list, which has none of the toys’ tangibility but only invokes it the way literature has always invoked the tangible world and set it tumbling around weightlessly in our minds. But in contrast to literature, wish lists can be converted into goods, and that’s why I sit here every year; amid this river of presents I am attempting to realise their dreams. They themselves think that Christmas presents are only about this, but I know that the gifts have a longer journey to travel: like hope, they come sailing from the islands of the imaginary future and onto reality’s shores, where they gain weight and presence, but not for long, for they are travelling on, out on the other side, into the lost past, where their lives will continue as incorporeal memories, which is perhaps the most important part of their existence, preserving the memory of the Christmases of childhood.
–From Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Winter (2015, tr. from the Norwegian, 2018, Ingvild Burkey).
Pogo says
@Black History Month 2024
https://www.google.com/search?q=black+history+month
Honoring Veterans: Army Veteran William Walker
https://news.va.gov/128596/honoring-veterans-army-veteran-william-walker/