the 941

Ed. note: This piece is the first in a summer-long series from Suzanne Highland, an FSU student spending the summer back home in Sarasota. In 111 Nights, Suzanne is taking a peak at ways to spend your days and nights that don’t revolve around getting wasted. Here’s how she explains the name of her feature: “I’m leaving for school again at the end of the summer, but in the meantime, I have 111 nights to spend occupied with Sarasota’s most interesting people, places and events, no matter how unusual.”

In installment number one, below, she introduces herself, and then hits up Pastry Art to check out a fun open mic night.

Sarasota has an awful lot of beaches. They stretch down the shoreline, bring thousands of tourists every year, and wash confidently into Top 10 lists everywhere. (Siesta is ranked number two in the country now, losing only to a beach in Hawaii; who can beat Hawaii, really?) But while our beaches might make the magazine covers, Sarasota is also home to a world of unique, quirky events, ones that hide in small shops downtown and in the city’s most secret corners; ones that give the city its spice, its backbone, and its individuality.

Through a friend of a friend of a friend, I ended up at Pastry Art, a café located on Main Street, a couple Wednesday nights back. It was open mic night and the place was bright, lively, and packed, much to my surprise. (When the friend of the friend of the friend told me to come, I pictured something more along the lines of 1 a.m. karaoke at Applebee’s, possibly the world’s most depressing social activity.) But at Pastry Art, I was privy to one of the most interesting and unexpected musical combinations imaginable. Performing was Devin Robinson, a young acoustic guitar player, and an array of Sarasota oddities — a middle-aged beat boxer, a Tampa Bay Rays cap-sporting didgeridoo player and a man who sang about peace and love and who wore a joker hat. No joke.
The performers captivated the audience, who clapped their hands and sang along to the songs they knew. Almost every seat was occupied. Devin Robinson gave out free CDs and a woman rapped Snoop’s “Gin and Juice” perfectly in an overtime encore performance that went on until after the café’s closing time. And all the while, those Northeastern license-plated cars with their too-tan drivers drove by and gave the scene incredulous looks. Forget beaches. This was pure gold.

The scene was comical, atypical and strangely comforting. After being raised for 18 years in this tourist-packed city, coming home for the summer doesn’t invoke visions of  activities other than ones that leave behind sand-filled cars. And, of course, that’s the selling point of the town. But there’s more to Sarasota — at least, to the Sarasota that I remember. Some of my most valued memories from high school revolve around the much less marketable — Cinema Sounds at Burns Court Theater, hours-long lunches at (the now closed-down) Baystreet Subs and random music shows at New College. Of course, everyone’s personal Sarasota experiences will differ. But maybe trading bathing suits for joker hats and beach towels for didgeridoos, if only for one random Wednesday night, is just what we need.

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