“…The new dawn blooms as we free it For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it If only we're brave enough to be it. “ -Amanda Gorman

February 1, 2021

“…The new dawn blooms as we free it

For there is always light,

if only we're brave enough to see it

If only we're brave enough to be it. “

-Amanda Gorman 

As dreadful as most of 2020 and the first few weeks of 2021 have been, I am almost always looking for something hopeful and positive to look forward to. That has been really a hard commodity to come by, but thankfully, finally there was a bit of positive to be found as we head into the second month of the new year. 

I knew that the inauguration had the potential to be a positive, uplifting event, in spite of the fact that the entire US Capital and much of downtown Washington DC was in a militarized lockdown after the insurrection and violence of January 6^th. The threat of violence and mayhem was very real, not just in the nation’s capital but across the country as inauguration day loomed.

Thankfully it was shockingly quiet not only in DC, but across the country as we held our collective breath and watched the Inauguration ceremony in all its solemn, hopeful and majestic glory play out. It was really a beautiful symbol of our Democracy and the traditional peaceful transfer of power that we had come to take for granite and which this year especially had special meaning.

Watching Vice President Kamala Harris take the oath of office as the first woman and person of color become Vice President was awe inspiring and certainly one of the highlights of the day that included stirring performances from Jennifer Lopez, Garth Brooks and Lady Gaga. The moment President Biden was sworn in, I felt like a weight was lifted off my chest and I felt free to feel hopeful again. Not that moving forward will be easy, but I feel pretty damn good. 

The feeling was crystalized by what was my absolute favorite part of the ceremony, the staggeringly fantastic poem by a young 21-year old poet named Amanda Gorman. Just having poetry and the arts back at the forefront of our national consciousness is exciting in and of itself, but to have such an incredible dynamic reading that captured everything the day represented was just an incredible joy.

So things are looking slightly up, even though the Covid pandemic continues to explode with daily records of sickness and death. At the moment there have been 26,073,339 confirmed cases in the United States with 444,274 deaths. Locally the numbers keep going up as well with currently 5,288 cases in Monroe County with 2,634 of those in Key West and 40 deaths due to the virus. With two vaccines available, you would think that things would be improving but the vaccine distribution has been just about as horrid as testing availability was at the start of the pandemic.

The vaccine rollout has been terrible across the country and really bad in Florida, which currently ranks 40^th among the 50 states as far as successful distribution. Vaccine does are being released at a relative trickle which is terribly dissatisfying and a real embarrassment. With the virus still at peak levels, it may seem a strange time for the Tropic Cinema to be hosting films as part of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, but we have been a satellite participant in this year’s festival and have been showing multiple films each day.

It is the first major event that the Tropic has hosted since I joined the Board of Directors and we took great pains to deliver as Covid-safe environments as possible for those coming to see the films. The first huge step was utilizing open air venues to showcase the films in addition to limited seating at the Tropic itself. The cool outdoorish venues included a cool setup at Manley DuBoer lumber yard, where we set up a temporary inflatable screen and used a forklift to raise a projector to screen the films. It was a throwback for me personally to the very origins of the Key West Film Society when films were screened at any available place such as the old Woodenhead Gallery.