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Weather: Sunny, with a high near 63. North wind 5 to 7 mph. Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 43. Calm wind.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
The Palm Coast Code Enforcement Board meets at 10 a.m. every first Wednesday of the month at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For details about the city’s code enforcement regulations, go here.
The Flagler Beach Library Book Club meets at 1 p.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
The Flagler Beach Parks Ad Hoc Committee meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 105 S 2nd St, Flagler Beach. The Committee’s six members, appointed by the City Commission, provide recommendations related to the maintenance of existing parks and equipment and recommendations for new or replacement equipment and other duties as assigned by the City Commission.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
The Flagler County Republican Club holds its monthly meeting starting with a social hour at 5 and the business meeting at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn, 55 Town Center Blvd., Palm Coast. The club is the social arm of the Republican Party of Flagler County, which represents over 40,000 registered Republicans. Meetings are open to Republicans only.
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center: Nightly from 6 to 9 p.m. at Palm Coast’s Central Park, with 55 lighted displays you can enjoy with a leisurely stroll around the pond in the park. Admission to Fantasy Lights is free, but donations to support Rotary’s service work are gladly accepted. Holiday music will pipe through the speaker system throughout the park, Santa’s Village, which has several elf houses for the kids to explore, will be open, with Santa’s Merry Train Ride nightly (weather permitting), and Santa will be there every Sunday night until Christmas, plus snow on weekends! On certain nights, live musical performances will be held on the stage.
Storytime: Part of Maupassant’s fixation on canotage, or canoeing. In 1873 he’d rented a room with a friend by the Seine near Argenteuil, about seven miles northwest of the center of Paris. He would often canoe from Bezons to Croissy (not to be confused with Flaubert’s Croisset outside of Rouen). The story was first titled “En canot,” and is the first of two by that title (“Sur l’eau”). He wrote another one in the form of a diary in 1888. The narrator is listening to a canotier tell the story of one of his trips down the Seine. He stops to take in the beauty of the surroundings and to have a pipe, throwing in his anchor and reflecting about the water, this “mysterious thing, profound, unknown, a land of mirages and phantasmagoria, where one sees by night things that do not exist, hears sounds that one does not recognize, trembles without knowing why, as in passing through a cemetery—and it is, in fact, the most sinister of cemeteries, one in which one has no tomb.” It is unlike the sea, but the sea shrieks and howls while the Seine is “silent and perfidious.” Done with his pipe, he tries to lift anchor. It won’t give no matter what. He’s stuck. He figures: why not just wait out the night. Someone will come along. But even for this fish in water, the river begins to take on its sinister airs. His frights seize him. The rum he drinks isn’t enough to calm his nerves. The thick mists of the Seine amplify the silence. “I felt horribly uncomfortable, my forehead felt as if it had a tight band round it, my heart beat so that it almost suffocated me, and, almost beside myself.” Swimming to shore isn’t an option: he’d get stuck in weeds and drown. Sleeping is no help. And something is knocks against his boat, almost as loud as his heart. He duels with himself, that duel of fright and reason we all know and never win no matter what we try. We are only stoics up to a point. Maupassant reduces the entire world to that canoe and those frights, to that moment when we see our smallness and fallibility, our nothingness in a mass of indifference. That the indifference is made up of the sublime is the tragedy: we are bit parts in the beauty, its plaything as we self-destruct in fear. Finally, another canotier passes by and helps him unhook the anchor, or at least loosen it enough to bring the weight that had been clamping it down to the surface. It’s “the corpse of an old woman with a big stone round her neck.” The misty uncertainty outlasts the story: suicide? Murder? We cannot know, though the woman’s fate is less relevant (less interesting) than how the weight of her death teased the canotier, and gave him a taste of his own hereafter. (See an English translation here.)
—P.T.
Now this:
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.
November 2024
Saturday, Nov 30 – Monday, Dec 30
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Central Park in Town Center
December 2024
Sunday – Tuesday, Dec 01 – 31
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Central Park in Town Center
Monday, Dec 02 – Wednesday, Jan 01
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Central Park in Town Center
Tuesday, Dec 03 – Thursday, Jan 02
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Central Park in Town Center
Wednesday, Dec 04
Palm Coast Code Enforcement Board Meeting
Wednesday, Dec 04
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Wednesday, Dec 04
Flagler Beach Library Book Club
315 South 7th Street, Flagler Beach
Wednesday, Dec 04
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Wednesday, Dec 04
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Flagler County Public Library
Wednesday, Dec 04
Flagler County Republican Club Meeting
Wednesday, Dec 04
Flagler County’s Cold-Weather Shelter Opens
Wednesday, Dec 04
Flagler Beach Parks Ad Hoc Committee
Wednesday, Dec 04 – Friday, Jan 03
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Central Park in Town Center
Thursday, Dec 05
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Flagler County courthouse
Thursday, Dec 05
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
315 South 7th Street, Flagler Beach
No event found!
For the full calendar, go here.
Quote: “I drank some more rum and stretched myself out at the bottom of the boat. I remained there about an hour, perhaps two, not sleeping, my eyes wide open, with nightmares all about me. I did not dare to rise, and yet I intensely longed to do so. I delayed it from moment to moment. I said to myself : “Come, get up !” and I was afraid to move. At last I raised myself with infinite caution as though my life depended on the slightest sound that I might make ; and looked over the edge of the boat. I was dazzled by the most marvellous, the most astonishing sight that it is possible to see. It was one of those phantasmagoria of fairyland, one of those sights described by travellers on their return from distant lands, whom we listen to without believing. The fog which, two hours before, had floated on the water, had gradually cleared off and massed on the banks, leaving the river absolutely clear ; while it formed on either bank an uninterrupted wall six or seven metres high, which shone in the moonlight with the dazzling brilliance of snow. One saw nothing but the river gleaming with light between these two white mountains ; and high above my head sailed the great full moon, in the midst of a bluish, milky sky.”
–From Maupassant’s “Sur l’eau” (“On the Water”), Le Bulletin français, 10 mars 1876 .
The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.
