To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 73. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 60.
Mostly clear, with a low around 57.
- 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:
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. See previous podcasts here. Today’s guest: Palm Coast City Council member Theresa Pontieri. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, 6400 North Oceanshore Blvd., Palm Coast, 10 a.m. Join a Ranger the First Friday of every month for a garden walk. Learn about the history of Washington Oaks while exploring the formal gardens. The walk is approximately one hour. No registration required. Walk included with park entry fee. Participants meet in the Garden parking lot. The event is free with paid admission fee to the state park: $5 per vehicle. (Limit 2-8 people per vehicle) $4 per single-occupant vehicle. Call (386) 446-6783 for more information or by email: [email protected].
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
First Friday in Flagler Beach, the monthly festival of music, food and leisure, is scheduled for this evening at Downtown’s Veterans Park, 105 South 2nd Street, from 5 to 9 p.m. The event is overseen by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and run by Laverne M. Shank Jr. and Surf 97.3
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella: Youth Edition, at Athens Theatre, 124 North Florida Avenue, DeLand. Tickets range from $12 for students and children to $35 for preferred seating. Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., with an extra 2 p.m. matinee on Feb. 1. Explore the enchanting world of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella: Youth Edition, where the magic isn’t just in the ball gown! This reimagined fairy tale is a magical musical filled with charm, laughter, and timeless life lessons. Follow the journey of a passionate Cinderella as she navigates the challenges of self-discovery, love, and unexpected adventures. With beloved characters, unforgettable tunes, and a plot that sparkles with warmth and hilarity, it’s a must-see for anyone seeking an escape into a world where dreams unfold, lessons are embraced, and enchantment reigns supreme. Brace yourself for a whirlwind of youthful exuberance and pure fun–Cinderella awaits with open arms, ready to cast its spell on hearts of all ages.
Byblos: Every year around this time the Library of America, that literary Grand Canyon you can cradle in your hand and hike for hours a day, issues its annual “New and Forthcoming” newsletter. The one for the 2025 titles came in the mail a few days ago. I do not remember ever being disappointed by those newsletters. This time I am, just a bit. There usually are half a dozen volumes in the “can’t wait for this” category. This year there’s only nine volumes ahead, and none make you want to dive into the Grand Canyon. The speeches and writings of John Quincy Adams? sure, but why? The George Templeton Strong diaries in one volume might be more enticing. The Library excels in anthologies. But here’s one on The American Sort Story: The Nineteenth Century. If you already have most of the Library, it’s essentially a reshuffling of your existing stories from many volumes into one. Helpful maybe as a one-stop sort of thing, but if we’re Library subscribers, it’s because we like to read writers’ works in their proper context. We’re also getting another volume from Octavia Butler–“classics of Afrofuturist speculative fiction” from the nuclear brink, during the Reagan era. That might be interesting, but the current era makes the other one seem so tame now. There’s to be a one-volume, expanded edition of Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism. A curious choice. Arendt naturalized, so she qualifies (and even some who don’t do: Tocqueville has his own volumes in translation). It may get me finally to read the book everyone cites but never reads, though it’ll be a very heavy lift: not for doctors’ waiting rooms. Margaret Fuller’s Collected Writings? It was needed, but it may fall in the virtue-signaling pile rather than the to-read pile. John Guare’s plays? Gary Snyder’s prose? Those are the obscure ones of the year. The Library always has a few, and they can be great discoveries. But I’m still discovering last year’s obscure ones. Finally we have another anthology, but part of a set already under way: “Jim Crow: Voices from a Century of Struggle, Part Two, 1919-1976.” The final year implies it’s the final volume. I suspect the editors may want to revise that: Part Three has been in the works before our eyes since Jan. 20.
—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.
January 2025
Monday, Jan 13 – Monday, Oct 13
Flagler County Commission Workshop
Government Services Building
February 2025
Friday, Feb 07
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday, Feb 07
First Friday Garden Walks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Friday, Feb 07
Friday Blue Forum
Flagler County Democratic Party HQ
Friday, Feb 07
First Friday in Flagler Beach
Friday, Feb 07
Free Family Art Night at Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens
Ormond Memorial Art Museum & Gardens
Friday, Feb 07
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella: Youth Edition, at Athens Theatre
Saturday, Feb 08
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Law Office of Scott Spradley
Saturday, Feb 08
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
315 South 7th Street, Flagler Beach
Saturday, Feb 08
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Saturday, Feb 08
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Flagler School District Bus Depot
Saturday, Feb 08
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Cypress Knoll Golf and Country Club
Saturday, Feb 08
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach
Saturday, Feb 08
Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella: Youth Edition, at Athens Theatre
No event found!
For the full calendar, go here.
… but who does not suffer, either in body or in mind? This world is a valley of misery, as you know. Happiness is just a dream, and pain is real; I have been experiencing it for eighty years. I know nothing other than to resign myself and tell myself that flies were born to be eaten by spiders, and men to be devoured by sorrows.
–From a Voltaire letter, March 16, 1774.
The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.
