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Model: Constance Cowez

This is the Rockstar issue. It sparkles with jewels from La France in the fashion shoot produced by the original V team.

The X Factor brings soul to the pages of VERTICAL. Maria in Wonderland invites you to explore a whimsical garden. Kenyan Gold is to be sipped and savored—a true coffee treasure.

One day a girl met a hero. That girl was me. Legendary moonwalker Buzz Aldrin was the Rocket Hero. Catch my close encounter with the man on the moon in Over the Moon.

Rock on,Photo by Wicked

Lens Imaging

Publisher & creative director

Leslie Joy Ickowitz

Art DirectorJames Burgos of BLVD//creative

Contributing Photographers

David Monroe ✵ Papergirl Press

Susan Jeffers

Contributing WritersCarol Cortright ✵ Casey Brook McPhee

James Burgos ✵ Leslie Joy Ickowitz

Tracy Ann Guida

Digital retoucherRuss Robinson

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VERTICALTampaBay.com

Copyright 2013 VERTICAL™ Tampa Bay. All rights

reserved. Reproduction, either in whole or in part,

is forbidden without written permission from the

publisher. Articles and advertisements published in

VERTICAL Tampa Bay do not necessarily reflect

the opinions of the publisher. VERTICAL Tampa

Bay assumes no liability for the content and shall

not be held liable for any errors or omissions. No

responsibility can be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All letters and press releases sent to VERTICAL Tampa

Bay may be unconditionally assigned for publication

and are subject to VERTICAL Tampa Bay’s editorial

comment. VERTICAL Tampa Bay is not to be held

liable for the quality or performance of goods or

services rendered by the advertisers in this publication.

Printed and distributed by Creative Loafing.

R O C K S T A R

Photographer: Susan Jeffers

Stylists: Pamela Bloomgren, MOD Productions & Leslie Joy Ickowitz

Hair: Bill Baker

Makeup: Pamela Bloomgren, MOD Productions

Model: Karissa Gonzalez

Jewels & Corsets: La France

Post Production: Russ Robinson

Maria in WonderlandA Garden of Possibilities

Story by Carol Cortright ❧ Photography by David Monroe

Otherworldly yet familiar, the spiky

petals gleam like glass. The depth of sensuous color and texture draws

you in. You want to touch them, slide your fingers over

the smooth surface, feel the curves, the coolness.

These giant blooms tran-scend garden variety adorn-

ment, summoning a magical rain forest with a splash of opulent

hues radiating a shine beyond shimmering dew.Usually, when the lovely tropical

coconut palm, the queen palm, and the Christmas palm have gone to

seed, the remnants of their fruition fall to the ground or are removed and

discarded.This is where Maria Saraceno intervenes.

Her voice resonates with passion: “I love the dual nature of the pods. When they first come up,

they’re tubular, masculine—then they burst open, feminine, filling both functions.”

Maria uses her artistic talent to preserve and give new life to these “reproductive vessels” which oth-erwise would be tossed aside.

“Artists have been inspired by nature for years,” she says, explaining her penchant for repurposing the exquisite forms she discovers all around her.

One installation, draped over a sconce at the Florida Craftsmen Gallery, glows from within. Pods fan out like dragonfly wings and capture a fading sunset, orange and red bleeding into a violet sky. Some of the edges curl slightly and show a green flash peeking from the underside.

While the larger-than-life petals spiral and spring off the wall hangings, her stand-up arrangements mimic sensual dances, sporting titles like “Waltz” and “Tango.” Each pod in the seductively twisting cluster gracefully tapers to a fine point. Some are embellished with the additional texture of hundreds of tiny seed beads.

The pieces are useful too, as Maria points out the individual pods. Brilliant in color, some adorned with sprays of beads and bejeweled buttons, they lend a slice of tabletop whimsy while holding lemons or other edibles within their fluted bodies.

“There’s nothing more beautiful than what is in nature.”

~ Maria Saraceno

Maria in Wonderland

Maria explores social concepts through art, channeling her wonder and curiosity into acrylic, resin and other materials. Her skillful techniques result in things of pure beauty.

Maria’s work can be seen at mariasaraceno.com. Florida Craftsmen Gallery, 501

Central Avenue, St Petersburg, FL, floridacraftsmen.net. Nuance Gal le ry, 804 S. Dale Mabry, Tampa, FL n u a n c e galleries.com

Soul Music by geri xStory by Tracy Ann Guida ❧ Photography by Sarah Kay Photography

THE XFACTOR

One strum of her guitar, one sultry lyric sung and you become a voyeur—with a front

row seat to Geri X’s world. Stories stream from her soul bringing the listener on an emotional journey. With a captivating presence and powerful sound, Geri X is a true musician—and every bit a rockstar.

Drawn from personal experiences, Geri paints a dark background that is brought to life with moving guitar chords. In “Whiskey and Cigarettes,” she compares herself to the vices of her lover, thus paralleling love and addiction.

I don’t want to be another tattoo you’ll regret; I don’t want to just be someone next to whom you slept; I don’t want to be a picture in your wallet you’ll forget; I want to be a gold slide, warm whiskey and your favorite pack of cigarettes.

Classically trained in guitar, piano and voice, Geri X’s brilliant blend of jazz, blues and folk music enthralls audiences. Die-hard fans wait with bated breath for the next new thing to come from the prolific artist. Her evolution as a musician and a human being unfolds before us.

Geri is a fixture on the local music

scene, playing at hot spots from Tampa to St. Petersburg (when she’s not touring else-where in the country). She adores performing live and shows up at The Local 662, Jannus Landing, New World Brewery and her favor-ite, The Ale and the Witch.

When asked how she views the music scene here compared to other cities, she shares, “I always say this and in seven years it hasn’t changed: There is so much camaraderie between the musicians here and so much talent. I haven’t found that anywhere else in the country.”

Since her arrival in Tampa Bay from Bulgaria as a teen in 2005, she has made St. Petersburg her home and has grown very fond of the eclectic city. She says, “I love St Pete. I love my family and friends who live here. And I love how the city is always awake and alive. It’s inspiring.”

The same can be said about Geri X—she is always awake and alive and one of our brightest shining stars.

Geri is currently recording a new album at RedRoom Recorders in Ybor City. You can find her catalog of albums and a calendar of performance dates on her website. www.gerixmusic.com.

Simmer down now, you’re worrying yourself today.

Simmer down now, you never know what you’re gonna get.

Cuz you’ve been pushing for a long, long time looking for things you cannot find.

Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t fall out of love.

Kiss On Both Eyelids

Like a kiss on both eyelids you’re wonderful and safe.

Like a sailing ship in the middle of a dead calm sea you’re far away.

Like a moth to a flame I attached myself to you.

I grew a giant spider in my head and named it after

you.

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ALLALLTHATTHATGLITTERSGLITTERS

ALLTHATGLITTERS

Coffee and conversation By The snows of KilimanjaroStory by James Burgos ❧ Photography by Papergirl Press

A typical winter day in Tampa is anything but typical. You are more likely to see sand angels on white sands and frozen margaritas before you see anything that resembles actual snow.

But on occasion, and sprinkled throughout the season, the Bay area is prone to experience a cold snap every now and again. And on those thin-blooded days when flip-flops simply will not do, Café Kili in Temple Terrace is a welcome respite from a brisk day; a place where hot coffee and a warm smile will raise your temperature back to sub-tropical norms.

Café Kili (named after Mt. Kilimanjaro) is owned and operated by Patrick and Rose Waruinge. They opened for business

in 2007 and are a thriving mainstay of the Temple Terrace and USF communities. They roast their

coffee in-house. Raw beans are imported from Kenya, Tanzania, Sumatra, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and Brazil. You haven’t tasted coffee as rich and flavor-

ful until you have experienced the taste of a bean that has been brewed within a few days

from the time it was roasted.

KenyanGold

All of the usual varieties that discerning coffee drinkers are accustomed to can be found on the Café Kili menu. My personal favorite is the Café Mocha. At the franchise coffee shops, I’m normally a quad-shot-espresso kind of guy, but let me warn you right now, the brew at Café Kili is of such a high grade that it makes the corporate swill seem like watered down Prohibition-era hooch served at a speakeasy. So, if you’re like me, you might want to dial it back a couple of shots—I’m just saying.

One would be hard pressed to find a barista in the Bay area with the intimate knowledge of the “sacred bean” as Rose Waruinge—her passion for coffee runs deep. “Rose can taste a bean and tell if it is an African bean or tell you where it is from,” says her husband, Patrick. She was raised on a coffee planta-tion in the central province of Nyeri, Kenya. Along with her ten siblings, she learned to cultivate raw coffee beans that would, in turn, be sold exclusively to the Kenyan government. “Growing cof-fee was a family operation,” says Rose. “Our father could not afford to hire workers so he used us [his children] as laborers to care for the coffee plants, pick the ripe cherries and deliver them to the factory. He paid for our educations in this way.”

“Kenyan Gold,” as coffee is commonly known in Kenya, is one of the country’s top cash crops. It is grown on family-owned plantations, but the prices are fixed and regulated by the government. Ironically, according to Patrick, “Coffee growers are not allowed to process for consumption the beans grown on their own farms; it is an export-only industry.”

The idea to open her own coffee shop came to Rose after she observed the wild success of Starbucks. She recalls saying to herself, “I think I know more about coffee than most people. I think I can try and start a coffee shop.” Since she only knew how to grow and sell the raw coffee beans, she had to learn the art

of roasting coffee. She and Patrick bought a roaster and spent a couple of years perfecting their roast-ing methods. If you come to the café on a Saturday afternoon you might find Patrick roasting the beans that will be sold for that week.

Because they roast their beans in-house, Café Kili is able to offer better prices for their coffee than the corporate chains. Once a month they have coffee tastings. It’s a great opportunity to sample different blends. They value their customers’ opinions and feedback. And like any good mom and pop shop,

you can be certain that Rose and Patrick know the names and drinks of all their regular customers.

If the coffee alone weren't reason enough to patronize Café Kili frequently, the decor will surely draw you in for an extended stay. Rose single-handedly designed the inte-rior around the textures and colors of Africa. Real bamboo trim, comfortable seating, free wi-fi and warm lighting create a welcome atmosphere spa-cious enough to be suitable for group meetings, first dates, poetry readings, studying and

even live music. If you really want an idea of what I'm talking about, the photograph and colors used in this article’s layout were shot on location.

Café Kili was recently voted one of the Top 10 coffee houses in the country by The Huffington Post—well-deserved praise for Patrick and Rose and a testament to the foundation of excellence that they have established and maintained throughout the years.

Café Kili's location in Temple Terrace is on Fowler Avenue right off the corner of 56th Street behind the Applebee’s. If you rarely visit or pass through Temple Terrace, consider making the trip if only to stock up on a bag or two of “Kenyan Gold” (their premium house blend which they sell by the pound).

I'm certain that after an initial taste of the coffee and the hospitality, you'll find a reason to come back again and again.cafekili.com

“Rose can taste a bean and

tell if it is an African bean or tell you where it

is from.” ~ Patrick Waruinge

The item is merely a business card but it belongs to one of my personal heroes, legendary astronaut and moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. Seven distinguished designations including Astronaut, Explorer, Lunar Ambassador, Rocket Scientist and Space Advocate are listed on the card. Dr. Aldrin handed it to me during a chance encounter at Kennedy Space Center, where I remember thinking, “This man has walked on the surface of the moon and now he’s sitting here talking to me.” I walked away feeling so lofty I thought my feet would never touch the ground.

Usually, I’m not the star-struck type but there’s some-thing about hanging out with someone who has hung out among the stars that blows me away. You could say I’m a bit of a space groupie—I’ve watched Apollo 13 at least a hundred times (even though I’m well aware of how it ends) and recently, I combined references from both Star Wars and Star Trek in the same sentence. Although he is cool enough to have Disney and Pixar’s Buzz Lightyear named for him and MTV’s Moonman modeled after him, there’s nothing sci-fi about Buzz. Dr. Aldrin is the real deal and he has his eye fixed on a future that involves sending space tourists rocketing into the sky to experience a sliver of the moon for themselves.

“A-W-E,” he says, is the emotion that most closely resembles the feeling he experienced on the moon’s surface. “One of the purposes of my ShareSpace Foundation is to share space with as many people as possible,” Dr. Aldrin asserts.

In his estimation, the first lunar resort should fea-ture, “activities that boost visitors’ common experi-ence,” rather than competitive games.

Alliances with Omega Watches, Louis Vuitton and Snoop Dogg, with whom he recorded a rap song, position Aldrin fashionably front and center, enabling him to share his passion with the public. To inspire the next generation of space explorers, he has authored two children’s books, Look to the Stars and Reaching for the Moon. Never one to shy away from the glory of technology, he also tweets on Twitter and blogs for The Huffington Post.

One simple observation Dr. Aldrin shared truly applied perspective to the sheer exclusivity of his lunar excursion.

“Dust behaved differently on the surface of the moon,” he said.

Now honestly, how many people can say that and actually know what they are talking about?

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin,

lunar module pilot,

walks on the surface of

the Moon near the leg

of the Lunar Module

(LM) “Eagle” during the

Apollo 11 extravehicular

activity (EVA). Astronaut

Neil A. Armstrong,

commander, took this

photograph with a

70mm lunar surface

camera.

Protected by a ziplock bag tucked inside an embroidered box is one of my most treasured possessions. It measures 2” x 3.5” imprinted with the words “Rocket Hero” and features a gold foil logo illustrating the concept.

Over the Moon

A Close Encounter with Buzz AldrinStory by Leslie Joy Ickowitz ❧ Photograph courtesy of NASA

Better yet, how many people have a first-hand account of how anything behaves on the surface of the moon?

The same man who planted and saluted the American flag up there, and who demonstrated mobility by “prancing around and bouncing up and down” in front of the video camera. “We didn’t do it for the fun,” he says seriously. “It was a learning experience.”

Aldrin’s dramatic life, including his battles with depression and alcoholism, is an open book. His memoir, Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon, provides a fascinating view of his experience both out of this world and back again.

His existence after the Apollo 11 mission was a very lonely time. His mother, Marion Moon, tragi-cally committed suicide the year before his lunar landing. And after a hero’s welcome home here on earth, Aldrin eventually felt used up and spit out.

So what frightens the man who strapped himself to a Saturn V rocket to forge the footsteps of his-tory? “Loneliness, discouragement and disappoint-ment,” Aldrin says. “Things that could lead me back to the very dim parts of my life of depression and alcoholism.”

Sharing is at the core of Aldrin’s life-long dedi-cation to educating, inspiring and broadening the horizons that lead to future exploration and further discoveries. His captivating stories shed light on both the triumphs and the frailties of the human experi-ence. Despite frustrations, what impresses him most about humanity is, “the individual freedoms to have differing points of view on our experiences but then the challenge to come together for the common benefit of each of us.”

These days, his journey centers around, “seeking out and sharing new experiences that cause you to think,” Aldrin says. “I marvel at the coincidental nature of chance, and of statistics. How that tempts many people to think that something was somehow destined to be. There are sudden changes of good fortune and not-so-good fortune that we have to experience that cause us to learn and to educate following generations.”

After traveling 250,000 miles into outer space and 2.5 miles beneath the ocean’s surface to Titanic’s resting place on the Atlantic floor, Aldrin’s radar is locked on future adventures. The avid explorer, who admittedly, “got rather distracted by things like the moon,” visited Antarctica in 2010 and his son, a suc-cessful businessman, offered to sponsor a diving trip to the Galapagos Islands. “There’s an infinite number of locations under the ocean to explore.”

“My life has been driven by certain pursuits,” Aldrin says. “Aviation was one, the military another, human space activity the next. Then I’ve chosen to share those as my ongoing purpose for the benefit of our country and the world.”

Visiting with Dr. Aldrin reminded me to dream dreams, have hope and believe that anything is possible. Not long after that day, VERTICAL launched. Since then, I try to live by what I have come to believe as a direct result of my Buzz encounter: The sky is not the limit. In fact, we can reach for the stars.

Alan and Leslie with

Buzz Aldrin at Kennedy

Space Center.

Beach Celebrations

Making Memories Here with Us. Our Tortuga, Tradewinds, SeaSide and Tropic Isle Beach Resorts are the perfect choice for your wed-ding or other special celebration here on gorgeous Anna Maria Island. Whether a lavish event at one of our three private beaches or in your resort suite, or at a local restaurant, our Concierge and professional Wedding Planner look forward to helping you. As a courtesy, we’ll extend our group discounts to include each of our four hotels, so you’ll get credit for the total number of reservations no matter which hotel you and your guests choose. Please call soon. We invite you to make your memories here with us. We know you’ll come back to visit us again and again.

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I saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, “Little Red Riding Hood Lied.” At first it seemed like a bold statement about a beloved storybook character who is typically seen as the victim. When I thought about it a little more though, I began to understand why some animal advocates feel that wolves, bears and other forest creatures have gotten a bum rap in classic literature.

Fortunately, publishing trends seem to be focusing on story mash ups, plot twists, and spinning bedtime yarns into something new. In Lisa Campbell Ernst’s Little Red Riding Hood—A Newfangled Prairie Tale, the author creates a vegetarian wolf character who is still wily and persistent, but doesn’t want to eat children—a sigh of relief for parents who would rather not provide fertile ground for nightmares when snuggling up for story time.

Another great book that provides the retelling of a classic is Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson. The cover says it all with a picture of a penny loafer on the Prince’s pillow instead of a glass slipper. The alternative heroine in this story will appeal to girls without the princess fascination and boys will appreciate its humorous twists. The story portrays step-families in a slightly more positive light than the original, but hey, there has to be some semblance of a bad guy and adversity to create tension.

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas puts a negative spin on the pig character in this rendition of the classic, but in the end he transforms into a friend of the wolves.

My favorite title among the fairy tale revisions is Susan Lowell’s Dusty Locks and the Three Bears. Dusty is a very naughty girl who runs away from her mother at bath time. She happens into the three bears’ house wreaking all kinds of havoc. The bears are cleverly drawn and described by the author. Baby Bear is knee high to a bumblebee and Papa Bear is as cross as two sticks. In the end, Dusty finds her way home and into her bath water, a slightly better behaved little girl than before her adventure.

The bears don’t even recognize her when they pass her on the street in town. In these days of renew, recycle, reuse, it seems fitting that the classic stories become new again and that the message is modernized for our times. Reach for one of these funny fairy tales the next time you read to the child in your life. You may find that you like them more than the original.Casey Brook McPhee is an avid reader who has worked in libraries for twenty years. She is torn between her love for the scent and tactile pleasure of books and the instant gratification the Amazon Kindle provides.

On StorybooksBy Casey Brook McPhee, Director Largo Public Library

FLIPPINGthe Script

VERTICAL IS… A CELEBRATION

VERTICAL IS…A MOVEMENT

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