When you finally push away from the table this Thanksgiving, consider a long walk through one of the state’s most beautiful botanical gardens, Bok Tower. Situated on a hill that is one of the highest points in Florida, landscaped by Frederick Olmstead, the just-expanded park offers an extraordinary vista from its grassy slopes just beyond the carillon tower. On Thanksgiving Day, staff carillonneur Geert D’hollander will be giving live concerts at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. (you can watch him from some outdoor benches via closed-circuit TV).
Once upon a time, globalism wasn’t such a dirty word to American Revolutionists, those of the 18th century anyway. That’s the premise of a new book, “Brothers at Arms,” by a fascinating George Mason University history professor, Larrie Ferreiro.
In a presentation next Thursday, Dec. 1, at the Vero Beach Book Center, Ferreiro will share his scholarship of the individuals in France and Spain that proved critical to American independence. The aid they arranged to the American war effort included what would today amount to $400 billion and 90 percent of the guns used by the colonists.
Ferreiro, who earned his Ph.D. in the history of science and technology from Imperial College in London, has worked as a naval architect in the U.S., British and French navies, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard. An earlier book, “Ships and Science,” studied the science of naval architecture from 1600 to 1800, and maintains that the ship theory – the science of maneuvering and sail theory, ship resistance and hydrodynamics, was a crucial piece of the Scientific Revolution.
Jared Thomas, the innovative co-founder of the downtown Vero gallery Project Space 1785, has organized a series of screenings of independent films, all of them set in Florida. The series runs through December and begins next Friday and Saturday, Dec. 2 and 3, with Amy Seimetz’s thriller “Sun Don’t Shine.” Set in central Florida, the film follows a couple on a strange road trip. The film first screened in 2012 at the South by Southwest Film Festival and won a special jury award. It later won praise by a New York Times critic, who compared it to a Francoise Sagan novel.
The films are shown at 7:30 p.m. both nights. On Dec. 9 and 10 is Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger than Paradise; and on Dec. 16 and 17, Kelly Reichardt’s “River of Grass.”
Nov. 30, the Dave Koz Christmas Tour stops at Fort Pierce’s Sunrise Theater. He’ll be bringing three guests – Ashford and Simpson’s Valerie Simpson; the R&B singer Kenny Lattimore, who rose to fame singing with his then-wife Chanté Moore; and the South African-born singer Jonathan Butler.
Closer to home, Space Coast Ballet’s “Nutcracker” features Maria Baranova, who last year left the Finnish National Ballet to join Boston Ballet as a soloist; and Florimond Lorieux, a longtime Paris Opera Ballet dancer who just joined Boston Ballet as a soloist. Performances are at the King Center on Dec. 5, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
And here in Vero Friday, the students and faculty of Vero Classical Ballet stage their annual “Nutcracker” at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. Performances are at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
