Memoirs of a School Security Guard

Talk to any person associated with the Miami-Dade school system long enough, and you’re bound to hear enough rants, complaints, and unanswerable questions to fill a book. Local musician, artist, and writer Tony Kapel, who also happens to work in the school system, is proof. He compiled and fictionalized his...

By Ric Delgado

July 19, 2012

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Talk to any person associated with the Miami-Dade school system long enough, and you’re bound to hear enough rants, complaints, and unanswerable questions to fill a book. Local musician, artist, and writer Tony Kapel, who also happens to work in the school system, is proof. He compiled and fictionalized his own experiences for his fourth novel, The Hall Ways. The novel consists of vignettes that Kapel playfully calls a series of “brain farts.” The protagonist, Jason, a paranoid and cynical security guard, describes easily recognizable flaws of the school system. One particular example: an office full of secretaries who refuse to answer an endlessly ringing phone while huddled around the backroom coffeemaker. Beginning Saturday and running through August 21, Swampspace Gallery (150 NE 41st St., Miami) hosts “Go America,” an exhibit featuring notebooks and sketchpads Kapel used during the creation of the novel. Artwork used in the novel will also be on display. Signed copies of the book will be on sale.
Sat., July 21, 7-11 p.m., 2012

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