Sarasota After Sundown: Who and Why


So, my name is Serena and I’ve made a blog!

 I mean, obviously I’ve made a blog. The question I’m probably going to get a lot is, “Why did you make a blog, Serena?”

 Well, hypothetical question asker, the answer to that is just one word:

 Callie.

Truly Callie, this is all your fault. I’ve never even considered joining the world of online blogging until you were all “Ever since you moved to Sarasota you never leave the library unless to take pictures, you never talk to anyone but that weird cat lady (don’t listen to her Kait, you’re only a little weird), you never post any pictures you take. You’re basically a hermit, at least make a blog or some s***!”.

 Well, miss potty mouth, I have reasons for all of the above.
A. I’m a recent PhD grad student working on making my dissertation in semiotics into a full fledge freaking book, of course I’m in the library all the time.
2. Kait is also always in the library and is one of the only people who gets it, so of course I talk to her.
And lastly… Well, it’s kind of nerve-wracking to post my stuff, y’know?
But you know what? No one calls me a hermit, not even my big sister. You want a blog? You got it!

 “So what’s gonna be on this blog, Serena?" You may ask.

 Honestly? For the first question, I’m not 100% sure? Some photography, I guess. Maybe some interesting history/symbols stuff I find, definitely some complaining about extending my dissertation by like 500%, probably some nonsensical diary posts like this one, definitely some late night adventures.

 “Which reminds me,” you may say. “Why is the blog called Sarasota after Sundown anyway?”

 Cause I’m a Northern girl living in freaking Florida, okay. It’s hot when the sun is up. I discovered my own secret, livable world of Sarasota after dark. I call it Sundown.

 Anyway, here it is. I’ll be trying to keep it up to date as much as possible. Thanks for reading!

 Love,

Serena

Is Sarasota the Tourist Trap?: aka, Yes But In A Good Way



If you’ve ever been to Sarasota you’ve probably been to the Ringling Museum. If you haven’t been to the Ringling Museum, GO. It’s expensive but totes worth it.  If you haven’t been to Sarasota, what are you waiting for?

So I work at the Ringling, right? I’m one of the assistants in the archives. Basically my job is to receive, clean, and index new artifacts that come through, mainly the paper ones.

Anyway, I was at the Ringling museum last night for Ringling Underground (which is basically a hipster get together the first Thursday of every month but the Summer ones), where they have like live bands and limited access to the grounds, when I heard some college kids (probably art students, let’s be real) saying the Ringling/Sarasota was a tourist trap.

And to that I say YOU ARE WRONG! But also right.


I mean, sure, a lot of old people come to Sarasota for vacation, and sure its got a lot of places meant for… well, for tourists. BUT IT’S SO MUCH MORE!

Just look at the history here, not even the circus stuff! I mean, I found some works in the archives (best place in the word, btw) that talk about the original Spanish settlers and the origins of the town. It was all about the conquistadors and how they treated the natives (spoiler alert: not good), and in one a settler mentioned some stuff about this piece of text the conquistadors (mainly the Ponce de Leon) were looking for that apparently had directions to the Fountain of Youth. IN SARASOTA. Why were the Spanish so obsessed with the Fountain of Youth anyway?

Oh also, fun fact time! Did you know Sarasota was originally called Zarasota, which means “Radiance of Sota”, named by (you guessed it) a Spanish conquistador named Hernado de Soto. Not cocky at all.

Honestly, Florida and Sarasota is kinda weird, which is part of the reason I moved here. Something about the place was calling me.

All of these old works, old buildings, old paintings, old statues, old books kept in temperature controlled rooms, these are what the conquistadors were looking for! It’s us, its our history, its their immortality! One day someone’s going to look at some creepy baby statues and are going to be seeing us, or at least what’s left of us. Our art, our journals, our lives.

And if that’s not cool to you then idk what to tell you.


If you want, follow for more rants!

Love,

 Serena

Some Cool Stuff From Work

So, I work at the archives, right? Dream job, btw.

Anyway, I was going through and scanning some works and these journal pages came up that are super interesting. At least to me.




Here are the scans I did! Basically it sounds like its from some sort of art collector who got a new piece. We don’t know yet the who/when/where but my boss is guessing its from the 20s-30s and its written by someone who worked at the Ringling. Though that’s only a guess. Why it’s so beat up when its only a 100 years old?

But to me the cool part is where the pages cut off. It starts to talk about a set of numbers hidden in the painting! And how they were starting to decipher it! Unfortunately, the pages have a lot of damage after that but GOSH. This is something out of National Treasure (fave movie!). Like, I want to find that painting now, and the rest of this journal. Just imagine!!!

Anywayyyyyyy, I found it cool.

 Love,

 Serena

PUBLISHED AUTHOR HERE I COME (hopefully)

Okay so I’ve got the basics of my dissertation expansion mapped out I think, or at least an idea of where I’m going with the research.

For those who don’t know, the moral focus is on how art and iconography connections with the development of cities, with specific references to Sarasota. I’m planning on expanding it out to be specifically about Sarasota.

I mean for example, the image of the Florentine David is somehow the iconic icon of a Floridian town named by conquistadors and brought to power by an art-loving circus family? Just the basics is fascinating. I love the idea of tracking Sarasota’s influence on the art and the arts influence on Sarasota, particularly with a focus on it’s beginnings.

So here I go! On to research and then to publishing (hopefully)! I’m a weird mix of scared/excited. How would you even say that? Ex-ared? Sca-ited? There’s gotta be a word for that.

Anyway, follow and join me on this journey. TO THE LIBRARY!

 Love,

 Serena

Writing Update: Or, the story of how publishing sneak attacked me



Okay, maybe I spoke too soon?

I’m more scared for this publishing now than excited. It’s just… big. Bigger than I expected?

I mean, all of history is, I guess. But it’s just… there are so. many. statues. IN SARASOTA. AND I’M NOT EVEN AN ART HISTORIAN SO WHY DID I CHOSE AN ART TOPIC?

I just need a starting place, y’know? Something to bounce off besides STATUES AND OTHER ART STUFF.

Found something though, this scrap of a journal just hidden between some pages of a old book about home remedies, of all things. It’s super busted up, but the few words I can pick out are pretty interesting. Might be a lead? Or not?

Ugh. Okay. Back to the manuscripts. I forgot my allergy meds too. The dust is KILLING ME.


Sorry

sorry for the lack of posts, ive been feeling off lately. hard to explain.

.

im losing my mind

Finding Serena Baliff





My name is Callista Baliff. Some of you may know by now that my sister Serena has gone missing. Last anyone heard from her was a week ago, April 19th. The last thing she left was a voicemail to me and a post on this blog.

After the voicemail I called the police (attached below), I knew something wasn’t right. Because she’s an adult they didn’t take her disappearance serious at first. They told me she probably went on a trip or decided she didn’t want to answer the phone. I contacted her college about it, and she missed a few days of classes. I asked her friend Kait Sidhe to go visit her place. No one answered the door, and apparently when Kait tried the door it just opened. No sign of forced entry according to the police, nothing stolen (that they could tell), and everything someone would take on a vacation still there. Credit card, clothes, phone. She left her phone. The police say she might have run away. Yeah, right.

I know her better than anyone. She wouldn’t run away.

When I told the police this they said that I should consider the possibility she left everything and disappeared because she “did something drastic”.

She wouldn’t kill herself either.

I don’t give a fuck what anyone says, she wouldn’t run away and she wouldn’t jump of a bridge or whatever Floridians do when they want to die. That’s bullshit, and anyone who knows her will agree. I mean, the voicemail doesn’t sound particularly suicidal, does it?

If the Sarasota police won’t do shit to find her then I will. She left me the voicemail for a reason. So now I’m in fucking Sarasota, in Kait’s house with her weird cat, posting on Serena’s fucking blog. Here we fucking go.

This is the voicemail she left.



 [Voicemail transcript:]
Figures you’d call non-stop then not answer when I call back. Callie, listen. I don’t have long but I’ve found it. At least, I think I have? I don’t want to jinx it, but I feel so close. I mean, Shelby (sp?) was a bust but— Whatever, I’m gonna change the freaking world here, I just need- …sorry. It doesn’t matter, I’m just calling to tell you I’m figuring it out. I’m not crazy, I know I’m not. Just… keep an eye out, I guess. I think someone is, well, I’m probably imagining it, I haven’t slept but it feels like— [voice mail end]

Any locals know what she talking about? What is Shelby?

Share this post and Serena’s picture and voicemail, tell anyone you know in the area or out what happened, spread the word. Whoever took her is going to fucking pay.

If you have any information, tell me now.

Callie Baliff


(941) 763-5080
CallistaBaliff@gmail.com

I FOUND A LEAD

The Selby Library was a waste of time but I found something at the garden. I was confused at first because it didn’t seem like anything there would be helpful. I was wondering around for almost an hour asking the staff about my sister but no one remembered anything. Then some weird lady walked up to me and asked me if I knew Serena because apparently we look alike.

We really don’t.

But fuck if it led her to find me I don’t care.

She gave me this book on Victorian flower language and said Serena left it and she hadn’t had a chance to return it to her.

I wanted to ask her what her name was or if she knew anything else but she just walked off when I was flipping through the book and I couldn’t find her.
This lady was pretty uninspiring, it wasn’t a face you would easily remember but she had this dead look in her eyes when she was talking to me. It was downright unnerving.

If any of you see some brunette woman working at Selby Gardens please try and get her name. She looked like she was in her forties or something. Wore too much makeup.

Anyway Serena’s book had a note in it. I’ll attach it down below. I don’t know what any of it means but I found something of hers. Something to finally go off on. I thought about giving it to the police but with the way they blew me off last time I think I should follow this myself.

I didn’t know that Serena was so interested in flowers, but it makes sense with all of the semiotics nonsense she was studying. This might have been what she meant in that voicemail, it was the last place she was seen. Some of the shit in this book is circled and checked and I’ll post scans to see if any of you can figure out what the hell it means.

The note in the book is even more fucking confusing because nothing my sister ever looked into ever made any damn sense. These look like lab notes. What is it doing in her flower book? Why would she care about any of this in the first place?

It mentions Myakka, which I found out is the name of some state park that isn’t too far from here. It is outside Sarasota city limits so the police would be too lazy to get off of their asses and drive there anyways. I guess my next move is to head out to the park and see if anyone has seen her.

I have scans of the book and this weird lab note below. Let me know if you have any luck figuring it out.


Myakka Investigating


Thank you @Emrys for the tip about the Amber Alert in Myakka. There were enough clues to warrant going there so I went to check it out. Finding something in that massive park was insane. I think I visited the park like six times and asked every person who works at Myakka a million questions. No one knows anything. No one has seen Serena and the security camera feed is deleted after two weeks so I doubt we will find anything. I’m still having them comb through it though.

When I was walking around I managed to find a carving that said “B.B + G.H”.

It has the same initials as the missing persons report, which is either a serious find or just a fucking coincidence. Given how many teenagers come out here and mark up the trees, I’m scared that it’s the latter.

I’m going to keep looking through the endless amount of trees and hope to god I find something of Serena’s. She always forgot her stuff everywhere we went, I mean we’ve had to call airlines because she just didn’t think to grab the bag from between her legs. I used to think it was annoying as hell but now I’m thanking every god in every freaking religion that my sister is a forgetful mess. It might be the only reason I find her.

Verity Solimar?

So a lot of you spammed my comments section with ‘reverse image search’ which I didn’t think worked on new pictures but whatever. You were right, I was wrong. That’s why I’ve been posting all of this so thank you. You find what I can’t.

It went back to Bradley Boyd. It wasn’t just a coincidence. And a similar image was posted on a twitter for Verity Solimar. I started reading everything around it and there are some unnerving similarities.

Maybe this is connected to Serena.

Twitter Update #1: Lizzie G

Serena would have been a lot better at deciphering shit like this. I have no idea what it means. The last person who touched the boat will speak no more? The Lizzie G always comes back?
 “When we were going to go up to it some creepy drifter dude told us some weird stuff about it, he just kept saying that the Lizzie G always comes back.”
“I mean when we walked up to the boat we heard this big splash and watched this older guy in raggedy denim walk out from the water carrying a bucket full of tools, and for all we know they could be murder tools. I don’t know how those two kept their cool while he talked basically in riddles to us. Oh, and the creepiest thing he said was the last person who touched the boat will speak no more.”

Twitter Update #2: I'm finding nothing.

Verity’s twitter is a maze of comments and re-tweets. I’ve been sifting through it but so far I’ve just been going in circles. Nothing helpful. Some of her friends are just as invested in finding Bradley as she is so I’ve been looking into all of their accounts as I find them. None of them have posted in a while but they have a lot of strange shit on their pages. Their investigation seemed to be as fucked up and futile as mine is right now. How do that many witnesses disappear overnight? I’ve sent them all messages and I’ll let you know when I get in touch.
@verity 6 hours ago
Olivia, the witness, is also suspiciously missing, and has a sub today@verity replied Even tho she’s a witness it still feels weird to call a teacher by their first name@verity replied Literally all of these witnesses are dead ends how is this happening@madison replied Omg what if they’re literally all dead@verity replied Madison dont even joke about that

Twitter Update #3: Weird texts



Holy shit. What is this?



What the hell are they talking about? @Ashley sent this in. She said that there was a crazy report for Donovan but a body wasn’t recovered. Most of the evidence apparently couldn’t be tied to anything so he is still an open case. Right now his cause of death is that he just fed himself to an alligator. No one would just do that, there has to be a reason behind it. These messages were apart of said evidence but according to her father it was dismissed as a cruel prank.

It probably wasn't easy to get this. Thank you.


Twitter Update #4: Verity's Tumblr

Thank you again, @Emrys for your help. She found Verity's Tumblr.

There’s no reason for her to have a secret Tumblr unless she has something to hide. I think the real clues are there but it’s fucking password protected. I’m still trying to get in contact with these kids but no one is responding to me.

Important: I Found Verity



I found Verity.

She didn’t get in contact with me, but @GGRosebud had a printed article about a girl who was disrupting the public a while ago. They sent this along with it:

“yeah its weird like I print all of my articles now bc you cant trust any of these media outlets anymore. stuff just disappears a few weeks after its posted. What happened to public records? This Verity chick you keep mentioning was caught for breaking and entering in Myakka State Park and trying to destroy stuff. Bet you didn’t know that. That’s cause the government doesn’t want you to. She had no trial she was just put in an institution.  A week later this article was gone- that’s why I print em you can’t trust the government anymore. they just get rid of everything that they mess up so they can continue their crazy experiments on us. Anyway hope you find your sister”

Thanks. I’m guessing it is less conspiracy and more so that you can’t print information on minors. They probably got in trouble for it but I’m glad you printed it out.

 I ended up being able to track down her parents and give them a visit. They aren’t usually open to letting people in to see her but I managed to get the code for entry from her parents after I told them about Serena. They were sweet people but they looked like they’ve seen hell. After visiting her I kind of figured out why.

 I told them everything surrounding Serena’s disappearance and they really want me to find her.

Part of me thinks they want me to find who did this to their daughter too. After seeing Verity in person I am determined to try, no one deserves to live like that.

When I went to visit her I had to strip off anything that could possibly be used to harm her, which included my phone so no recording.

 She was one step away from being in a padded cell. Everything was taped over or rounded and she had a woman monitoring around her almost all of the time. Everything this girl said was cryptic gibberish, I mean she didn’t say a damn normal thing the entire time I was there. She had this dead look in her eye too, like she was looking through me and at nothing at the same time.

 At first it was kind of subdued, she just muttered about my hair and a bunch of different song titles. She asked what bus I took to get here and started singing after I told her. Weird, right? I tried to ask her for the password to her tumblr but she just kept singing. I even tried to use the song title as the password but that was a no-go. It was just gibberish.

Then I mentioned Bradley and she just started screaming.

Her monitor had to hold her down and she kept sobbing and screeching about “Germaine tearing him apart?” and “Stay away from the ringling. Stay away from water.” I couldn’t record or write anything but the most helpful thing I got outside of screaming was something like this,

“Mudcraft killed them. He killed me. Help me. Line A always goes to Brad. Help Bradley.”

It was through a lot of crying so it might not be accurate. After that it just became her screaming the same things over and over and trying to scratch at her monitor and run. I was escorted out and asked not to come back.
 
God I don’t even know where to start. It’s pretty hard to avoid water around here and every other fucking thing is named Ringling. The circus maybe? I’ll start doing some more research. She talked about it like it was a person so maybe that is a good direction to go in.

If Verity’s family somehow finds this blog, I’m sorry that I upset your daughter. I hope I find something to help you...I’m starting to think that Serena may have been taken by the same man who hurt your daughter and her friends.

 Here's a link to a PDF of pictures I took in Verity's room. Here's one of them:

Suns Up in Sundown?


@WitchyKait apparently went on this radio show a few days ago to spread the word about Serena. And while the show doesn’t mean much to me, the name of it (Sun’s Up in Sundown) was bothering me.

Then I remembered. The original title of Serena’s blog, Sarasota after Sundown. I mean, she could have heard the show and gotten inspiration from it, but I remember this one thing she wrote in her first post:

“Cause I’m a Northern girl living in freaking Florida, okay. It’s hot when the sun is up. I discovered my own secret, livable world of Sarasota after dark. I call it Sundown.”

The coincidence is just too close.

Problem is, I can’t seem to tune into this god damned show no matter how hard I try. I googled and found the station is appearing on, 121.1, but every time I tune in I get this other freaking show, Franky Frank or whatever. Even the website for Sun’s Up is a pain, I can’t figure out to to play their recordings of past broadcasts.

Sorry Kait, I can’t tune in.

Anyone have transcripts of Sun’s Up? It may be nothing but something tells me I should try and listen.

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