The football games are over and the pumpkin pie is almost all gone. The leftover food has been wrapped up and put away into individual containers for the next day's snacks. Turkey Day has begun its long, slow journey into night. Instead of slipping into a full-bellied slumber, go get your swerve on at the Second Annual Miami Black College Thanksgiving Bash, and celebrate the fact that you can sleep late tomorrow. Besides 99 Jamz DJs Ice T and DJ Suicide, expect blazing tracks from Walt Love, Funkmaster Olly, and DJ Spoon. If you have Rap City-type aspirations, put your MC skills to the test in the Miami Hip Hop Idol contest, hosted by local comic Larry Dogg. College students with valid identification and women get in free before midnight at Club eNVy, 90 NE Eleventh St., right next door to Space34. Call 305-903-7931. (PEGY)
FRI 26
Laughing burns calories, stimulates your brain, and increases your heart rate. Giving to charity prevents your heart from shrinking three sizes too small. The Laughing Gas Improv Theatre Company thought they could improve your health and spread joy this holiday season by acting as a drop-off point for Jim Rosenkrans's Seventeenth Annual Toys for Tots Run during tonight's show, "Don't Play with Your Food, Turkey, Bring Toys for Tots." Regular cast members James Carrey (no, not the Grinch's Jim Carrey) and Gerald Owens will take cues from witty audience suggestions to get your belly shaking and make you forget about that fowl carcass in your fridge and the cousins sleeping on your couch. Drop off begins at 10:30 and the show starts at 11:00 at the Main Street Playhouse, 6766 Main St., Miami Lakes. Admission is $12 and there is no drink minimum or age restriction. Call 305-461-1161 for reservations. (LO)
SAT 27
If The Beautiful South hailed a Death Cab for Cutie to Wilco-ville, they would sound like Maggi, Pierce and E.J., an alt-country, folk-rock trio from Philadelphia. The sometimes jazzy, other times rocking, but always effervescent and indefatigable two-guys-and-a-girl band, who just returned from a European tour, is "all about the genuine musical experience of each moment," writes Maggi. Opening their fifth and latest self-titled, color-coded album, Gold, the sweetly melodic "Flame," which "wrote itself in about five minutes and 32 seconds," according to their Website, received a decent ranking on NPR's All Songs Considered Open Mic. Soulful and seductive, the "Coffee Song" will send java junkies on the prowl for a midnight grind. Their sets are as mixed-up and colorful as their albums, "otherwise we would go mad." Speaking of colorful, Maggi, Pierce and E.J. are playing at the funky and flashback-inducing Where?house (20204 NE Fifteenth Ct.), tonight at 8:00. Tickets are $10. Call 305-493-8595. (LO)
SUN 28
West Indians want their beaches beautiful, their food spicy, and their comedy bawdy and scandalous. Case in point, Passa Passa, a comedy straight out of Jamaica, is coming to bring some crazy Caribbean antics to your Thanksgiving weekend. This riotous play is set in a tenement yard, a fitting location as this play shares the name of a popular weekly dance in Tivoli Garden -- an area considered rough by Kingston city slickers -- where societal stratification is laid aside in the name of throbbing bass and good vibes. In Jamdown jargon, passa passa translates into gossipy drama, and the Sunshine Theatre Company will bring just that to the stage, even if it means dressing up in drag for your visual amusement. Get your kicks tonight at 8:00 at the North Miami Beach Performing Arts Center, 17011 NE Nineteenth Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets range from $27 to $38. Call 954-437-9062. (PEGY)
MON 29
The long weekend is over and it is time to change out of that tank top and sweatpants and get out of the house already. Three bands are leaving the amps at home and taking the stage for the (RAW) Rock Acoustic Warehouse last Mondays. Bilingual singer Maria Matto, whose style is compared to Sarah McLachlan, recently finished recording her new album (in Nashville, of all places) with the Latin division of Sony/BMG. Mejia, the lead singer of the Green Room, goes solo with an alternative Latin sound that he says is influenced by Eighties "English New Wave" bands and modern British rockers Radiohead. And there are the newcomers, recent I/O battle of the bands winner Storyville. DJ Ash, from Marqui Adora, will be spinning "cutting edge rock" between sets. There is no cover and music starts at 10:00 p.m. at Jazid, 1342 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Call 305-673-9372 or visit www.jazid.net. (LO)
TUE 30
If you don't know art, but you know what you like, make collecting a whodunit at the Masters' Mystery Art Show. Donated works by famous artists and celebrity types will be interspersed with lesser-known locals, and the names will be kept a mystery until after the sale is completed. Purchase enigmatic artworks for $50 each today from 11:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 1 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach. Call 786-276-4000. (PEGY)
Corn starch in a leather pouch makes the snow crunch. Coconut shells provide the clip-clopping horse hooves. Add some jingle bells and you'll be dashing off to a new career as a foley artist. Fiona Kelleghan, librarian and writer, explains the mood-altering effect of music and sounds on film during her lecture, Special Effects in the Movies: How is it All Done? tonight at 7:30 at the MiamIntelligence Center, 2000 S. Dixie Hwy. Call 305-860-2499. (LO)
WED 1
At a good Japanese restaurant, your order comes out like a work of art. The sashimi is spread out on your plate like a tender, thinly-sliced rainbow and the sushi rolls are exquisitely arranged: neat little seaweed-wrapped circles of goodness all in a row. Makes you want to whip out your photo phone and take a picture before swabbing on the wasabi and dunking them in soy sauce. Well, you don't need to be Tokyo-trained to make such a pretty plate. Thanks to the Wyndham, you can learn to be a great sushi craftsperson. Tonight, and every Wednesday, head chef Bernard Smith usts out the bento knife and schools an attentive class on the fine art of the roll. Come kimono-clad to enhance the Asian experience tonight at 7:30 at the Wyndham Grand Bay Hotel's Bice Lounge, 2669 S. Bayshore Dr. Class costs $20. Call 786-206-7142 to RSVP. (PEGY)
