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BEST BLACK BOX SPACE

PS 742

While the powers that be in this town have pinned all their most delirious PR pipe dreams (and taxpayer dollars) on ill-conceived money pits such as the Performing Arts Center and more arenas than we have teams, it's the small art spaces and their starving inhabitants that are building the real-deal cultural infrastructure of temporal Miami. This Little Havana space, run by Artemis's lovely Susan Caraballo, is one of the city's sensory treasures. Surreal Saturdays, in particular, tend to mix different genres of art, from passive forms like sculpture and photography to performance art such as plays, interactive dance troupes, music, and intriguing social experiments presented as art. PS 742 has also played host to much of the Subtropics Experimental Music Festival, which, rest assured, will never be booked into the PAC.

BEST MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

George Sanchez Calderon's

Midnight Midtown Midway during Art Basel

Miami artist George Sanchez Calderon's contribution to the Art Basel art fair last December was the carnival he installed one night at the Buena Vista rail yard just south of 36th Street in Wynwood. Beneath circus banners and a Ferris wheel, local musicians, poets, and dancers strutted their stuff, along with the future developers of the 56-acre tract, who helped pay for the bash. Hundreds of revelers were lured over from the Design District by the scent of free booze and flirtation. But Midnight Midtown Midway, as Sanchez dubbed the event, was even more layered than that. He had planned a secret little happening within a happening. "The only people who knew were the fireworks guy, the toothless Ferris wheel operator, and my one buddy who was standing next to him," Sanchez recounts. At 11:30 p.m., as the Ferris wheel seat carrying Sanchez and his girlfriend Judy Perez whizzed through the air, he popped the question. "The Ferris wheel was spinning, so she was confused and convoluted, but when she said Yes, I stuck my hand out, signaled to the guy to stop the Ferris wheel on top. And as we were going up to the top, I pressed fast-dial on my cell phone to the fireworks guy. So the moment the Ferris wheel stopped, on the exact apex, the first fireworks went off."

BEST MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

George Sanchez Calderon's

Midnight Midtown Midway during Art Basel

Miami artist George Sanchez Calderon's contribution to the Art Basel art fair last December was the carnival he installed one night at the Buena Vista rail yard just south of 36th Street in Wynwood. Beneath circus banners and a Ferris wheel, local musicians, poets, and dancers strutted their stuff, along with the future developers of the 56-acre tract, who helped pay for the bash. Hundreds of revelers were lured over from the Design District by the scent of free booze and flirtation. But Midnight Midtown Midway, as Sanchez dubbed the event, was even more layered than that. He had planned a secret little happening within a happening. "The only people who knew were the fireworks guy, the toothless Ferris wheel operator, and my one buddy who was standing next to him," Sanchez recounts. At 11:30 p.m., as the Ferris wheel seat carrying Sanchez and his girlfriend Judy Perez whizzed through the air, he popped the question. "The Ferris wheel was spinning, so she was confused and convoluted, but when she said Yes, I stuck my hand out, signaled to the guy to stop the Ferris wheel on top. And as we were going up to the top, I pressed fast-dial on my cell phone to the fireworks guy. So the moment the Ferris wheel stopped, on the exact apex, the first fireworks went off."

BEST LOCAL BOY MADE HEAVEN

Luis Botifoll

When Luis Botifoll passed away last September at the age of 95, he left behind a 44-year legacy of community activism unmatched by any one man -- and that's just the story on this side of the Florida Straits. Twice exiled to the U.S. and a graduate of Tulane University, Botifoll was a lawyer and well-respected newspaper publisher in Havana before fleeing in 1960. He immediately went to work on the problems facing the exile community here in its new "temporary" home. Perhaps his greatest impact was felt not in publishing or law, but in banking. In 1970 he joined Republic National Bank, where, with remarkable foresight, he saw to it that Cuban exiles with impressive credentials but little credit history in Miami received business loans other banks denied them. Within a few short years the community vibrated with new growth; the bank prospered as well. (Lesson: A little well-directed money can go a long way to help people.) Botifoll later turned his attention to building bridges among South Florida's sometimes contentious ethnic groups. He also proved to be a wizard at raising money for many organizations, including United Way and the University of Miami. Age seemed not to slow him down at all. He died a few hours after meeting with Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, a session devoted to local community issues, of course. Next year in La Habana, amigo.

BEST LOCAL BOY MADE HEAVEN

Luis Botifoll

When Luis Botifoll passed away last September at the age of 95, he left behind a 44-year legacy of community activism unmatched by any one man -- and that's just the story on this side of the Florida Straits. Twice exiled to the U.S. and a graduate of Tulane University, Botifoll was a lawyer and well-respected newspaper publisher in Havana before fleeing in 1960. He immediately went to work on the problems facing the exile community here in its new "temporary" home. Perhaps his greatest impact was felt not in publishing or law, but in banking. In 1970 he joined Republic National Bank, where, with remarkable foresight, he saw to it that Cuban exiles with impressive credentials but little credit history in Miami received business loans other banks denied them. Within a few short years the community vibrated with new growth; the bank prospered as well. (Lesson: A little well-directed money can go a long way to help people.) Botifoll later turned his attention to building bridges among South Florida's sometimes contentious ethnic groups. He also proved to be a wizard at raising money for many organizations, including United Way and the University of Miami. Age seemed not to slow him down at all. He died a few hours after meeting with Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, a session devoted to local community issues, of course. Next year in La Habana, amigo.

BEST PERIODIQUITO

Libre

In shops along Calle Ocho and Hialeah's Palm Avenue rest bundles of Libre, a Spanish-language newspaper published by disgraced politician Demetrio Perez, Jr. In 2002 the former school board member was removed from office for defrauding two women out of $18,000. The same year, the Miami Herald also exposed how Perez pocketed more than a million dollars in rent payments from public-school funds while he was on the board. Public disgrace is becoming common among journalists, so the sanctimonious Perez naturally launched a newspaper. His weekly publication is a testament to the man's enormous ego and conservative political ideology. Every Wednesday Libre readers are bombarded with communist-bashing propaganda from Perez and decrepit Castro antagonizers such as Armando Perez-Roura and Agustin Tamargo. Perez shamelessly promotes his other business ventures: An advertisement touting Perez's for-profit Lincoln-Martí schools and excerpts from his Citizens Training Handbook are examples. If you buy his worldview, you'll love Libre. If not, read it for laughs, really hearty laughs. You can't lose, even if you're just some illiterate sexist: Thalía or Shakira or some other bodacious Latin bombshell adorns Libre's front page on a weekly basis.

BEST LOCAL 'ZINE

Urban America

Urban America is part community newspaper, part local-music rag. A recent issue transitioned from an op-ed piece encouraging pay raises for teachers to profiles of Orlando MC Swamburger and SoFla R&B act atripthroughthemind. The writing: ambitious and workmanlike, sparked by an unabashed belief in the power of hip-hop culture. The enthusiasm has proved infectious. Since 2000 the monthly, run by publisher Brother Tony Muhammad and editor-in-chief Aisha Medina, has developed a 50,000-plus readership of mostly young urbanites drawn to topics and personalities rarely found in mainstream media.

BEST PLACE TO PEOPLE-WATCH

Stephen P. Clark Government Center courtyard

It's probably just as well that the government center courtyard isn't extravagantly landscaped and decorated, because it would most certainly be overshadowed by the real-life dramas that unfold there on a daily basis. Its location is a natural magnet. The Metrorail's government center stop is directly above it. Within your field of view is the Miami-Dade Cultural Center, the county courthouse, the central bus terminal, the main public library, and various government buildings. It's hard to imagine a resident or tourist who hasn't at one time or another crossed the courtyard, at least on the way to someplace else. But it's the people with nowhere else to go who make the place so engaging. The benches invite area bums and crazies to sit a spell while being regaled by their own. Relatively quiet Sundays, when the missionaries drop by to sermonize to the apparently drunken flock, might even be the best time. Unlike other people-watching spots, however, you won't just be a spectator here. You'll become part of the entertainment when, without fail, somebody will approach you hoping for "spare" change, some attention, or simply directions how to get out of there quickly.

BEST PLACE TO PEOPLE-WATCH

Stephen P. Clark Government Center courtyard

It's probably just as well that the government center courtyard isn't extravagantly landscaped and decorated, because it would most certainly be overshadowed by the real-life dramas that unfold there on a daily basis. Its location is a natural magnet. The Metrorail's government center stop is directly above it. Within your field of view is the Miami-Dade Cultural Center, the county courthouse, the central bus terminal, the main public library, and various government buildings. It's hard to imagine a resident or tourist who hasn't at one time or another crossed the courtyard, at least on the way to someplace else. But it's the people with nowhere else to go who make the place so engaging. The benches invite area bums and crazies to sit a spell while being regaled by their own. Relatively quiet Sundays, when the missionaries drop by to sermonize to the apparently drunken flock, might even be the best time. Unlike other people-watching spots, however, you won't just be a spectator here. You'll become part of the entertainment when, without fail, somebody will approach you hoping for "spare" change, some attention, or simply directions how to get out of there quickly.

BEST NEW FASHION TREND

Beau Brummell bicyclists

Suicidal bicyclists are nothing new to downtown, South Beach, the Grove, and other auto-clogged communities, but lately there's been a number of them who have tossed out the delightfully revealing bike shorts and tight shirts for three-piece suits and Italian leather shoes. This development might be nothing more than fallout from the metrosexual trend that somehow made it okay for guys to pluck their eyebrows (bleccch). Who cares? It's hot, hot, hot. Now some gearshifting Einstein needs to figure out the mechanics of pedaling around glamorously in evening gowns and cocktail dresses.

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Best Of Miami®

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