BEST MEMOIR 2005 | The Summer That Changed Miami Beach by Seymour Gelber | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Miami

BEST MEMOIR

The Summer That Changed Miami Beach by Seymour Gelber

BEST MEMOIR The Summer That Changed Miami Beach by Seymour Gelber A day-by-day, often hour-by-hour account of the tumultuous summer of 1972, when Miami Beach played host to both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and with them a roiling mass of politicos and protesters. Former Beach Mayor Seymour Gelber, then a Dade County assistant state attorney, was dispatched to work as legal adviser to the Miami Beach Police Department. It was a job that put him in close contact with events on both sides of the barricades, and Gelber has managed to recapture it all in gripping detail -- from the demonstrators camped out in Flamingo Park to the tear-gas-clogged marches on the convention center -- complete with plenty of backroom negotiations and drama that had never been aired. Gelber's 284-page book is self-published, but it's a memoir well deserving of better distribution and a larger audience. For now, check the Miami Beach public library.

BEST CHEAP THRILL

Miami Jai-Alai

BEST CHEAP THRILL Miami Jai-Alai 3500 NW 37th Avenue

Miami

305-633-9661

www.miami-jai-alai.com Who needs slots? For the lousy buck gamblers throw away on spinning fruit, spectators can be treated to the real action: four or more hours of the fastest game on earth. Watch as these international athletes hurl a rock-hard ball at speeds up to 180 miles per hour. (The goatskin ball travels at such velocity it has cracked bulletproof glass.) What could be more thrilling than gasping as the players stand directly in the line of fire with only a helmet and a wicker basket for protection? For a little more money (a lot more for the addictive personalities), place a small wager and feel the adrenaline rush. Even a novice can turn a few quarters into some big bucks simply by playing the odds, which are conveniently posted along with each player's statistics. If you're lucky, this thrill will be so cheap it will actually make you money.

BEST DRAG QUEEN

Adora

BEST DRAG QUEEN Adora Out of costume Adora is a seriously cute Latin boy by the name of Danilo. In costume she's one of Miami's hardest-working girls, surviving the trends of fickle Miami for the past fourteen years. Her trademarks are platinum tresses, glittering red lips, and ostentatious eyelashes. She's loud, funny, and of course outrageous. Her style is campy glam, heavy on the Fifties fashions with a Cuban accent. Her favorites -- songs by La Lupe, Yma Sumac, and Maria Callas -- still kill onstage. So how does a girl keep her act fresh after so many years when other queens have come and gone? "It's a lot of work," Adora admits. "If you blink, you can bore people. You have to be alert to what's going in the news so you can be funny. I can't explain it. It's like a baby. You have to feed it and wash it and always be on top of what's going on with it." Adora works weekly at Back Door Bamby -- crobar's Monday-night party -- and holds down regular gigs at Score, Twist, and O'Zone.

BEST FILM FESTIVAL

Cinema Vortex

BEST FILM FESTIVAL Cinema Vortex If the goal of a film festival should be to bring high-quality pictures to town -- worthy movies that would otherwise never hit Miami -- then Cinema Vortex deserves its stellar reputation. The fest's history traces back to the defunct Alliance Cinema in Miami Beach, but during more recent years, co-curators Baron Sherer and Kevin Wynn have lighted up many of the area's more distinctive venues -- from the University of Miami's Cosford Cinema to the Miami Shores Performing Arts Theater to the Wolfsonian Museum -- as they continue to unspool the offbeat, the unjustly ignored, the classics that simply demand to be seen on the big screen. Fifties noir such as On Dangerous Ground, French New Wave works from Jean-Luc Godard, American New Wave responses such as Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Outfit, as well as a retrospective of reels by Hollywood's master of melodrama, Douglas Sirk: All have graced their schedule. Some of their programming choices may challenge, but in a world where the marketplace triumphs all too often over the pure love of movies, Cinema Vortex is a program that should be held over.

BEST MAGIC CITY ICON

The moon

BEST MAGIC CITY ICON The moon That's right, the big orb hanging supernaturally above the ocean on its twilight ascent, full and yellow and ghostly, shining brightly through a layer of hazy clouds. People stop and gawk, step out their doors and point heavenward, gather in primeval bands to bang on drums in celebration of its light. "Moon Over Miami," they sing of this lunar phenomenon, putting the "magic" in Magic City. As you drive east across the causeways, you see it -- hanging low over the horizon and beckoning you into the night, a tribal pulse that surges through your body. And it's there at the end of the night on your return drive, falling into the city over downtown, guiding you home like an old friend.

BEST OUTDOOR ART

Dead Mouse by Billie Grace Lynn

BEST OUTDOOR ART Dead Mouse by Billie Grace Lynn The ladies and gentlemen up north whose view of Miami has been shaped by magazines may wonder how one could possibly make this fair city any more beautiful than the tropical paradise portrayed in glossy ads for luxury condominium towers. Art is not all about beauty, nor is blight always devoid of art. To wit: Dead Mouse, a 40-foot-long inflated vinyl sculpture of the Disney character dressed in military fatigues, supine next to a pool of blood and a semiautomatic rifle. Billie Grace Lynn dreamed it up and then blew it up for Omniart at Art Basel 2004 in December. The incident, which occurred outside one of several warehouses that a large gang of hard-core Miami-based artists transformed into gallery spaces, caused shock and awe. Tina Spiro, who co-curated the show, notes that in the context of current affairs the work was simultaneously humorous and "a serious antiwar piece." Lynn pumped up an encore installation inflation for Art Miami in Miami Beach in early January, where she proved once more that some art is bound to beautify, while other art is destined to incite. This time the sculpture caused a band of apparent Islamic extremists to jump up and down on one of the giant infantry-mouse's arms, puncturing the poor rodent. When the interaction ceased, the appendage was deflated and the perpetrators revealed to be instead a group of intoxicated aesthetes from right here in Babylon.

BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE WOMEN

www.eHarmony.com

BEST PLACE TO MEET SINGLE WOMEN www.eHarmony.com What's the hardest part about meeting women? They're pretty much always on the defensive. Internet match sites may not eliminate feminine defensiveness, but the good ones can reduce it significantly by giving women (and men) power to accept or reject at will. eHarmony.com is among the good ones, mainly because of extensive screening at the front end. More than 400 questions in almost 30 categories helps build a detailed profile that increases the chances you'll hook up with someone compatible. It's not the cheapest match site ($50 for one month; $250 for a year), but eHarmony boasts it has put together more engagements and marriages than any similar operation. (But who's keeping track?) The site is the brainchild of relationship guru Neil Clark Warren, a psychologist who has also written many books on the subject.

BEST LOCAL ARTIST

Hernan Bas

BEST LOCAL ARTIST Hernan Bas Finally a Miami artist worthy of the hype. There's a reason everyone from Mera Rubell to Michael Ovitz is singing the praises of New World School of the Arts graduate Hernan Bas. His evocative paintings are striking enough to have earned them a slot in the Whitney Biennial, though you hardly need an art expert to explain their appeal. The eye is immediately drawn to Bas's waiflike young men, homoerotically leaping into each other's arms or flitting across dreamlike landscapes. If his portraiture is at times a bit too enraptured with teen angst, well, Bas is barely out of his teens himself. And watching his talent continue to mature is going to be one of the Miami art scene's greatest pleasures.

BEST MIAMI HERALD WRITER

Glenn Garvin

BEST MIAMI HERALD WRITER Glenn Garvin Love him or hate him, Garvin has become a formidable presence at the Miami Herald, transforming the once staid job of TV critic into a prominent platform for a crusading conservative warrior. Simple sitcom reviews become launching pads for full-blown media criticism; even the slimmest of news pegs grows into a strike on cultural elitism. True, Garvin often still seems to be roaming the Nicaraguan countryside with the contras -- a bullet-dodging foreign correspondent role he played in the Eighties for the Washington Times -- with left-leaning Hollywood starlets and liberal press bias now standing in for the Sandinistas and Soviet expansionism. But that enduring Manichaean fervor is also what makes Garvin's writing so vital. Every piece is brimming with conviction, a sense that ideas matter, and that his words on those ideas demand to be read and pondered, whether he's mocking Dan Rather or shaking his head in disbelief over the mania surrounding Art Basel. In a newspaper that's far too full of stenography masquerading as journalism, with stories that often appear to be doing little more than filling space, Garvin is a welcome relief.

BEST HURRICANES FOOTBALL PLAYER

Eric Winston

BEST HURRICANES FOOTBALL PLAYER Eric Winston In a year when Hurricanes football was down (no national title contention or Heisman Trophy candidates), why not recognize the usually unrecognized: the unsung heroes of the offensive line. For all the great quarterbacks, receivers, and backs the University of Miami has produced, there's been a legacy of equally outstanding offensive linemen, including NFL first-rounders Vernon Carey and Bryant McKinnie. This year the big man on campus is offensive tackle Eric Winston. Combining athleticism (he was recruited as an RB/TE for chrissakes), size (6-7, 310), intelligence, and power, Winston was switched from tight end to left tackle as a sophomore and excelled in that extremely important position. His efforts earned him MVP honors. Winston didn't need a griddle to make pancakes as he flattened opponents by the stack. Though he was sidelined with an injury in 2004, his senior year should place him among the elite in the nation and keep the orange-and-green offense moving forward.

Readers´ Choice: Antrel Rolle