SAT 11/8 Hialeah Rocks! Really. What other municipality in Miami-Dade can boast of its very own festival at the rock and roll holy ground of Churchill’s? Kendall? Ha! Coral Gables? Don’t make me laugh. Now in its ninth year, Hialeah Fest started over a few beers and a bunch of…

THUR 11/6 It came from Portland. We assume that’s the hip West Coast city in Oregon, not the crusty East Coast bastion in Maine. “It” is something called the Clouds and 3D’s Ril Music Tour starring States Rights Records folkie-turned-electronica-artist Bobby Birdman and labelmates Yacht, plus DJ Maxx Bass, and…

THUR 11/6 Mmm, pizza. Thin-crust pizza. Mushroom. Sausage. Pineapple. What do you mean, ewww? All pizza is good — and educational. Want proof? Check out “Pizza: Any Way You Slice It” at the Miami Children’s Museum (980 MacArthur Cswy.). The museum’s first traveling exhibition gives kids ages 3 to 7…

THUR 11/6 Cultural wasteland. Culturally deprived. Culturally backward. We’ve all heard the knocks about the level of aesthetic goings-on in Miami. How aware, we wonder, are those naysayers of the fact that in 1973, the county decided to set aside 1.5 percent of the construction cost of all new county…

Thursday 10/30 Here’s a shocker: Over the next three years, Verizon, BellSouth, and Sprint want to raise their basic local residential rates, single-line business rates, and connection charges too. They’re also determined to lower the fees they charge long-distance providers to access their networks. Feel free to pick yourself up…

SAT 11/1 Are dub-tango experiments like Gotan Project and Bajofondo your kind of thing? Then the sounds Argentine bassist Federico Aubele spins will be music to your ears. His chilled-out combination of downtempo hooks and classic tango pieces like “Malena” can be heard tonight at 9:00 at the Marlin (1200…

FRI 10/31 With all those swanky condos on Miami Beach, it’s hard to believe the million-dollar sandbar can offer an affordable place to reside. But two years ago Fernwood Apartments, a housing project for low-income people living with HIV/AIDS, opened. That building is just a small piece of progress in…

It’s Halloween! Time for trendsetters to be wondering: Whatever can we serve at our “Creepy Creature Feature” parties that, in terms of hideous yuckiness, will blow even J.Lo and Ben’s last flick outta the water? Debbie Fritz-Quincy, director of Hobe Sound Nature Center, has the answer: Edible insects. Homemakers who…

With more than 250 authors arriving in town to participate in the twentieth anniversary of the Miami Book Fair International, South Florida, of all places, becomes the hub of the book world for two weeks. It seems as if everybody’s here (and we’re not talking Beyoncé or P. Diddy), from…

Thursday 10/23 Setting the table can be easy unless you’re one of the 40 local architects, fashion designers, florists, or interior decorators participating in this year’s Dining by Design. Then the pressure is on. The creative types will be dreaming up outrageous and elegant tablescapes at this exclusive event devoted…

SAT 10/25 Beneath the layers of makeup and industrial-strength anti-aging remedies, Cher is a pickled old hag. Yet for some reason, middle-age gym queens jump and yip like chihuahuas whenever the old broad is brought up in conversation. Perhaps it’s a Pavlovian reaction reinforced by prime-time TV. Or maybe Cher-mania…

SAT 10/25 For years you’ve lusted after that Eames lounge chair. All sinewy white fiberglass, the piece begs — no, screams — to be in your living room. But at $6000-plus, you’d have to sell your firstborn to afford it. Yet there’s a way around your dilemma without resorting to…

FRI 10/24 1970s B-movie queen Linda Blair got her start modeling as a baby. Who would have thought that some years later she’d be spitting up torrents of green puke and pulling a 360 with her cranium? Brooke Shields, eternal starlet, also began her career as the Ivory Snow baby…

THUR 10/23 “Jeter — Cheater,” a woman shrieks as golden boy Derek bats in the final inning of Game 1. The Fish are winning, but there are two Yanks on base. The woman screams like a ditched girlfriend on a bender. “Jeter — Cheater,” her voice rises an octave, “Piece…

Question: What’s that 5000-pound vegetarian doing frolicking in my swamp grass? Answer: Surviving. The vegetarian in question is not Kirstie Alley, it’s the greater one-horned rhinocerous: a solitary creature, often called a unicorn, which was pushed to near extinction but has been on the rebound as of late. Today the…

Thursday 10/16 Duende, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is the ability to attract others through personal magnetism and charm. It’s an appropriately neat and tidy definition for the antiseptic modern American world. But the true concept of duende lives in the fiery ways of Gypsy culture. It’s not always…

THUR 10/16 Speeding your bike Evel Knievel-style over ramps crudely constructed of plywood planks and concrete blocks. Suffering an assload of road rash after wiping out on the pavement. Jumping off the roof of your house into the swimming pool. Breaking your arms on the concrete patio. Sure, you’re a…

THUR 10/16 In 1945 the Chicago Cubs were jinxed with the Curse of the Billy Goat. A fan miffed because his goateed pet was refused entry into the ballpark told the press that there would never be another World Series played in Wrigley Field. This year it fell on our…

There is no way of knowing at press time what the fate of the Marlins will be. We tried consulting Miss Cleo, but she’s been impossible to track since entering the FBI witness protection program. As you read this, scores of fly-by-night Marlins fans, newly christened by the glow of…

Veteran stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait may have gigged at just about every Los Angeles comedy dive, but one joint you can bet he won’t be hanging around these days is the Twisted Balloon, the mythological respite for washed-up clowns in his 1992 film Shakes the Clown. “It would be hypocritical…

THURSDAY 10/9 Hosting the House of Terror Amusement Park during George Dubya’s war against terror is sure to be somewhat of a marketing challenge. In the initial days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, we were sure the producers of Miami’s most commercial haunted house would change its name. But…

SAT 10/11 The always-edgy minds at GableStage may have outdone themselves this time. Edward Albee’s The Goat or Who is Sylvia? is the shockingly amusing tale of an architect named Martin (Bob Rogerson) whose happy life, complete with loving wife and gay teenage son, is changed by the admission that…