What’s on your mind, crocodile? Where have you been, Mr. Owl? How’s your cholesterol, Flipper? If your curiosity about wild creatures and their habitats keeps you up at night, you might need to go see them for yourself. Of course, chatting up a croc face-to-face is a daunting proposition. A…
Thursday 4/8 Why don’t we get drunk and screw? The folks who are organizing National Alcohol Screening Day today can give you several sobering answers to that eternal question. The day is part of Alcohol Awareness Month, a time when drinkers are asked to consider their alcoholic intake and the…
FRI 4/9 The other side: You know, that mysterious plane where our dearly departed depart to and even the folks we don’t care for eventually end up. Where is it exactly? What’s it like? How do you get there? Well, everyone knows the answer to that last question, and it…
SAT 4/10 Tequesta Indians, a bridge made of natural limestone, an old starch mill, an oak hammock, and settlers from Elmira, New York: all part of the past and present of Arch Creek Park, a 9.4-acre green space in North Miami dedicated in 1982 after decades of preservation efforts. Today…
FRI 4/9 Riddled with cost overruns and delays, the new Miami Performing Arts Center is far from finished and already it has been reported that the acoustics will suck. Set to open in 2006, 16 months behind schedule, the onetime $254 million structure has, thanks to shoddy workmanship and the…
THU 4/8 Let’s hear it for the great Italian tenors: Pavarotti, Caruso, Lovano. Huh?! That’s right, music fans, besides the vocal prowess of generations of golden-throated opera singers, the world has also seen its fair share of great Italian tenors of the jazz saxophone variety, for instance Joe Lovano. But…
If Miami is a hand, the Miami River is its lifeline. Although its actual source is the Everglades, to local yokels, the river’s flow begins at some mysterious point behind the Pink Pussycat strip joint just east of the airport. From there to its mouth at posh Brickell Point, the…
Britney Spears brought her megabudget Onyx Hotel spectacle to the American Airlines Arena on Sunday, March 28, to the high-decibel screams of what appeared to be thousands of teenage girls. The lovelies were prepared for their idol. Brace-face smiles sparkled with glitter makeup. High-heeled stringbean legs awkwardly slinked around in…
Thursday 4/1 Everybody has a story, and every story has several sides. If you don’t believe that, you will after seeing Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s critically acclaimed 1950 film Rashomon. It’s twelfth-century Japan and a crime has occurred in a forest: A woman is raped and her husband killed. What…
FRI 4/2 As conductor, founder, and life president of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the most recorded chamber orchestra in the universe, Sir Neville Marriner has become one of the most familiar living figures in classical music. Radio stations all over the globe broadcast performances by the…
THU 4/1 Leave it to poet T.S. Eliot to dub April “the cruelest month” in his monumental 1922 work “The Waste Land.” And then 74 years later, leave it to some jokers at the Academy of American Poets to designate April as National Poetry Month. Ha, ha! Did they think…
NOW 24/7 After around 3:30 p.m. they start streaming in. Carrying backpacks full of homework, or wearing uniforms from minimum wage jobs, the teenagers who work out at the 27th Avenue Boxing Center come in every day with determination. Inside there is no hype, no parents or teachers hounding them,…
MON 4/5 Spring is here and a young or old Jew’s fancy turns to matzo balls. Tonight marks the first night of Passover, the 8-day observance celebrating the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt thousands of years ago during the reign of the Pharaoh Ramses II. Matzo ball…
Dancers work on their craft around the clock, 24-7. Whether it’s rehearsing for concerts or practicing technique, their minds and bodies are continuously striving for perfection. Be it ballet or hip-hop, movement to dancers is like breathing. They can’t live without it. It would be difficult to walk away from…
Thursday 3/25 Four days of sun, fun, and fitness, that’s what the organizers of the Miami Beach Fitness Festival promise today through Monday, March 28, on the beach at 800 Ocean Dr. If you’re inclined to sweat, you might want to participate in some of the events, which include a…
TUE 3/30 “He is exactly what he says he is: He does it for the money and he gets ’em off,” quips actor Tom Wopat (above) about dastardly lawyer Billy Flynn, a part he just stepped into for a road tour of the hit musical Chicago. (At 8:00 tonight the…
SAT 3/27 March is Women’s History Month. In celebration of females and their accomplishments in the creative arts, St. John’s Church in Miami Beach is hosting the second annual Women and Culture Festival, with offerings in nearly every genre. This year’s all-day affair is heavy on international dance, featuring a…
SAT 3/27 The opening weekend of the Nasdaq 100 Open Tennis Tournament is always a frenetic and oddly fashionable happening. Droves of tennis fans saunter in leisurewear ranging from ghetto chic to rest-home bland. They rush from court to court trying to get a look at their favorite players. (Beware…
SAT 3/27 As election officials reach out to planet hip-hop to register to vote in time for November, the use of hip, or at least loud, figures from the music world as spokesrappers is one strategy that might lure the young generation of black voters to the polls. The objective…
Thursday 3/18 We know from his criticism that art collector and developer Martin Margulies doesn’t support plans for the Miami Art Museum to build a new structure at Bicentennial Park. Last year the art-loving Margulies began hosting regular art discussions with invited guests to address issues regarding museum building. Today…
THU 3/18 It’s a diaspora out there, as in the spread of Asians from the Old World to the New. Several North and South American artists of Asian descent will investigate their cultural roots within a Western context in the Tigertail Asian Diaspora of the Americas. Dancer Mabel Dai Chee…
MON 3/22 Partnership Dance, now there’s a concept. Could that refer to a couple dancing together in the old-fashioned way or just a cynical business venture? Whatever it is, promoting it is the mission of a group that calls itself Miami Dance Machine. In the ambitious show Baile on the…
