It isn’t unusual for total strangers to stroll unannounced into Stephen Larue’s workplace and take off their clothes right in front of him, sometimes down to the very last stitch. In fact, at times Stephen Larue’s office is filled with hundreds of completely naked people — talking, laughing, eating, drinking,…
Innocence wasn’t an issue. Of course he was innocent. The question, in his mind, was how best to exact his revenge, and on whom. This nightmare was the sophisticated plot of a small cadre of disgruntled underlings, a dirty dozen he’d knocked from their pedestals and made accountable for their…
What drives seemingly intelligent and enlightened human beings to whack golf balls off the fantails of ocean liners? A momentary feeling of liberation as the dimpled sphere soars unimpeded toward the infinite? A symbolic and finite deep-sixing of worldly problems? The comforting knowledge that this is a water hazard you…
Most human beings prefer to think of nature as a cyclical process, a perpetual revolution of destruction and renewal. In the face of forces so powerful, such thoughts can be comforting. They can also be profoundly depressing. As Dade County’s citizenry frantically prepares for the possibility of a second hurricane…
Does Dade County’s film czar talk in her sleep? If so, does her husband listen? These ostensibly private questions have become matters of public debate amid Miami’s burgeoning production community. And in the halls of county government. And in the chambers of the Dade State Attorney’s Office. As director of…
For two years, a Mano was one of a handful of bright stars in the dim constellation of local eateries. Ensconced in a corner of the Betsy Ross Hotel in the upper reaches of Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, it came as close to offering a true fine-dining experience as…
No matter how hip South Beach residents think they are, they have for years suffered from a major case of cultural deprivation: no first-run movie theaters. South Beachers have had to endure the painful, humiliating chore of driving several miles out of town, to places like the Omni in gritty…
Mitch is strutting around, fists clenched above his head, completely in love with himself. “I’m bad,” howls the off-duty postal worker. “I live on Baaaaaad Street. I live all the way down at the end of that street past all the other houses, I’m so bad. There aren’t no other…
If the very thought that you might be able to escape the insularity of the modern American lifestyle makes you want to rush out and put your condo on the market, a group of like-minded Dade residents might be looking for you. They’re the Miami Cohousing Project and they’re trying…
This past Easter weekend delivered just about everything one would expect from South Florida: blue skies, perfect weather, warm beaches, plenty of tourists. The only thing markedly unusual was the water. On Good Friday, a high-pressure sewage pipe ruptured on North River Drive in downtown Miami and spewed a geyser…
Preservationists in Dade are a determined but weary bunch. For years they have raged A often in vain A at the demise of historic building after historic building, their valiant appeals drowned out by the crash of the wrecking ball. This past month they again mustered their strength in an…
Take a look at the new MacArthur Causeway now. It’s fast and smooth, for sure. Plenty of room to maneuver through rush hour at velocities well over the 30 mph speed limit. It’s also about as boring as a stretch of asphalt can get: all road with just a strip…
In the arcane world of modern hydraulics and flush toilets, there is one widely held assumption: what goes down will stay down. You answer the call of nature, push the handle, and keep on walking. Few care to dwell on what happens next, and fewer still care to talk about…
Human beings have, for good reason, spent a considerable amount of their history figuring out ways to hide their excrement. In fact, several good reasons, reasons so small you need high-powered microscopes to see them. Behold, for instance, shigellae. Resembling a tiny ice-cream sprinkle, this bacterium is among scores of…
One county commission candidate has taken Dade’s new era of political change very seriously. He’s not going to lobby any bigtime politicians and power brokers in his bid for District 3. He’s not going to sit on any panels or engage in any televised debates. He’s not even going to…
Last week, as construction crews hurriedly put the final touches on a new restaurant in the center of Coconut Grove, an unsettling sense of dej” vu hovered over the scene. Here was a Grove property owner opening a sprawling, so-called adventure bar, dismissing the complaints of neighborhood residents, receiving compliant…
If you can’t stand the heat… “Okay guys, I’m dying!” croaks Jeffrey Applebaum as he shuffles back and forth in front of a long, stainless steel counter under the bright lights of his kitchen. “Come on, we’re half an hour on this ticket! Let’s get this food up! It’s too…
A defining moment in the education of Sharon Feldman occurred during an autumn afternoon in 1987 in the Montparnasse district of Paris. Less than a year out of the New England Culinary Institute and eager to cut her chops on the famous kitchen lines of Paris, the 21-year-old novice chef…
These are heady political days in the black communities of South Florida. Last week Carrie Meek, granddaughter of sharecroppers, was sworn in as U.S. Congressional representative for the 17th District. Also among the freshmen congressmen and women was former federal judge Alcee Hastings, who fought back from a 1989 impeachment…
Late afternoon at Big Q Fish Place: a time when cafe cubano used to flow freely and hungry wage earners, just off work, filled the counter stools looking for a snack. Today, though, the small riverside restaurant is empty, save for one lonely diner hunched over a lunch of black…
Organic farmer Stanley Glaser dreams of a day when farmers markets blanket Dade County. He imagines a bonding of communities at those gatherings — neighbors meeting one another for the first time, children and dogs gamboling among vendors’ stands that overflow with produce and crafts. He envisions every supper table…
Seventy-four-year-old antique dealer Billy Herrero vowed he wouldn’t walk away from his “friends” — his sprawling array of period furniture, Oriental vases, vintage clothing, Art Deco trinkets, and unadulterated junk collected over six decades. And in the end, he didn’t. Early Christmas Eve, a few hours before he was to…
