Every year summer in Miami brings to mind a few things: thighs searing on boiling car seats, steamy daily afternoon rain dousings, nostril-burning 90-degree temperatures, the looming threat of the latest hurricane, and, of course, no relief until at least mid-November. Sad sacks unable to escape the horror that is…
Larger than life. A thoroughly worn-out expression, but how else to describe the superior athletic ability, magnetic personality, and just plain humanity of celebrated basketball player Michael Jordan? How to properly capture him in all his glory? At last the six-story-tall screen of the IMAX theater comes in handy. Michael…
For a writer inspiration can strike from just about any source. A beautiful sunny day, a litter of fuzzy newborn kittens, wrenching public humiliation on a television game show. Make no mistake, we’re not referring to the innumerable indignities contestants have suffered at the hands of a self-righteous Regis Philbin…
In Vietnamese artist Huong’s 64-by-100-inch painting Of Her Treasure, one child cries as the other clings to their mother’s leg. Head tilted upward, face contorted in anguish, the mother clutches a bowl full of skulls and bones and screams at the heavens. They cower in a rainstorm, the sky behind…
Just call Wynton Marsalis the Terminator. No, he’s not replacing strongman-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a homicidal cyborg in yet another sequel to the sci-fi action-adventure flick. But to some the 38-year-old Marsalis — virtuoso trumpet player, composer, teacher, band leader, and ardent traditionalist — is a murderer. He is killing…
When is a room not a room? When it’s a catalogue. Sound confusing? Get this: ROOM is a New York City-based catalogue created two years ago by former House & Garden style editor Amy Crain. A magazine collector and inveterate shopper frustrated by the lack of chic and affordable offerings,…
“We realized there was nothing like it in South Florida, and we thought how perfect. It’s a unique, pretty, nice, family oriented fundraiser,” says Linda Gelinas, cofounder with her husband Rick of the nonprofit organization Little Acorns, about the International Kite Festival. For the past sixteen years, Little Acorns has…
Maybe it’s something in the water. Or just the fact that they have their own confounding system of numbering streets. And a mayor who gets into fistfights with citizens at protests, skates through criminal charges like Brian Boitano at the Olympics, and persuades the powers that be they owe him…
You’re a homemaker weary of whipping up boring old chicken dishes every day for your family. Your culinary repertoire needs some variety, so you head to the library to check out some African, Mexican, and Asian cookbooks. There you come across the same astonishing information over and over again: Africa…
In this corner: a fabulously falling-apart Art Deco structure, all curving walls, porthole windows, and terrazzo floors. Should it be squashed like a bug, or should the building and its environs be respected? This is the perennial dilemma of the developer and the residents of Miami Beach. In the far…
“Men know that once they know how to lead, any woman they want is theirs,” says Randy Atlas, making a statement that might apply to the political or business arenas, but actually refers to the world of dance. It’s a realm he knows well. The light-on-his-feet Atlas, in an odd…
Forget Miami Beach, Coral Gables, the Design District, and Bird Road. The neighborhood to inhabit if you’re young, wild, and free (read: an artist) now seems to be Little Havana. Long-time Lincoln Road mosaic artist Carlos Alves has landed there and set up a studio, as have former Bird Roaders…
Everyone sits in the dark and watches movies. Few of us really listen to them, that is, listen to the music that accompanies those often-indelible images. But would we be laughing, crying, gasping at the appropriate moments if all we heard was dialogue? Of course not. The subtle form of…
As cities go, Miami Beach gets around. At least around the world. Our sparkling burg on the Atlantic counts Santa Marta, Colombia; Cozumel, Mexico; Pescara, Italy; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Fujisawa, Japan among its ten or so sister cities. A nationwide program encompassing more than 1000 cities in the…
Abercrombie & Fitch, Banana Republic, Donna Karan. These are just a small sample of the upscale clothing retailers often mentioned when critics deride the imagery adorning jazz pianist/singer Diana Krall’s latest album, When I Look in Your Eyes. Granted, among the thank-yous from Krall inside the lavish CD booklet (the…
Back in its heyday during the Forties and Fifties, the stretch of NW Second Avenue from about Sixth to Fourteenth Street in Overtown where the Lyric Theater sits was a nightlife hub known as Little Broadway. Several black-owned hotels and clubs thrived there, as did the intimate Lyric, a 400-seat…
“I really needed to pull in some professionals and go for broke and see what happens, just push the envelope, because people weren’t taking me seriously,” says Karen Stewart, professor and director of dance at Miami-Dade Community College’s North Campus, and founder of the nine-year-old Black Door Dance Ensemble. “We…
It’s highly unlikely members of the Miami Beach Garden Conservancy would be caught dining on hearts of palm. They’re more likely to be found nurturing palm trees than devouring their guts at dinner. The conservancy, a nonprofit advocacy group, was founded by eight members in 1997. Its mission: to restore…
Ask any American whose birthdays are celebrated as part of the catchall holiday known as Presidents’ Day, and watch them give you the wrong answer. Oldsters know that once upon a time, commanders in chief were important enough to have their birthdays recognized separately. Not anymore. Now people care more…
Everyone knows the cliché about men and navigation. They don’t mix. Men don’t accept directions — ever. They could be driving off the end of the Earth and they would still keep going, insisting all along they know where they are. Take Christopher Columbus, for instance; seems as if he…
“File under: jazz.” Those three telling words sit in tiny print above the UPC bar code on the back of violinist Regina Carter’s third and latest album, Rhythms of the Heart. Understandably record store drones need to be instructed about the contents of this compact disc, lest it land in…
Vaseline. Uranium. Westmoreland. Fostoria. Fire King. Names that invaded American cupboards between the Twenties and the Forties. What they stood for: Depression glass, machine-made low-quality glass that was mass-produced in vibrant colors such as pink, purple, red, yellow, blue, green, as well as white. A happy reminder of better days…
