Staged Readings

FRI 2/13 Okay, don’t get mad, but Meg Ryan is not a member of Just the Funny, Miami’s rollicking group of improvisational actors and sketch comedians. This is important to keep in mind during the troupe’s upcoming performance of How We First Met, a Valentine’s Day show celebrating those first-encounter…

Ciao, Francesco

THU 2/12 Long before Janet Jackson shocked the world by baring her breast on international television, we had already spent many years besieged by racy cleavage-heavy images. A lot of those provocative shots were of supermodels on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine, courtesy of fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo, the mag’s…

Ring Toss

FRI 2/13 The upstart Major League Wrestling purports to offer a scintillating alternative to the mainstream television fare put on by World Wrestling Entertainment and other purveyors of the pseudo-sport. Judge for yourself this weekend. While the 4-match fight card boasts a World Heavyweight Championship bout, it’s the special challenge…

Love Shacks

NOW 24/7 Love is a one-night stand in a Hialeah honeymoon suite. Love keeps the meter running. Whether an all-night affair or a whirlwind roller coaster ride lasting as long as your favorite soap opera, motel romance is always exciting. And Miami’s abundance of no-tell joints, equipped with mirrors, vibrating…

Feline Fatale

A few things you might not know about actress/singer/dancer Eartha Kitt. She makes her home in Westport, Connecticut, with toy poodles. When she’s not performing she doesn’t wear makeup, is fond of sweatsuits, and might be seen in the neighborhood grocery store doing her own shopping. She’s an admitted TV…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

Thursday 2/5 There are people who eat to live. And there are those who live to eat. You count yourself among the latter. But today for a change you can eat and help others live too. New Times newspapers in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach are presenting an event called…

Jammin’ with Melton

FRI 2/6 When jazz trumpet player Melton Mustafa blows his horn, people listen — on local and national levels. One of Miami’s favorite musicians, Mustafa for the last 8 years has even run his own jazzy celebration that attracts some of the biggest names in the biz. This year’s Melton…

Drag’s Dregs

MON 2/9 You can call it a local equivalent to the Oscars. There will be goddesses working the red carpet and glamorous gowns, but be on the lookout for the freaky styley. Shelley Novak, Miami’s hairy-chested drag wonder, is honoring the best of the local cross-dressing culture. Will Pussy-la win…

Dino Rock

FRI 2/6 Not since Prince has an artist embraced the color purple. But Barney, that cuddly singing and dancing dinosaur, has an excuse for his purple power: He was born with it. Barney’s Colorful World Tour is taking the country by storm. In fact the show’s producers have been responsible…

Nature Bound

SAT 2/7 At Loxahatchee Arthur R. Marshall National Wildlife Refuge, the sound of a snail kite could take all the pressures and hassles of your cellularly connected life away. Even the toothy grin of an alligator basking in the sun could unleash the natural beast inside you. In fact there…

Indulgence

SAT 2/7 Next month’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival may have Emeril. But this coming weekend’s FAB Fest — the long-running Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Taste of the Beach food festival, renamed this year to reflect a broadened international FAB (Food, Arts, Beverages) focus — has Skippy. For…

Mr. Tea

James Norwood Pratt has been called America’s Tea Guru. As author of The Tea Lover’s Treasury, the seminal tome on the subject published in 1982, it could be said he started a trend, one that’s taken a bit of time to catch on, but a trend nonetheless. The world has…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

Thursday 1/29 The media is responsible for all of society’s ills. The media is slanted. The media lies and perpetuates false attitudes that most Americans don’t share. The media is the original Axis of Evil. The media is made up of pot-smoking, cross-dressing, leftist, pinko Commies. Blah, blah, blah, blah,…

Talking Tradition

SUN 2/1 Christians, Jews, and Muslims are finally getting together, not around the world but at the Coconut Grove Playhouse (3500 Main Hwy.). This afternoon at 4:30 following a 2:00 p.m. performance of Chaim Potok and Aaron Posner’s drama The Chosen, a panel discussion will ensue exploring how religions can…

Women vs. Men

THU 1/29 The Florida Center for the Literary Arts opens its writers’ residency and lecture series with a not-necessarily-politically-correct discourse. Prolific, award-winning author Francine Prose will lecture on “Scent of a Woman’s Ink: Why Women are Still Being Read Differently from Men.” When her original essay on the subject appeared…

Freedom Cruise

NOW 24/7 As we head into the campaign season, a time when politicians polish the art of the big and small lie, it’s reassuring to know that truth has sailed onto our shores. For the second time since 2002, thanks to our daily newsstand rag, the city, and the county,…

Chili Challenge

With beans or without? With meat or without? Sirloin, veal, how about pork? The great chili controversy rages on. It’s an argument not often heard in these parts, for chili is mostly thought of as a dish of the Southwest, a spicy comforting stew that warms one in cool weather,…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

Thursday 1/22 Ahh, the media, never tiring of their incessant navel-gazing. What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? Who the hell cares anyway? Well, some people do and they’ll be the ones attending this evening’s symposium, titled Managing Perceptions: Media, Propaganda, and the War on Terrorism, at…

Buzzed

FRI 1/23 Twenty years after breaking up eclectic rock trio The Police, Sting is hotter than ever. Credit his new album Sacred Love, where his delicate exchange with Mary J. Blige almost allows people to forget other unfortunate duets, e.g. backing up P. Diddy. Also credit Broken Music, his autobiography…

Primate Time

THU 1/22 You’re intellectual, caring, and humorous. You must be a monkey. In the lunar calendar of Chinese astrology, that is. Yes, it’s Chinese New Year and you guessed it: The year of the monkey is upon us. We don’t recommend eating a bushel of bananas to celebrate. Instead head…

The Far Side

SAT 1/24 In Frank Capra’s 1937 classic, Lost Horizon, our handsome protagonist Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) is haunted by a strange feeling of déjà vu while lost in the Himalayan utopia, Shangri-La. “I sense I’ve been here before,” he tells the beautiful doe-eyed Sondra (Jane Wyatt). “Everything is somehow familiar.”…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

Thursday 1/15 Civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s birthday is officially observed on Monday but today is the actual anniversary of his birth. No doubt events will be held all over town on Monday, but beginning today the West Perrine Community Development Corporation kicks off a five-day observance. Attend a…