On March 15, 2008, a fireball shot into the midday sky over Albania’s capital, Tirana. The blast echoed 100 miles away in Macedonia and Kosovo. Its force was comparable to that of a small nuclear weapon. But this wasn’t atomic. It was an accident at an arms depot, where poor…
Generally speaking, there’s nothing chic about a bowling alley, where unsightly shoes combine with cheap beer, bad pizza, and ball grease to make for a mostly uncomfortable ambiance. But the lanes at Lucky Strike (1691 Michigan Ave., Miami Beach) are an exception: They’re unimpeachably chic, what with their gourmet sliders…
Florida Grand Opera is grand, indeed, being one of the oldest opera houses in the nation. It’s kicking off 2009 with the Superstar Concert Series — which should star Molly Shannon from Saturday Night Live,/i>, but doesn’t. Instead, FGO is pairing opera luminaries and giving them three concerts this year…
In 1917, the Russian city of Petrograd went to sleep with its streetlights shut off in fear of bombardment by zeppelins. Unlike Goodyear blimps, which tend to circle in the sky like happy cows, the airships of World War I bristled with weaponry. The Germans sent them on (slow, very…
The Miami Gay Men’s Chorus is a big cog in the Gay Agenda. It began as a group of only six people in 1999, but over the past decade, it has swelled to 100 members of all ages, with audience growth of 30 percent every season. Plus it’s moving to…
Anita Bryant was a pop singer in the late Fifties who made a name for herself entertaining American troops on deployment. In the Seventies, she became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission. In 1977, she got riled up about a law that would protect gays from discrimination, and from…
The 24 Hour Theatre Project is an Olympic event for thespians in South Florida. A bunch of playwrights will gather at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables at sundown this Sunday. They’ll be tasked with writing a play based on a random title (at last year’s project, one of the…
Twenties Berlin was notorious for its neon signs and automobile traffic, modern department stores and movie palaces, jazz bars and flophouses, theaters and thousand-seat cafés, artists and paramilitaries, rent boys and cross-dressers — and above all, cabaret. Cabaret, based on a play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher…
“Change” by David Packouz: David Packouz talks about nanotech the way 12-year-old girls talk about Zac Efron. In a great, fawning gush of words, he explains it will bring about a technological utopia on Earth. Humans, he says, will interface with computers, replace their bodies with machinery, and become immortal…
Seraphic Fire, a Miami-based choral ensemble with a cool name, broke into pop music in 2005 when it lent its soaring collective voice to Shakira’s platinum album Oral Fixation Vol. 2. With that, it became the second choir in history to ascend the Billboard charts. Seraphic Fire reached another milestone…
Hobby actors, take heed. The Miami Stage Company is holding a casting call for its 2009 theater program. If you strut around calling yourself a “Method actor” and bragging about your high school starring role in Once upon a Mattress, this could be your big break! Any old schmo is…
Have you ever tried to stand en pointe? It’s not as easy as ballet dancers make it look. Wikipedia lists 28 common injuries stemming from this superhuman posture, including neuromas, bunions, hammertoes, and something called dorsal exostosis. The dangers notwithstanding, if it’s been your life’s dream to prance on your…
The Last Mistress is everything you could want in a French film. There’s a hot boy, a seductive girl, a scandal of the aristocracy, an extramarital affair, plenty of uncensored sex, and, finally, a duel. The story centers around Ryno, a roguish gentleman reputed in French high society for his…
For thespians in South Florida, the 24 Hour Theater Project is an Olympic event equal in difficulty to the decathlon. This Sunday at sundown, a bunch of playwrights will gather at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables. They’ll be tasked with writing a play based on a random title (at…
Giacomo Puccini’s masterpiece Madame Butterfly was first performed in 1904, which goes to show you that multiculturalism isn’t as new-fangled as you might think. The opera, which will be performed Saturday night at the Colony Theater, is sung in Italian, set in Japan, and features an American leading man and…
Menopause, balding, memory loss, wrinkling, sagging, increased susceptibility to disease, weight gain, prostate enlargement, erectile dysfunction, incontinence, and, finally, death. Truly, what could be funnier? What on God’s green Earth could make better fodder for a laugh-out-loud, foot-tapping humfest of a musical? Absolutely nothing, if you believe composer/playwright brothers Bob…
Ari Gold is one of the premier gay pop stars of the new millennium. He’s Jewish, he’s handsome, and his R&B dance record, “Transport Systems,” is climbing the charts. Somewhere in the universe, aliens are jiving and snapping their fingers (or otherwise evolved digits) to his hit “Where the Music…
Many a gay man has blown a load over the postcards of Wilhelm Von Gloeden. In 1877, the self-proclaimed aristocrat settled in the Sicilian town of Taormina, with vast wealth and camera equipment at his disposal. He spent the money to put an army of peasant boys on his payroll,…
