You don’t need to know opera to know the beautiful gypsy named Carmen or the eponymous tale based in 1830 Seville. The woman and her story have appeared on thousands of stages and in dozens of films since the 19th Century — and in many incarnations, from a saucy Dorothy…
Before monotheism ruined the fun, humans worshipped a female god (hell, yeah!) and held huge outdoor fuck parties to honor the beginnings and endings of seasons. Instead, we now scrunch into hard-backed pews to be lectured, spend our entire Friday nights in the dark because we’re not allowed to flip…
Car customizing didn’t begin with MTV’s hit series Pimp My Ride, but it sure felt out of reach before Xzibit began popping up on random people’s doorsteps and putting fish tanks in the back seats of ’91 Honda Accords. Having your name engraved in your steering wheel is no longer…
Ever wondered what it feels like to finish a three-round professional MMA fight? To push yourself, over and over, past the limits of your strength and conditioning? You can find out this Saturday and, in the process, make a valuable donation to war veterans and prostate cancer research. The fourth…
For all the ups and downs of the 2009 Florida Marlins season, there has been one constant. No, not the terrible relief pitching, but rather the ability to beat the bejesus out of their NL East rival New York Mets at every chance. The Marlins enter this weekend with a…
MMA stands for Mixed Martial Arts, a form of fighting. Bad Blood II: Battle of the Americas this Saturday at the BankUnited Center is an MMA fight. Jonathan Brookins is fighting Luis “Baboon” Palomino. Other people fighting are named Edson Diniz Fidelis, Alexis Vila, Marcos De Matta, Alan Arzeno, Zack…
Until the Miami Malt Liquor Expo and 8-Bit Nintendo Tournament gets up and running, our favorite local booze fest is still the Miami International Wine Fair, now in its eighth year at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Rest your pinkies, people, because from 4 to 7 p.m. you’ll have 1,500…
The guys from The Postelles are taking a decidedly different approach to touring: Instead of cramming into a van that reeks of Taco Bell and washing dishes for gas money, they’re flying into Miami for a one-off gig at the tippy top of the Icon’s 50th floor before taking off…
Brickell, the fiscal whore of Babylon, wakes up in the morning with the sunlight gleaming off of her cocaine skyline. She stomps her cloven hooves, rears her goat head toward the heavens, and unleashes the ungodly shriek of wanton greed. After experiencing that in your tiny apartment, you put fire…
To kick off the 2009-10 season, the Florida International University theater program has chosen a play that hits home. In fact, maybe “hits home” is too quaint a phrase; “aims a heat-seeking missile toward the Miami heart” is more like it. Melinda Lopez’s drama, Sonia Flew, concerns a Cuban-American mother…
We could spend hours watching Cory Arcangel’s Mario Movie (2005), a surprisingly touching account of what happens to the famous Italian plumber as the Nintendo world begins to deteriorate. Arcangel’s more recent work, Apple GarageBand Auto-Tune Demonstration (2007), is just one of many pieces that will be featured in “Pivot…
Remember the squatters? Last winter, there was a media fest in Miami about homeless families taking over abandoned, foreclosed homes. After New Times broke the story, broadcasts from CNN to NPR followed. The tale had an apocalyptic, end-of-days vibe to it. South Florida’s real estate bust was so bad it felt…
Great news today for local literature. Miami author Edwidge Danticat, 40, was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. Besides the obvious prestige, the award comes packaged with a hefty sum: $100,000 a year for five years with no stipulations.Some of the other 23 winners were…
Last year, brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana had more funky wicker pieces than a Boca yard sale and slaughtered more stuffed animal designs than Lady Gaga’s wardrobe at Design Miami for their stint as Designer of the Year. Following in their footsteps is 31-year-old Dutch designer Maarten Baas. Let’s take a…
“It was an explosion!” Herb Ault proclaims and then splays his fingers to form a pair of jazz hands. You can tell the 82-year-old has a background in theater. He was long ago the North Miami Senior High School drama department head. His glassy brown eyes widen behind a pair…
Phew.According to Michael Spring, Director of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, the budget adopted by the Board of County Commissioners at 5:01 a.m. this morning restored a little over $8.6 million to the department’s arts grants for cultural programming, or about 78 percent of the $11 million originally…
Tonight, spend some time with Frankie Beverly and Maize at the AAA, a group that does soul music like no other and has a live show that is nothing less than electrifying. And really, pure. For something more intimate, check out Jazzilla at Books & Books, Coral Gables. Jazz music, but…
Twenty five years ago this week, NBC launched a show featuring a salt-and-pepper team of undercover cops who ran roughshod over the streets of America’s most tropical city. Executive produced by Michael Mann, who at that time was best known for writing the first four episodes of Starsky and Hutch,…
A new set of Golden Girls is moving to Miami, but this time, like 60 percent of the real-life residents in the county, Spanish will be their mother tongue. ¡Gracias por ser mi amiga!Disney, which owns the rights to the original, has announced it’s moving forward on a remake starring…
Tarell Alvin McCraney, 29, a Liberty City-born-and-raised playwright and graduate of the New World School of the Arts, today won his second big award of the year: the second annual Steinberg Playwright Award.Established in 2008 to support emerging playwrights at various stages of their careers, the Steinberg carries serious prestige as well…
For several weeks, I’ve been reading passionate plea emails to save the $11 million in funding for Miami-Dade cultural programming, all of them written by the heads of well-established, reputable organizations such as the Miami Art Museum, the Wolfsonian, and Vizcaya. Because the funding they receive from the county is crucial…
No film has had a greater impact on American cinema than The Wizard of Oz, the prototype for the monster-size, soundtrack-infused color pictures that have come to define the big-studio movies — spinning off an entire industry of merchandise, sequels, remakes, and retellings. But ignore the orgy of consumerism; at…
