Moan at the Moon

Popular legend would have you believe people go loony-toons once the full moon rolls around. Truth is, dog bite occurrences do double, but as long as you keep your mitts out of the Alpo, you should be safe. A better way to spend this astrological event is at Miami’s newest…

Kitty Says a Fool in Love Is Still a Fool

Hello, Kitty: I’ve been dating my girlfriend for more than a year, and lately she has been acting funny. In the beginning of our relationship, we would go out, talk all the time over the phone, and if we didn’t talk over the phone, we would text each other. But…

Marilyn Manson’s “Trismegistus” Offers Shock and Schlock

After years as a lightning rod for controversy, shock-meister Marilyn Manson has swapped the microphone for a paintbrush, strutting his gloomy goth vibe into the art world. In his jarring exhibit, showing at the Design District’s fresh-squeezed 101 Exhibit space, Manson serves up a steaming pile of the abject with…

The Nightmare of Revolutionary Road

No writer ever gazed deeper or more despairingly into the prison of middle-class American conformity than Richard Yates, which might explain why none of his books sold more than 12,000 copies in his lifetime and why it has taken more than 40 years for one of them to reach the…

Old Man Pitt

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is certainly curious — a modest F. Scott Fitzgerald story, about a man born in the twilight of life and gradually regressing toward dawn, that has been adapted into a two-ton, Oscar-season white elephant. Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Eric Roth,…

No Gnarly Waves Allowed

Some say South Beach is no place to catch a wave, but dudes in the know would beg to differ. Sure, it ain’t Waimea, but SoFi isn’t only the coolest place to live — it’s also the place where you’ll catch a wave that would make Matthew McConaughey throw his…

We Believe We Can Fly

If only we had a dollar for every time we heard a variation on this sentiment: “Fill-in-the-blanks will change the city!” Or “If there were a few more like so-and-so, downtown Miami would be a cultural and nightlife mecca.” We’re sad to say it, but we calendar editors have seen…

Former Miami Judge Ain’t No Writer

As a lawyer, Barbara Levenson leaped head first into some controversial free speech battles. In 1987, when she was chairwoman of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legal panel, she protested the placing of a 100-foot-tall cross at Tamiami Park during Pope John Paul II’s visit to Miami. Two years later,…

Rakontur Teams Up With Pharrell For Adult Swim Show

2009 is looking to be a huge year for the Rakontur Films. Not only will they be teaming up with super-producers Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer to turn their Cocaine Cowboys documentary into an HBO series, but they’ve also announced on their blog they’re developing a half-hour series for Adult…

Art Capsules

Russian Dreams … Through February 8. Bass Museum of Art, 2121 Park Ave., Miami Beach; 305-673-7530, www.bassmuseum.org. Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. At the Bass, this selection of cutting-edge works by contemporary Russian artists — which includes painting, photography, video, and…

at Churchill’s

Monday night Jazz Jam, winner of our 2007 Best of Miami award, is not a well-kept secret. It’s more like an institution. But a reminder is still in order: if you haven’t gone, you’re missing some of the best regularly-scheduled live music in Miami. The first time I went, the…

Art for Your Ears

Close your eyes and imagine a world where you can see sounds and hear colors, where primal drumbeats leap off the works of Picasso and Brancusi. In a world where you could sense improvisational jazz riffs arranged in a cubist masterpiece, you might also experience the plaintive wail of a…

I Will Not Pay to Sweat

We and millions of other Americans vowed to slim down once the clock struck 2009, but this year, laziness and procrastination have a strange new bedfellow, and it kinda almost rhymes with robbery. You got it, the economy. And since we have millions of Americans to commiserate with, we’re forced…

Bring the Pain

The South Beach Comedy Festival is just around the corner, and this year’s lineup includes some known quantities in the world of funny. We’re talking about roastmaster general Lisa Lampanelli, ruling raunch king Jim Norton, sputtering politico and Daily Show fixture Lewis Black, and the sizzling star of The Soup,…

Speedin’ Granny Says Go

Donna Blake is the Speedin’ Granny. At 60 years old, she’s active in the local car show competition circuit, entering events and winning trophies from South Dade to Broward. You can catch Granny in her 1968 Barracuda convertible, or at least you can try. She’s one of the organizers behind…

How Funky Can You Get?

The song begins with the lone twang of an electric guitar pulling you toward the dance floor. Your two left feet scoff and think, So what? You can’t get me going with one stupid axe. Then the electric bass boom-de-booms its way into the groove, the drums tis-tis-tis, and a…

Kicking the Nets in the Balls

When the Miami Heat faced off against the New Jersey Nets two weeks ago, Dwyane Wade matched a season high by pouring in 43 points on Dirty Jersey. The game featured three of the NBA’s top 10-point scorers in Wade and the Nets’ Devin Harris and Vince Carter. While going…

Who’s the Biggest Diva of Them All?

Baroness Vladka decides that feeding her raging alcohol addiction is more important than delivering melodic arias to audiences night after night, so she turns to ingénue Gwendoline Josephine Bellevoix Bouvier to fill in the operatic blanks. Soon the senior diva resents the junior’s verve, the younger believes her turn in…

Meet the New Scene

Your snobby South Beach acquaintances and trendy downtown hipster friends might scoff, but we’re here to tell you there’s a neighborhood scene that’s been simmering to a boil in a long-forgotten corner. South Miami has become what Coconut Grove used to be and what Coral Gables wishes it were —…

Don’t Be a Bulbasaur

At first blush, the trading card phenomenon Pokémon might seem like it’s just for kids. All of your adult sensibilities will cause you to roll your eyes when you hear the word Squirtle, which of course is a kind of Pokémon that looks like a turtle and squirts liquid at…

Ballooning on the Beach

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…