Arts & Culture

James Brown was the hardest-working man in show business, a relentless touring machine who loved nothing more than putting on a sweat-drenched, high-octane performance for fans night after night. With his beloved cape, inimitable dance moves, and trademark “Hey!” he etched a place in rock and roll history. Right alongside…

Can you remember the last time you heard someone pounding on garbage cans, clomping on hubcaps, and thrashing the floor with brooms? If you live in certain unnamed apartment complexes, your answer might be “last night.” If you live with inventive, percussion-loving kids, your answer might be “this morning.” But…

“What time is it? Party time! That’s right — say it loud!” Do you know what song this is from? Those are bona fide lyrics from Disney’s High School Musical movie franchise, which is only, like, the hottest film phenomenon in the universe. If you have seen it, you probably…

There’s a lot of love among musicians in the Magic City. Really quite a lot. How much, you ask? So much that for the past three years, key players in some of our most groundbreaking bands spend their off time collaborating in an ongoing amorphous project known as Monkey Village…

Josepher Bonilla simply wanted to bring his two favorite things together: hot chicks in latex clothes, and hot chicks who make out with each other. Voila — the Liquor Lezbians Latex Lube Party was born, and the event’s latest installment (that’d be the Ongoing Adventures of the Liquor Lezbians Latex…

Every indie kid is always looking for the next best-kept secret on the brink of success (that is, another Bright Eyes or Interpol) so they can say they discovered it before the rest of the world. For the first time in a while, that band has been lurking on the…

The inexorable tides of change are the mother tongue of María Magdalena Campos-Pons’s evocative work. Throughout her career, the Afro-Cuban artist has inventively translated the ordinary materials, rituals, and traditions of life into riveting visual and sensory statements. “Everything Is Separated by Water,” opening at 10:00 a.m. at the Bass…

We’ve heard you complain about the sparse local music scene one too many times. Quit your yapping, put down the Cheez Doodles, slip into something snazzy, and get your mojo workin’ (no, we’re not talking about the Cuban marinade). Salsa on over to Miami Beach for a jazz-fusion concert featuring…

If you work in downtown Miami, you see them all the time — homeless people and their doggies, begging for food on corners. Insensitive and unsavvy types have been known to wonder aloud, “If you’re homeless, why have a dog?” The sad truth is, for the destitute and downtrodden, sometimes…

Just when you want to break up with the Florida Panthers altogether, they go out and pick a player with a Dickensian name like Keaton Ellerby, who, with such a moniker, could be a partner at a London law firm, prime minister of New Zealand, or a hip-hop producer. (To…

What happened to the good ol’ days, when aspiring artists hit the streets to bombard anybody and everybody with their talents? Now it seems hopefuls are content with posting cheesy videos on YouTube or creating glitter-laden MySpace pages and praying for their “big break.” We understand these methods might work,…

Geoffrey Philp Junot Diaz is a cool, unassuming kind of dude. Low key in glasses and a chocolate brown guyabera, he quietly captivated a stuffed-to-capacity event at local literary mecca Books & Books last Thursday. The event felt like a homecoming for Miami writers – before the reading began, store…

“Dinyero” South Florida-based Din “Dinyero” Thomas returns to the octagon Wednesday to do battle against Kenny Florian in the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s Fight Night Live main event. 30-year-old Thomas (23-7-0) — who was the subject of a New Times cover story (“Cage Rage”) this past February — is riding a…

An estimated one million people spanning 350 locations and 60 nations will unite Saturday for what has been dubbed the world’s largest synchronized music and dance festival for peace. So grab something tie-dye, perhaps a chemically enhanced cigarette or two, and get ready to make up for all those peace…

Ever since author JL King released On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives of ‘Straight’ Black Men Who Sleep with Men in 2004, the term has – ahem — switched teams and now refers to a different type of covert operation – men who live a predominately straight…

At Locust Projects this past Saturday night, Diego Bianchi gleefully tinkered with his unruly installation, not unlike Rube Goldberg on the eve of destruction. Unsuspecting spectators strolling through Wynwood’s season-opening gallery walk might have felt ambushed by the Argentine artist’s psychedelic phantasmagoria, a scene even Timothy Leary would have been…

Work!: An exhibit featuring paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, and photography, “Work!” was created by the Popopstudios co-op. The show’s title stems from a colloquialism describing the futility of a pointless action. The highlight is Blue Curry’s Like Taking Sand to the Beach, a ton of sand carved out of Yamacraw…

First-person shooters are rarely more than virtual shooting galleries. Great fun, yes, but not exactly thought-provoking. That’s why it’s nice when an FPS comes along that’s trying to be something more — and even better when it actually succeeds. Sometimes you know it in the first few minutes: Take Half-Life:…