Culture Jazz

Friday 5/30 He’s big, he’s bad, and he’s one of South Florida’s very own. Ira Sullivan has been playing his critically acclaimed jazz for nearly six decades and his band Ira Sullivan’s Inter/Outer Continental Quintet will share a bit of its post-bop vibe at 8:00 p.m. during the Jazz at…

Cookin’ Sounds

Thursday 5/29 We’ve had more than our share of the blues, thank you. One thing we don’t ever get enough of, though, is poultry. Yes, turkey, chicken, capons — baked, broiled, fried, you name it. They make us happy. The same might be said, musically at least, for blues man…

Speakin’ Spell

If you’re reading this paper, chances are you’re more literate than the average American. If you’re reading the film reviews, it’s also likely that you’ve become familiar with words like “bravura” and “eponymous,” which seem to exist only in the vocabularies of professional movie assessors. But what if you were…

Touch of the Poet

The budding teenage poet in Karen Moncrieff’s Blue Car writes melancholy verse about autumn leaves falling off trees and fathers abandoning their daughters. Predictably, the girl’s floundering mother is too harried and too strapped for cash to pay much attention to her, and her troubled little sister is endlessly needy…

Think Pink

There are many ways to keep Granny and Grandpa’s memory alive. Some people arrange meticulous albums filled with yellowing and faded photographs. Some folks have their grandparents’ cremated remains put in an urn and display them on the mantelpiece. Other people, like artist David Baskin, get their grandpa’s hat, coat,…

Brazil’s Sweetest Sixteen

There are more than 170 million people living in Brazil, the largest country in South America. Despite the dense population, there are only about 1600 movie houses — roughly the same amount as in Manhattan, according to Adriana Dutra, executive director of the seventh annual Brazilian Film Festival of Miami…

The Royals

Now 24/7 As you read this the King and Queen of Miami are most likely rocking themselves to a peaceful dither in new fancy recliners. A fitting throne for Ms. Marie Louis Alexis and Mr. Idelfonso Gonzalez, our respective monarchs, who at 103 years of age were named Miami’s most…

Kosher K.O.

Thursday 5/29 Any time you see a cheering band of Hassidic men in high jubilation, you think of a bar mitzvah or circumcision. But at recent boxing bouts at the Seville Hotel, the flinging side locks and hearty hugging is for a different rite of manhood, a win by undefeated…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

Thursday 5/29 Is the United States’ wet foot/dry foot policy of immigration prudent? Is it fair? Legions of immigrants from Cuba and Haiti (and points beyond) risk their lives crossing the Florida Straits in rickety vessels each year, and each year the results remain the same: If you’re Cuban and…

McKeever and Mom

Whatever else may be said about the South Florida theater scene, certainly there’s a whole lotta playwrighting going on here. The place seems to be jumping with premieres just about weekly, and several area companies focus on new works, each in its own way. Florida Stage in Manalapan is dedicated…

Conceptual Drag

The hoopla surrounding Art Basel is six months behind us now, which is why it’s as good a time as any to step back and assess our current art scene. When looking at the art being done in Miami, it doesn’t appear much different from what I saw three years…

Think Different

It’s usually right about this time of year that film critics begin to feel a slow chill of dread creep up their spines. Suppressing that urge, they generally find it quickly replaced by a sudden rush of sneering condescension and smug mock-martyrdom. “Oh no!” they cry. “This is summer, the…

Dr. Décor

He likes warm wood floors. She prefers cool marble. He likes dark-colored painted walls. She prefers flower-flecked pastel wallpaper. He dreams of taxidermied animal heads mounted, clubby leather furniture, and plaid flannel curtains. She dreams of gold-framed botanical prints, overstuffed shabby chic furniture, and light lacy curtains. This married couple…

The King’s Wings

The dining room accommodated eight, served from a capacious galley. A queen-sized bed dominated the sleeping quarters, which gave way to a bathroom outfitted with a shower and gold-plated fixtures. A quartet of TVs blared in the conference room, while strewn hither and yon were seven telephones. And a four-person…

Bicycle Uprising

Wednesday 5/28 According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are roughly 4000 people in Miami-Dade County who ride their bicycles to work. Unfortunately since the census count was done, most of these bikers are now dead. Because of ever-increasing traffic congestion, snotty Metro Bus drivers who relish cutting off urban…

Glam-Dunk

Saturday 5/24 Hip-hop permeates all cultural boundaries. It cannot be confined to clubland or radio play. It lives in movies and television. It grinds with strippers and revs up motorcycles. Super-sized hip-hop egos are scheduled to make appearances all over the Miami party map this Memorial Day. The glittering posse…

Wee Aliens

Saturday 5/24 Your toddler may look like an innocent human child, but he already knows more about you than your ex-husband and mother ever did. He sees through you. He will overpower you by the time he turns four, so you better not get in his way. That’s what proponents…

Natural Beauties

Thursday 5/22 Painter Sebastian Spreng is an utter romanticist, and his sublime landscapes swell with the heartbreak that surrounds true beauty, or the lack of it. The large works in Spreng’s current exhibition at the Americas Collection are richly colored and textured and slightly surreal — paintings as poetic paens…

Mama Love

Friday 5/23 That’s it like to be the mother of a prophet? We couldn’t tell you, but Cedella Booker Marley, mother of Bob, gives us a glimpse in her book Bob Marley, My Son. After all, she has a lot to be proud of. Her son was not only a…

Mean Green Musical

Thrusday 5/22 A pretty girl. A meek florist. A bloodthirsty plant? Must be Little Shop of Horrors! The Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre (280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables) presents a test run of the widely popular Alan Menken and Howard Ashman musical prior to taking it to Broadway this…

Dance Lab

Thursday 5/22 In developing his latest project for the Washington, D.C.-based company Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, choreographer and director Peter DiMuro strives to pierce his audience’s consciousness. To do this, DiMuro wants to use the unique stories of the town he’s performing in. To customize his ongoing oeuvre Near/Far/In/Out, a…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

Thursday 5/22 Soulful chanteuse/songwriter Abenaa delves into her Ghanaian and Trinidadian roots to craft the deeply intimate and enlightened tunes on her first CD, Tuesday’s Child. Tonight she brings her spellbinding songs to the Funk Jazz Lounge at Sax on the Beach (1756 N. Bayshore Dr.). Her sound is a…