Baby, It’s Cold Inside

A winter wonderland this is not, but you can still bust out the mittens and scarves and sit around a cool hunk of ice if you choose to cheer on the Florida Panthers as they face the Philadelphia Flyers tonight. The Cats have slipped into last place in the Southeast…

Born in the U.S.A.

Who’s the Boss? There’s only one. And if you answered Tony or Angela, run to Books & Books tonight at 8:00 to get schooled by Bruce Springsteen biographer and best-selling rock writer Dave Marsh. Acquaint yourself with one of America’s most legendary singer/songwriter/storytellers through a photographic timeline titled Bruce Springsteen…

The Saddest Club of All

Generally speaking, the 27th birthday isn’t particularly special. You have long passed the legal drinking age, so nobody is pressuring you to choke down test tubes of Jägermeister. The quarter-century feels like a more significant landmark (cheaper car insurance rates!) and is worthy of a no-holds-barred commemoration. The typical 27th…

Drink, Drink, and Be Merry

My call for festive libations went unanswered, so I have decided to use my mad Martha skills to mix up some of my favorite holiday beverages and share the best recipes with you. Little Miss Sunrise: It is never too early to commence drinking during the month of December, so…

Stuff the Jets

Okay, so the Dolphins aren’t headed to the playoffs this year. Does that really matter when swarms of transplanted New Yorkers – ahem — descend upon the stadium in Jets gear and act like they own the place? With a significant portion of the stadium occupied by enemy fans, the…

Eat, Eat, and Be Merry

Let’s face it: Foodwise, Thanksgiving, not Christmas, is the holiday that’s about hours of stirring pots and basting turkeys in a hot kitchen. After all, you’ve spent the past few weeks with your elbow in some other holiday shoppers’ rib cage, or with your foot on someone’s neck while you…

Rockin’ with Isotopes

Although reunion shows by the likes of the Cure and Violent Femmes do exist, you’ll most likely have to dish out a Jackson or two and settle for half the original lineup. The cover band Radioactive might not boast Robert Smith or Gordon Gano crooning to the audience, but the…

Golden Boy

Local hero Udonis Haslem has shown himself again and again to be reliable, talented, versatile, and, perhaps most important, uninjured. But the Miami Heat has struggled much with the question of what to do at the other forward spot. Both Antoine Walker and James Posey have demonstrated ample skill, but…

Sing Out, Sister

Alcohol is sometimes called liquid courage. After a few shots or beers, stage fright just melts away, along with sobriety. This is where the fun of karaoke comes in. Patrons who are usually meek and quiet emerge from their shells to let everyone know how much they really love Michael…

Rumble in the Jungle

Brown-paper packages tied up with string — no, better yet, yellow-skin bananas tied up with T-shirts, and raisins hidden in brightly wrapped boxes — these are a few of a chimpanzee’s favorite things. Especially the chimps at Miami Metrozoo, where it is a holiday tradition for zookeepers to pass out…

Santa’s Little Helper

You really should be done with your holiday shopping by now, but you keep stuffing your own stocking instead. This is the season for giving, remember? Since you obviously can’t do this on your own, we are here to suggest a few last-minute gift ideas. Give a gift that keeps…

Sure Beats Manischewitz

Just like your neighbor’s light-saber-wielding toddler, the Pinot Noir grape can be difficult. It is tough to grow and has a reputation for fermenting violently. But with the right guidance, that little fruit can become one rich and rewarding wine. The silky liquid is full-bodied without being too heavy, so…

Ha’s to Go with Your Ho’s

Year after year, you get your holiday giggles from your cousin Chip, who always returns from his “breath of fresh air” smelling like a different kind of pine tree, and from Auntie Josephine, who is never without her glass of special eggnog. But this year, get your Christmas chuckles from…

Lazing in Red

Since you like to do your holiday shopping the old-fashioned way — you know, by trudging through the malls while schlepping heavy bags – it’s time to take a break and unwind before your last round of holiday parties. You have to get your nails done anyway, so you might…

Believe It or Not

One of Miami’s legitimate cultural treasures, the Miami Beach Cinematheque, defines itself with the word escapism. Two current projects take that idea to its ultimate, um, conclusion. Robert Altman, a key figure in America’s auteur movement of the late Sixties and early Seventies – who, unlike, say, Dennis Hopper, didn’t…

Beatles for Sale

Cheer up, lads! Sometimes it isn’t easy to preach to the choir. FIU’s rock and roll professor, Dr. Armando Tranquilino, lectured about the Beatles to an audience of eager babyboomers — and a few twenty- and thirty-somethings — at last night’s Culture in the City talk in Coconut Grove. For…

Rich Man, Poor Man

About Will Smith’s estimable talents, there is no doubt. Six Degrees of Separation, Ali, … um … the “Parents Just Don’t Understand” video — the man’s got skills to pay the bills, yours and mine and his. That he seldom uses them, or their attendant clout, is dispiriting. This is…

The Cat Purrs

Near the end of La Gata, a documentary about Argentine tango goddess María Angelica Milán, director Julienne Gage and her cameraman, Gustavo Acosta, almost off-handedly capture the perfect image of their subject. Milán, who is 79 years old, is seated next to another woman maybe five or ten years her…

Now Playing

This lavishly punishing picture is the third panel in Gibson’s Ordeal triptych. The Martyrdom of the Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ have nothing on The Misadventures of the Jaguar Paw, junior citizen of a generally jovial, practical-joke-loving, sixteenth-century Central American social unit. Over the course of Apocalypto’s 140…

Make Believe

When a theater is packed with children instead of adults, it becomes a site not of high culture but of mass fidgeting. On a recent Wednesday morning, the Shores Performing Arts Theater was filled with an audience whose heads barely topped the backs of their seats. The crowd was neatly…

Stage Capsules

Down the Road: To blame society’s problems on celebrity culture is shallow beyond contempt, but it will always appeal to those more interested in bitching than thinking. The same can be said for Lee Blessing’s Down the Road. It’s the story of Iris and Dan Henniman (Margie Elias Eisenberg and…

Hands, Hickeys, and Hurly-Burly

During Art Basel Miami Beach last year, Lilian Fernandez was crestfallen that none of her abstract paintings was on display at any of the fairs’ events or exhibits. To cope with her depression, she ritualistically ripped one of her canvases, The Flowers That My Mother Painted, into 38 envelope-size sections,…