Tripping Latino

Los Amigos Invisibles blast off FRI 8/27 The days of having something to prove in their native Venezuela long gone, the funky Latin jam band Los Amigos Invisibles are waxing cosmic as they take over the world. Since their 2000 breakthrough CD Arepa 3000: A Venezuelan Journey Into Space launched…

Surfing Haiti

According to the latest polls by Haitian Website Sakapfet.com, 75 percent of its members would vote for John Kerry instead of George Bush for president. Fifty percent believe that if Haiti is to have a presence in the next World Cup soccer championships, there will have to be significant private…

Night&Day

THU 26 Cuba is about to be saved. Well, at least Havana’s awe-inspiring architecture — or what’s left of it — is. Juan Antonio Bueno, dean of FIU’s School of Architecture, and Nicolas Quintana, professor of architecture at the same school, have hatched a plan to carefully frame the city’s…

Fascinating S.O.B.

He was called, among other things, fascinating, abrasive, wise, vain, ruthless, tenderhearted, indefatigable, and contentious. His wife once commented: “How glad I am that I married this crazy man instead of some dull son of a bitch.” Such was the impact of Dalton Trumbo, the famed screenwriter and raconteur whose…

Call It Dead Serious

Nicky Silver is one twisted playwright, and his Raised in Captivity is too much. Now on stage at PS 742 in the heart of Little Havana, the deadly serious, seriously funny black comedy begins at a funeral: After years of not seeing each other, Sebastian and his twin, Bernadette, meet…

Current Art Shows

Adhesive 44: Fulfilling art writer John Berger’s prediction that museums of the future would ultimately disappear and be replaced by personal arrangements of reproductions and printed ephemera, Brazilian artist Jac Leirner unpacks her decalcomania at the Miami Art Museum. Composed of hundreds of stickers adhered to two rows of window…

Banzai Beat

Say hello to a pop cinema masterpiece. This new Japanese import opens with a massive thud not unlike Godzilla’s footfall, and its cinematic legacy stretches back almost as far. It’s got crafty samurai action, hilarious bits of business, insightful observations into the human condition, and geysers of kitschy computer-generated blood…

Blindness of Strangers

It’s a real credit to Intimate Strangers director Patrice Leconte that even though he uses a couple of ridiculous contrivances to get the plot going, the overall film still feels very true. Leconte has a gift for depicting the quirks of odd relationships; his last film, Man on the Train,…

Darling Ms. Yarling

Ever since arriving in Miami from her native Brooklyn in the 1980s, Nicole Yarling has been gracing the local music scene with an abundance of talent. Whether performing solo at Chick Singer Nights, or sitting in with blues bands such as Iko-Iko or her own group Little Nicky and the…

Night&Day

THU 19 Playwright and performer Eve Ensler, most famous for her steamroller hit The Vagina Monologues, can be counted on for expressing outrage and lacing it with love and laughter. Such is the case with her play Necessary Targets, a compelling and richly dark theatrical work that addresses war from…

Visionary View

Photographers are as commonplace as Kodak film. Artists who use a camera to create provocative images of cultural merit are as rare as a Mona Lisa smile. In this age, where almost every moment is captured on film, pixel, or tape, it’s easy to lose sight of the important contrast…

Contenders?

Although no championship is up for grabs, when lightweight brawlers Michael “Cold Blood” Clark faces Levander Johnson tonight, the stakes are high indeed. The 135-pound boxers each have much to gain by a win. For Columbus, Ohio’s Clark (34-2-0), it would give him the top contender ranking for the International…

CULTURE

When you think about Puerto Rico’s contributions to American culture, do you think of fabulous musical West Side Story? Bon-bon shaker Ricky Martin? The phenomenon that is J-Lo? Discover the island of enchantment’s literature, film, art and pop culture when Celeste Fraser Delgado presents Frances Negron-Muntaner’s new book, Boricua Pop:…

Roaring Lions

One of the most influential black leaders of the 1920s, Marcus Garvey, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), cut a controversial and imposing figure with his “Back to Africa” ideology, in-your-face oratory, and penchant for eccentric military regalia. This weekend, fans of Bone…

Spatula Quest

The Rakkasan Chef. He walks the dusty trails of the earth, wandering from kitchen to kitchen in search of his long-lost half-brother, all the while eluding the assassins and bounty hunters who seek his secret recipe for crackling orange duck. Wherever he goes, the Rakkasan Chef saves the day by…

Current Stage Shows

Betty’s Summer Vacation: To playwright Christopher Durang, hell is psycho roommates screwing up your seaside holiday. That’s the freakish situation in Betty’s Summer Vacation, a comedy of menace that is receiving a first-rate staging from Miami’s Mad Cat Theatre Company. The tedious script, featuring rape, murder, and genital mutilation, is…

She Loves Bugs

According to artist Jack Bowman, performance art entails the following: It must be brief, unprecedented, and relevant. It involves an audience with taste (smell and sounds). It should occupy the environment with specific objects and actions for a specific amount of time, and it should (preferably) involve a small audience…

Current Art Shows

All You Can Eat: The works here tend to blind with their glittery, luxe surfaces, but featured artists Sue Irion, Gavin Perry, and Mette Tommerup aren’t really engaged in an activation of surfaces in a traditional manner. Sporting glossy, protective coatings that function as barriers or prophylactics preventing infection, the…

Thrice Shy

You may have already heard the stories about A Home at the End of the World. In what many viewers have deemed a big loss, Colin Farrell’s penis no longer appears in the film. The official line is that test audiences found it too distracting, though that seems unlikely, given…

Positive Living

Not too long ago testing positive for HIV was thought to be a death sentence. As millions of people died of AIDS worldwide, media hype led to pure, unadulterated fear among those who carry the human immunodeficiency virus. Not so today. Of course testing positive is still a scary proposition,…

Night&Day

THU 12 Forget the stock market or real estate or the bank, for that matter. Smart investors should be putting their money in art. But not in pricey works by established names. Think innovative pieces by eager unknowns. Buy cheap, watch the artists become famous, and smile all the way…

Sweet Fleet

On his latest album, Mules, Mistakes n’ Dirt, Fleet Starbuck is painted against a blue background as a mutant. He’s nearly mouthless, as if words no longer mattered. His eyes are swollen, as if he’s seen too much in life and doesn’t want to see no more. But even in…