Question: What’s that 5000-pound vegetarian doing frolicking in my swamp grass? Answer: Surviving. The vegetarian in question is not Kirstie Alley, it’s the greater one-horned rhinocerous: a solitary creature, often called a unicorn, which was pushed to near extinction but has been on the rebound as of late. Today the…
While instruments may vary from culture to culture, the human voice is music’s common denominator. It’s the only instrument that we carry within us, and even today the power of the live voice may still move further than the fastest DSL network service, especially when it comes to delivering messages…
THUR 10/23 Picking up its cues from the civil rights movement, the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, organized by a broad coalition of union-friendly groups and one cerebral celeb, recently launched a reform campaign targeting laws hurtful to new arrivals. Three weeks ago dozens of activist-laden buses departed from various American…
THUR 10/23 “Jeter — Cheater,” a woman shrieks as golden boy Derek bats in the final inning of Game 1. The Fish are winning, but there are two Yanks on base. The woman screams like a ditched girlfriend on a bender. “Jeter — Cheater,” her voice rises an octave, “Piece…
FRI 10/24 1970s B-movie queen Linda Blair got her start modeling as a baby. Who would have thought that some years later she’d be spitting up torrents of green puke and pulling a 360 with her cranium? Brooke Shields, eternal starlet, also began her career as the Ivory Snow baby…
SAT 10/25 For years you’ve lusted after that Eames lounge chair. All sinewy white fiberglass, the piece begs — no, screams — to be in your living room. But at $6000-plus, you’d have to sell your firstborn to afford it. Yet there’s a way around your dilemma without resorting to…
SAT 10/25 Beneath the layers of makeup and industrial-strength anti-aging remedies, Cher is a pickled old hag. Yet for some reason, middle-age gym queens jump and yip like chihuahuas whenever the old broad is brought up in conversation. Perhaps it’s a Pavlovian reaction reinforced by prime-time TV. Or maybe Cher-mania…
Thursday 10/23 Setting the table can be easy unless you’re one of the 40 local architects, fashion designers, florists, or interior decorators participating in this year’s Dining by Design. Then the pressure is on. The creative types will be dreaming up outrageous and elegant tablescapes at this exclusive event devoted…
The Actors’ Playhouse has a serious personality conflict. The Coral Gables company is known as a purveyor of cheerful, lightweight entertainment that’s rather like the upscale chain restaurants sprouting near its Miracle Mile location: The fare is uncomplicated and consistent, no challenges and no surprises. AP has had considerable success…
Miami is in the news again! We have become one of the top five cities for worst traffic congestion in the nation. A report published by the Texas Transportation Institute, which covers 75 urban areas, also reveals the price Americans pay for their congestion: $69.5 billion in wasted time and…
If you lie down with dogs, you’ve got to expect to get up with fleas. And when you go to a movie about a coked-out former porn star who was implicated in the grisly murders of four lowlife drug dealers — a case that remains “officially” unsolved to this day…
Watching Hollywood’s endless stream of John Grisham adaptations — The Firm, The Chamber, A Time to Kill, etc. — it would be easy to assume that Grisham is the worst sort of hack writer, with simplistic morals that usually overwhelm logic and come close to contravening the very law the…
Veteran stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait may have gigged at just about every Los Angeles comedy dive, but one joint you can bet he won’t be hanging around these days is the Twisted Balloon, the mythological respite for washed-up clowns in his 1992 film Shakes the Clown. “It would be hypocritical…
To folks with an Eastern European background and a knowledge of Yiddish, the word “klezmer” literally means “musician.” To folks who are clueless about Eastern Europe, Jewry, or Yiddish but claim a little knowledge of music, the word “klezmer” means the dynamic clarinet-led and violin-embellished style of song that itinerant…
NOW 24/7 Every playa knows pimpin’ ain’t easy. Late-night hours are a must and low energy a bust. No surprise then that a whole new lineup of nightlife energy elixirs has hit the marketplace, each hoping to replace Red Bull as the premier stay-awake party drink. Last month we saw…
There is no way of knowing at press time what the fate of the Marlins will be. We tried consulting Miss Cleo, but she’s been impossible to track since entering the FBI witness protection program. As you read this, scores of fly-by-night Marlins fans, newly christened by the glow of…
THUR 10/16 In 1945 the Chicago Cubs were jinxed with the Curse of the Billy Goat. A fan miffed because his goateed pet was refused entry into the ballpark told the press that there would never be another World Series played in Wrigley Field. This year it fell on our…
THUR 10/16 Speeding your bike Evel Knievel-style over ramps crudely constructed of plywood planks and concrete blocks. Suffering an assload of road rash after wiping out on the pavement. Jumping off the roof of your house into the swimming pool. Breaking your arms on the concrete patio. Sure, you’re a…
SAT 10/18 All right, little dumplings, your time to run away with the circus has arrived. Long enough have you fitfully struggled, enduring law school tort classes just to get your parents off your back. All you’ve ever wanted to do is prance around in a unitard as Lolo the…
Thursday 10/16 Duende, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is the ability to attract others through personal magnetism and charm. It’s an appropriately neat and tidy definition for the antiseptic modern American world. But the true concept of duende lives in the fiery ways of Gypsy culture. It’s not always…
Lipstick lesbian, lang-thang, dyke on a bike, professional tennis player. Young closeted lesbian, you don’t have to live pigeonholed in one of these categories. As painful as the coming-out process can be, once you’re out, chances are you’ll be more confident, proud of yourself, and reassured with the direction of…
About halfway through producer Jane Goldberg’s engaging 1983 video documentary By Word of Foot, Charles “Honi” Coles — a tall, slender master of “rhythm tap dancing” — demonstrates the language of this quintessential American art form for an appreciative group of students, sprawled behind him on a stage. “And then…
