There was a time when almost any hip person could discuss, in impressively minute detail, the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy and the dense tangle of conspiracy theory that has sprouted around it. As the decades roll on, and more people grow up who don’t remember where they were…
For those of you who want to execute something approaching the full Ulric Shannon, a short list of books you may find useful: Report of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. (a/k/a “The Warren Report”) 1964. Sorry, Jim Marrs, but it really isn’t kosher to skip…
From where he lay in the drifting, battered lifeboat, Julian Bravo could see the fat American tourists leaning over the ship’s railings eleven decks up, the lenses of their cameras and camcorders glinting in the Bahamian morning sun. And he could see the staff captain yelling urgently. But that was…
Julius Knipl “is sort of an idealized, disgusting world,” Ben Katchor says. “It’s a place where you can eat pastrami and not die of a heart attack.” Maybe to you that doesn’t sound like an effective sales pitch for his first book-length collection of Julius Knipl comics, Cheap Novelties: The…
It appeared that the person who shot Danny Donovan for stealing some mangoes had gotten away with near murder. More than a half-dozen men had chased Donovan, a 30-year-old handyman with a record of small-time crimes, and his pal Mike Lemus for miles on rural South Dade roads minutes before…
When Sheila Sowell set out to buy a dog, she didn’t strap a leash on the first mutt she laid eyes on. After she finally gave in to her husband’s demands that the couple acquire a canine companion, the 37-year-old nurse and Pembroke Pines resident scoured pet shops and kennels,…
For months officials at Biscayne National Park have been fretting over the proposed expansion of the South Dade Landfill, a squeezed-to-capacity dump that seeps untold gallons of toxic run-off into the park’s fragile underwater ecosystem. But chief ranger Wayne Landrum says the throwaway mentality that built Mount Trashmore has done…
In some distant, breezy January a century from now, the pundits will congregate along Ocean Drive to herald the 100th Art Deco Weekend. In the shadow of whatever remains of Miami Beach’s architectural splendor, they will celebrate the colorful history of that narrow spit of land, the legacy of South…
“When I come over from Cuba, people see my bags, sure, but they don’t see what I keep up here,” whispers Jose Galvez, tapping a pate dusted with brown hair and speckled by age. “What I keep here is the secret formula. It is in my brain the whole time…
It would be a ruse, though a convenient one, to claim that the mojitos served in various Miami restaurants vary in earth-shattering degrees. They do not. There are, after all, only so many ways you can mix rum, sugar, lime, yerbabuena, ice, and soda water. Then again, for the budding…
Erny Fannotto’s resume is, by his own account, a testament to small-fry fame. For 39 years Fannotto was one of New Jersey’s premier golf pros. During the Sixties, after moving to Miami, he served for several years on the city’s zoning board and did half a dozen hitches as a…
He had spent months on the campaign trail, maintaining a grueling schedule that required him to forgo most aspects of a normal life. Family, friends, sleep, even food were sacrificed in J.C. Alvarez’s efforts last year to be elected clerk of the Dade Circuit Court, a post with an annual…
A couple of Sundays ago, in a spacious second-floor apartment on Collins Avenue, while most people were sipping their coffee and wondering how best to enjoy the last day of the Thanksgiving weekend, a group of men were hard at work, plotting the future of Miami Beach. Specifically, three of…
When John O’Keefe steps into the boxing ring at Coconut Grove’s Virrick Gym Saturday at 8:00 p.m., he’ll have no opponent. Or rather, no tangible opponent. But for more than an hour, O’Keefe will bob and weave through a host of conceptual challengers that range from his own troubled past…
Sankarsana had just finished chanting outside the Metro-Dade Government Center last month and was talking to some passersby, ready to pack up for the day. The Hare Krishna devotee didn’t notice that someone else was also interested in him just then – though not for his chanting of the ancient…
They were weird and wicked times, no doubt about it. Years after his death, when strangers in suit coats kicked and grappled for the crumbs of his estate, they would say the old man lived his last days in a gross gush of profligacy. Ordering the servants about. Getting snockered…
Teresa Hoover has a quick temper, a harsh mouth, no husband, and four kids. She lives on a rough street in a bad section of Miami Beach. She’s used and abused drugs, though she says that’s behind her. And at age 29, she looks much older than her years would…
One difficulty in discussing Jack Thompson’s sensational faxnovel- in-progress is that it’s unavailable to the general public. Only Thompson’s designated readers have been given the opportunity to appreciate his masterwork. (Maddening, yes, but how ingenious!) Although it detracts somewhat from the effect of Thompson’s formal innovation, reprinted below are excerpts…
If Barbara North Burton could keep time in a bottle, the evening of March 11, 1989, would rank right up there with Dom Perignon. On that gorgeous Saturday night it seemed the whole Village of Miami Shores turned out to rally behind her dream – a plan to erect permanent…
When Peter Jaile announced he was gay two years ago, his father greeted the news with a week-long silence, then delivered a chilling reply. “Change your ways,” he calmly proposed to his only child, “and I’ll pretend this never came up.” Stunned, Jaile returned to Florida International University to finish…
So you’re tired of the leaky ceiling in your apartment, the rodents are beginning to have their way, and your landlord has not resurfaced since he came to pick up the rent. If you live in unincorporated Dade County or the City of Miami, and your apartment building contains more…
In Roy T. Devaney’s third-floor room at the Plaza Hotel, at the foot of the unmade bed, is a four-inch-thick book of poetry whose binding has been completely covered with aluminum foil. The sum total of Devaney’s published work appears in small print on a crowded page of the vanity-press…
