Widow Speak

Stephanie Teele is an ethereally beautiful woman. She has ocean blue, almost translucent eyes; gentle features; and a kind, modest face etched deeply with sorrow. As she looks north from a Brickell Avenue skyscraper across the city where her husband — long Miami’s most prominent African-American politician — committed the…

Letters from the Issue of November 24, 2005

Hello, Lunkhead Don’t forget the bettor: Regarding Forrest Norman’s “No Horse Race” (November 17): The Daily Racing Form just announced it looks like the new facilities at Gulfstream Park will not be ready for the track’s grand opening the first week of January. This is a crushing blow to Gulfstream,…

The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughters

Alcohol dulls pain, but not persistent ennui. And so it was no surprise to find The Bitch idling in Gatsbyesque moodiness, champagne in hand, at the edge of the Antoni family mansion’s dock during this past Saturday’s closing party for the Miami Book Fair International. Fortunately the sulky saluki was…

Letters from the Issue of November 17, 2005

X Out That Alex Stuff It was soooo long ago: I am writing because I fail to see relevance in reporting the information Trevor Aaronson did in his article “Videogames: Just Say No” (November 10). The piece started out okay — quoting from the Senate bill put forward by Alex…

Glam Rocks

The Bitch is a big fan of the “Look Book” feature in New York magazine; the two-page full-color spreads capturing the personal style statements of sartorially outspoken Manhattanites adorn the walls of her doghouse. So imagine the clothes hound’s delight when the November 7 subject was none other than part-time…

Letters from the Issue of November 10, 2005

No Hobos Here Get it straight, free weekly: I read Francisco Alvarado’s “Charity and Checkpoint” (November 3). There were clearly serious problems at Camillus House under Dale Simpson’s tenure. The decisions to hire and initially defend him reflect poorly on the Little Brothers. When they saw the error of their…

Follicular Humanism

Pleated pants, flip-flops worn anyplace more than 25 feet from an ocean, backward-facing baseball caps inexplicably impervious to air turbulence in the backs of pickup trucks — all of these sartorial errors earn an effortless snarl and a derisive curled lip from the Anthropologie-doting canine. But, being a dog and…

Letters from the Issue of November 3, 2005

Stormy Static Generating controversy: In response to your lead story regarding Wilma, “Hurricane Voyeurism” (October 27), I offer the following: Human selfishness wasn’t washed away by the storm. When it comes to generator etiquette, I wish people would wake up and smell the coffee. After Wilma careened through town like…

It’ll End in Tears

When it had two publishers, Ego Miami magazine was the perfect Freudian synthesis. Fun-loving David Harris was the hedonistic id, and rational-minded David Bick was the cautious superego. The pocket-size tome, with a circulation in the free-distribution-pile-at-Browne’s low ten thousands, actually reflected a more Ego Miami Beach persona, containing as…

Free This Priest

First a rock smashed the front window. Then, after a metal shutter was slammed shut, a bottle exploded against it. Then another. And another. A thousand Haitians burst through a police barricade one steamy summer Saturday in 1990 and swarmed a storefront off Biscayne Boulevard. Inside, as muscular Cuban-American shopkeeper…

Blade

If The Bitch were to pitch a sitcom starring South Beach entrepreneurs Dwight Nelson and Robert Sibel, she would draw catcalls of clich. Though the duo brings to mind mellow-hip incarnations of Bill Cosby and Robert Culp in the Sixties intelligence-gathering spoof-thriller I Spy, their shtick has definite Odd Couple…

Letters from the Issue of , 2002

Liberace Speaks … or the artist strikes back: Please note that I was misquoted in the article “In Darkness There Is Light,” (October 20) by Carlos Suarez De Jesus. First there was this: “I’ll live as I wish.” Maybe Liberace said this? And then there was: “I’m bringing you the…

Letters from the Issue of October 20, 2005

DJs Are Dummies Free weekly is a sell-out: Looking at your music reviews and large advertisers in your music section led me to this question: When did DJs become musicians? I firmly believe that if you have talent as a performer, whether God-given or learned, you must earn the title…

Jericho Mansion

When Peter Loftin wants to hear a certain dime-slot-eyed soul singer’s music at his party, he doesn’t have an iTunes-crazed crony burn him a mix CD. Nope, Loftin, who debuted his private Casa Casuarina Club on Ocean Drive this past Saturday, presented the singer herself — barefoot Brit and Gap…

The Luxe Life

The Sanctuary hotel has a customized Bentley to whisk its guests around South Beach in style. The Ritz-Carlton offers a hunky poolside “tanning butler” to help schmeer sunscreen onto those hard-to-reach body parts. And, should musical inspiration strike in the wee hours, the $1000-a-night Setai features a Lenny Kravitz-designed recording…

Letters from the Issue of October 13, 2005

Brett, Brett, Brett You’re no car guy: Regarding Brett Sokol’s article, “Perception Is Reality” (October 6): First paragraph, “Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, nonchalantly striking a cooler-than-cool pose in all their pastel-jacketed, Lamborghini-driving glory.” It was a Ferrari, not a Lamborghini. Well done, though. Matthew Winer Miami Beach Try walking:…

Letters from the Issue of September 29, 2005

A Savage Speaks Oops, not that one: Regarding the story “Savage Station” by Bob Norman (September 22), thanks for letting me know about the great things going on. Although Savage is just that, he speaks the truth about many people. It’s disgusting how the media portrays Bush as the goat…

Prosti-dude Polygraph

One of the services offered by Martin Markowitz, according to his business card, is “fact or fiction analysis.” The Bitch has a lot of trouble distinguishing between the two, so she called him. Turns out the fiftyish Kendall resident is the inventor of a machine he calls the K-Bar Electronic…

Miami: Blink and You’ll Miss It

Miami, 1988: Led by Barbara Capitman, Art Deco preservationists lose their fight to save the Senator Hotel from the wrecking ball. Coconut Grove is in the throes of an identity crisis as city commissioners ban street vendors. Knight Ridder and Cox Newspapers, owners of the Miami Herald and the Miami…

Lotus-Eaters and Literati

For all of University of Miami president Donna Shalala’s talk about a new spirit of academic rigor, no one’s going to mistake her school’s palm-lined environs for Oxford anytime soon. Strolling across the Coral Gables campus last Friday, past fresh-faced coeds padding off to class in their flip-flops, shorts, and…

Letters from the Issue of September 22, 2005

New Low for New Times Goodbye, free weekly: Miami New Times has stooped to an unparalleled low with the story “Disintegration” by Forrest Norman (September 15). Whatever happened in Marcy Hine’s life is nobody’s business but hers and that of her family. The story served absolutely no purpose, except maybe…

Refuse, Rebuff, Reject, Repel, Repulse

Alert architect Robert Swedroe contacted The Bitch to register his rage over unpoliced offscourings on North Beach. What the City of Miami Beach calls a park at 76th Street and Atlantic Way east of Collins Avenue has Swedroe swearing “What a dump!” — and he’s not campily referencing Bette Davis…