When Claudia Gould turned six, her uncle gave her a birthday present: a stained-brown wooden music box made by Reuge Music of Switzerland that contained a tiny ballerina twirling to the soothing strains of Johann Strauss’s “The Emperor Waltz.” More than 30 years later Gould, the director of Artists Space…
In Miami, ground zero of bad taste, can such a thing as terminal tastelessness really be said to exist? Stay here long enough and you’re not fit to live anywhere else: A gaudy spree of no-holds-barred behavior eventually washes away all remaining standards of acceptable civic conduct. Over time other…
THIS WAS THE PREMIER OF JOHN FLOYD’S COLUMN No matter who heard the news, the responses from my friends were more or less the same: incredulous and typically smart-assed, and offered in a kind of weary sigh that lets you know in no uncertain terms that everyone believes that, once…
And so there we all are, the citizens of Planet Starfucker, departing from the Miami Beach Marina on a cold night, huddled together in a tourists-as-slaves galley. For the evening, the tour boat has become an impromptu Noah’s Ark: models, promoters, Eurofilth, and the press cruising to Fisher Island, the…
Henceforth, Letters Regarding Office Depot’s English-Only Policy Shall Be Published in Esperanto When I read Mr. Richard Escobar’s extremist letter regarding the English-only affair at Office Depot (“Remember: The Customer Is Always American,” December 21) in your January 4 issue, I had no other choice but to answer. I am…
Word Processing Since she joined forces last October with local promoter Andy Osofsky, Cheers owner Gaye Levine figures her Miami nightclub has hosted “just about every good band in town.” That partnership, however, is now kaput: Word of Mouth, Osofsky’s production company, has pulled out of its arrangement with Levine’s…
A Humane Sort of Death Squad After reading Kirk Semple’s “24 Hours a Stray” (January 4), I am convinced that the so-called Humane Society should change its name to the Death Squad. Apparently all they are good for is picking up stray or injured animals and killing them, although I’m…
Let’s stay in the visual arena, an important thing in life, and shuffle out on the rounds, careen a bit between the past and present. A hobo on the runaway train to a good time, ready for anything, everything, and nothing. Sunday night, and it’s Bar None, Sylvester Stallone –…
That’s not because we occasionally may have murderous thoughts about our loved one (or lack thereof). It’s because a martyred Roman priest, Saint Valentine, was beheaded on February 14 in the year 270. That’s where all of this started. But can romance historians give a simple explanation for why lopping…
LOVE AMERICAN-STYLE: AN EXTREMELY SELECTIVE HISTORY OF ROMANCE Love, lust, romance. We’re obsessed. We always have been. Since the Garden of Eden, we’ve been tortured by temptation and the regulation of sin, which history tells us has always been synonymous with sex. A selective trip through American history reveals that…
It is yet another golden afternoon at the Delano, the Miami Beach hotel built on the manipulation of celebrity and hype, and Neal Gabler — author of the masterful biography Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity and a true scholar of fame and pop culture — is taking…
Office Depot: Let the Paper-Clip Boycott Begin! I became aware of Office Depot’s English-only policy regarding its employees not only through New Times (“Remember: The Customer Is Always American,” December 7), but also through confirmation by some of that firm’s employees who also happen to be patients of mine. I…
The Captains of Crunch “We just want to deal with people we know because it makes everything easier,” explains 22-year-old Chris Lelugas, who, along with Mari Giordani, also age 22, runs the local indie record label Star Crunch. “We’ll put out anything as long as we like it. We don’t…
Atomic Dog Breath Regarding Michael Corcoran’s article “Alas Poor Rock, We Knew It Well” (December 21): Corcoran clearly has no clue what George Clinton was all about. Clinton’s band Funkadelic was a mindset that spoke volumes about the times for both blacks and whites. The Seventies and early Eighties were…
Another New Year’s Eve looms on the horizon, the great white whale of hope and horror in the nightlife game. At this stage of the journey, respectably debauched after weathering some 40,000 years of nocturnal frolics, I have — like so many other good degenerates — turned to self-improvement. After…
Band Better Have My Money Surely you didn’t think that Marilyn Manson could hit South Florida without getting involved in some kind of ruckus. The latest incident involving the group, whose front man of the same name has been arrested twice in Florida for various on-stage indecencies, happened on December…
Not Tough Enough to Rip Out the Throat of a Real Champ Enough accolades already for Marcus “Conan” Silveira (“State of Gracie,” December 14). While he certainly deserves the credit that reporter Todd Anthony gave him for his recent Extreme Fighting victories, let us put his accomplishments in proper perspective…
Jazz in the House of God The exploratory sounds of experimental jazz will grace the halls of the Coral Gables Congregational Church beginning early next year, as Tigertail Productions presents the four-show Composers in Performance series, an annual event that in the past has featured concerts by various jazz icons,…
What with Christmas coming up and all, I’ve been trying to exorcise hatefulness from my being — without much luck, unfortunately. Leave the house or pick up the phone, and someone eventually pisses you off. At an advanced stage of meanness, you even start to piss yourself off. Over time…
Tongue Lashing I applaud Office Depot for its “English first” policy with regard to South Florida customers (“Remember: The Customer Is Always American,” December 7). In Elise Ackerman’s article, a Spanish-speaking cashier was quoted as saying, “It’s because not all the employees speak Spanish, and they feel bad if they…
Miami Bites the Big Apple Cigar smoke, girls in tight Lycra dresses, and Nil Lara without shoes. Just another night in Miami– uh, make that New York City. Lara’s November 30 gig at downtown Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge — part of a recent East Coast tour — attracted a large crowd…
Inquiring Minds Sure, sure, anybody can do a fanzine. That’s why you see so many of the inky creations cluttering up the countertops of record stores and skateboard shops across the nation. Plow through a stack of them, though, and you’ll soon learn that doing a fanzine well isn’t so…
