If you're a regular or even occasional visitor to the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood (and if you're not, you should be), you'll probably sense immediately that something is a bit off when you enter the lobby these days. That's because the glass panes on the old-fashioned doors leading...
South Beach's famous Lincoln Road promenade, with its clean sidewalks, chic designer boutiques, and smartly dressed tourists, seems a long way from the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Liberty City. But it is here in the offices of SoBe Entertainment, hidden away in a nondescript white office building a few doors down...
Local theater fans have often griped about the state of the stage here in South Florida, and readers of this column will recognize me as one of that disgruntled crew. Despite the wide array of local companies, the choice of shows tends to run a narrow gamut from lightweight musicals...
I won't say they fear me, because they probably don't. But politicians do seem to avoid me. And when I speak with them, they sometimes seem perturbed by my questions. Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion once ranted at me that New Times has an agenda to destroy the political careers...
Life on the road can be a lonely existence. The nameless faces, questionable hotel rooms, miles of nondescript terrain, and countless one-night stands can all lead a band to break down. So what if you could bring all the comforts of home along with you, including your soul mate? This...
2:18:03 p.m.: Much too late to be lying in bed. Punch the pillow. Worry about my, ugh, image. Do people like me? Do they respect me? Do they think it's silly that I use initials in my byline? 2:20 p.m.: Drink mango-banana-nectarine smoothie in the kitchen. Feeling raw, vulnerable. Deadline...
To declare Frank Lloyd Wright a great architect is to overstate the obvious -- sort of like saying Catherine Deneuve is a great beauty (and actress) or Mikhail Baryshnikov a great dancer or Shakespeare a great writer. How, then, do we approach one of the most famous, occasionally controversial, architects...
When creating poetry, scribes often dabble in a technique called "writing off the subject." This means simply that a poet starts a piece musing about one topic and ends it philosophizing about another. But it's not deliberately misguiding; it's a way of freeing the mind. For the truest barometer of...
Ron Lawrence has paid $25 to a dump truck driver for a load of dirt that never appeared. He once reluctantly loaned $20 to a man who entered a pool hall swearing he needed to fill his diabetic mother's prescription; the fellow disappeared. And once, after he noticed a guy...
More than three years after fusing bossa nova with funk, hip-hop, and acid jazz, Rio de Janeiro's jazz-pop sensation Bossacucanova has developed a niche for itself. The trio, composed of Alexandre Moreira, Marcelinho DaLua, and Márcio Menescal, is inspired by the classic Brazilian sound. In fact, Menescal's father is the...
After 30 years of LSD-friendly rock 'n' roll, the Grateful Dead requires no introduction. But perhaps the Dead needs one. After Jerry "Captain Trips" Garcia embarked on his final journey in 1995, the rest of the band got together and continued as the Other Ones. The resulting tour highlighted the...
For many observers, the antiglobalization effort is something to be snickered at while watching CNN. Few people understand what all the fuss is about. Another problem is the appearance of antiglobalization activists in the media and, to some extent, in real life. It's hard to take anybody seriously when they...
THU 9/02 When one dwells on the masterpieces of the great artists (and surely, don't we all ponder on this at least two or three times daily?), often the works that spring to mind are the paintings. Picassos, Chagalls, Manets, all beautifully wrought and now the property of the ages...
Dayo stands with his hands on his hips, his white cotton Ralph Lauren T-shirt tucked into the band of his dressy black cargo pants. His feet, clad in a pair of red Adidas three-stripers, tap impatiently. It's the second day of casting for the new Jamaican reggae video he's directing,...
No one sits at the reception desk in Suite 325 of the Mizner Office Complex in Boca Raton. The waiting area for Sengent, whose company logo of eight cubes creates a three-dimensional grid, has become something of a game room where stressed-out computer programmers can unwind and walk away for...
One by one, each of my dining companions illuminated the same point: Every entrée we ordered at the seven-month-old Maison Carlos, perched on the eastern end of Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, was plated with identical architecturally composed vegetable and starch. Clearly, they all thought this was something I...
When Nicolas Cage plays still and sullen -- a man possessed by self-loathing and melancholy in Adaptation, say, or the landlocked angel in City of Angels -- he comes off as drowsy. He disappears into those roles like a head plopped in a fluffy pillow, and it doesn't quite suit...
What a difference two years can make. It has been that long (that short, really) since the Sol Theatre of Fort Lauderdale made its debut with a lively but rather shallow production of Shakespeare's The Tempest, an opening gambit that was brave if overly ambitious. Since then, the Sol has...
One of the lamentable aspects of modern American life is the absence of political discourse in public life. "Never talk about politics or religion" goes the old saw, and Americans don't, as a rule, do so in social contexts, and they often go ballistic when artists get political. Apparently being...
It rained all night on May 27. Early the next morning, Henry Drummer and his wife, Bernice, stopped by the house of Bernice's mother, Juanita Lumpkin, in southeast Belle Glade. Juanita had recently suffered a stroke. After checking on her mom, Bernice left $10 in bus fare so her 32-year-old...
"Financially," Ann insists, "I'm about even. I'm not a greedy person. I'm smart. If I get a hit that gets me 15 or 20 dollars, I take it." "Sure," Nancy agrees. "Not like this woman I saw the other day with $72 in the machine. So I said, 'Aren't you...
Donna Kim waits behind the metal detector at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale at 9 a.m. on Thursday, October 16. A stout woman with long, shiny, black hair who stands about five feet, five inches, she wears a blue, loose-fitting shirt and black slacks. She has on no jewelry,...
