How can one not be leery of a play staged in an attic? The ominous mahogany furniture, the curled yellowed pages of old newspapers and photo albums, and the inevitable sepia-tone photos hark back to a time only remarkable to the people who own the clutter. Most attic settings are...
When the lights finally came up in the Washington, D.C., movie theater, Leonard Nimoy sat still, silent, and a bit shaken. He could scarcely believe what he had seen--and what he had not seen. The movie was beautiful, but beneath the surface sheen, there was no heart, no soul. It...
Years ago, when I taught writing and composition to college students, I used a culinary term as an example of an oxymoron: jumbo shrimp. The kids seemed to grasp that example more quickly than any other. If I were teaching these days, I'd cite a different illustration: clean dive. A...
You know a metal band is in bad shape when it hasn't topped the charts in nigh on a decade and its designated pretty boy has been sporting baseball caps over his balding pate for longer than that. Such has been the case for the Scorpions, who've released nothing remotely...
Back in November 1980, internationally recognized fine-art and news photographer Allan Tannenbaum heard that John Lennon and Yoko Ono had reemerged after five years in seclusion. And no, it wasn't another one of those goofy "bed-in" things. The pair had actually completed a new album, Double Fantasy, and were embarking...
Made famous by reggae legend Bob Marley, buffalo soldiers were the African-American U.S. Army troops who patrolled the American West after the Civil War. As the song indicates, these black soldiers had a unique tie to the land they were protecting. Many had been born slaves or were sons of...
In a cavernous warehouse on SW Second Avenue in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the newest media farce began Monday. About 20 reporters and, of course, their accountants began perusing Broward County's uncounted presidential ballots. The count, which will eventually spread like a swarm of badly dressed locusts to every county in...
It hardly sounds like a compliment, calling someone a "croaky '70s pop singer," a "gravelly voiced flash-in-the-pan," or an "excavated folkie," but Melanie doesn't let it bother her. Since the 53-year-old has virtually dropped out of sight after hits like "Brand New Key," "Look What They've Done to My Song,...
For 17 years, Dorothy Swanson has waged the loneliest battle: keeping good shows on television, a medium that exists as if only to taunt her. You can hear in her voice the toll such a struggle has taken on her. Her voice breaks and softens when she speaks about the...
"Come on. Come on," Grant Hall hissed through clenched teeth, to no one in particular. On a warm Friday night in mid-May of last year, Hall stood outside FU*BAR, a now-defunct club on Cypress Creek Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, scanning the street for potential customers. His hangdog, bespectacled visage tracked...
When Gary Numan discovered synthesizers in the late '70s and placed them above guitars in his personal pantheon, he likely had very little idea that he was unleashing a wave of electronic influence that would continue to the end of the century. Numan's clever blending of punk's energy and bleak...
When American poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "The personal is political," she reminded us that political acts cannot be separated from the circumstances of individual lives. Too often drama that attempts to convey an ideological message does so by striving to be "universal" at the expense of the characters' discrete choices...
Harry Murphy's living room is more a mausoleum than a place to live. Nothing with a heartbeat sets foot there except for Murphy, and then only to water his plants. The room isn't for human beings; it's for toys. Dozens of dolls, stuffed animals, and action figures are stacked on...
Compiling the year-end best-of list is an old rock-crit trick to avoid doing real work. There are so many cookies yet to be baked, and there's maintenance needed on the nativity scene (we're replacing the miniature sod roof this year and doing a little touchup work on Joseph), so cranking...
Fair warning: Enough time has passed that it's OK to discuss the ending of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable. Those who have not yet seen the film and intend to might want to keep on moving. Or perhaps not: To reveal the ending, all 180 or so seconds of it,...
The Palm Beach ballot was not flawed: What is happening in Florida will go down in history as one of the most corrupt elections in the history of the United States ("Down For the Recount," November 16). I am a Republican and a native Texan, and I voted in Texas...
In Kitchen Confidential, the gastronomic tell-all that convinced many folks to stop eating out, chef-author Anthony Bourdain lists a few hard-and-fast rules: Never order fish in a restaurant on a Sunday or Monday, because it was probably delivered the previous Thursday. Don't chomp down on bacteria-friendly foodstuffs like hollandaise sauce...
A name change to hide its Miami origins. A spanking new, $10 million Pembroke Pines headquarters just off Interstate 75. And now the flop of a multimillion-dollar marketing deal that embarrasses reporters and generates a national debate on journalistic ethics. It must be The Herald's Broward-first strategy. Conflicts of interest...
About halfway through the megabudget mountain climbing adventure Vertical Limit, even the most rugged, thrill-hungry fans of disaster movies may find themselves going numb. Not from the howling weather on the icy face of K2, in the Himalayas, where the action supposedly takes place. Not from oxygen deprivation. Not even...
When Irv Abramson opened his Hollywood office in the mid '70s, he didn't set out to create a boxing shrine. It just happened, the result of stuffing 60 years' worth of paraphernalia into a two-room, paneled, windowless office. "Don't mind him, he fools everybody," Abramson tells a visitor who's startled...
City Link's Music Fest is supposed to be a blast. After all, this block party for local bands in Fort Lauderdale's bars-'n'-clubs district is about the best concert the city can count on each year. And even though crowds swell to claustrophobic levels, it is fun to cheer loud bands...
G. Herbert Walker may walk again: I must compliment the tenor of the argument in November 16's Undercurrents. You were right on when you pointed out W's inability to judge talent, his lack of presidential standing in the way that he has "delegated" the handling of this situation, and his...
