With populist politics dominating the national conversation these days, who wants to get caught occupying the mall and big-name retailers? Brand names can be expensive, and items created en masse are anything but thoughtful. Does your BFF really want another shirt from the Gap? To help you avoid looking like…

A little bit of fin-de-siècle Paris will come to Coral Springs on Thursday when the Coral Springs Museum of Art presents “Toulouse-Lautrec and His 19th Century Mentors.” A vibrant artistic era just before the turn of the 20th Century, fin-de-siècle Paris buzzed with counterculture, radical ideas, and the talented observers…

In 2009, the music-cum-art venue the Bubble was the first to inject life into the burgeoning downtown arts neighborhood that now houses Radio-Active Records and Laser Wolf. (Technically, the great migration of black-donning, tattoo-fawning, militant-eyewear-wearing types began with vanguards the Mudhouse and Far Out Records, but those closed more than…

Downtown Fort Lauderdale may not seem like the ideal backdrop for the Mexican holiday Dias de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. No desert fixtures like cacti or tumbleweeds. No cow skulls. (Sand at the beach doesn’t count.) It rains a whole helluva lot down here. And where are…

It may pain our vegetarian friends to learn that during the early 20th Century, a slaughterhouse stood where many of them gather to schmooze on Thursday nights. Sorry, leafy ones, to report: Animal blood soaked the floor of the structure that now houses nightlife hot spots Green Room and Revolution…

The Romani people are a fairly misunderstood culture, shrouded in myth, a semi-self-imposed isolationism, and secrecy. But you wouldn’t know it listening to the Gipsy Kings. There’s nothing secret about those salsa rhythms bubbling over with rumba and funk, making bones rattle with pulsating dance vibrations. If you don’t know…

You only notice typography when the arrangements are off. If you’re reading a sobering sentiment, it should be visually delivered with some authority and clarity, right? Not some balloony, bubbly style typeface that will detract from the message. Such whimsy just doesn’t feel right. Courier New, Helvetica, and Caslon all…

This generation’s ironic posturing seems obsessed with previous generations’ habits and trends. Sometimes the imitation isn’t even ironic; it’s more of an homage. Hipsterlicious schmoozers really relish the ’80s; easy, breezy, lazy types still identify with characters in Dazed and Confused; and Phish fans idolize the ’60s, their nostalgia conveniently…

If your significant other is taking you to Italy for Valentine’s Day this year, you can stop reading. For the rest of us, the closest we’ll get to a romantic getaway abroad is Rick Steves’ Europe on PBS. Or we can peel ourselves off the couch and treat our valentine…

There’s hardly a day that relies more on gender stereotypes than Valentine’s Day. Lingerie, flowers, and expensive dinner tabs, we’re told, make Cupid’s aim a sure thing. But thankfully, Broward’s foremost indie gallery, the Bubble, will offer an alternative to the endless dinner specials and pink balloons that ostensibly appeal…

The title role of The Killing of Sister George is an aging and sadist lesbian whose character on a British soap opera has met an untimely death. So where does she go from there? She shows up at Rising Action Theatre, of course, where once-groundbreaking gay themes find a new…

Caldwell Theatre’s adaptation of Clybourne Park is refreshing in its biting and direct exposition of the dumbed-down dialogue, latent racism, and recycled talking points that dominate discussions about race in America today. It rightfully points out the culpability in everyone, especially moneyed PC liberals, who, in all their obsession with…

People might give Wilton Manors all the credit as the center of gay cheer and merrymaking in South Florida, but years ago, Lake Worth was voted the most gay-friendly city of its size. And before Lake Worth’s Propaganda became a hotbed of indie rock and hipsterlicious schmoozing, it was one…