Thursday June 18 Walking outside? In South Florida? At this time of year? Whew! Just thinking about it is enough to make you sweat. But chill out. In the slide lecture “Traveling Through Florida’s Past,” South Florida author Roberta Sandler takes audiences on an air-conditioned tour of Florida’s historic spots…

Thursday June 11 In order to provide equal-opportunity enjoyment, rabbi/standup comedian Bob Alper flips through “flash cards for the Judaically challenged” whenever he starts off his G-rated show. The cards, bearing phrases like “Passover = No Bread,” let non-Jews in on the rabbi’s jokes, such as the one about the…

Florida Marlins fans didn’t just lose the lineup of their World Championship team as it was being ripped apart last winter. The massive fire sale that reduced the payroll also cost fans their chance to savor a World Series victory, according to Doris Kearns Goodwin. “You rethink it all winter…

While Cuban and American troops cleaned their guns and sharpened their bayonets for battle, William Glackens readied his pens and ink. Feverish from malaria, the illustrator huddled in a trench in Cuba while documenting the famous attack on San Juan Hill in 1898. Photography was still in its infancy back…

Thursday June 4 The title of Andrew Weil’s book 8 Weeks to Optimum Health sounds a tad too optimistic. He obviously has supreme confidence in the holistic health system and clean living prescribed within, but has he really seen the shape most Americans are in? Gotta wonder, because two months…

At 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, Tavern 213 bartender Bryan Ganz is pouring pints of beer for an off-duty barkeep and a few regulars. The stereo system pumps out rock music as an NBA basketball game flickers on twin TVs, mounted above either end of the long wooden bar. The…

Thursday May 28 Feeling guilty about their shallow, career-driven lives, the four protagonists in Richard Greenberg’s romantic comedy Eastern Standard invite a waitress and a bag lady to spend the summer with them in the Hamptons — a sweet, yet still shallow, gesture. And that’s the point. The four main…

Thursday May 21 The fish are living high on the hog at the Sailfish Marina and Resort. At the marina’s “Feed the Fish” Seawall Aquarium, visitors buy fish food for 50 cents a bag and toss the pellets into the drink along the docks and seawall. Even if they aren’t…

Hanging out as his nightclub alter ego, Petey Punkineaty, Petey Mongelli looks like a shorter version of Pete Burns, the wild-haired, cross-dressing lead singer from the ’80s group Dead or Alive. So when a woman approached him several months ago at the now-defunct Squeeze nightclub and asked if he’d pose…

Thursday May 14 Delray Beach’s main drag, Atlantic Avenue, will be off-limits to cars between 4:30 and 11 p.m. today so that crowds can cruise the strip and check out its shops, art galleries, and restaurants. During Art and Jazz on the Avenue, which the city hosts five times a…

Ever since he was a kid, he’s loved the kitchen. The cooking. The baking. Ah, the baking. His mother first let him work with an oven when he was eleven years old. “Before that I was the mixer, egg-cracker, and bowl-licker,” Scott Reeves, age 32, recalls. “Bowl-licking was my favorite…

Growing up in the beach town of Point Pleasant, New Jersey, Peter Giovenco was a pretty observant and resourceful kid. He watched in awe one day while a road crew tore up his neighborhood street during a repaving project. “Being a little kid, seeing a machine dig up half of…

Thursday May 7 Communication is key in the Broward County Parks and Recreation Tandem Bike Program for the Visually Impaired. “When two people lean in two different directions, the bike goes down,” explains Beth Bromley, a program instructor. Even riders with perfect vision may mix signals on a bicycle built…

How do you tell the difference between a Queen Anne and a Chippendale? Easy — just determine the gender. “Queen Anne was a female, and the chairs have curves, both the legs and the back,” antiques expert Sharon Kerwick explains. “[Thomas] Chippendale retained the same basic design, but chipped away…

Thursday April 30 SunFest ’98, which continues through Sunday in West Palm Beach, has been referred to as “Florida’s largest music, art, and waterfront festival.” It draws top music acts, including Paula Cole and Sister Hazel, who perform tonight. Its juried art show includes works by more than 150 national…

In the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey threatens to end it all by jumping into an icy river. But after an angel-guided glimpse of a world without him, Jimmy Stewart’s character realizes how much he has to live for. The moral here is that there’s nothing like a…

Thursday April 23 For Real Life Funnies, the weekly cartoon strip that ran for years in the Village Voice, cartoonist Stan Mack relied heavily on conversations he overheard in public. It’s doubtful, however, that he overheard much of what’s included in The Story of the Jews: A 4000 Year Adventure…

Sure, a film festival offers cutting-edge movies, but only for a week or two, and then the filmmakers — with their films in tow — pull out of town. Not so with two South Florida festivals opening this week. In each case organizers hope to leave a lasting impression. When…

Thursday April 16 When it comes to astronomy, “there’s a lot that can be done without a telescope,” according to J.C. Moritz, education coordinator at Buehler Planetarium (3501 SW Davie Rd., Davie). During tonight’s 7:30 p.m. presentation, Binocular Astronomy, she’ll talk about the types of things you can see from…

Thursday April 9 Just watching one of his films doesn’t do justice to the life and career of the late, great black actor and Renaissance man. So as part of the Paul Robeson Centennial Celebration, the biographical film The Tallest Tree in Our Forest will be shown. Born April 9,…

Since the release of the movie Titanic, teenage girls in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have turned the grave of one J. Dawson into a shrine. If you haven’t seen the film, Jack Dawson is the name of the character played by heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio. No wonder the girls are draping the…

Buck Anderson and his father, Whitey, are brewing their first batch of beer. But they’re not at home. The light Canadian Pilsner they’ve created is bubbling away in one of six shiny copper kettles lining the front window of Brewmasters South in Pembroke Pines. “We wanted something lighter for the…