Sergio Curbelo’s Spanish accent is barely discernible, both because it isn’t very thick in the first place and because he’s talking on a crackly cell phone while bumping along a freeway leading into Boston. “We’ll be there in about seven minutes,” Curbelo predicts through the static, noting that he and…
Thursday December 17 If you’re an opera lover, you must be into the costumes, pageantry, and glass-shattering voices as much as the stories themselves. After all, with the lyrics being sung in German or Italian, how do you really know what’s going on? At least the story behind Die Zauberflste…
Thursday December 10 A hang glider has to haul one of those big nylon sets of wings to a cliff. And a parasailor’s rig includes boat, parachute, and of course a large body of water. Making use of a flying inflatable boat sounds not nearly as complicated. The two-seat pontoon…
Visitors seem a little perplexed when they encounter the jaboticaba trees in Gene Joyner’s yard. As if its name weren’t confusing enough, the Brazilian tree produces its purple, grapelike fruit in a rather odd fashion. “It looks like someone has glued grapes up and down the trunk and branches,” explains…
Thursday 3 For a while there it seemed like another bad ’70s trend had been laid to rest. But fondue — the ridiculously tedious and fattening method of frying individual bites of food in scalding oil — has resurfaced on the wave of nostalgia for the decade. During fondue class…
When Amos ‘n’ Andy debuted on TV in 1951, the portrayal of the fast-talking, unscrupulous lawyer Algonquin J. Calhoun by veteran black actor Johnny Lee wasn’t offensive just to blacks. It was an affront to lawyers. After complaints from the NAACP, CBS took the sitcom off the air in 1953,…
If a cat and a bird can get along, can’t we all? People who once watched X the Owl and Henrietta Pussycat live peacefully in their thick-trunked tree on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood probably didn’t realize that the puppets were teaching tolerance. The fact is, most adults age 40 and younger…
Actor Dylan Walsh, best known for his role as a biologist in the 1995 film Congo, is huddled over a laptop computer at a beat-up card table surrounded by mismatched chairs. On location in Fort Lauderdale, he’s playing Adam Lazarus, a struggling writer who lives with his girlfriend, Jane (Laurel…
Until he saw the work of surrealist master Salvador Dali, Jim Warren thought art was something only the critics — those who know the rules about good and bad art — could appreciate. “Dali said, ‘Hell with it, forget the rules,'” says Warren. “When I found out you could do…
Thursday November 19 Not one to let a good opportunity pass, Buehler Planetarium director Dr. David Menke has come up with an astronomy presentation tied to Thanksgiving. It’s not that much of a stretch, when you consider that, without astronomical know-how, the Mayflower’s navigators might never have gotten the Pilgrims…
Thursday November 12 Spurned lovers these days might slash their ex’s tires or stalk him or her — at least until the restraining order comes through. But such petty revenge looks wimpy compared to what happens in the mythological story of Medea. Jason, the rightful heir to the throne of…
At age 27, Pete Minger found himself back in the classroom. It was 1970, and the talented trumpet player had landed his first gig with a large jazz ensemble — none other than the Count Basie Orchestra. “For me it was like going to school,” Minger recalls. “That’s where I…
Evolutionary baggage is a bitch. According to biologists we have the equivalent of three brains — the reptilian, the mammalian, and the higher cortex — each of which developed during a different stage of evolution. Our reptilian chunk of gray matter, being the oldest, controls our most basic instinct –…
Thursday November 5 The Broward County chapter of the Sierra Club gives new meaning to the concept of dining along the water. Forget about admiring the view from a patio or deck; the group’s Canoe Under the Full Moon outing is much more than a moonlight paddle — it’s also…
Thursday October 29 When it’s bill-paying time, boat owners tend to see their boats as holes in the water into which they throw all their money. With that in mind, anyone visiting the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show today through Monday can see some of the biggest holes in the…
Thursday October 22 Dr. Roberto Machado’s black-and-white images of prerevolutionary Cuba will be shocking to anyone who’s seen what the island looks like today. An overhead shot of a sparkling white Hotel Nacional and its manicured grounds overlooking Havana Bay might as well be South Beach. Another shot features a…
Thursday October 15 At the Anything Goes Open Mic — you guessed it — anything goes. Starting tonight Warehaus 57 owner Lauren Tellman will open her storefront-window stage to artists every Thursday. Writers, musicians, comedians, and actors will be invited to do their thing for crowds both in the coffee…
Thursday October 8 According to Clyde Butcher, you can’t appreciate the subtle beauty of nature while flying along the highway at 70 mph — the way most of us do our sightseeing. And if slower transportation — say, biking or hiking — makes for better viewing, Butcher has taken it…
Benedict J. Fernandez credits his neighbors with encouraging him to get involved with the civil rights movement of the ’60s. In 1963, while he was an engineer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, he shopped for a house in New Jersey and noticed the realtors were coming up with some pretty…
Thursday October 1 In 1949 he predicted the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1962 he predicted virtual reality. These days renowned science writer and futurist Ben Bova has some ideas about human technology. For instance, we’re going to start living for 200 years instead…
Thursday September 24 It’s a foreign concept to youth-obsessed Americans, but in much of the rest of the world, older folks are revered for their wizened world views. This is especially true in the Orient, where, hundreds of years ago, the Chinese applied their older-is-better belief to trees. By 1400…
During the day, Amy Watson rarely leaves her Las Olas Isles home. A self-employed public relations consultant, she spends half her time working for clients, the other half plugging away at her first novel. The canalside, ’40s-era brick house is decorated with abstract expressionist paintings, an eclectic mix of antiques…
