Visitors to the Boca Raton Museum will find themselves pulled through its grand hall, past the photography exhibits, into “Graham Nickson: From Private Collections.” There’s a magnetic attraction to Nickson’s painting Tracks: Green Sky at the end of a corridor, with the lines of the cantaloupe-hued and purple-blue bruise tracks…
On Saturday night, my friend Kim suggested we venture to Fitzy’s Lounge in Delray Beach, a spot she frequents but that was new to me. She sold me on the place by saying it frequently had jazz bands, and tonight, a chill and funky vibe was just about right. See,…
A golden Buddha reverently holds a giant phallus before him like a censer of incense. It’s the central image of Los Angeles artist Jamie Adams’ triptych (each a 12-inch encaustic oil on linen) Big Sur. With a playful juxtaposition, Adams’ work not only holds the penis in high regard but…
The sun was still hanging above the mansions to the west as I cruised beach-rimmed South Ocean Drive on my way to Amici for its weekly Wednesday celebrity bartending fundraiser, this time for the SPCA Wildlife Care Center. I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the Palm…
You know those days when you just want to get away from it all? What better way to transport you to another world than a flying saucer? Or a magic carpet. Or the imagination. In “1001 Night Tales,” Turkish artist Sibel Kocabasi’s one-woman show at the Armory Art Center, the…
Not long after the SunFest stages had gone dark on a Saturday night, the 500 block of Clematis Street in West Palm Beach began rocking. My longtime favorite nightlife destinations, O’Shea’s Irish Pub and Respectable Street, were hosting a lineup of local bands to attract the post-SunFest crowds. As usual,…
I hit Howl at the Moon on a Saturday night with my buddy Derek, who helped me overcome my customary aversion to dueling piano bars. But there was a good reason my usual resistance was down: We’d spent a couple of hours scouring downtown Hollywood for decent nightlife and had…
Mother Nature must need some help expressing her feelings for Sky Father, so Dennis Oppenheim lends the goddess a helping hand in “Salutations to the Sky.” The series of aerial photographs are fictive proposals to redirect the flow of the Sacramento River so that it spells out such messages as…
With the potheads celebrating “Four-Twenty,” I used April 20 to hit a joint of a different sort: Absinthe, a new “brasserie and lounge” in Boca Center. The venue’s name, of course, refers to another mind-altering green substance — one that had its heyday in 19th-century France when artsy types addled…
Like a flashback, “Elliot Landy’s Woodstock Vision: The Spirit of a Generation” captures photographic images of a rock ‘n’ roll era before the profession was a commercially viable one, let alone a glamorous one. As a result, Landy’s work reflects virtually unlimited photographic access to many musical icons of the…
It was a full, swollen moon on the Friday night of Fetish Factory’s traveling monthly party, Alter Ego. And that was before the spanking, whipping, and flogging even began. I prepared myself for Club Boca’s freaky fete in goth-anime style with plenty of black eyeliner, two pert little pigtails, and…
“Everything I touch turns to $old,” boast five sweaters, knitted appropriately in cash green and Midas gold-hued fibers. With these as the sole display in the windows of its Dixie Highway storefront, Gavlak Studios might easily be mistaken for a real estate office. That notion would not be entirely dispelled…
In school, colored pencil is a medium for those who’ve matured beyond crayon but aren’t quite ready for paint. In the hands of experts, though, colored pencil can produce remarkable, diverse, and vivid results. With more than 1,600 members and the mission “to present the public with the highest aesthetic…
When I received my invitation to join Penthouse’s CEO and, more importantly, March and April’s Pets at Bova Ristorante, my prurient nature won out over my Boca-phobia, a disorder marked (in part) by an irrational fear of compulsory valet parking. After shoving reams of notes and articles under the seats…
You’ll find an artistic Zen and natural reverence in “Isabel Bigelow: Paintings & Monoprints and Luis Castro: Sculpture.” The wife-and-husband show demonstrates the balance necessary to make relationships work, whether personal or aesthetic, two-dimensional or three-. Like the Japanese shoji (translucent, decorative screens) that inspire her, Bigelow’s art is as…
On my way to Blue Martini in West Palm’s CityPlace to “chillax” with my girl Kim, I met a super fly guy. His cornrows were tight, his shades gradient silver, and his belt buckle a unique marquee: Its LED scrolled “Yay, Mamma” in other-worldly blue. “That’s one way to draw…
Maybe spring break should have lured me down closer to the beach, but I was at Kim’s Alley Bar in Fort Lauderdale’s Gateway Plaza for a reason. My friend Jana, a college professor, just loosed the chains of her captivity in a long-term relationship, and she wanted a dive bar…
It was “College Monday” at Delux, where Delray Beach gets crunk. I too wanted to get my drink on, but I was as broke as the Ten Commandments. Thankfully, the door girl at the Atlantic Avenue Art Deco club didn’t quibble about the free pass I’d cut-and-pasted from DJ Shalomar’s…
When Crush — the Thursday-night indie-rock dance party — announced the Broken Hearts Ball especially for singles, I couldn’t resist. I mean, isn’t the ideal time to meet someone new when he’s rebounding and vulnerable? Ignoring the event flier’s lure of a “fiddy dollar bar tab” to be awarded to…
From the outside, the Falcon House in Delray Beach is respectable, dignified even, with pink impatiens lining the walkway to the 1925 tan stucco building. Inside the Chicago-style bar, however, the walls, lights, and photographs glow like the red coals of hellfire. If décor was any indication, I was in…
When Night Rider met Coyote Ugly, two tight-bodied bartenders stood atop the bar, just like in the Hollywood movie. Except that one was bent over and the other was slamming her hips into the ass of her co-worker in a manner that can be described only as “banging.” (Gotta wonder…
If bars were high school kids, South Shores Tavern would be that unkempt and quiet redneck who went virtually ignored until he suddenly cleaned up, cultivated his Southern charm, and became the new “it” guy. Ever since the Lake Worth bar and grill redecorated and started booking original music, the…
