Safari Gear: It’s Optional

African countries rarely make the list for top ten tourist destinations or happiest places to live. But Africa does top one satisfying list, and that’s Cinema Paradiso’s most popular event for its free “Around the World in 80 Nights” series. It dedicates three days to “The African Experience.” Here are…

Big Show, Small Packages

Good things come in 12s: like the 12 days of Christmas, the 12 Olympian gods/goddesses of Greek mythology, doughnuts, and ArtServe’s “Twelve by Twelve — The Collective” exhibit. Fitting into 12-by-12-inch frames, all artwork is made by local artists and will be priced at $200 and be available for purchase…

Saint Patrick Days: Day One

Saint Patrick’s Day is one of those blessed holidays, like birthdays. If it falls on a workday, you get to celebrate it not once but twice. Well, it’s on a Wednesday this year, so save the nightlife drinking debauchery for then. Make Saturday for the festivals, for the family, for…

Saint Patrick Days: Day One

Saint Patrick’s Day is one of those blessed holidays, like birthdays. If it falls on a workday, you get to celebrate it not once but twice. Well, it’s on a Wednesday this year, so save the nightlife drinking debauchery for then. Make Saturday for the festivals, for the family, for…

From Us, With Love

Booze can’t solve all of life’s problems, but at least the happy hour proceeds will go to Haitian relief efforts at the H.E.L.P. Event from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at America’s Backyard (200 E. Broward Blvd., Fort Lauderdale). God bless the fundraisers where drinking is how to support the…

To Be a Force of Nature

What’s a natural force? Well, the news release for the new exhibit at Coral Springs Museum of Art will tell you: “the light of water on the sunset, the refraction of color through glass that forms waves, words engraved into stone.” But some artists take using natural forces a step…

Paradiso Goes French

Indie art-house theater Cinema Paradiso is, like, South Florida’s very own Epcot. On nights that showcase “Around the World in 80 Nights,” Cinema Paradiso (503 SE Sixth St., Fort Lauderdale) turns into a full-blown country — sometimes continent! — by showing that place’s cinema, art, and food. It’s already featured…

Adventures in Wonderland

It’s Tea Party night at Underground Coffeehaus (2743 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale). The Underground tea partier knows this party isn’t for the fight of taxes — that no buckets of tea will be spilled in the Atlantic this evening. But that this party is for no other than…

Kiddie Gross-Outs

To be blunt, your kids know little about their bodies. Upon their birth, you became obligated to inform them on such things as sex, mucus, and pimples. So, we won’t be able to get you out of the sex talk, but we can send you to a place to help…

He Really Is a Saint!

The statistics behind sexual abuse are startling. One out of every four girls and one out of every six boys are sexually abused before they turn 18. And if anything can be more haunting than that, it’s that only 10 percent of this abuse is from strangers. Thursday starting at…

Magical Mourning

Joan Didion’s pretty big in the literary world. Born in 1934, she has had a successful, lengthy career penning novels (Play It as It Lays), journalistic essays (Slouching Towards Bethlehem), and movie scripts (Up Close & Personal). The movie scripts, though, were a writing project she and her husband, John…

Bubble Wrap

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” A French guy named Antoine de Saint-Exupery said this, and we think the same concept applies to indie space the Bubble. The brainchild of Garo Gallo…

“Thou Shalt Steal.”

“Watch your children, and watch your chickens” when it comes to Gypsies — so warns a man on the trailer for the film Searching for the 4th Nail. When it comes down to it, people’s knowledge about Gypsies doesn’t stray much beyond fictional characters. American Gypsy filmmaker George Eli hopes…

Saint Valentine Skipped Us This Year

For a holiday such as Valentine’s Day, don’t let marketing agencies one-up you. By this, we mean, if you stop at buying chocolate-covered strawberries, a scented candle, the handful of flowers, and/or oysters, they win. That’s where their plan ends and yours should just be beginning. And maybe, just maybe,…

You’re the Key!

Oh, the wisecracks we could make about a singles’ lock and key party, where women get locks, guys get keys, and you mingle from stranger to stranger to try to find your perfect match. We could say that one man has the key to your heart this Saturday at Passion…

Flair to the V-Day Affair

Get out the required black attire; there’s an Anti-Valentine’s Party to attend at 1310 Gallery in the Sailboat Bend Artist Lofts. “The commercialism and focus of the holiday,” says artist/host Lisa Rockford, “creates a very stereotypical view of women as gold-digging — i.e., that all we care about is the…

Our Love to Admire Garlic

The 11th annual Delray Beach Garlic Fest is designed for a certain breed. Because, in order to venture out to a festival so dominantly garlic-related, the traveler has to be crazy about garlic. Even though it knows it’ll never have the same appeal as a beerfest, the garlic fest also…

Charlie and the Fetish Factory

It’s another Valentine’s Day Eve, and even though you’re now years into adulthood, you’re still a newbie in the liaison department. You think not? Here’s a checklist: Have you ever approached a fem dom? Rubbed elbows with swing-style players? And fetishes — could you name 15? There’s a whole spectrum…

The Golden Girls

Give everything Barbie the attention, the honor, and the intensity it deserves at “Barbie: The Golden Exhibit” at the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History at the Boynton Beach Mall (801 N. Congress Ave., Boynton Beach). Why now? Well, because Barbie’s 50. And she’ll turn 51 in March. And it’s…

Diva of Divas

How should you celebrate Anti-Pigskin Day? There’s no better way than at Lips — “The Ultimate in Drag Dining.” The lovely divas will celebrate tonight at 7 during “Retro Rewind.” Hosted by the one-and-only Diva herself, this drag show will be complete with a three-course dinner (salad, choice of entrée,…

Color Me Gurty

The Bubble is one of our best independent art/music venues in Fort Lauderdale. It is also an eclectic’s wet dream. So when we heard that an artist’s first solo show was in the works, our ears perked up. Attend a solo show at the Bubble? — don’t mind if we…

Here’s the Golden Ticket!

We had two options: Hide five Golden Tickets to the Chocolate Factory in this week’s issue or invite every single one of you to this event. Logically, we chose the one that won’t get our racks ransacked. So behold, Saturday at 10 a.m., consider this your gray stub to enter…