A gay sheep, a Canadian mime, a Holocaust denier, two Holocaust survivors, and a 19th-century diva are gracing the stage at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts (201 SW 5th Ave., Fort Lauderdale) tonight. They’re characters in the Summer Shorts Festival, a bonanza of 19 short plays put on…
Flight of the Red Balloon is a French movie by a Chinese filmmaker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Nena’s “99 Red Balloons.” Rather, it’s a remake of the more simply titled Red Balloon, a 1956 flick about a boy who is trailed around Paris by, yes, a red…
The personal website of Baby Jane Dexter compares her new CD, You’re Following Me, with Judy Garland’s 1961 live album from Carnegie Hall. Given that Garland is one of the 20th century’s most recognized voices, and Dexter doesn’t yet have a Wikipedia entry to her name, the comparison is more…
Guerra de la Paz is a two-man artistic team in Miami’s Design District. Their specialty is fashioning dolls out of masses of old, colorful clothing and posing them in eerie family portraits. Their work is exhibiting alongside that of five other abstract artists in “Child’s Play,” a gallery at the…
The Sorrows of Young Werther has come a long way since Goethe published it in the late 18th century. It was the novel that turned Goethe into an international celebrity. Napoleon carried a copy with him on military campaigns; it was stolen, ominously, just as his army reached the outskirts…
Graham Greene described the Blue Plate Special as a symbol of American democracy. It was popular in the ’20s through the ’50s. It was the kind of thing that a person in an Edward Hopper painting might order: The dish was dirt-cheap and usually consisted of veggies and meat. Today,…
Question: What do a breakdancing gecko, a football coach, and a band of fortune tellers have in common? Answer: Today, they’ll all gather at Gigi’s Tavern in Mizner Park (346 Plaza Real, Boca Raton) for a “Networking Social.” The South Florida Public Relations Network is throwing the party in honor…
Sinbad, fresh from a virtual death on Wikipedia, performs today at the Parker Playhouse (707 NE 8th St., Fort Lauderdale). Perhaps you heard: The actor/comedian was in the news again recently. For weeks, the media debated whether Hillary Clinton had actually come under sniper fire on a visit to Bosnia,…
This weekend, thousands of American men and women will wake up next to someone they don’t recognize, with no memory of how they got there. They’ll pull on their clothes, exchange dismal pleasantries, and dart back to their respective lives with hangovers and new regrets. A Body of Water, opening…
Dick Cheney has a mania for secrecy. The Vice-President keeps a man-sized vault in his office. He has a personalized stamp for marking memos classified. He refuses to submit his papers to the National Archives. His openly stated goal is to restore executive power to the halcyon days before Watergate,…
A bizarre artist is exhibiting her works at an equally strange art gallery today. Pachy Sarmiento, a local graphic designer, approximately combines the aesthetics of Pop Art, Hello Kitty, and pillow making. Her creations are stuffed animals with cartoon faces and Cheezit-shaped torsos. They repose neatly on couches and often…
We have the Chinese to thank for paper and fireworks, but the Orient should be roundly condemned for its 2000-year-old invention, the Dragon Boat: An overlong canoe powered by two-dozen paddlers egged on by a drummer. Why a person would participate in this loud, masochistically strenuous watersport is beyond imagining…
On Easter Sunday, President Bush presided over the Egg Roll on the White House lawn, which “commemorates our Savior’s triumph over sin” (his words). At his side was a mascot bunny in a disturbing pink-and-purple apron, one of several Official White House Easter Bunnies. An A.P. photograph immortalized the pair…
On Easter Sunday, President Bush presided over the Egg Roll on the White House lawn, which “commemorates our Savior’s triumph over sin” (his words). At his side was a mascot bunny in a disturbing pink-and-purple apron, one of several Official White House Easter Bunnies. An A.P. photograph immortalized the pair…
Just when you thought you’d seen the last American plagiarism of an Asian horror movie, another is airlifted across the Pacific. Shutter is the latest of them: the story of a Yankee couple honeymooning in Japan. Blobs are appearing in the pictures they take at tourist sites. It comes to…
A pulpy, pornographic film from the ´90s is surfacing at the Gateway Theatre (1820 East Sunrise Boulevard) today. The Living End, directed by Gregg Araki, is about a pair of gay outlaws. The one is a movie critic with HIV, waiting for AIDS to set in. The other is a…
Improv, of the kind you see on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, was born in Italy in the 1500s. In those days, it was called “commedia dell’arte.” A troupe of ten people – seven men and three women – would get together on a street and play out a scene…
There are two Gay Mafias. The one is a criminal syndicate that lords over Hollywood and, through that, the nation. Its membership includes Calvin Klein, Tom Cruise, Anderson Cooper, and Tinky-Winky of the Teletubbies. Dick Cheney, always a man for conspiracies, holds an honorary chair on the Board of Elders…
Courtesans, as opposed to prostitutes of today, commanded respect in European society centuries ago. They sold themselves for sex, but they also mastered upper-class decorum and amassed fortunes. Many doubled as artists or actresses. Kings – and even queens – called upon their rarefied services. Were Laura Bush a courtesan,…
Muazzez Ersoy is a diva in Turkey. And she looks a lot like Celine Dion. But Dion sounds like a crooner next to Ersoy, whose warble is mystic in that distinctly Middle-Eastern way. This Sunday she’ll perform at the Florida Turkish Festival. The festival, now in its second year, takes…
In 1981, Representative John Wilson Jenrette, Jr. (D-SC) fucked his wife behind a pillar on the steps of the Capitol Building. Later in his career, Jenrette was indicted for taking bribes. Today, he runs a firm for public relations – which is appropriate enough, seeing as how public relations had…
A 30-piece collection of Tiffany lamps, glassware, candlesticks, and desk sets go on display at the Boca Museum (501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton) today. Admittedly, “Tiffany Studios: The Holtzmann Collection” sounds boring, but the history behind this collection excites. The Tiffany lamp is the centerpiece of the exhibit; it’s also…
