You can find anything on the Internet these days. If you’re looking to throw an Italian-American wedding, Ehow.com can guide the process. It has nine pointers for wedding planners: among them, that you shower the couple with sugar-coated almonds (instead of rice), serve a luscious Italian meal, and shatter a…

There’s no denying it: Most Westerners have, at some point, snuck a glance at David’s twig-and-berries. The statue by Michelangelo is famous for many reasons, but mostly David’s uncircumcised phallus and delicate balls are focal points. The Catholic Church understood the allure of naked statues — that’s why, during the…

Have you ever been at a restaurant, talking with a friend, when you sense suddenly that the table next to you is quieting down and obliquely tuning in? As you realize this, you probably pipe up your voice, expand your gestures and laughs, and begin acting. So it’s obvious: audiences,…

The 1920s were a great party had by all. Women sheared their hair into boyish bobs, voted, smoked, drank, got around, and called themselves flappers. The stock market climbed toward infinity. Radios soaked Americans in ether, families hit the road in cars, and refrigerators kept their meals cold while the…

Since about a half century ago, Japan has exported a range of delights to the world, among them: sushi, haikus, bonsai trees, Toyotas, gadgetry, servant robots, anime, Hello Kitty, Power Rangers, Zen-ness. But one thing that’s never fully caught on (and I’m not talking about militarism, whale meat, or Sumo…

Imagining an audience naked is touted as a cure for stage fright. In Naked Boys Singing, however, the scenario is reversed: the actors are naked and the audience watches, perhaps in fright. A movie based on a Broadway play, Naked Boys Singing starts with 10 denuded dudes on-stage, belting out…

Musicians and music buffs certainly remember Jaco Pastorius, the bassist who single-handedly changed the instrument forever. But if you haven’t heard of him, he warrants some time on Youtube. His 1976 solo performance of “A Portrait of Tracy” – available on the site – is patently a work of genius…

It’s not easy to make sense of the artwork of Sandro Chia. For instance, in 1979, he painted this idyllic, inscrutable scene: a goat grazes in a garden while a figure in black leather sits behind the animal with an arm stuck way into its anus. Another from around the…

Karate, like Jackie Chan, is an import. After WWII, the U.S. military jacked it from the island of Okinawa and opened karate schools stateside, and the high-kickin’ martial art quickly swept into civilian life. Today, it’s as American as minivans and the NRA. While the cultural phenomenon seems perplexing, it…

Nevermind tool making – if any trait distinguishes humans and animals, it’s our ability to doodle. Even our Presidents dabbled in it: Reagan sketched cowboys on memos and Nixon enigmatically called himself a “square doodler.” But no one in the history of doodling matches Leonardo Da Vinci. This autumn, a…

Nevermind tool making – if any trait distinguishes humans and animals, it’s our ability to doodle. Even our Presidents dabbled in it: Reagan sketched cowboys on memos and Nixon enigmatically called himself a “square doodler.” But no one in the history of doodling matches Leonardo Da Vinci. This autumn, a…

Space junk, iPhones, injuries on Dancing With the Stars. A trillion dollars expunged in Iraq while Bush vetoes healthcare for children. Credit markets decay, oil nears $90. How long before a shoe drops? If global warming is just hot air, then nothing could stop us on our trajectory — except…

Cast your mind back to a moment in your childhood — you were hiding behind your living room couch watching a Disney movie; it was scaring you shitless. Disney movies didn’t usually have that effect, but this was Fantasia, with its satanic denouement: a giant demon descending from a mountaintop…

Blackwater, the paramilitary corporation, has been in the news lately, since its mercenaries recently shot up that Baghdad street. By chance, a film of the same name shows Monday at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and it too involves deranged white males terrorizing innocents. Blackwater, by directors R. Douglas…

Dracula has come a long way since his stint in the mid-1400s as Prince of Wallachia. Now, centuries later, he’s the inspiration behind Sesame Street’s Count von Count, a Halloween celebrity, and an eternal myth given wings through Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Tonight, the story sinks its teeth into the audience…

The Bible is as much a guide to sex as the Kama Sutra is a guide to satellite repair. But fundamentalist Christians have extracted two statements from its pages and used them to rule out tolerance of homosexuality – other than the “love the sinner” sort. For The Bible Tells…

It’s a common question on dating sites: “If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?” Common answer: “Einstein.” But what if Einstein was asked the question? Who could keep the progenitor of space-time theory engaged past the appetizer? If you moved the meeting to…

Shakespeare’s Othello is, among other things, the tale of a politician who doesn’t like the idea of certain people marrying each other, and the terrible things that happen when his advice goes unheeded. Which means at least a couple of disgraced modern-day Senators could and likely will take grim solace…

Our “post-modern” world is taking on the ambience of a cattle farm: ads are on the air now for Mirapex, a pill to treat restless-leg syndrome; “possible side-effects” include a gambling or sex addiction. Meanwhile, the antibiotics fed to today’s actual cows keep them calm. When’s the last time you’ve…