So, you are still pining for the Lilith Fair. Every time a Sarah McLachlan song comes on in the car, you get nostalgic for the endless tables and booths touting feminist and pseudofeminist causes. You miss the swaying to acoustic womanly warblings; the Jewel sightings in the audience; the warm,…
It’s sunny, humid, and tropical. There are sandy beaches, rolling waves, and hundreds of shoreside bars serving frosty drinks with little umbrellas. South Florida might not actually be Hawaii, but it’s so damned similar, who cares? For the past ten years, the Hukilau! has been claiming to be the East…
Even before an actor moves a muscle or speaks his first lines, the audience is given a wealth of information about him, the time period, and even the setting all from what he is wearing. We might not think much about that, but it’s true. Star Trek wouldn’t seem nearly…
E-readers make you cringe. You wax rhapsodic about the way books smell. Borders declaring bankruptcy was the first sign of the coming apocalypse. If you nodded to yourself while reading any of these statements, you might have a condition called bibliophilia. Fortunately, there’s no cure, but you can treat the…
Though the calendar might say otherwise, true South Floridians know that summer is here. For the most part, the snowbirds have flocked home again, and we’ve run through the last waves of spring breakers. The bars have seating again, beach parking is more available, and it’s safe to go back…
You’re curious. It’s OK. You’ve been to a few meets now, seen some action. You find yourself asking questions. “Where do these women come from? How did they get so intense? What do they do in their spare time?” The first two are anyone’s guess. As to the third, they…
Beautiful, barely clothed women with bodacious bodies are a dime a dozen in these parts. They’re so common, in fact, one might almost get bored of bared female flesh. Almost. Luckily, the “Pretty Things Peepshow” is on its way to add a little variety to the hot-bod parade that is…
In America, it’s never enough just to eat a burger. It has to be the biggest or the juiciest or the weirdest or the most fattening burger ever created. A system has been devised to assure that the ground, bovine flesh we are about to masticate has been rigorously scrutinized…
Maybe it’s the white dress. Or maybe it’s the veil, fluttering delicately around the, ahem, maiden’s face. Whatever it is, blushing brides have garnered a reputation for innocence and sweetness, but anyone who’s ever had to deal directly with one of these precious princesses can tell you otherwise. Mess with…
Florida fashion has to be cutting-edge and climate-friendly. Fashion-industry hopefuls vying to make their mark here have to pull double duty as well. Diana Kramer (dinkadesigns.com) might be a fashion designer, but for her upcoming show at Gallery 101 (3354 NE 33rd St., Fort Lauderdale), she also has to be…
A gift from the Swiss, dadaism never made much sense — please, do not defend it. Dadaism is the shortest section of the Norton Anthology of World Literature for a reason. One Gertrude Stein poem is quite enough. , Still, it’s not like dadaism didn’t have its place or purpose…
The wedding guests are packed shoulder to shoulder waiting for the bride to appear. “Harry looks so cute!” one woman gushes over the best man, the groom’s brother. She’s fiddling with the large brim of her straw hat, trying to keep it from getting jostled off her head in the…
The social-networking generation has arrived. There are Facebook pages for everything from multinational conglomerate megacorporations to the coffee shop on your corner. There are Twitter feeds for celebrities, nobodies, and escaped snakes. The social networking generation wants to know what is going on (now!); then there at the venue, they…
Ladies, you might not have realized it back when you were toddling around in cartoon-character underwear, but fairy tales were originally written to scare you. They were warnings and cautionary tales, and unfortunately, most of them still carried with them the fears and prejudices of an earlier age. Think about…
In school, history can be deadly boring: all those lists of dates, battles, inaugurations, names. Meaningless-looking timelines that stretch across the pages ticking off events that altered the very course of human history, which we’re condemned to repeat if we fail to remember it. Well, dual exhibits coming to the…
Harold Bloom is perhaps the world’s preeminent scholar on all things Shakespeare. A purist, Bloom considers Shakespeare to be the epicenter of Western literature, has been known to refer to the bard as God himself, and believes that any playwright, director, or theater company that presumes to change, update, modernize,…
In England, where it was created, it’s called Cluedo. Here in America, it’s just Clue. Don’t deny it’ you loved it all: the board game, the videogame, and even the movie. (Who doesn’t like to solve a good mystery? ) “It was Col. Mustard in the library with the rope!”…
Florida has history. Sure, Fort Lauderdale’s only 100 years old, but other places — places you didn’t realize existed in South Florida — appear to be just as old. Everyone knows about St. Augustine, the Flagler Museum, and Hemingway’s House. People used to know about the Stranahan House, but then…
Eating a cupcake may be a sin — depends on who your trainer at LA Fitness is. But tattooed burlesque girls dressed in shiny cupcake-icing-colored satin bustiers? That’s definitely got sin written all over it — much less fattening, though. Much like cupcakes, there’s something harmlessly saccharine and playfully naughty…
When filling out an online dating website questionnaire, do you list your sense of humor as your best quality? Do you have a masochistic need for possible public humiliation? Seriously, have you ever dreamed of being a comedian? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions, then…
“Write what you know” is probably the most-clichéd-yet-wisest, overused-yet-useful piece of advice a writer can receive. It’s obvious, sure, but being reminded to do so can help knock down an otherwise insurmountable wall of writer’s block. And this prosaic wisdom doesn’t stop at writers. All artists, from sculptors to painters,…
Sure, there were some subplots along the way, like truth, justice, the American way, blah, blah, blah, but let’s face it: Comic books were always about sex. No matter who was doing the fighting, attacking, defending, or avenging, the superheroes were always hot. So is a “Super Heroes vs. Super…
