Those who choose writing as a career often face many sorrows — poverty, public indifference, and critical contempt, to name but three. But whatever woes must be endured in a literary life, the writer has one secret weapon: the chance to turn life experience into a story and, by so…
If you happen to peruse a list of concerts coming soon to South Florida, chances are you may have noticed an incredible preponderance of what are termed “jam bands.” It’s a term that’s swiftly becoming as much of a misnomer as “alternative rock,” a phrase that now describes, well, mainstream…
THU 1/1 So there’s this guy named Mordechai. He’s a young Orthodox Jew who also happens to be a superhero detective. He is recruited by the Jewish Justice League to save Hanukkah from the evil son of Santa Claus (Andy Dick), who wants to eradicate the holiday from calendars so…
As we enter the year 2004 — into a seemingly post-everything culture — one question seems more difficult than ever to answer: What constitutes original music these days? Nearly 40 years after the Beatles broke with the pop ranks in lieu of more ambitious projects, you’d think it’d be nearly…
SUN 1/4 Any venue that offers a “monkey fun zone” as part of its activities has got to grab your attention, right? At least, that’s what the folks over at Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens (4000 Morikami Park Rd., Delray Beach) are hoping. Oshogatsu is the celebration of the Japanese…
SAT 1/3 If this weren’t print, a simple toot of the trumpet would suffice to signal the start of the racing season. Because of the sound-impaired medium, we must instead verbalize all that’s in store for opening day Saturday at Gulfstream Park (901 S. Federal Hwy., Hallandale Beach). Gulfstream’s gates…
SUN 1/4 After months of leading bewildered yet satisfied customers through a series of confusing, corn-lined pathways, the Maize finally closes shop this Sunday. Built at Mecca Farms (7986 Lantana Rd., Lantana), the nine-acre maze comprises some 320,000 corn stalks, assuring that everyone from the littlest adventurer to the most…
MON 1/5 Ordinarily, it would go the other way around. See, the book is supposed to come out first, and then the author goes on the book tour, doing the smiling-and-waving-and-isn’t-this-grand? thing. But Tim Dorsey, author of Florida Roadkill, Triggerfish Twist, and other , manic novels of crime-filled Florida life,…
SAT 1/3 It isn’t easy, girls. You brave the city streets dressed in your Sunday best, your workout gear, or even a sandwich board, and sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter. The catcalls and whistles follow. What’s a girl to do? Deborah Harry heard one of those familiar calls –…
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of GableStage’s current production, Joe Orton’s silly, sexually provocative farce What the Butler Saw, is the cultural change that has occurred since Orton’s cheeky sex farce was a scandalous coup de theatre in its 1960s premiere. Orton, a gay writer with a penchant for provocation,…
It’s fitting that the young American artist Inka Essenhigh has a series of paintings called “People that do weird things to their bodies,” because the artist herself, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1969, does some extremely weird things to the bodies of the people in her pictures. To say…
As a reader, you can easily assume that all the critics at a particular publication are more or less of the same mind, but here at New Times, that isn’t the case. We’re just too damn independent-minded to take our colleagues’ views into consideration, which is why, when coming up…
THU 12/25 By now, all of your preparations had better be set. You should have strung up all of your billions of blinking lights. Boca Raton, particularly, is famous for its gargantuan FPL bills this time of year. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. All that remains…
Don’t be so bourgeois, people. Know that there’s afternoon tea, and then there’s High Tea. No, we’re not talking about the mushroom kind that you scored last summer in Amsterdam. Back in the day, before a fabulous little invention called “lunch,” British folks ate just two main meals — breakfast…
WED 12/31 Lovers of all things Latin should flock to Hollywood Beach on New Year’s Eve. Heat and passion will be dished out liberally when the Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico serves up two nights of contemporary and classical Latin dance on the Broadwalk overlooking the ocean. “Oceandance 2003,” which…
SAT 12/27 Any guess what’s the most popular New Year’s resolution? The smart money’s on health improvement. Anything remotely related to losing weight, quitting smoking, toning up, building muscle, eating healthier, yadda, yadda, yadda. With that said, you’ve got two opportunities to get your 2004 fresh starts under way early…
FRI 12/26 If you’ve ever been out on Alligator Alley, you have seen the Florida Everglades. To get a closer look, check out the Museum of Discovery and Science’s (401 SW Second St., Fort Lauderdale) interactive exhibit “Living in the Everglades.” Kiosks demonstrate the effects that water and human development…
SAT 12/27 Revolver. Pop Life. Names synonymous with weekend revelry that have been the be all and end all for 20-somethings in South Florida. But why are all the kids gravitating toward Miami like birds in winter? “Because there’s nothing going on in Fort Lauderdale,” argues local DJ/promoter Isaac Alexander…
FRI 12/26 Fast cars have always been part of rock ‘n’ roll. From Jan and Dean singing about “Dead Man’s Curve” to the Dictators professing their love of “hot cars and girls,” the rock ‘n’ roll bond between man and machine is as canonized as the black leather jacket. And…
Seems a little early for a remake of Minority Report, but when your movie’s all about seeing and forgetting the future, who’s gonna remember Paycheck anyway? Like Steven Spielberg’s film of long-ago 2002, in which Tom Cruise sees the future and goes on the run to change it, John Woo’s…
For all of its inspired side trips down Imagination Lane, Big Fish is ultimately about one thing: the relationship between a son about to become a father and a father about to become a ghost. The movie is being marketed as one more Tim Burton fantasia, with its luminescent teaser-trailer…
Uh oh. When I learn that a screenwriter has just written a play, I usually look for a place to hide. Many, no, most successful writers fall into the trap of hubris: If they thrive in one medium, they assume they will triumph in all. The result is often abysmal…
