The ID tags for the works on display in “Ian Murray,” a one-man show now at Art Frenzie in Wilton Manors, are vague and a little misleading. “Oil pastel, printing ink” is a typical combination. Most of the pieces are on paper, although a few are identified simply as “acrylic”…
What goes through someone’s mind when he or she is dangling by his or her ankles, trying to break free from a padlocked straitjacket or attempting to break out of chains while submerged in a tank of water? Master escape artist Harry Houdini took the answer with him to the…
In his epic poem “Song of Myself,” poet Walt Whitman refers to “the hugging and loving bed-fellow [who] sleeps at my side through the night,/And withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread….” Whitman (1819-1892) is now celebrated as one of the greatest American poets, but in his…
The evening of March 14, 1885, was an auspicious one in the annals of musical theater. Less than four years had passed since the opening of London’s Savoy Theatre, built specifically for the productions of librettist William Schwenk Gilbert and composer Arthur Seymour Sullivan. The partners’ first six works had…
The subject matter is surely the stuff of which can’t-miss movies are made: Jacqueline Susann, author of the bestseller Valley of the Dolls and other jerk-off (pardon, “maddeningly sexy,” to quote Helen Gurley Brown) classic lit. There was nothing at all pedestrian about the woman who in her day was…
[Exit, pursued by a bear] — The Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare Being a theater critic is one of the best jobs ever invented, so it is with mixed emotions that I’m leaving behind my duties at New Times to pursue new adventures in Washington, D.C. With apologies to dance fans,…
The upcoming five-day extravaganza FOTOfusion 2000 at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre in Delray Beach bills itself as “the international festival of photography and imaging where creativity and technology fuse.” A better slogan might be: “Everything you always wanted to know about photography (but were afraid to ask).” From the…
Hoke Moseley, the casually noir hero of late Miami writer Charles Willeford’s crime novels, might feel out of place at the festivities in his creator’s honor at the 11th annual Fort Lauderdale Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend. After all, the shady cop just wouldn’t fit in among the rare-book collectors…
Boo hoo! Frank McCourt had a miserable childhood! Honestly, who can say his or her childhood wasn’t impoverished in some way… or in many ways? That Mr. McCourt survived and eventually published his inescapable memoir is nice, of course, and the book is indeed a poignant and crafty piece of…
In the last 30 years, Woody Allen has written and directed something like 28 movies — “something like” reflects the confusion of how to count his contribution to New York Stories — a remarkable productivity record for a major filmmaker and one that’s even more impressive when you consider how…
Change is the metaphor that pervades Eleanor: Her Secret Journey, in which Jean Stapleton gives an affecting and affectionate portrait of First Lady (and Hillary Clinton precursor) Eleanor Roosevelt. Indeed the young society wife and mother transformed herself into one of the most influential people of the 20th Century. Despite…
If you require, as I do, a very good reason to venture into the volatile cauldron of Miami-Dade County, then let one of those reasons be the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in North Miami, which regularly showcases some of the most exciting art in South Florida. Last summer, for…
Watching the lumbering mammals that congregate at the Manatee Observation Area at the Florida Power & Light Company’s Riviera Plant, it’s easy to see why they fall victim to speeding boats. Manatees are able to swim at a speed of 20 miles per hour in short bursts but usually travel…
As a marketing director, nightclub maven Teddi Alyce Segal helped create the chic, upscale atmosphere at South Beach hot spots like the Strand and Liquid. The kind of places where beautiful people congregate to flaunt their VIP status and everyone else hopes they can pass muster with the doormen and…
Some people really are crazy, but then, crazy is a relative term. Does it apply to someone who feels he might spin off into outer space and never be able to get back down to Earth? Or is it only crazy when you have to cling to the nearest table…
The 1995 film Friday is best remembered as the film that brought actor Chris Tucker to audiences’ attention. A modest hit, it would seem an odd choice for a sequel, but Ice Cube — who cowrote the original with DJ Pooh, as well as produced and starred — is back…
The most memorable detail in Tom Tom on a Rooftop, Daniel Keough’s new play now receiving its East Coast premiere in Hollywood, is a piece of the set. The feeble comedy takes place entirely on the tarpaper roof of a modest apartment building, where, amid lawn chairs and milk crates,…
You’d have to go a long way to find a local business war with as much color and pizzazz as the one being waged between South Florida’s two gay superstores, GayMart and CatalogX. None of the cool corporate positioning of Target versus Kmart here. Think more along the lines of…
Our American customs of getting drunk, getting loud, and cheering as the ball drops in Times Square seem downright heathen compared to the cultural invigoration of New Year’s revelry in Japan. The Japanese consider the Oshogatsu New Year’s celebration their most important yearly observance. It’s a time for new beginnings,…
Of the readers who bought four million copies, in no fewer than 30 languages, of David Guterson’s 1995 bestseller Snow Falling on Cedars, many have likely been looking forward to the movie version. Others have probably been dreading it. For better or worse, this multifarious story about nativist bigotry, forbidden…
When Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, Boogie Nights, was released in 1997, critics and film-industry types fell over themselves to designate Anderson the next big thing, an auteur in the footsteps of Scorsese and Coppola. His film turned Mark Wahlberg from a has-been underwear model and rapper into a leading…
Of all the versions of Cuba that exist, few are as fragmented or elusive as those that live in the memory of exiles. Anyone who left the island before his or her own memories really began or grew up in the United States with exile parents knows stories of how…
