It’s a Hit!

SAT 5/24 Spring is here, and in South Florida, that can only mean one thing: Baseball time is upon us. As the popular and historically enlightening Diamonds in the Rough: Japanese Americans in Baseball exhibit comes to a close, Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens (4000 Morikami Park Rd., Delray Beach)…

Seeing Red

SAT 5/24 “The Human Comedy” is the aptly chosen title of the upcoming Red Grooms exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art (1451 S. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach). In case you were absent that day, Red Grooms is one of the most celebrated portrait artists of our time, and…

Attack of the Umlauts

THU 5/22 So you’ve already become bored with the whole “garage rock revival” coming out of Sweden. Tired of too much talking and not enough rocking? It’s time to get back to what Sweden’s really known for. Metal! From the ashes of early ’90s underground icons At the Gates comes…

Neo Sparrin’

Talk about tough acts to follow: The original, 1999 Matrix, a critical and commercial smash, came almost as a revelation out of nowhere — if the combination of Joel Silver, Warner Bros., and roughly 60 million bucks qualifies as “nowhere.” After more than four years, The Matrix Reloaded — the…

Touch of the Poet

The budding teenage poet in Karen Moncrieff’s Blue Car writes melancholy verse about autumn leaves falling off trees and fathers abandoning their daughters. Predictably, the girl’s floundering mother is too harried and too strapped for cash to pay much attention to her, and her troubled little sister is endlessly needy…

McKeever and Mom

Whatever else may be said about the South Florida theater scene, certainly there’s a whole lotta playwrighting going on here. The place seems to be jumping with premieres just about weekly, and several area companies focus on new works, each in its own way. Florida Stage in Manalapan is dedicated…

Kitsch Me Not

I dragged my feet about going to a trio of exhibitions with religious content, all three currently at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. The titles of the shows — “Lesser Ury: Images from the Bible,” “Modern and Contemporary Works from Private Israeli Collections,” and “Psychic Landscapes: Paintings by Michal…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

THU 5/22 Eleanor Hoh grew up in Hong Kong, where her mom’s cooking left an indelible desire for the meals of Asia. When the young girl moved to England, widely renowned as the Land Fine Cuisine Forgot, Hoh yearned for the food she enjoyed in Hong Kong. Hoh now finds…

From Failure to Chinese Astrology

When SoCal post-grunge band Failure broke up, great things were expected from all, and, in fact, the ex-bandmates lived up to expectations. Drummer Kelli Scott joined Blinker the Star, while guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen helped form A Perfect Circle. Failure’s leaders, Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards, went their separate ways…

Strictly Suzanne

After making music for almost two decades, Grammy nominee Suzanne Vega, one of America’s best-known pop-folk lyricists, is still undeniably unique. Vega describes herself as “handmade,” and while her style crosses boundaries from folk to pop, it continues to evolve from three central elements: lyrics, guitar, and voice. This distinctive…

Beach Dreams

FRI 5/16 If you have a uniform fetish, this is the place to be. If Baywatch meets CHiPS is your wet dream, you’ll be in nirvana in Deerfield Beach this weekend at the city’s sixth-annual “Beach Blowout.” The excuse for the event is hurricane education; a host of vendors provides…

Willingham Steps Up

FRI 5/16 If Pudge Rodriguez gets an All-Star nod this season, he won’t be the only Florida backstop garnering midseason honors. The Jupiter Hammerheads have Josh Willingham behind the plate, and he’s got the stuff to make it big. This is the first year Willingham has taken on full-time catching…

Hot Wheels

SAT 5/17 It all began in 1934, the year of the first soapbox derby. Since then, the race has grown from a Midwestern hobby to a national obsession. YMCA and Maroone auto dealers sponsor South Florida’s annual Soap Box Derby for kids and adults on the Andrews Avenue bridge in…

Real Gone Daddy

WED 5/21 A young struggling writer walks into the White Horse Tavern, orders a beer, and takes a seat. He notices a familiar face sitting nearby and engages him in friendly conversation. By the end of the chat, James Baldwin has guided Dan Wakefield through a case of writer’s block…

Let the Eagles Soar

SAT 5/17 Among the finest of the Coen brothers’ films (and nearly every one of them is a must-see) is The Big Lebowski. In it, the Dude, played to perfection by Jeff Bridges, utters the immortal line, “C’mon, I had a rough night, and I hate the fucking Eagles.” Although…

Terror Firmer

In March 2002, days before President Bush was scheduled to visit Peru, a car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy in Lima, killing nine and injuring dozens. Government officials, here and in Peru, blamed the attack on Shining Path — a Marxist terrorist organization with roots dating to the 1960s,…

Shape Shifter

Neil LaBute is back to his old self again, and the cinematic world is a better place for it. Honestly, what was he thinking when he made Possession? Did the charges of misogyny, still lingering from In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors get to him so…

Events for May 15-21, 2003

THU 5/15 Run, kids! Run as fast as you can! Bombardment League begins at Carver Ranches Park (4750 SW 21st St., Hollywood) at 6:30 p.m. today. Anyone who remembers grade-school P.E. class knows what the Bombardment League is about: in a phrase, dodge ball. This scourge upon the youth of…

A Hymn for Harper

It was 1995 when a friend gave me the usual “Dude, you have to hear this” about his latest aural love affair. The song he stuck on the stereo turned out to be “Mama’s Got a Girlfriend,” off Ben Harper’s debut album, Welcome to the Cruel World. The lyrics caused…

This Week’s Day by Day Picks

THU 5/8 Hot on the trail of other God-fearin’ folks like country star Toby “Angry American” Keith and John “Mighty Eagle” Ashcroft comes the Rev. Timothy Wright in the “We Support Our Troops” gospel concert. Participants are encouraged, naturally, to wear red, white, and blue. Ya know, just so everyone…

Ha-Cha-Cha-Cho

Margaret Cho loves three things: people, tapioca tea, and the chance to make out with Anna Nicole Smith. That’s not altogether true — she certainly loves more than three things, including her dogs and fiancé. And when we interviewed her, she didn’t specifically say she “loved” making out with Smith:…

Crazee Cajun Crawfish

FRI 5/9 Now celebrating its 11th year, the Fort Lauderdale Cajun/Zydeco Crawfish Festival kicks off Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. and continues Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The event features Cajun and zydeco music, which would leave many…