Thursday September 10 During the late 19th Century in French-ruled West Africa, the most popular postcards featured paintings of smiling, naked women balancing heavy water jugs on their heads. Ah, those French, showing us that, even while doing some heavy lifting, the natives are beautiful. But those images had nothing…
Seen from southbound I-95 near Griffin Road, the structure off to the right looks like a giant, gleaming piece of abstract art. But up close its overlapping steel panels look familiar. In fact they look a lot like fish scales, which makes sense considering that the artful building is the…
Men don’t get it. Moms don’t get it. Sometimes even your roommate or best friend doesn’t get it. But if you bray and carp and vent long enough, someone will listen, someone will begin to understand the precious particulars of a young woman’s sexuality. Whether they’re interested or not. That’s…
Matt Damon, the blond matinee idol, has apparently become Hollywood’s idea of a deep thinker. After playing a math whiz in last year’s Good Will Hunting, he’s now been reinvented as a poker genius in John Dahl’s Rounders. So anybody who had doubts about the second coming of Albert Einstein…
Of all the people you might encounter in a solo drama, John Hinckley is not likely to be anyone’s first choice. Chances are the would-be Reagan assassin won’t be serving tea in the cozy manner of Emily Dickinson in The Belle of Amherst, or experiencing high-volume sexual liberation along the…
Housed in a nondescript storefront among the Fountains Shoppes of Distinction in Plantation, the Bock Gallery is the sort of unassuming little place you might easily pass. Don’t. Inside the narrow, cluttered space is a quirky array of art, ranging from the works of artist and owner William Bock to…
Sitting at long tables covered in white linen, people swirl the dark red wine in their glasses, then tilt them at an angle, holding them up to lights overhead. They’re not looking for water spots. They’re checking out the “legs” of the wine. “Legs,” the spindly, elongated drops that cling…
Thursday September 3 The members of Britain’s hottest new swing combo, Big Six, have all played in other top U.K. bands, making them a sort of swing “supergroup.” What’s amazing is that they can find the time to practice and locate socks to match their plaid suits. The band takes…
Gil MacAdam was outside, working on his roof, when he heard a nasal “eeek” sound that he recognized. A rose-breasted grosbeak, he thought. What a treat. And indeed the bird with the triangular rose-colored patch on its chest was in his yard, using a gumbo-limbo tree as a perch during…
In the pecking order of tragic black musicians, Frankie Lymon can’t hold a votive candle to, say, Charlie Parker or Billie Holiday. But now, like that pair, the late doo-wopper has his own movie — or, rather, he has his own space in a movie that, for better or worse,…
Shane, the teenage hero of Mark Christopher’s 54, wears the petulant expression of a Raphaelite cherub, and he comes complete with a halo of curly blond hair. He’s played by a pretty newcomer with the exotic name of Ryan Phillippe, but there’s nothing exotic about the voice that comes out…
Creating theater frequently involves assembling miracles in small spaces — extremely small spaces, if you happen to be the Florida Playwrights’ Theater (FPT), which is mounting its Fifth Annual Shakespeare Festival in its postage-stamp Hollywood storefront venue. Getting Hamlet and The Tempest — Shakespeare’s most popular play and his most…
In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, the long-suffering milkman Tevye sings of “Tradition,” which includes not allowing single men and women to dance together during weddings. Nowadays, Tevye would have to get used to seeing even same-sex couples dancing together, but he’d freak out if he were to show…
Environmental-minded homeowners and shopkeepers dutifully toss recyclables into bins every week. Trucks rumble through neighborhoods to collect them and cart them off. The urban eco-warriors feel good: They’ve done their part. And after it’s picked up, the reusable rubbish is no longer an eyesore — out of sight, out of…
Thursday August 27 Book research can’t replace personal experience when it comes to bringing life to a novel, and Pompano Beach author Mark Jacoby’s debut effort, Path to Arequipa, is a prime example. The travel writer has toured extensively in the Peruvian Amazon, where during one trip he and his…
The idea of destiny — especially the notion that two people are fated to meet and fall in love — is a load of crap, but a surprising number of people buy into it. Probably for that reason it has proven to be a fairly popular component in movie romances,…
In the bluish green depths of the ocean, we see the deck of a sunken ship. Out of the murk, two pinpoints of light approach — humans, lured to this wreck by irresistible curiosity. It’s the beginning of a James Cameron movie, but it’s not that James Cameron movie. It’s…
There’s a moose in the guest bedroom in Michael McKeever’s new comedy, 37 Postcards. The animal never makes an appearance on stage (a taxidermist crossed its path long before the play begins), but it does take part in the events that transpire when Avery Sutton, a young man newly returned…
I knew next to nothing about Uruguayan art when I set out to see the “3rd Uruguayan Art Exhibition” on display at the Broward County Main Library. And now, having seen the show, I know… only slightly more than I did going in, other than the obvious fact that some…
Thursday August 20 There’s still no law against drinking and walking. So blood-alcohol level be damned at the Las Olas Wine Stroll, which will offer a sampling of wine and appetizers in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Actually, tasting, not getting tipsy, is the purpose of the event, so spitting out samples…
Annie Vergara has enjoyed afternoon tea the fancy way. During a trip to London, where high tea is a tradition, the formally dressed server asked whether Vergara would like the tea or milk poured first. A true English tea-drinker knows the difference between the two, she was told. Indeed, tea…
Barry Dutter didn’t get sand kicked in his face, but, like the wimpy guy in the old Atlas bodybuilding advertisements, he spent a lot of time at the beach watching beefy studs and outgoing guys meet all the girls — the girls he wished he had the guts to address…
