Like many a love story before and after it, the French play La Cage Aux Folles derives its plot from a “meet the (conservative) parents” scenario — only this time, it’s not the suitor whose lifestyle is a problem; it’s the suitor’s father. The father, Renato, manages a drag club…
ArtPalmBeach may be smaller than Art Basel Miami Beach, but it’s a sleek and worthy answer to the Swiss behemoth. Opening to the public on January 15 for its 13th year, APB features 75 international dealers, including a few from Israel and Syria, and 1,500 artists. The works of painting,…
Jon Hendricks is among the hippest octogenarians still warming a stage. Following the lead of Eddie Jefferson and King Pleasure, Hendricks perfected the art of “vocalese,” that is, fitting lyrics into the trickiest of instrumental jazz solos. With his seminal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and others, the 88-year-old singer…
Why contemplate the unanswerable questions in your life when you can hand over this duty to poker-faced comedian Steven Wright? Wright, known for his smart ponderances, stream-of-consciousness mutterings, and matter-of-fact observations, can give you gems like: “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” If that’s not enough, his…
It may be extremely easy to sit down at your local Red Lobster and gorge away on “All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp Tuesday” without a care in the world. However, if there is one thing we’ve learned recently from shows like Deadliest Catch, it’s that the life of a commercial fisherman is really…
I postponed seeing “William Kentridge: Five Themes” at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach longer than I should have, not because of any preconceived notions about the art but due to a generalized end-of-the-year, end-of-the-decade malaise. Don’t you dally similarly — this remarkable exhibition is nearing the…
For years, Hollywood has wrestled with adapting C.D. Payne’s 1993 novel Youth in Revolt — which, actually, was three novels collected under one title, and so the possibilities were endless given 500 pages of material to mine. In 1996, Fox filmed a pilot starring Chris Masterson as Nick Twisp, the…
Frank Sinatra once called Astoria’s favorite son “the best g-d pop singer I’ve ever heard,” and judging by the octogenarian crooner’s six-decade legacy as an entertainer, one could not help but agree with him. Tony Bennett shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, and he continues being relevant after…
Under normal circumstances, January is a brutal proving ground for NHL playoff wannabes. But this season, a year interrupted by a two-week break for the Winter Olympics, the reality is even more severe. Any team, like our own Florida Panthers, hanging around the fringes of the postseason tree needs a…
There are three things about South Florida you can always count on. First, it will always be hot — it hasn’t snowed since 1977, and a repeat anytime soon is doubtful. Second, there will be hurricanes. (It may have been a few years now, but they’ll be back.) Third, the…
Miami Heat Head Coach Erik Spoelstra gave each member of his team a motivational book as a Christmas gift: Jon Gordon’s The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team With Positive Energy. “It’s a poignant book,” Spoelstra told the Sun-Sentinel. “We’re at our best when we’re…
Any historically significant time period is usually described as an era. When the tastes change and the fashions change, it’s the end of said era. The Beatles were so culturally significant that they not only dominate an era of music history but they have eras within their own era. There’s…
After we heard of “Samba Lounge,” a weekly art/music rendezvous at the Samba Room (350 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale), guess what? We turned to one of our much-loved books, the American Heritage Dictionary, because the word samba sure sounds steamy and vivacious and alcoholic, and (nerd alert) we…
It’s time to say “sayonara” to the Year of the Ox and make way for the Year of the Tiger. (Surely, this lithe predator is better-suited to end our wars and our recession, yes?) Oshogatsu, the Japanese new year, was once based on the same lunar calendar that spawned the…
Naughty Marietta is an American operetta dating back to 1910. It hasn’t been staged much in decades, but it’s about to see the light of day again with a revival by the Palm Beach Light Opera Company, a newfangled nonprofit, on the operetta’s 100th anniversary. The star is Countess Marietta,…
The Village People, those campy disco icons, seem today like cartoon characters — decidedly gay ones at that. So it’s worth remembering that when they were founded in 1977, they were conceived as… well, cartoon characters, basically, but not gay, per se. Somehow, at some point (well, instantly, really) this…
If ever there was a night made for the kind of brain-bashing mayhem that results in permanent memory loss, it’s Saturday. And if ever there was a punk club made for the kind of epic Saturdays you’d totally love to remember, it’s Churchill’s (5501 NE Second Ave., Miami). No shock,…
I’m such a disappointment to my mother. She was an art dealer for a few years and actually knows a little something about art. But me, I can barely tell the difference between Picasso and Pissarro, and the Monet versus Manet smackdown is lost on me. If you’re in the…
Yeah, at first we thought the name of this comedy troupe sounded more like a religious sect too, but then Wikipedia informed us that Jove is another name for Jupiter, the city from which the Jove Comedy Experience hails. Composed of four actors and comedians, the group prepares prewritten sketches,…
A white horse sits atop a bundle of cash, the Latin phrase pecunia non olet displayed on the apron-clad equine. The translation: Money does not smell. Exactly what this means is something Gisela Pferdekamper wants you to ponder with her painting Stimulus, part of the exhibit “Contempo: Pushing the Limit…
If environmentalists have their way, the post-modern condition, in all its nihilistic abandon, is so over. Tree-hugging do-gooders say that the future of life on our rock depends on whether the masses choose right or wrong. So far, they’ve made small strides — communities have incorporated green agendas, architecture and…
If Food Inc. awakened your inner PETA member, catch the current exhibitions at the Coral Springs Museum of Art (2855 Coral Springs Drive) by artists who think of animals as muses and not as lunch. Hunt Slonem’s “Birds, Butterflies & Bunnies” runs through April 24. Slonem, known as “The Birdman,”…
