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Thursday September 29, 2005

This is bullshit

our webhost experienced a server crash, resulting in the delete of today’s post. we’ll have it back up ASAP.

Update: the post is back up; unfortounately several comments were permanently lost.

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Tuesday May 8, 2007

Maibaumfest German Spring Festival

German festival

Oddly enough, this was fun. Most of the music was in German, but here an MC leads, in English, the crowd in a sort of dance. German dancing accommodates being stuffed with beer and wurst by employing mostly simple lumbering and swaying motions. In one, the idea was just to sort of crouch down and stand back up every few bars.

German festival

Dudes in lederhosen perform. This was just as we walked in, so the main appeal was of culture shock. This is way deep in the SW of Miami, mind you. Never did figure out the significance of the wreath hanging from the ceiling and the crown on a pole in the previous picture.

German festival

A sampling of cakes and “Apfelstrudel” (delicious). Not pictured: wurst hotdogs, schnitzel sandwiches, and some serious beer, including light and dark Warsteiner on tap. There was also the typical arts and crafts area.

German festival

Random picture from the trophy case of the German American Club.

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Friday June 9, 2006

Reading books in Miami: The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, and Notes from Underground. Somebody contribute more of these to this site and let me know. (via Kottke)

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Thursday July 26, 2007

“Have you noticed that the Palm Beach Post’s Internet site has become the new ‘tip sheet’ for the Sun-Sentinel?”

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Monday June 4, 2007

Critical updates

site stats: 274945 page views in May I spent most of the day Sunday neck-deep in code and stuff like this, trying to make you a new and improved Critical Miami. I mostly got done the more “coding” type stuff, and left the sorting/data decisions for another time, because I can officially only use one half of my brain per day, and I need to do this geek-out stuff during my rare forages into sobriety. Anyway, here’s a summary:

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Monday November 6, 2006

DRDT

New photo set: images from the Deeply Rooted Dance Theater performance this weekend.

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Saturday July 16, 2005

Unlicensed Plastic Surgeon on TV

Last month, a fake plastic surgeon up in Weston was arrested for parcticing without a license. For some reason, stories like this seem to be a staple in South Florida. What makes this one special is that lots of women made the trip up there for their surgeries because, as the Herald reports, this particular doctor, Gregorio Nosovsky, was featured on two local spanish TV shows, Maria Elvira Confronta and Hoy en Marta Susana on Univision.

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Wednesday June 29, 2005

What happened to the Florida Medical Marijuana Referendum?

[Contributed by Glenn Allen]

As you may know, ten states have passed voter referendums to allow the usage of medical marijuana. California’s voters passed proposition 215 in 1996. And even though the Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of the Federal Government making it illegal under federal law, it has been a reality in California for almost ten years. Thousands of seriously ill patients have been able to alleviate their suffering using marijuana that was prescribed by a licensed physician.

As Associate Director of the Coalition Advocating Medical Marijuana (CAMM), I saw first hand the plight of patients who had to obtain their medicine illegally. We’re talking about sick and sometimes dying patients fighting for their lives. It’s not a pretty sight. But can we look the other way when so many are needlessly suffering over a simple health care issue? What is the basis for all this hysteria surrounding marijuana? If it wasn’t safe and effective medicine would doctors in 10 states, 25% of our nation, not to mention other counteries, including Canada, routinely prescribe it?

In 1997 a Political Action Committee was formed and legally binding Florida Medical Marijuana voter petition was filed in Tallahassee. CAMM initiated a statewide campaign to gather signatures. 150,000 signatures of registered FL voters were needed to get the initiative on the FL ballot. I personally travelled across the state with fellow CAMM board members, Kevin Aplin and federal medical marijuana patient Elvy Mussika. Elvy is one of seven federal patients left under the Compassionate Use Act. She suffers from glaucoma and the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute was instrumental in the her winning her case. She receives her medicine monthly from the federal government in the form of big tin full of 300 (yes, 300) rolled marijuana cigarettes or “joints.” Why 300 you ask? The federal marijuana that is grown at University of Mississippi in Biloxi and is very low in THC. It includes seeds and stems. That’s why she has to smoke 10 joints a day. If she had high grade, potent marijuana she would only have to take a few puffs every hour or so.

This is the our government’s Compassionate Use Act at work, a program that was ended under the Bush Sr. administration. While new patients applying for the program were denied, the ones already in it we’re grandfathered in. Only 7 people in the entire U.S. remain who are allowed to use marijuana medicinally under federal law.

Now can you picture me driving to every county in Florida in my beat up car with Elvy, a nearly blind woman, with her tin of 300 joints, collecting signatures and signing people up to collect signatures at every stop along the way? Every day, five days a week we would hold a press conference at a different county seat announcing the FL Medical Marijuana Referendum. All the local media, the newspapers and tv, would be there as well as patients, activists and vocal opponents. Elvy would smoke a joint on the courthouse steps and pandemonium would ensue. Thank God, Elvy was only arrested once and that was in Dixie County by some local cops who had to call D.C. to find out she really was legally prescribed to use marijuana. But that was not the case with hundreds of patients we came in contact with. Their stories would break your heart. A Multiple Sclerosis patient who was severely debilitated, routinely harrassed and arrested by the police. Withering away AIDS patients not able to afford buying their medicine on the streets but not being able to keep food down without it. A seriously ill woman who’s husband was arrested for growing a few plants for her on their land in rural Fountain, FL hung herself after he went jail and there was no there one to care for her. And then they tried to seize their land!

Regardless of your stand on the illegal use of drugs, sick and suffering patients should be able to obtain their medicine legally by prescription from their doctor. The American Medical Association itself is in favor of medical marijuana. The test have been done! Numerous clinical trials have shown proof again and again that marijuana is a safe and effective medicine.

Not every state constitution allows for voter referendums and FL is one of the only southern states that does. That why it is up to us to exercise our rights as voters to have our voice heard. So what happened to FL Medical Marijuana Referendum? The number of signatures needed to get it on the ballot was not met and eventually the referendum was rescinded. The doctors and lawyers on the board of CAMM who always complained there wasn’t enough funding to get the job done always seemed to favor flying themselves out to conferences and the like then just mobilizing volunteers to hit the streets and get signatures! I personally got thousands and it was never hard to do. The Miami Herald did a poll that stated 63% of all Florida voters we’re in favor of medical marijuana. This was in the late 90’s and many, many more have been educated on the issue since that time. Of course educating the public of the facts is the key and the long term goal.

Can we the people of Florida come together on this issue and show a message of solidarity with those other ten states that have asserted their right to treat people with compassion?

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Tuesday October 18, 2005

Grouper? We Hardly Touched Her!

[Contributed by Steve Klotz]

The Sunday Hurled (10.16.05) kicked off a two-part story about the ongoing destruction of the world’s fisheries. To sum up: thanks to many factors, many of which attributable to human abuse, we’re running out of fish to eat. There’s a pun here about the “scales” of justice, but I’ll resist it. And you’ll thank me.

Seems that we’re running out of edible fish. Tuna, flounder, snapper, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, grouper, you name it—we’re in short supply. Fish today are shrimps (sorry) compared to a their ancestors of only 50 years ago; smaller, less healthy, less plentiful. We’re overfishing the oceans, and at last—this has been going on for some time—we see the end of the underwater world. We’re running out.

Run on over to the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum in Dania Beach and look at the size of the creatures hauled out of the sea in Hemingway’s time. It was commonplace to stick a hook in a thousand pound tuna. Zane Grey reports swarms of the bastards off the coast of California; now you’d scan the seas for the rest of your life in vain. The big guys are gone, and the little ones are getting eaten before they have a chance to spawn, let alone grow up.

Not until Part II of the story (in Monday’s Hurled) does it mention this little incidental fact: as of Monday 10/12, it is illegal to catch and keep grouper in the waters considered the Florida fishery. As summed up in an excellent, factual report in the New York Times:

The federal government outlawed commercial grouper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico for the rest of the year after fishermen reached a quota for red grouper – a splotchy, scarlet-mouthed variety that scientists consider overfished.

If you’re living in Florida, and if you eat any fish at all, you’re eating grouper. It’s in everything: salads, fish sandwiches, bouillabaisse, fish sticks, and for all I know, hamburgers, cat food, and that slut you picked up at the titty bar. It’s as ubiquitous as fungus, but tastier. That the Feds shut down its harvest should be as shocking as if the same Authority padlocked Krispy Kremes.

If there was any place in the world where this should be taken seriously, it’s right here, south Florida, the sportsfishing capital of the world, and a major commercial fishery . But it isn’t. Sportsfishing isn’t football, so Floridians don’t give a damn. And as if to demonstrate just how insignificant the depletion of the world’s fish is, the story in the Hurled is written by Georgia Tasker, whose regular, Sunday raised pinky column appears in the Home and Garden section, where she provides helpful hints on color-coordinating your household garden plantings with your venereal warts.

So long as the Miami Hurled wastes valuable column-inches on Fred ‘Goober’ Grimm, Georgia Tasker will never finish last in any journalism competition, but that’s like calling the Atlanta Braves “winners.” Tasker has about as much business writing about fish and fishing as Boy George does about birthing techniques. Her sugary, la-di-dah commentaries on cute little houseplants and adorable cozy gardens have been known to induce diabetic comas in grown men. This two-part series, a rehash of 20-year old scientific findings and a sprinkling of dialog illustrating the longstanding, horn-locked battle between recreational anglers and commercial fishermen, simply stunk. Like a fish kill.

The wholesale, systematic slaughter of fish, leading to extinction of entire species and god only knows what rippling effects on the food chain and life on earth, needs to be recognized for the crisis it is, and south Florida, with its 12-month fishing season, should be leading the charge. But we’re not. The afore-mentioned IGFA is run by stuffed shirts and do-nothing, high-end business types who just wanna have fun tracking world records. The fishing industry will suck every finned and scaled creature out of the sea before they admit there’s a problem. And the ever-vigilant watchdog media, epitomized by the Hurled, puts ace potting-soil maven Georgia Tasker on the case.

Want seafood? Pass the python.

[See all Articles by Steve]

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Tuesday February 14, 2006

Oh another Tuesday

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Monday July 17, 2006

Materva

Just to test out this flickr link thing, here’s a set of photos from 2004. Could it be that it was all so simple then? Remember Street??

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Tuesday May 29, 2007

Miami Gmaps street views

gmaps miami

This is more interesting/cool then useful, but a Google truck with a 360° camera mounted to the top spent some time driving around Miami last year, and now we see the results: you can click on many of the streets in Miami in Gmaps and get a panable photo-view every few feet. In other words, they photographed everything from every spot along the roads deemed interesting enough, to wit: Downtown, central Coral Gables, and Miami Beach south of 5th, as well as all major streets for a couple dozen miles. Not only does this point in the direction of of how reality and the internet will continue to merge in the future, it’s a lot of fun to play with. Here are some spots I’ve stumbled on (click the little dude-figure icon in each case to get the panorama; you may need to download a new version of flash):

OK enough. Anybody else spot anything interesting? (via Kottke)

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Wednesday July 19, 2006

‘Miami Vice’ Film Reminds of Cocaine Past in the Washington Post. “The ‘Miami Vice’ TV series (1984-89) accurately reflected those crazy times, according to people who lived through them.” Fun article. (via, of all things, Miamist)

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Wednesday March 14, 2007

Spam All-Stars

Spam All-Stars

Spam All-Stars

Miami’s house band, the Spam All-Stars, have been playing all over the place lately; here they are on Ed Bell’s show on WLRN a couple of weeks ago. They look like the Hipster Village People and they sound like . . . hmm, I guess they sound like Miami — a little of everything. Le Spam’s beats and Tomas Diaz’s percussion ridiculously very well, retaining the thump of a beatbox and the organic quality of live drumming; it’s only seeing them play live that it’s possible to tell where how exactly the sounds fit together. Guitarist Adam Zimmon delivers funk, reggae, and rock riffage without making the it sound like a “guitar band.” And they have this neat trick where LeSpam drops a beat, lets it go for a few bars, and silences it exactly at the moment the horn section comes in, which sounds impossibly like a perfectly mixed dance record.

The horn section is (left to right) Mercedes Abal, AJ Hill, and Chad Bernstein (there are a couple of other members that weren’t there that day), and they’re all great in a soul, not really a jazz, sort of way. They have an effortless quality about them that comes from playing together for almost 15 years, and a box-full of little tricks (at one point Chad jammed out on two conch shells). Most of the members contribute little vocal flourishes here and there, but mostly it’s instrumental jams, which is why this is more of a dance band then anything else — Hoy Como Ayer is the place to see them (they play there most Thursdays). You can download their new album from their site for 99¢/song, or grab some older stuff for free.

By the way, this is in Studio 1 at WLRN (that’s Ed taking pictures in the bottom photo). Here’s Ed (a one-time contributor to CM) rocking the mic, and here is a pretty lousy picture of Studio 2, where most of the live shows get recorded. Behind that is the control booth. The building is owned by the school board, and it shows, but different parts of the building feel, alternatively, like a corporate office, like a dorm room, and like a slick modern lounge.

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Monday February 5, 2007

Fruit and Spice Park

Fruit and Spice Park, in the Homestead Redland, is part exotic plant sanctuary, part park, and part tourist attraction. $5 admission gets you an hour or two of wandering around, tasting strange fruits, and checking out a few little exhibit type things. Here’s a little collection of old farm equipment. No information or anything; they’re just sort of sitting around.

Tasting

Funky fruit tasting (click through to see what’s what). The gourd-like thing in the middle is Black Sapote, which tastes shockingly like melted chocolate. The little glass dish towards the back contains Miracle Fruit, little berries which have no flavor, but which will make your mouth impervious to bitter flavors for about a half an hour (try one of those grape-looking things, which are super bitter, then try the Miracle Fruit, and then eat another berry, and it won’t taste bitter anymore). The lady was super-nice and let us sort of pig out on everything. Then she sliced open that big gourd thing and let us try that.

Then they set you loose to wander around the park, or you can take a “guided tour,” which is on a horrible motorized trolley thing. This is one of many weird banana-like trees that dot the park.

The rule is that you’re not allowed to pick anything, but if it’s fallen to the ground you can eat it. Here’s a big Canistel that we found. It’s got a very strange consistency, sort of like dry dough, and a flavor a little like cooked squash. It’s such a bizarre bright shade of yellowish orange that my camera freaked out and made everything else dark trying to understand it.

Squash

The spice section in the middle of the park has raised planters with all sorts of little plants and spices. Here are some baby eggplants.

Catalina and Ross. This is the park’s only real concession to tourist trapyness.

Poisonous Plant Collection

The poisonous plant collection was a little disappointing. Hey, isn’t “poisonous” the botanical word for “hallucinogenic”? Just kidding — don’t eat that. (Actually, they tell you not to eat anything in the park unless you recognize it — apparently some of the plants in the regular area poisonous too.)

Greenhouse

The best thing about the greenhouse is that when you leave, going outside feels like walking into an air conditioned building. It’s hot in there.

Strangeberries

These are the bitter berries again, which grow, unbelievably, attached directly to the branches of this tree. Never seen anything like it.

Fruit and Spice Park on google maps, and here is the official web page.

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Wednesday June 14, 2006

FIU president’s salary to jump to $542,600. This is an embarrassment; my friends just graduated from the BFA program there, and the freaking Fine Arts department couldn’t even scrape together a thousand dollars to print them a little catalog of their work. Folks who’ve had experiences with other departments talk about the poor management that goes on at all levels. I mean, they waited years to build a couple of parking garages, meanwhile rabidly ticketing students who tried to eke out a parking space here or there.

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Wednesday July 18, 2007

A nice overview of what’s been happening in Wynwood this decade in, of all places, the Washington Post.

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Friday August 12, 2005

Laser Light Show

The laser light shows over at the Miami Science Museum planetarium have been happening for as long as anyone can remember. We stopped by a couple of weeks ago to see how it’s changed since our high-school days. It hasn’t. They still crack the same “no smoking . . . of anything” joke before every single show, and the technology seems to be cutting-edge 1979 lasers—n—slides. They’ve added shows set to Outcast and Green Day, but fuck all that, Floyd is the way to go.

These days, when every $300 Dell comes with trippy lightshow technology and techno geeks can experiment with beat-matching video generators, the laser show sounds primitive on paper, but sorry, it’s still great. The stream of high school stoners must have slowed down, though, because the planetarium recently went from four shows every weekend to two shows a month.

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Friday April 28, 2006

A childrens' weekend

kid with horn

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Wednesday February 8, 2006

South Beach parking guide

While this rages on . . .

Nobody likes to get towed, but us folks who live on South Beach generally have a more positive perspective of the tow truck operators then anyone else in sprawling South Florida. Most everyone in our high-density town parks on the street, and carspace for residents is a limited commodity. Add to that folks from the mainland coming down to party, guest passes, large 60’s-era convertible Cadillac’s, and folks who leave too much space in front of their car, and you’ve got a recipe for stress. (Actually, visitors from the mainland have it easy: find one of the many garages or lots, and you’re done.) Anyone can learn to drive; parking is another matter. And at the expense of of turning this into a SoBe-living blog (no!), I present some parking tips:

  1. You can squeeze into spaces that look too small. Above is a picture of my car in a space I just parked in – there are about three inches between me and the Toyota in front of me, less then two between me and the Jeep behind me
  2. Parking karma: park so as to leave room for as many other cars as possible. If there might be room behind you for another car, then pull up as close as possible to the car in front of you. If you’re at the end of the block, let your car overlap the yellow curb a little.
  3. Speaking of yellow curbs. The rule seems to be that if the wheel closer to the corner is partially in the non-yellow zone, you’re OK. Some experimentation may be called for, though; parking authorities seem a little more lenient on Friday and Saturday nights.
  4. As far as towing, anyone parked in a handicapped space or blocking a driveway gets towed the fastest. Next comes cars in residential zones without a permit. To the best of my knowledge, though, recently expired permits and cars in front of yellow curbs only get ticketed, not towed, so maybe it’s worth the risk.
  5. Those alleys sure are tempting when you’re desperate to find a spot late at night. There are spots that are definitely fine, but nothing will get you towed faster then taking some’s space on private property. Therefore, alley parking at your own risk.

Please use the comments space if I’m wrong about any of this, or if you have more advice.

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Saturday April 29, 2006

The Miami Beach Earth Expo takes place tomorrow (Sunday) from noon to 6 pm. It’ll have environmentally-friendly exhibitions and workshops, live music, and an electronics recycling center (good time to get rid of old computers, cell phones, etc.)

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Wednesday December 27, 2006

I-195 and 38th St

A parking garage right here? Well, duh.

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Sunday July 31, 2005

Performing Arts Center Preview

Last week we begged and pleaded our way into a tour of the Miami Performing Arts Center construction site. Here is a photo of the approach. Dead center is what was left of the Sears building, which MPAC will preserve (as a refreshment stand). To the left is the theater/opera house, to the right the concert hall. Immediately behind the Sears tower (to the immediate right in the photo) is what will be a black-box theater.

Now let us digress just for a moment. The Sears fragment is a great thing to have (not for nothing is a photo of it featured on the CM logo). But an architect insider pointed out to us that there were two finalist designs for the buildings, one by Cesar Pelli, the other by Rem Koolhaas. Now, Pelli is a fine architect with an impeccable reputation. But look at their respective Wikipedia entries, and tell us Koolhaas doesn’t look more impressive. Clearly Koolahaas would have given us the unique, world-class landmark building that the Center’s marketing tries to tell us we got. So why did they pick Pelli’s design? We are given to understand it’s because Pelli’s design preserves the Sears fragment. Now, the juxtaposition of old and new is a great thing, but this is a compromise that cost Miami a truly exiting building by possibly the most innovative architect of our time. (Also, arguments between Pelli’s office and the Center’s general contractor are blamed, in part, for the Center’s $167 million (at last count) cost overruns.) But enough dumping on the guy and on to the buildings, which are not unspectacular.

Here we see the main stage of the opera house. To the left is the back of the main curtain, directly behind the hardhat guy is the actual main stage, which will move up and down, to the right is backstage, and overhead is the rigging area. The photo is taken from stage left (there is no stage right). The enormity of this area is difficult to convey; the stage itself is the size of an airplane hangar; stageleft and backstage are equal in size and shape, so that three complete sets can be shuffled during one evening.

The same curtain is seen, from the other side, on the right in this photo. Clearly the audience area has a ways to go.

Crossing the bridge over US-1 to get to the concert hall. Pedestrian bridges between two buildings are always cool, but unless they’re expecting lots of people to catch two major performances in one evening, this one is mainly intended for the staff.

The concert hall is in about the same state as the first building. The scaffolding in these areas makes it difficult to get a sense of scale, but seating capacity is roughly equal in each. The concert hall does not have the complicated backstage spaces of the opera/theater house, but has large empty spaces behind the auidence with massive “sound doors.” When opened, the sound in the room reverbates (think of the sound in a cathedral); when closed, the sound is deadened (like a room with thick curtains and carpet). This way, the acoustics of the room can be tuned to the needs of each performance.

This is an artist’s rendering of the concert hall. None was around for the opera house, but we picture it looking much more like a traditional theater.

An interesting diagram of the opera/theater house. We’ve added the color coding: yellow is stage, backstage, and stage left, green is audience area, red is the Sears fragment, and blue is US-1. The football shape is a large plaza which overlaps the street.

You can see the plaza in this model. God help us, the street can be closed for events on the plaza. The black-box theater is the gray block at the back (Critical Miami predicts 90% of the interesting stuff at MPAC will be held there).

In addition to the bit about preserving a piece of history, the architectural justification of the design is the subversion of the front/back/sides paradigm of most buildings. That’s why one building has a glass facade on the south end, one on the north end, and other glass elements are scattered everywhere else. The building is situated so that it would not make sense to have it definitively facing in any one direction. To us, it sounds like “we didn’t want to catch shit for having the back pointed towards Overtown,” but a walk around the site reveals that it sort of turned out that way anyhow. Whatever: in another couple of years the area to the west of the Center will be razed and rebuilt with condo highrises. The Miami Herald building might be torn down. And FDOT has some wacky (and expensive) ideas for the area just to the Center’s south. And so continues the grand transformation of our city.

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Wednesday May 17, 2006

Heat playoffs tickets presale passwords. I don’t care about the Heat; in fact, I have no idea what this is all about. Might be interesting for the b-ball fans, tho.

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Monday May 8, 2006

Tere reviews Randazzo’s Little Italy, and leaves room for a deliciously bizarre digression: “although I side with the wife in the personal divorce matter, I side with Randazzo as far as the restaurant goes – it’s successful, unique to the area, and offers real damn good food. And on Giralda Avenue – where restaurants go to die – that’s a pretty valuable thing.”

Girl can write. Somebody get her an SD400 and she’ll be dangerous.

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Tuesday May 31, 2005

Marking Time

A Morir The Miami Art Museum seems to want us to take exhibitions on its first floor less seriously then what goes upstairs. Downstairs is for uneven group shows and the small project room somewhat dismissively called “New Work.” Upstairs is for big, important traveling exhibitions – the draw. So it’s encouraging that we get a show up there that’s curated by MAM staff for a change.

Marking Time: Moving Images is a video art show for video art skeptics. Most of the work in the show is more closely related to photography then to television or film; in other words, it presents images that need motion to make sense, but don’t have conventional characters or plot. In fact, the closest the show comes to a plot is Miguel Angel Rios’ A Morir (Til’ Death).

The piece shows three views of the same surface, from three angles, projected on three walls. Heavy wooden tops spin and move through the scene, which is so alien and geometrically pure that it could almost be mistaken for computer animation. The sound, as the tops slam into each other and hit the ground, is loud and visceral. At the end, all the tops have been knocked down, and there is silence. Everything on the screens has been painted a neutral color; but for a few scrapes, the images would look to be filmed in black and white. The real/not real confusion (i.e. “what the fuck am I looking at?”) makes the piece immediately interesting. But the portrayal of violence and entropy is what makes the piece memorable.

Bill Viola’s superslowmotion classic The Visitation is among other great pieces in the show. Then there are the paper stack pieces by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, which apparently qualify as “moving images” because you can take one of the posters with you. Whatever. Paul Pfeiffer’s sunrise/sunset video splice is soothing and nifty.

The inclusion of non-video work in a show that’s mostly video is probably an attempt to “question the assumptions of the viewer;” and maybe it will do that for some. But the truth is that it emphasizes the tension between looking at video art vs. looking at non-video art (even non-video art that can claim to somehow “move”). They require a different sensory process, and switching back and forth keeps the experience from flowing.

Not to say that the show isn’t well curated, though – the MAM has always had a knack for presenting video art. Each piece is presented flatteringly; some in large darkened rooms, some casually projected on the wall. Alfredo Jaar’s installation of lightbox photographs and mirrors gets a lavish room with its own entrance area. Paul Ramírez Jonas’ airport terminal display is cleverly mounted on the wall of the stairs leading to the show. And so on.

Good show, then.

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Friday June 15, 2007

Dad's weekend

Father's day

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Thursday July 12, 2007

Coral House Redux

Here’s the other coral house, on the 10th block of Washington, soon to be a restaurant. Good, but not nearly as quality as the one they’re demolishing.

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Thursday August 30, 2007

Avery Smith home At Preservation Online, our pal Margaret Foster has a great story about the Avery Smith coral house which was partially demolished earlier this summer. The house was originally built in 1915; the demolished section was added on in 1939. Seemingly against all odds, the fight to save the house goes on. The city’s Historic Preservation Board and Miami-Dade County’s Unsafe Structures Board have both approved the demolition, so now comes an appeal to the city, followed by possible court action. Update: Fixed the link. Also, the article now carries my photo(!) which makes the historical one here obsolete, but nice anyway.

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Saturday July 15, 2006

Miami Light Project announces 2006/2007 season

Miami Light Project continues to be one of the most exiting performing arts presenters in South Florida, and they’ve just announced their new season. No household-name type superstars (i.e. Laurie Anderson, Sonny Rollins) this year, but it looks like a solid season. I assume that the Miami Performing Arts Center shows are in the Studio Theater, which along with the newly renovated Colony Theater would mean that MLP has finally got their perfect roster of venues. Rock on! From the press release:

NATASHA TSAKOS – Upwake
November 30-December 2, 2006 8:00pm
Miami Performing Arts Center
Her latest work, UpWake, has been in development for the last 3.5 years through MLP’s Here & Now commissioning program. Up Wake is a fast-paced tragic-comedy that fuses clowning, movement and technology to follow Zero, a toon character, throughout his day. More than a show, Up Wake is a science project where performer, original score, text projection and digitally animated images are meticulously integrated to transform a live 3-D installation into a magical journey of the human soul. This program is co-commissioned and co-presented with Miami Performing Arts Center.

VINCENT MANTSOE- Men-Jaro
January 26-27, 2007 8:00pm
Colony Theater
Descended from a long line of Sangomas (traditional healers), Mantsoe hails from Soweto, South Africa. Blending traditional African dance forms with contemporary modern & ballet, and Asian forms, Men-Jaro features an international ensemble of 5 dancers & 5 musicians from the Traditional African Orchestra. In Men-Jaro (township slang for friendship), Mantsoe redefines the intrinsic relationship that exists between African contemporary dance & music, investigating ancestral worship and rituals in a powerfully ritualistic, highly celebratory & transcendentally spiritual work.

HERE & NOW: 2007
March 13-30, 2007
Miami Performing Arts Center
Here & Now features newly commissioned short works by 4-6 Miami-based artists curated by MLP staff for a 2-week performance series. In addition to a commissioning fee, the artists receive rehearsal time in the Light Box, production support and professional development assistance. Here & Now is co-commissioned and co-presented with Miami Performing Arts Center

EMIO GRECO – Hell
April 6-7, 2007 8:00pm
Colony Theater
Italian choreographer Greco & Dutch theatre director Pieter C. Scholten have worked together since 1995. In their latest work, Hell, they take on dance as their art form absolute – delving deeply into the layers of dance expression to investigate components of different dance styles and discover their associations. A contemplation of “hell on earth,” Hell offers a profound perspective on the current global situation. The artistic team includes Dutch experimental filmmaker Joost Rekveld who specializes in kinetic installations & light compositions.

GIOVANNI LUQUINI – Idalina
April 18-22, 2007
Miami Performing Arts Center
Before relocating to Miami in 1995, Luquini worked throughout Europe and the Americas for 30 years as a performer and choreographer. For MLP’s latest major commission, Idalina, Luquini collaborates with Brazilian Capoeirista masters Fernando Lee and Eurico de Jesus, and Miami-based Composer and Musician José Elias. Inspired by the saga of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the capacity of mankind to endure cruelty and degradation with ingenuity and hope, Idalina explores ideas of resistance and freedom, creating a movement, sound and word collage of the enduring symbols of Capoeira, resonant with collective nostalgia, memories, universal themes and a message of personal resistance. This program is co-commissioned and co-presented with Miami Performing Arts Center

5TH ANNUAL MIAMI/PROJECT HIP HOP (M/PH 2007)
May 3-12, 2007
Various Locations
Miami/Project Hip Hop is an annual 10-day celebration of hip hop music, dance, theater, spoken word, visual art and film, will feature South Florida-born, New York-based composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain who seamlessly blends funk, rock, hip hop and classical music into a new sonic vision for the next generation.

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