Monday January 2, 2006
Very early Tuesday morning linkiage
- Hidden City has photos of signs people use to communicate with folks in the Miami jail.
- Photos from the King Mango Strut at IMC Miami.
- Not shure where Robert got this translation of this el Nuevo Herald article, but it’s mighty interesting – all about Google Earth looking into Cuba.
- To check out before the beginning of February: Beyond Delirious (say what you will about the Cisneros).
- Speaking of art, some individuals will want to see Art Miami (not I, hombres).
- Your pal Franklin is now an arts writer on a national level. GAR!
- Katherine Harris can bite my left tit. The drunk bitch.
- Get ready for some teathered hot-air baloon rides!
- For those who thought Hurricane Season was long over, we offer Tropical Storm Zeta.
- Sun-Post has an interesting article about housing costs [caution: Sun-Post links expire after a week]. Related: this SotP post.
- I’m required by law to link to Barry’s year-end review so here you go.
- The Las Vegas Marlins, HOV Slugs, your weekly obligatory pile-up. Can’t wait to get home.
Permalink · Comment [11] · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Monday June 27, 2005
The Latest Buzz
[Contributed by Steve Klotz]
What does it say about the mentality of South Florida that there’s more hand-wringing over mosquitoes than terrorists?
As the rains have soaked us silly—June is one of the wettest months of the year, and rainfall so far is double the average; over 15 inches so far—the mosquito population has flourished. There are over 3,000 species of the little biting bastards in the world, 72 of which live in Florida. They carry encephalitis, dengue fever, malaria, and more, but even if all they did was swarm and bite you bloody, you’d have every reason to despise their asses.
By now you’re read everything you want to about mosquitoes; how one little bite sets off a histamine frenzy and gives your entire body the sensation of jock itch, how the only sure preventative is to smear your skin with a paste of swamp mud, Clorox, and swine saliva, etc.,—so let’s have a look at some lesser known details:
Origins It probably won’t surprise you to learn that mosquitoes, like mules, are actually man-made. In the 8th century, seeking a poisonous weapon to protect their citizens from invading Scandinavian marauders who had just plundered the Abbey at Lindisfarne, a collection of monks accidentally created mosquito larvae when they blended fecal matter, maggots, a vat of rancid red wine, and the spoor of a venomous blood-drinking bat (now extinct). What they got was a large stinking vat of wrigglers, which they allowed to develop into adult skeeters, which in turn promptly swarmed. The only good news out of this unsavory story is, (1) the infections resulting from the bites inflicted by these mosquitoid ancestral forefathers killed their inadvertent inventors, (2) all of whom were French.
Nutrition Speaking of the French, you don’t need to be a frog or a dragonfly to enjoy the taste of skeeters. Back in the early days up in Minnesota, where during the 6 days of summer mosquito swarms can block out the sun, Norwegian settlers hung bloody animal parts covered in tree sap to attract and trap “buzzers,” which they harvested, pickled in vinegar and anise seed for a few weeks, and served with mayonnaise or melted cheese. That’s fucking disgusting. That makes the frogs sound discriminating. Then again, ever been to northern Minnesota?
Worship A unique characteristic of humankind is its idiotic tendency to worship; to elevate to divine status virtually anything for no reason at all. Whether it’s a blind dwarf, animal waste, assorted genitalia, trees, orbiting chunks of rock, cats, (cats? people actually worship cats!), cults extolling their mysterious powers over the universe abound. I attended a mosquito worshiping ceremony just last week—the first day of summer—called Fete de La Mosquit. At sundown, worshipers clad in needle-nose masks flap their arms and prance around a pool of stagnant water while chanting (actually “whining”) prayers. Human blood is consumed. “This may look silly to you,” one Southern Buzztist told me, “but at least we don’t waste our time sitting around spinning dradels.”
And now you’ve heard the buzz.
[See all Articles by Steve]
Permalink · Comment · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Friday May 2, 2008
MiMo weekend
- Cinco de MiMo festival, lots of stuff happening all weekend. Save yourself squinting at the website and drop by Upper Eastside Garden (7244 Biscayne) tonight and grab a program.
- I haven’t plugged movies in a long time, but 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days has had quite the buzz about it. Playing at Miami Beach Cinematheque.
- While at it, the Canes Film Festival (that’s with 1 ‘n’).
- Emerging Choreographers Series.
- Tonight: Local heroes The Postmarks play at The Vagabond.
- Shpringsteen, y’all.
- Saturday: Storytelling Festival at the Downtown library.
- BB King at the Bank Atlantic Center.
- The New World Symphony celebrates its 20th anniversary with not the most exiting program of Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky at the Arsht Center.
- Sunday: The Poetry of Seamus Heaney, A discussion (and recital, I should hope), 4 pm at John Martin’s.
- Miami FC fights the Carolina Railhawks.
- Monday: I also don’t normally worry about Monday, but I’ve been asked to inform you that All Scheduled Shows at Studio A are still on As Scheduled. And the next scheduled show is Monday. So. Go show your support. Maybe Studio A should have a big fundraiser night or something.
- And as long as I’m here, Radiohead and Eric Clapton at various joints around town.
Permalink · Comment [8] · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Thursday March 13, 2008
A crocodile lives by the Coconut Grove Sailing Club, and that’s where he’s staying, because a “normally acting crocodile under six feet does not pose a threat to people’s safety.” Ahh, man and nature living side by side in perfect harmony.
Tuesday July 26, 2005
Sour on Bellsouth
Contributed by Potato Head
“We’re sorry; it is not necessary to dial a 1 or a 0 before dialing this number. Please hang up and try your call again.”
This is Broken. When I’m calling someone in Broward from another part of Broward, depending on the combination of numbers you either must dial a 1, or you must not dial a 1 (same goes for dialing Dade from Broward). How can you tell which it is? Well, you guess. If you guess wrong, the Bellsouth Bimbo gives you the line above, but it’s a lie. She should say “it is not permissible do dial a 1 or 0 . . .” If you’ve dialed the number before you’re forced to remember whether to hit the 1 first, otherwise it’s trial and error.
Are there people in north Broward with the same phone number as someone in South Broward? Of course not (otherwise you would be connected to them if you did the “wrong” thing). But if everyone’s number is unique, why is Bellsouth putting me through this? Because of their incompetence, that’s why. This situation bugs the crap out of every single one of their customers, and they don’t care enough to fix it.
I got a cell phone, disconnected my home land line, and am no longer using Bellsouth phone service.
Can they do anything right? For awhile I was using Bellsouth web hosting. About a year ago, they switched servers (why, why, why?? everything was working), and suddenly my e-mail died. I called their tech support, and waited for the next available tech support specialist (insert your own joke here). I waited for four and a half hours. Got the guy on, explained the situation (a slightly non-standard DNS arrangement), and he told me what to do. Well, to make a long story short, it didn’t work. It took three more calls to Bellsouth, over four hours on hold each time, re-explaining the situation each time, before they fixed the problem. Mind you, this is for a $20 per month service which is easily available for $8 these days. I am no longer using Bellsouth web hosting.
For awhile, I had Bellsouth DSL. It crashed. Regularly. I am no longer using Bellsouth DSL. (And I might add that they’re engaging in the same pricing bullshit as many others; why should I care what the monthly fee is for the first three months if I have to sign a contract for a year??)
Steve may have good cause to hate FPL, but Bellsouth gets my vote for least competent Florida company. I was reading this article, and noticed a banner ad for Bellsouth above it – they’re running a sweepstakes for $10,000 for new customers (you may not be able to see the ad there anymore; they rotate them each time the page is loaded). There is some sort of parallel between that tactic and the one described in the article – two powerful entities employing desperate measures to stay in power, while millions wait for them to die.
Update: This post got picked up on This is Broken, where a suprising number of people from all over the country reported having the same dialing problems with their local tellcos. Maybe, for some unfantomable reason, there really is no practical way to fix it. We struggle to conceive how that might be (again, the system knows enough to tell you what to do, just not enough to DO it automatically), but surely the phone companies get complaints about this, and they must have looked at trying to fix it. Maybe the infastructure just is what it is?
Still, if the phone companies can’t fix it, we’re all going to drop our land lines and they’re going to die. Hopefully all that infastructure can be put to use as data lines.
Update (1.21.06): Bellsouth tried to extort money out of Google.
Update (11.03.06): We still use their DSL and web hosting at work (long story as to why); once, the service went down for a few hours. I called their tech support and got a recording that said something like “we are currently experiencing a high call volume and will be unable to take you call” and hung up on me.
Permalink · Comment [9] · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Wednesday February 28, 2007
Jackie Gomez took photos at the International Noise Confrence. Hey, I met Jackie at the Joan LaBarbara concert last night!
Monday December 17, 2007
Can’t say I’ve ever given a thought to the plastic-wrapped plates of food that most restaurants on Lincoln Road display for would-be diners. Looks like the Miami Beach Commission has noticed, though, and decided to outlaw the practice on the grounds that it’s déclassé.
Thursday November 8, 2007
Hey, wouldn’t the Freedom Tower be a perfect spot for the Bay of Pigs museum? (From Suzy’s comment #9, here)
Wednesday January 3, 2007
How to cook Cuban Black Beans and Rice. Skip the post, and head straight for Firefly’s comment. “Who’s ever heard of ‘draining’ a can of black beans?” Agree there, though beans, rice, and cheese on a tortilla sounds pretty good to me, delusions of Cuban cuisine aside.
Thursday February 1, 2007
Why doesn’t the Grove just ditch Miami? I was intrigued by this when I saw the CGGV post, but I, too am feeling too lazy to look more into it. I’m sure it could happen, though: everybody else did it, why not them? Thanks to Alex for at least rounding up a few pertinent links.
Tuesday October 17, 2006
Who's afraid of a little fight? (FIU-UM "Brawl")
OK, I’m just getting caught up here, and everybody knows about the fight between the football teams of U.M. and F.I.U. that took place on the field of the Orange Bowl the other day. There is all sorts of outrage about this, which outrage has now gone national.
My question: What’s the big goddamned deal? Excuse me, but aren’t sports teams supposed to have big rivalries? Isn’t it the whole point of sports to be entertainment? From the strongly-worded opinions that are flying around the internet, news, and TV, you’d think somebody got killed or something. Geez, it’s a fight. These guys are in college. They’re involved in an physical (some would say ‘violent’) sport, where shit-talking is totally within the norm. And didn’t fights happen in like every hockey game played until just recently? I just plain don’t see what the fuss is about. I mean, a silly open letter from a university president? 31 suspensions? A sportscaster getting fired? Is that really the required response to a fight that lasted less then a minute?
I want to comment specifically on Lamar Thomas’ firing. You can hear the offending passage in the video that Rick linked:
Now, that’s what I’m talking about. You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don’t come into the OB playing that stuff. You’re across the ocean over there. You’re across the city. You can’t come over to our place talking noise like that. You’ll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing.
What Rick refers to as “egging UM players on,” (hint: the guys on the field can’t hear the announcer, so he’s not egging on shit), I would call “making light of a situation.” But in our society, we’re now unable to distinguish between different shades of bad, and once once something can be described as ‘bad,’ everybody’s got to fall over themselves to make it sound as terrible as possible. That guy who made light of it? Why, he’s just as bad as the “perpetrators,” and he’s got to go. Good grief.
Now we’ve got permanent rule changes, goofy apologies flying all over the place, and more finger-wagging then you can wag a finger at. Give me a break — you can’t encourage ever-increasing levels of verbal asshole behavior and then suddenly be all freaked out when it gets physical.
Anyway. Link to the long version of the video, link to a shorter version with some blow-by-blow analysis. I Ambrosia has some nice insights into the FIU/UM psychology at Metblogs. Robert has some good comments, too. Next!
Update: At Miami Nights, B.A.C. is spot-on. And Ana Menendez says: “Oh, sure, everyone’s simply appalled. Who’s ever heard of football players slamming into each other? Where did all that meanness come from?”
Disclosure: fwiw, I graduated from F.I.U. Also, I don’t know shit about sports.
Permalink · Comment [6] · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Monday May 1, 2006
A day with immigrants
Critical Miami dragged its ass down to Jose Martí Park for the 6 pm vigil, the part of Day Without Immigrants for folks who didn’t think this was a good time to assert themselves by ditching work. The mood was happy and energized. More then half the flags were American, with a healthy representation from various S. American countries, even a few (very few) Cuban. Not a Che shirt in sight, although . . .
This is a little socialist party book stand. Workers’ power and whatnot. The top sign reads “No Deportations No Firings,” the bottom one, “US Troops out of Iraq, Haiti, Guantanamo, Afghanistan.”
A crappy glimpse from the I-95 ramp approach. A decent crowd, not even considering all the people on the streets for blocks around. Jose Martí Park is actually a very nice waterfront spot, though maybe oddly small for a citywide vigil. Everything seemed to go well, though, and you should have no problem catching it on your evening news, what with the TV helicopters circling overhead and TV vans parked around the perimeter. More on Dw/oI at Greener Miami.
Permalink · Comment [1] · Tags: immigration, politics · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Tuesday March 18, 2008
Check out John VanBeekum’s beautiful photos of Metrorail maintenance. And btw, we haven’t been keeping up with the heavier aspects of maintenance, so we’re looking at buying all new cars.
Friday May 16, 2008
First of the year ultra-muggy weekend
It’s going to be in the 90’s all weekend, with the humidity to match. You’ll want to get out there and enjoy it, but unfortunately there’s not much going on.
- CubaNostalgia — for those who want to see what this whole “Cuba” thing is all about.
- Big bluegrass festival up in Hollywood, with free admission all weekend.
- Another orchid festival? Yep, this time at Fruit and Spice Park.
- HAHAHAHA!! Whoever’s doing promotion for the JVC Jazz festival is getting their ass fired REEL soon — their website is currently down and showing “This account has surpassed its CGI resources allocation at the present time.” Hilarious. You are welcome to keep clicking the link in hopes that it comes back at some point, but I wouldn’t bother — the biggest “name” on the festival is Sergio Mendez.
- Yee-haw, there’s a Miami International Agriculture and Cattle Show. Bring the kids.
- Tonight: Awesome New Republic at The Vagabond [MySpace].
- Les Standiford’s new book is about the founding of Washington as the nation’s capital. He speaks tonight at Books & Books Coral Gables.
- Cuba Libre block party outside The Globe, w/ live music and good food.
- Saturday: Haitian Compas Festival, but CAREFUL — the website started screaming at me, even with flashblock installed. There is some safe information here.
- Elvis Costello performs, which would be pretty cool, but apparently he’s “special guest” of the Palm Beach Police, which is a little weird (I think — admittedly I’m not sure I understand what’s happening here).
- Wallflower Gallery’s 11th anniversary celebration
- Sunday: The Greynolds Park Love-in, with a performance by the “legendary” Spencer Davis Group.
Permalink · Comment [10] · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Sunday April 16, 2006
Miamista’s back with another sprawling post. Check him out on Arriola (#2) and the Coconut Grove Playhouse closing (#7).
Tuesday May 10, 2005
Joseph Cooper
[Contributed by Potato Head]
I see Ed Bell dropped by here yesterday to check the spelling. Okay, then, let’s talk about WLRN [91.3 on FM the radio dial]. I’ve very little experience with public radio outside S. Florida, but WLRN seems to do a decent job. It seems like we should be able to muster a national-caliber show like This American Life, but I guess it’s not meant to be. What we have is Ed’s worthy arts show (where “arts” seems to mean mostly performing arts), and Joseph Cooper’s Tropical Currents.
A local public radio show, Tropical Currents ought to be the most boring of all possible experiences. And Cooper is nobody’s idea of a dynamic radio personality. But. Somehow. It’s magic.
Joseph Cooper is an utterly ordinary, if pretty smart, guy. He seems to make no particular effort to “entertain.” (Actually, these are both just my impressions; it could all be part of the act.) That’s what makes him so riveting on the radio. The Diane Rhem Show has endless intelligent callers; it’s a national show. Joseph has a much smaller pool of callers to deal with, and some real characters (and idiots) get through. He deals with them with delicious, barely disguised, contempt. You can actually hear him sigh on the radio.
Mostly, though, he’s just a regular dude. He cares about the environment. He doesn’t like big business pushing people around. He’s reasonable for miles and miles. But he sounds like a reasonable guy sitting at the next bar stool, not like a reasonable guy on the radio. (Kind of like Tom Snyder.)
[Mp3 downloads of Cooper’s show are available online (nice; most NPR stuff is available in RealAudio only). How about adding an RSS feed for podcasting, WLRN? How about keeping more then four recent shows online for download? And, for the love of sweet Jesus, how about an actual schedule of upcoming shows? Please don’t tell us Joe flies by the seat of his pants??]
Permalink · Comment [2] · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Thursday January 3, 2008
“a pork is roasted at tom’s barbecue on eighth street…not a BBQ place at all, more like a super cuban dive”
Friday May 11, 2007
Mom's Weekend
- The Miami International Piano Festival.
- Aquagirl.07, a weekendlong festival that benefits gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women, with stuff going on all weekend.
- Friday, Alfredo Jose Estrada discusses his new book, Havana: Autobiography of a City at Books & Books.
- Dance Now! Ensemble’s Mothers Daughters Sisters Lovers.
- Sweat Sound System, Sweat Records celebrates its second birthday with a big party at Churchill’s. Music, art, and cupcakes. That’s right, cupcakes. All the hipsters these days love cupcakes.
- Saturday: A bunch of notable folks will do short presentations (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide) at Green Flamingos.
- NALC Food Drive. Put canned food in a grocery bag by your mailbox Saturday and the mailman will pick it up and deliver it to a local food bank. (I got a grocery bag in my mailbox Thursday promoting it!)
- Gallery walk Saturday: Interesting things at the Bas Fisher (Update: reviewed), David Castillo (opening), Leonard Tachmes, Moore/Locust, Bernice Steinbaum (opening), Diaspora Vibe, Fredrick Snitzer (opening), Dorsch (reviewed), Emmanuel Perrotin, and Diana Lowenstein (opening).
- After that, Federico Nessi, who has an opening at Lowenstein, will DJ at Circa 28.
- Also on Saturday, if you need more panel discussions about the Miami art scene, at 5 pm there’s “2 Wallets/Sq. Ft.,” on how local leaders should deal with the lack of affordable workspace for artists. KVA Building.
- Down Home Southernaires at Churchills.
- Francis Ford Coppola will be around for Miami Beach Cinematheque’s Coppola retrospective.
- Naturally, Sunday brunches will abound. My mom is presently residing outside the country, but so check out a list at SunPost.
- Or, I have an idea: take mom to Coup D’etat XI at PS14.
Permalink · Comment · Post to del.icio.us, digg, reddit
Monday January 14, 2008
You know how Miami Police Chief John Timoney was driving that free SUV around for like a year? Well, the city’s Citizen Investigative Panel asked him to come before them and testify, and he was all “no thanks,” so they subpoenaed his ass, and he still refused to come, so they went to a judge, who ordered him to show up, and guess what? He still refuses. Dear Mr. Mayor: why does this fucktard still have a job?
Monday October 29, 2007
Michael Hardy, CEO of the Carnival Center, has been fired and replaced with Lawrence J.Wilker.
Monday May 15, 2006
One of these days I’m going to write up a whole big thing about how Miami Art Guide sucks so so bad. Meanwhile, check this out – they’re apparently biting content from tNFH. Nice work, guys.
Thursday June 28, 2007
It’s official: M.I.A.’s upcoming tour doesn’t take her anywhere near South Florida.
Wednesday October 24, 2007
Great documentary about the sugar industry. Stuff about Florida is mixed in throughout, though the fucked up Haiti/Dominican Republic situation steals the show. Update: The link is fixed.
Monday July 17, 2006
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??
Monday September 11, 2006
El Niño might signal end of hurricane season. Could also be accounting for why the hurricane season has been pretty unimpressive this year; something to do with cross-winds shearing and sort of tearing storms apart as they try to form. Confusing, and apparently the formation of El Niño right now is sort of a freak occurrence, so maybe back to 2005-type storm season next year. (thanks, Skip)
Monday March 12, 2007
Yikes: Miami is #98 out of 100 on a list of the most walkable cities in the US. The main criteria was the percentage of people who walk for exercise. Contrast with an older study (no date) which looked at people who walk to work — Miami was #79 there. (via TM)
Tuesday August 14, 2007
Kiss the coral house goodbye: demolition has been approved.
Wednesday August 15, 2007
Bob Norman on the edited Herald letter. Don’t miss the comments.
Tuesday August 7, 2007
I noticed the “Herald reporter charged with soliciting prostitute” headline in my RSS this morning but wasn’t interested enough to click. So it turns out the reporter in question is none other then Oscar Corral, which has all the internets in a frenzy. Also, whether he remembers or not, Rick got ‘schadenfreude’ from me.
Thursday January 11, 2007
Hollywood Boulevard.
