Table 8 Is Enough

There are so many rude and incompetent public relations professionals (and of course many thorough, decent, and rigorous agents) right here in South Florida it is shocking to The Bitch that anyone would look beyond our area to obtain what is so readily, locally available. Yet at least briefly, incoming,…

No Garden Party

Drug dealers outgun cops. A 23-year-old warehouse worker is shot dead over a five-dollar bet. A three-year-old falls from a second floor balcony and cracks her head because of a broken railing. At the two slums where it all happened, you pay the rent. Dilip Barot, a politically connected, Indian-born…

The Moon Is the First TV

Somehow those who love art find a way — even in Miami — of pursuing their passion. Visiting a gallery, wandering through a museum, keeping up with Tokion and Whitewall — all of these rituals occur regularly and naturally. But then comes the formal, fetishized annual mess that is Art…

Letters from the Issue of November 9, 2006

Directorial Incompetence Hebert is hellacious: Thank you to Octavio Roca for castigating Bliss Hebert for his poor direction of Aïda in “Vigorous Verdi” (November 2). He has no business directing. I was appalled at his totally static direction of Lucia a season or two ago, but when I protested to…

Aluminum Can Omen

He was a glutton, a drug addict, an absentee father. There are many more reasons, beyond sonic and canine aesthetics, to loathe Jerry Garcia in particular and hippies in general. Adrift in a sea of Grateful Dead skull-and-flowers logo-bearing T-shirts, The Bitch discovered yet another tangential motivation for crying “death…

Letters from the Issue of November 2, 2006

From Guatemala to Ethiopia Watch that court: I want to thank Emily Witt for investigating and writing the article regarding immigration judges’ work vis-à-vis asylum seekers, “Mock Trial” (October 19). For the public, it is fundamental to bring and maintain high standards within the immigration system. Only through the public’s…

Letters from the Issue of October 26, 2006

Woof! Woof! Maybe it wasn’t covered in the CliffsNotes: Regarding Daniel Renzi’s review of the GableStage production of Fahrenheit 451, “Burn, Baby, Burn” (October 19): I’m afraid Mr. Renzi hasn’t read Fahrenheit 451 the novel. If he had, he would have known that the Mechanical Hound (which his review calls…

Penniless Purgatory

It was midday-hot in the tony neighborhood just north of Miami’s Design District this past June 22 when as many as twenty snipers took aim with high-power rifles. A deep male voice shouted, “Get down to the ground!” Minerva Vasquez hit the dirt. She pressed close to her doe-eyed, seven-year-old…

Role Bounce

Stacy Provines is that rarest of all human specimens, a true brown-eyed blond. The 30-year-old native Miamian is also a makeup fiend and an inventor, which serves her well in her current job as CEO and chemist-in-chief of ten-year-old Tinte Cosmetics. Provines’s soon-to-be explosively popular line of eye shadows and…

Letters from the Issue of October 19, 2006

Minister/Judge No conflict there, huh? Regarding Trevor Aaronson’s “Religious Conviction” (October 12): I am a former altar boy, and I graduated from Holy Cross College in 1969. When Judge Jose E. Martinez justified the attempted forced perjury by the Archdiocese of Miami, he obviously forgot one of the Ten Commandments:…

Insolence Ointment

Robert Burr is an affable, silver-haired Coral Gables guide-book publisher, deep-ocean diver, and all-around raconteur who leads the popular monthly “wine walks” along Miracle Mile. He also has a nascent interest in (discussing, not drinking) other types of alcohol. So he recently decided to extend his roving lecture series to…

Letters from the Issue of October 12, 2006

Don’t Trust the Commies They don’t respect corpses: In reference to Carlos Suarez De Jesus’s article “Body Count” (October 5): It’s great to learn that Premier Exhibitions has been assured by the Chinese that the bodies were legally obtained, but what does this assurance mean? China is a dictatorship, a…

Letters from the Issue of October 5, 2006

Not Like La Gloria That’s impossible: Regarding Lee Klein’s “Chino-Latino No Go” (September 21): It is obvious that Mr. Klein has an ax to grind with the Estefans. His review of Oriente was one-sided and biased. I am a weekly customer of the restaurant and find the food quite delightful…

Letters from the Issue of September 28, 2006

Blight Take Flight She’s our problem now: Regarding the story “Blight Flight” (September 14) by Rob Jordan: I have worked on urban revitalization for more than twenty years. Having worked with Lisa Mazique for more than seven years, I was surprised to learn Miami had hired her as the new…

Nonapparent Servitude

Maitre d’: Your usual table, Mr. Christopher? Carlo Christopher: No, I’d like a good one this time. Maitre d’: I’m sorry. That is impossible. Christopher: Part of the new cruelty? Maitre d’: I’m afraid so. — L.A. Story, 1991 The delays have been so delicious, the denials so cruel, the…

Megamedia Mangler

Clad in a starched blue shirt and a red power tie, with black headphones sandwiching his handsome pate, the candidate adroitly parried the DJ’s questions. Democratic Congressional hopeful Ron Klein had braved more than an hour of predawn traffic to arrive at the spartan radio studio. The jock was disarming…

Lyre Lyre

When The Bitch was a puppy, she spent hours listening to ad hoc lectures about the ancient world by her trusted advisor Sheramy Bundrick, an art history professor at the University of South Florida and former antiquities curator for the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. One of Bundrick’s areas…

Letters from the Issue of September 21, 2006

Blind Free Weekly Open your eyes, Judy Miller: The moralizing trash-fest, “Blind Date,” (September 14) demonstrates once more that those who complain New Times is a sophomoric rag aimed at the prurient rather than the journalistic or, heaven forbid, the intellectually curious might just be correct. In the article, reporter…

Letters from the Issue of September 14, 2006

Boobner Speaks And he thinks we are sensationalistic? I have had the opportunity to read the article that Josh Schonwald did in the August 31, 2006 edition of Miami New Times, “These Could Be Yours.” I was most upset with the misrepresentations in the article. When Schonwald first asked me…

Ampersand & More

This summer has seen the quiet launch of two niche magazines in the Magic City’s jumble of glossies, trades, and rags. When Indi Live Mag editor in chief Danielle Romero says her online bi-monthly publication is small, she isn’t kidding. Aside from Romero, who does all the writing, only three…

Letters from the Issue of September 7, 2006

Get Off Here Exit 13 finally grabs the spotlight: Thank you for Abel Folgar’s recent review of Exit 13 (Live Wire, August 17). I have been attending the band’s shows for two years now, and it is nice to see local media noticing our hard-working indie musicians here in South…

Letters from the Issue of August 31, 2006

Love and Complaint This film rocked: Regarding Frank Houston’s “Cine Havana” (August 17): I loved the movie. It captured the tempo and beauty of the real Cuba. What I found in Love & Suicide is what I would want to experience on a trip to Cuba — the pain of…