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Jun 13-19, 2001

Jun 13-19, 2001 / Vol. 17 / No. 24

Hands down

At some point in any discussion of the new Palm Restaurant at the Hard Rock Hotel, the 75-year history of the original and its 22 other branches are bound to come up. Yes, the first Palm, circa 1926, was opened in New York as a Northern Italian restaurant, and, yes, the corporation is still run…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Pocket protectors

The best book title ever is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Near-Death Experiences.” None of the idiots I know need instructions for practically killing themselves; they figure it out on their own. And while it’s not exactly a self-help book, think of the fun they might have had if they’d packed it with ideas such…

Liz Langley

Just scraping by

Why care about the poor? It’s a question that was rarely asked during the boom ’90s, presumably because low unemployment and the rising stock market lifted most boats. Also common is the belief — exemplified by the 1996 welfare reform act — that if you couldn’t make it in these flush times, you didn’t really…

Tamara Straus

Picking a fight

Early on a Sunday evening, workers in Immokalee are recuperating from a long week and gearing up to start another one. Men sit outside their trailers and shanty-like houses, drinking beer and talking with the others who share their condition. ; ; In Immokalee few people own cars. The town east of Fort Myers, on…

Rochelle Renford

One down, three let go

If everyone on death row was Timothy McVeigh — an unrepentant, unapologetic mass murderer — making a case for abolishing capital punishment may be a bit tougher. But even as President Bush angles to make the federal government as efficient a killing machine as Texas was under his watch (there’s another federal execution planned for…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Something borrowed

It’s Florida to the rescue … again. ; ; It’s an all-too-predictable pattern these days, folks, whenever the Walt Disney Co. has trouble with one of its Anaheim attractions. This time around, it’s Disney’s California Adventure (DCA), the Mouse’s newest theme park, which isn’t even coming close to meeting its projected attendance levels. To turn…

Jim Hill

Set in stone

It’s impossible to write about sculptor William Edmondson without starting off with the fact that he was the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. After this 1937 show, it was seven years before MOMA featured another black artist (painter Jacob Lawrence), and then it took the museum…

Theresa Everline

Blondes have more funds

The human-egg-donor business is flourishing in America, with brokers offering tall, athletic, brainy blondes as much as $80,000 for a multiple-egg harvest (though the average woman gets $5,000 or less), according to a May Los Angeles Times report. Several Ivy League women told the Times they pay off a semester’s bills in a single doctor’s…

Chuck Shepherd

Chocolate jewels from Connoisseur

When I first heard that pastry wizard Karen Donatelli was moving away from Park Avenue, I was very upset. I kept thinking about the tarts, those buns … the cake. I’m talking about cake. Guess we’ll have to make do with the new tenant at 513 S. Park Ave: Chocolate Connoisseur (407-622-1166). Damn the luck.…

Joseph Hayes

Straight-ahead jazz covers unusual ground

Like a clip from Ken Burns’ documentary, five musicians are playing jazz in a smoky club. The saxophone is just as smoky, and after his soloing during “My Funny Valentine,” a woman near the front applauds. Oddly, this scene happened just a few nights ago, at Art’s Café and Cigar Bar. The band is King…

Joseph Hayes

The power of pressure

Just when you thought it was safe to venture back into Niketown, new reports suggest the company that vowed to clean up its act and stop the exploitation of foreign workers who make its shoes may really be just “greenwashing” consumers. Corporate greenwash happens when a company uses the same type of advertising to convince…

Rochelle Renford

The hair and now

Everything you hear you’ve heard already — and it’s true. It doesn’t take too many licks to get to the center of this Orlando leisure pop, where you wait in line to witness the same controlled escapism — usually dressed up in fiberglass and involving a cartoon mascot — only to realize that threadbare repetition…

Billy Manes

Anatomy of an Actress

The Studio Theatre, located right next to the Sak Comedy Lab and across the street from the TD Waterhouse Centre, is, to put it mildly, an intimate space. So when I made the trip on the same day as a Predators game, I knew all those folks couldn’t possibly be joining me at New York…

Don Fowler

When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?

Mark Medoff wrote his psychological thriller “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” in the ’70s, when America confronted the failed idealism of flower power. This era was born in confusion after the naive certainty of the ’50s lost its influence along with the popularity of simple heroes, like the cowboy Red Ryder. Medoff explores this…

Emily Thorpe

Film fest rolls its opening credits

You try doing something nice for someone, and look what happens. For years, regular Joes have complained that it’s almost impossible for them to attend the opening-night film of the Florida Film Festival. They’ve charged that the limited seating at Maitland’s Enzian Theater and the precedence given to patrons have made the event more of…

Steve Schneider

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