Check-out time
The closing of the Langford Resort Hotel has been a protracted, emotional affair. Last Saturday’s Final Farewell Party was merely the most elaborate in a series of going-away soirees that will continue until May 30. Not since Celine Dion announced her semi-retirement has a parting gesture enjoyed such longevity. That’s a strained analogy, I know:…
Cinematic salesmen talk up the product
Movie: The Big Kahuna
Lost highway
Movie: Road Trip
Woody’s big score
Movie: Small Time Crooks
Mighty footsteps
Movie: Dinosaur
Cinematic salesmen talk up the product
Movie: The Big Kahuna
Lost highway
Movie: Road Trip
Woody’s big score
Movie: Small Time Crooks
Mighty footsteps
Movie: Dinosaur
Mall or nothing
Summer in Orlando is renowned for being, well, just awful. There’s nothing like stepping outside the safety of your air-conditioned home and being swept up in a wave of sticky air. You could find solace from this stifling awfulness by submerging yourself in water, but then you’d have to deal with the pruning effect. There…
The inside story
On certain summer days, it’s so hot you wake up and the first things out of your mouth are lines from Dante’s “Inferno”: “eternal fire, with ruddy flame illumed, as in this nether hell.” But really, what could Dante have known about “nether hell,” anyway? He never spent July in Florida. When the temperature in…
Cruise control
You’re getting ready to leave home, and you stop and sigh. Before you open the door you take a deep breath, like someone preparing to run though mustard gas. You know what’s out there. It may just be a short sprint to the car, but you’re going to get hit with a wall of heat…
Current news
It used to be that entertaining yourself through a long, hot Orlando summer was a matter of stamina and several glasses of afternoon lemonade. You cracked your doors and windows, turned on several fans and tried to stay as immobile as possible until the wind picked up before suppertime. All that’s changed, of course. We…
Sweat it out
Sweating is like watching “Entertainment Tonight”: No one wants to talk about it, but we all do it sooner or later. This is especially true in Orlando during summertime, when taking four steps from the car to the front door of Publix is enough to have even the best of us schvitzing harder than a…
Water log
While the heat and humidity of O-town’s summer months can be stifling, we’re at least blessed (thanks in great part to the tourist industry) with plenty of ways to stay soaking wet. A leisurely tour west to east along the I-4 corridor from Disney to Daytona uncovers vast and watery ways to beat the summer…
The wild side
There is nothing more magical than summer light on Florida’s wilderness water, and beyond the beaches, solace for the soul awaits those willing to break old habits. On weekends, if you usually burn up the Beeline to Cocoa, then you blast right past a place that makes for a very different kind of morning: halfway…
Instant charma
Elbow to elbow, five rows thick, raucous patrons gather for another Saturday night at Sak Comedy Lab to watch “Duel of Fools.” The audience is eager and practiced, supplying the cues that the ensemble will use to frame the scenes. “Give me the name of a film genre,” the referee calls out. “Action,” calls back…
Where every day is hump day
A January New York Times report from Selcuk, Turkey, described the massively popular sport of camel fighting, in which one-ton camels caught up in the throes of mating season push against each other until one falls over. Fame is visited upon the winning animal’s owner. And in a March New York Times profile, well-to-do Istanbul…
Worst-case scenario
One seldom sees the drama of a superlative in the headlines. You might see “Best Picture,” “Youngest Player” or “First Clone,” but you don’t get “Congress Passes Stupidest Law EVER” or “Presidential Race Declared Most Boring of All Time.” Only the satirical newspaper The Onion ever gets the full drama of an event into their…
Leaping for lizards
The Doors sang, “I am the lizard king.” The Budweiser ads use the critters. Otherwise, there are precious few references to the reptiles in pop-culture circulation. For the most part, lizards are, well, kind of cute, but they don’t really do anything special, and they don’t have any particular significance. Your cat might chase one…
Charter school gets a late slip
It wasn’t quite a victory. Nor was it a defeat. The proposed Parramore charter school was left in limbo as of May 15, after the Orange County School Board effectively postponed final approval of the school until November with the understanding that discrepancies in the charter application must be resolved. “Like I said all along,…
Review – One Endless Night
Artist: Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Review – Reinventing the Steel
Artist: Pantera
Review – S Club 7
Artist: S Club 7
Review – The Flower and the Knife
Artist: Kevn Kinney
Review – One Endless Night
Artist: Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Review – Reinventing the Steel
Artist: Pantera
Review – S Club 7
Artist: S Club 7
Review – The Flower and the Knife
Artist: Kevn Kinney
Review – One Endless Night
Artist: Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Review – Reinventing the Steel
Artist: Pantera
Review – S Club 7
Artist: S Club 7
Review – The Flower and the Knife
Artist: Kevn Kinney
Discover what reigns in Spain
For a taste of the diverse wines of Spain — from Sauvignon Blancs to sparkling wines made with the Parellada grape — reserve a seat at the “Spring Sensation” dinner, 7 p.m. Monday, May 22, at Don Pepe’s Cuban Café (937 W. State Road 436, Altamonte Springs). They’re serving a seven-course pan-Latin feast with noteworthy…
America has spoken, and i…
America has spoken, and it doesn’t give a fig for O-Town — or at least the group of the same name. “Making the Band,” the “reality drama” that follows eight amateur entertainers who vie for spots in Orlando’s latest teen-pop combo, has met with such lousy ratings that it was pulled from ABC-TV’s lineup during…
Prophet’s margin stays vital
The way respected singer/songwriter/guitarist Chuck Prophet sees it, the alt-country movement has taken up residency on the wrong side of the tracks. “It’s less of a scene and more of a ghetto now, you know,” says Prophet via phone, from his San Francisco apartment. Prophet has a right to feel protective of roots-rock. As the…
