Terrace Seduction
The last time I dined at Il Terrazzo, I inadvertently picked up both copies of the credit card receipt, which would have meant they had been stiffed for, oh, a coupla hundred bucks. The waiter came running into the hotel lobby, a frantic look of anguish on his face. He was a study in single-mindedness…
Culinary Events
CULINARY EVENTS Bring on the Bread Baking class focuses on pesto bread, cinnamon raisin bread, brioche, sun-dried tomato dinner rolls and German sour cream twists. 6:30-9 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 20, La Maison Gourmet, 471 Main St., Dunedin, 727-733-8915. $39.50 per person; includes a light meal. Pasta-Riffic Kids 8-14 years old can learn how to make…
Books
Holidays on Ice By David Sedaris Back Bay Books/$8.95 This collection of six sharp stories is alive with observational, sardonic humor. It's no mistake that these stories — three old, three new, all with a holiday theme — are among David Sedaris' best. The Christmas season, with all its cheapness and expectation, is a perfect…
Third Place: Stan, Stan, Stan the Man
By Aracelis Gonzales Asendorf
Praise the Lord
An enchanting, epic fable about absolute power corrupting absolutely, Peter Jackson's long-awaited The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is finally here. And to get right to the question everyone's dying to know — does it live up to the hype? — the answer is, in a word, yes. The first installment…
First Place: Stray Dogs
By Thomas Cooper
Web Site of the Week
Wil Wheaton http://www.wilwheaton.net
Spins
Reviews of new CDs
A Rockwell Christmas
Looking for an infusion of Christmas spirit? Sincerity, exuberance, strong voices and impassioned singing make A Rockin' Christmas at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center just the potion you need. As director/conceiver Claude McNeal has demonstrated in past cabarets — particularly in the stunning Swing! Swing! Swing! — audiences are more easily moved when performers…
Outtakes
13 Ghosts (PG-13) 21st century remake of the old William Castle spookfest about a family trapped in the haunted house they've just inherited. Stars F. Murray Abraham, Tony Shalhoub and Shannon Elizabeth. (Not Reviewed) Amazing Journeys (PG) IMAX films are about scale, size — from the unfathomably huge (the oceans, the cosmos themselves) to the…
Letters
United They Stand Re: "One Strike and They're Out" by Francis X. Gilpin (Dec. 6-12) I am one of the employees on strike. I have been an employee of Group Technologies for 24 years and have been a member of Teamsters Local 79 for just as long. I am not a radical or greedy person…
The Sixth Annual Weekly Planet Fiction Contest
It's always fascinating to see what's going on in the minds of Florida writers each year, when the fiction contest entries start pouring into our offices. This year we received 236 entries lovingly set in Florida locales from the beaches to the swamps and scrublands and featuring characters from snowbirds and Rastas to crackers and…
Second Place: Numb
By Frank Drouzas
The Wine List
The Grand Finale The Tampa Wine Institute says goodbye to 2001 and invites you to taste their best picks of the year. $50. Friday, Dec. 28. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Located at Wines by Morrell, 2009 N. 22nd St., Ybor City. Reservations requested. 813-241-8587. Work Week Wine Down Grand Cru Wine Cellar holds wine tastings with snacks…
The List
Festivals/Events Got Skills? 5 This MC/DJ battle invites all comers to test their skills against the rest and the best of the Bay area's B-boys and B-girls. So if you think your rhymes are so fresh or your cuts so clean, bring it. There's $1000 in cash and prizes for the winners of each element…
Left Out
Discriminating against homosexuals just might be outlawed in St. Petersburg sometime next year. But an amendment to the city's human-rights ordinance, which would accomplish that, almost certainly won't protect transgender people. The St. Petersburg City Council set the first of two scheduled public hearings on the amendment for Dec. 20. "I have to be optimistic…
Soundboard
Thursday, Dec. 20 Alley Cat's Cafe Diane Beach Place Paul Anthony Band Beantown Pub Ted Wray Billy G'Z Baby Huey Band Bourbon Street Knight Sounds Carlie's Full Tilt Chase Club Derrick Williams Dave's Grill & Bar Mike Tozier Famous Cigar Jazz Lounge Piano Man Fox and Hounds Irish Pub Jon Springs Green Iguana-West Shore Other…
Music Menu
Blue Jeans Classics: The Florida Orchestra presents Simple Gifts The Orchestra continues its offshoot Blue Jeans Classics series with Simple Gifts, a program that emphasizes pristine melody and the beauty of understatement over more technically ambitious pieces. Please wear a shirt with at least short sleeves, and remember — at events such as this, the…
Planet Picks
Thursday 12.20 Movies at Dali's The Salvador Dali Museum screens a pair of irreverent holiday films, Black Adder's Christmas Carol, a 45-minute takeoff on Dickens' classic tale, and MGM Holiday Cartoon Classics, an animation package that includes Hugh Herman's short Peace on Earth. The farcical Black Adder adaptation, full of horrid people and seasonal bottom…
Christmas Between the Covers
Perhaps you are one of those people who find themselves so overcome with the joyous holiday gift-giving spirit that at some point amid the joyousness of it all you turn to your loved ones and say joyously, "Look, how about if I just give each of you a big wad of cash this year?" You…
Dear Diaries
It had to happen at some point, really. Anyone who regularly attends shows at The Orpheum or New World Brewery has surely heard a half-dozen humorous conversations cross-referencing bizarro standup comedian Emo Philips with the underground-music genre that stole his name. It was only a matter of time before somebody put it on a product.…
Dining Guide
HILLSBOROUGH Brandon La Septima Cafe, 140 N. Parsons Ave., Brandon (813-684-1948). You'll find a taste of the original Latin flavors of old Ybor in this quaint little Brandon cafe. Look for large portions and excellent Cuban sandwiches, succulent roast pork and saffron-kissed chicken and rice. $ Tampa Carrollwood/ Northwest Tampa 3 Palms Grille & Gallery,…
Freebie
Christmas in Dade City
Public Life
Help for the Holidays Tampa Bay residents have funneled plenty of funds to worthy organizations this year, including the various Sept. 11 charities. However, many local organizations need that same help now, especially during the holiday season. Please take a moment to peruse the following small list of local nonprofits in need, and help any…
The Fiction Contest Judges
Dennis Loy Johnson is a short-story writer whose work has appeared in literary journals such as Ploughshares, the New England Review, the Georgia Review and Story magazine, and in anthologies such as the Pushcart Prize series and Algonquin's New Stories From The South. He writes a weekly column called "MobyLives" about books and writers. It…
Kiss My Glass: The Science of Stemware
When I was growing up, my Italian grandpa always drank wine from a small, squatty glass. In fact, I don't think he owned a single glass with a stem. This seemed perfectly functional to me at the time; the squatty glass held plenty of wine and it was hard to knock over, even when Grandpa…
