About this blog
What's this? This is the blog of Creative Loafing Tampa staffers. Sure, it’s all over the map. You got a problem with that? About this blog Blurbex is our place for the weird, the informative, the breaking news that otherwise doesn’t make it into each award-winning issue of the Weekly Planet. There are no rules;…
Wine List
Got an upcoming or ongoing wine event? Send information to: The Wine List, 810 N. Howard Ave., Tampa, FL 33606, fax 813-739-4801 or e-mail winestuff@weeklyplanet.com. DISCOVER MALBEC Argentina has loved the stuff for years, and now it's your turn to see what the fuss is about. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 25. Uncorked, 2706 Fourth St.…
Pub Grub
Is the luck of the Irish with South Howard?
Upcoming Releases
The following releases will be in stores Tues., Nov. 29: Paul Armfield, Evermine (Superrappin) Bad Company, Bad Taste (System Recordings) Bracket, Requiem (Takeover) The Budos Band, Budos Band (Daptone) Crystal Cameron, Crytallyzed (Fella-Shop Productions) Concise Kilgore, Digitalis (Pockets Linted) Rick Danko, Cryin' Heart Blues (Other People's Music) Dark Funeral, Attero Totus Sanctus (Candlelight) The Darkness,…
NOLA in TPA
Exceptional Nawlins food, whether down-home Cajun or dressed-up Creole, isn't that easy to track down in the Bay area. Just in the past three years over a half dozen local Louisiana-themed places have closed their doors. Maybe the recent attention paid to the Mississippi Delta area will revive the cuisine in our neck of the…
See & Do
BUY LAWS Now that nearly everything in our society has been reduced to the status of commodity — and I'm not sparing biggies like rebellion, sex and art — days like today can be significant ways to refuse the status quo. Today is Buy Nothing Day, a worldwide annual event aimed at stepping out of…
Blow-Up
A sympathetic look at suicide bombers borders on propaganda.
See this show
A few weeks ago, First Impressions Fine Art unveiled a series of paintings by romantic expressionist artist Sabzi in an exhibit titled The Show. The Ahwaz, Iran, native started painting when he was 12, though he never received any formal schooling. Interestingly enough, he graduated from the University of Jundi Shapur with a degree in…
Thanksgiving FAQ
For those Tough Turkey Day Questions
Spins
Z MY MORNING JACKET ATO Remember, back when you were about 13, how kids started, you know, changing? Over the summer between semesters, one kid would grow five inches. One girl would sprout breasts overnight. The pipsqueak's voice dropped an octave or two. In short, everything about these kids changed, and you never knew it…
The Tout Sheet
2006 elections loom, and Tampa Bay has some hot races ahead.
STR8 GANGSTA
Officers seized 990,000 hits of ecstacy. If you see a cop trying to make sweet love to a shag carpet, don't be alarmed. Polls down, campaign manager departs, Sarsota CVS runs out of L'Oreal Dermo-Expertise Eye Makeup Remover. 2B? Nt2B? Is this a sign of a apocalypse? That is the question. Sidewalks that float in…
The Family Business
For small wineries, passion is just as key as profit.
Outtakes
New Releases: BEE SEASON (PG-13) With a big tip of the hat to La Dolce Vita's famous opening of a Jesus statue flying over Rome, Bee Season begins with a helicopter transporting a huge letter "A" through the air. It's a perfect introduction to a movie about the power of letters and words, among other…
Viewing Pleasure
In the pursuit of commercial-free programming and a sharper picture, my parents gave in and subscribed to cable television in 1984. Suddenly, I found myself rising earlier than usual to watch Saturday morning cartoons, but not because I was afraid I'd miss something. Rather, I wanted complete control over the set. I chose the channels,…
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
By turns wryly amusing and painful, The Squid and the Whale is the year's most meticulously detailed, deeply personal and magnificently neurotic account of a family splitting apart at the seams. Director Noah Baumbach (who, just on the strength of this and his earlier Mr. Jealousy, has got to be considered one of the most…
Double the Fun
Surprisingly long-running Canadian pop duo Tegan & Sara (their first independent full-length came out in '99) is generally either loved or reviled by critics and passionate music fans alike. And to be fair, the whole thing is kind of gimmicky — young twin sisters singing first bubblegum folk and later bubblegum pop-rock songs about love…
Armed and Amorous
The (International) Noise Conspiracy gets personal.
Tapas To Go
Ceviche branches out, and other restaurant news.
Going Under
Urban exploring the ashtray of my subconscious.
Music Menu
THURSDAY, NOV. 24 THANKSGIVING DAY CARILLON CONCERTS Got a tank full of gas and a bunch of relatives in town for Thanksgiving who probably wouldn't view going to the Emerald and hearing The Dead Popes as "a cultural evening"? Head on out to Lake Wales for two special afternoon carillon programs from the Historic Bok…
Five New Orleans greats now open
"New Orleans right now is like having a six-room house and, after the hurricane, only the living room is left," said writer Pableaux Johnson at the Southern Foodways Alliance symposium in Oxford, Miss., last month. The sense of community and hospitality endures. Here are five recommended restaurants in the Big Easy that are open and…
Same old Scrooge
This retelling of Dickens’ Christmas Carol sticks closely to the original.
Bittersweet
A culinary remembrance of New Orleans before Katrina and a report on its uncertain fate now.
The Museum, Cubed
A rush to judgment, then cautious optimism, about the proposed new site.
Going Postal
Not So Neutral I could not agree more wholeheartedly with your Political Whore ("Delivering the Mandate," by Wayne Garcia, Nov. 16-22) on the matter of the St. Petersburg Times' indirect endorsement of Rick Baker. I was rather appalled at the lack of impartiality with the St. Petersburg Times myself. I'm glad I was not the…
