TUESDAY
What: Tim Dorsey
Where: Murder on the Beach, 273 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/279-7790, murderonthebeach.com
Raised in Riviera Beach, the prolific Tampa-based author Tim Dorsey is one of the many spawns of the pioneering Florida crime novelist John D. MacDonald, having penned 20 books with such pulp-a-licious titles as “Hurricane Punch,” “Nuclear Jellyfish” and “Pineapple Grenade.” In addition to the lively writing, Dorsey’s books are distinguished by the ruthlessness of his certifiably insane anti-hero, Serge Storms, who can be just as violent as his enemies when justice needs serving. Dorsey is traveling all around the state in this exhaustive home-turf tour to support his latest Storms tome, “Coconut Cowboy,” in which his certifiably mad and cinephilic protagonist gets his motor running and attempts to finish the journey of the fictional “Easy Rider” radicals Captain America and Billy. If you can’t catch his Tuesday talk in Delray, Dorsey will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Barnes & Noble Plantation, 591 S. University Drive.
WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY
What: “PostSecret: The Show”
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $30
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
Eleven years ago, a man named Frank Warren launched a community mail art project called PostSecret, whose rules were simple: Anyone with a secret they’ve never shared before can reveal it on one side of a postcard and mail it anonymously to Warren, who then posts 10 such submissions on his website, postsecret.com, every Sunday. The results have proven therapeautic, heartbreaking and comedic, with revelations that not even the writers’ counselors and confessors have heard. (Recent examples: “I texted my friend while having sex,” and “My wife committed suicide because of my transition.”) Within two years, the project received more than 2,500 artistic confessions, and after a decade, the ongoing project has earned more than a billion Web hits, inspired a top-selling app and spawned five best-selling books. “PostSecret: The Show” is the latest incarnation of this media behemoth. Supplemented by projected images and video, three actors will conceive a crowd-sourced narrative from PostSecret’s vast archive, prizing the venture’s healing properties in a production that has earned comparisons to “Rent” and “The Vagina Monologues.”
THURSDAY
What: Miami International Boat Show
Where: Miami Marine Stadium Park & Basin, 3501 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Cost: $20-$85, free for ages 15 and younger
Contact: 954/441-3220, miamiboatshow.com
This year marks a historic milestone for this venerated marine showcase, as it celebrates 75 years of showcasing the best in luxury yachts, sport fishers, high-speed performance boats, family cruisers and runabouts, to name just a few. To mark the occasion, the Miami International Boat Show has improved its home base from the more difficult-to-navigate Miami Beach area to this downtown stadium park, which promises ample parking and free Water Taxi and shuttle bus service. Expect to ogle the usual array of stunning boats of all shapes and sizes as well as the newest boating technologies and accessories. And don’t miss the “headliners” of this fair: Wheeler Shipyard’s Pilar fishing boat, a replica of the boat that inspired Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea; and Scarab, the speedboat from the original “Miami Vice” series. Festivities continue through Monday, Feb. 15.
FRIDAY
What: Opening day of “John Raimondi, Drawing to Sculpture”
Where: Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Cost: $10-$12
Contact: 561/392-2500, bocamuseum.org
For a Palm Beach Gardens sculptor who makes evocative but generally uncontroversial work, John Raimondi has been involved in two fairly high-profile lawsuits over the past year regarding his epic creations. In one, he alleges that the Palm Beach Opera, which received one of his 39-foot sculptures in 2004, destroyed the piece for scrap metal. In another lawsuit, resolved in his favor, he discovered that a Russian-born billionaire forged unauthorized copies of Raimondi’s work and installed them at his development sites. The latter case, at least, is a testament to the popularity and universality of Raimondi’s sculptures: towering, gleaming, semi-abstract landmarks that nonetheless suggest flora, fauna and figures reaching for the heavens. He has created more than 100 such sculptures for public, private and corporate collections, from series in “Figurative Abstraction” and “Environmental” to his more recent work inspired by Native American culture and symbols. But his works inevitably begin as ink-and-paper drawings—the 2D sparks that light the fuse of his 3-D monuments—and that will be the focus of this 45-year survey of Raimondi’s art, which runs through April 10.
SATURDAY
What: Mixology: The Craft Spirits Event
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
When: 4 to 8 p.m.
Cost: $60
Contact: mixologyboca.com
Craft beer and craft wine are so last decade: The vanguard of gourmet alcohol is now the craft spirit movement, as exemplified by this showcase of 30 top providers of innovative, high-end adult beverages. For the $60 flat rate, you can savor bottomless libations from such brands as Farmer’s Organic Gin, Barritt’s Ginger Beer, The Bitter Truth, Maestro Tequila, Whistlepig Whiskey and many more. The event, presented by us here at Boca Raton, will pair these horizon-expanding liquors with light bites from some of the region’s best restaurants—including Cabana, Kapow!, The Dubliner and TooJay’s—and live music will provided by Remix. And don’t miss the manhattan cocktail contest featuring Woodfield Reserve.
What: Opening day of Delray Beach Open
Where: Delray Beach Tennis Center, 201 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach
When: 6 p.m.
Cost: $29-$150
Contact: 561/330-6000, yellowtennisball.com
Love may be in the air this Valentine’s Day weekend, but so will plenty of bright yellow balls, served up some of the world’s top current and retired tennis players. Turning 18 this year, the Delray Beach Open ATP tour event is poised for its stiffest competition yet, thanks to a commitment from Milos Raonic. Ranked No. 9 in the world, this 24-year-old Canadian (by way of Montenegro), feared for his unreturnable 230-mph serves, will make history as the first Top 10 ranked player to compete in the Delray Beach Open. The tournament is also proud to welcome back the Bryan Brothers, winners of the previous two doubles titles in Delray. These identical twins, famous for their chest bumping, are “mirror twins,” meaning that Mike Bryan is right-handed and Bob Bryan is left-handed—giving them a natural advantage on the court that few racket-wielding duos can match. More luminaries will be announced closer to the date of the event, including the competitors in this year’s Champions Tour tournament (Taking place Friday through Sunday), featuring the world’s retired greats. Luncheons, tennis clinics, a Chamber of Commerce bash and a USTA Kidz’ Day complete the festivities.
What: Opening night of “Dough”
Where: Regal Shadowood 16, 9889 Glades Road, Boca Raton
When: Show times pending
Cost: $9-$12
Contact: 844/462-7342
In this culture-clashing, coming-of-age entrepreneurial dramedy by director Jonathan Goldschmidt, a longtime Jewish baker (Jonathan Pryce) whose business is being threatened by an avaricious chain grocer finds common ground with a young African Muslim boy who apprentices in his bakery. Little does the proprietor know that his new hire also moonlights as a pot dealer to generate enough income to lift his single mother out of poverty—even when some of the boy’s product winds up in the baking mix and suddenly attracts a new demographic to the struggling kosher business. “Dough” suffers from a predictable narrative but is redeemed by its engagingly flawed characters. The movie examines the soft intolerance that comes from tribal separatism, and by transcending their characters’ differences, “Dough” busts down cultural barriers while taking an admirably progressive stance on weed. It also opens Friday at Living Room Theaters at FAU, Movies of Delray and Movies of Lake Worth.
What: Opening reception for new exhibitions
Where: Art and Culture Center, 1650 Harrison St., Hollywood
When: 6 to 9 p.m.
Cost: $10
Contact: 954/921-3274, artandculturecenter.org
Artist Nolan Haan has undoubtedly spent a wildly disproportionate amount of time staring at un-artistic, monochromatic, drably functional cinder blocks. Then he paints them, with remarkable detail, down to the shadows they cast and the grain embedded in every inch of cinder. These blocks have become obsessions for Haan after a good eight years of painting wildlife, an easily more saleable subject matter; as he writes on his website: “Although I look fairly normal, my family thinks I’ve gone completely insane.” But there is much value in paintings of concrete blocks, whose desire to be one thing while they’re locked in another form is a metaphor that extends beyond the gallery walls. That’s the concept behind Haan’s exhibition “The Futility of Envy,” opening Friday at Arts and Culture Center. As always, the exhibit is one of five openings throughout the bustling Center; others include the dynamic pseudo-architectural artist Kelly Johnson, text-based artist Maynard Monrow, and Miami print artist Rocky Grimes. They all run through March 27.
SATURDAY
What: The Improvised Shakespeare Company
Where: Crest Theatre at Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
When: 8 p.m.
Cost: $40
Contact: 561/243-7922, oldschoolsquare.org
The Reduced Shakespeare Company has long held the most recognized position in Bard parody with its endlessly reproduced show “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Condensed.” Now, there’s a new game in town, and the Improvised Shakespeare Company takes a different approach: It makes up a “masterpiece” on the spot, each night, based on a title suggestion from the audience, and performs it with deadpan Shakespearean dialogue and themes. Performed by three men on a bare stage, every show is wildly different, with one recent performance, in Naples, integrating pickle juice and an undead Lionel Richie. This mix of Elizabethan drama and “Whose Line Is it Anyway?” has been hailed as “staggeringly brilliant” by TimeOut Chicago. Chances are, if comedic theater can do well in the home of The Second City, it can translate to anywhere in the country. Thou hast tickled thy funny bones.
What: Sounds of the Times: “A Modernist Explosion”
Where: New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $30-$40
Contact: 305/673-3330, nws.edu
“Modernist” is the right description of this program of three contemporary composers’ avant-garde-leaning masterpieces. World-renowned German composer-conductor Matthias Pintscher (pictured) will lead the New World Symphony through his own “Five Pieces for Orchestra,” a tribute to the Second Viennese School whose “Pieces” include such titles as “Openly, breathing” and “Suspended and very surreal, as if from a distance.” The program’s other dynamic compositions will be Pierre Boulez’s “… explosante-fixe …,” which marries natural acoustics with manipulated electronic sounds; and South Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s “Clarinet Concerto,” which weaves Asian folk tunes and jazz melodies into her dreamlike composition.
