Liz Langley

In the 1990’s my  friend Bob, an artist, got three suitcases from a thrift store and customized them for me: on one he painted dollar signs, on another dalmatian spots and on the last dozens giant sperm. It took a little nerve to carry that bag but no one ever accidentally grabbed my luggage at the airport.         Whatever you think about them sperm lead a lot more interesting lives than you might imagine and the differences in activity among different species - human and squid for example - is pretty amazing stuff, hence  10 Fascinating Facts About Sperm , just published on Alternet, and a lot  more ways for you to stop any cocktail party conversation dead in it's tracks. 

Listen for me for W hat's Hot in Central Florida on 90.7 WMFE FM including She Stoops to Conquer at Annie Russell Theatre at Rollins , the Novarays opening for Dick Dale at the Plaza Live Orlando , and Central Florida's 8th Annual Earth Day at Lake Eola Park - lots of excellent vendors, speakers and demos including one of my favorites, local author and filmmaker Bill Belleville talking about water conservation at 5pm. Had a great time last year - looking forward to seeing you all out there!

'Despicable Me 2' is coming out July 3 and as part of the marketing  the 'Despicablimp' is touring the U.S . - I lucked out and happened to be walking home just as it was flying over my house in Orlando and got a great shot!  I have an inflatable Minion but mine isn't quite 165 ft. long.  Looking forward to the movie a - how do you say "Can't wait" in Minion?

You’ve heard O Fortuna , the opening segment of Carf Orff’s Carmina Burana even if you don’t know it:-it sounds like like nothing short of the soundtrack of a battle between heaven and hell, spectacle being exactly what Orff was going for as described in Scott Simon’s 2007 piece on the 1937 cantata . A spectacular collaboration of the piece between the Orlando Ballet and the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, providing a 150 voices and a 50+ piece orchestra has just one more show at the Bob Car Performing Arts Center and does Orff’s vision a thrilling and joyful justice. It’s not just that the quality of all the performers is stellar: it’s the combination of their efforts, which magnified their gifts tremendously and brought home our luck in having so much talent to showcase. The minutes-long standing ovation made it clear: this collaboration between two outstanding artistic groups has to be one of the proudest moments of the arts in Central Florida. And there’s only one

      A good mystery is a little like a good strip tease. If too much is revealed too soon the magic is diluted....but when you do start revealing things you better have something juicy to hand over. It's a genre I've come to love - mysteries, that is - probably because where other forms of entertainment thrive on formula, the mystery, by definition, needs to be something you don't see coming.       Sherlock Holmes and the Adventures of the Suicide Club, an Edgar award nominaed play by Jeffrey Hatcher currently running at Theatre Downtown, Orlando , comes through with flying colors on that front. Hatcher has combined Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's still-wildly-popular Sherlock Homes and Dr. Watson with Robert Louis Stevenson's mystery trilogy and comes up with a dark, witty, bizarre and complex piece that you don't have to be a mystery devotee to enjoy digging into.        Tim DeBaun is deliciously superior as Holmes, charming even in the miserable state we

 It's not that I don't think Florida's back country is beautiful - it is beautiful,  gothically beautiful, with the sprawling, elegant live oaks, bright green with spring leaves and ghostly spanish moss reminding you not to let that spring brightness make you too comfortable - it's just that I hate getting lost in it, which I inevitably do. I need a GPS more than anyone you'll ever meet. I'm capable of getting lost in my 500 square foot apartment. Sober. (Also people who live in Oviedo, FL might argue that it's not "back country" but I would argue that if you have a town in your vicinity called " Taintsville " because it 'tain't this city or that city, well, my dear....baby got back country. And I did  get lost in the Oviedo/Chuluota back country a couple of weeks ago so I was looking forward to going back like a lab rat who is afraid of hitting the lever that delivers the shock again. Armed with Google Maps (printed) I

Meet the lady with the Guinness World Record for biggest breasts, some people who have an extra boob or two, and exactly what breasts are made of - not quite everything you wanted to know about the world's most fabulous accessory that also doubles as a food source - but good stuff nonetheless in 10 Fascinating Facts About Breasts from me on Alternet.      Lots of stuff I never knew, that's for sure - someone who owes their cleavage as much as my owe mine really should know a thing or two about them - and I was glad to get to find out, so thanks Alternet and hope you all enjoy!

There have been times I’ve been so broken hearted that I’ve thought that if people could see physically in me what I felt had happened to me emotionally no one would have been able to identify the body.  That’s the kind of heart break we see in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly presented by the Orlando Philharmonic this weekend, a tragedy of trust that is no less painful to watch if you know exactly what’s going  to happen. The title role is played by Shu-Ying Li who won an Emmy when she sang it with the New York City opera in Madame Butterfly Live . Li’s voice is a natural wonder: she  transmits Butterfly’s love with such exquisite power and delicacy you’re right in it with her; I found myself holding my breath in that way that you do when you don’t want something to go away. The full cast is certainly wonderful but of all the moments in the show it was Li’s “Flower Duet” with  Mika Shigematsu, who plays her devoted maid Suzuki that was one of the high points of the night for m

Here's my latest on Alternet and this was a tough one about the Science of Sexual Orientation and the studies showing various biological bases for homosexuality. I also interviewed a few people about the social aspects of this work including Dr. Dean Hamer, who discovered 'the gay gene' (actually it's a little more complicated than that). It gets pretty complicated - one of those stories where the questions kept seeming to lead to more questions - but definitely intriguing and if you like it, please 'like' it!