Daily Loaf

Because it’s hard to know these days whether to be cautiously optimistic that the recession might be ending or terrified that nobody knows what will happen next, contemplating Florida’s place in the economic (and, increasingly, environmental) miasma is a harrowing exercise.

Artist Michael Parker has his own vision of the state’s fate, as expressed in a composite of digital photographs (”The Final Battle,” right): two toddlers, each sunk ankle-deep into cement, seeming to lunge toward each other in a grappling contest, set against a slightly surreal landscape of swirling clouds and an ominously looming tree.

The picture — simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and disturbing — conveys in a nutshell for curator Manuel Lopez what the exhibit Slow Death of a Flamingo is about. Read the rest of this entry »

In the not-so-subtly-titled exhibit Slow Death of a Flamingo, a group of central Florida artists present works reacting to the “present and future state of economic, environmental and social” issues, both local and worldwide. Artists include Maria Emilia, Edgar Sanchez-Cumbas, Sean Erwin, Ivan Reyes-Garcia, Cosme Herrera, Lazlo Horvath, Conor King, Michael Parker and Carlos Manual Soto. (Pictured: Final Battle by Michael Parker, from the Slow Death of a Flamingo exhibit) Through Aug. 21, Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m., HCC Ybor Campus, 2112 N. 15th St., Ybor City.

Richard Lewis, the ultimate kvetching comic, has been delivering his free-form style of self-loathing and therapy couch examinations of his miserable existence since the 1970s. The 62-year-old’s neuroses are legendary, and he brings his wretchedness and innumerable dysfunctions to the stage and dares you not to laugh at them. Lewis plays his own neurotic self pretty hysterically on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, his close but complicated friendship with similarly neurotic protagonist Larry David causing many humorously awkward misunderstandings, like in a 2002 episode when David’s makes a social faux pas that hurts Lewis’ goal to finally be recognized by Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations as originator of the phrase, “the ___ from hell.” (Lewis claims it as his own wordage to this very day.) Expect a stand-up set of stream-of-consciousness self-observations that touch upon Lewis’ substance abuse and recovery, his paranoia, his inability to maintain normal relationships, and a laundry list of other issues. Mon., Aug. 3, 8 p.m., Floyd’s at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Tampa, $30, 813-235-6937, seminolehardrocktampa.com. – Leilani Polk