Give us a CrackBerry smartphone with notepad and camera, and we’ll still be brainstorming on cocktail napkins, sketching in beach sand, and staring longingly at blank walls, because Homo sapiens’ urge to scribble cannot be sublimated, baby. Fortunately for artists, we also appreciate the doodlings of others. Cassandra Coblentz, associate…
Herberger Theater Center’s Lunch Time Theater series is, quite simply, full of win. You get a break with live entertainment for just $6. Dozens of emerging troupes get exposure to new audiences. And, in the current show, the taffeta-fetish community gets its moment: Larissa Brewington’s one-act comedy Quality Time is…
Do you avoid discussing Big Issues? Embarrassed about the size of your . . . well, you know. Hey, it happens to everyone, but there’s good news: Art appreciation is your sneaky ticket to erudition. In minutes a day, even a 98-pound intellectual weakling can build an understanding of global…
A deserted back street. Some chick drops a scarf to start the deadly joust. Everybody scatters as the cops close in . . . Wait, those are the cops. Yes, it’s a mad world, especially at Firebird International Raceway, where Phoenix Five-O’s modified cruiser sometimes bests the best of the…
Bar snacks and the appropriate beverage can create a spa day for your mouth, and you know you need one. It’s Monday. Come on. So alert your parched entourage and hit Taneko Japanese Tavern’s Half-Price Wine and Sake Mondays (that’s all day). “We just started our happy hour from 3…
Popularity, in a Yogi Berra-esque paradox, alienates some music fans. They either don’t want to be sheep or they simply want to avoid being trampled by the existing sheep in an eerie frenzy inspired by, let’s say, the bouncy sweatball of performing energy that is Treasure Mammal’s Abelardo Gil III…
Surreptitiously, like folkie snipers in the night, devoted aficionados of this Willcox-based duo have been sneak-listening to tracks from their most recent record, Just Like the Others, and waiting on official availability as the lactic acid built up in their cramped ear muscles. Shoot, it’d been so long that all…
FRI 12/2The giant squid may have eluded scientists for decades, but Phoenix artist Pete Deise has been capturing them for years — in metal, that is. Deise creates steel sculptures (including one at the airport and another in front of My Florist Cafe) with characteristic tentacles. His latest exhibition, “Ascension,”…
SAT 11/26Jumpin’ Jesus, thought Aaron Burkey, I’m a friggin’ genius! The 35-year-old vocalist/guitarist was searching for the perfect name for his latest band, but the possibilities weren’t catchy or distasteful enough. He was considering Kiddiesnuff when he was struck by a revelation: Why not pair the Son of God with…
11/19-4/9Last summer, public displays of lingerie were as plentiful as feral kittens and bad movies. Luckily, as temperatures plummet and sweaters appear, the Phoenix Art Museum is unveiling “Lingerie: Secrets of Elegance” — a sociohistorical perspective on frilly things from the 18th century onward. So what is it about the…
MON 11/14When Jethro Tull won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance in 1989, beating out contenders like AC/DC and Metallica, a lot of people raised their eyebrows. But nobody was surprised by the controversy; Jethro Tull has been making people scratch their heads for years. Here’s a classic…
11/4-11/6Savion Glover has the world at his feet, literally. The 32-year-old tap-dance king is like a shoehorn in a shoehorn factory — hard to miss. He’s left his artistic footprints everywhere from Broadway (Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk) to the silver screen (Spike Lee’s Bamboozled) to TV…
SAT 11/5Pound puppies can compete on equal footing with their purebred cousins at the Skyhoundz Hyperflite Canine Disc Championships on Saturday, November 5, at Encanto Park, 15th Avenue and Encanto Boulevard. Though the Phoenix event is a stand-alone meet from which winners don’t advance, “we average around 500 spectators,” says…
SAT 10/29What is it within us that makes us want to do things like wrestle in Jell-O or pudding, bathe in spaghetti noodles, or feel mud squishing up between our toes? If you’ve been neglecting your inner child, let it loose at Kokopelli Krush, a grape-harvest celebration and foot-stomping party…
MON 10/31Tracy + the Plastics is not a real band. Or is it? The beauty is that it’s so hard to tell. The brain child of “lesbian feminist video artist” Wynne Greenwood, Tracy + the Plastics is a three-piece solo act. Yep, you read that right. Here’s the setup: Greenwood…
SAT 10/22Their résumés boast credits from Seinfeld to The Simpsons, but Everybody Loves Raymond executive producer Phil Rosenthal and the sitcom’s writers found the richest material in the minutiae of domestic life. While the show, starring Ray Romano (pictured at right), may be gone to that great rerun channel in…
FRI 10/21Unlike those works of art that can’t even be breathed on without a whack on the hand by a beefy security guard, J. DeSanti’s creations are meant to be used. They’re pretty nice to look at, too. His funky, functional pieces — which he crafts out of shattered glass,…
SAT 10/8If you’re a fan of mainstream, steak-and-potatoes Broadway shows — your Phantom, your Rent — then more power to you, frankly. But the latest offering in ASU’s “Beyond Broadway” series brings us something, well, beyond — in a gentle, lovely way. What else would you expect from a troupe…
10/7-10/31Teresa Widmer loves trash. The local mixed-media artist has collected garbage off the streets for the past 12 years, documenting her finds and recycling them into artistic assemblages that comment on America’s disposable culture. Among her finds: the People magazine cover featuring Liz Taylor’s 1989 wedding to “that construction worker,”…
9/16-9/17Ah, there’s nothing so sublime as leaning back on a bleacher with a cool drink and a hot dog, a freshening breeze in your face, and watching pitchers pitch and hitters hit. And while slow-pitch softball may not be on a par with pro baseball, it is in a league…
FRI 9/16The Prince of Motherfucking Darkness: That’s the literary epithet that author John Gilmore has earned after a lifetime spent excavating the noirish underbelly of human existence. From his grim account of Charles Schmid, the homicidal “Pied Piper of Tucson,” in Cold-Blooded, to his mortician-like dissection of Charles Manson’s psyche…
SAT 9/17In the ’60s, there were love beads and hippies. Today, the “make love, not war” mentality lives on through Kandee Kids — ravers with beaded bracelets and positive vibes. On Saturday, September 17, the Gaia of all raves, Earthdance 2005, heads to a Tucson desert locale so secret you…
