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…
THU 11/10To hell with Niagara Falls, we’ve got an even better location lined up for our impending nuptials: Hades. Sure, the guests might have a devil of a time trying to find transportation, but think about all the gory details: Instead of champagne, we’ll sip blood from bone goblets and…
WED 11/16If you’re looking for an alternative to Hollywood’s seasonal onslaught of high-concept blockbusters, you’ll find it at “Video Slam!” — a digital offshoot of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s popular “Slide Slam” series. “Video Slam!” features experimental offerings by Tony Ash and Steve Gompf and a screening of…
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…
Don’t stand on Grand looking grubby this week. While downtown’s diagonal avenue may be better known for its streetwalkers than its catwalkers, the stretch of deserted industrial buildings turned art galleries moves toward mega modish during “Fashion Week: Grand’s Secret Catwalk”. For four nights, Four White Walls gallery will host…
THU 3There’s no reason the island sounds of reggae and the exotic music of the Middle East can’t get along, especially when beer and beautiful belly dancers are involved. Every week, Sinbad, 5004 South Price Road in Tempe, hosts Hookah Jam Thursdays, a culture dish of hookah smoking, impromptu jams,…
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…
MON 11/7If you value your privacy, don’t drop a love letter anywhere near Davy Rothbart. The founder of FOUND magazine has been scooping up people’s discarded letters, journals and postcards for years and publishing them in the magazine or posting them on his Web site, www.foundmagazine.com. And it’s not just…
“I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve always said I would give my left nut for heavy metal, and now I really am.” Patrick Flannery says this barely above a whisper, but follows the statement with a hearty laugh. Today, the 43-year-old singer, who’s been a veteran of the Valley’s…
10/28-11/5Bram Stoker’s famed and fanged beast has sure turned into a sexy sucker within the past 50 years. The vampire has gone from the gaunt and pallid look of Bela Lugosi to the sleek, smooth-skinned suavity of Brad Pitt, and now everybody wants to be a bloodsucker. And why not?…
SAT 10/29Alas, you won’t see gore-rock band Samhain playing a nude set with backing vocals by a buff Samantha Stevens from Bewitched at “Rites of Hekate, Samhain 2005.” However, there will be naked Wiccans galore at the garment-optional affair, which marks the “witchiest Sabbat of the year.” The 18-and-over event…
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…
The inspiration for Alwun House’s hedonistic horror-pop party Monster’s Ball was Hieronymus Bosch’s 16th-century painting Garden of Earthly Delights, or, as Alwun House co-owner Kim Moody describes it: “that painting with all the obscene little characters with flutes up their butts.” Hmm . . . that gives a whole new…
10/22-10/23Critics of dodgeball consider the game a “dangerous sport,” but it’s really only as sadistic as the person chucking the ball at you. The main thing to remember is: A big rubber ball full of air is flying at your torso. So move. We know from experience that a rock-hard…
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 10/15There you are, surrounded by models from Maxim, FHM, and Playboy, all wearing butt-floss bikini bottoms. The smell of burning rubber permeates the air and, out of a fog of custom-car exhaust, Maxim “Top 10 Hottie” Martina Andrews materializes. She leans over your table with her firm, perfectly symmetrical…
“I recently got a tattoo that says ‘bleep’ on my forehead,” says William Arntz, one of the filmmakers behind the blockbuster docu-movie What the #$*! Do We Know!? Arntz is joking, but given the immense fan base behind the film, which explores, through quantum physics, the idea that the mind…
THU 6Someone in the world has to be selling that avocado-colored ashtray from the ’70s you never knew you always wanted. Or that cheap bust of Sigmund Freud. Or maybe that cute painted-teak coffee table. You just never know what’ll catch your fancy at a yard sale, which is why…
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,”…
The rock ‘n’ roll wife has always been a martyr figure of sorts. She raises the children while her husband’s on tour, endures his infidelities, supports his successes, consoles his failures, and usually ends up a mere footnote in her famous husband’s biography. Unless, of course, she writes her own…
10/4-10/16First, a word about Googlewhacking for the uninitiated. Googlewhack! is an online game, the goal of which is to enter two or more unrelated words (“Googlefactors”) on Google’s Web site in an effort to turn up a single URL hit. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially because the…
