The images are unsettling: photographs of moist, pink skin, stretched and bloated; rows of wet, shiny teeth glistening from a cavernous maw; clumps of straw-like blond hair bursting from the neck hole of a starched white shirt. Created by an anonymous Scottsdale artist, these digital montages are as troubling as…
The 2016 edition of New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now,featuring a series of “as told to” profiles that explore how our city’s proximity to Mexico makes it better. My food, at this new restaurant, Barrio Café Gran Reserva, calls for wine. Mexican wine. Here’s what people don’t know:…
The 2016 edition of New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now, featuring a series of “as told to” profiles that explore how our city’s proximity to Mexico makes it better. In 1988, I was in my mid-30s, and had just broken off a relationship and was feeling sorry for…
The 2016 edition of New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now, featuring a series of “as told to” profiles that explore how our city’s proximity to Mexico makes it better. I tell people this all the time: I was forced into flamenco dancing. I was 9 years old, and…
The 2016 edition of New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now, featuring a series of “as told to” profiles that explore how our city’s proximity to Mexico makes it better. When I first came to Phoenix from Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1987, I was homeless. I lived in an alley,…
Robrt Pela recently wrote about why Phoenix feels so white, despite its racial diversity. Here, he reflects on his experiences with whiteness, brownness, and what they mean in a place bordering Mexico. It’s August 28, 1976, my first day of high school. Mrs. Travis, our over-effusive third-period algebra instructor, has…
The 2016 edition of New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now, featuring a series of “as told to” profiles that explore how our city’s proximity to Mexico makes it better. I’ve been in the Valley since 1978, most recently from law school. I went to Stanford, and then moved…
The 2016 edition of New Times’ Best of Phoenix is out now,featuring a series of “as told to” profiles that explore how our city’s proximity to Mexico makes it better. One day, I was walking down the street in Guadalajara. I was 10 years old. And this man came over…
When I first came to Phoenix, I was working as a butcher at Food City. My artist’s eye noticed there was all this cardboard being thrown away at the market. I thought, “What can I do with it?” My coworkers would tease me: “Why do you want so much cardboard?…
I’ve always worked in restaurants. I mean, it’s a family business. My uncles have always had restaurants in Chihuahua, where I’m from. So even when I was in school, I worked in restaurants here in Phoenix. When I was 16, I worked at Applebee’s. The Pointe South Mountain. Most recently,…
It’s April 2016, and I’m at the Sheraton Grand in downtown Phoenix, trying like crazy to stay engaged with Mayor Greg Stanton’s state of the city address. He got my attention with an opening nod to Mexico consulate general Roberto Rodriguez Hernandez, with whom he’s signed an agreement to promote…
It was only a matter of time before sitting and reading a book got “branded”; turned into a trend involving a crowd and a coffee drink; conceptualized as something other than a private pastime. Silent reading parties are now all the rage, and they’ve made their way to Phoenix. Changing…
There is plenty to like about iTheatre Collaborative’s new production of The Velocity of Autumn, now playing at the Herberger Theater Center. Carefully paced direction by iTheatre cofounder Rosemary Close lends a casual, real-time feel to Eric Coble’s melodrama, and performances from Judy Rollings and Brad Bond bring his long,…
Matthew Wiener is yelling. “Stop moving around so much!” he bellows at James Garcia and Marcelino Quiñonez, who are rehearsing a scene from El Che, Quiñonez’s new play about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Wiener steps between the actors, improvising a scene in which Guevara, played by Quiñonez, is reunited…
Playwright Kirt Shineman had a rare opportunity earlier this year, one he’s sure he’ll never have again. “It was at my wedding,” he says, “and I was watching the people I based the characters in my new play on, talking to the actors who are playing them.” That new play…
Someone is ringing a tiny silver bell. It’s tea time for the employees of Tuft & Needle. Two dozen young, carefully groomed men and women wander over to a table heaped with finger sandwiches and flaky croissants. Dressed in shorts and jersey skirts and polo blouses, they look less like…
For Yasu Hashino, chef and owner of North Phoenix’s Yasu Sushi Bistro, preparing sushi is serious stuff. “Sushi is not just my job,” Hashino says. “It’s bigger than that. This is about me saying to you, ‘How can I show you guys what we enjoy back in Tokyo? What can I…
My mother is washing dishes. She’s using a paper napkin she found in the kitchen sink, and a little bit of leftover coffee from a mug on the counter. She scrubs at bits of egg stuck to a fork, sets it next to the saucer she’s just cleaned. Then she…
That cacophonous din you hear is the screaming of local historic preservationists who’ve recently learned that yet another significant Phoenix building is about to be torn down. Earlier this month, the owners of Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen announced that they’re looking to sell their iconic Central Avenue building to Atlanta-based Wood Partners, which has lately…
Twenty-five years ago this week, Romeo’s Euro Café quietly opened its doors in the East Valley. “I discovered I had this knack for putting two or three ingredients together and coming up with something different than you’ve had before,” explains owner Romeo Taus. “My wife said, ‘We should do something with this.’ And…
There are no pyrotechnics to throw dazzle at Childsplay’s new Peter Pan. There are no Foys in the flies of Pete, or The Return of Peter Pan; no million-dollar special effects or scenic wizardry. None are needed: This comic adventure soars on skillful writing and clever performances. The play by…
iTheatre Collaborative, the plucky company now housed in the Kax Stage at the Herberger Theater Center, has had a tough time sticking to its announced season the last few years. An October 2015 production of Conor McPherson’s Port Authority was canceled after the troupe didn’t receive a $5,000 general operating…
