New Times picks the best arts and culture events of the week. Jenny Lawson For her second book, Jenny Lawson went with some light-hearted subject matter: her life-long battle with mental illness in the form of oft-interrupting depression and a crippling anxiety disorder. The topics may not be cheery, but Lawson’s…
New Times picks the best arts and culture events and things to do from November 30 through December 3. ZooLights Your neighbor Carl and his Christmas display have nothing on ZooLights, the Phoenix Zoo’s annual showcase of flora and fauna dazzlingly constructed from millions of colorful bulbs. This year the zoo’s…
New Times picks the best fashion, outdoors, and theater events in Metro Phoenix from November 6 to November 8. La Dolce Vita Garden Party We can sum up Phoenix Art Musem’s La Dolce Vita Garden Party in just three words: footloose, fancy, free. Starting at 6 p.m. Friday, November 6, patrons…
Ghostfest When you’re awake at 4 a.m., you’re better off having fun than lying there contemplating mortality. And so there’s Ghostfest, an annual tradition at The Torch Theatre, 4721 North Central Avenue. (Full disclosure: New Times contributor Jose Gonzalez runs Torch.) The performance marathon runs for 32 straight hours starting…
Tales of Halloween If you’re like us, you avoid scary movies most of the time — we’ve got enough nightmares already, thank you very much. But in October, when Halloween approaches, we embrace the terror. That’s why you’ll find us at FilmBar this month, screaming in fright as the theater…
Yakuza Apocalypse Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike’s latest movie Yakuza Apocalypse has been called “inspired lunacy.” This action thriller, packed with martial arts, supernatural beings, and lots of blood, should get you in the mood for Halloween, and it’s screening at FilmBar, 815 North Second Street, October 9 to 13. But…
Repellent Fence It’s a truth that comes in many forms to the border areas between the United States and Mexico: If you can’t reach through the fence, reach over it. That same concept drives Postcommodity, a long-term social collaboration between artists and activists Raven Chacon, Cristobal Martinez, and Kade L…
“Sirens and Serpents” If “Sirens and Serpents: The Art of Tara Sharpe” had a rating, it would probably be “R,” for nudity and post-impressionist expressionism. {9} The Gallery, 1229 Grand Avenue, is hosting the exhibit on Friday, October 2, and the installation will feature hand-pulled block prints and works on…
“New Graduate Student Exhibition” Class is in session, and the graduate students at ASU’s Art School are busy as ever. How else could they present a gallery show a mere month after their first day? Working in media including paint, metal, fibers, and ceramics, 16 artists share their work in…
Cumbia Dance Night Our Southwest city is no stranger to celebrations of salsa and flamenco dancing, and now Cumbia, hailing from Colombia’s costal region alongside the Caribbean Sea, is making a name for itself. DJs Nico and M.Rocka, the duo behind local group Clandestino, bring La Diabla from Tijuana and DJ…
“Statement Piece” Pottery goes political at ASU Art Museum Brickyard, as curator Garth Johnson presents “Statement Piece,” an exhibition pairing works from Danish-born war objector Erik Gronborg and American veteran Ehren Tool, who served in Operation Desert Storm. Though from different backgrounds, the two have used functional ceramics in their…
“Bummer Summer” There are countless movies, songs, and poems about the romanticism of summer — the warm sun, the peaceful beach, the budding romance. But, honestly, sometimes the summer can suck. Artist and graphic designer Lauren Bailey has put her minimalistic spin on this darker side of summer in “Bummer…
It is the opinion of this blog that measuring weight in pounds is silly. The unit is severely outdated — the Avoirdupois pound, the version of a pound we utilize in the U.S., first went into use in the 14th Century — and the units that make it up are…
Hair 1968’s Hair was a groundbreaking Broadway musical with a killer soundtrack, all about hippies and love and drugs and stopping the war and resisting the Man, man. Seriously. And hair, of course. Those days might be the last time the elements of a musical drenched our culture so thoroughly…
Before about 8 p.m. last Thursday, this was going to be a very different article. It would’ve been a lighthearted tale of a beer’s creation, plus some tasting notes. I might have even thrown in a joke or two. But then this news dropped: “The Firestone Walker and Duvel Moortgat…
A few years ago, I helped open a World of Beer location in the Chicago suburb of Evanston. On opening night, we had 49 taps flowing mostly local brews: Revolution, Goose Island, Three Floyd’s. But one local draft, belonging to a mysterious little brewery called Small Town, was getting much…
Beyond Musketeers: Utopia Lost Apparently, we can’t get enough dystopian future in our entertainment. (As though the past and present haven’t been dystopian enough.) So Brelby Theater Company reaches into the past to create a play set in just such a future, Beyond Musketeers: Utopia Lost. One of the adjustments…
Last night, for the first time in more than a year, I pulled my old guitar from its melancholy confines in the bedroom closet, wiped off the dust that had collected between the strings, and played. My fingers were stubborn at first, reluctant to perform bends and stretches outside their now-usual…
Young Frankenstein We can’t get over the fact that Mel Brooks wrote the words and music to all of the songs in the stage musical version of Young Frankenstein (except for “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” or, as the monster sings it, “Oo atha Rih”). Dude is mad talented – he…
Plunking a slice of lime, lemon, or orange on the side of a glass of beer is a distinctly American tradition — one this writer wishes would kindly die. Not only do oils found in the peels of these fruits hinder head formation and rob you of precious aroma; they’re…
“Hidden Histories in Latin American Art” When an artist is creating, he or she often includes unintentional content – images or themes that reveal information about the artist’s psyche or environment, or events and movements that will, over time, provide historical context. In the case of the works in Phoenix…
Achtung! The brewers of Germany are best-known for clean lagers and fragrant hefeweizens, but this is but a small part of their contribution to the current craft beer landscape. Today our journey through beer history takes us to Bamberg, Germany, an ancient town located near the center of Deutschland known…
