Megalopolitan Life

People flocked to Laura E. Korch’s interactive sculpture during her MFA thesis exhibition at ASU’s Step Gallery, intrigued by the way the piece, shaped like an oversized oblong vessel, cradled the human form. After Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art added the work to its collection, it reappeared as part of an exhibit focused on women artists and gender disparities in the art world. People who laid face down within this Baltic birch plywood piece could put their arms into a pair of tunnels, an act that triggered vibrational frequencies and sound reminiscent of the human heartbeat. Art spaces are filled with “interactive” artworks that merely entertain those who encounter them, but Korch’s sculpture is a truly transformative piece that’s powerful enough to change the way people think about themselves, their community, technology, and, of course, art.

For years, Phoenix artist Ann Morton has found inspiration in politics; a notable series called Proofreading features handmade white handkerchiefs embroidered with some of Donald Trump’s most outrageous quotes. For “The Violet Protest,” Morton called on the citizens of 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico to help her create a “a friendly protest” that would be sent to every member of the 117th U.S. Congress. Participants used textile techniques — quilting, felting, etc. — to make 8-by-8-inch squares with red and blue fabric. They were adorned with messages emphasizing values that are sadly lacking in American politics today: civility, compassion, creativity. The squares’ first stop is an exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum scheduled to open in March 2021. Then, they’ll be split up and sent to Congress, in the hopes they might inspire our leaders to prioritize people over party. Idealistic, maybe. But if nothing else, Morton’s project produced some thought-provoking art.

Phoenix really shows off its creative side during Phoenix Festival of the Arts, a multiday event typically held in December at the urban park that’s named for Phoenix’s first female mayor. The free, dog-friendly event brings live music to the park and gives visitors plenty of other things to explore — including an eclectic lineup of booths where they can get to know the artists and organizations responsible for our city’s cultural landscape. Families can participate in lawn games and other activities, there are food trucks and a beer-and-wine garden, and everyone gets the chance to paint a community mural. Phoenix Festival of the Arts is big enough to have something for everyone, but small enough to make this metropolis feel cozy.

Thirteen members of the Artlink artist council chose partners for a collaborative exhibit installed in a large space at Park Central Mall in March. The opening took place amid early COVID-19 concerns, so Artlink filmed the exhibit and posted it online so more people could see the impressive results of these creative collaborations. The exhibit featured intriguing pairings, including visual artist bacpac working with fashion designer Tricee Thomas, and choreographer Liliana Gomez working with multimedia artist Sam Heard. Joan Baron and Gloria Martinez created a performative installation inspired in part by civil rights icon John Lewis. Titled Good Trouble Bucket, the piece explored immigration, environmental justice, and other issues at the heart of today’s political conversation. Best of all, the exhibit inspired ongoing collaborations between several participating artists, creating new opportunities for community members to experience exciting new works.

You could spend days taking in the full measure of the local mural scene, but if you want to see works by some of Phoenix’s best-loved artists in a single setting, make your way to the Coronado neighborhood. That’s where you’ll find this alley flanked by walls transformed into cinder-block canvases painted by dozens of artists over the course of several years, sometimes during free festivals that draw community members of all ages for art, music, food, and conversation. The miniature masterpieces reveal the diverse interests of the artists — including bicycles, pop music, animals, and more. Take a camera along so you can snap selfies with your favorites, and go back periodically to see what’s new, because these little bits of painted bliss change periodically and it’s one of the best outdoor art galleries around.

This year, as communities in Phoenix and beyond have thought more deeply about the roots and contemporary manifestations of systemic racism, artist Chris Revelle filled the center of a small gallery space at Grant Street Studios with large-scale sculptural pickaxes made with coal and wax, then surrounded them with drawings of Alabama courthouses. When COVID prevented in-person audiences from seeing his “Swing Low” exhibition in person, Revelle created a virtual exhibit so people could still experience the work. It explored slavery before the passage of the 13th Amendment, as well as the neo-slavery that continued long after. Revelle worked with a pianist to create a score for the exhibit, and included comprehensive notes that drew viewers into both his own artistic process and the social justice issues elevated by his work. It was the right show at the right time, prompting reflection on both historical and contemporary white supremacy.

Look up while approaching the northeast corner at Roosevelt Street and Central Avenue, and you’ll see works by three artists gracing the windows of the Ten-O-One building owned by True North Studio. Between Antoinette Cauley’s portrait of James Baldwin and Debra Hurd’s portrait of Theodore Roosevelt, you’ll see geometric designs by Carrie Marill. Featuring meticulous strips of color that channel her larger body of work, Marill’s compositions bring a fresh aesthetic to the building, while creating a visual bridge between the other works similarly installed using mural wraps that freed the artists from having to paint directly in the glass surface. Their sharp angles suggest the idea of pointing, as if to raise the question of how Roosevelt Row has developed in recent years and what that means for the artists in its midst.

Just as Donald Trump looms large over American life, so has a billboard with Trump’s face towered over Grand Avenue, embellished with swastika-like dollar signs and nuclear mushroom clouds. That image is still up on Grand, but today it’s covered by a red, white, and blue design with a voting theme. Karen Fiorito updated the other side of the billboard as well, covering a unity-themed design with a piece that addresses the issue of police brutality toward Black people. Beatrice Moore, who commissioned the artwork, plans to uncover Trump’s face once again — hopefully in celebration of Trump losing his reelection bid. Until then, the makeover is a reminder that there are real issues and lives at stake in this upcoming election — and that voting is the best way to give the government its own makeover.

It’s the unexpected moments that bring joy to encounters with art, whether you’re into classic paintings by Renaissance masters or street art by contemporary creatives who use the urban landscape as their canvas. Often, you’ll find tall wooden panels propped against the building that’s home to Snood City Neon on Grand Avenue, along with several artists working side by side to paint the panels with their own distinct designs. The works in progress attract vendors to the area; you can often find food carts and people selling jewelry nearby. The live painting brings an unexpected twist to First and Third Fridays, giving people making the gallery rounds a chance to see and talk with local artists as they’re working and share in the communal vibe their painting creates.

This year’s Scottsdale International Film Festival, the 20th anniversary of the event, will look a little different than in previous years. For starters, it’ll be a five-day virtual event rather than a 10-day in-person one. We don’t know what films will screen (check the website in early October for the lineup), but based on what we’ve experienced in the past, it’ll be an exciting mix from around the world. SIFF is often the first place in town to see films that go on to great acclaim — last year, Marriage Story was the opening-night movie, and audiences saw Portrait of a Lady on Fire months before it came to theaters. But really, it’s the foreign gems that keep us coming back year after year — films that remind us that we have more in common with people around the world that we would have ever dreamed, and that cinema truly is a global language.

Rosemarie Dombrowski gathered together a diverse group of local artists last year and launched a literary publication aimed at reflecting back the intersection of art and activism in Phoenix. She found inspiration in a publication called The Revolution, once published by suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Dombrowski and her cadre of volunteers produce print and online issues that feature a wide range of voices and literary styles, including poetry, opinion, creative nonfiction, and more. It’s a democratizing collaboration that’s doing a great job of elevating issues of social justice while prompting critical conversations about both history and contemporary life. The Revolution (Relaunch) affirms the literary values of questioning, listening, thinking, and — perhaps most essentially — acting.

People catch the puppet bug at Puppet Pie, where Stacey Gordon’s passion for the craft is contagious. Walking into this working studio, you’ll see shelves lined with clear bins of colorful supplies, long tables covered with projects in progress, and displays filled with handmade puppets ranging from sandwiches to fuzzy worms. Gordon’s creations are meticulously made, and they exude the whimsical personality of their maker, who’s well-known on the national puppetry circuit. Puppet Pie has workshops for people who want to make their own designs, plenty of examples to inspire ideas for at-home crafts, and items you can purchase. Puppets aren’t just toys at Puppet Pie — they’re little bits of joy and wonder.

There’s a particular spark of spontaneity on Grand Avenue, where First Friday offerings have a way of inspiring creative detours. The street is dotted with art spaces ranging from galleries to courtyards, and browsing them you’ll find an intriguing mix of works by emerging and established artists, as well as impromptu art experiences. One First Friday, you may discover a massive temporary art installation using recycled and found objects. Return next month, and you could stumble onto artists doing aerosol paintings on wooden panels lined up along a sidewalk. There’s a palpable sense of community here, too — people linger to talk, making connections that last far beyond First Friday.

More than 200 laser-cut steel shapes form a sculptural shade structure called Infinite Wave installed near the entrance of the Chandler Museum. Created by Scottsdale artist Jeff Zischke, the public artwork throws a shadow of repeating patterns onto the ground below during the day, the uniform shapes suggesting various natural forms such as leaves, waves, and cactus. At night, the piece transforms into a canvas of color with LED lights in pink, purple, blue, green, and other vibrant colors. Ultimately, the piece is about the intersection of technological and natural environments at the heart of contemporary desert life — a topic we find ourselves thinking about more and more with each passing year, and that we’re grateful to Zischke for illuminating so beautifully.

The rich complexity of Indigenous cultures filled 13,000 square feet of gallery space when the Heard Museum opened “Larger Than Memory: Contemporary Art From Indigenous North America” on September 4. Featuring more than 40 works by 24 artists and collaborators — participating artists include Mike Patten (Zagime Anishinabek), Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Marie Watt (Seneca), and Steven J. Yazzie (Diné/Laguna Pueblo/Anglo); thoughtful curation by Diana Pardue and Erin Joyce — this visually stunning ensemble of artworks challenges viewer perspectives on Indigenous symbols and ordinary objects. Here, red stickers, a baseball bat, a batch of fry bread, and an asthma inhaler take on new connotations. Every artwork has layers of meaning. The more time you spend with this exhibit, the more powerful it becomes.

A strip of McDowell Road called Miracle Mile became significantly brighter following the addition of a new mural that blended the talents of established artist Jeff Slim and emerging artist Edgar Fernandez. The two men drew inspiration from the diversity of the neighborhoods surrounding the mural in creating their 14-foot high and 60-foot long piece, anchored by a figure holding soil that symbolizes the region’s Indigenous roots. Elaborate line work flanking the central images draws on symbolism used in O’odham pottery, and includes the word “Unity” written in several languages used by people living in the community. The mural, which is on the side of the Lionetti Hair Clipper Service building, is distinguished by its mix of narrative and abstract elements and the ways it mirrors the cultural richness of its setting. Although the artists have very different styles, they’re beautifully blended to create this work celebrating life, culture, and creativity.

Before Alison King and her husband, Matthew, co-founded the neighborhood network known as Modern Phoenix, many of us were naive to the midcentury architectural wonders to be found in our city. But since 2004, the Kings and their colleagues have enlightened us with their annual self-guided home tour, fostering citywide appreciation of Phoenix architecture with a week’s worth of seminars and events. Unlike most historic home tours, Modern Phoenix’s provides post-tour articles, research, and other resources for students and fans of Phoenix’s architectural record. Plus, you get to tour gorgeous old homes. Being in the know is seldom this much fun.

Don’t panic, but our planet is under constant bombardment by objects of an alien origin. No, Marvin the Martian hasn’t been lobbing explosive space modulators our way. Instead, it’s the tens of thousands of space rocks that take aim at the Earth each year. Before you start digging a shelter, know that only about 500 of these meteorites make it through the atmosphere. Most end up in the ocean, and the ones making landfall are too small to be considered “planet killers.” See for yourself at Arizona State University’s Meteorite Gallery, which offers close encounters with these emissaries from across our solar system. Located on the second floor of the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 4, it features a curated display of rocks from the collection of ASU’s Center for Meteorite Studies, which includes more than 10,000 samples. Arranged in a half-dozen or so glass cases, these meteorites vary in size, shape, color, and composition. Some are hunks of craggy and porous rock as big as a basketball. Others are as small as pebbles or skipping stones. You might even see one of triangular chunks of the lunar surface that landed in Oman in 1999. Before you ask, no, it’s not made of cheese.

On the surface, it seems like a tale fit for the pulpy pages of War Stories magazine: On a chilly night in December 1944, some 25 German soldiers and sailors absconded from Camp Papago Park, a Valley prisoner-of-war facility during World War II. It was the largest-ever escape by Axis POWs on U.S. soil, an embarrassment for the military, and fodder for dramatic newspaper headlines (“Wily Germans Elude Chase”). Security was lax and life was relatively comfortable at the camp overseen by Army Colonel William Holden, who believed with Colonel Klink-like foolishness that his prisoners could never bust out. Exploiting the situation, the escapees used a 178-foot tunnel they’d dug for months to reach a nearby canal. Their newfound freedom didn’t last. Some considered it a prank and surrendered days later. Others hoped to return to the fatherland by way of Mexico, but were done in by the weather and desert terrain. One trio even considered rafting the Gila River to the Gulf of California, only to find a dry riverbed. Within weeks, each was recaptured and the story of their great escape has since slipped into Phoenix lore.

The end of Metrocenter had been a long time coming. Opened in 1973, the west Valley mall began to lose market share in the 1990s, when its parent company opened Arrowhead Towne Center just 10 miles away. While Metro was bleeding popular chain shops and replacing them with lower-end mom-and-pop boutiques, Arrowhead was romancing upscale shoppers with new tenants like Sephora, Coach, and Phoenix’s first Apple Store. Crime in the neighborhood didn’t help; neither did the rise of online shopping. And then COVID hit. In mid-June, the mall’s owner announced Metro would close for good at the end of the month. On Facebook, where a group dedicated to the mall has 17,000 fans, a farewell was planned: one final cruise outside the mall. Thousands of locals turned up over the course of two nights. They drank beer, watched sports cars do donuts in the parking lot, and most of all reminisced about the good old days: Goldwater’s, Hot Dog on a Stick, Bill &Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the ice-skating rink. Their first car. Their first kiss. Days gone by. “I needed to take a nap to stay up this late,” one woman in the crowd told us. Her gray hair hung to her waist. “But it was totally worth it!”

You wouldn’t think that one of the loveliest landmarks in metro Phoenix would be the entrance to a west Valley housing development. But you won’t need much convincing upon visiting the Estrella Star Tower, a little-known local gem. During the day, the spiral-shaped tower — which is surrounded by a man-made multilevel waterfall, walking paths, and benches — is a popular backdrop for graduation or family photo shoots. Climb the spiral staircase to the top of the tower, and you’ve got an impressive view of Estrella Mountain Regional Park. As day turns to night, it’s a prime spot for watching the sunset as the lights set into the tower start to illuminate. The tower’s design was conceptualized by local astronomy personality Steven Kates, also known as Dr. Sky; a panel on the tower includes a quote from Kates that reads in part: “At the observation plaza, you can reflect on your place in the universe and observe nature from this sacred ground of our ancestors, where we reach up and out to the skies.” We can’t think of a better place to do so.

In a metropolis of nearly 5 million people, it can sometimes feel like there’s no privacy at all. If you’re looking for a special place to lay one on your significant other, may we suggest entering the dark, magical confines of You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies at Phoenix Art Museum. The Firefly Room, as it’s usually called, is one of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s infinity room installations. Step inside, and you instantly enter some other dimension. The walls are mirrored and the floor is shiny black, allowing the tiny, blinking, color-changing lights hanging from the ceiling to be reflected in all surfaces. Being there feels like being in outer space, and even when other people are in the room with you, the darkness affords you just enough privacy for a shared moment with your sweetheart. And really, who wouldn’t want to be kissed among the stars?

Each January, we anxiously await the start of the Barrett-Jackson car auction. The cars are cool, but we’re really there to check out the crowd, who come from all over the world to ogle these fine autos. And what a diverse crowd it is: You’ve got your celebrities and other mega-rich collectors, there to buy and sell some of the rarest, most expensive cars in the world; the Scottsdale types looking to see and be seen; the auto aficionados who buy and sell the less-pricey vehicles that make up the bulk of the auction; the dads and their kids; the people who are really interested in high-end motorhomes; the brand loyalists roaming the halls in Ford or Chevy T-shirts; and the vendors selling everything from faux vintage metal signs to boats. It’s a diverse, high-energy crush of folks that’s just as head-turning as the thousands of cars on display.

There are some gorgeous, fancy neighborhoods in metro Phoenix. None of us live in one (we work for a print alt-weekly), but so far, at least, nobody has told us we can’t take leisurely strolls through these scenic parts of town. The Biltmore Loop is a 2-mile paved path mostly abutting the Adobe Golf Course and the Biltmore Estates. Along this walk, you’ll see stunning luxury homes with beautifully manicured yards and architectural styles ranging from Tudor to Craftsman and Grand European. If you park at Biltmore Fashion Park, you can get extra steps by walking on 24th Street about two blocks to the main entrance. To arrive at the loop, you enter by the first golf course or keep walking past the Adobe Restaurant and start closer to the Arizona Biltmore. Another option is to enter on 32nd Street and Marshall Avenue. Whatever way you choose, we recommend a leisurely stroll at dusk to see how the other half lives.

Phoenix is fortunate to have several historic neighborhoods where homeowners devote a lot of love and elbow grease to keeping architectural elements in place even as new development swirls around them. This year, F.Q. Story took center stage as it celebrated its 100th anniversary. The neighborhood bounded by McDowell Road and Roosevelt Street between Seventh and Grand avenues boasts just over 600 homes built primarily between the 1920s and the 1940s. It’s a popular home tour destination, where people can observe styles like Craftsman bungalows, Spanish revival homes, English Tudor homes, and more while walking along tree-lined sidewalks. There’s a new reason to get out and see the neighborhood, too: a pair of murals painted by Lucretia Torva, whose work explores life in F.Q. Story both past and present. You’ll find one at Latham Street and 11th Avenue, and another at Moreland Street and Ninth Avenue.

In her subterranean gallery space, Lisa Sette represents more than three dozen artists. Many — including Angela Ellsworth and Carrie Marill — are based in Phoenix. Often, Sette’s curatorial choices reflect challenges facing contemporary society, such as white supremacy, clergy abuse of children, and climate change. The gallery also presents artist talks, sponsors film series at Phoenix Art Museum, and takes work to national and international art fairs. Both casual art lovers and experienced collectors are welcome in the space, which consistently presents work that challenges viewers to see self and society in new ways.

Brothers Kyle and Sammy Pratt dream big, and their annual holiday display is as enormous as their aspirations. As lifelong fans of the Walt Disney Company, the pair hope to someday land jobs doing something creative for the House of Mouse. In the meantime, they’ve poured their imaginations into Christmas Forever over the past five years; it’s a stepping stone toward making their dreams a reality, they say. It’s also one of the best yuletide displays in metro Phoenix, and it’s only gotten bigger as the brothers keep upping its size and spectacle. Each holiday season, their residence becomes a gigantic gingerbread house adorned with bedazzled wooden candy cutouts, a mock-up of the iconic clock face from Disneyland’s It’s a Small World, and thousands of lights. Every half-hour, a choreographed multimedia extravaganza of glittering bulbs, video projections, a raucous soundtrack, and show-stopping pyrotechnics takes place, lighting up the night and wowing crowds of onlookers. Christmas Forever may cost a pretty penny and hundreds of man-hours for the Pratts to produce, but it’s a small price to pay if it lands them their dream jobs someday.

We’re not sure: Is it that the trees in downtown Glendale are strung with 1.6 million twinkly Christmas lights? Or is it the fact that we can shop late surrounded by bustling holiday crowds? Is it the carolers? The rows and rows of outdoor yuletide vendors? The guy selling hot chestnuts? Oh, probably, it’s all of the above that makes our annual trek to Glendale Glitters such a special part of our holiday season. We like it so much that we sometimes make a second trip — easy to do, given that Glendale Glitters commences the day after Thanksgiving and doesn’t close up shop until after the New Year.

We like a big ol’ blockbuster as much as the next moviegoer, but our cinephile heart belongs to the smaller stuff: indie flicks, cult classics, oldies-but-goodies. FilmBar is the best place in town to see them. The seats are a little creaky, but the ticket prices are reasonable, there’s food and alcohol available for purchase, and you know that you’ll be sharing space with other people who share your affinity for cinema outside the mainstream. Since the pandemic, FilmBar hasn’t abandoned its mission of bringing great films to the people. Go to its website, and you’ll find dozens of Old Hollywood classics, cheesy made-for-TV movies, vintage sci-fi, foreign films, silents, and more. Most are free to watch, and they’re tiding us over until we can get back to FilmBar.

If seeing movies was all people cared about, they could make it happen sitting on their sofa instead of heading out to a theater. But there’s more to the moviegoing ritual than just watching a film. Studio Movie Grill creates a rich experience that’s hard to replicate at home by offering an extensive menu, a lobby bar with a fun assortment of cocktails and nonalcoholic beverages, and discreet food service during movie showings. You can reserve your seat ahead of time, so you’re not left to battle over the best spot or learn after you arrive that your movie is sold out. The theater even has spaces for special events like birthday parties. The movie lineup includes first-run films, alternative fare, and family flicks, so everyone gets a chance to see their favorites. Plus, you don’t have to deal with digging all those popcorn kernels out of your couch cushions.

This will be one of the first places we visit when we can go to movies safely again. We can’t help but wonder if our favorite movie character wax figures like Jack Sparrow and the Blues Brothers are getting lonely. Michael Pollack, the theater’s owner, created true movie magic when he opened it two decades ago, treating customers to a lobby decked out with video games and memorabilia, along with a low price, currently $3.50, for a movie you missed during its first run a month or two ago. The theater always makes us feel like a little kid again, when the only thing that mattered was the smell of popcorn and the fact that you were going to see a movie, any movie, and it was going to be good no matter what. We hope to feel that way again soon.

Decades after opening — and long after the slow decline of drive-in movie theaters began — the West Wind Glendale 9 is suddenly more popular than it’s ever been. The transformation from outdated throwback to in-demand destination happened in a matter of weeks: COVID hit, indoor theaters ceased being a viable venue for moviegoers, and the public beat a path to the gates of West Wind, the Valley’s lone drive-in, which opened in 1979. They discovered what a longtime die-hard following already knew: There are simple joys to watching a flick in the great outdoors. West Wind has digital projection on nine screens and cheaper tickets than your average theater ($7.75 for adults and $1.75 for children 5 to 11; kids 4 and under get in free). Every screening is a double feature, and the owners have come up with some interesting combinations, such as pairing up the Keanu Reeves blockbusters John Wick and The Matrix. And if the munchies at the concession stand aren’t to your liking, you can pack your own snacks. Score!

Arizona is just close enough to Los Angeles to catch the cross-breeze of Hollywood magic (and perhaps a small amount of oversized narcissism). As such, we’ve managed to cultivate a few of our own sun-kissed entertainment enterprises. One we particularly love is the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, which over the last 16 years has become a home for the most weird and wonderful sci-fi from across the world. The films shown at the fest push the boundless insanity and peculiarity associated with modern science fiction to new levels. Yet every entry remains connected to a longstanding tradition of cinema and a core ethos that emphasizes a delightfully bizarre outlook on life and art. In our typical outsider fashion, Arizona has built this little fest into something that has its own strong identity and cultural purpose — an event that shows we’re capable of sustaining a major creative bastion here. Plus, the fact that all this energy and growth is based around space aliens and killer smartphone apps seems perfectly on brand for Arizona.

Once upon a time, there was a bisexual, Native American anthropology professor at Arizona State University who stood up for the abuse of women in science and died of COVID-19 on July 31. The professor was known to about 2,400 followers on Twitter, including many followers in academia, as @Sciencing_Bi. They retweeted news of the professor’s death, which happened at a time of intense debate about ASU’s reopening amid the pandemic. People demanded that ASU acknowledge what had happened to @Sciencing_Bi. That’s when this tale took a surprise twist. There was no such ASU professor. A former Vanderbilt University neuroscience instructor who had tweeted about the death, BethAnn McLaughlin, was soon outed as the person behind the hoax. McLaughlin’s not laughing, though — she was booted from her position on the board of a science journal, and her previously published scientific papers are undergoing new critical review.

If you see a state official promoting the Holy Ghost, who you gonna call? The Secular Coalition for Arizona, that’s who. This freethinking organization celebrated its 10th anniversary in the state this year, and many Arizonans are glad to have it. The group protects the rights not just of nonbelievers, but of all Arizonans who don’t think public money, resources, and messages should be spent pushing religious dogma. Chaired and directed by Zenaido Quintana, and with high-powered hitters like lobbyist and spokesperson Tory Roberg and progressive attorney Dianna Post on the payroll, this is a group that regularly gets attention. Whether it’s slamming Governor Doug Ducey for posts about Jesus during Easter, denouncing Bible studies in public schools, or fighting for atheist lawmakers’ rights to give the invocation at the State Legislature, the Secular Coalition for Arizona has been the state’s voice of rational disbelief.

You may not realize it, but much of the news you hear starts with a PIO. These are the bureaucrats and assistants of elected officials who are paid to try to answer the annoying questions of reporters without pissing off their government bosses, the public, or both. It’s a delicate balance that Jennifer Liewer of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has handled well for many years. Her résumé is a tour of state government, with experience in Phoenix, Glendale, the Arizona Supreme Court, the Department of Education, Tempe Union High School District, and now the MCAO. Liewer seems to genuinely care about keeping the public informed, takes pains to return a message, and can make a reporter feel like she’s trying her best when the info spigot shuts off. The latter point is important in her current job in the highly political prosecutor’s office, where sooner or later, the bad stuff hits the fan. If Allister Adel survives her challenge in the general election and retains Liewer, the public can be confident they’re getting the most information they can from the office.

It’s not easy for a state legislator to get the public’s attention, and it usually takes money. But State Senator Martín Quezada of Phoenix’s District 29 got everyone in the Valley to stop what they were doing for a minute with a single tweet on May 20: “I just witnessed an armed terrorist with an AR-15 shoot up Westgate. There are multiple victims.” The shooter, 20-year-old Armando Hernandez Jr., surrendered to cops after wounding three people. Many local residents first heard of the shooting from Quezada, an eight-year veteran of the Legislature in District 29, and he became a sought-after interview by the news media. Turning a crisis into an opportunity, he told a reporter he’s in a position to help create policy to slow gun violence, saying, “I feel that it’s my job to make this political.” But really, he already had, by co-sponsoring six firearms-related bills earlier in the year when the Legislature was in session. He’s no one-issue progressive, either. Quezada, an attorney who has the energy to also serve as a governing board member in a west Phoenix school district, sponsored bills to give voting rights to felons, repeal the last vestiges of SB 1070, limit immigration enforcement, and more. He was proud to receive a near-perfect 95 percent score by Progress Arizona. Following his scary incident in May, watch out for an even more pissed-off lawmaker coming to the State Capitol in 2021.

Walt Blackman of Snowflake is the Arizona GOP’s idea of diversity. He’s the first Black Republican member of the State Legislature, serving District 6. He sometimes wears a cowboy hat in his Facebook videos. He can say things that would be a problem for white lawmakers. Take his statements in early June, soon after the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer sparked national protests: “I DO NOT support George Floyd and I refuse to see him as a martyr. But I hope his family receives justice.” He also went on local radio to announce that Black Lives Matter was a “terrorist organization.” On the other hand, he’s a criminal justice reform advocate who this year submitted a groundbreaking bill (by Arizona standards) that, if it had passed, would have reduced prison sentences for some nonviolent offenders and basically been the biggest set of reforms in more than 25 years. But “moderate” does not describe Blackman, generally. He’s a hero to pro-lifers and wants women to face “consequences” if they get an abortion. Blackman’s the kind of Arizona lawmaker conservatives wish they could make more of.

No one ever would have known that Arizona Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat whose district covers part of southern Arizona, fell off a Metro platform in Washington, D.C., in a drunken stumble. Or that she had a problem with wine, which had turned into a much bigger problem in recent years. Yet in a stunning and ultra-transparent January announcement from her Congressional office, Kirkpatrick said that she was taking six weeks off to recover from the fall — in which she had injured her spine and head — and her alcoholism. Friends and colleagues said they were surprised, having never seen her drunk before. The 70-year-old Congresswoman later emerged from rehab and is expected to beat the Republican challenging her for her seat in November. Good for her.

In his old life, Mark Kelly piloted Navy fighter jets and orbited Earth hundreds of times as a NASA astronaut. Then, about a decade ago, he gave it all up, not long after his wife, U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot and nearly killed by an assassin in Tucson. Following Giffords’ recovery, the pair built a gun-safety nonprofit that, among other things, backed political candidates that supported safer firearms laws. Now, Kelly himself is one of those candidates. A Democrat, he’s challenging Republican Martha McSally in November for the U.S. Senate seat McSally was appointed to following the 2018 death of John McCain. Unlike McSally — who, in loudly and frequently proclaiming her support for President Trump, exudes an aura of combative partisanship — Kelly projects a brand of common-sense centrism that’s more in line with previous Arizona senators like McCain and Jeff Flake. The political sands out here in the desert are always shifting, and it’s too early to tell whether moderate politics in Arizona are fully a thing of the past. But so far, so good: As of this writing, Kelly’s up comfortably in the polls.

Water treatment and sewage disposal are way more complicated from a city infrastructure perspective than simply turning on a tap or flushing a toilet, especially in the bone-dry desert we call home. Describing the intricacies of such a mundane process also tends to be boring as hell, especially for the average tween. Thus, at schools and educational events, the City of Phoenix Department of Water Services has introduced the mascot Wayne Drop, a smiling blue drop of water, to help kids and adults alike digest these turgid facts. The other end of the story had been missing until April, when the city rolled out Wayne’s sidekick, Loo Poo, whose swirly brown costume resembles the typical “poop” emoji. In an activity book for kids, you can follow along with Loo Poo’s adventures through sewage pipes until he (of course they made him a man) finally emerges again as a “bio-solid” fertilizer on your local farm. He doesn’t have a shit-eating grin on his face like Wayne, but instead wears a smirk that seems to say, “How’s your 2020 going?”

ASU officials hoped for a smooth transition after Christopher Callahan, dean of ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, took a job as president of University of the Pacific in California. They got anything but. ASU hired Sonya Forte Duhé from the School of Communication and Design at Loyola University in New Orleans to take his place. Duhé, who was supposed to start on July 1, had worked for years as a well-pedigreed broadcast journalism program director at Loyola, and ASU put out excited news releases in the spring about her imminent arrival. Then, Minnesota cops killed George Floyd, causing uprisings around the country, along with some looting. Duhé tweeted a word in support of the protesters — but also said something about “good” police officers. That caused one of Duhé’s former students to go public with accusations that Duhé had said bigoted things to her and seemed unsupportive of her and other Black students. Several other students spoke up to agree. The press went crazy with the story. And suddenly, ASU uninvited Duhé as dean. The university made longtime faculty member Kristin Gilger the interim dean, who would have been a great choice all along. It wasn’t that the journalism school had failed to do its research, either: Loyola officials eventually admitted they knew about the complaints filed by students against Duhe and apologized for “not fixing this situation” sooner. Ed. Note: This blurb has been updated to more accurately characterize Loyola’s response to the controversy.

It sucks, but for most of 2020, the first thing we’ve done in the morning, (okay, not the very first thing), is doomscroll Twitter for information related to a certain horrible virus. The good news is, Garrett Archer of TV station ABC-15 makes this complicated topic pretty accessible, providing raw percentage figures and charts and pointing out trends that other media outlets tend to pick up on later in the day. While most of the Valley’s news corps struggle to make sense of the seven-day rolling averages and case positivity rate numbers put out by the Arizona Department of Health Services, the “Data Guru,” as Archer calls himself, has already tweeted. He’s useful around election time, too. (A former senior elections analyst for the Arizona Secretary of State, Archer took an “odd path to journalism,” as his Twitter bio notes.) But he’s not stodgy. He’ll take the time to congratulate Maricopa County’s Geographic Information System Department for the “awesomeness” of their new web interface, and let his lack of coffee take the blame for a typo. Not that he lets his caffeine level ever run too low. He must have a chart for that.

Jake Paul has more than 20 million YouTube followers, but he got famous on Vine, so it’s perhaps appropriate that a short video could eventually be what sends him to prison. On May 30, at the height of the George Floyd protests, looters descended on Scottsdale Fashion Square, causing millions of dollars of damage in the mall and its surrounding businesses. Social media videos from the incident began to trickle out, and one showed Paul on the scene. Paul, who’s known for pranks and internet feuds, said he was there to document the events, and that he hadn’t participated in any vandalism. But a few days later, he was charged by Scottsdale police with criminal trespassing and unlawful assembly, both misdemeanors. The Scottsdale charges were eventually dropped — but only, it appears, because the feds got involved. The FBI raided Paul’s Los Angeles mansion in August, reportedly looking for evidence related to what happened that night in Scottsdale. A hard lesson for an influencer to swallow: Maybe not everything is worth documenting on Instagram.

Police throw someone in jail every day in Arizona for small amounts of marijuana or other drugs, and people selling meth or heroin on the street might get decades in prison. Meanwhile, billionaire John Kapoor, co-founder and former chair of Insys Therapeutics in Chandler, enriched his wealth through the poisonous marketing of a killer opioid substitute, fentanyl. Hundreds of patients died, among the tens of thousands of opiate deaths that have added to the country’s ills over the past few years. But then something unexpected happened: The federal government indicted Kapoor and his accomplices, and he was sentenced this year to five and a half years behind bars. No more duck and caviar on his private jet, or watching the sunset over the mountains from his Scottsdale mansion. Now, he’s eating prison food with other drug dealers — people who outclass him in every way. He had it all for a while, but instead of using his privilege and wealth for good, he commited fraud and added misery to the world. Turns out, the criminal justice system does occasionally work.

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg and his presidential ambitions burst into Arizona and other states late last year, and by early 2020, he had become a force to be reckoned with — mainly by other presidential and down-ticket candidates, who discovered his near-infinite well of campaign cash was a vacuum sucking up a lot of local talent. By March, he had spent $5 million and hired 50 staffers in Arizona, far more than any other candidate. As New Times reported, these employees made out like bandits: free MacBooks and iPhones to use on the job, plus a $6,000-per-month salary. Before the pandemic, that meant more hotel rooms booked, more restaurant food, and more coffee shop drinks swilled — the former NYC mayor was like a mini-economic boom unto himself. Yet Arizona still got short-changed: That $5 million was just 1 percent of what he spent on his campaign to dethrone Trump in total. And after spending half a billion dollars of his own money, Bloomberg won a Super Tuesday primary race only in American Samoa, then dropped out in early May.

For a few days there, we had the four short sentences memorized: “Been thinking about life and mortality today. I’d rather die gloriously in battle than from a virus. In a way it doesn’t matter. But it kinda does.” These were the words of Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, contained inside a tweet and accompanied by an image from the 2018 film The Great Battle. They arrived in early March, right as the severity of the coronavirus was beginning to dawn on the nation. The weekend before, Gosar, a Republican, had come into close, repeated contact with an infected person at a conservative conference. He decided to isolate himself, and within a day he had issued the battle tweet. Nobody was exactly sure what Gosar was trying to say, but one thing was clear: This was excellent meme fodder. Within hours, practically every journalist, comedian, and brand on Twitter had appropriated Gosar’s words and swapped in visuals of their own: an insane-looking woman holding a preposterously large Final Fantasy VII sword, security guards chasing the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty, a video of two gentlemen exaggeratedly giving each other the finger on a New York street corner. Gosar (who has previously dog-whistled at QAnon and Epstein conspiracists) has a knack for tapping into the weird web zeitgeist. He’s not funny, exactly, but he can be entertaining. Kinda like Twitter itself, come to think of it.

It might as well have been 700 years ago, but back in April, before a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd and sparked unprecedented nationwide protests, a different kind of demonstration was held in Arizona. The so-called Patriot Rally was organized in response to Governor Doug Ducey’s stay-at-home order, which shut down bars, gyms, barber shops, and dine-in restaurants due to the spread of COVID-19. “You’re not working … your rights and finances are being destroyed … so it’s time to PROTEST! We do NOT consent! OPEN Arizona!” the organizer wrote on Facebook, encouraging attendees to drive around the Arizona Capitol and honk their horn. Having worked the hospital frontlines and seen firsthand the horrors COVID-19 had wrought, a handful of local ICU nurses headed down to the Capitol to stage their own counterprotest. Clad in scrubs and masks, they stood in silence, absorbing the insults of these “patriots.” In one image from the afternoon, captured by Arizona Republic photographer Michael Chow, an old, angry, sunburned white man — Arizona Man, let’s call him — tauntingly waves an American flag inches from a nurse’s face. The nurse, Lauren Leander — blue scrubs, white N95 mask, arms crossed — meets his gaze, all grace and poise and calm. Like all iconic photos, it summed up the situation better than words ever could. Which side are you on, indeed.

Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York project, in which ordinary people share small but meaningful stories about their lives, was affected by the pandemic just like everything else. COVID-19 meant it wasn’t safe to walk around Manhattan looking for subjects, so Stanton sent out a call for submissions. Liz Santiago of Mesa answered. She told a story about her father, Domingo, who was a talented artist but only created one painting in his life: a portrait of the musician Sting. As her father lay dying, he had a last request for his family. He wanted them to give the painting to Sting. The HONY post, which received more than 250,000 likes on Facebook, caught the attention of Sting’s daughter Mickey Sumner. Within days, a plan to send the painting from Arizona to England had been set in motion, and Sumner and Santiago had set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the National MS Society. (Domingo suffered from multiple sclerosis.) When Sting sent Santiago a photo of him standing with the painting, the effect was overwhelming, she said, but just as incredible was the way the HONY audience responded to her story. The post garnered news stories and comments from as far away as Singapore and Australia. “The painting had been under lock and key for over 25 years, and now it was all over the world,” Santiago said. “There was a lot of emotion in that.”

Just before thousands of people in Arizona began dying from a pandemic disease, it briefly seemed like the biggest problem the state faced could be described with two words: “Penis Man.” Crudely scrawled in spray paint, the phrase began showing up mysteriously on public and private buildings in Phoenix and Tempe in late 2019. By the new year, the graffiti and whoever was responsible for it had made national news and attained the sort of reverence on social media sites that’s usually reserved for Gandhi or Obama. Penis Man was called “the watchful, silent hero of Tempe.” “We are all Penis Man,” someone on Twitter said, wisely. Copycats abounded, making it seem like Penis Man was everywhere at once. During the long weekend of the MLK Day holiday, he hit numerous places in Tempe with the tag, including City Hall. Police declared war. After an investigation, they arrested a 38-year-old Phoenix man in a heavy-handed raid that also made national news. In speaking to the press, the man seemed to be mentally unbalanced, his political rhetoric no more like Banksy’s than his graffiti had been. But judging by the occasional scribble of his name that’s still found on the back of road signs and garbage cans around town, no one can keep the legend of Penis Man down.

Local comic book artists don’t get much bigger than Todd McFarlane. But if bestowing this award on the comics legend, um, spawns some major nerd rage for forsaking local indie creators, we assure you he qualifies. No question. McFarlane’s a longtime Valley resident who still illustrates comics on the regular. When not running his multimillion-dollar toy empire or Image Comics (the publishing house he co-founded in 1992 with fellow ex-Marvel artists), he’s inking and penciling the latest issues of Spawn, his brainchild and iconic creation. And the cursed antihero looks just as fearsome as ever, rendered in the same intricate and highly detailed style that McFarlane used to reinvent Spider-Man in the late ’80s. Now if only he could find enough time in his busy schedule to navigate his cinematic Spawn reboot out of development hell.

You won’t find big blockbuster exhibitions at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum. Instead, you’ll find smaller-scale exhibits by artists, many of them local to Arizona, that nevertheless pack a powerful punch. Recent exhibits featured fine art pinatas with a medieval twist made by Roberto Benavidez, and Kazuma Sambe’s ceramic pieces exploring the intersection of advertising with the international food industry. The museum holds season openings that draw a diverse crowd for music, art, small bites, and lively conversation. And it’s part of the vibrant Mesa Arts Center campus, where people can expand their art horizons via its busy schedule of performances, festivals, classes, and art demonstrations.

Located in an old warehouse that was fixed up last year and outfitted with shabby-chic and modern furnishings, the McKinley Club is a little piece of Brooklyn in downtown Phoenix. The break room of this co-working space has taps with cold-brew coffee, wine, and beer. The big windows look out on Grand Avenue’s gritty mix of industry and (now-struggling) art galleries, specialty stores, and restaurants. True, the virus has changed things. The club requires masks and gloves in common areas. The cozy private offices, well, you may need to get on a waiting list. Private desks in shared spaces, and fully shared workspaces are more readily available here (as they are at other co-working spaces around town). But give this place a look when it’s time to get out of the damned house and focus on work. It sure beats the hell out of a gray cubicle.

At Wasted Ink Zine Distro, founder Charissa Lucille has created a welcoming space where you can explore hundreds of zines by authors and illustrators based in Arizona and beyond. The charming DIY hub is filled with literature and art that reflects the creative pulse of Phoenix. Wasted Ink hosts dozens of community events, presents workshops for new and experienced zine creatives, and has an online store offering more than 100 titles. Walking into Wasted Zine is like setting foot on a path that branches off in myriad directions. Sometimes, it takes you places you never expected to go, with companions you wouldn’t have encountered in other spaces, fueling the curiosity and connections that make for a vibrant literary scene and city.

Inside the Burton Barr Central Library, you can marvel at architectural elements designed by Will Bruder, stare at art installed throughout the five floors, and get creative inside the maker space. The enormous library, which is the flagship location of the Phoenix Public Library system, also houses a teen area, college planning center, entrepreneur space, children’s area, gift shop, and a room filled with Arizona history resources. Central Gallery hosts rotating exhibitions of works by local artists, and the library presents a robust lineup of community programming. The rare book room is filled with treasures you didn’t know existed in Phoenix, like cuneiform tablets and a page from a Gutenberg Bible. Best of all, the library is located within walking distance of the galleries and other cultural amenities located along Roosevelt Row, making it a hub for learning that spans far beyond bookshelves.

Sometimes, we think about all the times we watched a comedy show in a packed room, elbow to elbow, mouths hanging open in laughter — and we shiver. It’ll likely be awhile before those up-close-and-personal days return, but that doesn’t mean the end of laughing with strangers in a two-drink minimum room. Stand Up Live is our go-to for live comedy; some of the best comics of the modern era, like Bill Burr and Ali Wong, have graced its downtown Phoenix stage. There’s not a bad seat in the house, and there’s a full food and drink menu (we like the soft pretzels with white cheddar beer cheese dip) to satisfy your stomach as well as your funny bone.

Men shouldn’t be afraid to attend a performance of The Bro Show. The comedy sketch show, produced and performed by local comedians Courtney Wahlstrom and Dana Whissen, takes hilarious and much-needed jabs at male stereotypes (like that guy on your corporate softball team who picked 69 for his jersey number). The duo perform as C-Dog and Angus, respectively, two bruhs who met at an open mic night, and guest comedians join them onstage playing a variety of characters. But the skewering of toxic masculinity, chauvinism, and sexual double standards is for the sake of the joke as opposed to making a political statement, so fellas, leave your fear (and ego) at the door and enjoy this high-quality roasting of your gender.

Natalie Diaz defies the stereotype of poets as isolated souls. As the founding director for the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at ASU, she forges community through conversation and collaboration. Diaz identifies as Mohave, Akimel O’odham, and Latinx, as well as queer. She has a wide range of talents, from linguistics to basketball, which also inform her work. The breadth and depth of both her journeys infuse her work with insights and emotions that call into question assumptions about identity, place, and relationship. Through her powerful, poetic voice, Diaz calls others to create new landscapes and futures together.

“Seasons will not be still, / Filled with the migrations of birds / Making their blank script on the open sky, / those hasty notes of centuries-old goodbye.” So soars the poem “The Morning News,” found in Not Go Away Is My Name, the latest book by Nogales-born poet and ASU English professor Alberto Rios. For decades, Rios has been one of Arizona’s best homegrown voices. His range effortlessly spans from poetry to nonfiction. Capirotada, his memoir of growing up in a town divided by the border, is essential Arizona reading. But his work, too, has broad national appeal. Earlier this year, a New York Times Magazine reviewer deemed Not Go Away Is My Name “a major book for our time.” We couldn’t agree more.

For nearly a month after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, protests dominated life in Phoenix, as in many other American cities. Every night, people gathered, marched, and asked for justice for Black people in Phoenix. They demanded more accountability from the police department. They mourned the death of not just Floyd but Dion Johnson, a Black man killed by an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper on the same day. Early on, there were products of anger: vandalism, looting, and arrests. But as the days turned into weeks, the demonstrations settled into a peaceful and mostly predictable daily activity, something like a religious act. Inevitably, the protests petered out by late June. But not before many in the crowds of thousands — largely young and diverse, idealistic and hopeful — had participated for the first time in a massive, meaningful, organized, and sustained civic act. For many, we suspect it won’t be their last.

For nearly four years, this quarterly collection of stories from the Black community has enlightened and entertained local audiences. Performers in the series, which recently shifted to online streaming, are coached by spoken word pro Rachel Egboro, who founded the event and curates each installment. A recent Whole Story included monologues from a man who’d been training for boot camp his whole life; a woman who grappled with raising a daughter in today’s politically charged world; and a man who turned his HIV-positive diagnosis into a life’s mission. Egboro, recently named one of Phoenix Business Journal‘s “40 Under 40,” has thus far brought us 46 storytellers who’ve told 61 stories from the Black perspective. We’re looking forward to hearing many more.

Cindy Dach is the co-founder of Changing Hands Bookstores in Tempe and Phoenix, two of the Valley’s greatest treasures for readers. She’s literally made words her life, so it’s no surprise she can tell a good story. Though Dach stays busy trying to keep Amazon at bay and participating in the local arts scene, if you’re lucky, you can catch one of her personal storytelling performances at a local Bar Flies event (for now, flying in the virtual world). On stage, Dach doesn’t try to act out her stories — it’s her words and humor that pull you in. She’s got the ability to make you see scenes from her own life and the people and things in it: her grandmother’s diamond ring, her father as he dies of cancer. You know that full feeling you get after finishing a good short story that taught you something new and profound about the world? That’s how we feel listening to Dach.

Dana Cortez takes her position as the first Latina host of a nationally syndicated morning radio show seriously, but her a.m. program on FM serves fun and food for thought through such segments as “WTF Stories” about people doing wacky things in the news (like the guy who proposed to his girlfriend while being arrested) and “CholoFit” exercise sessions with comedian Frankie Quiñones, a.k.a. Creeper. The banter between Cortez and her co-hosts Anthony A and DJ Automatic (her husband of 12 years) is always honest and often edgy, and fits with the station’s hip-hop music format. Cortez has said she considers the show’s listeners family, and she constantly interacts with her listeners via on-air phone calls and games and provides resources like virtual job fairs. The show even coordinated “The World’s Biggest Quinceañera” shortly after launching in the Valley in September 2019.

KCDX is an oddity and outlier among local radio stations: no DJs, no advertisements, and no B.S. — just a freeform playlist of rock rarities, B-sides, and deep cuts compiled by the station’s owner, an enigmatic and reclusive entrepreneur called The Guru. Its 2,700-watt signal, broadcast from the Pinal Mountains outside Globe, reaches a large chunk of the Valley but will sometimes fade into static depending on your location. When KCDX comes in clear, though, it’s pure retro gold. One minute, the trippy riffs of “The Bomber” by James Gang fill your ears; the next, it’s the arty post-punk of Television’s “Venus” getting a spin. A little later, Dr. John’s “Jet Set” is cued up after some album-oriented rock by Crack the Sky or another band rarely heard on commercial radio. Sure, overplayed standards like “Hotel California” slip in occasionally, but we’re willing to forgive The Guru for such transgressions, as long as he keeps feeding us a steady diet of these beautiful rock ‘n’ roll transmissions.

In a world where we’re constantly bombarded by neverending digital visual stimuli, it’s sometimes nice to just sit and listen. When we need such an audio balm, we turn the dial to KJZZ, the National Public Radio member station based at Rio Salado College. The listener-supported radio station presents a mix of international, national, and local news, along with classic jazz and blues. You can start your day with The Show, featuring in-depth interviews focused on local issues, or wind down at night with relaxing music. KJZZ presents an eclectic range of podcasts, including Untold Arizona and Defining Moment, and its Frontera desk keeps listeners abreast of stories happening along the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s an essential resource for listeners who want to stay informed, connected, and inspired to participate in the civic life of metro Phoenix.

Sam Walker left her long career with the BBC after falling in love with the desert Southwest. Along with her husband and two kids, she made the move from England to Arizona, where she launched the Desert Diaries podcast, which follows the family’s adventures in a new culture and a new landscape. Through weekly episodes blending childlike wonder with dry humor, Walker helps listeners see the mundane and quirkier elements of life in the Sonoran through fresh eyes, even as she encourages them to find and follow their own dreams. Walker’s work blends tough realism with flights of fancy, helping listeners navigate everything from parenting to pandemic life.

Most states do not have their own private National Geographic. Arizona does. For nearly 100 years, the Arizona Department of Transportation has published Arizona Highways, a monthly magazine of travelogues, historical writing, and world-class photography that is the envy of state tourism marketers all over the country. The Arizona depicted in its pages — glorious desert sunsets, majestic mountain ranges, an almost impossibly romantic Western lifestyle — is so alluring that in 1965, the Soviet Union reportedly banned Arizona Highways on the grounds that it was propaganda; the Russians were worried that citizens who encountered these images would pitch their parkas and light out for the Grand Canyon. (Quite understandably, we would argue.) Now that relations between our two countries are again heading in a frostier direction, the Kremlin might consider cutting off access to the Arizona Highways Instagram account, which posts an extraordinarily well-curated mix of old magazine covers, archival photos (1940s dude ranches, sheep camps, reservation life), and hi-res modern landscape photography. They’re pretty pictures, sure — but also a motivational reminder to get out and explore the wilds of our state.