Every time Valentine’s Day rolls around, there’s one dissenter in the bunch. Maybe he’s bitter over being dumped for a jock. Maybe she’s done with love after a series of cheating asshole boyfriends. Or, maybe they just plain old don’t believe in love. Not familial love or that “I love you,…
I get it when theaters want to make sure we know that something like Rent or Les Mis has been cleaned up and squooshed down for young performers and young audiences, but I don’t think anyone had to stick the word “KIDS” on the title of a stage musical based…
The Bragg’s Pie Factory Building, on Grand Ave, wants your trash. Of course, you have to make it into something first. And I trust that you local artists will do a spectacular job. I mean, you have an endless bounty of free materials to work with.Although I do ask that…
I am so sad to find out today that Leslie Levy Fine Art in downtown Scottsdale is closing at the end of August, after 32 years in business.It’s the latest in a string of closures in the area, famous for its well-established Arizona art galleries.Their final exhibition, “Cool and Collected”…
Last night, as Kathleen Vanesian and I were poking through the show at Lisa Sette Gallery (which is awesome, by the way), we were both whining about how much we wish we had some serious cash to throw down for art.Poor us. We, like many folks out there, just can’t…
For an artist, finding the medium you were destined to work in is like finding a soul mate or the perfect home. John Modzelewski had been creating art for many years when he discovered his affinity for fused glass. Now he’s all about the heat, color, and light, whipping out…
I’ll be real with ya: I don’t often get excited about a DJ coming through town especially since Girl Talk (a) never comes through town and (b) is supposedly not a DJ. A-Trak is a different story. Since he’s Kanye’s tour DJ, you may well have seen him before. If…
Death — that great re-molder of reputations — has resuscitated the long-stagnant career of the Man Who Once Was King of Pop. At this event, you can skate to MJ’s biggest hits and, if you dress like him, you and three of your closest grieving pals can get in free…
After decades of being left out, Phoenix has finally made it to the big leagues. We’ve hosted a World Series and two Super Bowls. Come election time, we’re a battleground state. Yet, somehow, Phoenix’s most talented residents often get overlooked. After booking a traveling international show of Chicano art (“Phantom…
The Phoenix artist discusses his life and “high/low art” work in conjunction with the museum’s “Locals Only,” the companion exhibit to PAM’s new “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement.” Wed., July 15, 7 p.m., 2009…
The L.A. artist speaks about her Lavanderia series, based on a series of nighttime urban landscapes taken in East Los Angeles and included in the new exhibit “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement.” Sun., July 12, 1 p.m., 2009…
If you’re reading this from your personal computer, consider yourself pretty damned lucky to have easy access to such badass technology. Once upon a time, the only computers in existence were machines like the World War II-era ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) and the Cray-1 supercomputer that weren’t exactly…
We’re often glued to our computers, processing the deluge of information we see on the screens. Damned if, despite the link-sharing and various means of online gabbing, it doesn’t seem anti-social. That’s why we’re totally sprung on the new Reading Society shindig. The biweekly gathering is an open and informal…
Arizona sports fans, like all desert species, know how to make due. Said another way, we’re adapted to savor every major athletic event, because there’s no telling when the next one will come. That’s why we know you’ll be in Glendale when University of Phoenix Stadium hosts preliminary rounds for…
Carefree Theatre Company presents Terry Earp’s obscenity-laced play about the controversial, obscenity-spouting founder of the old-Phoenix steakhouse on Central Avenue, itself based on Mabel Leo’s 1996 book The Saga of Jack Durant. Robert G. Bledsoe portrays Durant. Thu., July 9, 8 p.m.; Fri., July 10, 8 p.m.; Sat., July 11,…
Too much space is the Achilles’ heel of the Phoenix club scene. Those cavernous clubs uncomfortably resemble our daytime lives that are dominated by wide roads and ranch homes. Come nighttime, we want max cramming for max hookup potential. That’s why Luis Gutierrez, the man behind HipJoint, was wise to…
It’s no joke that great, lusty swaths of the male demographic find Iliza Shlesinger visually appealing. Yet there are reasons aplenty the Dallas native was crowned the sixth-season winner of NBC’s reality contest Last Comic Standing, and they aren’t merely her blonde tresses, her sultry baby blues, and her perfect…
Phoenix Theatre’s annual New Works Festival has become one of the few pleasant and edifying experiences in a stifling, largely theater-free summer. This year, the festival — founded by playwright Richard Warren and director Mark DeMichele — kicks off with staged readings of Black River (Friday, July 10, through Sunday,…
You don’t have to be a baller to start a record label. In fact, if you can’t splurge on a posh studio space in Manhattan, you might consider settling for an “abnormally messy apartment in Tempe,” which seems to have worked for the cats at Sunwarped Records. The experimental electronica…
The creator of Rambo (in his book First Blood) is less well known as the “father of the modern action novel,” and Morrell can probably be blamed at least in part for the ascendancy in pop culture of the damnable movement called “high concept” that has infected Hollywood output for…
The Texas-based “Mojo storyteller” has made a career out of pop-culture allusions (he wrote briefly for Batman: The Animated Series) and absurdist fiction (Bubba Ho-Tep), but he really hit his stride with his “Hap and Leonard” series of novels about the most unlikely pair of backwoods-wisenheimer crimefighters ever to grace…
Stereoscopic works (including vintage viewers, cameras, and View Master items) by Kris Sanford, Ernie Rairdin, Ray Zone, Boris Starosta, Todd Ely, Larry Ferguson, Jeremy Rowe, and Christopher Schneberger. Held in conjunction with the National Stereoscopic Association Convention. Thu., July 9, 12-6 p.m.; Fri., July 10, 12-6 p.m.; Sat., July 11,…
