Joel Davis – a.k.a. DJ Epidemic – has some mighty clackers. Whether you consider Dolly Parton camp personified or a bumpkin genius, it takes a lead-covered set for a quasi-underground jock to banner his MySpace page with a funked-up remix of Dolly’s “Joleen.” But the DJ’s “Joleen Epidemic Edit” is…
What do Halloween, sweaters, and studying abroad have in common? They are, according to author and social commentator Christian Lander, “stuff white people like.” Lander’s blog of the same name (stuffwhitepeoplelike.com) launched a mini-revolution on the Internet by satirizing the interests of “left-leaning, city-dwelling white folk” who like ugly-sweater parties,…
As long as human beings have mouths, no secret is safe. Think of all the things you know that you really shouldn’t. In high school, you knew which boys were uncircumcised. In college, you found out about the girl who had the giant bush. How do you know all this?…
The museum’s senior curator and interim director discusses artist Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s new “Breathing Is Free 12,756.3” exhibition. (The artist is pictured.) Fri., Jan. 30, 11 a.m., 2009…
Meet members of the Cafe Justo coffee-growing collective, which grows, harvests, and markets Arabica “in a spirit of justice,” at this celebration of Mexican food and culture. Sat., Jan. 31, 5-8 p.m., 2009…
Veterans’ Memorial Coliseum hasn’t been “The Madhouse on McDowell” since the Phoenix Suns outgrew it in 1992. What better league to kick back open the cuckoo’s nest than the hip-swaying, trigger-tempered Arizona Derby Dames, who’ve moved into the cavernous Vet after selling out all of their games last season at…
A boy is locked in a closet. We never learn his name, but as we watch John Caswell Jr.’s Closet.Drama: A Homo/Hetero Collision unfold, we learn a little about him: He is struggling with his sexuality. He’s acquainted with the Reverend Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, and…
Murder. Scandal. Black-ops. Military profiteering. Fraud. Bribery. Beltway blackmail. Hmmm, you’d think author Len Downie Jr. had written a secret history of the past two presidential administrations in his debut novel, The Rules of the Game. In a way, he has. The gripping read is an end product of the…
Michelangelo took four years to complete his Sistine Chapel ceiling. Convicted forger A. Schiller supposedly went blind etching The Lord’s Prayer on the head of a gold pin. Artist Henry Leo Schoebel may not be crazy enough to undertake either task, but his paintings’ mathematically plotted circles and lines are…
For those of you who grew up in the 1990s and were fans of cheapo martial arts movies, you probably still haven’t forgiven Jean-Claude Van Damme for not having illegitimately fathered you. It’s about time you let the wounds heal, and a good place to start is a screening of…
Linda Connor, Mudra Mindroling Monastery, Tibet 1993I have to hand it to photographers…and not just because I get paid to.Honestly, I don’t have a mind for what they do. I took one photography class when I was 17 and ended up dropping halfway through the semester. It’s the process that…
Ever since the Aquarium opened at Wildlife World Zoo, I’ve been dying to go. Yes, as of last month, Phoenix has an Aquarium! Like a real city! Through the oh-so-fab “crappy coupon booket o’ the week” I get delivered to my doorstep, I had a coupon good for $3 off…
“Diane took it really hard today,” the clerk said, bagging up the purchases of the last customer of the day, yesterday afternoon, at Diane Ribbon & Notion, a craft supply warehouse favored by Phoenix artists and the latest casualty of what economists are struggling to name, but for these purposes…
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve made some downright stupid decisions with money in my time. When I was 15, I saved up to buy a stereo. Now, this was circa 1996 so I shelled out for a fancy 3-disc changer that I bought from Costco, of all places.It…
If you’ve been reading Up on the Sun or paying any attention to the local music scene, this image should look familiar. It’s the first thing you see when you visit the MySpace page of the Phoenix band, Miniature Tigers.And it’s an original work by Rick Alvin Schaier, the band’s…
Multi-media artist Angela Ellsworth never, ever disappoints me. And just when I think she can’t outdo herself, she proves me wrong. Her aesthetic coup this time can be seen in “Angela Ellsworth: Underpinnings” at Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale. And it’s one for the books. It was during the ridiculously…
Ari Folman’s broodingly original Waltz with Bashir is a documentary that seems only possible, not to mention bearable, as an animated feature. Folman, whose magic realist youth film Saint Clara was one of the outstanding Israeli films of the 1990s, has created a grim, deeply personal phantasmagoria around the 1982…
What is the shape and size of a human soul? Does it look like a chickpea? A gumdrop? A pet rock? And if you could somehow extract your soul from your body, what would be left? Would you still be you? These are among the concerns taken up by writer-director…
Brendan “Kids’ Choice” Fraser returns to the multiplex daycare as “Mo” Folchart, antiquarian-book-repairman-cum-adventurer. In Inkheart’s opening chapter, he’s identified as a member of a race of “Silvertongues” — those who, when they read aloud, can suck people out of and into the texts from which they’re reciting. Mo has abstained…
When my friend Michele and I were teenagers, her mother had a totally cool boyfriend. Steve was ripped from the pages of Hip Swinger magazine: Bell bottoms, puka shells, Nik-Nik shirts. He had shiny, black, feathered hair, impossibly white teeth, and — long before it was faddish — a home…
I’m currently residing in the land of the not-very-thrilled-to-be-single and I think it’s on account of a New Year’s resolution I made a few years ago. On the afternoon of January 1 several years ago, I decided that I wouldn’t, under any circumstance, date a woman who likes the rock…
Resolutions have never been my thing, mainly because I’m a compulsive liar — especially to myself. I’ll tell myself on New Year’s Eve, “Self, this is the year we lose 50 pounds,” and even as I’m making the vow, I’m reaching for the cheesecake, because I feel such guilt over…
