The term is “shovel-ware,” a gaming phrase used to describe the heaps of worthless, quickly cranked out titles currently choking the Nintendo Wii. Even EA Games, a major developer, sinks to the Wii’s level with the recently announced “Celebrity Sports Showdown” — a mini-game compilation starring grotesquely caricatured pseudo-celebs competing…
For months, I thought it was a Chinese restaurant. Good, I’d think as I drove each morning past the grand, pagoda-like monster being erected at 29th Avenue and Northern. The spring rolls at Golden Dragon suck. Then the crosses went up. Oh, I thought. A monastery. Or a Buddhist temple!…
The Valley resident and host of the TV show Smart Spaces: Inside & Out discusses his green-living creation, the “holistic home” he calls the Urban Farm. Mon., Aug. 25, 7 p.m., 2008…
See our state bird, the cactus wren, and other arid-land avians in action at this rise-and-shine bonanza for bird lovers. Mondays, 7 a.m. Starts: May 5. Continues through Aug. 31, 2008…
Okay, there’ll be, like, stuff on sale and stuff, but this ain’t your granny’s tent sale. G-dawg definitely wouldn’t dig the cool noise that’ll be echoing through the Mill Avenue District, and it’s pretty much a given she wouldn’t shell out for the chain’s groovy slackerwear. In addition to a…
The best music has often been created under the most oppressive conditions. Slave spirituals in the 1800s. Martha and the Vandellas’ Civil Rights Era rallying cry “Dancing in the Streets.” The compositions by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and many others during the Third Reich. Check out an evening of tunes, poetry, and…
Photojournalist Alison Wright nearly died in a grisly 2000 bus accident in Laos, but what didn’t kill her apparently made her stronger. Wright spent the next seven years exploring Asia and the tenets of Buddhism, performing feats of personal courage, and “learning to breathe,” a term that inspired the title…
HDTV. The Internet. Video games. Text messaging. They’re all distractions, man. For real, let it all go, head outside, and remember what life was like, pre-stimuli, for at least a couple of hours. Impossible? We say rubbish to that. So do the bloke and blokette who will lead the Backpacker…
For many of you, the last time you heard reggae was when you toked up some shitty pot in your first Tempe apartment as an undergrad. You and your buddies wasted the afternoon away while wearing ASU T-shirts and Umbros, eating Gus’ pizza, and listening to your sweet three-disc CD…
Ceramicists always wonder why they’re left in the dust while painters and sculptors get the glory. Let’s face it, clay boy, no one’s gonna care about your pot unless they can smoke it. Maybe that’s why Midwestern artists Teri Frame, Alex Hibbitt, and Liz Zacher decided to combine mixed-media and…
Reading the press release for Dearly Departed, a play in the first week of its run at Chyro Arts Venue, comparisons to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying are inevitable. However, instead of hicks transporting a corpse in a pine-box coffin, the David Bottrell/Jesse Jones comedy follows the emotional journeys…
We’re what you’d call “white.” Our Mexican ex-boyfriend has confirmed this many times, despite our challenges to the contrary. “But look right here,” we’d say, “this spot is kind of brown!” He would just laugh and direct his gaze in a more southwesterly direction. Now we can really compare and…
Most folks stop caring (or should stop caring) about their birthday by, oh, about the time they hit 25 years old. We s’pose there’s nothing wrong with raising a glass to a milestone age like, say, 30 or 50 or 75, but 57? What else would you expect from a…
A cover charge seems fairly reasonable for a live musical performance, but many of today’s dance nights provide zero visual stimulation. That is, unless someone in the crowd gets drunk enough to strip and/or vomit in the middle of the dance floor. So why would you pay someone to push…
We’re tired of reading the preseason practice reports of college-football squads. They basically all say the same thing. Most teams feel great and think they can compete for the national championship. Whatever. These canned quotes are wack. Thankfully, beginning next week, we won’t have to hear this anymore when the…
Your Mama and Papa always told you to stay away from strange men, especially those who wore leather outfits in public. According to them, these strangers were prime qualifiers for the Neighborhood Watch’s registry of dubious citizens. Truth is, your parents were probably worthier of a re-education than those they…
There’s a lyric from one of the Richard O’Brien tunes in his intergalactically famous The Rocky Horror Show that goes, “It was great when it all began/I was a regular Frankie fan.” It’s a lyric that has proven more true than the then-starving young playwright could have known when he…
Come on, now — you don’t print photos. Hence the “Wanna see my boyfriend? Come look at my phone” phenomenon. Tilt Gallery compensates for us flakes, showcasing the finest photography in its cozy jewel box of a space. Though historic and alternative processes (a.k.a. not Walgreens) are Tilt’s focus year-round,…
What if Lennon and McCartney had parted ways before Revolver? Smith and Wesson before the .357 Magnum? Gilbert and Sullivan before The Mikado? Wait. Gilbert and who? Before the what? So it goes for the great British comic-operatic team of W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, who were once bigger…
It’s ironic that consistency, longevity, and predictability have come to be the hallmarks of “true punk,” but that’s where we are more than three decades after Johnny Rotten blew his nose all over things. As Jello Biafra recently sang, there’s all these bands singing their “hits from the ‘good old…
Before the medium ate the message, poet and rap precursor Gil Scott-Heron forewarned that the revolution would not be televised. When the tides turn, Immortal Technique will be there to provide color commentary between lobs of Molotov cocktails. The Peruvian-born, Harlem-raised fire-breather scorches tracks with scathing lyrical criticisms of the…
It’s the summer of 1988 and the Valley’s music scene is ruled by such venues as Edsel’s Attic, the Sun Club, Long Wong’s, and the Mason Jar. Meanwhile, over in Mesa, an entrepreneur named Ross Wincek quietly opens the doors of his bar and grill, Hollywood Alley, 2610 West Baseline…
