“Conversations in the Garden,” an exhibit featuring the stellar work of creative duo Carol Panaro-Smith and James Hajicek, has been on our radar since we viewed the press release. Why? Because, every art piece we’ve ever seen the two make both individually and together is beautiful and original. For “Conversations,”…
We must confess that we’re not the biggest metalhead around. But, oh, how we wish we’d known of the Finnish all-cello band Apocalyptica when we were young (the classically trained foursome channels the sonic heft of Metallica). We would have played in the local youth orchestra. Then, perhaps, we could’ve…
As hard as we try to forget our childhood, the human memory, once triggered, can overpower our best efforts. For example, some jerk in your office decides to watch the Lite-Brite commercial on YouTube and you suddenly have a flashback: 6-year-old you – wearing knee-high tube socks and a C-3PO…
Every generation or so, the universe slips off its axis and Detroit catches a break. Right now, Motown’s livin’ large with the success of the Detroit Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings. (Lions? We said the universe slipped, not ended.) But when the Tigers dropped their first seven games of the…
If you usually go to a museum for quiet contemplation, ditch Josh Greene’s “Some Parts Might Be Greater Than the Whole” exhibit, which encourages elbow-rubbing among strangers. Greene’s “installation” — part of ASU Art Museum’s Social Studies series — is equal parts reality television and guerrilla theater. High jinks may…
Like most of the output from Vancouver indie-rock band Destroyer, Trouble in Dreams is a beguiling album that’s hard to pin down. Full of surrealistic tales of lost love and missed opportunities, Dreams’ songs defy easy categorization. We tracked down the band’s creative engine, guitarist and vocalist Dan Bejar, for…
Hey, Pat Murphy. It’s time to stop worrying. Really, man. Unless your ASU Baseball squad drops its remaining seven games (which ain’t gonna happen), your team is officially, yet again, one of the elite teams in college baseball this season. If you listen to the Sun Devils’ never-satisfied head coach…
How serendipitous! We’ve been looking high and low for a scissor lift, a portable light plant, and a used garbage truck. Also up for for grabs at this annual city-merch offload: cars, pickup and utility trucks, vans, dump trucks, trailers, a scissor lift, scrap wire and metal, and much more…
The Backwards Theatre honchos behind this production describe it as “a bizarre evening of experimental theater . . . in exploration of the shadow realm.” If that doesn’t grab ya, there’ll also be storytelling and “flickering images.” Sat., May 17, 8 p.m., 2008…
By Jonathan McNamara Giulio Sciorio has invited complete strangers to his photography studio 13 times now to have their portraits immortalized on film mid-orgasm. After bringing them in, Giulio positions them and sets up his lighting gear. He chooses a backdrop and takes a few shots to determine that everything…
It was the strangest day of my life. It was one of the best days of my life. On a Saturday in early April, I went to a funeral, a wedding, and a 90th-birthday bash — all on the same day. It was all quite mixed up. It was all…
Converting a fondly remembered cartoon series — one of the first Japanese animes syndicated on American TV — into a prospective franchise, the Matrix masters, Larry and Andy Wachowski, have taken another step toward the total cyborganization of the cinema. Even more than most summer-season F/X fests, Speed Racer is…
Canadian poet Anne Michaels’ beautiful 1996 novel, Fugitive Pieces — about a Jewish writer immobilized by the memory of his Polish family’s murder at the hands of the Nazis — distills tragedy into grief, terror, and a wary romance built on the redemptive power of love and art, and set…
This year marks the 16th birthday of Mario Kart, the landmark Nintendo franchise that consists of eight identical racing games and legions of fans who buy every one of them. And 16 years later, nobody really has a problem with this. True to form, Mario Kart Wii offers no significant…
The most sparkling bit of dialogue I heard the other night at Actors Theatre’s production of Speak Spanish to Me came from the charming lady seated on my left. At intermission, she leaned across the empty seat between us and, indicating my notebook, asked, “Are you reviewing, or plagiarizing?” I…
David Mamet’s Redbelt is a tricky bar brawl — call it the Roundhouse of Games. The writer-director has scarcely abandoned his sense of the movies as an innately duplicitous medium, one best suited to stories that play out as conspiratorial chess matches. But, with his 10th feature — an entertaining…
No adult has ever been able to codify what separates a good movie from a classic. In kid terms, though — those favored by Son of Rambow, a chipper tribute to the cinema as both supplier and repository of dreams — a good movie merely sends you bounding home from…
Attention, fellas. If you want to know your lady ain’t a ho, get her naked and check for tan lines. If she’s got ’em, that’s a good sign. It means she’s not afraid to show a little flesh but has the smarts to protect her junk. No tan lines? She’s…
The press release for Pink Martini’s upcoming performance in Scottsdale has this to say about the 12-piece ensemble from (where else?) Portland, Oregon: “a cross between a 1930s Cuban dance orchestra, a classical chamber music ensemble, a Brazilian marching street band, and Japanese film noir.” Well, that just about covers…
If you didn’t attend March’s Downtown Chamber Series concert . . . oh, man. That Crumb piece with the pitched wine glasses, intense violin and cello sections, and growling chants in French? Seriously, one of the best live-music events we’ve ever witnessed. The DCS folks have lined up another eyebrow-raising…
The Phoenix Mercury were 2007 WNBA champions. Remember? Of course you don’t, dammit, because they don’t get much love in our Suns-obsessed city. Well, we’re not going to let you forget that our hometown gals will be looking to defend their title this season. The road begins with their home…
What we know about fashion could fit inside one of our C cups, but we do know what we like, and Angela Johnson’s Vaudeville Style Mystery Menagerie Fall 2008 Collection Fashion Show at the posh Clarendon Hotel sounds right up our puckered bodice. Johnson says her target market is “young,…
