It’s hard to feel pity for something with four-inch spikes, but even an Echinocereus fendleri deserves a break from the sun. It’s a fearsome thing, the Sonoran hedgehog cactus, but also a thing of beauty, which is why Desert Botanical Garden wants to keep fendleri and friends comfortable and resplendent…
“Ashy to classy” was how The Notorious B.I.G. described his ascent from street-level hustler to champagne-swigging rap star. Similarly, Officer Ugg and the Garbage Pail Kids of yesteryear might affect a George Jefferson-like swagger after seeing their fellow adhesive-Americans elevated from Trapper Keepers and street lamps to gallery walls. Local…
Be it great or small, every single creature roaming God’s green Earth has a natural enemy. For the deadly cobra, it’s the wily mongoose. Mice? Easy prey for felines. As for piñatas, they’re afraid of one thing and one thing only: baseball bats. We’ve lost count of the number of…
Isaac Newton has the market cornered on early physics genius, but his formidable contributions to science are rarely mentioned in the same breath as art. Sculptor David Young, who draws a bit of artistic inspiration from Newton, recently had his own apple-on-the-head moment. “I’ve always loved taking things apart, and…
Phoenix Film Festival. Sounds kinda rinky-dink, right? Well, that’s how the East Coast film snobs must’ve reacted back in 1978 when the Utah Film Commission unveiled its Utah/United States Film Festival. From such barren seed sprang Sundance, and you don’t hear much bleating from the cognoscenti these days. While our…
It seems as if everybody, especially Los Angeles Dodgers fans, is creaming him or herself over the Dodgers’ acquisition of outfielder Manny Ramirez. True, the slugger is leading the team’s charge toward NL West supremacy. But just wait until he ditches his best behavior and the loose cannon starts firing…
Ever wonder why there’s no History Channel equivalent of MythBusters? There should be, because it’s not that hard to pull off a pseudo-historical sham. Sure, we could have paid more attention in history class, but that would have meant missing out on prime note-passing time. So dangle some black-and-white photos…
The tix are a bit pricey, but why not? You get to rub shoulders with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Kevin Costner, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Clive Davis while raising funds for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at Phoenix’s Barrow Neurological Institute. Reba McEntire emcees and croons, and additional musical performances…
Among the many wonderful things about the Maricopa County Fair is that it’s one of the few places where you can get religion at Madame Zelda’s Puppet Circus and then sit back for some light entertainment at the Gospel Throwdown. And as you might expect, there’s so much more to…
God bless video games. Besides sucking away countless hours we might’ve foolishly wasted on more productive exploits, the PlayStations and XBoxes of the world have permitted us and our friends to live out various Walter Mitty-like daydreams of being gun-running mobsters, skilled surgeons of Clooneyesque proportions, or (in the case…
The famed rock ‘n’ roll producer/engineer (Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Stones, KISS, David Bowie) discusses his career and tackles the old analog-versus-digital conundrum. Tue., April 8, 8 p.m., 2008…
Hang out with Amaré and some of his famous friends in this benefit for the Amaré Stoudemire Each 1 Teach 1 Foundation. A silent auction of wares including a limited-edition painting of Amaré, two courtside tickets for a Phoenix Suns home game, and signed memorabilia will take place following the…
“My toys have been described as Mexican Hello Kitty,” said artist Roy Wasson Valle in reference to his fledgling line of egg-shaped figures originally showcased in his “Yummy Things and Stupid Little Animals” show. Like other design toy artists, Wasson Valle is an “incidental” toy designer; creating them initially so that people at his shows “had something to bring home.”
No, really. There’s a ton of music happenings invading the valley this weekend. Kicking things off is Theonix Arts Showcase: Volume II on Friday. Expect performances from What Laura Says Thinks and Feels, and Rocketline, among others. Saturday starts-a-rockin’ with Tempe Music Festival. Local heroes the Gin Blossoms will be…
Tom, Dick, and Harry: Members of the Peter Hill fan club, rejoice! Your fave dog track director is not only at the helm of this Arizona première; he’s the star! Ray Cooney’s latest British farce has something to do with a better-than-middle-aged couple who’ve adopted a baby. The dame from…
I didn’t grow up crazy poor or drowning in gangsta crime, but life for me did start in a neighborhood that was far, far away from fancy. I’ll call it a wanna-be-barrio, near 13th Street and Buckeye. In 1974, my Nana Trinnie and Tata Chonito sold their little house on…
Do we need another look back at the rotten heart of the ’50s nuclear family? Ira Sachs thinks we do, and as one who can’t get enough of sweaty melodramas about rotting families, I’m with him in principle. Mind you, Sachs’ new movie is less about families than about cheating…
Ben Mezrich’s 2002 bestseller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions was a smart narrative about . . . well, you did see the subtitle, right? Mezrich more or less recounted a fantastic tale spun by an old acquaintance from Boston,…
Considering that the war in Iraq has proved to be Washington’s shot-by-shot remake of Vietnam, it’s only natural that Hollywood has followed suit, giving us a series of Iraq-themed films that can be set neatly alongside their Vietnam-era counterparts. Just as the initial wave of angry anti-Vietnam documentaries gave way…
As John Simon once said of Jeanne Moreau — cast in a virginal role — making Simon Pegg a fat guy is like casting Lassie as a vegetarian. Take Chris Elliott, subtract Don Knotts: the remainder is Pegg, the British actor-screenwriter who barely registered as an appetizer for Shaun of…
Who said first-person games need a second person? Developers seem to believe that their first-person games are required to include online modes. Blame it on the few narrow-minded gamers (and critics) who constantly hammer away with that boneheaded message. At best, it’s a strange logic of inheritance: Since the earliest…
If I have a quibble with Childsplay’s A Tale of Two Cities, it’s that it’s too smart for children. Kids tend not to notice the kind of subtle beauty that Dwayne Hartford has brought to his adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic; they aren’t built to appreciate the skill it…
