Most of the kidnapping Arizona’s famous for is the imprisonment and torture of undocumented immigrants held hostage by smugglers who attempt to extort additional payment from loved ones, or by other gangs who kidnap them from their original coyote. Similar (and often more deadly) situations face Central Americans who cross…
One new idea for every day in 2011. We’re talking big, small, local, international, in action and on the drawing board. Here’s today’s — what’s yours? Aaron Kimberlin’s guest house is tiny … and pretty damn cool. The local photographer’s an architectural and urban planning enthusiast, and writes that even…
The era of the teenage action heroine is fully upon us. As pop-cultural correctives go, it’s a mixed blessing. In one corner, you’ve got the jailbait fantasies of Sucker Punch and Kick-Ass, which eagerly trade on notions of naughty girliness rather than transcend or interrogate them. In the other, you’ve…
I’ve been bowling exactly twice. Both times were when I was a kid, and my prevailing memory of the event is my horror at having to wear rented shoes. But I remember the bowling alley: Sunnyslope’s Northgate Bowl on 12th Street, just south of Dunlap. This still-charming, vaguely futuristic building…
Shepard Fairey’s stuck on Tempe. Not the street artist himself, but rather his large-scale iconic wheat pastes, which have recently (and mysteriously) appeared on walls around the Arizona State University campus. The instantly recognizable works of Fairey — whose infamous images helped propel Barack Obama to the White House and…
Jo Masterson is just trying to establish a law practice; she’s not interested in plumbing the depths of the true meaning of love. But her newest clients are a young white woman and a wealthy black businesswoman battling over the custody of a disabled black teenaged girl. As she leads…
Visit the web site of comedian Bill Engvall and you’ll be greeted with a message proclaiming that you’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for squeaky clean standup. There’s no punch-line to that joke. The former sitcom star and Blue Collar Comedy Tour participant prides himself on a…
For most of us, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is a coffee table book — something we wanted to read (or wanted others to think we read) but never did. That’s a shame, because Dr. Stephen Hawking is more than a contemporary bright light of theoretical physics and…
Cars don’t get any cooler than the 1969 Lamborghini Miura. It’s got sexy curves, a V-12 engine that tops out at 170 mph, and an eye-popping price tag of more than $100,000. Suffice it to say that unless the Powerball finally rolls your way, the closest you’re getting to this…
There’s no better way to end your workweek than watching a couple of highly trained professionals beat the living snot out of each other. Or is there? Nope, it’s the ultimate stress-reliever. As part of the Friday Night Fights series at the Madison Event Center in downtown Phoenix, undefeated boxing…
There are some mighty big brains in Phoenix, and we’re not just talking about the squad of engineering geeks our local universities attract. Researchers now believe that there are different types of intelligence not measured by IQ tests — including artistic smarts, which will be heavily represented at Artopia, a…
Modified Arts is the venue where Courtenay Gillean Cholovich presents this quasi-scientific study, peppered with whimsy, employing multimedia, and engaging the audience in a search for identity and meaning (or, as the promotional materials say, exploring ” … the line between imagination and memory, and the artist’s purpose … to…
It’s true that sex sells — but so does misery. Turn on the boob tube or pick up a daily newspaper, and you’ll be bombarded with images of destruction, from a hurricane’s aftermath to a shooting victim’s corpse. London-based artist Dena Schuckit is inspired, rather than horrified, by these photos…
When it comes to video game music, gone are the days of 8-bit monophonic flurries and onomatopoetically challenged effects that sounded as if they were hammered out by King Koopa on a Casio keyboard. These days, intricate and dynamic scores of such titles as Jade Empire and Beyond Good &…
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A Klingon, an Andorian, and a couple of Ferengi walk into a hotel. The setup for the lamest sci-fi joke ever? Nah, it’s merely a sample of the guest star lineup at this weekend’s Official Star Trek Convention at the Sheraton Crescent…
Sure, being a foodie can be a lot of fun. Jetting off to the hottest new restaurants and trying eclectic chef creations sounds like a blast — until you realize you just spent $30 on an entree that tastes worse than something you could have microwaved at home. Save time…
Champions almost always save their best performances for the games that matter the most. This is why the Arizona Diamondbacks are championship material. What, to the untrained eye, may have looked like carelessness during Spring Training was in fact a brilliant display of cunning. Sure, the Diamondbacks could have won…
Though it’s been almost a decade since Zach Sciacca put the Valley in his rearview mirror, the artist known as Z-Trip still casts a huge shadow over the local scene. There are few DJs in this town who aren’t connected to the turntable titan. We’ve personally lost count at the…
Rhythm is a primal thing; the driving force behind all music, be it lurching stoner metal or glitchy dubstep. It’s also the all-encompassing concept that drives Street Beat, the work of L.A.-based director Ben Hansen. The seven-member crew of percussionists, dancers and musicians drum on buckets, barrels, and their own…
Voxhaul Broadcast’s strength is pushing multiple stylistic and emotional buttons without succumbing to lowest-common-denominator anonymity. Though the Silver Lake (via Orange County) quartet indulge in everything from twinkly goth guitars and a Morrissey-esque sense of classic storytelling to Lennon-McCartney melodic instincts and loose-hipped soul, they still sound coherent of vision…
Have any extra cardboard lying around? Give a ring to the members of local hip-hop dance collective Dynamic Rockers a ring, since they’re probably gonna need plenty Saturday’s Street Culture Jam dance competition, which takes place at the Party Pit. Breakdancers and b-boys will likely pull off all kinds of…
Most of the kidnapping Arizona’s famous for is the imprisonment and torture of undocumented immigrants held hostage by smugglers who attempt to extort additional payment from loved ones, or by other gangs who kidnap them from their original coyote. Similar (and often more deadly) situations face Central Americans who cross…
