Mexico’s national team will need all the support it can get during the World Cup, especially since oddsmakers are pegging their chances of success at around 100 to 1. It’s muy bueno, then, that PHX Nightclub is presenting holding a special viewing party/pep rally in honor of Mexico’s opening round…
You’re a culturally land-locked Arizonan. As such, the closest you’ve ever come to a bona fide New Orleans “second line” street band is an episode of Treme — or maybe that funny funeral scene in the voodoo-rific James Bond flick To Live and Let Die. Well, your jazz illiteracy days are…
According to Trunk Space co-owner JRC, F.A.R.T. could possibly stand for “Former Authors Rewrite Taskforce” or even “Flagrant Atheist Rowing Team.” Then again, it could mean absolutely nothing at all. “It’s one of those ‘whatever you make it things,” he says. Alrighty then. The one thing we can make out…
Shows like The Big Bang Theory give the false impression that geeks are usually brilliant and successful. In reality, most of us are rather shiftless and underemployed, but occasionally someone like MC Chris manages to profit from his geekiness. The Chicago-area rapper first caught notice with “Fett’s Vette,” a humorous,…
Macho meets homo in the laudable but terrible La Mission. Watered-down Jungian analysis meets a GLAAD-approved weepie in Peter Bratt’s second feature, starring brother Benjamin (who also produces) as a swaggering, neck-tattooed macho who will finally realize the damage his rock-hard masculinity has caused during a funeral for a teenage…
A naked septuagenarian stuffs a boiled egg into his left armpit. A woman wearing plastic butterfly wings reads a dour poem, then torches a five-dollar bill. Three drunk guys shave off one another’s body hair. This is Space 55 Theatre’s Seven Minutes in Heaven, a collection of unvetted short skits,…
Like its predecessor, 2010’s Harald Zwart-directed The Karate Kid begins with an uprooting. Young Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and his mother (Taraji P. Henson) are introduced in the Detroit apartment that he grew up in, now packed into boxes. Ralph Macchio shipped off to the Valley; Dre is going to…
For a city our size, Phoenix really doesn’t get a whole lot of films that aren’t super mainstream, multi-million dollar budget affairs. So let’s celebrate this one. While La Mission may not be playing everywhere, it isn’t one that would easily slip under the radar of a serious film buff…
We are well aware that there’s a very fine line between collecting — and compulsive shopping. Whatever you want to call it, we’re there. So today we premiere “Collections,” a new occasional feature on Jackalope Ranch. And what better way to start than with a collection just begun within the walls of the…
Forget the Nike ads and U2 music in the promos. They fit everyone – men, women, kids and even a TEAM USA pair with ankle straps for babies. The style is simple, the colors are brilliant and we love the flag on the strap. You have no excuse – lose…
Shanna Katz wants to talk to you about sex. She wants to tell you why it’s good, teach you how to enjoy it more, and maybe even laugh about it a little. Phoenix-based Katz, dubbed “a younger, hipper version of Dr. Ruth” by other media, is a licensed professional –…
Blogger and career coach Pamela Slim’s blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation, covers a wide range of topics, from when to ditch your home office to the virtues of a documentary on bi-polar disorder and professional advice about finding one’s purpose, combined with Kahlil Gibran quotes. Usually, topics like that come…
Since February, a group of artists in central Phoenix has hosted workshops, presentations, and art-making functions. They’re called the urban artists collective and their debut exhibition is up at Willo North Gallery until the end of July…
Cycling this time of year may be like riding into an oven, but if you’re going to do it, feel free to look super awesome doing so, thanks to a Tempe-based cycling co-op. Now through June 19, Bike Saviours, the non-profit bicycle collective (founded in 2007) located at 601 University…
88: Gabriel Utasi Gabriel Utasi is a professional creative who works in publishing; creating graphics, designs, multimedia projects, and illustrations for newspapers and is known mostly for his portrait and figurative work. He transplanted from Cincinnati, Ohio via Fresno, California five years ago. In Cincinnati, he studied at The Art…
I see a killer industrial-goods party in somebody’s future…
Embark on a culture blog and the sky’s the limit, right?I discovered this the hard way when I volunteered to write about a hike.I hiked Picacho Peak. And I cried. Four times.I know I sound like a big old wussy here, but, be warned: Picacho is not for the weak…
Pete Petrisko can’t seem to shake this place. The longtime downtown Phoenix creative type/former gallery owner/performance artist, who was recently reported dead by azcentral.com, moved to Tucson a few months back. However, he’s been making frequent trips back to the Valley for on-location shoots for his new video project, Shake…
The BMW is a status car — a symbol of wealth, success and class. That is, unless you go wild with a can of paint and cheapen it up like a twenty dollar Walmart rug. This zebra-striped beauty is painted from bumper to bumper and even sports matching fuzzy zebra seat covers. Yee-haw!…
Writing workshops are all the rage this summer. Between the bookstores and the libraries, there are more than 20 writing workshops around the Valley through July, hosted by a gamut of literary notables and catering to all kinds of writers, from tweens and teens to poets and memoirists (there’s a…
A banner week — for me, that’s defined as a week with not one but two burlesque shows in town — began very well last night as a troupe of burlesque artists from New York brought “Dangerous Curves Ahead: Burlesque On The Go-Go” to Phoenix.The show took place outside the…
89: Mary Shindell My practice of art is drawing-based. The making of marks intrigues me. Surface and texture are the elements of both drawing and printmaking that hold my attention. Like many artists, I have developed a vocabulary of marks that I employ when drawing. As I was seeking a…
