Critical mass Last July, Newsweek said, “Phoenix is on the cutting edge of the movement to meld art and public works.” A month later, the New York Times added, “Phoenix has shown that our capacity for invention is far from all used up.” In October, the Chicago Tribune noted that…
The moment had arrived. For days Robin Morris had been growing increasingly apprehensive about the role she must play on this night. Her part must be played to perfection. She must speak for her late father in a way that reflected her moral outrage at her father’s experience and yet…
A couple of Valley filmmakers responsible for a horrific new “shockumentary” are out for blood. “The whole intent of our film was to have red in every scene,” says Darrin Ramage, co-producer of Traces of Death, a grisly compilation of actual murders, suicides and fatal accidents culled from unedited TV…
It was February 7, 1991. Twilight was gathering on Capitol Hill as J. Fife Symington III faced off with Senator Howard Metzenbaum. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Symington was only three weeks away from a gubernatorial run-off election with Terry Goddard. Metzenbaum had convened a hearing into the failure…
Kevin Johnson talks like a choirboy. His intentions are always innocent. At least that’s what he always insists later. But never doubt that KJ is the most lethal member of the Phoenix Suns. He is the club’s assassin. KJ’s brutal blow delivered to the face and neck of the Chicago…
The television commercial sounded like a godsend to Ruthie Dennis. Pay nothing down! an authoritative male voice intoned. Get your financial fresh start today! A fresh start is what Dennis needed. Income-tax and other debts had haunted her since she’d retired from Honeywell in 1991 after 20 years on the…
One night in Minnesota, Dave Foreman woke up in his tent to a wolf howl, a desperate, aching sound that freezes time and makes domestic dogs try to hide under beds. At first, he thought it was the wind as he sat up in his sleeping bag. Then, when the…
The revelation in December that Samaritan Health Systems will shut down the only Poison Control Center in Phoenix passed as a blip on the public radar, coming as it did between Christmas and New Year’s. But the decision is sending waves of outrage and panic through the medical community, and…
With all the hubbub about the downtown baseball stadium–for which Maricopa County taxpayers are expected to pay up to $250 million–it’s high time for some perspective. With apologies to Harper’s Index, here’s what else could be done with a spare quarter-billion dollars: 1. Estimated number of molestation lawsuits Michael Jackson…
Scanning an office decorated with a shoe-shaped planter, a giant, boot-shaped piata and a picture of actor Daniel Day-Lewis as he appeared in My Left Foot, Jeanne Sallman smiles beatifically before offering a rather startling description of her occupation: “You might say I’m running a dating service for the feet.”…
They bid adieu to Robert Morris, the remarkable law professor, in a simple, elegant service in a downtown Phoenix church recently. Morris, 65, the only black member of the Arizona State University law faculty, had left a request. He wanted his funeral concluded by the playing of one of his…
The politician doesn’t grow more human with age. In the end, he becomes a wharf rat. –Henry David Thoreau The governor spoke at the Republican party’s annual meeting the other day. “The trouble with our prisons in Arizona is that we don’t have the concept of arduous labor,” J. Fife…
Thanks to a breach in Governor Fife Symington’s security, I now know the nature of his executive secretary’s testimony before the grand jury last week. Joyce Reibel’s statements occurred behind closed doors and are, of course, privileged. But her testimony before the grand jury was preceded by a government interrogation…
W.H. “Moose” Graham sat slack-jawed and panting in the defendant’s box in a Pinal County courtroom in Florence last Friday morning, his big, gray head poking out of orange prison garb. He was waiting for Judge Robert Bean to formally charge him with first-degree murder in the 1992 shooting death…
W.H. “Moose” Graham sat slack-jawed and panting in the defendant’s box in a Pinal County courtroom in Florence last Friday morning, his big, gray head poking out of orange prison garb. He was waiting for Judge Robert Bean to formally charge him with first-degree murder in the 1992 shooting death…
They say truth is stranger than fiction. But Zapata Rose in 1992, a short story by ASU professor and author Gary Keller, is an even stranger phenomenon–fiction that turns out to be truth. Released nearly two years ago as part of a compilation of Keller’s other work, Zapata Rose is…
@day:around @mon:the globe @body:”World Class” Adventures Resume: Kids loved “visiting” all seven of the Earth’s continents during “World Class! A Geographic Adventure in Art,” a themed installation and hands-on workshop series that recently concluded at Arizona Museum for Youth, 35 North Robson in Mesa. The series was so popular, in…
I look at police files for a living. So I’ve got a problem with a proposed State House bill that would lock up those reports. And because the police have retaliated against me when I’ve exposed law enforcement corruption, I’m not wild about the idea that, somehow, the behavior of…
MDRVRXP: see note below at “Art Films”MDNM @day:wednesday @mon:january @date2:26Martha Graham Dance Company: The most celebrated of all American dance companies observes the 100th birthday of its founder, late dance doyenne Graham, with a performance at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Gammage Auditorium, Mill and Apache in Tempe. It’s also the…
You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…
You can take this year’s Super Bowl and shove it. Once again, the National Football League is giving us the Buffalo Bills and the hateful Dallas Cowboys. Things are in a desperate state. Is there a more loathsome, irksome individual than Jimmy Johnson, the cement-haired coach of the Cowboys? How…
Stick up a Circle K and take $50 and they’ll ship you down to Florence. Loot a savings and loan of millions and they’ll offer you a membership in the Paradise Valley Country Club.–Anonymous Ten years ago, they were flying high. Mention Charles Keating, Gary Driggs or Billy Bob Burns…
