Long COVID, or What Price Las Vegas?
There is no crueler, meaner world than Las Vegas. It’s long been said Vegas is everything bad about America only magnified, where dreams go to die on the back of grasping desires for easy cash. It was February 2020 and a mad celebration for the Chinese New Year had just ended at the hotel and…
XOXO: Mark Your Calendars
THURSDAY, MARCH 17 “Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues.” Born in Lettsworth, Louisiana, the son of sharecroppers, this storied Chicago bluesman picked cotton for $2.50 per 100 pounds while learning to play the guitar on a two-string diddley bow he made. By the 1960s he rose to become the house guitarist at fabled Chess Records.…
Tucson Erotica Art Show removes stigmas around sex
When Tucson Erotica Art Show (TEAS) President and Organizer Grace M first came to Tucson in 2018, she walked past the Sculptural Resource Center and witnessed a large gilded penis in the middle of the room. “It was magical,” she said. M is a sex worker and fell in love with the idea of TEAS.…
Flame On: BATA Embraces “The Legends and Lore of Fire”
While many of us learned early in life about the consequences of yelling “fire” in a crowded building, the exclamation has taken residence in the formal and flame-licked lexicon of downtown Tucson’s hottest new restaurant. BATA, the newest concept in Chef Tyler Fenton’s growing hospitality group, was built on what he calls “the legends and…
Culture Shock: Tucson Hip Hop Festival Returns to the Stage After Two Years
There seems to be no limit to the amount of influence the Southwest has on the arts. Even through two years of relative isolation, the Tucson hip hop community continued to expand and develop. And now, the Tucson Hip Hop Festival is planned to return this weekend with little change, still celebrating music, art and…
Balancing Act: Vets Have a New Group Where They Can Find Resources and Medical Marijuana
Online Pro-Cannabis Veterans’ groups have grown throughout the two- year pandemic, even though the Veterans Administration hides behind bureaucracy to deny medical marijuana to wounded warriors. Here in Arizona, the Balanced Veterans Network seeks to provide a safe community for vets as well as “education, advocacy, and empowerment of alternative therapies for veterans.” The group…
City Week: Weekly Pics
Editor’s Note: While we are delighted to see Tucsonans once again gather- ing for fun events, we are also aware that variants are in circulation. Please consider getting vaccinated against COVID if you haven’t yet. HUB’s Dog Days of Spring – Pup-up at the Park. The HUB’s monthlong celebration of all things dog and ice…
What Are They Hiding?
Public records are supposed to be public—but many government agencies would prefer their work be done in the shadows. That’s why they often come up with all sorts of ways to block the press and the public from seeing them, whether it’s charging outrageous fees or claiming that it will take months or years to…
A Night At the Opera: An Ode to Stephen Sondheim, to Arizona Art and to Reading Emails More Carefully
I was a theater kid growing up, which means I was annoying and that I have seen The Sound of Music, like, 15 times. It also means I was saddened when Stephen Sondheim, one of the most influential and important musical theater composers of all time, died in November 2021. He’s the type of person…
