Cover Story
Creative Soul
Today, in 2017, it seems we are damn near obligated to focus on our collective future since a certain someone in Washington is hell-bent on dismantling it Tweet by 140-character Tweet.
Dunbar Was Just The First of Many for this Local Author
Aloma Barnes, author of Dunbar: The Neighborhood, The School, And The People 1940-1965, is a retired nurse. Her book Dunbar is a novel about the beginnings of Tucson and how early segregation took place. A second edition of the book is scheduled for release this month. This interview has been edited and condensed. Can you…
Cinema Clips: Get Out
Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American man, is a little nervous. He’s going to visit the parents of Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), his white girlfriend. Rose is relaxed about the trip, but Chris is a little anxious. His anxiety proves justified shortly into the trip. Upon arrival at her large estate, her parents like Chris.…
TUSD Still Needs a New Boss
People hoping to see an interim superintendent appointed at Tucson Unified School District’s Tuesday board meeting were disappointed. The TUSD Governing Board accepted former superintendent H.T. Sánchez’s resignation at their Feb. 28 meeting, after board Member Rachael Sedgwick added a last-minute agenda item two weeks prior that threatened to terminate his contract. The board announced…
Streets of This Town: Easy Living.
No street hassle: A humble and inviting little house down on Forgeus Avenue. “Streets of This Town” is a little photo series featuring random pics I take on long walks through Tucson—to sort of coincide with Tucson Salvage.
Tucson Weekly Folks at Tucson Festival of Books
It’s Tucson Festival of Books season this weekend at the UA campus. Every year a small crew of Tucson Weekly staff and contributors participate. It’s a wonderful festival this year and we are all proud to help and offer our support. For the full schedule to plan your literary weekend, go to tucsonfestivalofbooks.org Margaret Regan will…
Grandmas, the Declaration of Independence and Cursive
Did you know grandmas can’t print? Did you know you can only read the Declaration of Independence in the original historical version? Yeah, neither did I. I don’t give much of a damn whether or not schools teach cursive. If it’s a choice between cursive or recess time, I say go with recess. If it’s cursive…
Katie Haverly, a Masterclass Tucson Singer/Songwriter, Offers a Lovely Live Clip to Inspire Funding
Whether backed by a violin or acoustic guitar or muted trumpet or piano, Tucson’s Katie Haverly has one of those voices that can lift and soothe, create tension and then release it. It suggests adoration of golden-age (jazzy) folk-pop like Rickie Lee Jones, Judee Sill, David Crosby, and Joni Mitchell—all lovely DNA, certainly—as well as Erykah…
Streets of This Town: Mailbox Art
Gourds and hand-carved totems and faces and the U.S. Postal Service; mailbox as installation art, somewhere near midtown. “Streets of This Town” is a little photo series featuring random pics I take on long walks through Tucson—to sort of coincide with my column Tucson Salvage.
Cinema Clips: The Lure
Mermaids do strange things in this movie. They eat dudes, they dance in strip clubs, they sing in elaborate musical numbers, they cut off their bottom halves and have them replaced with human legs, and they have lots of sex. Mind you, some of that sex culminates with hearts being ripped out and devoured. Two…
Learn How To Save the Bees
No, the buzzing you hear isn’t the iPhone in your pocket. It’s a honey bee—and the impact it has on pollinating the crops you eat is worth its slightly obnoxious presence. The importance of bees to our ecosystems and to the development of food we eat is no secret, but the preservation of the insects gained…
TUSD Celebrates Kindness Week After Driving Out Superintendent
In the wake of a divided governing board driving out Superintendent H.T. Sanchez, the Tucson Unified School District is now celebrating Kindness Week. The TUSD board spent weeks discussing the fate of then-superintendent H.T. Sánchez before Sanchez worked out a deal to resign. Many will miss him, including Stefanie Boe, TUSD’s communications director. And while…
Streets of This Town: Dead Soldiers at Night
“Streets of This Town” is a little photo series featuring random pics I take on long walks through Tucson—to sort of coincide with Tucson Salvage. For all the boosters boasting of Tucson’s financial turnaround, I walk these streets almost nightly and am quietly taken by the levels of abandonment—hollowed out storefronts, houses, gas stations, on…
Removing TUSD Superintendent Prioritized Over Finding Replacement
The Tucson Unified School District Governing Board doesn’t seem to have any idea who will replace the superintendent, whose resignation was accepted at the Feb. 28 meeting in a 3-2 vote. The board hasn’t had a chance to discuss the matter, said the newest board member Rachael Sedgwick. She added that they’ll probably hire an…
Song of the Day: Billy Sedlmayr Says Wire’s New Single ‘Short Elevated Period’ Will Crawl Slowly Into Your Psyche.
Wire is a art-punk band from Britain. You’ll note they made the wondrous Pink Flag, a defining record of ’77, a defining record in all of rock ‘n’ roll. It blasted super-short songs, some aggressive, others a new formula of what pop songs could deliver. A critic’s band seemingly uninterested on what N.M.E., or press…
The Peace Fair & Music Festival Smoked!
Since Election Day ’16, legions of dissatisfied have taken to streets everywhere, protesting Trump’s ugly racist policies and reacting to the authoritarian-yet-needy/solipsistic timbre in that dude’s deceptive voice. They’re seeking comfort too in the company of the like-minded. Last Saturday, hundreds of Tucson activists and peace seekers gathered to build community solidarity and strengthen movement…
KXCI Radio and Words On the Avenue Team Up and Create a Winning Series
KXCI radio (91.3) and Tucson poet society Words on the Avenue teamed to create a video series that highlights the powerful work of local poets. And the first episode is now available, and damn is it lovely. It rises on writer Roch Mirabeau’s beautifully paced verse and graceful in-person performance of “My Pops Told Me,” tackling themes of…
Sen. Yarbrough Gets Slammed Big Time By the New York Times
Arizona’s ongoing tuition tax credit scam was well documented back in 2009 courtesy of some terrific investigative reporting, and it continues to come up in our media now and again. Nothing has changed—what else is new in Arizona?—but at least it’s out in the open for anyone who wants to read about it. It’s nice…
Streets of This Town: Mook Trump
“Streets of This Town” is a little photo series featuring random pics I take on long walks through Tucson—to sort of coincide with Tucson Salvage. Anti-Trump is everywhere on side streets, attached to palm trees, and on chainlink. This is Blacklidge, west of Campbell Avenue.
Streets of This Town: Pink Sky Over Modular Homes
“Streets of This Town” is a little photo series featuring random pics I take on long walks through Tucson—to sort of coincide with my column Tucson Salvage. Lovely trailer court between Flower and Grant Rd. We turned pink and orange for a whole five minutes as the sun dropped.
Thoughts on the Sanchez Resignation and the Next Steps for TUSD
As most everyone knows by now, H.T. Sanchez resigned as TUSD superintendent Tuesday. You can read the official Separation and Release Agreement here. It’s a clean break agreement. No one is admitting guilt on either side. Members of the board can’t speak badly about Sanchez, and Sanchez can’t speak badly about the board. If anyone…
Legends & Shadows
There were no boundaries to begin with when ChamberLab set out to present classical music with a punk ethos.
Political Acts
With President Donald Trump and his allies in the GOP Congress looking for ways to block the ability of low-income women and men to turn to Planned Parenthood for their sexual health concerns, the organization is bracing for a rough year ahead.
Weed worries
Several states are poised to go toe-to-toe with the federal government if the new administration makes any moves to curb recreational marijuana efforts.
Fill ’Er Up!
So what is it that constitutes a great sandwich?
March Madness Irish-Style
What’s the weather like in Dublin at the start of St. Patrick’s season?
Twisted by fate
It’s 1934 and in a small, listless seaside town one of the islands of Aran off the west coast of Ireland.
Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: I work at a Mexican restaurant where the majority of the workers are, you guessed it, Mexican.
The Lenten season is upon us, and Tom decides to get a few things off his chest just in case in decided to give up Trump hating for 46 days
Lent started yesterday, so for the next 46 days
Editors Note
There are two events going on this month that deserve a bit of your attention and worth mentioning in this space.
Noise Annoys
Ever since the epochal ’60s run of Bob Dylan, whose groundbreaking literate expressionism was one of the foremost and, to this day, almost unparalleled artistic achievements in the era of recorded music, the archetype of the singer/songwriter has remained in the forefront of western pop music.
Dust Devil
Tucson politicians who attend the prayer breakfasts need to ask “where did all these alternative facts’ come from?”
Know Your Product: Geoff Tate
For two decades, from 1982 to 2012, Geoff Tate was the frontman with Seattle prog-metalers Queensrÿche, a group which, you’ll note, hit mad mainstream success on albums Operation: Mindcrime and Empire, and singles like “Jet City Woman” and “Eyes of a Stranger.”
Vintage Vinyl
Wah-hoo, Ah-ha! An enthusiastic start to the multi-name, eight-45 RPM discography of Tucson’s The Dearly Beloved.
Scary Laughs
Writer-director Jordan Peele, the comedic performer from TV’s Key & Peele and the adorable/funny cat movie Keanu, delivers a huge cinematic surprise with Get Out, a twisted, darkly satiric, nasty little horror film that pulls no punches when it comes to race relations and dating.
The Skinny
You have to hand it to U.S. Rep. Martha McSally: Faced with the possibility that she would look cowardly for refusing to hold an open-topic town hall
Police Dispatch
In an incident involving a bathtub and meth—but not necessarily “bathtub meth”— a man was arrested after screaming at a motel employee in his underwear upon learning he owed $600 for damaging his room, according to a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report.
Police Dispatch
A man tried, quite unsuccessfully, to smuggle four bottles of booze out of a Walmart store—in his pants, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report stated.
