Cover Story
Remembering Chuck Bowden
Southwest author and reporter Charles “Chuck” Bowden died at the age of 69 on Aug. 30 at his home in Las Cruces, N.M. While the cause of death remains unknown as of this writing, his girlfriend, Molly Molloy, said that Bowden had been feeling ill for a few weeks and was visiting doctors to see…
An Online Calendar for Tucson Literary Events? Yes and Thank You
You love all things books, words and those really cool and sometimes also the odd folks who also love books and words and … yes, you get it. Anyway, I am excited to share with you, this very moment, a cool new website called Tucsonlit—an online calendar with all the literary events going on in…
Four Days to Go on the Ronstadt Generations Kickstarter
Tucson’s Ronstadt Generations wants to return to the United Kingdom to tour, and they hope a successful Kickstarter campaign will help them get there. There are four days to go, and so far the band is doing beautifully with 36 backers and $1,760 pledged toward their $2,000 goal. On why you should provide your support:…
Vote for Barrio Bread NOW
If you’ve ever bought bread from Don Guerra then you know why his Barrio Bread business has this rabid following of people who will instantly surround the baker and baskets of wheat goodness as soon as he unpacks his truck at the local farmers’ markets. Often I’m surprised folks don’t bring the butter with them…
Get Your Tickets to the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance Harvest Dinner
The Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance does a great job in promoting Southern Arizona: The rich history, the bounty of the farms and ranches, the diverse landscapes and, ultimately, the story of this land. The industrious non-profit has assembled a terrific tourism map that highlights everything from bird watching to various military posts, as well…
Tucson Artist Nick Georgiou Takes Manhattan
Via CollabCubed Nick Georgiou’s paper sculptures are on Madison Avenue Culture Blog CollabCubed takes note of Tucson artist Nick Georgiou’s paper sculptures in the window of NYC’s Hermes: Barney’s had a series of rotating photos by Bruce Weber titled L.A. Stories; another store whose name escapes me was setting up neon signage along with what…
U.S. Teachers Top List For Time Spent In The Classroom
Image courtesy of shutterstock.com Hey, I always thought our teachers, like all those “government workers,” are underworked and overpaid (said the retired high school English teacher, sarcastically). So imagine my surprise when I learned that U.S. teachers spend more time in the classroom than teachers in other developed countries. The average teaching time for elementary…
The Trailer for “Aagadu” Is Delightfully Insane
I don’t have much context for what’s happening in the trailer for Aagadu, the Telagu film showing at Oracle View on Monday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m., but here’s what I do know: 1. It stars Mahesh Babu, a spokesman for Thums Up soda (slogan: “Taste the Thunder!”, the most desirable man in India, and…
Ed Supe Candidate Diane Douglas Is Playing Hard To Get, And Find, And Talk To
It’s an unusual strategy for someone running for state office. Keep a low profile. Stay out of sight. Duck calls from the media. But that seems to be the campaign Republican Diane Douglas is waging in her bid for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Candidates in down-ballot races usually do whatever they can to attract some…
Let’s Watch a Tiny Hamster in a Competitive Eating Battle
Yes, watching a person eat hot dogs rapidly is disgusting, but watching a tiny hamster do anything is adorable, so it balances out.
The NFL Strikes Again
With the National Football League currently entangled in the Ray Rice scandal, the good people of the internet are fighting back. Rice and newlywed wife Janay Palmer grabbed the attention of the media when a video of Rice dragging Palmer’s, his then fiancee, limp body out of an elevator at an Atlantic City casino was made…
Let’s Go See “Grand Illusion” Tonight at the Loft
Basically everything the Loft shows as part of their monthly Essential Cinema series is worth seeing (and c’mon people, cough up the $5 suggested donation), but this month’s selection of Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion is super-essential, if that’s a thing. The film, about French prisoners of war in World War I, was one of Orson…
Here’s a Lovely Sylvie Simmons Song Recorded at Wavelab
We’ll have more on writer-turned-musician Sylvie Simmons and her forthcoming album in a future issue of the Weekly, but here’s a track from her recorded-at-Wavelab debut (coming out on Light in the Attic Records on October 28), featuring Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb and Thoger Lund. It’s a sweet song that borders on quaint (in a…
In Honor of Odile, Here’s a (TERRIBLE) Spanish Language Cover of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”
It’s possible that our offices have been washed off Mona Lisa Road and into a wash by now by an Odile-caused torrential downpour, so we’ve left this post here just in case. No idea where on earth this song came from (other than something called Stayna Records which seemingly involves these same dudes lip-synching an…
What Happened at the Peter Piper Pizza?
A Facebook video posted by Daniel Thews on Saturday, Sept. 13 (since removed or with changed privacy settings) has been shared more than 850 times from Thews’s open page, most likely because it allegedly shows two Tucson Police Department officers tackle and cuff two autistic boys or young men to the ground in the Peter…
Party People of the U of A, You’ve Stepped Up Your Game and We Appreciate That
Last year, we lamented the fact that the University of Arizona has generally failed to make the various lists of “best party schools”, generally at the expense of Girls Gone Wild University and Casino in Tempe, but HELL YEAH TUCSON LET’S DRINK DIRECTLY FROM A HANDLE OF SOCO BECAUSE WE’RE BACK: 4) UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONASchool…
The Power of Social Media Is Giving Us a Soda Back We Didn’t Want
While social media campaigns didn’t capture Kony or bring back the girls of the Chibok boarding school, at least Facebook Nation can claim one victory, convincing a giant corporation to sell a soda you probably forgot about in a very limited manner: Coca-Cola Co. newest social-media campaign reaches back to a time when even MySpace…
Phoenix’s Strip Mall Signs Are Going to Ruin Our Dark Skies
P. Marenfeld & NOAO/AURA/NSF The Arizona Republic ran a frightening article over the weekend about light pollution and the greater Phoenix area. The basic premise? In ten years, there will only be a few places in America where you will be able to see the Milky Way in the night sky and Tucson won’t be…
McSally Ad Demonstrates the Challenge of Fewer vs. Less
I don’t generally like to get into grammar wars – after all, in this business, there’s generally someone willing to send me an email every time I commit a sin against the English language and I’ll probably still screw something up in this post – but gosh, it feels like someone should have caught the…
Want to See William Shatner as a Defrocked Priest Fighting a Demonic Force on a Plane?
This week’s Mondo Mondays selection at the Loft, the 1973 CBS TV Movie of the Week The Horror at 37,000 Feet, is an interesting choice. Not just because it stars William Shatner, Buddy Ebsen, the Professor from Gilligan’s Island and the guy who played the Rifleman, but because it’s a film about a druid artifact…
High Stakes Testing And The Atlanta Cheating Scandal
Atlanta’s schools were held up as a example for the nation, showing how to turn students from low income families into high achievers. Just look at those test scores! Until . . . Here’s a segment from this month’s “Education: The Rest of the Story” where I try to put a human face on the…
Fourth Avenue Deli Raising Money for Friend in Need Saturday
The Mensch from Fourth Avenue Deli If you’re down by Fourth Avenue on Saturday (and if you’re going to the football game, you’ll be close enough), stop by the Fourth Avenue Deli and grab a sandwich. A friend of the restaurant, Justin Hughes, is battling cancer, so the deli is donating 10% of sales to…
Copper And Congress Debut New Video
Set to release their brand new album Fault Line on Saturday night at the Flycatcher, Tucson’s Copper And Congress have a music video for the song “Decoy.” “What I’m most grateful for in this band is this experience has helped all of us open up the gifts we have to share and it lets us…
There’s A Whole Lot Of “I Am The Man” In Stegeman
Read Tim Steller’s column in today’s Star: Tucson school board race turns partisan. Steller does a terrific job of laying out the dynamics of the TUSD board race. At the same time, he reveals the “Me”-centric world Mark Stegeman inhabits. When Stegeman writes his constituent newsletters and his op eds, he’s very careful to create…
Narco News’ Al Giordano’s Latest Looks at Gary Webb, Hollywood and the Future of Jouralism (Must Read)
In the latest The Field, an occasional column written by Narco News founder Al Giordano and published on the Narco news site, Giordano tells the story of his friendship with the late investigative journalist Gary Webb. In 1996, Webb wrote an investigative series on CIA cocaine trafficking for the San Jose Mercury News. His Dark…
StoryCorps: Marisa Grijalva Talks to Her Dad About His Parents
If you haven’t had a chance to listen to this StoryCorps clip from an interview Marisa Grijalva did with her father, Congressman Raul Grijalva, about school and mother, take moment. No embed available from StoryCorps, so go here to listen.
A Worthwhile GoFundMe Campaign for Ballet Folklórico Tapatío
The students of Ballet Folklórico Tapatío need a new dance floor as part of a renovation the group is doing on its dance studio and yesterday they kicked off a GoFundMe campaign. In our 2011 Heroes issue, we featured Eduardo Baca, one of those amazing parents we always hear about, who recognize the need for…
Sept. 30 Deadline for Tucson Pima Arts Council RFQ for Jan. 8 Memorial
The deadline for Tucson Pima Arts Council’s Request for Qualifications for a January 8 memorial is Sept. 30, 2014. According to the info on TPAC’s website, as part of a maser plan concept for the future of renovation of El Presidio Park, a schematic design is needed for the exterior portion of a memorial to…
Streetcar Driver Disciplined for Passing Bicyclist too Closely
Bike journo Mike McKisson reported via Bicycle Tucson yesterday on the discipline action of a SunLink streetcar driver, who passed a cyclist too closely. Evidently, while streetcar drivers aren’t bound by the same state law that requires vehicles to provide three feet for passing cyclists. However, SunLink has its own rules, which follow the state…
US Fries Poutine Restaurant Opens Saturday, Offers Free Food
The proud purveyors of poutine at US Fries (which we took a look at back in May) are set to open their doors this Saturday, and you, Tucson, are going to reap the benefits of the Canadian frozen north. Earlier today, the local architecture gurus at FORS dropped this happy bit of knowledge via Facebook:…
Jimi Giannatti’s Nine Questions Has Special Timing: Happy Birthday, Amy Ross
I swear the timing of this week’s Nine Questions was just that, perfect, albeit heartbreaking. This past year, I’ve become a fan of Jimi Giannatti’s work—his photographs, as well as the posters he designs for local musicians and shows. They are beautiful, just beautiful. And I swear, if you see this tall-drink of photographer walking…
ACLU: “Widespread Problems” With Health Care Inside Arizona Prison
The ACLU released a report this week that condemns the healthcare provided to prisoners in Arizona Department of Corrections facilities. The report and the expert testimony is part of a clas- action lawsuit, Parsons v. Ryan, with plaintiffs represented by the ACLU’s National Prison Project, the ACLU of Arizona, the Prison Law Office, Jones Day,…
Remembering Sept. 11, 2001, with Jon Stewart
The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive From the Daily Show’s first show after Sept. 11, 2001: ” … our show has changed, I don’t doubt that. What it’s become I don’t know. … The main reason I wanted to speak tonight is not to show you…
Have a Laugh: NYT’s Correction
The correction issued at the end of Tuesday’s New York Times’ story on Dick Cheney urging the House GOP to abandon isolationism is making me laugh and laugh this morning. H/T to Mother Jones, who brought up the fact that many believed the “vice president” held a lot of influence over George W. Bush.
Nine on the Line
Adam Lehrman is the founder/creator of tucsonfoodie.com, a website which started in 2008 with a Twitter account and expanded through Adam’s background in web design, marketing, sales and food. It has since blossomed into one of Tucson’s go-to destinations for food news. Adam tracks down, writes and photographs a lot of the content along with…
Groove Is in Their Hearts
A fusion of jazz, folk and hip-hop influences, Copper And Congress’ new album “Fault Lines” is all about the groove. The trio of Katie Haverly, on guitar, keyboards and vocals, Patrick Morris on bass and Julius Schlosburg on drums meld their distinct musical backgrounds into a powerful and emotional style. “Fault Lines” is a blend…
Soundbites
GLORIOUS First of all, I mentioned the Cyril Barrett memorial/fundraiser last week, but here’s your reminder that the event is happening this Sunday night, Sept. 14 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Che’s Lounge. The lineup to both pay tribute to and raise money in honor of the local singer/songwriter is stellar (with Gabe Sullivan,…
Nine Questions
Jimi Giannatti, “benevolent dictator” of Pop Narkotic takes photos and designs 1960s-era Filmore-inspired posters for area musicians and shows. While in Bisbee, Giannatti formed a close friendship with Amy and Derrick Ross of Nowhere Man and a Whiskey Girl and began making posters for their band. He lives in Tucson now, and if you’re lucky,…
State of Mine
For an act so deeply obsessed with documenting the pitfalls of romance in song, it makes sense that Sebadoh’s first album of the 21st century chronicles the finale of co-leader Lou Barlow’s quarter century-long relationship and marriage. While “Defend Yourself” (Joyful Noise) is probably the band’s strongest effort since 1994’s “Bakesale,” it is both peculiar…
Live
Being that history is both cyclical and repetitive, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Yes, I’m talking about how in the ’60s, garage rock begat psychedelia which in turn begat progressive- or art-rock. Progressive rock, exemplified by superstar 1970s bands like Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd—and who could forget Gentle…
Patient Focused
“For the patients, by the patients.” That’s the slogan of Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, an innovative and progressive medical marijuana dispensary located on Tucson’s east side at 8060 E. 22nd St. Desert Bloom opened its doors on July 3, 2013, and has lived by a customer-centric philosophy ever since. In order to do accomplish that,…
Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: The Mexican-American community is the most adversely affected by the influx of illegals. Only the politicians have any gain from lumping all Hispanics into the Latino category. Are proud, hardworking Mexican-Americans actually willing to continually diminish their own children’s American future purely to facilitate the radical Chicano politician’s dream of a fearful, disjointed,…
Editor’s Note
The very mention of the words “Rio Nuevo” tends to raise up a certain amount of bile in people’s throats here in town, which isn’t entirely fair to the most recent version of the board (release 3.0, more or less) considering Fletcher McCusker and company are generally trying to clean up the mess left behind…
Questions and Quandaries
As glacially slow as it seems at times, the issues of gender bias, sexuality in its many manifestations, gender identity and, perhaps most befuddling to many of us, transgenderism and transexualism, are having the light shined upon them by increasingly vocal advocates to an increasingly less terrified public. At first glance, Daniel Pearle’s play “A…
The Skinny
Executive Inaction White House delays unilateral immigration reform until after November election When immigration reform collapsed earlier this year in the House of Representatives, President Barack Obama said he’d do whatever he could do with his powers of executive action to push through new policies. While the White House didn’t release a detailed list of…
Crime and Punishment
“Life of Crime,” a film based on the 1978 Elmore Leonard novel “The Switch,” finally makes it to the screen in rather drab fashion long after an attempt to adapt it nearly 30 years ago. The film features a kidnapping plot that has a rich wife named Mickey Dawson (Jennifer Aniston) being taken hostage while…
Forever on Fourth
The story of La Indita can be found on the back of the menu. It is a remarkable tale of Maria Garcia, who began her cooking in her native Tarascan Indian village in Michoacán region of Mexico. There, she was a mom living a simple life, but with children to feed and limited funds. Using…
City Week
Latina Dance Project presents “Jaguar!” Featuring an amazing cast of local actors and dancers and directed by Eva Tessler, this play continues through Sept. 21 at Zuzi’s Theater at the Historic Y, 738 N. Fifth Ave. Written by Dawn Costello Sellers, “Jaguar!” is inspired by the untimely death of Macho B in 2009, at that…
Noshing Around
FARMERS’ MARKET TO TABLE Heirloom Farmers’ Market, Edible Baja Arizona and Zona 78 are teaming up to bring you RIPE, a farm to table fundraising dinner. It’s all going down Sept. 17 and 18 at Zona 78 on River Road from 5 to 10 p.m. RIPE will feature creative dishes from chef Kevin Fink and…
Danehy
You know when you have this friend who’s doing something that is potentially very embarrassing and you feel the need to nudge him back in the right direction for his own good? Like maybe he bought this Frank Sinatra-looking fedora and wants to wear it in public. You explain to him that it looks good…
Now on Shelves
Holding Woman and Other Stories of Acceptable Madness by Kelley Jácquez. Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe. Fiction. Kelley Jácquez likes her characters, and so does the reader. From Beany, the prostitute who also does elder care; to Jimmy, the Vietnam vet who doesn’t realize he’s no coward; however flawed, weak, delusional, or fallen they are, they have…
Media Watch
ANDERSON MOVES ON Kayla Anderson is a steadfast believer in television broadcasting’s so-called two-year plan. As a result, the sportscaster has concluded her stay with KGUN TV 9 for a position in a larger market. “I accepted a job in Columbus, Ohio. It’s market 32 and a significant jump for me,” Anderson said. “The main…
Two Imitating Party People
Originally a BBC series, the 2011 comedy “The Trip” was more or less an excuse to let Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon do impressions for 90 minutes. Coogan and Brydon are two of Britain’s foremost comedians, so a series featuring them visiting English restaurants for the purposes of travel essays was a winning bet: The…
Police Dispatch
NUDITY AND “TONGUES”—BUT NOT IN A SEXY WAY FOOTHILLS AREA AUG. 1, 1:57 A.M. After years of coping quietly, a local trailer-park resident finally called law enforcement on a neighbor who routinely frolicked outside naked and did other odd things—such as possibly speaking in tongues—a Pima County Sheriff’s Department report said. The reportee told sheriff’s deputies…
Cinema Showdown
FUNNY LITTLE FROG Not that anyone else will necessarily agree, but the highlight of my cinema week will be the Loft’s screening of Stuart Murdoch’s (of Belle and Sebastian) musical film “God Help the Girl” on Sunday, Sept. 14. Sure, the reviews aren’t great (the headline of New York Magazine’s—one of the most positive—might tell…
