27 replies on “All New ‘Weekly’!”

  1. Christine Wald-Hopkins’ review of “The Gateway,” a collection of short stories by T.M. McNally, makes it seem like a nice post-Christmas gift for your favorite philandering friend. The book’s stories all involve adultery, and apparently, forgiveness after adultery.

    The review has some little paragraphs at the beginning and some little paragraphs at the end. In the middle there’s this huge honking paragraph. It’s sort of like being served peas, then being served a pumpkin. Then more peas.

    I am not sure if I would want to read a book about adultery that does not contain at least one story in which the main character’s heart is ripped out, stomped on, run over by a lawnmower, the tiny pieces vacuumed up, placed in a blender, pureed, then served to a rabid dog who pukes them up onto a searing hot sidewalk upon which children skateboard — because that’s what being cheated on feels like. So if the stories don’t have that scene, I am not sure they can be trusted.

  2. Okay so here I am again, writing blog posts about the Tucson Weekly articles. Blogjacking, you might say. But my parole officer insists that I have to read the entire Tucson Weekly and do book reports on it as therapy. House arrest is not fun and this ankle bracelet sure is itchy.

    Anyway, James Reel did a nice job on his piece about the Catalina Players, who have a new production of the play “King of the Kosher Grocers.” The new director is from New Jersey, where there probably are Kosher Grocers. Are there really any kosher grocers in Tucson? (If so, would they be harassed by the local FDA agents?)

    Anyway, this is a very readable little article about a handful of people trying to make a difference through theater. The Catalina Players used to be a dinner theater. I am sorry to say that I don’t think I ever enjoyed any of their food or thespianism. They decided to ditch the dinners and get more serious, but I think they should have compromised and said, “You can eat but you gotta bring your own chow, and don’t rustle any wrappers during Act II.”

    Ideally a theater should have a semi-circle full of thrift-store couches, and I think a play would be most enjoyable while eating tacos. If I owned a theater, there would be a taco cart with $1 tacos and throw-pillow rentals for a quarter.

  3. Rita Connelly’s review of Cafe 940 is really amusing, from start to finish. Could this be the best issue of the Tucson Weekly, like, ever?

    Even if you don’t read restaurant reviews, you should read this one. It’s a comedy of errors.

    Cafe 940 sounds like the flakiest place in town. It’s so indicative of the half-assed UofA campus experience. The young waiter didn’t know how to answer basic questions about the soup. Simple orders got screwed up. With only one table filled, it still took a long time to be seated and get menus. The credit-card machine didn’t work. A week later, it still didn’t work. The place was closed when it should have been open. Etc.

    It’s like whoever owns the business put all his/her energy into the menu, then forgot to RUN it.

    Tucson Weekly, please print more ruthless and detail-filled restaurant reviews like this one. It’s both funny and sad….a swirly cone of two contrasting emotions.

  4. I didn’t like Tim Hull’s article “Buddha in the Rock” very much. It hurt my head.

    The first paragraph contains the phrase “confluence of art and nature.” Ouch, my head. I don’t know what a confluence of art and nature is.

    The first paragraph also contains the phrase “lyrical reportage.” I think Lyrical Reportage was a character in “The Lord of the Rings” but maybe it was in an L. Ron Hubbard book. So many drugs back then.

    Tim Hull’s lead-in to his article is three paragraphs. Only in paragraph 4 does he get to the point: Some dudes released a cofee-table book. The book has photos and music and stuff. It’s about the Tumacocari Highlands. They want to protect the wilderness and stuff.

    The article never says what they want to protect the wilderness from. I guess from somebody trying to raze the highlands and put in a giant mall or casino.

    It is probably a very pretty coffee-table book. I might buy it if I had a coffee table. I can’t afford a coffee-table so I have nowhere to put my coffee. Nor my books made to fit on places designed to hold coffee. Very sad.

  5. James Reel’s review of the play “Tucson Pastorela” is everything such a review should be: a bunch of details about the play so the play-consumer knows what he is getting into. If you read this review and still want to go see this play, then more power to you, you lovable crazy-ass weirdo.

    I dunno, I am not about to rush out to see a play about Satan outsourcing sins to humans and about the Mexican flag at the Arizona-Sonora desert museum and other themes that poke wacky fun at Christian symbology and….whatever.

    James Reel writes, “The nativity story has everything to do with faith, and hardly anything to do with reason. If you think too hard about what’s going on, you may miss the message.”

    Don’t worry James, I never think too hard about what’s going on in the nativity scene. It looks to me like some chick popped out a baby in a barn.

    I also don’t understand how “gentle laughs” and “thoughtfulness” form a dichotomy. That’s okay because I really don’t want to know. Four seconds of looking at the photo of Satan in the chin-touching pose is three seconds more than I care for, so I’m guessing 90 minutes won’t be my thing.

    But good job writing a diplomatic and professional review about this kooky play.

  6. Margaret Reagan’s Nature Vs. Nurture” review of a bunch of sculpture and paintings and stuff was pretty good.

    The article is full of prose. It also has writing, which contains words. Many of those words are adjectives. Some of them are combinations of adjectives, verbs and nouns. Very impressive.

    Margaret Regan discusses objects. These objects are artistic in nature. The objects are things. The things are made by people. The people are locals. The local people make things that are objects that are regarded by some as art that communicates “meaning.” Very impressive.

    I read about the objects and I thought, “This is kinda like sports writing. It’s the same thing over and over, but the writer has to be creative to make it seem like something new. And Margaret Regan is very good at that.” How many different things can you say about a weird-shaped pot?

    Apparently one thing you can say is “The layering creates a kind of psychological archaeology.” Another thing you can say is “…the staircase to Hades looks like the murky entrances to the walkways along the river Seine in Paris.”

    LOLZ.

    Anyway, Margaret Regan did a good job. I give her an A++.

  7. Margaret Regan did it again with her review of some place called ZUZI! Dance Company.

    They are doing dances set to various lullabies. ZZZZZZZZ.

    I was all set to make fun of this article. Especially zany is this quote: “Yumi Shirai is from Japan, and Maria Villa is from Colombia. I asked them if they have special lullabies from their countries.”

    When I read that, I wished that I, too, had a nice fat Trust Fund so that I could spend my days making up dances to international lullabies.

    Then I started thinking, “They should do these dances in their pajamas,” and guess what? I read down the article, and it turns out they actually do some of the dances in PJs.

    It actually sounds kind of fun.

    Too bad the audience can’t lie on cots to watch the show, or view it from recliners. If it were dinner theater they could serve warm milk and cookies.

    As dumb as it sounds, the idea of international lullabies is kinda interesting. I think Tucson Weekly should do a piece where they interview local musicians to ask them their favorite sleepy-time music. I would read it.

    ZZZZZZZZZZZ.

  8. James Reel does it again with his review of “The Syringa Tree”. Is he the hardest-working TW writer, or is it Margaret Regan? I hope they pay you enough, and if not, I hope your theater reviews get you laid by hot, experimental actresses. Maybe Belinda Torrey is one of them — rowr. Check out those cheekbones in that photo.

    This actually sounds like a very good play. And the description of the play and the apartheid situation is very well-done.

    It’s really too bad that two of the most professional writers at the Tucson Weekly are buried at the back of the paper. Though I am sure people know to start from the end and move toward the beginning. (That’s what I do, but only because I love crossword puzzles.)

  9. Annie Holub does a nice job with her Nine Questions for guitarist Pete Fine from the cover band Whole Lotta Zep.

    I like simple Q and A articles. Sometimes a simple diaglogue is enough. Articles are always filtered through the writer’s way of seeing everything, but Q&A is raw and unfiltered and, often, truer.

    Anyway, Pete Fine sounds like an interesting musician. He’s in a Zeppelin cover band and yet he plays sitar and composes his own orchestral works. He’s not your ordinary bustle in the hedgerow.

    He mentions my favorite Zep album, “Houses of the Holy.” (Which contains my favorite Zep song, “The Rain Song,” which is possibly the most beautiful song ever recorded.)

    Fine also states: “A few of them know I actually own a single Madonna CD, Ray of Light. I know I’ll hear it for that one.”

    I may download this now. I am no Madonna fan but I do know that “Ray of Light” is produced by William Orbit, who made some excellent electronic-based music in the early 1990s.

    NON SEQUITUR: Holy shit, I’m watching “Project Runway” right now, and they’re in the Hershey’s store, where they have to make their clothes out of chocolate! That’s fucking rad!

  10. Oh by the way: THANK YOU for having Jarret Keene review the soundtrack to the new P.T. Anderson film, “There Will Be Blood.”

    The soundtrack is by the Radiohead guitarist and I will be buying it as soon as possible! I love unusual soundtracks!

    This is truly the best Tucson Weekly issue of 2008 so far!

  12. James DiGiovanna’s review of “Margot at the Wedding” is typically sharp and balanced and perfectly suited to the type of filmgoing addience who would be interested in this type of movie.

    And not once does DiGiovanna mention Nicole Kidman and Botox. Bravo.

    I saw “Squid and the Whale” and it was upsetting because it reminded me a little of my parents. I also didn’t really like the whole peanut-up-the-nose bit, because it was disgusting. And so was the whole “semen on the lockers” thing. And I felt very uncomfortable when the older brother tried to pass off Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” as his own song. And it was sad when the father gave the son the wrong advice about his girlfriend and he missed out on the chance to have a fulfilling first-love experience. And it was also very sad when the son almost got it in with his dad’s live-in college student but he accidentally gave her a bloody nose and ruined the moment. And the mom farting was disturbing, especially just before announcing that she was divorcing the sad-sack father. And Laura Linney dumping Jeff Daniels is sad, because Linney as a prevailing bitch is painful, and Daniels as a cuckolded, despairing writer is equally painful. “The Squid and the Whale” is just a painful, gross film, and yet sorta good and definitely memorable.

    So I will probably see “Margot at the Wedding,” especially after reading James DiGiovanna’s intelligent review, and his insightful comparison to the chamber dramas of Ingmar Bergman.

    I am of the opinion that James DiGiovanna is one of the Tucson Weekly’s shiniest gems and should probably find a wider audience. For example compare DiGiovanna’s review to the review of the same film by Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com and tell me that DiGiovanna did not do a better job. (DiGiovanna and Zacharek are both redheads, but Zacharek is arguably hotter, so she does have that.)

    Anyway, job well done, Mr. DiGiovanna.

  13. Bob Grimm’s review of the new Aliens vs. Predator movie is funny, because it offers the spectacle of an intelligent man applying his reviewing intelligence to the dumbest thing imaginable.

    It’s sort of like if you hired Alexander Solzhenitsyn to write a review of episode 38 of “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

    Okay, so Grimm is no Solzhenitsyn. But he really goes into a detailed analysis of why aliens and predators shouldn’t be in the same movie together! It’s the TMA (too much analysis) to go with the TMI (too much nerdy-ass information)!

    Is it just me, or is it a little weird to have DiGiovanna always write about art films or political films, while Grimm’s writing is always delegated to the genre films and shlock ghetto?

    Wouldn’t it be more fun to reverse the roles?

    I want to hear what Grimm has to say about “Margot at the Wedding”!Now that would be a weird review. Same with DiGiovanna’s review of “Aliens and Predators Mix It Up, Yo.”

  14. I enjoyed Bob Grimm’s review of the DVD release of “Zodiac.”

    Grimm also reviews a bunch of other shit he got for free. Goddamn it, how can I get my own DVD column so the studios will mail me all the swag that Grimm gets?

    Anyway, I liked “Zodiac,” and I agree that its scene of the couple on the picnic is one of the most harrowing things I’ve seen in recent cinema. It’s embarrassing how much I agree with Grimm’s simple, direct descriptions of films’ best moments.

    I want to get the “Zodiac” DVD for my dad, who doesn’t have much going on in his life which is why I always try to buy him cool movies and stuff to make him happy. My dad really likes genre movies — crime dramas, action, suspense, etc. I know he will like “Zodiac.”

  16. John Schuster has a very nice piece on Bill Buckmaster, who is celebrating 20 years of broadcasting Buckmasterism.

    But who is Buckmaster, really? Who is the man behind the Buckmastery?

    Schuster doesn’t delve deeply enough. I want to know what makes a man like Buckmaster tick. Where does the Buckmaster stop?

    Who is Bill Buckmaster? Does he have little Buckmasters running around the house, scuffing the hardwood floors with their non-stop shenanigans? Does Bill Buckmaster have a girlfriend, or does he literally make love to the camera? Does Buckmaster have cats? Are they telegenic? Does he practice his enunciation in front of a spare TelePromTer situated across from his toilet?

    Does Buckmaster drive a Hummer or a Prius? Why doesn’t Buckmaster run for office? Does Buckmaster go to raves? What lives in his hair?

    This story has yet to be written. Shame.

  17. I am just about out of steam here. I’ll delve into the newsier side of this Tucson Weekly tomorrow — or never, depending on my coffee intake.

    But this week’s Mailbag is, as usual, among the most entertaining parts of the paper.

    I recommend you read the last letter, by someone named Richard Graveline. It’s creative. I wish I had written it. It’s about the writer’s “relationship” with Fourth Avenue.

    Well played, sir!

  18. Also: The Cover Story is hilarious. Job well done, Jim Nintzel.

    At first it didn’t look like anybody was going to participate. Then it perked up, and finally you got all these great responses. Awesome.

    The last guy is especially funny: He writes his campaign ideas in ALL-CAPS. As we all know, Jim Nintzel is a BIG FAN of people who write in ALL-CAPS.

    He’s almost as kooky as Ron Paul!

  20. I am glad you enjoyed the commentary, Jimmy. I do not do drugs except caffeine and wine. If pot were legal or if I had any friends who smoked pot, or if I just had any friends, I might consider that too, but not often because it makes you eat more and I already have problems with food and willpower, especially when there is cheese around.

    So back to the summary of the week’s issue: Tom Danehy wrote a fact-filled piece about the Iowa caucuses (and the rest of the primaries) with the kind of gusto that only a sports writer could muster. I still don’t know the difference between a caucus and a primary. Is it like the difference between a davenport and a divan?

    The funniest part of Danehy’s column is at the end when he writes, “I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d stay away from Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee on the GOP side.”

    It is certainly a good thing Danehy is not a betting man, as Huckabee just won the Iowa primary.

    Danehy also regales us with this strange factoid: “Only four of the 43 Presidents have had names that end in vowels (and only one ended in a vowel sound); in this case, “y” doesn’t count as a vowel. Try to get them without looking them up.”

    Duh, that’s easy: Presidents Uhuru, Peabo, Chupacabra and Cockamamie.

  21. The “editor’s message” this week, from some guy named Jimmy Boegle, is intriguing.

    Boegle writes:

    • “…look for all-new online-only content.”

    Personal ads? Classifieds? Porn? Sudoku?

    • “…Tucson Citizen publisher Michael Chihak’s Dec. 29 column … mention[s] how much the Citizen has been aimed at ‘making product improvements (and) sharpening our focus in a recognition that we weren’t the sole source of information for people and bringing to you those things that we know we can do better than others.'”

    Bwa-ha, that is such business-speak. Sounds like the Citizen is trying to leverage the synergies of their value-added branding!

    • “…the Citizen [is] reducing its page count, dumping daily prime-time TV listings and letting go of longtime columnists Jeff Smith and Corky Simpson.”

    Dumping prime-time TV listings isn’t such a bad thing. Advertisers won’t pay for ads next to stuff that it’s proven only 5% of newspaper readers look at.

    Letting go of columnists is sad, but only if the columnists are good ones, not just entrenched oldsters gassing up the pages with vanity-speak. I haven’t followed Corky Simpson’s work…is his absence a loss? What about Jeff Smith, how have his recent columns been? Will the Tucson Weekly court either of them for guest editorials?

    • “In late February/early March of 2009, the Weekly will turn 25, and we’re going to mark this anniversary in a way our readers will remember well beyond the Weekly’s 50th anniversary.”

    I hope it’s something good. How many readers remember the Tucson Weekly’s first issues? Wasn’t it scrawled with cactus-blossom juice on parchment from skinned roadkill hides back then?

  22. This week’s Ask a Mexican column is good as usual. Gustavo Arrelano must write his own questions, because they’re usually as whimsically wordy as his responses. This week’s question concerns the Chihuahua, and theauthor draws a well-fashioned image of why pitbulls and chihuahuas represent the souls of Americans and Mexicans, respectively. He conveniently forgets to mention that chihuahuas are not actually dogs but a kind of sewer rat, but the omission is forgivable.

  23. The latest column by Connie Tuttle is an in-depth account of why Burger King is sleazy for not agreeing to make its suppliers pay tomato pickers better wages in Florida.

    Or something. I say “or something” because Tuttle is all over the map here, touching on Burger King’s influence on its competitors, the influence of Goldman-Sachs, the possibility of antitrust violations, and other things that sound like an E.L. Doctorow novel and/or John Sayles movie and/or episode of “The Wire” waiting to happen.

    I am left wondering why Tuttle chose this as her column topic, since a few weeks ago she spent a whole column riffing on ideas for a Southwestern-themed McDonald’s.

    Personally I am inclined to give Burger King a pass since they’re one of the few giant chain fast-food joints to offer veggie burgers, whereas McDonald’s has studious avoided vegetarian choices. (Note: This is mostly because Burger King is a British company and has found it profitable to offer vegetarian options to the UK’s large Indian-immigrant population. Okay, so I made that up but it sounds plausible.)

    One other question for Tuttle or anybody reading (if indeed anybody reads these messages): Why is it that the Tucson Weekly’s food section has the same name as a large fast-food conglomerate — that is, “Yum!” I mean, you guys have the exclamation point and everything. What gives?

  24. I saved the “Best” for last: Allen Best’s guest commentary that uses his personal experiment in driving slower to save on gasoline as an entry point for a wider discussion of U.S. fuel consumption and a future in which other countries (like China and India) rapidly increase their own fuel needs while worldwide oil production strains to maintain peak production capacity.

    This is a very well-written commentary with solid underlying facts. Job well done.

  25. Our dining guide was called Yum! before those dillholes changed their company’s name, Sin. Thanks for pointing that out. Perhaps we should sue.

  26. It would appear to the casual blog reader that Sin Twister is a plant, either on TW staff or otherwise hired to comment. 🙂

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