Thursday 24
PARK AFTER DARK. Get an eyeful tonight at Tohono Chul Park, where the fourth annual summer open house is a celebration of the recycled element in art.
In addition to the opening reception for Re-visions II and a reception for Landscapes: Watercolors by Farzad Nakhai, the park's offering several other recycling-oriented events.
· Listen to the steel drum sounds of Steel Jam. The group will explain how the drums are made and let a few lucky visitors make their own music.
· Enjoy Mat Bevel's performance of found-object kinetic sculpture set to original poetry and music. All of his activities demonstrate what can be created with our culture's throw-away objects.
· Admire the funky art cars and trucks that will be on display.
· Watch artist Jennifer Utsch use recycled tin cans to make intricate, cut-out luminarias by the light of her propane torch.
· Check out Joyce Tominaga's whimsical toys made from recycled materials. You can also register for her weekend workshop at the park to make your own wind toy or kaleidoscope.
· Register your children for the Tucson-Pima Public Libraries summer reading program.
· Enjoy extended hours in the museum shops, open until 7 p.m.
· Dine at the Tohono Chul Park Tea Room until 7 p.m. Call 797-1222 for reservations.
The event is from 5 to 8 p.m. today at Tohono Chul, 7366 N. Paseo del Norte, one stoplight west of Oracle on Ina Road. For more information, call April Bourie at 742-6455.
Friday 25
A NOVEL WEEKEND. Learn a lot more about literature and how you can get a foot in the door during a writing workshop that features best-selling author Robert Morgan.
Write On! The Pima Writers' Workshop brings 14 professional writers, editors and literary agents to Tucson to talk about writing and publishing. The nationally renowned workshop, now in its 14th year, offers opportunities to talk with the professionals and attend a variety of sessions.
Morgan, the event's big draw, will read from his new novel, Gap Creek. The book won critical admiration, topped national best-seller lists, won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, and was crowned an Oprah Book Club selection last year.
Other authors include Shonto Begay, an author and artist whose works include Navajo Visions and Voices Across the Mesa; Sharman Apt Russell, whose newest book is Anatomy of a Rose: Exploring the Secret Life of Flowers; Kathy Eldon, a documentary and feature film maker; Emma Bull, a science fiction and fantasy writer; Masha Hamilton, whose first novel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, is a Barnes & Noble "Discovery" book; and Nancy Mairs, whose most recent book is Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled.
Literary agents from New York and San Francisco will talk about acquiring an agent and the publishing process. Randy Summerlin, who owns an independent book production company, will show how to write a winning book proposal. Jack Heffron, senior editor for Writer's Digest Books and Story Press, will discuss current publishing trends and options.
The workshop runs today through Sunday. However, a meet-the-authors reception will kick off the workshop on Thursday, May 24, with a reading by Robert Morgan. Friday and Saturday evening readings are free and open to the public.
Non-credit registration is $65. Registration for two credits is $85 for Arizona residents. For more information and a brochure with registration form, contact Meg Files at 206-6084 or e-mail mfiles@pimacc.pima.edu.
See "From Meatloaf to Manuscript," page 36, for more details.
Saturday 26
ROCK AND ROLL REALITY. A press release for Wayback Machine's debut CD release party cautions the reader to keep two things in mind.
First, "This is not high art. Not a shred of original material. No dreams of rock and roll immortality."
Second, "This is fun. Really big fun."
Wayback Machine--the jam band's roots go deep, to about 1999--plays old hippie rock. Who Knew, recorded last December at the Casbah Teahouse on Fourth Avenue, includes tunes from the Grateful Dead, Lou Reed, Van Morrison and Ray Charles.
Make plans for the party, which begins at 9 tonight at Boondocks Lounge, 3306 N. First Ave. Cover is $5. CDs will be available for $10. For more information, call Jim Lipson at 721-1710.
FIVE FINE AUTHORS. Travel the philosophical hills and valleys of natural and metaphysical existence with one of five authors slated for readings this afternoon.
The poet of the group, Mary E. Loser, will serve up tastes of her latest collection, Coming of Age in Thought.
Other authors for the all-female engagement at Reader's Oasis include Ann Isobel, Nancy Mairs, Esther Mockler and Susan Cooley Ricketson.
Isobel's Heart Wounds and Other Crimes is an intriguing tale of three people caught in the confusion of the past and involved in a love triangle. The death of a child leads to an intersection of three distinct worlds.
In Waist-high in the World, Mairs explores the real limits--or lack of them--of disability. Mockler will share from Eighty Miles from a Doctor; and Ricketson will unveil a revised edition of her Dilemma of Love: Healing Relationships at Different Stages of Life.
The event is from 2 to 4 p.m. at Reader's Oasis, 3400 E. Speedway Blvd., Suite 114. For more information, call Charlene Taylor at 319-7887.
WYATT EARP DAYS. Ride on down to Tombstone this weekend for a celebration honoring the West's most famous lawman.
Wyatt Earp Days includes mock gunfights and hangings, a chili cook-off and an 1880s fashion show.
Admission to events varies. For more information, call the Tombstone Chamber of Commerce at 520-457-3197.
Sunday 27
LUSH PERFORMANCE. "Gripping spontaneity ... thrilling stuff."
Fanfare magazine also said cellist Nancy Green delivers "astounding good performances, played with emphatic grandeur and charisma, and in a style that constantly suggests cellistic authority."
Find out for yourself today, when Green, a music professor at the University of Arizona, and pianist Tannis Gibson perform in a benefit concert for Kino School.
Green has built an international reputation for her lush performances. Music critics have compared her to such great cellists as Yo Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich and Jaqueline du Pre.
Gibson has also performed throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. She is the pianist with the Lorenzo Trio, a University of Arizona faculty ensemble.
Today's program will include works by Bach, Dohnányi, Bartók, Bloch, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.
The concert benefits Kino School, which is celebrating 25 years of innovative teaching. Kino is nationally known as a pioneer of progressive education. Students from age three through high school attend. Kino firmly believes that "the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled."
The event begins at 3 p.m. at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 400 E. University Blvd. There is a suggested donation of $10. For more information and tickets, call Kino School at 297-7278.
SWEET SUMMER SOUNDS. St. Andrew's Bach Society launches its 2001 Summer Concert Series with a taste of Mozart, Beethoven and, of course, Bach.
The afternoon's guest, Ensemble Versailles, is directed by John Metz, professor of early music studies at Arizona State University.
Ensemble Versailles, formed in 1996, is a professional early music ensemble committed to bringing Baroque and classical music to life on period instruments.
Violinist Roberta Chorlton will join ensemble members Metz, fortepiano; Barbara Bailey-Metz, cello; Kiann Robinson Mapes, flute; David Sego, viola; and Christina Jarvis, soprano.
The afternoon promises a variety of sonatas, trios, quartets and songs performed with the clarity and transparency allowed by period instruments.
The concert begins at 3 p.m. at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 545 S. Fifth Ave. Tickets, available at the door, are $8 general admission, $6 for seniors and students. For more information, call Jarvis at 628-8119 or e-mail her at christina@delegation.org.
Monday 28
ASIAN INFLUENCES. Say the word "history," then "Tucson," and chances are slim that thoughts will make it as far as China.
A new exhibition at the Sosa-Carrillo-Frémont House Museum presents the local history of the Chinese from their earliest arrivals in the 1870s to about 1912.
Carrillo's Chinese Gardens: The Chinese of Tucson focuses on the Chinese gardeners living at the base of Sentinel Peak and shares a wealth of information about the Old Pueblo's Chinese community.
The show features artifacts from the areas of food preparation, food service, recreation and health care.
The free exhibition runs through September 11 at 151 S. Granada Ave., behind the TCC Music Hall. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. For more information, call 622-0956 or 881-2244.
Tuesday 29
CREATIONS COUNTRYWIDE. Can't afford a summer vacation? Check out work from artists across the country without leaving downtown Tucson.
Dinnerware Contemporary Art Gallery is featuring the creative efforts of some 35 artists. All media are represented in the 60-piece show.
The National Juried Exhibition runs through June 16 at Dinnerware, 135 E. Congress St. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. For more information, call 792-4503 or visit www.dinnerwarearts.com.
Wednesday 30
SOUTH TUCSON SOPHOCLES. Every family has a story. Telling the story is the trick, and playwright Luis Alfaro knows it.
Borderlands Theater presents a staged reading of Electricidad, a Chicano take on Sophocles' Electra. Electricidad explores issues of love, grief, loyalty and revenge in a contemporary family in South Tucson.
The new play by Alfaro, an award-winning writer and performer, will be read under the direction of Barclay Goldsmith and performed by local actors.
Alfaro was last seen in Tucson in his work Chicanismos, a solo performance of hilarious barrio tales of a young Latino coming of age on a bumper-car ride through adolescence and young adulthood in search of the new American identity.
The Electricidad cast includes Alma Martinez, formerly from Teatro Campesino, and local actors Annabelle Nuñez, Norma Medina, Albert Soto, Rosanne Couston, Eva Tessler, Carlos Acuña and Lourdes Machado.
Alfaro makes artworks as a way of creating social change through poetry, plays, performance and journalism. His most recent play; Straight as a Line, was produced off-Broadway at Primary Stages in 2000. He has been named one of the "People to Watch" by OUT Magazine, "Men We Love" by Genre magazine and one of the new millennium's "Most Important Activists" by The Advocate.
The reading begins at 7:30 tonight at the Pima Community College Center for the Arts Black Box Theater, 2202 W. Anklam Road. Tickets cost $5. For more information or reservations, call 882-7406.
