Once relegated to the transportation mode of choice for the granola-munchin’ set, the bicycle is now the weapon of choice for those going green and givin’ the finger to Big Petroleum. Okay, well, maybe some things haven’t changed, but the bike has now gone high-falutin’ with the “Jarbas Lopes: Cicloviaérea”…
The bill for the House of Tricks 20th Anniversary Celebration is $150. Per person. Don’t blanch. Sell your blood, or a kidney if you have to, but show Tricks some love at its big 2-0 blowout, ´cause the charming institution is still serving up culinary delights long after most eateries…
Some things are so absurd, they’re stupid. Others are so stupid, they’re painful. Then there’s the stuff that’s so idiotic, it’s sublime. Cowboy Troy’s “Miss Hick Chick Phoenix” Pageant is not in the third category. Here’s what you need to know about Cowboy Troy: He’s a six-foot-five black cowboy who…
Most musicians scorn collaboration because, apparently, working with others compromises the creative vision and disallows their art from bringing fans closer to the Lord, drug addiction, and their bipolar disorder. Lame. Teague Cullen, main man of the Foot Ox band — a cutesy, acoustic-fragmented folk project that features a slew…
What happens when a group of twisted, renegade artist types decide to transform their performance space into a vaudevillian cabaret? Sheer madness, apparently, ´cause that’s what the brilliantly warped minds at Soul Invictus are calling their new Sheer Madness Cabaret. The run opens with a benefit for Artists’ Theatre Project…
We were wincing through a disc by a newish singer/songwriter recently, and decided that a singer/songwriter has only two real job requirements: 1) sing; 2) write songs. This songbird had the warbling part down, and ´nuff said. Now consider Johnny Cash, singer/songwriter nonpareil. The Man in Black sang like a…
Way before MTV invited us to peep the pimped-out pads of celebs on Cribs, industrialist fat cats were creating their own mega-mansions swank enough to make these new-money domiciles seem dumpy by comparison. One of the most magnificent was Phoenix’s own Wrigley Mansion. Built for about $300,000 by chewing-gum kingpin…
Think Winnie-the-Pooh, The Velveteen Rabbit, and Alice Through the Looking Glass. What leaps into your warm-and-fuzzy memory instantly? The trippy art emblazoned on the mind’s eye of your inner child, of course. Yet wordsmiths A.A. Milne, Margery Williams, and Lewis Carroll are household names. Distant second in the legend department?…
It’s telling that a major-market symphony like ours kicks off its season with a pops program featuring zero classical music. It’s not that we dislike Gershwin, the featured composer at Phoenix Symphony’s 60th Anniversary Opening Night. We’re just saying. Vocalist Dennis Rowland joins the symphony to interpret Gershwin’s songbook. Sat.,…
You’ve probably noticed the apical roof of the new Tempe Center for the Arts from the Loop 202, but were too busy not getting killed in Tempe-corridor traffic to wonder what the hell it is. Find out during the Tempe Center for the Arts Grand Opening celebration. You’ll need to…
The music of guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela is only world in the sense that Rod & Gab have traipsed all over the globe. The music’s not mariachi, either, though many try to plug it into that pigeonhole. No, R&G call themselves an acoustic-metal band. Both were Mexico City headbangers…
Anyone who describes baseball’s glory days as “fat old white men freebasing bacon in the dugout” and defends Barry Bonds from the curmudgeons who see it otherwise immediately wins our favor. This means you, Greg Proops. The pompadour’d comedian is best known to comedy buffs as the other guy with…
One of the most unpredictable aspects of college football isn’t the computer geeks who may be rigging the algorithms in the perplexing BCS Power Ranking system. It’s the nonconference home-and-home exchanges played by every D-I team. The Arizona State Sun Devils have infamously been on the winning side of revenge…
The St. Louis Cardinals may well be the most annoying team in Major League Baseball. From Rick Ankiel’s and Brendan Ryan’s obnoxious, knee-high soccer socks to skipper Tony La Russa’s consistent insistence on batting the pitcher in the eight spot, the redbirds are a thorn in baseball’s side. But what’s…
Bob Saget: That Ain’t Right (HBO) The Boris Karloff Collection (St. Clair) Broken English (Magnolia) Carlito’s Way: Crime Saga Collection (Universal) Dark Shadows: The Beginning (MPI) The Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection (Mill Creek) Friday Night Lights: The First Season (Universal) Gideon’s Trumpet (Acorn) Heaven & Hell: Live From Radio…
Tawni Shuler and Alex Kutchins at Shemer Art Center and Museum: If youve ever reminisced with an old friend or family member, youre likely familiar with the pitfalls of memory: Some moments are bold and clear while others have weakened to become translucent shadows. Tawni Shuler works with pastels and…
Snake in Fridge: Dubbed a gothic horror story for the 21st century and The Amityville Horror meets Boogie Nights, this relatively unknown Brad Fraser drama raised eyebrows when it premièred not long ago at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England. Fraser, one of Canadas better young playwrights, is best…
Ashamedly, one of my favorite parts about visiting a museum is hitting the gift shop. I’m a filthy consumer and I satiate my purchase thirst with postcards and cheap knockoffs of the invaluable art on display. If you happen to stop by just about any local art museum gift shop…
It is as you’ve always suspected: Rob Zombie’s house is way cooler than yours. For one thing, the punk/metal god turned filmmaker has a 12-foot stuffed polar bear in his living room. (Zombie to dumbstruck interviewer: “I know, right? How fuckin’ big is that bear?”) The bear presides over dozens…
It’s impossible to write about David Wain’s The Ten without first making passing reference to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. The former, originally made for Polish TV 20 years ago and first shown in the United States in 2000, offered a modern-day take on the…
1. Balls of Fury is a movie about: a. A former table tennis prodigy (Dan Fogler as Randy Daytona) enlisted by the FBI to infiltrate the underground ping-pong tournament of a legendary Chinese criminal (Christopher Walken). b. Suppository jokes. c. Little worth discussing and even less worth seeing. d. All…
By late summer, when director James Wan’s Death Sentence is playing side-by-side with Neil Jordan’s The Brave One at many of our nation’s multiplexes, moviegoers will be forgiven for thinking that they’ve traveled through a time warp and landed in the late 1970s, when first-class cinemas and seedy grindhouses alike…
