Unlike grass, xeriscape is a blank canvas waiting to be filled, and there’s no better way to patch those bothersome unfilled gaps than by nabbing some of the fine arid-landscape flora at the Desert Botanical Garden Fall Plant Sale. The selection is unparalleled, and the succulents are fat, sassy, and…

Famous people from South Dakota: Tom Brokaw. Mamie Van-Doren. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. The rock-head presidents at Mount Rushmore. Almost-famous people from South Dakota: Nick Thomas and The Spill Canvas. The band started life as Thomas’ alt-folk solo act, which fell somewhere between James Blunt and a Greenwich Village…

Many people — mostly Californians who we wish would move back to California — bitch and moan that Phoenix is a stagnant pool of algae, artistically speaking. We can’t argue with that, so when something like the Scottsdale Film Festival comes along to stir up the scum, please quit your…

To paraphrase Orwell, some toys are more equal than others. Sure, there’ll be Beanies, Barbies, and Belles up for grabs at the Phoenix Toy Show & Collectors Swap Meet, but this expo is more about way-cool shit like Todd McFarlane/Spawn, Gundam, and anime. Baby boomers can shed nostalgic tears over…

You’re a cat person or you’re not. Democrats/Republicans, pro-choicers/pro-lifers, there’s some give and take. Not with cats. If you’re anti-mouser, don’t go near Changing Hands Bookstore ’cause author/cartoonist Nicole Hollander is an uncompromising champion of the four-legged furballs. Best known for her syndicated cartoon Sylvia and best-seller 101 Reasons a…

DJs Sol Martinez and Sonique des Fleurs want you to choose sides. Will it be the funky, down-low rumble of house or the hypnotic drone of electro? Unless you’re seriously trashed, or a neo-Nazi, or a Lawrence Welk fan, you’ve gotta go with house — I mean, come on –…

It’s time again for local PETA and Gamblers Anonymous hard-liners to start their sniping, ’cause the nags bust down the gates once more on Friday and Saturday, October 5 and 6, during Turf Paradise Opening Weekend. We’re certainly not pro-horse abuse, and we couldn’t care less about your gambling problem…

Despite being named for an old, dead person — Charles Lindbergh — the Lindy hop is not just for old, dead people. Neither is it for old, almost-dead people who shuffle their feet at adult-rec centers with bingo callers yapping in the background. No, the Lindy has always been a…

What if Homo sapiens suddenly went extinct? We imagine environmental poster boy Al Gore would be tickled pink, even though he was dead. Author Alan Weisman takes a counterintuitive approach in his “thought experiment” The World Without Us, contending, among other intriguing things, that rats and roaches would themselves struggle…

Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s longtime lyricist, doesn’t particularly care for Marilyn Monroe. Fair enough, except it was Taupin who penned the elegiac words for “Candle in the Wind,” which read like a love-struck schoolboy mash note. Not so. Taupin’s on record as saying it was merely a cautionary tale about…

Out late partying at one of Scottsdale’s 85251 clubs? No big. Just don’t go to sleep. Grab a Starbucks pint and head for the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area for the Nature Walk at Spur Cross. The newest gem in the Maricopa County Regional Parks crown, Spur Cross is many…

F1-ChampBoat neophytes probably want to know what the hell an F1-ChampBoat is before heading to the F1-ChampBoat Grand Prix of Phoenix. Well, the sexy contraptions look like a cross between a Stealth fighter and a Batman batwing, and they zip across the water at about 135 mph. Anything else you…

Say your favorite band breaks up. Ouch. But you know the main man will land on his feet with a new project and a fresh babe on his arm. What happens to the unwashed horde of players who can say they once played in a famous band but have since…

Doug Franz and former Cardinals fullback Ron Wolfley — the ever-squabbling, Click-and-Clack hosts of the fun-tastic Doug & Wolf morning-drive sports-talk show on KTAR-AM 620 — belly up to the swimmin’ hole at the Hotel Valley Ho for the live-on-air Doug & Wolf Poolside Party. We’d say bring your trunks,…

Once upon a time, the scariest Saturday-morning cartoon was Scooby-Doo, and a haunted house meant a bunch of teens in bedsheets spooking little kids. Now TV cartoons scare the shit out of us, and haunted houses have made a quantum leap into actual terror. Case in point: The Revenant Haunted…

Okay, enough with the piddly-squat San Jose States and San Diego States. It’s time for some major-league fur to fly when the ASU Sun Devils open what looks to be a tough Pac-10 schedule with a game against the Oregon State Beavers. Pardon our pottymouth, but those East Coast “experts”…

You’re young, you’re hip, you have a Tool bumper sticker on your truck, and you have a secret. It’s a really secret secret, ´cause if your Tool-loving friends found out, you’d be a social corpse. Truth is, you really don’t like Tool that much, and have always had this mad…

Will 24th centurians look back on what we call “new music” as the inevitable spawn of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach, or will they see it as a radical break with the past? Either way, we’re pretty sure the works of John Cage, Steve Reich, and Harry Partch will live on,…

We tend to frown on critical darlings, who are typically so obtuse that critics can’t understand ’em. Ipso fathead, they must be good. Take Jana Hunter — please. The “New Weird America” icon is soooooo in, and soooooo painful to the ears. It’s the rare performer who casts off the…

If you’ve got a mustache, you can cash it in like a grocery-store coupon at Mustache Monday and keep that lip caterpillar wet and foamy all night long at happy-hour prices. If you don’t have a ‘stache, but still wanna drink on the cheap, they’ll rent you one. Mon., Sept…

Will Master Chief save the world? We’re on pins and needles, man. The nigh-unendurable wait for the final episode in the Halo trilogy comes to a blessed end with the midnight release of Halo 3. Play N Trade celebrates with a Halo 3 Tournament. Tue., Sept. 25, 11:59 p.m., 2007…

We won’t spend a lot of time jawing about why Ballet Arizona’s annual Ballet Under the Stars outreach series is so crazy popular (you’re welcome). The quick and dirty: 1) it’s free; 2) it’s easily digestible, even for non-ballet fans; 3) it’s that rarely encountered beast called outdoor summer entertainment…