Arts & Culture

The new downtown venue features a fine-art gallery that will play host to works by local artists, a light bulb/specialty-lighting store, and a lighting-design enterprise. Fri., Oct. 3, 2008…

Somewhere or other, it’s written that to everything there is a season. But there are people who just can’t accept this — people who enjoy listening to Bing Crosby sing “Silver Bells” in February, people who crave pumpkin pie in June. If you’re a baseball fan of this ilk, here…

Time to do some laundry. Groan, right? Rocky Yazzie of Phoenix experimental rockers Skinwalkers and Morgan Halas of The Lucky Sperms will gladly oblige anyone who thinks doing laundry is a drag. The twosome has assembled a motley crew of musicians, poets, and entertainers for The Laundromat Show on Sunday,…

Pop quiz: Which iconic image best represents Phoenix — Camelback Mountain or a strip mall? If you said No. 2, you’re a winner. Rather than dissing the popular building style, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art invited architects to submit proposals for transforming ugly-ass strips into exotic gathering spaces of the…

You got knocked out on the curb the other night. As the sky tilted from starboard to port above you, your mouth filled with blood. You reveled in the sensation, feeling the thrill uncoil in your stomach. Consider Bloodfest 2008 the culmination of your growing sanguine fetish. With the rave’s…

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Muay Thai. Grappling and triangle-choking. Is there anything that mixed martial arts doesn’t incorporate? (So far, metal-chair skull-cracking, though the way things are going, that could very well happen one day. For now, the WWE has dibs on that move.) It’s no wonder the sport is blowing up…

You use the words “decanting” and “aerating” without reservation. You keep a stack of Wine Enthusiast magazines by the toilet. Sadly, your younger family members refer to you as “Drunkle.” Check out the grand opening of what may well become your new favorite place, District: American Kitchen and Wine Bar…

When we dig through the sea of records at thrift stores around town, there are some sure bets as to what we’ll find: a kids’-choir Christmas album, a Herb Alpert record, and some 78s, a medium that was ditched and dissed once LPs and 45s blew up. The Shack Shake…

A girl needs a sofa. A guy wants to gripe about his bitchy boss. Another fellow wants to rent an apartment with a stranger who likes teacup poodles and sleeps during the day. Will these people meet? If so, will they fall in love? Or will they just end up…

The flick by New York’s Home Team Productions centers on the wanderings of post-mod, homeless-by-choice oddball Poppa Neutrino. Sat., Oct. 4, 7 & 8:30 p.m., 2008…

The fifth annual 70-mile bike ride travels through Scottsdale, Cave Creek, Carefree, and Fountain Hills. Proceeds benefit the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy. The Tour Expo on DC Ranch’s Market Street features cycling fashion, a beer garden, a wine bar, and live music. Sun., Oct. 5, 7:30 a.m., 2008…

The acclaimed poet reads from works included in her collections Finding Peaches in the Desert, One Legged Dancer, Scattered Risks, Without the Comfort of Stars, and her new Crazy Love. William Pitt Root also reads. Thu., Oct. 2, 7:30 p.m., 2008…

Ever been to one of those upscale art exhibits where you look at a Pollock-style splatter painting and think to yourself, “I coulda done that in, like, five minutes?”, but you’re too afraid to say it lest the throng of wine-sipping art snobs blacklists you forever? Artist Randy Slack offers…

In a nutshell, here’s the problem with pop culture: Marilyn Monroe created the template. Madonna was a knockoff, but a scam artist with enough personal charisma and talent to make the theft seem in some ways like an homage. Britney Spears is what’s left after all the inbreeding: a hollow…

This free outdoor series kicks off with a screening of the immortal Bogie/Bacall vehicle. Shown on the Center Lawn. Fri., Oct. 3, 7:30 p.m., 2008…

Having a doctorate in arcane British lit might not seem like the fastest track to fortune, but canny author Philippa Gregory snapped on something few others grasped: those feisty Tudors (her specialty) were as jam-packed with sex appeal and drama queens as any 10 Disney Channel shows. Gregory’s 2002 novel…

Back in the day, we haunted a moviehouse that changed its marquee every single day. And not only flicks, but entire bills of fare. One day, there’d be a Peter Sellers triple-bill, the next a pairing of 2001 and Barbarella. Today’s movie-biz mechanics have made such an approach wildly unfeasible,…

Watching other people work is always fun. Watching them make it work is even better. Vicarious sweat takes on a glam sheen at the fourth annual Phoenix Fashion Week. Your ticket for each evening’s runway show ($30 general seating, $60 reserved) also gets you in to that day’s seminars, trade…

Doncha love how Anglo-Americans embrace their foreignness during drinking holidays? Every other day of the year, folks curse soccer and the Euro way, but they ride the heck out of that 0.00001-percent Irish/English/Dutch/whatever blood that pumps through their hollow veins when stuff like St. Patrick’s Day rolls around. Don’t be…

For the past few weeks, Valley schoolchildren have taken perhaps the first field trip in history to feature the phrase, “I am an accused terrorist spy and I am a patriotic American.” We would expect no less from the Icehouse, Phoenix’s favorite venue for the out-there of the art world…

Local photorealist painter Suzanne Falk will teach participants all you need to know to become a beginning oil painter, from creating a color grid to special effects. Saturdays, 1-4 p.m. Starts: Oct. 4. Continues through Nov. 22, 2008…

Twenty-three years ago, our then-girlfriend Robin tried to rent us an apartment, but the spritzhead manager quoted company rules: “We don’t rent one-bedrooms to same-sex roommates.” Pissed, we kicked over the flowerpot outside the door. That was Phoenix then, but now, with the seventh annual Rainbows Festival, can you almost…