The first-gen Korean-American novelist pocketed the PEN/Hemingway Award for his topical thriller Native Speaker. Lee reads from and signs works at this event, part of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing’s Fall 2008 Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. Wed., Sept. 10, 7:30 p.m., 2008…
In 1963, SoCal native Johnny Lozoya was 10 and enthralled watching low-slung, growling machines called lowriders pace his neighborhood streets. As he tells New Times, “They were definitely not my parents’ four-door family sedan.” In 1979, Lozoya organized the first Lowrider Convention at Firebird Lake. Now 55, he’s still as…
To some artists, drawing is an expression of beauty. To others, it’s a visual soapbox on which the artist can figuratively stand and whine about politics, injustice, or whatever other crap is newsworthy. It’s hard to figure out which category local artist and ASU grad Hector Ruiz is in. Part…
A local day-labor center is about to close, bowing to the pressures of anti-immigration advocates. The immigrants who rely on the center for their crummy incomes fight to keep the facility open. When one of the workers gets arrested, all hell breaks loose. Sound plausible? Los Illegals is a ripped-from-the-headlines…
Sooner or later, with all of technology’s leaps and bounds, we’re bound to stare a dinosaur straight in the reptilian eye. Not in the Jurassic Park way, but in the sense that somebody, someday, will create a dino that seems so real it might as well be. The folks behind…
Oprah. Elvis. Charlie’s Angels. Prison inmates. Fashion victims all, thanks to the jumpsuit. We’d tease and taunt these dinos and ne’er-do-wells, but, God help us, the vexing garment seems to be making a comeback. Rihanna was recently seen wearing a floral-print number. Maggie Gyllenhaal wore one to The Dark Knight…
What is it about the desert that makes people wax poetic? And how can we make them stop? Holly Metz, a West Virginia native, takes smashing black-and-white photos of the parched terrain near her Gila River Indian Community home, many of which you can see in her “The Spirit of…
The economy blows. There are foreclosures on every block, big-name chains are filing for bankruptcy, and a tank of gas costs more than a week’s worth of groceries. Hell, even local art galleries and theaters are downsizing just to stay afloat. When faced with rising costs, Phoenix’s Black Theatre Troupe…
Ask any nerd piss-ant what he knows about Japan and he’ll probably blather on about manga, the island nation’s sadistic game shows, or those Tokyo vending machines that specialize in used celebrity underwear. We don’t deny that a lot of strange things emanate from that cooped-up otherworld, but there are…
Kudos to the Pac-10 conference for scheduling meaningful division games in August and September, including last week’s Oregon State-Stanford tilt and a bitter-rivalry contest between Oregon and Washington. What do you have to say to that, Texas Tech (Eastern Washington, at Nevada, SMU, UMass) and LSU (Appalachian State, Troy, North…
Today’s youngsters may have familiarized themselves with the Toadies’ “Possum Kingdom” through Guitar Hero II, but in the game’s multicolored dots and horrendously processed guitar tone, it’s hard to comprehend how foreign and chilling the Dallas band’s bass-driven post-grunge masterpiece sounded in its mid-’90s context. As part of a weirdo…
Local hard rockers Digital Summer are one of the few local bands that can book a headlining gig at the spacious Marquee Theatre in Tempe and actually sell it out. The band’s slick shtick of mid-to-late ‘90s hard-edged radio rock (a la Staind and Linkin Park) has garnered them hordes…
There’s a reason we don’t hear too much anymore about ’80s rappers like Kool Moe Dee, Doug E. Fresh, and EPMD. It’s because the music outgrew their particular rapping style. Shut, it’s not even called rap no mo’, you dig? DJ Quik, who got his start in 1987, is one…
It’s been a letdown of a season for last year’s WNBA champions, the Phoenix Mercury. At the time of this writing, the Merc were in last place in the Western Conference with little to no chance of making it to the postseason. But that doesn’t mean the lady ballers are…
The PSO’s 2008-2009 season kicks off with a tribute to the works of Richard Wagner, featuring a performance by Wagnerian soprano Jane Eaglen. Sat., Sept. 6, 8 p.m., 2008…
The controversial former guitarist for Korn, who New Times covered earlier this summer (“Former Korn guitarist Brian Welch finds Jesus,” John Dickerson, June 19, 2008, www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-06-19/news/former-korn-guitarist-brian-welch-finds-jesus), signs copies of his solo debut, Save Me From Myself. Tue., Sept. 9, 7:30 p.m., 2008…
Richard Andrews of Skystone Foundation, the firm overseeing construction of Turrell’s Roden Crater Project near Flagstaff (pictured), speaks about Turrell and Lin and the artists’ use of landscape and light to “direct attention to our connection to the Earth and cosmos, as well as the role of memory and awareness…
By Lilia Menconi Bats II If you’re at all a part of the downtown art scene, you’ve surely found yourself sharing a Bikini Lounge booth with strangers. That’s how I met Kathryn Pinto. She graciously let my best friend and I join her highly coveted booth on the evening of…
Despite his reputation as that rarest of creatures — a Hollywood intellectual — new evidence suggests that Steve Martin reads (prepare yourself) thrillers and spy novels. Or at least that’s the only conclusion one can draw from the “Story by” credit the comedian receives on Traitor, an uneven yet engrossing…
When I’d heard that Quentin Tarantino handed the Grand Jury Prize for best feature to Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, telling the audience that the movie “put my heart in a vise and proceeded to twist that vise until the last frame,” my jaw went…
A glint in his eye and a grin on his lips, artist Don Bachardy looks into the camera and explains the dynamic of his three-decade relationship with the late literary icon Christopher Isherwood as if it were a fairy tale. “His role,” says Bachardy, “could be described as that of…
In the 25 years or so I’ve been playing games, never once have I encountered an earnest conversation about what a game means. You see every other sort of discussion — people talking about how a game looks, or how it plays, how long or short or difficult or easy…
