Punk’d

We’re all about covering the scene, if you will, so does that make us scenesters? We hope not, because we totally want to attend the weekly Punk Nite at Q-Lounge, whose MySpace page proudly proclaims, “Scenesters need not apply.” Sun., July 20, 7 p.m., 2008…

Thank Buddha It’s Friday

Work headaches, traffic snarls, unresolved personal issues. If you’re like us, you’ve got Yang coming out of your butt, so maybe it’s time we all took a long, cleansing breath and headed to Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art for Yin Friday. SMoCA’s Yin event is, not shockingly, the opposite of…

Meet Cute

Cute Is What We Aim For is likely the perfect 21st century pop band. Almost purpose-built for short attention span marketing campaigns, the four gents in CIWWAF focus so heavily on pop sheen, hooks, and scene-ster touchstones that it’s often difficult to figure out just what the sum of the…

Pet Project

When we told our dog about Lappy Hour, a monthly networking and adoption opportunity for canines and their humans, all he wanted to know was if there’d be any bitches there. Geez, Mr. Bisquit, evolve already. New Times caught up with Lappy Hour founder Vickie Rudd, who’s a bit more…

Darkness Calls

While parents have predictably freaked out over the social menace imposed in turn by the blues, jazz, secular R&B, rock and roll, heavy metal, rap, and techno, they never seemed to bat an eyelash over Steely Dan. In fact, they seemed to dig the band more than anyone. And it’s…

Time Piece

Other comedians may react to the times by humorously observing the ways in which men and women differ. Eddie Izzard, however, creates time itself. Witness firsthand when the actor/comic brings his Stripped tour to the Orpheum Theater. During the show, Izzard may chat with dinosaurs, rewrite the Scriptures, or give…

Wrigley South

The scents of stale Old Style and white guy hang in the air. You just heard someone, for the third time today, singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in a Harry Caray-like fashion. Some dude named Ronnie “Woo Woo” is standing outside of Chase Field chirping some inaudible…

Mad Iced Tea Party

The Paper Heart is gone, but the art of the defunct venue lives on at this event, a reception for the “Heartfelt: The Paper Heart Alumni Show” exhibit. Displaying artists include Michele Bledsoe, Richard Bledsoe, Jeff Falk, Denise Fleisch, Jimi Girdner, Steve Gompf, JA Jurewicz, Annie Lopez, Natascha Payton, Greg…

Meet supermodel Coco Mitchell, the elegant fox

Coco Mitchell’s “Off the Runway: Behind the Scenes at Chado Ralph Rucci” talk: Tuesday, July 15, at Phoenix Art Museum By Clay McNear Coco Mitchell is 48. She’s a model. This doesn’t compute. Mitchell freely gives her age on her Web site (Coco Mitchell). She’s twice as old as your…

Cerealism at West Valley Art Museum is part of a complete breakfast

In the 1930s, in what can only be considered the first official culinary performance art piece, Mexican émigré painters Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varos passed off tiny tapioca pearls dyed with squid ink as caviar to their surrealist buddies. In 1992, photographer Sandy Skoglund immortalized Britney Spears’ favorite comfort food…

Center of the Earth plays like a promo for 3D filmmaking

At the top, let’s be clear about one thing: Journey to the Center of the Earth is more a demo reel than a narrative feature. It’s a decent, if overly familiar and yawningly obvious compendium of look-at-me moments intended to show off the latest and greatest in stereo 3D filmmaking,…

Alone in the Dark is scary for all the wrong reasons

Upon playing Atari’s new horror/puzzle game Alone in the Dark — the newest and most hyped in the increasingly limp franchise — you immediately realize there are far more terrifying experiences out there than this astonishing failure. Like actually being alone in the dark. Seriously: Take your video game controller…

Phoenix gets malled

Not too long ago, my spouse and I took our friend Caitlyn out to celebrate her seventh birthday. Our plan was to have a little lunch at Scottsdale Fashion Square (7014 E. Camelback Rd., Scottsdale, www.fashionsquare.com) and then let her go nuts in the Missy section of one of the…

Keep on Trekkin’

Telling people they should hike in 115-degree heat is like plopping the London Bridge in the middle of some podunk Arizona town. Oh. Right. That hiking hard-sell is at the core of the “Beat the Heat” Strategies Hike. During the two-miler on the Blevins Trail, a ranger will offer “practical…

Coaster Oven

The Castles -n- Coasters Summer Fun Days promotion is a smoking deal — if you don’t spontaneously combust. We’re just tossin’ out a caveat emptor, ’cause you should know up front that your $15 buys unlimited rides on the theme park’s attractions, plus a free round of mini-golf, all of…

Addicted to Dove

Nobody ever called Frida Kahlo an asshole, though, in 1939, the Mexican artist dubbed André Breton and the European surrealists the “bitches of Paris.” Oh, snap! Frida existed to paint, and only then was the “Dove” allowed to fly free and depict her dark reality of surgeries, miscarriages, and self-medication…

KEF Muon Speakers Debut

If these babies sound as good as they look, mama. Designed and numbered by industrial artist Ross Lovegrove — known, among other things, for designing the Sony Walkman and the iMac — these monsters are cast from solid blocks of pure aluminum, tower above six feet in height, weigh 250…

The ID Girl

Why did Laurie Notaro leave her hometown of Phoenix, AZ? Had she sucked the last drop of marrow from every 1990s Mill Avenue moment and chewed the bones into dust? (She does have big teeth.) Whatever the case, the Muchacha del Idiota returns to her former stomping grounds to read…

Synth and Sensibility

Since the dawn of its invention, music fans have held the synthesizer in direct conflict with the drum kit. While these opposing camps may never lay down arms, Phoenix’s Maypop is out to show that this town isn’t too small for the both of ’em. Describing itself as “Rocktronic Indieca,”…

South by Midwest

We’re all for hybrid cars and green cleaners, but if we have to look at one more painting exploring the dangers of deforestation, we’re gonna blow chunks. What’s next — artists go PETA on our asses, hurling red tree sap at anyone not using recycled paper? At first glance, Marcus…

A Midsummmer Month’s Dream

Most big cities have summer stock of some kind. Phoenix’s post-theater season typically equates to a handful of remounts and three months of dinner theater. For the past decade, one of the few bright spots has been Phoenix Theatre’s New Works Festival, a monthlong showcase of original plays and musicals…