Guy Trebay of The New York Times meditates on the hidden gems of Tucson architecture:

It is a mini-metropolis whose proximity to the Mexican border has resulted not only in a shadow economy but also some fairly stark racial and economic bifurcations. It is a blue dot in a red state, a college town whose seasonal population of students and retirees departs this month in a mass migration that leaves tumbleweed vacancies in its wake.

It is also a city whose loopy retail landscape skews heavily toward yoga studios, thrift shops and vape stores. And one of the city’s better-kept secrets is how often these places occupy structures that could easily be counted among the more significant examples of mid-20th century architecture in the country. That is, if anyone were bothering to look.

I had first taken note of this curiosity some years back when attending the annual American Gem Trade Association fair in Tucson. In reality one central fair and an agglomeration of 40 or so satellites, where dealers trade in the countless minerals of which the earth is formed (and also a certain amount of random space flotsam), the fair is the place to be if you are ever in the market for an eight-carat Mozambique ruby, a Brazilian rock crystal carved like a phallus or a fragment of a meteorite.

Increasingly, on what have become annual pilgrimages to the gem fair (including one in February) I’ve found myself straying from the parking lots crammed with geodes, beads and boulders, and venturing out to explore the local architectural treasures. Back home, whenever New York threatens to ruin my day, I follow my thoughts back to my random excursions around Tucson and to memories of its illimitable skies, dry, clear air and its abundant supply of wizened drifters right out of Richard Avedon’s “In the American West.”

I reflect on how deeply I enjoy the ramshackle dispersion of the city and on the fact that I now know which Mexican handicrafts store to visit if I am ever in need of a six-foot ceramic pineapple from Michoacán. I think about a photo gallery I like as much for its location near a funky tattoo parlor as for its adventurous exhibitions, a diner in a movie-ready structure unaltered since the 1960s, and the thrift shops of which Tucson boasts more than it has hipster brunch spots.

I recall, too, the pleasures of ordering a heaping platter of huevos rancheros at my favorite hipster brunch spot, the Five Points Market, situated on an intersection whose other notable landmarks include a florist selling $1 roses and a used-car dealership with the motto “Ugly but Honest.”

Last night Abigail Washburn and her multi-Grammy-winning husband Béla Fleck brought the back porch to the Fox Theatre for an evening of community bonding over worldly, and world class banjo pickin'. The duo are on tour promoting their new self-titled duet album.

The playing was predictably dazzling, but the cozy relationships, between the two and with the crowd, were the show's highlights. Particular fun was Washburn's introduction of an original murder ballad. As she talked about her fondness for murder ballads in general, and the inspirations for the one she was about to sing, Fleck interjected commentary about how, when she starts playing murder ballads, he heads down to the basement  and starts fussing with resonator screws and finding uses for 3-in-One oil and a tiny Phillips head screwdriver.

A later conversation with the crowd focused on KXCI, which Washburn referred to as "that radio station that has the reputation for being so cool."

As Fleck has toured the world with his band, the Flecktones, he's won a cabinet-full of awards, performed with rock stars and jazz greats, and re-defined the whole point of a banjo. Washburn has meanwhile become a global diplomat and collector of Asian instruments and musical aesthetics. Last night she gave a master class in how to engage a crowd as if inviting them onstage, and proved she is a whale of a clog dancer.

Her background may even be the more remarkable of the pair. It certainly explains some of the hints of Oriental influences in both their music. From her website:

"Washburn is one of the few foreign artists currently touring China independently and regularly. She completed a month-long tour (Nov-Dec 2011) of China's Silk Road supported by grants from the US Embassy, Beijing. Abigail ... gave a talk at the 2012 TED Convention in Long Beach about building US-China relations through music. In March of 2013, she was commissioned by New York Voices and the NY Public Theater to write and debut a theatrical work titled, Post-American Girl, which draws from her 17-year relationship with China and addresses themes of expanding identity, cultural relativism, pilgrimage, the universal appeal of music and opening the heart big enough to fold it all in. Abigail was recently named the first US-China Fellow at Vanderbilt University. Her efforts to share US music in China and Chinese music in the US exist within a hope that cultural understanding and the communal experience of beauty and sound rooted in tradition will lead the way to a richer existence."

The duo's "evening with" performance was a musical adventure from the heart of Americana to parts unknown, studded with cultural gems from all over the globe. It was a benefit for the Sonoran Institute, which, among many conservation projects throughout the Southwest, is working to restore and protect the lower Santa Cruz River. Such environmental concerns are also near to Washburn's heart. She participates in the Nature Conservancy's All Hands on Earth program which highlights artists' engagement with nature. Other participants include Glen Hansard, La Santa Cecilia and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

After I wrote a long post about the new contract and salary deal for H.T. Sanchez at TUSD, I steeled myself, waiting to have my head bit off in the comments section. To my surprise, that's not what happened. The commenters took a variety of positions on the contract, but the arguments tended to be more nuanced than the usual polarization I find in the comments section. [That's not true, however, of the very long 28th comment, which called me naive and ignorant and argued at length about how badly Sanchez has harmed the district. I'm fine with that, by the way, it comes with the territory. My surprise was that my post didn't get more comments like that.]

In the course of the back-and-forth, one anonymous commenter said I was "missing the point" on one issue. And you know, the commenter is right. So I want to post the comment here as a kind of post script to what I wrote initially.

In a reply to a comment, I wrote that the size of Sanchez's salary wasn't directly relevant to the salaries of teachers and other staff. With 3,000 teachers and even more support staff, any lowering of his salary would result in pennies for everyone else. Earlier, I had also mentioned Mesa Superintendent Michael Cowan, whose district is a similar size to TUSD and who has a similar salary to Sanchez's. Cowan's is probably a bit lower, though it's hard to tell with all the add-ons to the base salary. But, as someone pointed out in another comment, Cowan refused a raise because of the financial problems Mesa, like all Arizona school districts, is suffering through.

With that background, here's the comment.

David: You seem to be missing the point here. It doesn't matter whether Sanchez and his cabinet refusing to take a raise and / or bonuses could make a material difference if the amount they refused to take were divided up and applied to teachers' salaries throughout the district. This has to do with morale and the ability to lead. Does it make sense for Superintendents and central administrators to take raises and bonuses in a context in which the legislature is further cutting funding to an already disastrously underfunded school district? The quote from the Mesa Superintendent Cowan provided a perfect example of how a good leader handles himself in a situation like this. The behavior of the leader sends a message to the troops which either improves morale and unifies the force or degrades morale and impairs his ability to lead. It seems that Sanchez has done the latter — and in a context where morale and confidence in his leadership were already dangerously low.

Point well taken. I'm not sure how it could have or should have come about, but the best outcome for the sake of the district would have been for Sanchez and other top administrators to forego raises at this point while committing to stay on. It would have hurt their pocketbooks— hough not anywhere near as much as the non-administrative staff is being hurt by the state budget cuts to education—but it would have sent a message to the rest of the TUSD employees: We're in this together.

"BREAKING NEWS," I was told when I answered the phone. "It's Bloom Night."

If you're familiar with Tohono Chul's Bloom Night, you're already excited. Here's the deal: every year, Tohono Chul (7366 N Paseo Del Norte) keeps careful watch over their plants. When it's time for the peniocereus greggii (you might know her as the "Queen of the Night"—a hefty and well earned title, I assure you) to bloom, well, everything else stops.

Those of us who grew up in the Arizona desert can tell you: This is a big deal. These plants bloom for a few hours every year. That is not a typo—they bloom for a few hours every year.  

Stop by this after hours event for $5—or for free, if you're the fancy membership type. 

Here's the press release in it's entirety: 

Bloom Night is Tonight Friday, June 12
6 p.m. to Midnight
Members Free
General Public $5
Children 12 & under Free

Please join us Tonight for Bloom Night and enjoy one of nature's most unique events. During Bloom Night you can enjoy the blooms of the peniocereus greggii, enjoy dinner in the Garden Bistro, snack on Sonoran hotdogs, desserts, prickly pear lemonade and libations from the Mobile Bistro and listen to special presentations (presentations at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.)

Remember to:
Bring a flashlight
Wear Closed Toed Shoes
Bring your Membership Card for easy admittance

The Morning After for Members Only
6:30 a.m. to 8 a.m.
The gardens open early the following morning for members to enjoy the last hours of the blooms before the sun starts to wilt their petals. Remember to bring your membership card for free admittance. 

State lawmaker Randy Friese (D-Tucson) yesterday put to rest rumors that he was considering a run for Congresswoman Martha McSally's seat.

"I have made the decision to stay in the Arizona House of Representatives and keep working to bring people together right here to solve problems for Arizonans," Friese told supporters in an email.

With Bruce Wheeler bowing out of the race earlier this week, that leave Friese's seatmate, State Rep. Victoria Steele, as the only candidate who announced that she is exploring the Congressional District 2 seat. Other potential candidates who may attempt to unseat the freshman Republican include former state lawmaker Matt Heinz and former DC attorney and current pecan farmer Nan Walden.

Here's Friese's full statement:

So, I was watching the latest Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. The main topic was our out-of-kilter bail system which can victimize low income people and their families from the moment they're taken into custody, whether they're innocent or guilty. It's a topic I've become more interested in lately with my growing understanding of the evils of our system of mass incarceration. (The most eye opening book I've read in years is The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. I recommend it highly.) I was more than usually attentive to what John Oliver was saying, and something kept knocking around in the back of my head. "Bail bonds. Bail bonds. When have I looked into that subject before?"

And then it hit me. Back in 2011 when I was trying to learn everything I could about BASIS charter schools, I googled Michael Block, who started BASIS with his wife, Olga Block, and I came upon an paper he wrote in 1997, before BASIS was a twinkle in the couple's eyes. The piece by Block, who is an economist by training, is titled, Runaway Losses: Estimating the Costs of Failure to Appear in the Los Angeles Criminal Justice System. The gist of his argument is, having defendants purchase bail bonds from private companies is preferable to pretrial screening and court-run pretrial release systems. Bail bonds, good. County pretrial release systems, bad. And, to take that to its logical conclusion: Private market, good. Government services, bad. According to the paper,

Not only does the private market perform better the main task of assuring the appearance of criminal defendants, but now we see it does it at a dramatically less cost to the taxpayers. These results should suggest a clear public policy agenda.

At the very top of the paper are the words, "American Legislative Exchange Council, Report Card on Crime." At the end are the words, "ALEC has prepared model legislation that addresses these issues. You may reach us at (202) 466-3800." (That's still the phone number of ALEC's Washington, DC, office, by the way.)

Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy has chosen the new political lobbyist and communications firm Axiom Public Affairs to represent their movement against the state's recreational marijuana legalization initiative.

The ballot measure's final draft was submitted to the Secretary of State's Office in April by the Marijuana Policy Project, which is also leading legal weed efforts for next year in California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts. Safer Arizona, MPP of Arizona, and other advocacy groups are in the process of gathering the roughly more than 150,000 signatures needed to get the initiative on the 2016 ballot. 

The Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy PAC isn't down with any measure that would green light the use, sale, possession and cultivation of ganja. The group mobilizes around the state to raise awareness of the plant's alleged harms, as well as recruits donors and supporters who'll help with the crusade. They fear legalizing weed will mean it'll wound up in the hands of children, among other negative outcomes.

“Unlike the industry and lobby groups that are funding efforts to legalize a dangerous drug in Arizona, we at ARDP are all working on a volunteer basis, so we are delighted to be able hire the A-team of consultants in Arizona to help us out,” said a statement by Seth Leibsohn, chairman of Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy. 

Arizona's measure would allow adults 21 and up to buy no more than an ounce of pot through a state-licensed retailer or dispensary. An adult 21 or older would be able to grow six plants and there will be a limit of no more than 12 plants per household. There is a license, worth $7,500, for people who want to sell their pot, without jumping into a full-on dispensary.

MPP expects taxes, set at 15 percent, to bring revenue of between $60 million and $100 million. The funds would go toward sales regulation, education and public health efforts.

Safer Arizona plans to host a series of public forums to answer everyone's weed questions.

The deadline to present signatures is June 2016. 

Local, resale fashion favorite, Buffalo Exchange, is welcoming a new member to their family-run business. The clothing store, which started in Tucson in 1974, fulfills their commitment to environmental conciseness by recycling clothes from one fashionista to another. Like their physical locations, their sister store, The Vintage Buffalo, also offers customers used clothing for reasonable prices.

The Vintage Buffalo is their new, online fashion boutique, specializing in vintage finds from our past. The pieces do not, like the stores, come from customers for trade or cash. They are instead carefully curated by a buying team spread throughout the United States. These skilled searchers utilize their eye for fashion to look through estate sales, flea markets and antique fairs for one of a kind looks.

Marketing Director Stephanie Lew says creating an online collection was a logical route for Buffalo to take.

“We’ve seen this is where the resale industry is going and we wanted to be a part of it,” she says. “While there are plenty of vintage resale stores online, we wanted to create a vintage store with a unique collection.”

The collection includes dresses from the '40s to '70s, tops, bottoms, “world culture pieces,” southwestern styles, decor, jewelry and accessories.

“Customers are offered one of kind and rare styles you won’t find in your average vintage store,” says Lew. “While prices reflect the value of the pieces, The Vintage Buffalo has worked hard to make sure they won’t break the bank.”

The Vintage Buffalo team will add new items to the website weekly to supply customers with a constantly revolving door of special pieces colored with the looks of our past.

To browse through the collection and find your next look, visit thevintagebuffalo.com. You can follow them on Instagram @thevintagebuffalo for promotions and new arrivals. Currently, shipping is not offered outside the U.S. or to Alaska and Hawaii.

After two years of selling vintage wares and handmade original art pieces, Eleonor Leon is closing her downtown boutique La Fashionista. The funky little shop located at 45 S. Sixth Ave. will shutter by the end of the month, which Leon attributes to many different factors.

"It's not just one thing," she says. "Everybody start out down here with good intentions but the longer you have to wait for things to change, the harder it is."

She points to other stores, like Buffalo Exchange, that have closed their downtown spaces and even the lack of gallery space downtown.

"We're getting a Super Cuts where the Buffalo Exchange used to be and we're losing the flavor of downtown, she says, "I mean where's all the art? It's up on Sixth and Sixth."

While the street car did seem to drive more people downtown, Leon says the student crowd it brought wasn't really looking for what she was selling.

"My aesthetic is more of a fashion artist and that wasn't appealing to them," she says. "I just look at downtown and I think, 'where are all the galleries? Is it just bars and restaurants? Is it just a party town now?"

For those looking to inject some eerie vibes into their day, look no further than Human Behavior's new music video created by local visual artist Nika Kaiser. Blending visual Kaiser's penchant for the supernatural and use of desert scenery, the video is trippy and even a little unsettling. That, combined with the twangy and dark sounds of the song, which is simply titled "Chapter 3," the video takes you on part of a journey, but certainly leaves you wanting more. The jarring shouts, the screeching ambient background noise and drawling guitar vocalization on the track only lends to the mystery.


"Chapter 3" can be found on Human Behavior's newest release Bethpage. Tucson Weekly's most recent feature of the band had this to say of the album: