Your Weekly guide to keeping busy in the Old Pueblo.

The Tell-Tale Art

Live Drawing Atelier. Can we all agree that you’re held a little bit more accountable when someone is watching you? You try just a little bit harder, maybe turn out work that’s just a little bit better? At this event to benefit the UA School of Art Advisory Board, you can be either the accountable or the accountability. Artists are invited to take part in two 45-minute sessions at 5:45 at 6:45 p.m., and can purchase drawing kits or bring their own supplies. Non-artists are invited to ogle over the skills of artists while enjoying wine, beer, a complimentary “Artist’s Alchemy” cocktail from The Independent Distillery’s Mixologist and appetizers from Johnny Gibson’s. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1. The Independent Distillery, 33 S. Arizona Ave. $80 (includes appetizers and two drink tickets). First-time attendees to a School of Art Advisory Board event get a 15 percent discount, so tickets are $68. ($40 tax-deductible from either ticket.) Drawing kits are $10.

Arts in the Plaza. You are about to experience so much art that you are going to come away from this event with an urge to buy a downtown studio apartment and start wearing a beret. But really, with more than 50 artists participating in this festival, as well as violin, guitar, jazz piano, harp, and cello music providing a soundtrack to the event, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more pleasant way to spend a day, not to mention a better opportunity to support local artists. Jewelry, ceramics, glass, metalwork, photography, acrylic, digital art, leather, sculpture, mixed media and even custom wood designs are all available for perusing, ’preciating and purchasing. Mention you’re attending Arts in the Plaza for a 10 percent discount at Union Public House or Reforma Cocina Cantina. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, and Sunday, Oct. 29. St. Philip’s Plaza, 4280 N. Campbell Ave. Free.

Sugar Skulls! If you’re not skully prepared for Dia de los Muertos yet, here is your chance to finally get your head in the game. As supplies last, the library will be providing materials for patrons to decorate sugar skulls with glitter, feathers, sequins and a skeleTON of other stuff. Don’t miss this opportunity to customize a Day of the Dead staple to your liking. 3 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26. Miller-Golf Links Library. 9640 E. Golf Links Road. Free.

Portentous Performances

Carnival of Illusion Season Opener. Carnival of Illusion, the vaudevillian, close-up sleight of hand, cozy magic show founded by Tucson locals Susan Eyed and Roland Sarlot, is kicking off its ninth season with a (Mesa performance and then a) Tucson performance! Take a night off from all the tragic stuff going on and get some magic stuff going at a show one reviewer called “Better than the pool on a 100 degree Arizona day.” Is that even possible?! It’s definitely worth looking into, wouldn’t you say? 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28. Scottish Rite Grand Parlour, 160 S. Scott. $33-$48.

The federal tax cut proposals Republicans are putting together will most likely throw a few tax cut bones to the middle class and toss a couple of chicken wings in the direction of the poor so it looks like everyone gets a tax break, but the richest Americans will be the folks getting thick, juicy, medium-rare ribeye steaks grilled to perfection. No one knows whether the bones and wings will make it into the final bill, but it's a sure bet the most powerful Americans can count on being hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars richer if their friends in Congress and the White House can figure out a way to put together the needed votes.

On a smaller scale, something similar is happening with Arizona's school grades and results-based funding. The richest, most powerful Arizonans were promised steak dinners in the form of results-based funding bonuses for the schools their children attend. That worked out just fine in lots of cases, but a few were surprised to find their plates empty, and they're crying foul. Now the state is trying to figure out how to make things right.

Meanwhile, the rest of the schools, those with families in the middle and lower economic ranges, are getting a few results-based bones and chicken wings, but I'm betting some of those will be taken away to make sure the people who really matter to the Republicans in power get the steaks they were promised.

Lots of reporters have been picking up on the story about the state's long-awaited school grades over the past week, because it's a really big deal. The grades posted by the Department of Education were supposed to be final unless a school appealed. Then Tim Carter, president of the state Board of Education, stepped in. He declared the grades "preliminary," to the surprise of pretty much everyone including the other board members who knew nothing of the change until he announced it. As of Monday, however, the Board is on board as well. The posted state grades don't mean a thing until we swing into January, and even the January deadline is far from final.

The state grades worked out almost the way they were supposed to. Almost. The top schools in terms of family income, the ones attended by the children of the wealthiest and most powerful Arizonans, grabbed most of the A's — the top 11 percent got close to 40 percent of all the A grades — and grades slid downward in rough correlation to the family income of students attending the schools. The results should have been acceptable to the people who run things in the state, except for two important problems.

Next school year, every A school will get a whole lot of extra money in the form of results-based funding while the B through F schools get nothing (The funding system works differently this school year). So a number of schools in the high rent areas with B's, or even C's, feel cheated because they didn't get one of those big, juicy results-based steaks they know they deserve. They figure, "Why should the top 11 percent only make up 40 percent of the schools getting the extra funding? Why not more like 50 percent, and include my child's school?"

Chance the Rapper’s Twitter video of him helping his 2-year-old daughter learn to count went viral just a few days before his performance at Phoenix’s Lost Lake Festival on Friday. The video might evoke a sense of nostalgia or familiarity for most parents, if he weren’t using his three recently awarded Grammy’s for the counting lessons.

In his first performance as a Grammy-award winning artist, Chance was his signature self: big and bold, but also humble and sending praises up for all the blessings coming down.

Of course, Chance wasn’t alone onstage, but he also wasn’t playing with just any old band––he was joined Nico Segal and the other members of Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment. When Chance asked the audience if they knew which song was the only one off their debut album, Surf, to have a music video, the crowd screamed “Sunday Candy” in excitement.

The song’s smooth, impossible-not-to-sing chorus and fun verses (there’s a line about Chance putting 50 rolls on his plate at Christmas dinner) came early in the set, despite it being such a show-stopping number.

Between other songs, Chance mentioned that he was leaving for a vacation soon, and that this would be his last performance of 2017. He thanked the audience, thanked his loved ones, thanked God. Then, he closed out his set with “Same Drugs,” a song about growing apart from the people in your life with heavy allusions to the movie Hook, and is way more touching and way less weird than it sounds on paper.

As he was the last performer of the night, the audience held out hope for an encore, and didn’t stop applauding until Chance came back onstage to do “Blessings,” a powerful, gospel-y, track from 2016’s Coloring Book, which just won a Grammy for best rap album.

Rap fan or not, religious or not, maybe even a Chance the Rapper fan or not, between the rapper's nonstop smiles, a spectacular light show, and two separate confetti/streamer shoot-offs, the whole production was hard not to enjoy, and had most people counting their blessings.

Flake's bombshell announcement today that he would not seek reelection next year is rocking the state's political landscape.

Flake took time on the Senate floor today to explain his decision, saying that the coarseness of President Donald Trump drove his decision. Talking Points Memo summarizes:

“I have children and grandchildren to answer to. And so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent,” Flake said in a speech that centered around the degradation of political civility in the age of Trump.

He criticized the “coarseness of our leadership” and the “regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals.”

“When the next generation asks us, ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up?’ What are we going to say? Mr. President, I rise today to say, enough,” Flake said. “We have fooled ourselves long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now we all know better than that.”

“We must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has been excused as ‘telling it like it is’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified,” Flake continued. “And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.”

I suspect Flake would not have made this move if he hadn't seen polling numbers that showed his support collapsing among Republicans in Arizona. That problem been building for awhile, but his feuds with Trump have definitely accelerated his decline—and his decision to write a book hammering away at Trump surely didn't help things.

I don't agree with many of Flake's policies (other than his push to solve the nation's immigration problems with the Gang of Eight back in 2013), but I do believe he is a fundamentally decent guy who wants to reverse the rot within his party. But he's spitting into the wind. The GOP is moving in a sharply different direction where primary voters celebrate what Trump represents.

So what happens next? I'm guessing there's a rush among Republicans to jump for the open seat and Flake challenger Kelli Ward will now face a more crowded and difficult path to the GOP nomination. And not to be morbid, as we wish him the best with his battle against brain cancer, but there is also a possibility that John McCain won't be able to finish his term, which could put both of Arizona's U.S. Senate seats in play next year.

Hi, I'm Alden!

I am a 2 year old male Queensland Heeler mix looking for my fur-ever home! I can be shy at first but will warm up to the right person quickly. Please bring any kids or dogs that live in your home to come meet me. I am at HSSA Main Campus at 3450 N. Kelvin Blvd., or give an adoptions counselor a call at 520-327-6088 x173 for more information.

Lots of Love,
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Danny Brown is hip-hop’s punk phase: a complete rebellion from the genre’s norms and style. Not only was his gold chain replaced by a grungy The Police t-shirt, but Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” played for his arrival onstage. This isn’t to say he wasn’t rapping—he certainly was, with fantastic delivery and sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking word play.

The most impressive aspect is Danny’s ability to rap consistently at all, considering the frantic and frenzied nature of many of his songs. From wild, blaring horns to broken, lonely electronics, most musicians wouldn’t even know when to start singing in the first place, let alone unleash line after line of chaotic poetry.

To truly understand a Danny Brown concert, look no further than his most recent album, Atrocity Exhibition. Right from the title (a Joy Division reference) you can expect depictions of horror, addiction, and madness. And these were all in his set. Though perhaps the most disconcerting aspect wasn’t the atrocities he sang about, but how much fun he had doing it. From call-and-response singing with the crowd, running amok on stage, and sticking his tongue out like a mocking demon, Danny was as much of an entertainer as he was an antagonist.

Here’s a man who will treat a downward spiral like a rollercoaster ride and laugh the whole way through.

“Funny how it happens
Who ever would imagine
The joke's on you
But Satan’s the one laughing”

— from Danny Brown’s “Ain’t It Funny”

The drummer playing for rising star rapper Noname was wearing a shirt that said “Wonderful Noise,” and that served as a prophecy for the set he was about to be a part of. Fatimah Nyeema Warner, widely known by her stage name Noname, struck a balance between meaningful and fun at her Friday night performance at the Lost Lake Festival in Phoenix.

The 26-year-old rose to prominence after being featured on Chance the Rapper’s 2013 Acid Rap, and the July 2016 release of her debut album Telefone received wide acclaim. The album is so-titled because the songs are inspired by telephone conversations the Chicago native has had throughout her life. On Telefone, the conversational songs open-ended, vulnerable and thought provoking.

But, even in a setlist that featured songs like "Casket Pretty," which touches on themes of police brutality and the fear of learning about a loved one’s death, she spent most of her time onstage smiling. She joked about how sad her music was, introduced the audience to all of the band members on stage with her, and even slapped a beach ball back into the crowd when it bounced its way onto the stage.

At one point, she started rapping, “fuck bitches and get money,” and encouraging the audience to join her. Her shifting of the phrase to “love women and get money” was met with huge applause, and a further shift to “fuck niggas with no money” received even bigger cheers.

As the sun set over her performance, the lyrics to "Yesterday," which she’s described as being a blueprint for Telefone, left the audience glowing in the warmth of Phoenix’s golden hour and in the light of Noname’s words.

“When the sun is going down, when the dark is out to stay, I picture your smile like it was yesterday."

Think of the border with Mexico. What is the first image that comes to mind?

Whatever dreams and nightmares and visions you are seeing when you think of Mexico and our border with Mexico, they could use some context. Information about the border is spare, sparse, and often outlandish. Hyperbolic descriptions of criminal hordes lurking just across the Rio Grande are everywhere. The media uses the Mexican border to generate headlines and clicks and traffic: Violence and corruption and death are the standard images of any particular day.

Politicians use the Mexican border to justify all manner of intervention and spending. The current administration proposes to build a border fence or wall along the entire length of the Mexican border. The cost of this intervention is supposed by many to be in excess of $30 billion. The benefits of this construction, murky and ephemeral as they are, will clearly accrue most to those companies chosen to carry out the high dollar work.

The people this impacts the most will be those that live on the border. These very same people are nearly absent from the conversation about the proposed border fence or wall or whatever you want to call the thing.

Which brings us in a roundabout way to introducing a new American Babylon project which seeks to document the lives and stories of people who actually live on the border with Mexico: "1989 Miles of People & Change" is a journey where we are traveling along the entire length of the border. All 1989 beautiful, insane miles. From Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California. From Reynosa to Tijuana: the story of the border is not what the media and politicians have been talking about.

We set out on this journey one week ago. We've interviewed and spoken with a widely divergent subset of people who live and work along the border:

• Multi-generational landowners who are fighting government attempts to seize their land for use in construction of the border fence.

• Educator and activist Scott Nicol of the Sierra Club about the effect of the "levee wall" on southeastern Texas habitats.

• Civil rights lawyer Efren Olivares of the Texas Civil Rights Project about the eminent domain proceedings which are occurring in Texas and the incredibly heavy handed process the government is using to initiate these takings.

• Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center in Hidalgo, Texas. Marianna has been fighting against Border Patrol usurpation of her organization's land without any legal recourse.

Follow along at facebook.com/AmericanBabylonNow, where we'll be posting a new video and more photos by American Babylon photographer Jimi Giannatti each day at our FB page and here at The Range. Our first video features fifth-generation resident of Los Ebanos, Texas Aleida Flores. She and her family successfully prevented the government from seizing their land nearly 10 years ago for a different version of the "wall"—now they are fighting all over again.

The term “food desert” was created in the 1990s to describe areas where residents don’t have access to healthy, affordable food. With no adequate markets within a reasonable distance, people living in food deserts are more likely to live on fast food and what they can buy in local mini-marts, most of which is unhealthy and overpriced, rather than what you find at most supermarkets. The general health and wellbeing of people living in food deserts would be improved significantly if the residents had access to healthy food they can afford.

It’s time to coin a new term: daycare desert. It describes places where parents have little access to any kind of affordable daycare, let alone high quality early childhood education, for their children. Daycare deserts are deeper and wider in the U.S. than elsewhere in the industrialized world, and Arizona is one of the most parched states in the country. To improve the educational health and wellbeing of children and adults living in daycare deserts, we need to bring affordable, high quality early childhood education within easy access.

Proposition 204 gives us the opportunity to turn Tucson's daycare deserts into oases of quality early childhood education for upwards to 8,000 three and four year olds at the cost to the community of a one-half percent increase in sales tax. So far as I know, Prop 204 is the country's boldest effort to correct the daycare crisis in recent years, and if it passes — I'm being serious here, I don't consider this an overstatement — it could be a national game changer, pointing the way for other communities to improve the lives of their young children.

Most people agree it's a good idea to make early childhood education available to more children, but detractors say Prop 204 leaves too much room for things to go wrong, both in what is included and left out of the proposal. Me personally, I think Prop 204 is not just a good idea, it's a great idea, and I agree with Weekly Editor Jim Nintzel when he wrote, "I think the accountability concerns are misguided at best." The concerns are legitimate, but vastly overstated.

Further down, you'll find links to a few pieces which do an excellent job of presenting the information you need to know about the Prop 204 and the reasons you should, or shouldn't, vote for it, which means I don't have to do it here. Instead, I'm going to give you a decision-making recommendation.

Pull the balance scale you use to weigh serious decisions down from the shelf where you store it. On one side of the scale, place the value of giving three and four year old children the kind of educational start in life which will give them the best chance of being successful in school and throughout their lives. On the other side, put the possibilities that things might go wrong if the people in charge of creating and implementing the program don't do a good job. See which way the scales tip. That's how you should vote.

I'll tell you what I see on my balance scale. On one side, I see a little golden nugget of potential and unexplored possibilities for each of the thousands of three and four year olds who will get an early childhood education. On the other side, I see a handful of stones with words like "Worst case scenario," "This could go wrong," "That could go wrong," written on them. My scales tip heavily in favor of the children whose lives will be enriched by Prop 204. But that's just me. You have your own scale. Use it.

Hilary Kole grew up watching the James Bond movies. Who didn’t grow up watching James Bond movies?

However, the vocalist also created the iteration of the “Music of James Bond” event she’ll be performing as a part of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra’s SuperPops! Series, which is something fewer people can lay claim to.

“People have a really deep connection, especially over the last 40 years, to these movies and what they mean,” she said. "It kind of unites everyone, as far as you could be 20 or you could be 80, and you’re a Bond fan.”

She first performed a version of the James Bond show with the Charleston Symphony, and when she realized how much the audience connected to it (and how much fun she had) she wanted to do more. She developed a new arrangement with the arranger, wrote all of the in-between segments (she shares facts about the franchise and actor throughout the show) and started performing it.

“I’m always looking for new, fun things,” she said. “To me, it’s always my job to entertain the people who are coming, but to do it at the highest musical level possible.”

Her favorite part, she said, is getting to sing so many different kinds of music over the course of one show, from Louis Armstrong to Shirley Bassey to Adele.

“You have 60 years of some of the biggest starts in the world kind of giving their talent to the Bond franchise,” she said. “The truth is, it really is all about the music.”

The Music of James Bond will be performed by the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, with Scott Terrell conducting and Hilary Kole on vocals. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28 and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 29, both at the Tucson Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are available on the TSO website for $15 to $78.