LET THE FIRE BURN official theatrical trailer. from Jason Osder on Vimeo.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, Jan. 20, get to the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., to see Let the Fire Burn, a powerful award-winning documentary on the racist maneuvering, shooting and bombing of a Philadelphia neighborhood block by police in an attempt to end the existence of the organization MOVE. The film starts at 5 p.m. and is FREE.

From filmmakers:

In the astonishingly gripping Let the Fire Burn, director Jason Osder has crafted that rarest of cinematic objects: a found-footage film that unfurls with the tension of a great thriller. On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and controversial radical urban group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied rowhouse. TV cameras captured the conflagration that quickly escalated—and resulted in the tragic deaths of eleven people (including five children) and the destruction of 61 homes. It was only later discovered that authorities decided to “...let the fire burn.” Using only archival news coverage and interviews, first-time filmmaker Osder has brought to life one of the most tumultuous and largely forgotten clashes between government and citizens in modern American history.

You remember our community collectively talking about mental illness after the mass shooting on Jan. 8, 2011. You remember discussions on the need for more resources, better care and better recognition. At Our Place Clubhouse, a downtown space, part of what we said we wanted to do as a community has been happening there since the 1980s. People, your friends, family and neighbors are recovering and healing from mental illness by volunteering and regaining confidence to gain a vision for where they want to be the rest of their lives.

Last year I wrote a cover story on a writing group at Our Place led by board member Sheila Wilensky, a Tucson writer, editor and teacher. The eventual goal of the group was to put together a chapbook of the members' writing, with a focus on reflections on mental illness. Tonight you have an opportunity to celebrate the labor of these writers and the work of Our Place Clubhouse at an open house, from 5 to 7 p.m. at 66 E. Pennington St. The night, catered by Cafe 54, is a celebration and a chance to purchase the chapbook , A Certain Slant of Light: Emerging from the Shadows of Mental Illness, published by the organization. The books costs $12.95 and all proceeds benefit Our Place.

Need more reasons to go? KXCI's Amanda Shauger did a wonderful interview with Wilensky and some of the writers. You can give a listen here.

Go, buy the book, support the work of Our Place Clubhouse and celebrate what many writers know is true—writing is healing. Here's a group that offers us proof and also makes feel blessed to call these writers fellow Tucsonans. Keep in mind, as everyone in Tucson struggled to understand what took place after the Jan. 8 shooting, writers in Wilensky's group lamented on misconceptions of those with mental illness and how to challenge those perceptions.

Wilensky's explains more in her press release for the event:

Misconceptions about mental illness abound. A few weeks after the Jan. 8, 2011, Tucson shooting, an Our Place Clubhouse member asked, “What is it with people? Why do they think that anyone with a mental illness may pull out a gun anytime and indiscriminately start shooting?”

The question stuck with local writer, editor, and educator Sheila Wilensky. She is a board member of Coyote Task Force, which includes Cafe 54 and Our Place Clubhouse. The Clubhouse, says Wilensky, “is a safe place, a caring community of people in recovery from mental illness.”

In September 2012, Wilensky started the Thursday Writing Group at the Clubhouse with the intention of confronting those misconceptions and producing a chapbook to help educate the public about those misconceptions.

“A Certain Slant of Light: Emerging from the Shadows of Mental Illness” is the result of that collaboration. Five chapters from “Any Morning, or A ‘Normal Day,’” to “Take Heart, The Times They Are a-Changin’,” highlight the voices of individuals living with mental illness, and are accompanied by Wilensky’s commentary.

The movie Charlie Countryman has been getting a little more attention because of some recent tweets by actress Evan Rachel Wood, who has been chiding the Motion Picture Association of America, the mysterious organization that determines how movies are rated. In order to go from an NC-17 rating to an R-rating, film director Frederik Bond took out a scene in which Wood receives oral sex from co-star Shia LaBeouf.

Wood says the obvious:

After seeing the new cut of #CharlieCountryman I would like 2 share my disappointment with the MPAA, who thought it was necessary to...
— Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood) November 27, 2013

...censor a womans sexuality once again. The scene where the two main characters make "love" was altered because someone felt that seeing...
— Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood) November 27, 2013

...a man give a woman oral sex made people "uncomfortable" but the scenes in which people are murdered by having their heads blown off...
— Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood) November 27, 2013

LumiNight! 2013 on Saturday, Dec. 21, from 5 to 9 p.m., evening of the winter solstice. Makes complete sense—bring some light and make some light the longest and darkest night of the year. According to Sander's event page on Facebook "LumiNight is a DIY wintertime celebration that we make up as we go: a bit of costumed lantern parading through the neighborhoods, a bit of knocking on doors of total strangers, a bit of surprising hapless passersby in the streets with little gifties. All this and more ..."

All for it. The plan is to start with a potluck meal in a public space, bring some canned food for the Food Bank and then. Costumes will be involved and small handmade gift sharing (to strangers), and light.

To begin helping Moldy Pueblo folks get in the mood, today, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Armory Park, (and next Saturday, Dec. 14, from 1 to 4 p.m.), Tucson artist Mykl Wells and others will share lantern-making techniques. There are heaps of cardboard available today and some cutting took, tacky glue and floral wire.

However, if you have extra cardboard, bring it. If you attended any of Wells' All Souls workshops, then you're familiar with the style of lanterns you'll learn to make—but this time for solstice. But here are other essentials needed for lantern-making that Sanders and Wells are asking you to bring. Paper or fabric to put in the lantern windows; tape, masking or packing; straight edges or squares; pencils; and snap blade knives (the larger size you can get at Ace or the Dollar Tree or 3 for a $1 at Dollar Tree but the ones from Ace last longer). Optional items: hot glue sticks and hot glue guns; safety razors (good for trimming paper and fabric); scissors (there will be a few pair on hand but if you can bring from home, so much the better); opaque paints, brushes, stuff to decorate the lantern; LED lights to light your lantern (can be bought at Dollar Store); and batteries for your light.

OK, so first the Dollar Store, your neighborhood ally picking up cardboard and then Armory Park. See you there.

• John de Dios

Be sure to stop by and check out the Indian Art Fair happening at the Whistle Stop Depot on, 127 W 5th St, Sunday, Dec. 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance is $5 and you can go in and out at your leisure. There are plenty of art pieces for sale, trinkets and Indian Fry Bread.

It's fun, check it out - but bring cash!

Visit or like their page on Facebook here.

• The Potted Desert
• Winter Color Simply Stated

When it comes to changing out the annual color in that many pots, it became costly twice a year. There are also many perennial plants, shrubs and trees that I enjoy so my thought was to combine a central plant in many pots with seasonal plantings. When it comes time to repot the flowers, I do not have to purchase as many and the budget is a little easier to bear.

Getting smarter still, I created some pots in my groupings as single statement plants and some with succulents. That decision is a savings measure too — both in the cost of replacement plants and in lessening water needs as the succulents do not have to be on an irrigation drip line.

With the fall and winter season upon us, it is time to improve our potted gardens. We want to refresh those with flowers, enrich the soil for all plantings and create a tremendous impact of living art. For any Snowbirds returning to your desert home, now is the time to support the reason why you leave your snow covered grass for Arizona.

Make note too - the desert climate changes from daytime temperatures of 110+ to nights of 30-45 degrees. Your choices for plantings will need to take these variations into consideration. As our sun shifts from a northern angle in the summer, moving more southerly now, plants that were getting a lot of sun will not get as much sun in the winter. Conversely, plantings on the more northern side of the house, will be in complete shade in the winter. You need to note where your winter sun is so that plants that do well in the shade are not blasted with the desert rays.

Here's a beast of a different color.

For all Tucson fashion fiends and music buffs- there's an event for you at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 9th at Plush Tucson, 340 East Sixth Avenue.

• C. Elliott
• Howe Gelb, Brian Lopez, Gabriel Sullivan

We love it when arts converge! Continents, politics ... even better. So we dispatched C. Elliott to bring you photographs of a French-flavored graphic novel's debut set in a concert by some of Tucson's most Tucson-y musicians: Howe Gelb, of course, plus Gabriel Sullivan, Brian Lopez, William Sedlmayr and Chris Black.