The leader of the "Free Hugs" movement is coming to Tucson tomorrow, and he hopes you'll be there waiting to get a hug. 

For the past seven years, Montreal-native Arié Moyal has been spending the holiday season traveling across the U.S. and Canada, spreading some much-needed love.

"Financial difficulties, family issues, seasonal affective disorder and social isolation make the holidays particularly stressful for many people, and sometimes the smallest things—like a hug—can make the biggest difference," Moyal said in a statement. “I want to inspire others to spread some joy, and to know that doing small things can make a big difference in their communities.”

“The act of hugging lays the biological and structure for connection to other people. We need that more today than ever before," he added.

This time around, Moyal, founder of "Hug Train," made 30 stops in a trip that was scheduled to take nearly one month. The trips are funded through donations from friends, a crowd-funding campaign, and money Moyal saves throughout the year. 

Moyal will be in town Tuesday, Dec. 29 at the Amtrak station downtown, 400 N. Toole Ave., from 6:45 p.m. to 7:35 p.m. His train will depart at 7:35 p.m., headed to California.

Robots! Books! Sea Monkeys! Local art! This is where we're shopping today. Brighten someone's holiday season and shop local with a visit to perennial Best of Tucson winner  Yike's Toys, 2930 E. Broadway. 

We spent the evening at @willyouescape, Tucson's first live escape room. We made it out with 25 seconds on the clock. Phew. #willyouescape #liveescaperooms #realtucson

A photo posted by Tucson Weekly (@tucsonweekly) on Dec 11, 2015 at 5:48pm PST

Last time we checked in with Nicolette Cusick, she had just opened Will You Escape?, Tucson's first live escape room.

Apparently that went pretty well because Cusick has since quit her day job, put together a new room for Tucson mystery-solvers and opened a second location in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Let's start with what's new here in the Old Pueblo: The Secret Agent Room. Cusick invited us back to try out the new mystery:

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE

THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR A TOP SECRET MISSION.

The devastating news of Donna Williams death came as a shock to the country. Our investigators have pinpointed the man behind the crime but we are in need of your services again.

Agent Q, our top secret agent at WYE, has disappeared after being suspected of the deadly crime in Hollywood. She has hidden her location somewhere in her office. It is up to your team of agents to pinpoint her location.

We must warn you though. Upon leaving her office, our agent set a bomb to go off in approximately 60 minutes from the time you enter. The code to defuse the bomb is on a hidden in the room.

The change in theme satisfies the one critique I offered last time: narrative.

In both renditions of the game, you're turning the room inside out to find the clues and keys that will help get through the (billions of) locks around the room. When we went through the Hollywood Room, the last lock we opened had the answer of the mystery we were trying to solve written on a piece of paper. Um, the dead lady didn't have time to hide that and I really doubt the murderer would want to. I understand why that was a more practical ending than trying to evaluate the suspects, motives and weapons, but it felt a little too artificial. Fun, but not like I was the next Monk. 

This challenge is entirely overcome in the Secret Agent room, where you can't claim victory until you pin point Agent Q's location, defuse the bomb and shred the information. The "bomb," which Cusick had built by a local computer guru, adds a satisfying ending (a true moment of triumph) to the detective work. 

Several local organizations are partnering up to distribute tampons and sanitary napkins to women throughout Pima County living in poverty.

Many women and girls in this community cannot even go to work or school when they get their period, because they cannot afford these products—which are quiet expensive, are taxed by state and local governments as "luxury" items, and not covered by food stamps. "This is both a health and economic issue," the YWCA says in a press release.

Project Period—to be launched by the YWCA of Southern Arizona tomorrow, Dec. 9, plans to tackle this issue starting next month, and they need you to donate feminine hygiene products. 

A statement to the media by Kelly Fryer, CEO of the YWCA:

This is an economic and equity issue that hinders the efforts of many women to provide for themselves and their families. It encumbers young women from getting to school and keeps them from their education—an education that will help them escape poverty. Project Period is a way to step up as a whole community—men and women both—to address this pressing problem.

Donations of sanitary napkins of all sizes, tampons, and reusable menstrual cups will be accepted at the YWCA's Frances McClelland Community Center, 525 N. Bonita Ave., starting tomorrow. Other locations will be announced in January. The launch event is taking place tomorrow at the YWCA as well, from 10 to 10:30 a.m.

Emerge! Center for Domestic Abuse, Primavera Foundation, Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network, and the Southern Arizona Community Food Bank are among the groups involved in the effort. 

Logs can poop gifts! Who knew?

Press release of the day is from Tucson's Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum and includes this detail:

Unique to the event is the Traditional Tio' de Nadal of Catalonia ("Pooping Log"), a Catalan tradition dating back several centuries. Beginning with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), the family brings a tio' (log) into the house, covers it with a blanket so he will not be cold and feeds it every night until Christmas Day. On Christmas Day the children continuously hit it with a stick while they sing a song so it will poop gifts (usually treats). If the child has been good, they get treats. If they were bad, it poops sardines. Hence the name Caga Tio' (Poop Log). Children (and children at heart) attending Luminaria Night will be able to hit the log to see if they were good or bad this year!

Here's the whole release, for the Living History Luminaria Night coming up this Saturday, Dec. 12:

Legendary erotica photographer Eric Kroll is presenting a show tomorrow night featuring the work of Nam June Paik, as well as Kroll's own photos of Paik. 

Kroll explains Paik's influence on him:

When I was a young man in Manhattan taking photographs of anything that moved, for myself and for anyone that would publish the images, I accidently intersected with Nam June Paik. He changed how I did what I did in photography by showing me aka teaching me, the importance of including absurdity in my work. I shot for him, worked with him, from the mid-seventies to when I moved to San Francisco in 1994. That experience unlocked the door to everything I try to do.

John HanHardt gives us a glimpse of Paik's influence on media arts:

The wide presence of the media arts in contemporary culture is in no small measure due to the power of Paik's art and ideas. Through television projects, installations, performances, collaborations, development of new artists' tools, writing, and teaching, he has contributed to the creation of a media culture that has expanded the definitions and languages of art making.

Paik's life in art grew out of the politics and anti-art movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. During this time of societal and cultural change, he pursued a determined quest to combine the expressive capacity and conceptual power of performance with the new technological possibilities associated with the moving image.

I will argue that Paik realized the ambition of the cinematic imaginary in avant-garde and independent film by treating film and video as flexible and dynamic multitextual art forms. Using television, as well as the modalities of singlechannel videotape and sculptural/installation formats, he imbued the electronic moving image with new meanings. Paik's investigations into video and television and his key role in transforming the electronic moving image into an artist's medium are part of the history of the media arts. 

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at downtown's Exploded View gallery, 197 E. Toole Ave. More info here.

Having a tough time getting into the holiday spirit? Get your hands on some whisky (it doesn't have to be the one in this 45 minute advertisement), an arm chair and a fireplace and stare into Nick Offerman's eyes for almost an hour. Then try and tell me you're not feeling jolly. 

There are still a few hours left into this Giving Tuesday—how about investing in a locally-founded project that hopes to give Tucson's thousands of homeless residents a place to sleep and store their things.

Community Supported Shelters Tucson came to be in the summer of 2013 thanks to a group of advocates, which includes long-time homeless activist Michele Ream, who work with homeless people in trying to find housing, shelter, re-issue IDs, etc. It began as a movement to "engage the community in addressing the critical need for basic shelter and security" for our community members experiencing homelessness, and who are ineligible for a shelter bed, for instance, because they do not have an ID, and who aren't allowed to sit on a sidewalk or park to rest.

From those issues came the idea of building huts that could be placed at churches, private residences, and so on, where people could sit, sleep and temporarily live.

From the project's Go Fund Me page:

Much as we suspected, we have found the “hut” model works exceptionally well, especially for those that do not have options within the current limited framework of shelter and housing services in our community. Huts are able to meet their needs in a super cost effective and humane manner. They can bring basic shelter, security and stability to our community members who have no other options. Most importantly this is what the homeless folks I work with are saying they want and need. Community Supported Shelters Tucson is being modeled after already successful programs in cities such as Eugene, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin. 

Your donation will help the nonprofit (the project got its nonprofit status back in January):

- Design and build a standardized prototype that can be used to educate the community about the concept of Homeless Huts, which is approaching completion. 

- Design and build a custom Hut out of alternative materials to serve as a model and residence for a currently homeless individual

- Purchase several power tools (table saw, compound miter saw, drill) to facilitate building

- Purchase promo items (stickers and t-shirts) to help get the word out about what we are doing

The organization plans to host an open house in December so that people can check out what's been developed thus far.

To donate, visit the project's Go Fund Me page.

So, you want to be famous. Well, get your act together because America's Got Talent is on the hunt for new contestants.

From KXCI:

KXCI 91.3FM Community Radio and The Rialto Theatre are hosting a Gong Show style talent search in downtown Tucson at The Rialto Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 28.

The first 100 performers through the door are guaranteed an audition in front of talented and influential judges including, David Fitzsimmons; Editorial Cartoonist for the Arizona Daily Star, Cathy Rivers; Music Manager and Executive Director for 91.3 FM, Bridgitte Thum; Comedian, hostess for KXCI Community Radio and Founder of “The Lonely Hearts Club” Podcast, Rusty Boulet-Stephenson; Art Director and host of “The Current” on 91.3FM and more!

Four winners of “Gong Show” will snag a fast pass to the front of the line for the Season 11 auditions for America's Got Talent in Phoenix on Dec. 3.

Music, Comedy, Dancing, Juggling, Under-water Basket Weaving! The stage is set and ready for you.

Doors are at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m.

This "fast pass" doesn't sound quite as good as the ones you can get at Disney Land, but it's something. Nov. 28 is this weekend (which is ridiculous because wasn't June basically yesterday?) so get going on your, uh, underwater basket weaving. 

There is a protest in Tucson Thursday afternoon over Gov. Doug Ducey's recent comments on Syrian refugees.  

On Monday Ducey—and more than a dozen more governors from around the country—said he does not want new refugees to resettle in Arizona. He also called on Congress and President Obama to "immediately amend federal law to provide states greater oversight and authority in the administration of the placement of refugees."

"These acts serve as a reminder that the world remains at war with radical Islamic terrorists. Our national leaders must react with the urgency and leadership that every American expects to protect our citizens," he said in a prepared statement earlier in the week. 

Needless to say there was some heated backlash, prompting demonstrations, such as the one the Tucson Anti-War Committee is leading Thursday at 4:30 p.m., outside the State of Arizona Building, 400 W. Congress St. 

"By claiming he will refuse Syrian refugees, AZ Gov. Doug Ducey is not only threatening to violate Federal law but also threatening the lives of the existing Syrian refugee population here in Arizona and all Muslims and Arabs," the group says on Facebook. "Thanks to reactionary politicians like Ducey, Russell Pearce, and John Huppenthal and policies like HB 2281 and SB 1070, Arizona already has a climate of racism, hatred, and bigotry. This has provided the conditions for other forms of bigotry such as the white supremacist protest outside a mosque in Phoenix."

"We Tucsonans will not stand for this hatred and bigotry as this governor attempts to go rogue against Federal law, UN Human Rights, and common human decency," the group adds. "We will demand the Ducey and all the other racist Governors follow Federal law and peacefully admit refugees from all areas, most urgently from war-torn Syria."

For more information, visit the protest's Facebook page.