Foothills News, May 12, 2021

New album commemorates the transitional nature of Southern Arizona | Page 6 • MOCA features exhibit of reclaimed T-shirts | Page 8

FOOTHILLS NEWS May 12, 2021 • Volume 11 • Number 9 • www.TucsonLocalMedia.com

Rock Rebirth Sen. Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords visit Rialto to highlight shuttered venue grants| Page 4

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The Loft Reopens! It’s been almost 14 months since Tucson’s most beloved movie theater stopped doing indoor screenings, and now they’re back! “Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street” is first on the roster, and tells the story behind the creation of the children’s TV show. It made its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, and now it gets to make its Tucson premiere here.

For now, they’re only doing screenings in the Loft’s main auditorium, seating capacity is reduced, mask-wearing is mandatory and seating must be reserved. And if that’s what it takes to get back into a movie theater, watching the lights dim and holding a popcorn container in your lap, sign us up! The Loft,

Foothills News, May 12, 2021

3233 E. Speedway Blvd. GA is $7.50 for matinee and $10 for evening. See loftcinema. org for more details on other showtimes.

Honor, Courage, Commitment: Marine Corps Art Exhibit. You might not always think about Marine Corps members as artists, but, of course, artists take many shapes. This traveling exhibit by the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and National Museum of the Marine Corps features 36 works of art by 15 combat artists, focusing on Marine Corps service from immediately after the Vietnam War through to more recent years. It’s traveling across the country until mid-

Desert To-Dos

2023, and will be at the Pima Air & Space Museum for a few months. You don’t want to miss it before it leaves at the end of August.

On display at the Pima Air and Space Museum, 6000 E. Valencia Road. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

Included with museum admission.

The Tortoise and the Hare. It’s hard to think of a more iconic fable than this one. Live Theatre Workshop’s Children’s Theatre is honoring the story while also putting their own twist on it. The setting: Camp Wagamaroon, a sports camp run by Rhoda the raccoon.

The main characters: Juanita Jackrabbit and Tuggle Tortoise, who are

getting limited training from Rhoda (she’s not only scatterbrained, but is actually nocturnal, limiting training time options). This family friendly original musical features original music by Michael Martinez, choreography by Simone Jolivet and directorship by Ericka Quintero Heras. This is a drive-in show. Through May 23. 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. Live Theatre Workshop, 3322 E. Fort Lowell Road. $30 GA or $40 to $45 for admission with snack packs.

The show includes more than 50 original pieces by the Art Institute’s students, in mediums including mosaic, oil, scratchboard and photography. Each of them aims to reflect and interpret the unique beauty of the Southwest desert.

The show also features portfolios from two Nature Certificate Graduates, Scott Adams and Karen Nealon. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays.

On display through May 16. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Art Institute, 2021 Art Institute Spring N. Kinney Road. Entrance Student Exhibit. Are you to exhibit included with familiar with the Arizona- museum admission.

Sonora Desert Museum Art Institute? This show is Tempera Paintings of a good way to get familiar! Ted DeGrazia. In a crazy,

unpredictable world, one thing we can rely on is tempera paintings. This techniques involves colored pigments mixed with a binder—traditionally egg yolk. And they’re super long-lasting: There are tempera paintings intact from the first century AD. Come check out DeGrazia’s unique twist on this ancient medium, which he explored in 1959 and 1960. As usual, he has a way of bringing images to life with his use of color and brushstrokes. This exhibit is on display through Sept. 1 at the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun Museum, 6300 N. Swan. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily and adult admission is $8.

—By Emily Dieckman

Foothills News

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Foothills News, May 12, 2021

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Foothills News, May 12, 2021

Sen. Kelly highlights shuttered venue grants Christina Duran Tucson Local Media

S

en. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz) visited the Rialto Theatre this week to highlight federal funding designed to get local music venues open again.

The federal government allocated more than $16.2 billion to the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant for live venues, live performing arts organizations, museums and movie theatres, as well as live venue promoters, theatrical producers and talent representatives.

But when the small Business Administration opened the portal for the first-come, first-serve program on April 8, the demand from venue owners and other eligible participants crashed the system. Two weeks later, Kelly and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz) joined many of their Democratic colleagues to send a letter to SBA urging them to reopen the application portal before “more independent businesses are forced to shutter permanently or file for bankruptcy.” SBA announced it would reopen the portal on April 24 and the Rialto Theatre was one of the venues that applied for funding.

“We’ve got 550,000 small businesses in the state of Arizona, many of which have been closed for a long period of time, through no fault of their own. Venues like the Rialto are a lot different than a restaurant. Restaurants, many of them, are open and in business, reduced capacity, but they can generate

some revenue,” said Kelly.

“A Tucson icon like the Rialto or the Fox Theatre down the street or the Van Buren in Phoenix, I mean so many of these places have been closed for over a year now, and these are valuable small businesses. So the purpose of the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant is to make sure that these businesses can get open and provide these good jobs that hundreds of thousands of Arizonans depend upon.”

The Rialto Theatre, like other venues, closed since last March and had to cancel shows and events. Rialto Operations Manager Mark Martinez said they need the help as they have gone a year without any income, but continue to pay a mortgage and also have staff waiting for the reopening.

With the venue closed, Martinez said they had to let go of more than 100 full- and part-time staff members.

“They’re waiting patiently, hoping that we can get back here,” said Martinez, who expects the Rialto Theatre will open up again in the fall. “We can’t wait either.”

Kelly and his wife, Gabby Giffords, are no strangers to the Rialto. They reminisced about their favorite shows seeing acts like Calexico and Snoop Dogg as they strolled around the Rialto Theatre Gallery Project before its opening day on Friday, May 7. One of the only events the Rialto has offered since closing its doors at the start of the pandemic, the gallery showcases the photos of the many acts that have graced

the Rialto’s stage by C. Elliott and Martinez, along with concert posters by Ryan Trayte.

Kelly and Giffords, a regular Rialto show goer since she was a kid, said the community would not be the same if businesses like the Rialto were to close.

“Tucson would be a much lesser place if the Rialto or Fox were not able to remain in business,” said Kelly. “It really is an important part of what brings us together as neighbors and to have the opportunity to enjoy a venue like this is one of those things that makes places like Tucson really special.”

Martinez hopes the venue will “let people know that we’re still here, we’re not going away and just to show a little bit of history because all the photos here were created here in the theater, and it’s a history that brings back memories for people.”

KELLY VISITS CBP TENT FACILITY On his visit to Tucson, Kelly toured the tent facility for undocumented minors in Tucson, which opened Friday.

The “soft-side facility” constructed in the Tucson Sector, mobilized at a projected budget of $34.5 million, will hold people while undergoing processing, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Kelly, who visited the site on Monday morning, said the site is currently holding around 50 unaccompanied minors, with possibility of holding 150 and, if not for

Courtesy Photo

“Tucson would be a much lesser place if the Rialto or Fox were not able to remain in business,” said Kelly. “It really is an important part of what brings us together as neighbors and to have the opportunity to enjoy a venue like this is one of those things that makes places like Tucson really special.”

COVID-19, “maybe 500.”

“It’s part of the process we’re going through right now to make sure the Border Patrol has what it needs to handle this crisis at the border,” said Kelly. According to Kelly, Border Patrol has a challenging job, but “they did a good job thinking through what they needed to support these kids.”

As someone who has visited the southern border multiple times and speaks with Border Patrol on a regular basis and spoke with Interim Chief Patrol Agent John R. Modlin Monday morning, Kelly feels he understands the difficulties CBP face.

“Just hear about the challenges they face. It’s a difficult challenge, the numbers are up right now. They’re trying to make the best decision they can with the resources they have,” said Kelly.

According to Kelly, Border Patrol will have 262

additional staff from the northern border to “provide some relief in the office, to allow Border Patrol agents to get out in the field to be able to do their jobs.”

Kelly said he feels “a little bit better” about how they’re handling the processing of children, with children to be held for a maximum of 48 hours.

However, Tucson Ward 6 Council Member Steve Kozachik, who assists Casa Alitas, the migrant welcome center that provides short-term housing for asylum seekers, feels the tented facility is “an absolute waste of money.”

“What we are doing right now is we’re putting families up in some hotels here locally and we’re scratching and clawing to get reimbursed for the money that we’re coming out of pocket on,” said Kozachik. “We can do it in a more humane way, using some of our local partners and hotels here.”

To this criticism, Kelly

said he and Sinema recently passed legislation that allotted $110 million to reimburse NGOs for the costs involved in housing migrants. He is referring to the additional funding FEMA awarded to the National Board for the Emergency Food and Shelter Program through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 in midMarch.

“It’s up to Washington D.C., not communities in Arizona,” said Kelly. “Let me make that really clear, the federal government has failed the state of Arizona on this issue for decades now and it’s on Washington to get this right. It needs stronger border security, more technology at the border. Border Patrol needs the staffing to do this job. Also a positive development would be if we had more judges at the border. I’d like to see that happen. So we’ve seen some improvements, but we can’t get our eye off the ball. ”

Foothills News, May 12, 2021

Flowing Wells valedictorian headed to Stanford Jeff Gardner Tucson Local Media

F

lowing Wells valedictorian Syahmi Ali Mohd remembers walking home from school in third grade, planning out what he’d say from the graduation podium should he grow up to become a valedictorian.

And though he eventually achieved the title, Mohd says becoming valedictorian was never a long term goal.

“It’s kind of surreal to think about that now,” Mohd said. “But ‘valedictorian’ has just been me trying my best. I try not to compare myself to other people.”

Despite it not being a lifelong goal, he admits he wasn’t too surprised to become valedictorian, because of his longtime academic achievements, including being in all Advanced Placement classes and being a full math grade ahead of his peers.

“His mom was extremely excited when we called her,” said Flowing Wells principal Jim Brunenkant.

“She sounded surprised, but I don’t think she was.

But she was very happy.”

Despite his success in the classroom, Mohd also found time for multiple extracurriculars, including soccer, academic decathlon, and Interact club—but he most enjoyed school theater, which he did for multiple years, including

roles in multiple musicals.

“I was just happier while doing theater, it made me more optimistic for school,” Mohd said. “For me, theater was a nice escape from the school environment while still being school. It kept my spirits up.”

According to a Flowing Wells release, Mohd’s high scores on the PSAT and ACT (along with his general grades) caught the attention of the national nonprofit Questbridge, which connects “students from low-income backgrounds with leading institutions of higher education.” Ultimately, Mohd landed a full-ride scholarship to Stanford University, his first choice for higher education.

Mohd plans to study bioengineering, but wants to keep his options open, because he also wanted to be a doctor growing up.

“I actually opened up a second-grade time capsule that my mom gave me, and it said I wanted to be a doctor,” Mohd said. “And I thought ‘Wow, I didn’t know I wanted to be one for that long.’ But I do want to keep my options really open. So I’m doing engineering, which my parents encouraged. But if I don’t look as optimistic in the medical field, I can also go into chemical or electrical engineering, and also so I can go into research.”

Mohd received research experience during his multiple years at the Summer

Institute on Medical Ignorance at the University of Arizona’s Banner hospital. The program, run in tandem with UA Health Sciences, aims to enrich student education and general health literacy beyond classroom lectures, while also forming relationships between teachers, students and medical professionals.

Although Mohd’s valedictorian dreams date back to elementary school, he doesn’t plan on reciting what he thought of on that walk home from school years ago. He originally planned to mention that moment in third grade, as a kind of meta speech.

But he’s opted to speak on deeper parts of his life. After all, as Mohd puts it, he simply wasn’t as thoughtful as an 8-year-old.

“I’m going to talk about being genuine and going out of your comfort zone.

If you stay the same person freshman year to senior year, that’s not really a good thing. I think there should be a lot of growth during that time. This is a developmental stage for your mind, body, spirit and personality.

It’s a time to gather your beliefs,” Mohd said. “Know when to admit you’re wrong. With society nowadays, there’s a stigma in admitting you’re wrong, like you’re suddenly dumb if you want to ask a question.

I say ignore all that. You’ll be so much more liked and open to opportunity if you can say you were wrong.”

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F N, M , 

Keith Allen Dennis commemorates the transitional nature of Southern Arizona on new album J G Tucson Local Media

B

isbee is located roughly 10 miles from the Mexican border, but a stroll through its colorful architecture and storied downtown proves the city is influenced by much more than governmental transitions. On his latest album “Liminal,” musician Keith Allen Dennis traces the transitional nature of Bisbee’s history, culture, spirituality—and yes, geography—in a musical style he calls “mystic blues.”

The musical style, with influence from folk and psychedelia, stems from a lyrical emphasis on the metaphysical, periods of “creative illness” and a healthy dose of experimentation—all held together with a 12-string blues playing style inspired

by Delta greats.

Dennis began writing the songs for Liminal in 2015, concurrent with a growing interest in spirituality and rumblings of political change on the horizon. The album’s conception continued into 2020, so there are references to quarantine, but it is far from one-note.

Dennis and fellow Bisbee musician Stuart Oliver began recording the album in February 2020 as global upheaval neared its apex. But despite this, Liminal makes room for quiet reflection, and even a bona fide love ballad.

“You know Bisbee is my home, it’s where I really hit my stride as a human being, in my ‘Jesus year’ of 33. I was couch surfing in Tucson before I snagged a job here, basically homeless and it’s been a long, slow climb out of all that,” Dennis said. “In my own little world I live in, the Mule Mountains are the omphalos, the place where heaven and earth meet, and so much of my music is about the heavens. But you know heaven implies earth, which implies heaven, etc. They’re one of those binaries, there’s that boundary between the two, and to cross it you gotta go to the ‘high places’ where they touch.”

One such “high place” is featured on the album’s cover art: the iconic “B Mountain” that rises above the city’s main drag. The mountain is even featured on the cover of his previous album, also titled “Mystic Blues.”

“Liminal” opens with “Twilight Zone,” a blues song in the grooving desert style that sees Dennis reflecting on quarantine and political division, singing how left is right and black is white, all while mixing red pills and blue bills into purple lines. The most overtly timely song on the album, it’s also the most familiar for fans of Arizona folk/rock.

This style changes on the erratic song “Wikiup,” which features a jerking central melody, percussion of handclaps and clacking background instruments, and some of Dennis’ wildest vocals on the album—a fitting style for a song named after raggedy brushwood huts.

But after the energetic opening songs, “Liminal” transitions into a more mellow and lush direction.

Rather than commenting on current politics and the “border militarized zone,” Dennis reflects on nature and the stories filling the land around him.

“There’s ‘Haunted,’ which is about the paranormal, ghosttour industry you find in so many of these little mining towns like Bisbee, or Jerome,” Dennis said. “Towns built in that dreamtime of ‘American greatness’ when the empire was ascendant, and now the places where tourists and TV crews go to engage in this sort of pop-necromancy trying to catch a glimpse through the veil separating living and dead, and doing it in these small mining towns which usually carry the whiff of the semi-abandoned ‘ghost town’ in their architecture and their declining populations— again, a place where the loss or change in status is literally part of the landscape.”

The central track, “Eventide,” is a gorgeous representation of day to night—again with the transitions—with a steady frame drum beat, subtle shakers, and a warm slide string guitar backing. Anyone who’s spent a dusk in the Sonoran Desert should be able to hear the

purples and oranges flowing from this romantic song that finds beauty on both sides of a division.

“It is in those in-between spaces, those liminal spaces, where the divine comes into manifestation. So maybe dividing everything up is Jehovah’s way of giving himself some breathing room to actually do what he does—and since there’s no pantheon, no ‘division of labor’ in monotheism, well, Jehovah wears all the hats: wrathful judge, merciful redeemer and trickster. For us mortals though, it gives us a chance to do the ‘great work’ of healing and reconciling those divisions,” Dennis said.

“I think it was T-Bone Burnett that said all songwriting comes down to mommy issues or daddy issues, and the ‘Heretic’s Song’ definitely falls in the latter camp.”

“Heretic’s Song” is a seven-minute folk epic that closes out “Liminal,” rife with Biblical references, existential ponderings, and some of the most passionate guitarwork on the album.

It’s a far cry from the quirkiness of “Wikiup” or the close country harmonies of “Stay With Me,” indicating a true journey across the titu-

lar threshold by way of the mystic blues.

“In my reckoning, the difference between magic and mysticism is that the former is something that one would do willfully, and the latter is something that happens to you whether you like it or not. And I guess for some people, you know, maniacs and what not, when you go through those changes they can be accompanied by some paranormal episodes, synchronicities popping off all over the place, a dire need to metabolize all the pain into some sort of personal mythology or allegory just to make it make sense and to try to navigate your way back to solid ground. I mean, the root of all myth is trauma, right?” Dennis said. “William Blake said, ‘The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.’ Not gonna lay claim to any great wisdom, but I will say in my case Humpty Dumpty did indeed put himself back together again.”

For more information and to listen, visit KeithAllenDennis. bandcamp.com or OldBisbeeRecords.com

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F N, M , 

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Foothills News, May 12, 2021

MOCA-Tucson features exhibit of reclaimed T-shirts

Margaret Regan

PIA CAMIL: THREE WORKS

Special to Tucson Local Media

D

uring the last few weeks, when the evening sky starts to dim, a downtown building has been beaming out gorgeous colors into the streets: magenta, pink, green, yellow, royal red.

The nightly light show comes through the big glass doors of MOCA-Tucson contemporary art museum.

But the source of this rainbow beauty, astonishingly, is a batch of tossed out T-shirts.

Inside the museum’s enormous Great Hall, the shirts— brilliantly dyed and sewn together into giant tarps— dangle from the ceiling. Tethered to ship rigging, they shift and sail high above the gallery.

In honor of the T-shirts’ lowly origins, the artist, Pia Camil of Mexico City, calls the work “Bara, Bara, Bara,” the chant used by Mexican street vendors. It’s short for “barato,” Spanish for “cheap.”

Part painting, part soft sculpture, this bold fiber work is visually dazzling and intellectually intense. “Bara” has entirely taken over the Great Hall, once a garage for mammoth fire trucks, back when the building was a fire station. It’s big enough to house her immense, three-part installation.

Below the swinging “Bara,” there’s a floor component, the “Autonomous Space Rug,” where visitors can sit or lie down and gaze up at the color canopy. The carpeting came from a remnant outlet in Phoenix, and Camil designed its swirling patterns.

A third piece of the installation, “Air Out Your Dirty Laundry,” is outside on the museum’s front patio. Instead

Through Sept. 19 MOCA-Tucson, 265 S. Church Ave. Noon to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday; noon to 4 p.m.

Sunday Free during pandemic 624-5019 moca-tucson.org EXTRA: Starting in early May, you can participate in the installation two ways. You can apply to MOCA for a mini-grant to use the carpet space temporarily for your own event—book club, dancing, etc. And you can join the Laundry piece outside by donating a piece of clothing, recording a story about that shirt or jeans garment and allowing it to fly high in the sky on the laundry line. See website for details.

Installation view, Pia Camil: Three Works (Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, April 10 – September 19, 2021). Photograph by Logan Havens. Courtesy the artist; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/ New York/ Tokyo; Museum of over time. The way the sails do something that they CAN work they look different in do during the pandemic,” Contemporary Art Tucson. of a flag blowing in the breeze on the outdoor flag pole, old shirts and jeans flutter on a laundry line. Locals are invited to donate old clothes of their own to fly on the laundry line.

They can also apply to use the rug as a place to conduct socially distanced books clubs or other events.

The work is beautiful and even joyful. But it levels a critique of consumption, labor exploitation and the environmental destruction wrought by the manufacture of clothing, especially the use of dyes and way too much water. It’s estimated that it takes some 713 gallons of water to make one T-shirt, from cotton field to factory to final washing. Those gallons would be enough drinking water to sate one thirsty adult for well over two years.

Camil’s work follows the life cycle of the shirts. The Tees begin with orders made in the U.S. when a football team, say,

wants to celebrate a win, or a dealer wants to sell Irish shirts on St. Patrick’s Day. The job typically goes to underpaid workers in Latin America. The shirts they make, emblazoned with words, and thick with slogans, travel to the U.S. The proud Irish Americans and the happy football fans wear them for a while, but soon enough they pass them on to a charity or otherwise get rid of them. As curator Laura Copelin says, “they become waste in the U.S.” Back to Mexico they go, to be sold to the poor or thrown into dumps. But through the intervention of the artist, some of these ragtag T-shirts are destined to return once more to the U.S. (“Bara” has also made appearances in Dallas, in 2017, and in Glasgow, in 2019.)

Camil buys up secondand third-hand Tees at a cutrate shop outside Mexico City.

She overdyes the old shirts in

the brilliant colors, then sews them together by color, reds with red, green with green, and so on, making giant tarps.

Once they arrive at their designated gallery, the tarps are hung so that the words are placed face down, so visitors can read them and ponder their meaning. To Camil, these texts are a kind of poetry.

The wordless side of the cloth faces the ceiling. The artist also provides peep holes so fans can pop their heads through and marvel at the pure unsullied colors.

COVID-19, not surprisingly, disrupted Camil’s usual practices. Instead of coming to Tucson to oversee the installation of the work, she was stuck in Mexico. It was up to the museum to put “Bara” together, under Camil’s instructions.

“We communicated by phone and had a lot of conversations,” curator Copelin says. The piece is meant to be site-specific, and “it changes

every venue.”

The pandemic also led to major changes in “Autonomous Space Rug.” When the work was in Scotland in 2019, Camil created a comfortable floor space by converting dozens of pairs of old jeans into comfortable pillows. Photos show visitors curled up together, side by side, lolling or resting or gazing up at the fabric canopy. Obviously, that iteration was not going to work in corona times.

For the Tucson show, Camil asked for cushy carpeting to cover the entire floor of the Great Hall. She designed an elegant pattern of circles and lines that spool across the rug. Inspired by images from 18th-century French gardens to maps, Camil settled on lines that would serve as boundaries to remind guests to keep social distance.

The outdoor laundry piece also has a COVID origin.

Last fall, Marfa, an art institution in rural Texas, offered commissions to artists “to

says Copelin, who also works with Marfa. Camil won one of the fellowships. Working from Mexico, Camil came up with a piece that “exploded what a flag could be,” Copelin says. Instead of national flags, discarded real-life clothes billowed in the open air; the piece started all over again in Tucson, with different clothes.

Camil, who got a BFA at Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA at Slade School of Fine Art, London, has been getting attention internationally for “Bara, Bara, Bara” and other works that evoke the “Mexican urban landscape,” she writes in a her bio.

“I’ve been interested in her for a long time,” Copelin says. After learning of Camil’s exhibition at Dallas Contemporary museum, the curator got in touch with the artist and eventually invited her to show her work at MOCA. COVID permitting, “We’re hoping to get her here before the show ends.”

Foothills News, May 12, 2021

Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank hosting Oro Valley drive Jeff Gardner Tucson Local Media

F

or years, the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank has gathered food for pets as far as Nogales, Benson and Sahuarita. But this May, the local nonprofit is hosting a food drive at multiple locations throughout Oro Valley for cats and dogs.

From Wednesday, May 12, to Friday, May 14, the Oro Valley Town Hall, Oro Valley Police Department and Tucson Local Media office will serve as donation dropoffs for the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank. The food bank says they need dog and cat food (both wet and dry); animal boots for the summer; slightly used beds, collars, leashes, toys and bowls; blankets and towels; animal treats and more.

With lowered COVID cases, the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank reports an increase in recent donations. However, there is still much work to be done after more than a year of economic hardship from the pandemic.

Whereas they used to receive a dozen requests per month from people looking for pet supplies, they can now see that number in a day.

“What we do is help those who have to make a choice of whether they feed their families or animals,” said Donna DeConcini, director of the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank. “Especially since the pandemic, everybody’s really been feeling the lack of jobs and money. And having to make that choice is unacceptable to me.”

The Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank dates back to

2014, when DeConcini and her daughter helped with abandoned farm and ranch animals. The work turned into the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank, which has gathered tens of thousands of pounds of pet food in its time. Originally based out of DeConcini’s driveway, the food bank moved to a designated location “Artists for Animals” store in Monterey Village off Speedway.

Since moving to brickand-mortar in 2020, DeConcini estimates they have collected 13,000 pounds of animal food. While the focus is on animal food, DeConcini says the food bank works with other local nonprofits, such as Friends of Pima Animal Care Center and Gospel Rescue Mission, when donations they receive might work better elsewhere.

“They give us their animal food, and in return, we give them household items and furniture that someone might have dropped off.

Nothing goes to waste. We try to keep everything circulating within the community,” DeConcini said. “We have an incredible staff of volunteers that come and will drive to people that are not able to get out of the house.”

Though the food bank is focused on helping animals in need, they do not rescue or take in animals. At food drives like these, the bank can see 1,000 pounds donated. DeConcini says their most successful food drive resulted in 2,000 pounds of food donated.

“Now, we don’t even put an estimation of how much we’d like to get, because anything that comes to us is a blessing

ORO VALLEY ANIMAL FOOD DRIVE benefiting the Southern Arizona Animal Food Bank Wednesday, May 12 through Friday, May 14 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Donations accepted at : Oro Valley Town Hall/ Oro Valley Police Department 11000 N. La Cañada Drive Foothills News 7225 N. Mona Lisa Road, #125

and helps us with the outreach that we have,” DeConcini said.

“We’ve been so fortunate and so thankful for the amount of food we’ve been able to get. It’s been overwhelming, but we’ve kept up with it. Whenever we’ve asked for help, we’ve gotten help, and it comes through for the community.”

This Oro Valley drive was inspired by food bank volunteer Lisa Norman. In speaking with the police department, DeConcini was informed they’ll need “a big truck” for all the planned donations.

“I’ve found that those who can give, give plenty. And those who are not able to go out and buy animal food to donate, have been doing monetary donations. Thanks to both of these, we’ve been able to maintain a level of food, but if we run out we can go buy more,” DeConcini said. “People have been so gracious.”

For more information on what to donate, visit saafb.org or facebook.com/SoAzAnimalFoodBank

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10

Foothills News, May 12, 2021

Here’s to the independent Plaza Liquors and Fine Wines, still in business after 43 years Madison Beal

Special to Tucson Local Media

I

n 1978, Tucson native Mark Thomson took a leap of faith. He decided to leave business school at the University of Arizona and buy a small liquor store in Campbell Plaza with the help of his father. At the time, he didn’t know much about fine wines, liquor or beer.

Forty-three years later, Plaza Liquors and Fine Wines, 2642 N. Campbell Avenue, is still in business in the heart of the city of Tucson. The shop has persisted through the rise of big-box retailers and made a name for itself through its eclectic selection of local products.

While Mark has his eyes on retirement, he plans to keep Plaza Liquors in the family that made it successful.

“I think that we survived on product knowledge and friendliness to the customers,” Mark said.

“It was because of the belief that you need to treat people really good, try to inform them the best you can and make them feel like they’re in a place that they’re appreciated.”

When Plaza first opened its doors, it was the only store with a liquor license in Campbell Plaza. Shoppers from A.J. Bayless, the neighboring supermarket, would buy their groceries and then head over to Plaza for their liquor. Mark and his former wife, India, ran the store together. They jokingly nicknamed the store “closet

Photo by Madison Beal

Mark Thomson and his daughter, Emilie, pose for a photo from the drive-thru window at Plaza Liquors and Fine Wines. Emilie is preparing to take over the business as Mark slowly transitions into retirement. liquors” because of its small size, but it was big enough to keep them in business there for 14 years.

As they got the hang of the business, they ventured out to vineyards and breweries to learn more about their products.

“We just read, we learned, and we figured it out,” Mark said. “That’s really all it takes—just a passion to learn about it.”

Eventually, Mark decided to move locations so he could expand the business.

He moved Plaza Liquors into a stand-alone building down the street, where it has remained for almost 30

years. Initially, business at the new location was slow, but within a year, a solid customer base built up.

Throughout the years, Mark had to come up with innovative strategies to compete with the liquor store chains that started moving into town once “fair-trade” laws officially ended in 1976. The big-box retailers had a profound impact on the liquor industry, selling their products at extremely low prices, which many independent liquor stores just couldn’t afford to do.

“It drove a lot of my friends and fellow liquor store owners out of busi-

ness,” Mark said. “But I was determined. I was not going to let them run me out of business. And they didn’t.

We kept growing over the years. But we had to be innovative in our approach and try to present something that was unique.”

Mark and the staff at Plaza searched the state for affordable, locally produced wines, spirits and beers so they could offer their customers an expanded collection that staff have referred to as “interesting” and “off the beaten path.” In addition to offering a wider selection, the team has worked hard to make the sometimes-overwhelming

topics of wine, liquor and beer more approachable for their customers.

“There’s so much that Plaza has done that so many other people have copied or tried to copy,” said Robert Stout, the tap room manager at Dragoon Brewing Company and a former Plaza employee. “Now everyone is craft this, craft that, but Plaza did it 10, 20 years before anyone else did, and that’s just very special when you think about it.”

Stout worked at Plaza for 10 years, starting in 2004.

With encouragement from Mark, he developed a love for craft beer and was eventually known as the “beer guy” at the store. He says his time at Plaza set him up for success in his brewing career.

“I remember there was a time when people would go in there, and they were amazed that they could build their own six pack,” Stout said. “And it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s actually a really huge thing because it gives people an opportunity to try a bunch of different types of products and expose themselves to craft beer and everything that entails.”

Mark now runs the store alongside his daughter, Emilie, who is preparing to take over as Mark slowly transitions into retirement. She never imagined she would end up working at Plaza, but over the years, she too has developed a passion for the industry.

When COVID hit, Mark and Emilie weren’t sure if Plaza would survive. The

store is small and packed full of products. Mark felt there wasn’t adequate space to socially distance inside, and he didn’t want to expose his small staff of six to the virus. He decided to close the store to walk-ins and reinstate Plaza’s drive-thru window, which had been boarded up 20 years prior.

Mark originally closed the window because he felt that it was distracting and made it difficult for the staff to offer walk-in customers the time and attention they deserved. He never thought that window would end up saving his business almost two decades later.

The staff at Plaza pulled the board down, installed a new window and got to work. They were able to continue to offer their suggestions and expertise to their customers who placed their orders from the comfort of their cars.

Plaza Liquors has now opened for walk-in service.

But they will continue to offer their drive-thru services indefinitely. Mark says customers love the drive-thru option, and the staff has perfected the art of drive-thru liquor sales over the past 14 months.

“The people, the customers have absolutely always been my first love with my business,” Mark said. “To the people who have been supporting us for all this time, I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for keeping food on my table and giving me the opportunity to do what I wanted to do, which was be in business.”

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Tech Talk: Mapping the galaxy’s edge and using AI to measure cancer treatment patients with advanced bowel cancer, but thanks to better understanding from this research, scientists hope the treatment can be given to patients more effectively.

According to study lead author Christopher Williams, as more treatment

options become available for advanced colorectal cancer, it is becoming increasingly difficult for patients and their doctors to choose the treatment that’s right for them.

This test will help patients navigate this decision-making process more easily.

The study “Artificial intelligence-assisted amphiregulin and epiregulin immunohistochemistry predicts panitumumab benefit in RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer,” was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

Now Contracting Drivers to deliver newspapers weekly Make some Extra Bucks

Photo courtesy UA / NASA

J G Tucson Local Media

W

ith a major research university right in our backyard, a strong military presence and innovative companies throughout the metro region, there’s often a plethora of interesting science and technology news to be found in Southern Arizona. Here’s a breakdown of the most interesting recent developments.

Mapping the Invisible.

Researchers at the University of Arizona have released a new map of the outermost reaches of our galaxy. The vast, distant area beyond the Milky Way’s spiraling arms is known as the “galactic halo,” and is believed to contain a large amount of dark matter—a mysterious invisible substance believed to make up the bulk of the matter in the universe. The new map is based around the “wake” made by a smaller galaxy (the Large Magellanic Cloud) passing through our Milky Way. The Large Magellanic Cloud’s gravity disturbed the galactic halo and the stars behind it. Although dark

matter does not emit light, its gravitational influence can be observed. According to UA, the stars seen trailing the Large Magellanic Cloud are thought to be the outline of this dark matter wake, like foam behind a ship. UA reported that the map’s authors were inspired to hunt for the Large Magellanic Cloud’s wake after a computer model predicted what the dark matter in the galactic halo should look like. As it turns out, the model was accurate with regards to the general structure and location of the star wake.

According to Gurtina Besla, study co-author and associate professor of astronomy at UA’s Steward Observatory, what has been a purely theoretical prediction has now been validated by observational data, providing a compelling argument for the existence of dark matter.

Because there is still so much to learn about dark matter, various theories exist about its nature. The team used the “cold dark matter” theory, the most commonly accepted. Had the team built their map based on a different theory, the wake’s shape may have looked different.

The paper, “All-sky dynamical response of the Galactic halo to the Large Magellanic Cloud” was published in the journal Nature, and was co-authored by researchers from the University of Arizona and Harvard University.

Measuring Cancer Treatments. A new test that uses artificial intelligence may lead to better treatment for advanced bowel cancer patients. The test is a collaboration between the United Kingdom-based University of Leeds and Tucson-based Roche Tissue Diagnostics. The technique uses AI to measure the levels of two proteins, AREG and EREG, which are produced by some colorectal cancers. According to the University of Leeds, algorithms driven by AI enabled the researchers to show that patients with higher levels of these proteins received significant benefit from a treatment which inhibits a different protein (EGFR) involved in cancer cell growth. There was also evidence that patients with low levels of the proteins did not benefit from the treatment that inhibits EGFR protein. Currently, anti-EGFR treatments are only given to

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HOROSCOPE By Holiday Mathis

42

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51 55

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15 occasions

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18 Dumb bunny 21 Congregation leaders 22 Period of history 23 Reason against 24 Like freshly brewed coffee 28 Close way to win 29 Have a bawl 30 “___ out!” (ump’s call) 32 Fittingly, the first three

letters of 32-Across

ACROSS

1 Pilgrim who’s been to Mecca 6 Show stopper 10 What a keto diet is high in 14 Writer Nin 15 ___ Emhoff, stepdaughter of

Kamala Harris Property claim Small, spiny lizard ___ Mountains, dividers of Europe and Asia 20 Fruit appearing on a Southern license plate 22 Mindlessly repeat 25 Insult, informally 26 Dried Mexican chili 27 South African plant whose leaves are used for a popular herbal tea 29 “All ___ go” 31 Not sitting well?

32 Occupation for 32-Down 33 Ready to go 16 17 19

34 Video game franchise with

characters found at the ends of 17-, 20-, 53- and 58-Across 38 Monogram on an expensive handbag, maybe 41 Zap 42 Play again 46 Transitional region between biomes 48 Having good marketing instincts 50 Many whiskey-based cocktails 51 Leader namechecked in the Beatles’ “Revolution” 52 Singer nicknamed the Prince of Motown 53 D.C. mayor first elected in 2014 57 Gray ___ 58 “Clumsy me!”

62 Like fine wines 63 Mental spark

Know Us, Know Your Community

35 Sprint … or see print 36 Nickname of a 1950s

president Native Caribbean plant whose fruit grows in clusters 38 Polite affirmative 39 Source of great trouble 40 “Walk on the Wild Side” singer 43 Director DuVernay 44 Columbia or Brown 45 Bread choice 47 Three-tone chords 48 Clumsily handles 49 Flushed, as cheeks 51 Looks down 54 Cut of pork 55 Foretell 56 Cheese of the Netherlands 59 Hip thing to sip 60 35mm camera inits.

61 Vote of support 37

CANCER (June 22-July 22). You like to be able to provide what others need, quick and magically, genie-in-a-bottle style. Beware though: The praise you get for this could become addictive.

Just make sure you don’t change your plans in order to make things happen for other people.

You can still help out while keeping your agenda sacred.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). It can be easy to see the difference between actions, but the difference between inaction is harder to detect. Some inaction is neglect; other inaction is purposeful restraint aimed at a particular end. This week, you grow in power as you learn such distinctions and understand the motivations at play in your world.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Doing what’s best for the group isn’t the least bit selfless. Everyone does better inside a thriving group. Besides, what the collective needs of you will be within your expertise, and a pleasure to give. In this regard, you’ll have many options. Well-placed commitments ensure your generosity has impact.

Crossword Puzzle Answers

41

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). Your focus has always been a valuable commodity but never more than in this century. An awareness of its value will set you in a class above the rest. This comes with the burden of responsibility. You’ll ask yourself, rather constantly, how you can make things better by spending your attention well.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). Your ability to do the things you tell yourself to do and behave in your preferred manner depends on understanding your own emotional landscape.

Unrecognized feelings have a way of motivating uncontrolled action. The bottom line is that you steer yourself better when you know yourself better.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). It has felt as though the weeks have been passing without bothering to progress your interest as they go, but this is a matter of perspective. The sudden rush of progress that happens after Thursday should help you to believe in a timing that is beyond what linear logic would lay out for you.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). You used to think they didn’t understand you, though looking back you wonder if maybe it was you who didn’t understand yourself. It’s the instinct for reflection that matters most here. You’re learning yourself as you go, and the people around you will follow your lead. Close relationships are bound to get closer.

H A J A N A H O R

37

GEMINI (May 21-June 21). This week, you’re on the lookout for ways to uplift others and appreciate their uniqueness and contributions. You’ll do this without putting yourself in a position to rate, rank or judge in any way. As you survey the scene, you will note how people might work together to an end that serves all, including you.

F L U E N T

36

into place

7 Some YouTube journals 8 Jai ___ 9 Common first word for a baby 10 Well-versed (in) 11 Heroes of the sky 12 “I want to learn!”

13 Alec Baldwin, on more than

S N L H O S T

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5 “OK, that makes sense” 6 Game where everything falls

A I R A C E S

the like

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SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). It’s a week of deep diving -- into subjects, people, situations.

Attention spans being what they are, you don’t expect many people to follow you to the depths.

This is what makes it so special when you really do find those individuals who will show up with their proverbial oxygen tanks, ready to go.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20). There are times when you absolutely should rate the competition. In fact, a comparative analysis is the necessary and winning move. Not this week.

This is a time to answer to your own creative leanings. Keep your eyes on your own page, and you will succeed in a signature style that belongs only to you.

E C H R O O A N T

29 32

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1 “As if!”

2 What makes God good?

3 Peanut butter container 4 Excessive flag-waving and

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A I R V V Y A Y E

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after every Mets homer

T V A E L L T O A R G I I S S S P O I O B K E E

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64 A giant one rises in Citi Field 65 They’re prescribed by docs 66 It may go out on a limb 67 Stiller’s comedy partner

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I S Y P L E A R A

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S E A G R A P E

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D A D A P A Y S E T R O R R S O S E Y D A M

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P A W S A T

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M O P E S

6

B O D E

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J I I S N E D G E O O D I B O S Y M A R N U T O N R S I E L A O D I S N

4

L O U R E E D

3

S C O U R G E

2

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). You’ll come face to face with your apprehensions about a relationship. In a way, it speaks to your merit as a partner. Even as you are fully aware of the pleasure and inevitable pain of learning another person (and allowing yourself to be known), you dive in. Why? Close bonds are worth the risk.

Y E S M A A M

1

ARIES (March 21-April 19). Your ability to see it from the other person’s point of view will save you a great deal of time and trouble. You’ll spend a set amount of time acting according to the needs of your loved ones, audience, customers, employer, etc., and the rest of the time you can do whatever you want. Your list is extensive.

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W

hen the NCAA conducted their recently completed basketball championship tournaments in a bubble-like situation akin to that used by the NBA for their 2020 playoffs, it was decided that the men would gather in Indianapolis and the women would be in San Antonio. The distance between those two cities is about 1,200 miles, but as we discovered, the initial treatment of the athletes was light-years apart.

The mens’ teams had lavish accommodations and access to state-ofthe-art weight rooms and training facilities. Photos posted online showed that the women had the equivalent of a medicine ball and a jump rope. After the outrageous photos hit social media, the NCAA scrambled to provide upgrades.

But the damage had been done and the “upgrades” fell far short of the mark that is both mandated by law and expected by women and men in the 21st Century.

It has been almost a half-century since Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (now officially known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act after the U.S. representative who helped write it and guided

it through Congress) became national law. It reads: “No person in the United States shall, based on sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

While it covers lots of areas in education, it is most often invoked in providing equal opportunities to girls and women as are enjoyed by boys and men. There almost certainly wouldn’t be sports for girls in high school and for women in college without Title IX. Yet, nearly five decades after Title IX was signed into law by President Richard Nixon (yes, Richard Nixon, bless his crooked heart), there are still people who try to sidestep it, tweak it, and/or outright ignore it.

The NCAA would probably like fans and the media to just chalk up the glaring basketball disparities to the difficulty of pandemic-era logistics. We probably would be able to give them the benefit of the doubt were it not for the fact that a similar situation has been going on for more than a quarter-century, with no official sense of urgency to rectify matters being exhibited by those in power.

As we head into May, both the University of

Arizona women’s softball team and the men’s baseball team are not only in line to make their respective NCAA tournaments, both should be selected to host the regionals, giving them a huge leg up toward reaching the College World Series. Both programs boast multiple national championships.

However, should both teams get back to the Promised Land, it will be a decidedly different experience for the coaches and players. While basketball and other sports generally move their championship sites around from year to year, those for baseball and softball are fixed. The baseball College World Series is in Omaha, while the softball championship is held in Oklahoma City. These two cities are only about 450 miles apart, but, again, the difference in amenities is shocking.

From 1950-2010, the men played in Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha. It was a nice venue, but then the city of Omaha built shiny new TD Ameritrade Stadium in the heart of downtown, close to the best hotels and the best nightlife. The stadium has everything the players and coaches could want.

Meanwhile, the women play at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium.

Back in the years when the UA was winning its eight national championships

(between 1991 and 2007), there were no locker rooms at the stadium. Players had to get dressed at the hotel or even on the bus. There were also no dugout bathrooms.

Players had to run along the sidelines and use the same bathrooms as the fans.

After coaches and players complained, the NCAA’s solution the next year was to provide Porta-Potties next to the dugouts. Players were urged to use the facilities before or after the games so as to avoid coming out of a Port-a-Potty on national TV. (Dressing rooms and dugout bathrooms were finally installed in 2014, but they’re still waiting for decent batting cages.)

The women’s stadium was finally expanded from 9,000 seats to 13,000 last year, while the men’s stadium seats at least 24,000.

And then there’s the TV tail wagging the tournament dog. The men’s tournament is spread out over 12 days, including a day off for “free massages.” No, really! The women’s tournament is scrunched into seven days with weather and other factors often causing teams to play two games within a few hours of each other. (The two series draw almost identical TV ratings numbers.)

We’re coming up on the 50th Anniversary of Title IX. Perhaps it’s time for everyone to start living up to its ideals.

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Foothills News, May 12, 2021