2017-09 5enses by 5enses

AGRAN DTOUR (A GRAND TOUR)

Take a trip on the 10th annual Prescott Area Artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Studio Tour P.12

SEPTEMBER 2017 | VOLUME 5, ISSUE 9 | 5ENSESMAG.COM

5enses

Publisher & Editor: Nicholas DeMarino Ad Rep: Jenn Shinohara Featured Contributors: Alan Dean Foster, Ty Fitzmorris, Reva Sherrard, & Russell Miller Staﬀ Writers: Justin Agrell, Robert Blood, Markoﬀ Chaney, James Dungeon, & Mara Trushell

In which:

Dale O’Dell

4 18 4 19 5 21 6 7 10 + 11 8/9 12 20 14 22 Justin Agrell

ﬁles a photo from the road and motors back to Prescott with eclipsed treasures

Mara Trushell

takes a non-neutral stance on the nonneutral stance of interested parties

Robert Blood

weeds through a list of invasives and spots a noteworthy nodule on the knap

Russ Chappell

dons a Hellishly delightful ring and escorts author Heinrich Lyle

James Dungeon

packs his binoculars and tries to espy an elusive bird who’s packing her bags

Robert Blood

plays with a comedic production and talks directing with Amber Bosworth

gets his foot in the door and swoops in on the ’Tis Creative Spirits show

Sean Gote´ Gallery 702 West Gurley Prescott, AZ 86305 928 445 2233

New shipment of Western & Animal Sculptures

Peregrine Book Co. staﬀ

looks up every trick in the book and thumbs through voluminous ideations

Alan Dean Foster

leaves his mark on an idea that, despite its history, gets under people’s skin

Markoﬀ Chaney

Here & (T)here

sings of sublime, surreal symbols and opens an art closing with Slade Graves

James Dungeon

Discover events in and around Prescott and the surrounding area

Prescott Peeps

pounds pavement and passes by the Prescott Area Artists Studio Tour

Ty Fitzmorris

Whimsical art for creative minds

Celebrate someone who’s making our community an even greater place

Oddly Enough

gets out(doors) again and seizes august opportunities in September

Smart, quirky comics about the strange-but-true by Russell Miller

COVER: “Sunbather” satire by 5enses. See page 12 to find out more about the Prescott Area Artists Studio Tour, coming up Oct. 6-8.

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5ENSESMAG.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 • CONTENTS • 3

Great American Solar Eclipse update

s this issue went to print, 5enses reporter and photographer Dale O’Dell was on his way back to Prescott after photographing the Great American Solar Eclipse from the location above. [Moonrise, Carhenge, Alliance, Nebraska. © Dale O’Dell 2017.]

Plant of the Month

Spotted Knapweed Photo by Mara Trushell.

This is an unretouched photograph of the moon rising over Carhenge on April 10, 2017. Carhenge is a land-art installation featuring cars. If a group of cars stacked and arranged to resemble England’s Stonehenge isn’t interesting enough, Carhenge was directly under the path of the moon’s shadow on Eclipse Day, Aug. 21. More than 10,000 people

from all over the world descended upon Carhenge in Alliance, Neb. to view the eclipse. The October issue of 5enses will feature Dale’s report and photographs from this momentous astronomical event.

but across the United States. In several biotic communities, including grassland and prairie, knapweed species have taken over large swaths of land, diminishing species diversity and even generating monocultures. Centaurea species are on many state’s Noxious Weed Lists and Invasive Species Management Lists. In Arizona, seven species are listed, including Centaurea biebersteinii.

By Mara Trushell potted Knapweed (Centaurea biebersteinii, synonym Centaurea maculosa) commonly grows as a biennial forb, beginning its cycle merely as a basal rosette. During the second year, the plant develops into a widely branching forb topped with vibrant purple flowers. Spotted Knapweed is a composite, meaning each seemingly single flower is actually a cluster of multiple flowers. The cluster is held by unique bracts that are each lined with narrow, teeth-like projections and come to darkened points. The points arrange into a visually stimulating, checkered pattern that circulate the visual pathway around the flower cluster. These intricate knapweed flowers attract a variety of pollinators from June through October and occur within the majority of Arizona’s plant communities. Spotted Knapweed is native to Eastern Europe and, along with several additional species, have become well established in a wide range of plant and biotic communities, not only in Arizona

4 • FEATURES • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

*****

esearch shows that a key component to the success of the species are the chemicals they release from their roots. This chemical not only assists the plants in absorbing nutrients, it’s also shown that these chemicals change the soil composition. As the knapweed roots grow and spread, the soil becomes toxic and uninhabitable for most of the native species. Thusly, this provides a delightful monotypic habitat, at least from the perspective of the knapweed. ***** Mara Trushell is a local natural science enthusiast.

By Russ Chappell he opportunity to spot one of Prescott’s least known yet common birds is rapidly coming to an end, as they will soon migrate to Mexico. Grace’s Warblers are one of the least studied American birds because they reside in forested areas, high in mature pine trees, where they forage for insects and spiders, raise their young, and rarely pose in open vegetation. They are, however, sometimes visible ﬂying from the treetops while hovering and catching insects in mid-air. Grace’s Warblers are named for the sister of renowned ornithologist Elliott Couse, who ﬁrst discovered the species here in Arizona in 1864. Couse is highly respected for his monumental literary works, especially “Key to North American Birds” (1872).

mall song birds in the wood warbler family, Grace’s Warblers are approximately 4.7 inches in length with wingspans of 7.9 inches and weight 0.2 to 0.3 ounces. They’re striking birds featuring yellow chins, throats, and breasts; gray backs; white bellies; black streaks on the sides of their chests and ﬂanks, short yellow eyebrows; yellow crescents under their eyes; two white wing bars; and white spots on their tails. The young are similar but paler and less streaked. Their nesting habits are largely unknown

Prescott Area

he Grace’s Warbler’s song is a loud musical trill: “tsu tsu tsu ti-ti-ti-ti” quickening toward the end with “che che che che che-che-che-che.” Their call is a soft chip and their in-ﬂight call is a high, thin “fss.” If you wish to spot this beautiful species this year without a trip south of the border, grab your binoculars and head for the forest today, because soon our Grace’s Warblers will be packing their bags and hitting the migration trail.

Bird of the Month

Grace’s Warbler

***** The Prescott Audubon Society is an oﬃcial Chapter of the National Audubon Society. Check them out online at PrescottAudubon.Org.

Photo by Don Faulkner, Creative Commons 2.0, via Wikimedia.Org. because their nests are so well hidden. The nests, themselves, are small cups of plant ﬁbers lined with hair and feathers placed high above ground, usually on a pine tree branch. The female lays three to ﬁve white or cream-colored eggs that are speckled with brown and ringed at the larger end. The young are primarily fed by the female, though male occasionally contributes. The age at which young leave the nest isn’t well known. Normally, adults (re)produce two broods per year.

Russ Chappell is a member of the Prescott Audubon Society and as a helicopter pilot spent much of his life avoiding birds. These days, thanks to mentoring and association with PAS, he enjoys photographing and studying the large number of species in our region and learning to be a better steward of our beautiful natural resources.

Artist

STUDIO TOUR

PrescottStudioTour.com 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. October 6, 7 & 8, 2017

Sponsored by Mountain Artists Guild

Free • Self-guided • Start at any location • Meet the artists • Purchase unique art

60 artists in 40 private studios + 38 artists in 4 art centers

5ENSESMAG.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 • FEATURE • 5

A spirited show

Art SWOOP & Creative Spirit return to ’Tis

By Robert Blood erhaps you’ve heard tell of the wild costumes, of famous works of art and artists come to life. Maybe you’ve heard about the ludicrously affordable Art SWOOP: for a $25 ticket, $25 that directly benefits art education programs via ’Tis Art Center & Gallery, you get to take home an original piece of art by one the area’s finest fine artists. The whole FUNdraising bacchanal — officially the 12” x 12” Art SWOOP & Creative Spirit Costume Party — is nigh. It’s 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9, as a matter of fact. Entry is free. SWOOP tickets are $25. You can find out more via the ’Tis website, TisArtGallery.Com. ***** The 12” x 12” Art SWOOP & Creative Spirit Costume party is 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9, at the Third Floor Banquet Hall of ’Tis Art Center & Gallery, 105 S. Cortez St., TisArtGallery.Com, free entry, $25 SWOOP tickets.

FROM TOP: Images from the 2016 Creative Spirit Costume Party, art from the Sept. 9 Art SWOOP, courtesy images.

ART WALKS 2017 Jan. 27 Feb. 24 March 24 April 28 May 26 June 23 July 28 Aug. 25 Sept. 22 Oct. 27 Nov. 24 Dec. 22

See Special Events

www.ArtThe4th.com

6 • FEATURE • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

Peregrine Book Co.

Staff picks

Records

Catered by Reva Sherrard “Plainwater” By Anne Carson Both intimate and dazzling, my favorite essay from this collection is “Part V: The Anthropology of Water,” where Carson takes the reader on a pilgrimage in search of water. ~Lacey “Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays” By Durga Chew-Bose With intense lyricism, Chew-Bose ruminates on moments of her childhood and what it means to be a creative woman today. Both memoir and cultural criticism, “Too Much and Not the Mood” is poignant, philosophical, and deeply personal. ~Lacey “Sophie Calle: True Stories” By Sophie Calle As a writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist, Sophie Calle presents something unique, absorbing, and honest with “True Stories.” ~Lacey “My Dyslexia” By Phillip Schultz Required reading for anyone who has ever been made to feel broken or unimportant due to a learning disability. Schultz will revive your belief in the beauty and extraordinary intelligence that come thanks to, rather than in spite of, learning disabilities. ~Bekah

TRAX

“Catching the Big Fish” By David Lynch Yes, it’s a book by the film director David Lynch. Sparse and minimal, Lynch explores the creative process by homing in on the idea of sparking the fire from within. Surrealism and Transcendental Meditation collide! ~Joe “Summerlong” By Dean Bakopoulos A novel of surburban love both marital and extramarital. Tender, funny, and irresistible. ~Michaela “A Visit from the Goon Squad” By Jennifer Egan Powerful, emotionally riveting linked short stories that spiral through the music scene. Highly recommended! ~Michaela “Half-Earth” By E. O. Wilson Wilson is one of the true giants of our time, who somehow manages to always find a path forward. This is one of the only books in print to suggest a real, ecologically-based solution to the global environmental crisis! ~Ty

***** Visit Peregrine Book Company at PeregrineBookCompany.Com and 219A N. Cortez St., Prescott, 928-445-9000.

234 S. Montezuma St. 928-830-9042

Turntables & quick special orders Buy/Sell/Trade new & used vinyl & CDs

“No one ever takes a photogra want to forget.” ~unknown

“2017 Fall Photography Exhib Contemporary Photography by Prescott Area Photographers September 21—October 24 4th Friday Art Walk Reception Fri September 22 nd 5 – 8 PM

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In the ‘Tis Art Center Main Gallery 105 S. Cortez St. Prescott www.TisArtGallery.com

Prescott’s finest submarines since before downtown traffic 418 W. Goodwin St., 778-3743 M-F 10:30-2:30, Weekends closed

5ENSESMAG.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 • FEATURE • 7

Here & (T)here

Find out what's happening in and around Prescott Talks & presentations

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Fall Star Talk • 7:30-8:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15: John Mangimeli takes you on a journey through the summer stars in a special new series about stars, planets, and much more. (Acker Park entrance on Virginia Street, 928-776-9550, HighlandsCenter.Org)

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“The Long Haul” • 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1: Finn Murphy, whose trucker handle is U-Turn, discusses his book about his life in a 53-foot eighteen-wheeler he calls Cassidy. (Peregrine Book Co., 219A N. Cortez St., 928-445-9000, PeregrineBookCompany.Com)

“Evolution & natural History with Mark Riegner” • 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16: Learn about evolution from Mark Riegner, who studies form and pattern in nature and has groundbreaking new ideas in the ﬁeld of evolutionary biology. An Insights to the Outdoors event. (Highlands Center for Natural History, 1375 S. Walker Road, 928-776-9550, HighlandsCenter.Org, $25, RSVP)

“Cowboys & Cowgirls: Icons of the American West” • 5-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 7: Betsy Fahlman, Arizona State University professor of art history, presents an overview of the symbol of the American cowboy, whose image was ﬁrst deﬁned by painters Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. An Arizona Humanities Lecture event. (Prescott Public Library, 215 E. Goodwin St., 928-777-1500, PrescottLibrary. Info)

“Living History Adventure” • Saturday, Sept. 9: Take a peek back at territorial Prescott through activities like period gardening, cooking, handcrafts, blacksmithing, print shop work, and more. A monthly event. (Sharlot Hall Museum, 415 W. Gurley St., 928-445-3122) Cartooning workshop • 2-6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9: Meet members of the Northern Arizona Cartoonist Association with workshops throughout the day, including talks and appearances by The Janimal, Russ Kazmierczak, Dave Beaty, Al Sparrow, and Daniel Franks. (Peregrine Book Co., 219A N. Cortez St., 928-4459000, PeregrineBookCompany.Com)

“A Marine Aviator's Perspective on the War in Viet Nam” • 7-8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13: Col. Fred Cone discusses his tours in three Marine Aircraft Wings, including his responsibilities of aircraft maintenance, logistics, operations, and personnel, and one tour as chief of staﬀ of the 2nd Marine Air Wing. An ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program lecture. (ERAU Davis Learning Center, 3700 Willow Creek Road, 928-777-6985)

“Black Dove: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me” • 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15: Ana Castillo discuses her new book about what it means to be a single, brown, feminist parent in a world of mass incarceration, racial proﬁling, and police brutality. A Literary Southwest Series presentation. (Yavapai College Library Community Room, Building 19 room 17, 1100 E. Sheldon St., 928-445-7300, YC.Edu)

“Frontier Arizona Experience” • Saturday, Sept. 16: See a day in a frontier soldier's life from oﬃcers to cavalrymen. A monthly event. (Fort Whipple Museum, Arizona 89, north side of Prescott)

“Shameless Dick: Odyssey of a Cad” • 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16: Heinrich Lyle reads from his book in which a modern Dante and his bevy of Beatrices take the reader on a road to hell and back lined with tangled sheets. Feel free to attend with or without a mask. See P. 19 for an interview with the author. (Peregrine Book Co., 219A N. Cortez St., 928-445-9000, PeregrineBookCompany.Com)

Professional Writers of Prescott reading • 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23: Local authors and members of the Professional Writers of Prescott read from their books, including Bill Lynam, Joanne Sandlin, Pat Frayne, and Jerri Kay Lincoln. (Peregrine Book Co., 219A N. Cortez St., 928445-9000, PeregrineBookCompany.Com)

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Professional Writers of Prescott meeting • 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27: A monthly Professional Writers of Prescott meeting. (Prescott Valley Public Library, 7401 E. Civic Circle, 928-864-8642, Catalog.YLN.Info/Client/En_US/PVPL) “Library Comic Con!” • 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30: Celebrate comics and graphics with events all day featuring costumed characters, comic book artists, writers, publishers, and local merchants. Costumes are encouraged. (Prescott Public Library, 215 E. Goodwin St., 928-777-1500, PrescottLibrary.Info)

“The Ravenous” • 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30: Teen horror novelist Amy Lukavics returns to introduce her newest thriller. (Peregrine Book Co., 219A N. Cortez St., 928-445-9000, PeregrineBook Company.Com) Saturday Night Talk Series • 7 p.m. Saturdays: Talks on bringing traditional spiritual ideas and practice into everyday life, via Sukham Seminars and Vigraha Gallery. (Vigraha Gallery, The Courtyard Bldg., 115 E. Goodwin St., 928-771-0205, VigrahaSacredArt.Com, $5 donation)

Nature, health, & outdoors

“Insect Collecting in the Central Highlands” • 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 2: Get ﬁrst-hand experience working with equipment used to collect, mount, and preserve insects for science, education, and personal interest with local insect expert Phil McNally. An Insights to the Outdoors event. (Highlands Center for Natural History, 1375 S. Walker Road, 928-776-9550, HighlandsCenter.Org, $25, RSVP)

“Kuiper Belt Objects” • 6-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21: Dr. Stephen Tegler, Northern Arizona University professor and chair of the physics and astronomy department, discusses Kuiper belt object discoveries from laboratory experiments, telescopes, and spacecraft. A Third Thursday Talk via Prescott Astronomy Club. (Prescott Public Library, 215 E. Goodwin St., 928-777-1500, Prescott AstronomyClub.Org)

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“Starry Night” • 7:30-9:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23: See the crescent Moon, clusters, and more. Via the Prescott Astronomy Club. (EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University, 3700 Willow Creek Road, 928-777-6600, PrescottAstronomyClub.Org) “Wander the Wild” • 2:30-6:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 24: Ninth annual live auction and dinner. Beneﬁts children's educational programs at the Highlands Center for Natural History. (Capital Canyon Club, 2060 Golf Club Lane, 928-776-9550, HighlandsCenter.Org, $100) “A Love Aﬀair with Hummingbirds” • 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28: Conservation biologist Karen Krebbs entertains with hummingbird facts and fun garnered from more than three decades of observations and more than 26 years at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. A monthly Prescott Audubon Society meeting. (Trinity Presbyterian Church, 630 Park Ave., PrescottAudubon.Org) Prescott Valley Farmers Market • 3-6 p.m. Tuesdays: Weekly farmers market featuring local food and much more. (Harkins Theatres, 7202 Pav Way, Prescott Valley, PrescottFarmersMarket.Org)

Jay's Bird Barn bird walks • 7 a.m. Sept. 2, 8, 14, 23, & 29: Local, guided bird walks. Via Jay's Bird Barn. (Jay’s Bird Barn, No. 113, 1046 Willow Creek Road, 928-443-5900, JaysBirdBarn.Com, RSVP)

Chino Valley Farmers Market • 3-6 p.m. Thursdays, June-October: Weekly farmers market featuring local food and much more. (Olsen's Grain parking lot, 344 Arizona 89, Chino Valley, PrescottFarmersMarket.Org)

“The Science Behind Solar fi lters” • 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6: Christopher Texler explains what a filter is, the different types and compositions, various viewing methods such as infrared and x-ray viewing, and much more. A monthly Prescott Astronomy Club meeting. (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 3700 Willow Creek Road, 928-777-6600, PrescottAstronomyClub.Org)

Prescott Farmers Market • 7:30 a.m.-noon Saturdays, May-October: Weekly farmers market featuring local food and much more. (Yavapai College Parking Lot D, 1100 E. Sheldon St., PrescottFarmersMarket.Org)

Hiking Spree kickoﬀ • 7 a.m.-noon Saturday, Sept. 9: Get out and moving with the kickoﬀ to the annual, 10th anniversary Hiking Spree. (Highlands Center for Natural History, 1375 S. Walker Road, 928-776-9550, HighlandsCenter.Org) Prescott Audubon bird walk • 8 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 9: Monthly bird walk. (Highlands Center for Natural History, 1375 S. Walker Road, 928-7769550, HighlandsCenter.Org, PrescottAudubon.Org)

“The History & Geography of the Bagdad Mine” • 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12: Geologist Chase Hamer discusses the Bagdad Mine. A monthly Central Arizona Geology Club meeting. (Prescott Public Library, 215 E. Goodwin St., 928777-1500, PrescottLibrary.Info, CentralArizonaGeologyClub. BlogSpot.Com)

“Native Plants are for the Bird” •6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14: An Arizona Native Plant Society program. (Highlands Center for Natural History, 1375 S. Walker Road, 928-776-9550, HighlandsCenter.Org)

8 • EVENTS • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

Groups & games

LAN party • 10 a.m. -10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 2: Play multiplayer computer games like “Killing Floor,” “Rocket League,” “Counterstrike,” and “Tribes.” A monthly Prescott PC Gamers Group Event. (Step One Coﬀee House, 6719 E. Second St., Ste. C, Prescott Valley, PPCGG.Com, $10) Prescott Area Boardgamers • 4-8 p.m. ﬁrst and third Wednesdays: Play modern, European-style board games. (Prescott Public Library, 215 E. Goodwin St., 928-777-1500, Prescott.Library.Info)

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The Local 6 Youth Compilation • 5-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 8: CD release party for local bands including performances from All Inﬂuence, The Faultlines, The Koalakazes, and Sugar & the Mint. (The Launchpad back parking lot, 302 Grove Ave., TheLaunchPadTeenCenter.Org, $5)

Citizen’s Water Advocacy Group • 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Sept. 9: A monthly Citizens Water Advocacy Group meeting. (Granite Creek Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation building, 882 Sunset Ave., 928-445-4218, CWAGAZ.Org)

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“Death Cafe” • 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14: People gather to eat cake, drink tea, and discuss death with the objective “to increase awareness of death with a view to help people make the most of their (ﬁnite) lives.” Hosted by Dani LaVoire. (Peregrine Book Co., 219A N. Cortez St., 928-445-9000, PeregrineBook Company.Com)

“5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” • 6 & 8 p.m. Sept. 29 & 30 & Oct. 6 & 7: When a nuclear blast strands an annual all woman brunch, secrets (and much more) come out. A 4AM Productions event. See P. 21 for an interview with director. (Stage TOO, North Cortez Street Alley, between Willis and Sheldon streets, 928-445-3286, 5LezEating.BPT.Me, $17 online, $22 door.)

PFLAG Support Night • 6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15: Monthly support night for LGBTQ+ community and those who love and support them or desire to do so. (First Congregational Church, 216 E. Gurley St.)

“Fiddler on the Roof” • 7:30 p.m. Sept. 28-30 & Oct. 5-7 & 12-14; 2 p.m. Oct. 1, 8, & 15: Experience the music, dancing, humor, tragedy, romance, and the timeless traditions that deﬁne faith and family. Directed by Frank Malle. (Prescott Center for the Arts, 208 N. Marina St., 928-445-3286, PCA-AZ.Net, $14-$23)

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“Fall Gathering Barbeque” • 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16: The 12th annual fall gathering barbeque commences. (Phippen Art Museum, 4701 AZ 89, 928-778-1385, PhippenArtMuseum.Org, $25)

GYCC LGBTQ Coalition • 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 19: Monthly general meeting open to all LGBTQ and allies in Yavapai County with guest speakers. (First Congregational Church, 216 E. Gurley St., Facebook.Com/ LGBTQYavapai)

NAZGEM Support 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22: Monthly support group meeting for members of the transgender and beyond gender binaries community as well as family, friends, and youth. (Granite Peak Unitarian Congregation Education Center, 882 Sunset Ave., Facebook.Com/LGBTQYavapai)

Antiques on the Square • Sunday, Sept. 24: Antiques and collectibles. Via the Thumb Butte and Yavapai Questers. (Yavapai County Courthouse Square, 928-443-1862)

Performing arts

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Social dance classes • Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, & Sundays: Learn the Argentine tango, West Coast swing, tribal belly dance, Lindy hop swing, ﬂamenco, and Latin dance. (Flying Nest Movement Arts, 322 W. Gurley St., 928-432-3068, Flying NestStudio.Com, prices vary) Performance dance/movement arts classes • Wednesdays & Thursdays: Learn contemporary dance, movement for life, and normative movement. (Flying Nest Movement Arts, 322 W. Gurley St., 928-432-3068, Flying NestStudio.Com, prices vary)

Visual arts Artisans in the Pines • 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23: Annual Artisans in the Pines event featuring an array of handcrafted gifts and homemade baked goods. All proceeds beneﬁt local charities and Mountain Club projects. (Mountain Club Clubhouse, 910 W. Clubhouse Dr.)

“Men Are Mars — Women are From Venus LIVE!” • 7:30 P.M. Friday, Sept. 8: A one-man fusion of theater and stand-up in a light-hearted theatrical comedy based on John Gray’s best-selling book. (Yavapai College Performing Arts Center, 1100 E. Sheldon St., 928-776-2000, YCPAC.Com, $50)

Mountain Artists Guild • Aug. 28-Oct. 27: “America the Beautiful” gallery show. (Mountain Artists Guild, 228 N. Alarcon St., 928-445-2510, MountainArtistsGuild.Org)

“The Taming of the Shrew” • 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9: Shakespeare’s beloved comedy of manners and marriage returns for one ﬁnal show at Yavapai College Verde Valley Campus. Fair Bianca Minola won’t be free to choose among her horde of suitors until her sharptongued older sister Katharina marries. It will take a whirlwind of a man to woo Kate — but can he capture her heart as well as her hand? Via Laark Productions. (Yavapai College Verde Valley Campus, Mabery Pavilion, 601 Black Hills Dr., Clarkdale, YC.Edu, LaarkProductions.Com)

Mountain Spirit Co-op • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Mountain Spirit Co-op, 107 N. Cortez St., 928-445-8545, MountainSpiritCo-Op.Com) Prescott Center for the Arts Gallery • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Prescott Center for the Arts, 208 N. Marina St., 928-445-3286, PCA-AZ.Net)

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Open mic poetry • 7-9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13: Monthly poetry jam presented by Decipherers Synonymous. (The Beastro, 117 N. McCormick St., 971-340-6970, TheBeastro.Com)

Contra Dance • 7-7:30 p.m. lesson; 7:30-10 p.m. dance Saturday, Sept. 23: Contra dancing, via Folk Happens. Calls by JP, music by Wild Thyme. (First Congregation Church, 216 E. Gurley St., 928925-5210, FolkHappens.Org, $4-$8)

29 & 30

“Macbeth” • 6 p.m. dinner, 7 p.m. show Friday, Sept. 29; 6 p.m. dinner, 4 p.m. & 10 p.m. shows Saturday, Sept. 30: Something wicked this way comes to Arcosanti. Get oﬀ your Macduﬀ to witness Shakespeare’s brief and bloody psychological drama of murder, betrayal, and revenge like you’ve never seen it before. Via Laark Productions. (Arcosanti, Exit 263 on I-17, Arcosanti.Org, LaarkProductions.Com, 928-632-7135, dinner & show $40, show only $10-$20) COURTESY IMAGE.

’Tis Art Center & Gallery • 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9: “12” x 12” Art SWOOP & Creative Spirit Costume Party,” featuring 12” x 12” pieces by local artists. Proceeds benefit ‘Tis Art Center & Gallery art education programs for children and adults. Free entry, $25 SWOOP fee. See P. 6 for a preview. COURTESY IMAGE. • Aug. 15-Sept. 14: “Sparks & Splashes,” featuring steel works by Joseph Rech and paintings by Elizabeth Bartlee. • Aug. 24: Sept. 19: Eclectic works by Prescott area artists. • Sept. 15-Oct. 14: “My Life Needs Editing: Six Artists’ Quest for Color, Texture, & the Meaning of Life,” featuring art by the Laughin’ Giraffe Crew, including Mary Kaye O’Neill, Carol Hunter-Geboy, and Linda Scott, with special guest artists Curt Pfeffer, Anne Smith, and Michael Geboy, opening reception is Sept. 22, 4th Friday Art Walk, plus a fashion show at the Hassayampa Inn, 122 E. Gurley St. (’Tis Art Center & Gallery, 105 S. Cortez St., 928-775-0223, TisArtGallery.Com)

Random Art • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Random Art, 214 N. McCormick St., 928-308-7355, RandomArt.Biz)

Arts Prescott Cooperative Gallery • Aug. 25- Sept. 21: Fine beaded jewelry by Joyce Ash. • Sept. 22-Oct. 26: “Felt So Good,” featuring ﬁber art and jewelry by Anne Marston, opening reception is Sept. 22, 4th Friday Art Walk, plus a fashion show at the Hassayampa Inn, 122 E. Gurley St. COURTESY IMAGE. (Arts Prescott Cooperative Gallery, 134 S. Montezuma St., 928-776-7717, ArtsPrescott.Com)

The Raven Café • 5 p.m.-ish Sunday, Oct. 1: Slade Graves and artistic director Valerye Jeﬀ ries bring Slade’s newest body of work to life through poetry, movement, and more at this Surreal art closing. See P. 11 for an interview with the artist and artistic director. (The Raven Café, 142 N. Cortez St., 928-717-0009, RavenCafe.Com, $5 donation) Sam Hill Warehouse • Student, faculty, and alumni exhibitions. (Sam Hill Warehouse, 232 N. Granite St., 928-350-2341, PrescottCollegeArt Gallery.Org)

Art2 • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Art2, 120 W. Gurley St., 928-499-4428, ArtSquaredPrescott.Com)

Sean Goté Gallery • New art and décor, plus guest art in the parking lot on weekends. 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Sean Goté Gallery, 702 W. Gurley St., 928-445-2233, SeanGote.Com)

The Beastro • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (The Beastro, 117 N. McCormick St., 928-778-0284, TheBeastro.Org)

Smoki Museum • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Smoki Museum, 147 N. Arizona Ave., 928-445-1230, SmokiMuseum.Org)

4th Friday Art Walk • 5-7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 22: Monthly art walk including artist receptions, openings, and demonstrations at more than a dozen galleries. (ArtThe4th.Com)

Thumb Butte Distillery • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Thumb Butte Distillery, 400 N. Washington Ave., 928-443-8498, ThumbButteDistillery. Com)

Huckeba Art Gallery • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Huckeba Art Gallery, 227 W. Gurley St., 928-445-3848, Huckeba-Art-Quest.Com)

Van Gogh’s Ear • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Van Gogh’s Ear, 156 S. Montezuma St., 928-776-1080, VGEGallery.Com)

Ian Russell Gallery • 4th Friday Art Walk participant. (Ian Russell Gallery, 130 S. Montezuma St., 928-445-7009, IanRussellArt.Com)

Yavapai College Art Gallery • Aug. 22-Sept. 9: “Art Faculty Exhibition.” (Yavapai College Art Gallery, 1100 E. Sheldon St., 928-445-7300, YC.Edu)

Inka-dinka-do you … and me

Considering question(able) marks & extreme stretching

“I

By Alan Dean Foster nka-dinka-dee, Inka-dinka-doo … .” That was the great Jimmy Durante’s signature song. Later recorded by, among others, John Lithgow and Ann Margaret. For those of you who remember or enjoy the music of the ’50s, comic songs did not begin with Ray Stevens (kind of hard to imagine something like “Ahab the Arab” making it into the Top 40 these days) or Sheb Wooley or Allan Sherman. I’ll grant you Gilbert and Sullivan. Ah, Allan Sherman, the lyrics of whose parody song “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” was set to Ponticelli’s “Dance of the Hours”… a ballet to which I alluded in my column on classical music a couple of months ago because it also provided a source of amusement to Walt Disney and his animators, who parodied it in their own way in “Fantasia.” Which naturally leads us into a discussion of the art of scariﬁcation, body modiﬁcation, and tattoos.

containing enough metal to set oﬀ alarms in even small airports and ear stretching enhanced with plugs the results of which are signiﬁcant enough to astonish a Maasai warrior.

Alan Dean Foster’s

Perceivings

either from the Tahitian tatu or the Samoan tatau — a moot point, since all the Polynesian languages are closely related to one another. Picked up from the Polynesians by visiting sailors, tattooing naturally became particularly identiﬁed with seafaring. My older cousin Joe, who served in the Korean War, had a tattoo. Primitive by contemporary standards, it was not especially well done, but it was considered a mark of manhood as well as of maritime service. I wonder sometimes what Joe would have made of women who today completely cover themselves with tattoos. Not to mention body piercings

ccording to one Nielsen poll, in 2015 one in five Americans had a tattoo. It’s always interesting and amusing to see how acceptance of such body mods vacillates down through the ages as cultures undergo their inevitable changes. Even though society’s acceptance of such modifications was already well underway, when I acquired an earring back in 1991 I occasionally received a sideways glance or, more rarely, a snide comment about it being feminine. I sometimes replied that the individual making the comment should imagine voicing the same observation to Blackbeard, who was noted for wearing rather more than one earring and who would have responded to such an accusation with other than a polite rebuttal. Nowadays only some old folks (those who didn’t have relatives in the Navy, anyway) blink at the profusion and astonishing variety of body art, be it a simple ankle tattoo of a chain or a full sleeve or ear plugs or nose rings. As for myself, I choose not to indulge since, well, the canvas is a bit old and fragile these days. But I do admire the artwork on others, much as I admire the classical tattoos of Japan, the earpieces of the Maasai, and the crocodile skin scarification of those who dwell along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. The men who undergo the latter ceremony, which involves cutting the skin and rubbing ash from a fire into it to produce raised bumps, believe looking like the crocodile gives them the power of the crocodile. Remember that the next time you might be inclined to chastise someone younger than yourself for having a butterfly inscribed on their butt.

have to laugh at the people who think the current frenzy for tattoos is a passing fad or something new. Human beings have been treating their bodies like collagenic versions of silly putty since time immemorial. What possessed the ﬁrst person, possibly a Neanderthal (Neanderthal jewelry has been recorded back as far as 130,000 years) to pierce their ears, or their nasal septum, or some other unknown body part, and then stick a talon or bone through it may well remain forever unknown. “Hey Uluk, why you put piece of food through your nose? Goes in mouth. You want to become extinct?” Following animal parts, people subsequently started to make holes to receive cut fragments of stone, then gemstone. Gold work of increasingly delicate and skillful design followed. When The “Princess of Ukok,” a mummified woman found in tattooing began thousands of Altai, who died around 500 B.C.E. Her tattoos are some years ago, it was applied not only to enhance the attracof the most well-preserved ancient ink in the world. tiveness of the wearer but to signify Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. status and, in ancient China, identify criminals. The word “tattoo” comes

10 • COLUMN • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

***** Alan Dean Foster is author of more than 120 books, visitor to more than 100 countries, and still frustrated by the human species. Follow him at AlanDeanFoster.Com.

So real, Surreal

Slade Graves & (good) co. close an art show

By Markoff Chaney t starts with an image, “I am the Baby Jesus.” See it up there? That’s it. (Probably should’ve put a cutline somewhere; this’ll suﬃce.) Per the image, Slade Graves did that. It was the ﬁrst image in what became

a new body of work she’s showing this month at the Raven Café. “I am the Baby Jesus,” which is also the name of a draft chapter from an inprogress book by Michaela Carter. And, oh yeah, there’s an art opening — no, no, no, a closing! — and there’s going to be a reading, and poetry, and dancing, and I’ve waited far too long to mention

PART

Surrealism, which is a of this. Maybe I should just let Slade and her artistic director, Valerye Jeﬀries, explain. ...

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 >>>

5ENSESMAG.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 • FEATURE • 11

(A GRAND TOUR)

Take a trip on the 10th annual Prescott Area Artists’ Studio Tour By James Dungeon Art doesn’t occur in a vacuum; there’s a context in which it’s made. The artist who makes it, herself, is a defining aspect of that context. So, how do you get to know an artist? Well, the obvious approach is to ask her about her art. (That happened, and you can read the results here.) But there’s also her space and her relationship to that space. There are the little details, the way an artist organizes (or doesn’t) every little thing. An artist’s space is a reflection of herself and is, in a way, a work of art in and of itself. But all of that’s pedantic. Wouldn’t you rather meet the artists and see their spaces for yourself? Well, you’re in luck as it’s almost time for the Prescott Area Artists’ Studio Tour. From 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Oct. 6-8, you can visit 60 juried artists at 40 private studios (plus an additional 38 artists at 4 art centers) and see them in their creative spaces. It’s a self-guided tour and spans the entire Quad Cities. Find out more and see a map of locations at PrescottStudioTour.Com. This event is sponsored by the Mountain Artists Guild & Gallery. ***** James Dungeon is a figment of his own imagination. And he likes cats. Contact him at JamesDungeoCats@ Gmail.Com. fortably walk away with a couple of pieces. What’s your space look like? My studio is in my home. I’m only a couple of blocks from the public library, so I’m right downtown and you can access it from a stairway that goes down. The studio is under a very high deck, so there’s a great big space with three or four tables of stuff and a wheel. I’m always doing demos, sitting outside throwing pots.

Abby Brill, Abby’s Pots, 426 S. Alarcon, Prescott, ceramics How would you describe your work? I do almost exclusively functional work. I try to create pieces that people are going to want to use every day. It’s all mugs, bowls, and platters. I try to keep my pricing low enough that people on the Studio Tour or who see my work in a gallery can com-

Any memorable visits or visitors? I have a ﬂyer up with a little bio and a blurb where I emphasize that I want my work to be used, that I don’t want people to own my work and put it on the shelf and have to clean dust oﬀ of it all the time. So, I had this 12-year-old kid read it and he was really thoughtful, and he asked me, “What happens when they get dust on them?” That cracked me up. I also get all kinds of interesting special requests, including pet urns.

12 • FEATURE • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

Nancy Koski, These Treasures, 5 Woodside Drive, Prescott, ceramics How would you describe your work? I do functional stoneware. A lot of it is decorated with hand-painted designs of dogs, cats, or horses. It’s whimsical in style, not realistic. I also put scripture verses on my pottery. By functional, I mean bowls, plates, mugs, pitchers, casseroles, and those kind of things. I also do some piggy banks that are whimsical animals. I use a few commercial glazes, but I mix most of my own glazes. What’s your space look like? It’s the downstairs of my house. There’s a guest room, which is turned into a show room for a watercolor artist who shows during the Studio Tour; plus a work room; my studio, which is my Arizona room where there are two potter’s wheels. I do some handwork, and I have two kilns. Any memorable visits or visitors? I was sitting at the wheel and throwing and I happened to look up, and there was this youngster, a boy maybe 12 or 13, and he was there with his parents, and he was just staring, his mouth wide open. I thought in my head, that’s what all this is about, turning young people on to art and showing them how it’s done. That’s part of our purpose in doing the Studio Tour, and I think it’s why each of us is required to demonstrate our art during the tour. *****

*****

LEFT TO RIGH cy Koski, and Cindi

Patty Lindsey, Julie & Patty of Glass Goons, 4455 N. Juniper Drive, Chino Valley, glass

Jody Skjei, Skjei Designs, 1814 Oak Lawn Drive, Prescott, metal

How would you describe your work? It’s a little bit funky. It’s usefulness with a little bit of fun. Glass is very ﬂuid and sometimes you don’t always know what’s going to happen.

How would you describe your work? I originally started with a lot of found object work. I’ve been using more metal — I’m plasma cutting, welding, and a little bit of forging, pounding and bending it to my will — so I have several diﬀerent bodies of work. I did a series of characters: birds. They were made out of what we left behind, so they lived in the future, and they all had a reason for being here and were about making a kinder, more gentle, compassionate, society. I was going to write a book with them at one point. Anyway, I do a lot of functional art like tables and chairs, plus commissions for things like linear sculptures, which are kind of like fences. Rockers and planters, too. I’m doing a lot more sculpture now, too. I’d like to move into more kinetic stuﬀ.

What’s your space look like? It’s about 1,8000 square feet. My side of the garage is basically a whole garage and half of another one. I have three tables and can teach six people with them and I have four kilns — two big ones and two small ones — and a vitragraph, which is a small 8” x 8” kiln that hangs from a cabinet or shelf, and you melt a pot of glass inside it and it ﬂows through a hole at the base where you can grab it with tongs into stringers and twist it into bow ties, hearts, and every other shape you can think of. Any memorable visits or visitors? We have one couple who loved my glass and found out we had solar and went out with my husband for about three hours. They’re on the tour and the committee now. There’s one gentleman who comes back who’s … let’s just say he’s unique, and people know who he is. He just loves to play with jewelry and glass, and is a really nice guy. I also have a lady who comes back every single year for my ornaments. She always comes early, and goes straight for the discounted stuﬀ, and then she gets a new ornament or two. *****

HT: Art by Abby Brill, NanPatty Lindsey, Jody Skjei, i Shafer. Courtesy photos.

Cindi Shafer, Astral Glass Studio, 697 6th St., Suite 106, Prescott, glass *****

What’s your space look like? It changes. A lot of people, I’m finding, are coming back on the Studio Tour every year to see what else I’ve collected. I have backyard terraces that are just covered in things I’ve collected. Any memorable visits or visitors? I find I get a lot of other artists. Some of them are people who’ve heard about this giant collection of stuff I have. What’s fun for me about the Studio Tour is that there’s a lot of agricultural and automotive parts — guy stuff — and guys want to talk about it. It’s, “That’s a 1954 cam shaft, which they stopped making in … .” I learn all this stuff from others, which is great. It’s also fun to see my friends who don’t consider themselves artists finds things and say this looks like this or that, and they basically design a piece. *****

News From the Wilds Weather Average high temperature: 81.8 F (+/-2.9) Average low temperature: 48.9 F (+/-3.2) Record high temperature: 98 F (1948) Record low temperature: 26 F (1903) Average precipitation: 1.71” (+/-1.51”) Record high precipitation: 10.02” (1983) Record low precipitation: 0” (7 percent years on record) Max daily precipitation: 3.08” (Sept. 24, 1983)

Young Greater Short-horned Lizards (Phrynosoma hernandesi) leave their parents and search for ants, which they specialize on. Photo by Ty Fitzmorris.

By Ty Fitzmorris eptember glows in golden light, rich with scents of late summer — its sunrises are heady with the fragrance of white Sacred Datura flowers, fading into the noontime butterscotch of sun-warmed Ponderosas, and then into the dusk sweetness of bricklebush. In much of North America, September marks the beginning of the colder part of the year, with last harvests and cold nights. But in the lower latitudes, such as the Mogollon Highlands of Arizona, September is still summer, though with hints and foreshadowings of autumn. The monsoon rains usually continue into the early part of the month, tapering off eventually into glorious sunny days, with extraordinary flowering of purple four-o-clocks, asters, and morning-glories, red penstemons and Scarlet Creeper, yellow sunflowers and daisies, and the tall, strange tree-like Wright’s Thelypody (Thelypodium wrightii), with its white flowers. Insect diversity, too, continues to grow and change, with some of the largest insects of the year making their debut. Look for the large brown Rhinoceros Beetle (Xyloryctes jamaicensis), the Great Ash Sphinx Moth (Sphinx chersis), and the gigantic leaf-mimic katydids of the genus Microcentrum, as well as the harmless (though somewhat alarming) Giant Crab Spider (Olios giganteus), which is often seen in houses as temperatures fall outside. It is in this time of extraordinary plenty that many creatures begin to prepare for the coming

cold season. Most of our woody plants are setting seed, which woodpeckers and squirrels are storing away in granaries; young of many mammal species are leaving home to establish their own territories; and insects are laying eggs, their unique adaptation to climatic stress. One of the most unusual egg-laying techniques in the insect world is the creation of galls, which are structures created by plants in response to an insect laying its egg in the plant’s tissue. Galls can look like pine cones (on juniper trees, which bear no visible cones), like apples on Emory Oak trees, like smooth, blushing tumors on Gambel Oaks, or like furry, curled leaves on Arizona White Oaks. Oaks, in fact, have the highest diversity of galls, with over 300 diﬀerent types found on them. Many of these galls will appear now, as specialist wasps, moths, and ﬂies lay their eggs in the growing tissue of their coevolved host-plant.

ur most water-dependent creatures, such as snails and mushrooms, abound now — species that one rarely associates with the desert Southwest. Arizona is home to at least 200 species of native snail, most of whom are completely unstudied, though they can easily be seen consuming riverside vegetation during this wet season. Our species of fungi number in the thousands (just in Arizona!) and, again, are substantially unstudied, but they present a bewildering diversity from now until the Fall, from brittlegills to puﬀ balls to earthstars. Their fruiting bodies

14 • FEATURE • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

are the only part of a mushroom that we typically take note of, but this is a small part of the organism — the real fungus is a network of filamentous mycorrhizae interlacing (and often enriching) the soil. In fact the largest organism on Earth is thought to be a single mushroom 2,400 acres in size in Oregon, which may be 8,500-years-old. The mammals of the Central Highlands are, for the most part, at the peak of their year. Food is abundant, and most species are not under any real food or water stress, so it is now that the contests for mates begin. Mule and White-tailed Deer, Elk, and Pronghorn all begin their annual rut in September, after their antlers and horns are fully grown. This period is defined by male competition for females and territories, and fighting, scentmarking, and tree-marking are common. Coyotes, foxes and Porcupines are also finding mates and breeding. Other mammals, such as squirrels and chipmunks, sensing the shortening days, are stashing food for the coming cold season. Some species of birds will start to migrate into our area from the north toward the end of the month, and we will see species that we haven’t seen in large numbers since spring. Violet-green and Northern Rough-winged Swallow can be found in flocks during this time, though they will have continued their travels southward by midOctober. Teal, hummingbirds and warblers, mostly in fall plumage, will pass us as they fly south. Look, also, for the earliest migrant hawks from the north, including Ferruginous, Swainson’s and some very early Rough-legged Hawks. ***** Ty Fitzmorris is an itinerant and often distractible naturalist who lives in Prescott and is proprietor of the Peregrine Book Company, Raven Café, and Gray Dog Guitars, all as a sideline to his natural history pursuits. He can be reached at Ty@PeregrineBookCompany.Com.

News From the Wilds, too A very brief survey of what’s happening in the wilds ... By Ty Fitzmorris High mountains • Coyotes begin courting and run in pairs. • Elk breeding season begins, and sometimes the resonant bugling of male elk can be heard in wilder areas. • Porcupines begin their breeding season (with a substantial amount of care) in the Aspen groves in higher elevations. Visit: Dandrea Trail, No. 285. Ponderosa Pine forests • Black Walnut leaves begin to turn yellow as cold air flows down river drainages from the higher mountains, and the husks of walnut seeds litter the ground. • Large patches of vegetation underneath Ponderosas turn bright red toward the end of the month. These wispy, near-leafless plants are Dysphania graveolens, a type of goosefoot that emits a pungent, resinous smell when touched. (Thanks to Lisa Zander at the Natural History Institute for the ID help). • Some needles on Ponderosas start to turn orange, and are shed toward the end of the month, as new, soft green leaves replace them. Healthy Ponderosas lose nearly 40 percent of their needles every autumn, and even though this type of needle loss can be rapid it does not necessarily indicate health problems. Also, the wonderful vanilla-butterscotch odor of the Ponderosa is at its peak now — smell in furrows in the bark. Visit: Aspen Creek Trail, No. 48. Pine-Oak woodlands • Emory Oak and Arizona White Oak bear their nutrient-rich acorns, providing one of the year’s biggest crops for Acorn Woodpeckers, Rock Squirrels, and Cliff Chipmunks. • Mule Deer begin their rut. Males can sometimes be seen sparring, and territorial marking, such as rubbed spots on saplings, can be found easily. • Mushrooms “flower”’ in great diversity, especially in areas with downed, wet wood. It is during this time that most wood decomposition takes place, with their aid. • Fendler’s Ceanothus continues to flower. The Navajo use this plant as both a sedative and an emetic (to cause vomiting), and the berries are an important food source for many animals. • Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus montanus) bears its seeds. The long, spiral seeds burrow actively into the soil when they fall, both as a method for self-planting and fire-avoidance. Visit: Miller Creek Trail, No. 367.

Twelve-spotted Skimmers (Libellula pulchella) hawk above the creeks and lakes that the last monsoon rains have swollen. Photo by Ty Fitzmorris.

Pinyon-Juniper woodlands • Goldenrods (Solidago spp.) and bricklebush (Brickellia spp.) flower, the latter of which has arguably the best aroma of any of our flowering plants, which it releases at dusk to attract moths. • Butterflies fly in great diversity, drawn to the flat, open flowers of the aster family, including the fleabanes, sunflowers, asters, and groundsels. Visit: Juniper Springs Trail, No. 2. Grasslands • Pronghorns begin their short breeding season, with males entering their rut. During this time the males will fight for dominance, and winners will gather together a harem of females. • Yellow and purple asters abound, along with sunflowers. • The grasshoppers, our primary grass herbivores, reach their final, winged life-stage, and many species can be found in different microhabitats. Look especially for the massive, though wingless, Plains Lubber Grasshopper (Brachystola magna), which can often be found crossing roads such as Arizona Route 69, east of Dewey-Humboldt. Visit: Mint Wash Trail, No. 345.

Riparian areas • Canyon Treefrogs (Hyla arenicolor) conclude their mating season and finish laying eggs, even as some eggs hatch into tadpoles. • Young River Otters leave their parents and their home territories, dispersing into new habitats. This species is slowly reoccupying habitats from which it was extirpated by trapping, declining water quality, and habitat loss, and now can be found throughout the southwest. • Monarch Butterflies appear toward the end of the month, beginning their long migration south, following creeks and drainages. • Katydids, large-winged relatives of grasshoppers, fly in riparian galleries. These are some of the best leaf-mimics of the insects. • The fruits of Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica) continue to ripen and provide a valuable (and delicious) food source for many species of birds. Visit: Bell Trail, No. 13. Deserts/Chaparral • Paintbrushes (genus Castilleja) bear their beanlike seed-pods. These beautiful plants are unusual in that they are hemiparasites, which draw nutrients out of other plants but also perform some photosynthesis of their own. • Seep Willow (Baccharis sarothroides) flowers in desert washes. This plant was used extensively by the Tohono O’odham to make arrows and brooms, as well as to brew a tea for coughs. Visit: Algonquin Trail, No. 225.

Skyward • Sept. 6: Full Moon at 12:03 a.m. • Sept. 12: Mercury at greatest western elongation. The planet nearest the Sun will be at its highest in the morning sky before sunrise. Look for Mercury low in the eastern skies just over an hour before the Sun rises, just below the bright star Denebola in Leo’s tail. • Sept. 19: New Moon at 10:30 p.m. • Sept. 22: Autumnal Equinox at 1:02 p.m. The sun will set almost exactly to the west this evening, and everywhere on Earth day and night will be of equal length. The name “equinox” refers to this, meaning ‘equal night’ in Latin. Today also marks the ﬁrst day of autumn in the northern hemisphere, as well as the midpoint in the period of greatest day-length change, when the days are getting shorter at the highest rate of the year.

I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he wondered how it felt to be a bird, to be free, but when he asked them they only said “yes, yes.” As he walked he imagined his arms turning to wings, he imagined wind beneath a full sweep of feathers, his feet lifting from the ground. He climbed to the very top of a boulder and stood on its edge. He shut his eyes, held out his arms, and when he could no longer feel his feet and was sure they had raised off the rock, he looked. ¶ People had gathered in front of him. One man held in his hand a cross as big as the boy. They were kneeling before him, their palms pressed together, whispering strangely. “It is him? Could it be?” ¶ “Yes,” said a woman, “the baby Jesus!” And she climbed to where he stood, carried him down, and wrapped him in her white scarf. ¶ The people processed along the path into town and the boy with his blond curls and blue eyes was the baby Jesus swaddled and held up by two men in long white robes. The boy laughed at their mistake but he liked being on his high perch so he stayed very still as the townspeople gazed up at him, pointing. With his brothers and sisters always beside him he was never unique, never apart, and now as he held one hand up, blessing the people who stood below him, he knew he would never be one of many again, or if he were he would only be pretending. ¶ But when they arrived at the church and the men set him down, he snuck away when no one was looking and ran. Jesus was nailed to a cross and it was fine to be worshipped but he didn’t want to die just yet. In town a policeman scooped him onto his horse and took him home to his mother with her red, wet eyes and cheeks, to his father, his face pinched and stern. ¶ When his father raised his hand to strike him, to punish him for running off, the boy cried, “but I am the baby Jesus!” And rather than beating him as he had planned to, his father set him on a wooden chair so big it seemed to the boy like a throne and he placed a cross in the boy’s hand and painted him as the baby Jesus. As his father worked, looking from him to the canvas, back and again, the boy had the feeling he was being seen by his father for the first time, and he knew that kind of looking meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ I am the baby Jesus ¶ A boy lived in a house so close to the forest he could hear the trees mumble to the wind as he lay in bed before sleep, and in the day he would sometimes wander from the house into the shade of the trees to play hide and seek with the squirrels while the birds called to each other from the treetops, and he knew their song meant “hello” and “I love you” and “yes.” ¶ One Wednesday in autumn his mother washed him in the basin in the kitchen and she planned to wash his hair the way she did every Wednesday, but when she bent down to reach for the soap he slipped her grasp and ran dripping out the door and into the forest, where buried himself in leaves. Though he heard her call, he did not answer. She sent his three brothers and his three sisters to look for him, but they didn’t think to look under the leaves and when it was time for lunch they went back to the house because they could smell chicken roasting and they were hungry. ¶ The boy brushed off the leaves and followed a path he hadn’t seen before, having never been this deep in the forest. He could no longer see his house, only trees on all sides. The path was soft with crushed leaves, a brown and orange and yellow carpet winding through the trunks of the giants who protected him and the birds who called down to him, “where, where?” ¶ “I don’t know,” he told them, “I am following this path because it leads away from home where I am told what I must do, where I must sit with my mouth closed and listen, where I must wash my hair because it is Wednesday.” And he

... FROM PAGE 11

[Editor’s note: The following interview was culled from conversations between the reporter and artist Slade Graves and Valerye Jeffries, artistic director of Slade’s art closing. Slade’s art closing is after-hours, probably around 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1, at the Raven Café, 142 N. Cortez St., 928-717-0009, RavenCafe.Com, $5 donation, bar operating, no food.] Where did the idea for this show come from? Graves: I think it started with us finding out about the Prescott Society for Surrealism, which was founded in 1939 by Hattie Safford. It was an entirely female branch of Surrealism that had little contact with the European group, though Ms. Safford did meet Max Ernest at a gas station in Flagstaff. There’s a quote from her: “He had what looked like a nest in his white tuft of hair, but he was too tall for me to see just what was inside it.” Anyway, what we re do ng s we re br ng ng that back Jeffries: We re ho d ng the first meet ng of that soc ety n a ong t me Surrea sm s the name of the game Anyt me we ta k about some aspect of the c os ng S ade br ngs n Surrea sm It s a meet ng; t s a performance art p ece; t s an ntroduct on to Surrea sm; and u t mate y t s her art show A of t k nd of surrounds th s art show There be some dance some poetry and other performances — and most mportant y S ade s art hang ng on the wa Graves: The show hangs n m d-August so the art open ng s actua y the c os ng of the show Everyth ng s ups de down and backward Jeffries: It s very fitt ng w th the theme We re hav ng a ot of fun w th t We had our first rehearsa s n ear y August and t s been rea y fun As far as the cast goes we ve got some members of the Why Not? be y dance troupe De sa My es of The F y ng Nest M chae a Carter and so many more There be some spoken word and some read ngs as we All of this is based around your art, Slade. What inspired this particular body of work? Graves: It was M chae a So t k nd of began w th the M chae a Carter Co ect on She s n the throws of wr t ng another book Th s one s about Surrea sm and centers around Leonora Carr ngton and Max Ernst I was pr v eged enough to be ab e to read one of the first draft vers ons and t s go ng to be amaz ng There s a chapter “I am the Baby Jesus ” that k nd

of p ays on Max Ernst s younger years and there s a th s ncred b e ush anguage and magery and the env ronment where t takes p ace and t s ust so coo and surrea Anyway I read that and I d ust gotten nto work ng w th spray pa nt n fine art I m se f taught when t comes to that And the first p ece that came out of me was “I am the Baby Jesus ” I wasn t consc ous y do ng t but t s what came out And as Va ment oned M chae a w be do ng a read ng … The ent re cast s fema e Th s s a woman s th ng though t won t be exc us ve y women n the aud ence We wanted to keep the cast a fema e We Jonathan Best s part of t too but he s the except on [Ed tor s note: Jonathan Best s an except on to a ot of th ngs ] It s about them be ng empowered and showcased around the art The dances and wr t ng are a nsp red by the art Jeffries: The deas s that the pa nt ngs are com ng a ve They say a pa nt ng s worth 1 000 words; we we re go ng to g ve you some of those words I th nk the danc ng n part cu ar rea y shows the k nds of fee ngs S ade s work br ngs up There are about five pa nt ngs that peop e took nsp rat on from for the danc ng It s great because t s the r nterpretat ons not S ade s It s rea y fasc nat ng how d fferent peop e get d fferent th ngs from the work Graves: In terms of numbers there be about seven arge p eces and oh I don t know et s say 108 sma er ones

Say someone s reading this and curious about coming to the show. What would you tell them in advance? Jeffries: I th nk the ma n th ng for them s to embrace the strange to rea y come w th an open m nd and not expect anyth ng n part cu ar to part c pate and ose your m nd for a tt e b t Slade, how does Surrealism fit into your art and life? Graves: Th s year nadvertent y — I d done t three t mes before I rea zed t — I started s gn ng my p eces ups de down You know the wor d s super surrea r ght now We re v ng n strange t mes and there s a ot more stress and uncerta nty than we re used to One of the mpetuses for myse f s to turn th ngs around and take peop e out of the r heads g ve them a breath of fresh a r I th nk th s show can do that I th nk Surrea sm can do that Th nk about the era r ght after the second Wor d War; th ngs were w d and peop e d dn t know what the next day wou d br ng It s k nd of ke that now Jeffries: Art sts a ways dep ct the t mes

16 • FEATURE • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

they re n Know ng the context s an mportant part of nteract ng w th art Graves: You know I ve never fe t ke my art rea y d d that I ve a ways fe t ke these are d re t mes and I shou d be pa nt ng d re t mes But my art turns that ups de down and I show you an ups de down backward mage So I guess t does that too n ts own way Jeffries: There s th s fantast c opt m sm n your work Graves: I dont th nk I do that consc ent ous y Jeffries: But t s what happens I fee so ost and ups de down and don t have a way of be ng and I see your art and t s a way to turn that nto an opt m st c th ng Graves: We thank you Jeffries: And the way you use words beaut fu words n your p eces — I th nk a ot of peop e can re ate to that Graves: I ve a ways put words n Somet mes I th nk damn I ust want to exp ode w th fists and arrows but then I work n phrases ke “ ook up ” Jeffries: You know I hadn t seen any of the p eces for th s show unt S ade asked me to come on and she sent me a of the work I was ust b own away I m k nd of an art snob and won t work w th anyone un ess I m rea y drawn to the work I had such a deep connect on to your work S ade Every s ng e one of your p eces has a subt y to t that h ts you You cou d ust g aze over and say “oh great compos t on great co or ” but t s so easy to rea y d ve nto them and see what you re try ng to say It s eer e and t s backward and t s ups de down As this show comes together, any parting thoughts? Graves: I g ve Va so much cred t for her profess ona sm and v gor and oy I ve never done anyth ng ke th s and t fee s so good … The best th ng s that I m ab e to share w th everyone I m br ng ng n a these rea y ta ented peop e I ve done co aborat ons w th seamstresses and woodworkers and meta workers before but th s t me I m br ng ng n my fr ends my peeps the peop e who ve enr ched my fe It s exc t ng It s surrea

***** S ade Grave s art c os ng s after-hours probab y around 5 p m Sunday Oct 1 at the Raven Café 142 N Cortez St 928717-0009 RavenCafe Com $5 donat on bar operat ng no food Markoff Chaney s an Earth-based whodun t pund t and (Fnord) D scord an Pope He has otsa b s and no sense Contact h m at No syNo seIsNo some@Gma Com

“Treatise on Birds,” dyptych by Slade Graves. Fine art photography by Alan Lade.

Tunneling for neutrality

Concerning streams of consciousness

By Justin Agrell y wife and I are “cord cutters.” We found that the alternatives to paying for television finally grew too numerous to continue paying a premium for the commercial-filled, product-placed offerings of our cable company. We pay for just internet now and for services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. We’ve been free from our cable television ties for more than three years and will never look back. Once you’re used to streaming, you’ll wonder how you ever put up with the way things were before. We now watch whatever we want whenever we want to. The movies are feature-length and not “edited for television,” and we do not have the commercials wasting our time. Recently we noticed something strange, though. Youtube channels and other streaming sources began to buffer (pause to catch up due to a slow connection) far more often and would no longer just play through without interruption. We assumed it was an upset “in the cloud” and learned to ignore it until a good friend of mine recommended using something called a VPN (Virtual Private Network). He told us that our local internet provider was slowing the connection to streaming sites and that once he subscribed to a VPN service he could watch his shows without issue. Now, being in the tech industry, I was aware of VPNs. They’ve been around for decades. In my experience, they were used to connect an employee working from home to the network of

their workplace or in some cases connect diﬀerent oﬃces of a business together. This is how it works: A person’s computer creates an encrypted connection to the business’ network (called a “tunnel”) that allows the home computer to operate like it’s there locally. Simple, right? So what about my friend? Why did it work for him and shouldn’t it have slowed down his internet down since it’s a more complicated way to connect?

ou may’ve heard about Net Neutrality. I personally think a better name for it would have been Data Transmission Equality, but maybe I’m just being silly. The definition for Net Neutrality is treating all data equally and not discriminating against the different types of data by blocking or slowing the transmission. In theory, having a direct connection to your streaming service would give you the fastest speed but if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is being “UnNet Neutral” toward streaming data then your shows will slow down. This is where VPNs come in. When we tunnel our traffic through our ISP and to a VPN all of the data is encrypted and, to the ISP, it looks all the same which forces Net Neutrality to occur. So as long as an ISP is restricting your connection the use of a VPN will be faster. Alternatively, if they are treating your data equally then a VPN will actually slow your connection down. I hope that clarifies things. My wife and I are now using a VPN and have definitely noticed a difference. A major part of the fight for Net Neutrality is to avoid having to pay

Two-bit Column

extra to sneak around your internet provider’s malicious ways, but there’s a bigger picture here. All over the world, social networks like Twitter are being used to warn others of natural disasters and violence. We have seen that social networks operate faster during dangerous events than the emergency systems governments currently have. Try to imagine a world where people are getting injured or dying needlessly because they couldn’t afford to pay an extra $10 a month for access to Twitter. In a non-net-neutral world that’s what could happen. Every different service would be scrutinized and separated into the very package systems that the cord cutters are currently fleeing from with cable television. Several countries already consider internet access to be a basic human right in the modern world: Finland, Estonia, Costa Rica, France, Greece, and Spain all mandate affordable or free access to the internet for everyone.

believe that there are many ways to successfully run a government, including the capitalist style of the U.S., but I also believe in a modern world that uses science and logic to find the best ways to function. I tell myself that my country will be the first in the evolution of a modern government but it’s constantly threatened by the very businesses that it incubates. As technology advances, it’ll become more desirable to turn our attention away from the politics and confusing ideas of all of this, but it’s important — now more than ever — that we don’t surrender to blind consumerism and we stay aware of what’s right for our future. ***** Justin Agrell has been a certified IT technician since 2005. He loves Linux, adventure motorcycling, and computer gaming. To get in touch, just email him at Justin@U4E.US.

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515 E. Sheldon St., Prescott, www.erasalonandspa.com

18 • COLUMN • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

What’s in a name?

Heinrich Lyle debuts ‘Shameless Dick’ By Robert Blood [Editor’s note: The following interview was culled from conversations between the reporter and Heinrich Lyle, author of “Shameless Dick: Odyssey of a Cad.” Lyle has a book reading, time TBA Saturday, Sept. 16 at Peregrine Book Co., 219 N. Cortez St., 928-445-9000, PeregrineBookCompany. Com.] Why don’t you introduce yourself and your new book? I’m Heinrich Lyle, and I’ve lived in Arizona for about 11 years. Moved here from Los Angeles, where I was an actor, and I’m the author of “Shameless Dick: Odyssey of a Cad.” That project was really conceived years ago, when I was in college. It went through a few different incarnations. For a while, it was a musical play. I even wrote a few crazy songs for it. Then it was a straight narrative novel, but I stalled halfway through it and shelved it for a couple of years. Then, one day, I was reading Dante’s “Inferno” and I kind of likened that story to my story: This is one man’s descent into his own hell, into purgatory. I also liked the terza rima style, those three-line stanzas, but I didn’t want to follow the rhyme pattern because I thought that’d be kind of tedious for the reader. I just liked that idea and aesthetic on the page. Once I had that, I worked out the whole thing and finished it in a couple of months. After that, I was shopping it around, looking for small publishers because I figured Random House wouldn’t look at it, and I found Loose Moose Publishing here in Prescott. They had a line on their website, something like, “even if the writing is unconventional or a bit crazy,” and I thought, ohh good, they’ll be open to this, so I sent it in. The owner, Dan Mazur, called me up, said he loved it and wanted to publish it. He’s been pretty steadfast in promoting it and he’s the one who got me the reading at Peregrine Book Co. and got them to carry it. What can you tell us about the reading? It’s Saturday, Sept. 16 at Peregrine Book Co. It’s going to be an unconventional reading. I’m going to be wearing a Zoro mask because I prefer to remain anonymous because of the sensitive adult material the book portrays. My day job is as a social worker, and I don’t want the twain to meet. The Peregrine Book Co. staff came up with the idea that they’ll all be wearing masks, too.

It’s going to be interesting. They’re going to be serving wine and snacks and such. If you look at their typical roster of authors there, it’s a lot more mainstream than this book, so I’m really grateful they’re willing to take a chance on such outrageous material. Speaking of which, what’s “Shameless Dick” about? It’s about a gigolo who’s kind of at the end of his career, getting past his best years, basically. He’s looking for one last big score. He wants to marry into money, basically, and make one last grab at that brass ring. He gets a chance to in the form of this very strange family that decides that he’s the perfect man to sire the daughter’s baby. They strike a bargain, that he’ll mary this eccentric rich man’s daughter and they’ll come to a financial agreement that will set him up for life. That family is … without giving anything away, the family is more than he expected. There’s also a supernatural element to the book. It veers off into some pretty strange territory. You mentioned coming up with the project in college. What inspired it? Well, let’s just say that back in those days I, well, I had pretty unconventional tastes in literature — and, I still do. I’m very influenced by underground writers like Charles Bukowski and Jean Genet. I came up with the title before I had the concept. I just wanted to write a book called “Shameless Dick.” Basically, I wrote the story around the title. It amused me. At the time, my friends and I were probably experimenting with some illicit substances, but maybe that’s not worth printing. Or maybe it is. Anyway, the title just cracked me up. I didn’t have a lot of discipline in those days, and, as I mentioned, it was shelved for many years. As I’ve grown older, and now that I’m not acting, I need a creative outlet. The rest of the story is … it’s hard for me to talk about without giving

anything away. You mentioned songs in an earlier iteration. Could you share some of that? Well there’s one character, a dwarf in the book called Stinky Levine, and one of his songs has lines like, “Why don’t you love me? What do you have against the wee small people?” There’s a song that opened the play called “Hot Cow.” The main character is singing to a lot of middle-aged housewives who were past their prime and basically, he says, “Hot cow, it’s not too late for you to have one last swing.” I don’t exactly remember all the lyrics. It’s been 30 years. I do remember doing a table read with my friends. They had scripts and I had a guitar. There was no way that was going to make it on Broadway. I was just thinking about that recently, though, as Sam Shepard just died. He was easily one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. What was the most difficult part of finally finishing “Shameless Dick” after all this time? I think coming up with an ending that would satisfy me. Often writers have an ending in mind, and that’s probably the logical way of doing it, but I didn’t have one. I needed something suitable for this character. I couldn’t have a typical Hollywood ending. ***** Heinrich Lyle reads from “Shameless Dick: Odyssey of a Cad,” time TBA Saturday, Sept. 16 at Peregrine Book Co., 219 N. Cortez St., 928-4459000, PeregrineBookCompany.Com. Find out more about “Shameless Dick” and other Loose Moose Publishing titles at LooseMoose Publishing.Com Robert Blood is a Mayer-ish-based freelance writer and ne’er-do-well who’s working on his last book, which, incidentally, will be his first. Contact him at BloodyBobby5@Gmail.Com.

5ENSESMAG.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 • FEATURE • 19

Prescott Peeps: Sue Lord Why don’t you introduce passion toward teaching. You yourself and the clubs you can probably throw anything teach? at me, I’ll learn it, and I can This is my 25th year at teach it. That’s what teachers Prescott Unified School Disdo. You have to instill that pastrict. In the past, I’ve mainly sion first. Once there’s passion, been in the behavioral field. the knowledge comes second. I was a behavioral coach and ran a discipline room for many I understand you do some years. For the last several work with kids at Yavapai years, I’ve been the math interCollege, as well. Would ventionist for K-4 at Abia Judd you tell us about that? Elementary School. I have I helped develop a program some sports clubs, but also with administration that just Sue Lord (middle right, red hair), with an outdoors club and guest offer the Prescott Audubon finished our ninth summer. Junior Nature Club as well as It’s called Yavapai College for speakers. Photo by Pam Hanover, Prescott Audubon Society. The Grand Canyon Club. These Kids. They developed someare enrichment clubs, afterthing similar on the Verde Valley school clubs really, offered once a Campus several years ago, too. week to 14 students at a time on a quarterly basis. How did you end up in Prescott, anyway? It’s pretty much a summer enrichment program It’s basically to introduce them to the Audubon Well, I was from Steamboat Springs, Colo., and for kids to learn a variety of things. I was a drama as well as nature. We do a variety of things. I we moved here as a family — me, my two small major in college, in addition to taking a million have outreach speakers who come. Mr. Wilson, boys, and my husband at the time. … I ended up classes in other things, and it’s my time to do all the Great Horned Owl from the Heritage Park kind of scrambling with the kids to myself, and we sorts of art and drama classes. I’ve also done a Zoological Sanctuary. We always have a docent picked up the pieces and moved on. You know, it’s major hiking class the last five years. We get into from the Highlands Center, and, typically, somea beautiful area. I think for most people, moving a Yavapai College van and go venue to venue. It’s one from Audubon, of course. It’s so wonderful to here is an upgrade. I used to ski every single day a wonderful outdoor program. It’s interesting behave these speakers come. I have so much inforin Steamboat Springs, though. … I think one of the cause when we started it was mostly PUSD, HUSD, mation I could give to them all on my own, but reasons I really wanted to start up these outdoor and Chino Valley USD students. Now, it’s been a lot the kids love having speakers. We also do things programs is because it’s such a gorgeous outdoor of charter school kids and home school kids and like making bird feeders, dissecting owl pellets, area with diverse topography as well as wildlife. kids spending the summer with grandparents. Our and hiking and bouldering. And to answer another part of your audience has changed. ... It’s like a family question about the Grand and it’s really grown in the community. Why are clubs about nature Canyon, I think inand the outdoors important? troducing kids to How can people help support These children are the stewwhat’s there gets these programs? ards of our future and the them excited Well, one way is to support natural world. There’s so much about it and, all the organizations who supstuff going on the in the world hey, it’s only port us, including the Prescott right now, and it’s important two hours Audubon Society, the Commuto expose them to the tenants away by car to nity Nature Center, the National of being stewards of the natuthe South Rim. Forest Service, the Highlands ral world. I don’t just feature the So many of the Center — and, oh, Jay’s Bird Barn, Audubon and ornithology; I bring in kids from the club end who’s donated to a lot of organizaall kinds of things about nature. We’ve up going home and pestertions in town, including us. There’s the had in the Prescott Astronomy Club, too. ing their parents until they get to go. zoo — the Heritage Park Zoological Society We’re very fortunate to by so near the CommuI’m always amazed by how many adults live here — too. I helped develop a program for kids at the nity Nature Center and use that as our living lab who’ve never been. Humane Society, and zoo has summer zoo camps two, or three, or four times a season. We can do too, which is great. I guess it’s competition for my some gentle bouldering there and learn about the Taking a step back and looking at teaching, summer programs, technically, but when they animals here and even at the Grand Canyon. We at large, not just in the clubs, when’s that visit my clubs, I tell them to make sure and bring do similar things in both clubs, actually, it’s just eureka moment for you, when things click their brochures. All of us in nature education are that one is more focused on, of course, the Grand for you and the kids? What’s that look like? just trying to help each other. I can’t speak on Canyon. The clubs are limited to 14 children and, It happens every day, seriously. I’ve been doing behalf of PUSD, but they have a volunteer person not to toot my own whistle, but I’ve always got a the Math Title I program for kids that kind of at the district in charge of volunteers. waiting list. I’ve been so happy we switched from fall through the cracks. At this point I’ve served semester to quarterly enrichment programs. Now, over 100 kids — about a fifth of our school — and ***** I can teach 112 kids per year as opposed to 56. every single one of them, with only one excepContact Sue Lord at Sue.Lord@PrescottSchools. tion, improved dramatically. I just have a real Com.

20 • FEATURE • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

Thought for food

Amber Bosworth digs into ‘5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche’ By Robert Blood [Editor’s note: The following interview was culled from conversations between the reporter and Amber Bosworth, director of “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” and artistic director of 4AM Productions. “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” a 4AM Productions event, is 6 & 8 p.m. Sept. 29 & 30 & Oct. 6 & 7 at Stage TOO, North Cortez Street Alley, between Willis and Sheldon streets, 928-4453286, 5LezEating.BPT.Me. Tickets are $17 online, $22 door.] What’s “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” about? Well, it’s about five women, all members of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein. It takes place in the 1950s, and they’re doing a quiche breakfast every year for this sisterhood. Again, it’s the 1950s, and, basically, when the bomb hits and all hell breaks loose, they end up in a bunker and they’re the last people left. They live together and, of course, all their secrets come out. All of them but one basically admit that they’re lesbians. They weren’t able to live their truth, but the bomb changes things and it’s time for them to be true to themselves. Would you tell us about the characters? There’s Lulie, and she’s the president of the group. She’s very patriotic, very gung ho at the beginning, and then everything changes for her. There’s Dale: She’s never looked at man since she was 3-years-old and very established in the community, and it’s the only place she can really talk to other people. She’s the recorder and she takes pictures. Ginny is the newest member, and she’s from England and gets picked on a lot. She’s a sweet, younger girl. There’s also Wren. She’s one of the older characters who keeps everyone in line — very matronly and kind of the mother hen. And then there’s Vern. She’s the most gung ho, actually. She’s very tomboyish and she tells it like it is. She has no filter. Given the title, I’d wager it’s a comedy, but those personalities make for a lot of potential drama. It’s definitely more comedic. The bomb is such a heavy metaphor for anything that we go through. It takes something really big or traumatic for us to admit the truth to ourselves. You kinda have to make a comedy of that, right? One of the characters doesn’t make it, so there’s that. … Part of

what adds to the comedic elements is that the audience is a big part of the show. The characters, the actors, get to bring them in and right oﬀ the bat they’re invited. We acknowledge that they’re there. It’s a really great aspect of a play that’s being done in such a small place. You know, in a small, intimate place, it’s hard to ignore the audience, so it’s nice we don’t have to do that. You, as an actor, get to look them in the eye and treat them like another character. That’s a great thing. So, yeah, it’s not a heavy drama. It’s a comedy.

Why this play? What’s your take on this story? Well, it’s a fairly new production. I’d never seen it until I found it. It was an oﬀ-Broadway show. I was searching for plays that were all women because I wanted women to take a more active role in theater. The name drew me in right away. When I read the script, I laughed the whole way through — it was so honest — so, I knew we had to do it. It might be set in 1956, but it’s relevant today. Whether we’re hiding our sexuality, our personality, or anything, really, it speaks to that with a fresh voice.

This is your ﬁrst time directing a full-length play. Why make the change to directing? I love acting, and that’s where my true passion is. Directing has really been a response to a deﬁcit of newer things being brought here. I saw this show and I realized it wasn’t going to be welcome in certain places, just because of the name, and if I wanted to see it done here in Prescott, I was going to have to do it myself. So, I got together with John Duncan, he’s the producer and the executive producer of 4AM Productions.

Obviously, the name invokes an evocative subject matter — namely, sexuality. Well, I think some people shy away from the play because of the name. It’s important, though, that it’s not just a gaystraight thing. There’s a lot more going on. Hey, it’s a catchy title that both attracts attention and causes some people to shy away. Again, I knew this wasn’t coming here unless I did it, so I had to do it.

Your leap from actress to director — what surprised you about your new role? I didn’t know how hard it was going to be. (Laughs.) I didn’t realize everything that’s involved in it. It’s a lot of effort to focus on just one character, let alone the whole picture. It requires a lot of attention. … In practical terms, that means people ask about picking a particular prop, but no, I have a particular vision, so I have to find it. As the director you have a vision for how you want things to look and you have to stay actively involved in ever decision if you want to make sure everything fits that vision.

***** “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” a 4AM Productions event, is 6 & 8 p.m. Sept. 29 & 30 & Oct. 6 & 7 at Stage TOO, North Cortez Street Alley, between Willis and Sheldon streets, 928-445-3286, 5Lez Eating.BPT.Me. Tickets are $17 online, $22 door. Robert Blood is a Mayer-ish-based freelance writer and ne’er-do-well who’s working on his last book, which, incidentally, will be his ﬁrst. Contact him at BloodyBobby5@Gmail.Com.

5ENSESMAG.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 • FEATURE • 21

n the skull of a saltwater catfish called a sail-cat, there is a bone that, when dried, resembles a crucifix. On one side can be seen a figure on a cross, capped by a “crown of thorns” made of short ribs. On the reverse side, a slab of bone resembles a majestic robe being held up by a figure with arms raised. This fish, common to the waters off the coast of Florida has been dubbed the “Crucifix Fish.” This unique bone itself comes from the roof of the animal’s mouth.

Not-asholy days

he fourth holiday quarter is just around the corner. That’s no reason to gloss over festivities this month, though. Consider celebrating ... Sept. 1: Emma M. Nutt Day. (Siri, call Emma Nut, please.)

ODDLY ENOUGH ... When the dried object is shaken, it rattles. The noise is caused by the otoliths, or tiny “ear stones” contained in two bony bladders which aid in swimming balance and locomotion. The rattling is likened to the dice cast by the Roman soldiers as they gambled for the seamless robe of Christ at the cruciﬁxion, as the story goes.

Sept. 4: Newspaper Carrier Day. (Signed, sealed, delivered, it’s yours.) Sept. 5: Be Late for Something Day. (Better late than never.) Sept. 7: Neither Rain Nor Snow Day. (Nothing can stop you now.) Sept. 10: Swap Ideas Day. (Traded out another holiday for this one.) Sept. 15: Felt Hat Day. (They’re crushable.) Sept. 17: National Eat an Apple Day. (Let’s put doctors out of business.) Sept. 22: Elephant Appreciation Day. (Gotta love that trunk space.)

*****

he Coturnix or Pharaoh Quail, indigenous to Egypt and North Africa, is the only quail that truly migrates. When it migrates, it moves in huge numbers, and generally walks. They seldom perch in trees. The speckled eggs hatch in a remarkably short 17 days with chicks fully capable of foraging for themselves. When alarmed, the quail often from-up in circles and fluff out their feathers which resemble quills in appearance, like a hedgehog. The Japanese eat more of these quail eggs than they do chicken eggs because they lay so prolifically in captivity and take up such little space. ODDLY ENOUGH … These birds are most likely the same quail referred to in the book of Exodus in the Bible. To this day they are hunted with sticks because when traveling in such large numbers they fly only a few feet off the ground. ***** Russell Miller is an illustrator, cartoonist, writer, bagpiper, motorcycle enthusiast, and reference librarian. Currently, he illustrates books for Cody Lundin and Bart King.

Sept. 28: National Good Neighbor Day. (Sugar and fences go a long way.)

22 • FEATURE • SEPTEMBER 2017 • 5ENSESMAG.COM

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