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wildlife
wednesday, september ,
Your guide to the Tucson arts and entertainment scene
Freaks and Greeks Hellenic Center hosts 35th annual celebration
Mike Christy/Arizona Daily Wildcat
A boy performs a flip during a Panathenian dance demonstration Sunday at the Tucson Greek Festival at St. Demetrios Hellenic Center.
A FEST TO REMEMBER
For more photos of the food, music and culture represented at Tucson’s own Greek Fest, flip to page B8
By Graham Thompson Arizona Daily Wildcat October marks the beginning of a busy time for volunteers, coordinators and attendees of dozens of carnivals and festivals throughout Cochise and Pima counties. This weekend, the fun began at the 35th Annual Greek Festival at St. Demetrios Hellenic Center. This is an entirely volunteer-initiated festival; all the food handlers, vendors and lecturers were either members of the church or volunteers who wanted to help. Their hard work is a symbol of hospitality, one of
the most important aspects of many cultures in the world.— Though, nobody does it quite like the Greeks. This unassuming building, tucked between First and Campbell avenues on Fort Lowell Road, was turned into a spectacular fair boasting dozens of activities. Tents lined the parking lot, lectures and guided tours through the church were being conducted, but the real GREEK, page B8
Mine, all mine: Game builds worlds By Brandon Specktor Arizona Daily Wildcat In the ’90s it cost us five weeks allowance for a bucket of 500 Lego bricks, and we considered ourselves lucky. Today it costs $13 for software that spawns an endless number of 3D worlds, made of an endless number of reusable blocks — and we don’t have to worry about getting grounded because the dog choked on one. Children of the digital age have created a new means of expressing unbound architectural creativity, and it’s called “Minecraft”. It is a sandbox game in the most literal sense — that is, you can construct a twenty-story sand castle complete with gates, spires, waterfalls, floating bridges and a golden altar to Poseidon (why not?) within the first few minutes of playtime. “Minecraft” is the brainchild of independent Swedish developer Mojang Specifications, and though it’s been available in some form for
about a year, it has just recently seen an explosion in popularity. According to stats on the developer’s website, “Minecraft” currently has about 900,000 registered users. Over 250,000 bought the game for $13, mostly in the last few weeks. That’s about $3.25 million made so far, and that number is quickly growing. The surge in popularity even crashed the Minecraft.net server last weekend. In response, Mojang temporarily made the game free, creating an even bigger download spike. In corny metaphorical terms, the vein is being mined so deep that the tunnel has collapsed. In the span of just a few weeks,
“Minecraft” became too popular to sustain itself. But now the ball is rolling again, and more gamers — both the casual and the die-hard — are picking up the pixilated pickaxe every day. And who can blame them? The game takes about five minutes to download, 20 seconds to load up and one mouse-click to become totally entrancing. “Minecraft” starts in medias cube. You take control of an anonymous avatar stranded in a vast and unique block landscape. Each new game generates a world at random, equipped with skyscraping mountains, sprawling oceans, subterranean
Image courtesy of Kotaku.com
death mazes and the occasional cow or pig hopping along in careless, blocky bliss. Players begin with no weapon, no map and no objective. They soon realize that their digital god gave them digital hands for a reason, and the pummeling of pre-rendered terra firma begins. One mouse click will tell the avatar to “attack” a selected block, breaking it down into a pocketsize version that can be reused at the player’s liking. Eventually, different combinations of blocks can be synthesized to craft other blocks.
Christy Delehanty Arts Editor 520•621•3106 arts@wildcat.arizona.edu
Business in Toyland By Maitri Mehta Arizona Daily Wildcat On the corner of Sixth Avenue and Sixth Street is the former location of Lulubell Toy Bodega, a haven for aficionados of all things Taiwanese, eccentric, vinyl and neon. On Tuesday, Oct. 5, Lulubell will open the doors at their new location, 35 E. Toole Ave, #1. The space will be new, but the fun will remain the same — a collection of kaiju toys, Eastern and Western vinyl, resin figurines and artistic apparel. Lulubell Toy Bodega is the product of the unconventional mind of Luke Rook. Rook’s love of strange and unique toys was spurred by a stint of living in Taiwan and teaching English in 1997. He was struck by the culture of collecting and the mixture of cute with the bizarre and creepy. After returning home to Tucson, Rook wanted to create a space that would foster his newfound passion and hopefully attract others with the same affinity for mini fortune cats, doit-yourself Munny’s and skull figurines. So why move when he was all settled in? “The choice to move was a hard one; we’ve loved our location and all the great people at Sixth and Sixth but we’ve outgrown it,” Rook said. “We’ve set our goals higher and really need the support of a tight art community and think that’s just what we’re about to jump into.” It’s tough to pick out the most eclectic thing about such a distinctive business, but it might just be the nature of the store itself. In addition to purveying their colorful collectibles, Lulubell is also an art gallery featuring the work of local artists and friends of Rook’s. The idea was an organic one: “It all just kind of happened naturally. It’s all hand in hand. The funny thing is that the movement came as a way for artists to find new means of connecting with a wider range of fans, a way to step out of the galleries,” Rook said. “Perhaps it was just inevitable that they all came back together.” The kinetic energy that drives Rook’s passion for toys, art and collecting is manifested tenfold in everything about Lulubell — from their frenzied, varied stock, to their website, an online store bursting with neon text and enthusiasm. Rook has put his personality into every aspect of Lulubell, and the new Toole location should be no different. But even though Rook is extremely excited about his business, he concedes to the fact that his niche is small. “Tucson is tough, it just doesn’t get the same kind of support other eclectic cities do,” Rook said. But this hasn’t deterred him yet, and the move to the new location is just another indication of his fervent entrepreneurship. Lulubell Toy Bodega will reopen on Oct. 5. Hundreds of their stock items are on sale now at their website, lulubelltoys. com.
MINECRAFT, page B5 Gordon Bates/Arizona Daily Wildcat
WEEKLY FIVE WHY
WAIT
PLEASE
YOU MUST
DON’T FORGET
do all the network shows hold their premieres right when school’s getting hard? Really, we have essays to be writing.
just a little bit longer. Tucson Weekly’s Club Crawl is just around the corner.
stop bitching about how hot it is. Everyone knows.
check out isitchristmas.com. Just don’t expect too many hours of entertainment.
to bust out the J.D. Salinger. It’s the American Library Association’s Banned Book W eek.