• Cymbals Eat Guitars

Loss is universal.

So even though Cymbals Eat Guitars created their third album with some very specific losses in mind, the intention was for listeners to find their own meaning in the songs, to connect the emotionally driven indie rock with their own lives.

In August, the New Jersey to New York quartet — guitarist and singer Joseph D’Agostino, bassist Matthew Whipple, keyboardist Brian Hamilton and drummer Andrew Dole — released LOSE, a coming-of-age album that sets its sights on some very serious themes.

“We were combing through the lyrics looking for a title and nothing seemed to fit. Matt suggested that and it seemed obvious,” D’Agostino says. “There are multiple meanings. There’s the personal loss that inspired the record. There’s the loss of enthusiasm for music you had when you were younger and everything seemed really meaningful. It’s also an invitation for people to lose it, to cast off whatever it is that’s keeping you in your box.”

Strangely, you have to fast-forward to the 29 minute mark to actually watch it, but last night's debate on Phoenix's KAET between Doug Ducey, Fred DuVal and two guys who are just happy to be there is now online. Watch as Doug Ducey says he has no intent to fund Arizona's schools in accordance to the will of the Arizona voter or the courts! See Fred DuVal say he wants to run Arizona like California! Also, I think the other guys might have said things!

There's one more debate to come, this time only featuring the two frontrunners, on October 14 in Phoenix.

I feel like I threaten to start a garden every week or so, generally right after spending more than I care to on produce at Sprouts, but hey...where do you even start such a venture here in the desert? Thankfully, the fine folks at the Community Food Bank have a new helpful video on gardening here in the Old Pueblo, plus they have a bunch of classes in October to help you take the next steps:

Soil and Compost Saturday, October 4
Rainwater Harvesting Thursday, October 9
Planting a Healthy Garden Saturday, October 11
Backyard Chickens Saturday, October 11
Garden Basics Intensive Tuesday, October 14
Water Saving Irrigation - Saturday, October 18
Wormania! - Saturday, October 18
Sustainable Design - Friday, October 24
Irrigating with Gray Water - Saturday, October 25
Diseño Sostenible - Saturday, October 25
Soil and Compost - Friday, October 31
All About Soil - Saturday, November 1
La Tierra y el Abono - Saturday, November 1
Planting a Healthy Garden - Friday, November 7
Seeds and Sprouts: Gardening for Kids - Saturday, November 8
Fruit Trees: Selection, Care, Pruning and Propagation - Saturday, November 8
Cultivar un Jardín Saludable - Saturday, November 8
Wormania! - Saturday, November 15
Home Canning, Freezing and Drying - Thursday, November 20

For gardening info and resources galore, check out the Food Bank's website.

Don't read any further. Just go to Howard Fischer's article, Arizona 6th worst in the U.S. for teachers. It's all there. However, if you want my take on his story and a quick summary of some of the facts and figures, read on.

Teachers don't go into the profession for the money. I've never heard any teachers, when asked what they do, answer, "I'm a teacher. Ka-ching!" But that's not to say that poor-but-honest teachers wouldn't like to have a little more change in their pockets.

A study reported that Arizona is 44th in its starting salary for teachers, and that accounts for the different standards of living in the states.

Median teacher salaries? Arizona is 48th.

And along with their low salary, Arizona teachers can look forward to bigger class sizes. True, that means more students to love, but ...

Recent reports say more than a third of Arizona's teachers leave every year (A TUSD administrator I spoke to estimated about half of those are retirees, which makes the actual "leavers" more like one in six). Arizona can't replace all of them. Hundreds of classrooms are staffed with long term substitutes, who will be replaced by other long term subs if districts can't find teachers to fill the slots.

I'm sure some of the leaving teachers move on to other professions, though the weak job market isn't exactly encouraging the exodus. But how many of the exiting teachers are finding students to love in other states where they can earn higher salaries, teach fewer kids, and maybe get a few classroom perks like boxes of Kleenex, crayons and — be still, my heart — paper supplied by the district? I don't know the numbers of those who have fled the state, but for teachers who are footloose enough to pack up and go, what could possibly convince them to stay?

The Hotel Congress lobby is hosting a powerful exhibition of photos by Jon Linton who aims to bring a bit of humanity to how we perceive those living on the streets:

From the press release:

In 2007, Jon Linton volunteered at a shelter to better understand the plight of those without a door to walk through at day’s end. He then began gathering imagery to document the homeless. Years of work have recently given rise to a large social media following, several exhibitions and a book entitled, I Have a Name. Mr. Linton still works actively in outreach and continues to collect stories and images from folks on the street

“One of the most poignant moments of this project came at the Project's inception. I asked the first man I had a conversation with his name, his reply put us both in tears, 'You have no idea how long it has been since someone has cared to ask me who I am ’, he said. The project became 'I Have a Name' in that
instant, said Jon Linton, photographer, creator and founder of IHAN.

The exhibition runs through November 10, with an artist reception scheduled for October 11. See more of the photos on the project's Instagram page.

As any regular reader of The Range knows, I am quite the fan of Christian film, so clearly I'm super psyched for the Nicolas Cage-fronted remake of Left Behind, opening this Thursday at several local theaters. Not super-psyched enough to actually pay for a ticket to the film which will likely offend both my cinematic and theological sensibilities, but at least somewhat happy for the comic relief this film will provide someday when I use a promo-code to rent it for free from Redbox.

The people behind the film are going all out to convince Christians that the movie isn't just an opportunity to cough up $10 for a few hours of entertainment, but actually an opportunity to keep your friends and family from having to experience the post-Christian hellscape shown in the film. Heck, they even got the Duck Dynasty guy to speak on its behalf:

Nice Nicolae Carpathia reference, guy who is inexplicably famous!

However, considering the spiritual importance of this film, it's clearly not enough to hope that a reality show star convinces the nation's faithful to bring the heathens they know to the theater. Sometimes you have to bring out the big guns...like the Prince of Darkness:

Well, if that doesn't convince you, I'm not sure what will. I just only hope God gives us until the end of the weekend to separate the wheat from the chaff. It would be a cruel turn of events to rapture the true believers on Wednesday before the movie comes out, after all.

Please grab this week's Tucson Weekly when it lands in our stands Thursday. The cover, a story that recently ran in our sister alt-weekly, the Sacramento News and Review, is on the late journalist Gary Webb. Narcos News has been steadfast in writing about Webb, his work, his association with Narco News' School of Authentic Journalism and helping to promote the movie Kill the Messenger, a film starring Jeremy Renner as Webb.

The movie opens Oct. 10 across the county, and to further help promote Webb's work, Narco News is running a series of videos, interviews of Webb back in 2003's School of Authentic Journalism. Webb's story in his own words seems worth your time and more.

Inherent Vice, the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, isn't coming out until Dec. 12 (although it may not get to Tucson until the wide release date on January 9, 2015), but the hype is starting to kick into top gear, mostly because it's directed by one of American film's greatest artists and based on a novel by reclusive genius Thomas Pynchon, whose work, including Inherent Vice, is largely unadaptable. It's a perfect storm of nerdish enthusiasm.

Thankfully, at least based on the trailer, the film seems like it'll be amazing.

Grantland had a blog post yesterday about the "Particular Anticipation" surrounding the film:

[Paul Thomas Anderson] is different. It’s impossible to guess what he’ll do with a film visually, narratively, or substantively. His reimaginings have only proven that point: There Will Be Blood was an adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s Oil! like a 747 is an adaptation of a biplane. And Inherent Vice is no Oil! The most screen-ready of Thomas Pynchon’s novels simply in that it isn’t 800 pages long, Inherent Vice is a meandering and phantasmagoric detective story that features very little detective work or story; most of what passes for plot is a sequence of conspiracy theories stacked up one on top of the other, until they begin to congeal. For that reason alone, it’s a classically American story — few other novels so closely resemble the million-car pileup that is our cultural consciousness — but it’s also written by one of the greatest stylists in postwar literature. Turning it into a movie requires two big decisions: (1) what of that stew-like story can be ironed into a “plot,” and (2) how to render the prose into something physical.

Due to a drought and people being told to cut down on the number of times they're flushing their toilet, a giant water slide event that was scheduled for this weekend in Los Angeles was postponed, even though the organizers had managed to sell 4,000 tickets ranging in price from $15 to $50 for the one-day event. The Slide the City event, which features a 1,000 foot long slip-and-slide, has previously taken over a city street in cities such as Salt Lake City and Boise, featuring water balloon fights, music and food trucks to go with the soapy sliding on padded vinyl.

My question: What do we have to do to get this thing in Tucson?

The Slide the City webpage shows that the organizers are planning to come to Phoenix in 2015 (among 41 other cities), but if a city like Billings, Montana merits such an event, I'm pretty sure Tucson should rate a stop as well. Admittedly, finding 1,000 feet of an un-potholed Tucson street might be a challenge, but hey, that's for the bigshots at City Hall to figure out.

The streetcar's done, so it's time for Tucson's next big project: bringing a surprisingly expensive water slide event to town. Make this happen for Tucson, people.

ALLY (Arizona Life Links for Youth), Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation and the University of Arizona Museum of Art have come together to create a community and museum-based program called Mapping Q, for queer youth. The program will work with youth to investigate how symbols, signs and art can be used to express ideas of oppression and freedom for queer youth. Transportation provided to the UA when needed and incentives are available for youth who complete the event series.

From ALLY:

*Learn how to care for yourself and your community through challenging times,
*how to talk to someone considering suicide,
*expand your knowledge about LGBTQ communities,
*learn how art and symbols influence our perspectives

What youth in the project will do with what they learn is map an art project that conveys the ideal community for them as Tucson queer youth and where they find needed support. The final session will be an exhibit of their artwork at the UA Museum of Art.

First session is next Wednesday, Oct. 8 and it continues through Dec. 3, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Eon Youth Lounge at SAAF, 375 South Euclid Ave.