Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday Thursday 20 GENDER RENDERING. Sheila Tobias, Tucson's nationally known author, feminist and all-around educator, will give a talk titled Faces of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections on the Women's Movement. Keynoter for the Women Making History luncheon, sponsored by the Arizona Women's Political Caucus, Tobias will share memories from her 35 years in the feminist trenches, during which time she's rubbed rabble-rousing shoulders with luminaries ranging from Gloria Steinem and Susan Brownmiller to Kate Millet. Lunch is at noon at the Arizona Inn, 2200 E. Elm St. Tickets are $25, and available by calling 722-9316. LIT UP. Ever wonder what happened to the solar power capitol Arizona was slated to become? Well, small-minded politicos and big-moneyed utility interests made sure this sun-drenched region never fully developed its most sensible energy alternative. But luckily, though the movement may now be low-profile, it's far from dead. And tonight the Arizona Solar Energy Association details the latest advances, when sunlight aficionados Lane Garrett and Jay Morrison describe how to get the most juice from photo-voltaic systems. Free lecture is at 7 p.m. at the UA Environmental Research Laboratory, 2601 E. Airport Drive. For information, call 883-8880. FOLIAGE FIRE SALE. The Boyce Thompson Arboretum hosts a bargain fest featuring "a fantastic and unique selection of arid-tolerant plants" through April 6. Flora on the block include the Karroo Bush, Mangle Dulce and that old desert fave, the Yellow Bush Penstemon. And since these well-rooted dwellers have evolved in dry environments, they won't send your water bill through the roof. The arboretum is also offering its Spring Color Weekend tours at 11:30 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, and various lectures throughout the week. All events are included in the price of admission. Boyce Thompson Arboretum is located 90 minutes north of Tucson, on Highway 60 near Superior. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission is $4, $2 for kids ages 5 to 12, and free for kids under age 5. For details, call (520) 689-2811. Friday 21 INDIGENOUS SUPERHEROES. The Hopi Goddess Spiderwoman taught her people to weave, advising them, "You must make a mistake in every tapestry so that my spirit may come and go at will." Her powerful spirit now comes to Tucson, when Kuna/Rappahannock sisters Lisa Mayo and Gloria and Muriel Miguel of Spiderwoman Theater weave myth and tradition with comedy as part of the Primavera Festival. The sisters are known for their tongue-in-cheek flair, and their ability to translate the images of dreams and life stories into movement and narrative. High Performance Magazine says, "The authenticity of Spiderwoman's work derives not from the spectators' assumptions about identity, but from the performers' superb execution, their far-reaching and vital commitment." Spiderwoman Theater will conduct a storytelling workshop from 8:30 a.m. to noon in the Southwest Resource Center Room, 6855 S. Mark Road. Call 883-5198 reservations. And they'll present an evening of "humorous and erotic" storytelling at 7 p.m. at Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave. Both events are free. Finally, the trio hits the stage tomorrow night to perform Sun, Moon and Feather. Show time is 8 p.m. in the PCC Center for the Arts, 2202 W. Anklam Road. Tickets are $12, $10 for seniors, $6 for students, and available at Dillard's, Antigone Books and the PCC West Campus cashier. Call 884-6456 for information. Saturday 22 CELESTIAL PASSAGE. It may have escaped your notice, but the biggest of seasonal shifts happened last night. What, you ask, basketball over already? Or did I mercifully miss summer? Not Christmas shopping time already, is it? No, no and nope. It's only that little galactic phenomenon called the Spring Equinox. In other words, the annual moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator and steers away from winter. And though we tend to give it short shrift, both fall and spring equinoxes have for centuries been celebrated as profound passages by agrarian societies. Luckily, the Downtown Arts and Business Alliance, Dateline Downtown and the Youth Storefront are hardly ones to let such timeless benchmarks slide by unnoticed. Today they host the first downtown Equinox Festival, spreading along Arizona Avenue from Broadway to Armory Park, from noon to midnight. The seasonal soirée is meant "for organizations and individuals to come together to promote the artistic creativity of the downtown community, and to demonstrate equality, harmony and joy," says spokesman Tom Anderson. In other words, there'll be tons of arts, crafts, chow, entertainment and plain old good cheer. For more information, call 882-4471. HILLBILLY ROMP. High-powered bluegrass maven Laurie Lewis and her Grant Street Band bring their award-winning sound to Tucson tonight, in a performance hosted by KXCI. Lewis is considered among the top fiddlers in the land, and was twice named International Bluegrass Female Vocalist of the Year. Her latest release, The Oak and the Laurel, also landed her a Grammy nomination. The Grant Street Band rounds out the homegrown sound with intense harmonies and fine traditional and contemporary arrangements. Performance is 8 p.m. in the UA Social Sciences Auditorium. Advance tickets are $15 and $17, with $3 discounts for Tucson Friends of Traditional Music, Desert Bluegrass Association, Tucson Kitchen Musicians, Arizona Bluegrass Association and KXCI members. They're available at Hear's Music, Loco Music and Video, Mars-Hall Music Center, KXCI, or by calling 623-1000. Tickets are $3 more at the door. Sunday 23 START THE PRESSES! Help celebrate Chax Press' return to Tucson with a free reading and reception on Sunday night honoring Chax author, poet Tom Mandel. Chax recently published Mandel's Prospect of Release, a collection of poems critic Ron Silliman calls "the most intensely felt poems I have ever read." Mandel was born in Chicago, the child of Jewish refugees from Hitler, and after some years in New York, Paris and San Francisco, now lives in Washington, D.C. The author of 10 volumes of poetry, Mandel was an early partisan of the language poetry movement. Chax publisher Charles Alexander returned to sunny Tucson last summer after a sojourn of several years in chilly Minneapolis, bringing back with him his small publishing company, which puts out fine volumes of poetry and other literary works. The reading starts at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 23, at the Chax Press Studio, 101 W. Sixth St., No. 6, in the warehouse district just west of the railroad tracks. Enter the parking lot on the west side of the building and use the middle of three doors leading into the studios. For more information, call 620-1626. LATIN HIGHLAND. South of the border meets the boys of summer, as the Sovereign Arts Society fires up the Salsa Rockies Fiesta to welcome the Colorado Rockies back to town. Tucson's own Sounds of Brazil, Ache Pa Ti, Ismael Barajas and Descarga--along with a pair of International Folkloric dancers--will turn the El Parador restaurant into a regular cumbia-fest, with rhythmic Rockies on hand to sign autographs. The extravaganza includes plenty of great Mexican grub, and proceeds benefit the Latin Music Project. Event runs from 4 to 10 p.m. at El Parador, 2744 E. Broadway. Tickets are $12 at the door, with free admission for children under age 12. Call 881-2808 for information. FAMILIAL TUNES. Tom Chapin is among this country's top family entertainers, and tonight he brings his warm and witty musical ways to town in a benefit performance for the Campfire Boys and Girls. Toting widespread acclaim for five inter-generational recordings, Chapin's Tucson appearance also comes on the heels of his latest release, Around the World and Back Again, which just landed a Grammy Award nomination. Performances are 2 and 4:30 p.m. in the Berger Performing Arts Center, 1200 W. Speedway. Tickets are $8, $5 for kids ages 12 and under, and are available at Mrs. Tiggly Winkle's Toys, Hear's Music, Antigone Books, Loco Music and Video, Zips Music and Video, or by calling 325-6883. Monday 24 BIG PICTURE. Matthias Steinmetz addresses a stellar topic tonight in a talk titled The Formation of Galaxies. A Steward Observatory astronomer, Steinmetz appears as part of the center's ongoing Public Evenings Lecture Series. Free event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Steward Observatory Auditorium, Room 210, located on the UA campus. For details, call 621-7096. BIOLOGICAL BARD. Grace Dane Mazur spent nearly two decades examining bugs under electron microscopes. Now she bides her time dissecting the human experience as a creative writing teacher at Harvard, and as author of tightly woven fiction that's appeared in such distinguished spots as the New England Review and Breadloaf Quarterly. Tonight she reads from her collection of short stories, Silk, at 8 p.m. in the UA Babcock Building Conference Room, located north of McDonald's at Speedway and Warren Avenue. Event is free. For information, call 321-7760. Tuesday 25 OLD PUEBLO CLUB. They didn't just ride into town, and they're hardly frontier renegades. But they do make up the Tucson Museum of Art's latest display of fine western and traditional realist art in The Tucson Seven exhibit. The esteemed bunch includes Harley Brown, Duane Bryers, Don Crowley, Tom Hill, Bob Kuhn, Ken Riley and Howard Terpning, all considered among the most famed artists of their genre. They're also pretty close buds, according to Terpning. "Many things have contributed to our closeness," he says. "We have mutual respect for each other's work, our personalities are compatible, and we like to joke about everything. No one sets himself apart, and there's no big ego thing among us." Hill says it comes from collective memories of leaner times. "We feel like we've paid our dues and know what we're talking about in an academic sense. We've worked our way up from the bottom--we're all proud of each other's successes." Exhibit runs through May 18 at the TMA, 140 N. Main Ave. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $2, $1 for seniors and students. Admission is free for museum members and children under age 12. For information, call 624-2333. RITES OF SPRING. The rotund rodent is gathering his huevos, and in celebration of Easter, Simon Peter's army of fine-tuned thespians is also donning non-secular greasepaint for the 19th-annual Passion Play of Tucson. Katherine Genders directs, as more than 100 cast members--from tots to old-timers--hit the boards in this professional, three-hour re-enactment of Christ's life, all against the backdrop of a full-scale orchestra. Free performances are 7 p.m. daily through Saturday, with a 2 o'clock Sunday matinee, in the TCC Music Hall, 260 S. Church Ave. Call 327-5560 for details. Wednesday 26 WINDY CITY BLUES. Mark Hummel cut his teeth on Chicago's mean streets, and even after becoming a prime mover in the west coast blues scene, his musical spirit remains entrenched in the Windy City. As proof, you need look no further than the harmonica master's latest release, Heart of Chicago, with Hummel tapping hometown legends like Muddy Waters drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, pianist Barrelhouse Chuck, and Dave Myers, the last surviving member of Little Walter's Band. It's a growling hot record that also pays tribute to country blues of the Mississippi Delta, all accented by Hummel's piercing harmonica romps. Now the Chicago boy brings his music to Tucson with an appearance at the Boondock's Lounge, which is quickly becoming a local blues legend in its own right. Performance is at 8 p.m. in the Boondocks, 3306 N. First Ave. Tickets are $5, and available at the door. Call 690-0991 for information. HMO NO-MO. Despite the gospel according to the AMA, there's another way to treat much of what ails ya. It's what Americans call alternative medicine, and most the rest of the world considers mainstream health care. Dr. Christina Stemmler is among this country's increasingly vocal advocates of blending eastern and western medical traditions into one highly effective path to better health. She advocates a creative escape from the side-effects common to many chemical treatments, unnecessary surgeries and nasty diagnostic tribulations. Much of that emerging philosophy is contained in Stemmler's new work, The Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine. She'll lecture and sign copies from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at The Book Mark, 5001 E. Speedway. For details, call 881-6350. City Week includes events selected by Calendar Editor Mari Wadsworth. Event information is accurate as of press time. The Weekly recommends calling event organizers to check for last-minute changes in location, time, price, etc.

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