Tucson Weekly: Cheap Thrills (April 9

Cheap Thrills
PORK PARTY: You can check out porkers in their pens and eat 'em too, as the Pima County Fair gets underway. This southern Arizona celebration sometimes seems a relic from a time before cable TV and drive-by shootings, but it's still a big kick, offering everything from pig races to belly-roiling midway rides.
There are the mandatory food booths with cotton candy, funnel cakes and Indian fry bread, along with 4H livestock shows, antique tractors and plenty of good music. This year's musical acts include Geno Delafose and the French Rockin' Boogie on Friday, April 10; Margaret Becker on Sunday, April 12; Third Eye Blind and Rebekah on Tuesday, April 14; Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers on Friday, April 17; Cali Carrenza on Saturday, April 18; and Little Feat on Sunday, April 19.
And Sunday, April 12, will be Easter/Family Day, with a 6:30 a.m. sunrise service, 8:30 a.m. pancake breakfast, and a 10:30 a.m. Easter-egg hunt.
Fair runs from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, through April 19, at the Pima County Fairgrounds, 11300 S. Houghton Road. Midway and exhibit times vary. Admission is $5, free for kids ages 12 and under. Parking is $2. For details, call 762-9100.
READ ON: Literature once again rears its lofty head when Poetry in Action (POG) presents a reading by writers Lisa Cooper and Lydia Davis.
A Tucsonan, Cooper has published work in Hambone, Talisman, Jackleg and several other literary magazines. Her book, The Ballad in Memory, was published by Chax Press in 1992. Cooper totes an MFA from the UA Creative Writing Program, and is a longtime activist in the local literary scene.
Davis has received NEA and Ingram Merrill fellowships, and a Whiting Writers' Award, for her fiction and translations. Most recently, she landed the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award. She lives in New York and teaches at Bard College. Among her many books are The End of the Story, Break it Down and Almost No Memory, and she's translated more than 25 books, including works by Sartre, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Butor and Georges Simenon.
Free event is 7 p.m. Saturday, April 11, in the Mat Bevel Institute, 530 N. Stone Ave. For details, call 620-1626.
RIVERS RUN THROUGH IT: Arizona's rivers begin high in the mountains, and many quickly become crucial wildlife corridors. Now author Barbara Tellman explains how Hohokam farmers, Spanish horsemen, Anglo prospectors, ditch diggers, flood controllers and land speculators all altered these precious water supplies, usually for their own short-sighted interests.
Free lecture is 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 15, in the UA Water Resources Research Center, 350 N. Campbell Ave. Call 628-7609 for details.
TWO-STEPPERS: The romantic pas de deux and partnering from classic ballet to modern dance will be explored when the PCC Center for the Arts presents It Takes Two, the final installment of its Inside Dance multi-media series. Screenings will include Pepita's Don Quixote and Balanchine's Agon and The Four Temperaments.
Free event is 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, in the PCC Center for the Arts Recital Hall, 2202 W. Anklam Road. Call 206-6988 for information.

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