AZ Day 4 - Deserts, Diverse Art, and Decidedly Large Cacti

Today started with a trip to Maverick Coffee in Scottsdale. It was hip spot with good coffee, and what seemed to be an exceptional lunch and breakfast menu, but I had a nice homemade breakfast from my friend’s parents so I didn’t have room for it no matter how good it looked. Still the coffee alone was a nice way to the start the day.

Today I was going back to Tucson for an open mic later in the day, and so I figured it would be a good day to actually sightsee around that area since I ended up going to Tombstone last time I was in Tucson. Some of the best sights to see though were actually on the way between the two cities, in the Saguaro National Park. The park is located in the Sonoran Desert and is home to one of if not the largest collection of Saguaro cacti in the world. I don’t think my pictures can really quite capture the jaw-dropping splendor of an entire forest of giant cacti. Saguaro cacti can grow up to 60 feet tall and these bad boys totally towered over the telephone poles I drove by. The fact I learned that makes each one of these cacti more impressive than they already would be by their size alone, is that they grow slowly that the first arm of each cactus can take 50-70 years to grow and that a saguaro is not considered fully mature until it is around 125 years old. Most of the saguaros i past had at least 3 or 4 arms (in so many weird and wild shapes and arrangements) which means that the average cactus in the forrest was close to 150 years old! It’s estimated that there’s about 1.8 million Saguaros alone, not to mention 24 other varieties of cacti, in the park and they extended as far as the eye could see making this one of the most incredible and unusual forests I’ve ever seen. Before this I wouldn’t have even guessed there would be a forest in a desert so this was all a pleasant surprise.

My first stop in Tucson was actually in the midst of this national park, and this was the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. This museum came highly recommended to me by everbody I knew from Arizona, and it soon became clear why. The museum is absolutely massive, encompassing 97 acres, and completely refusing to fall into any traditional expectation of what a museum is. Arizona is the only state in the union to contain all four American deserts (the Great Basin Desert, the Sonoran Desert, the Mojave Desert, and the Chihuahuan Desert), and this museum seeks to celebrate every facet of these great landmasses with the huge campus containing 2 miles of walking paths, 16 gardens, hundreds of animals, an entire mock cave system, an art museum, dining, and further exhibits about the geology, ecology, and biology of deserts. It was a lot to take in but it made for a great museum experience full of surprises.

The biggest surprise to me was probably the first exhibit that I visited, and that was the museum’s aquarium. I just assumed that desert climates wouldn’t exactly be hospitable to marine life, but I was wrong big time. The dryness associated with deserts refers to a lack of precipitation not necessarily a lack of water, with many deserts containing lakes, rivers, and oases that can contain a variety of different fish species. A lot of these fellers were darting around, being fish and stuff, so I couldn’t always get not-blurry photos, but I was thoroughly impressed with the weird shapes, colors, and patterns that these animals have evolved. I was also pleasantly shocked by some some of the weird names we’ve chosen to give these guys with my favorites being the Mexican Stoneroller (bottom left, sounds like a wrestling a move) and the Humpback Chub (bottom right, sounds like insult to injury). In terms of new fish facts, my favorite was that rainbow wrasses (bottom center) live in what the museum referred to as “hermathroditic harems”. Over the life cycle the fish all start out as female, and as they age they may or may not change into males. In some instances a male will preside over and spawn with a single large group of females, and I can’t believe that the scientifically valid term for that is “forming a harem”. Reading things like that it becomes painfully clear, that anyone who wants to persecute people because they are “unnatural” in some way clearly has no grasp of just how freaking weird nature can get, and really nothing humans do can reach the limits of that natural kinkiness.

My favorite fish though was this garden of dopey looking seaworms. These funny looking guys just sort of plant themselves in the ground, pop up to eat, and just sort of bob along. When I first saw them I thought they were just seaweed, and it took me a moment to realize that they were fish. In my defense, I would be shocked if these guys knew they were alive either.

After the aquarium I moved up the evolutionary ladder to dry land at the museum’s exhibit on reptiles, amphibians, and insects native to America’s deserts. I was both impressed and a little creeped out by how many shades of brown, yellow, and red these creatures adopted to help them blend into the sand and scrub. Sometimes you’d be looking at a terrarium for a while before even realizing there was a snake in there. On the one hand, it’s amazing to me just how well suited these animals are to there environments but on the other hand I might prefer a world where I know where all the snakes are at all times. My favorites were the lizards, frogs, and salamanders because they just seem like such lazy boys lying on top of rocks if they’re too cool and under rocks if they’re too hot. What a life.

Next up was an exhibit about the geology and history of desserts, featuring an entire recreated underground cave system. This was kind of mind blowing that they just made all this, and I just love that someone really wanted to teach people about desert caves so much so that when they realized that the museum grounds didn’t contain any they just decided to build their own. They did a great job capturing all the different shapes and formations these caves can contain. Personally coming here after Carlsbad Caverns, I was impressed by how convincing everything looked. The literal descent into the exhibit also adds to the museum’s goal of providing an immersive experience that is unique from other more traditional museums.

The first gallery within this faux-cave system was all about pre-history containing fossils and rocks that provide incredible insights into what Arizona was like a few million years ago. Highlights for me included an almost entirely intact ancient crab fossil because who would have guessed how little they’ve changed over hundred of thousands of years and a piece of sandstone that actually had little dimples in it capturing the imprints of raindrops from over 800 millions years ago. Perhaps the coolest thing here though was the Allende Meteorite, which is actually older than the earth and possibly our sun, containing fragments of the original gas and dust that first composed our solar system. They even cut out a little hole in the display so you could feel a part of the meteorite, proclaiming that it would almost certainly be the oldest thing you ever touch.

Naturally though my favorite piece in this collection was some 10,000 year old fossilized Sloth Poo. Also the line from the display case “This sloth dung consists mostly of Mormon tea” is a perfect one line poem.

In one corner of the cave was two giant bat ears that were made scaled up to the equivalent size they would be if they were on a person. This was done so that you could actually get a feel for how bat ears work to capture and amplify sounds. It was a pretty neat interactive display, but I definitely got the sense that if Batman had been more anatomically correct he would have been much less intimidating.

The last exhibit in the cave was a highlight of different gems and minerals found in the Arizona deserts. The myriad of colors, textures, and sheens was jaw-dropping and dazzling. I get that with animals all the variation is shaped by evolutionary forces so there’s a reason for it all, but with these rocks and minerals it just sort of happens and that’s pretty incredible.

After the caves I ventured into the desert proper, and did the two mile loop of walking trails (Don’t worry mom, they had sunscreen dispensers in every bathroom). The views on these trails were spectacular, with a mix of curated garden and pure wild desert. The trails themselves were very mild hiking, and it was nice to just take a leisurely stroll and enjoy the great weather and scenery. The fact that plants can grow with such little water at all is impressive to me, but the thriving plant life made everything much greener than I would have expected, and I always enjoy seeing the weird shapes cacti can make. The only thing I didn’t like was that I walked by some stressed out grandparents who I saw give their grandson a spanking. On the one hand, I’ve spent so many years working with children that I have a really visceral negative reaction to seeing a child getting hit in any context, but on the other hand the kid was about to trip over a hole that they had repeatedly warned him about and he might have gotten more hurt if they hadn’t done that? It’s hard not to want to judge people when they do something so against your own codes, but it’s also impossible to have the full story and know what they were thinking in the moment. Still it just sort of gave me a weird vibe, that it took about a mile of walking to shake it.

Luckily it was easy to be distracted on the trails because besides the great flora there was also an amazing collection of native fauna. Moreso than a traditional zoo, the museum strives to let the animals range basically free, with only the more dangerous animals like mountain lions and coyotes given (still very spacious) pens to keep them off the hiking trails. The desert dwellers making appearances during my trip were goats, otters, prairie dogs, vultures, owls, lizards, ducks, and the aforementioned larger predators. One of the guys I enjoyed seeing periodically were the javelinas, wild boars that are quite common to the Southwest. Because they have sharp tusks, these boars can actually be very dangerous in the wild, but on this particular outing it was so hot out that these pudgy pigs were just lounging about in the shade or near water and in that context they’re a lot more endearing. In terms of interesting animal facts, one thing that was cool to learn was that the spots on ocelots are actually functional, not purely aesthetic, as they help young ocelots find their parents in the dark.

Other highlights of the animal collection for me was this sleepy porcupine that had just burrowed into a cave and rolled itself into a ball and a little owl that makes it’s home inside of the big fat cacti, essentially creating its own makeshift birdhouse and also securing a decent source of free water.

My absolute favorite animal at the museum though were the stingrays. They also totally stretched the definition of the museum, because I’m pretty sure stingrays aren’t native to any of the United States’ deserts and I think they were just there purely to be cool. Luckily they were so cool to see, and you were allowed to put your hands in the pool and interact with them, that I really don’t care if they’re desert related or not. Getting to interact with the stingrays made me really happy, because one of my only memories from a family trip to England when I was 6 years old was getting to pet the stingrays at the London aquarium, so that all came rushing back. Both now and when I was 6, I was so pleasantly surprised by how much personality these animals have and how playful they are. If you leave your hand in the water, they come up to you a few times to get a read on you and then once they decide they’re cool with you they’ll let you pet them. Some of them are sort of chill about it, but some of them are total show-offs who will do jumps and tricks in the water right before you pet them which I loved.

While there were several gardens throughout the walking trails, my favorite, it should be no surprise at this point in the post, was the one dedicated entirely to exotic cacti. The thing these slightly more curated succulents had over the purely wild ones were hundreds of flowers blossoming in all sorts of colors that were much more vibrant than I ever expected. That isn’t to say these flowers don’t occur naturally, but I’m not sure all these flowering plants would all be in one place together outside of this garden and the sum of all their colors created a much more powerful effect than any one plant alone.

After all the walking and sightseeing in the hot desert sun, I was feeling mighty thirsty. I went to one of the concession stands and saw prickly pear lemonade on the menu. I had never had that before, but it made me think of the Bear Necessities so I had to get it. I was not familiar with what exactly prickly pear was like as a flavor (I would become more familiar throughout the southwest), but it was really delicious, being really sweet but not overly slow and with just a hint of citrus-y bite. That last bit might have just been the lemonade though.

After rehydrating, I went to the Desert Museum Art Institute, which was like an entire smaller museum tucked inside the larger one. The Institute seeks to fund and collect art that also has an ecological message. The artist on display while I was there was named Rachel Ivanyi, who actually trained to be a veterinarian before deciding that animal art was more her passion than animal medicine. Her scientific training added a degree of realism to her watercolors and paintings that was really impressive.

Because of Ivanyi’s capacity for realism, it made it all the more striking when she indulged in more whimsical or surreal artistic expression. My personal favorite piece was this painting of a shrimp cocktail plate that is also filled endangered sharks, whales, turtles, dolphins, and rays swimming among the shrimp as a statement about the cost those animals pay at the expense of large scale commercial fishing to meet our demands for tasty treats.

My last stop in the desert museum was the Hummingbird Aviary. My friend’s dad had said this was his favorite part, and he had told me about how cool and immersive it was, but I still wasn’t prepared for the first time a hummingbird actually whizzed right by my face. It was initially alarming, but then kind of thrilling to be right there with the hummingbirds flying all around. They’re such funny little animals, always cracked out on nectar and buzzing every which way. I really got a kick out of watching them, and I learned that they use spider webs to help keep their nests together so maybe they’re also a bit smarter than they look. Unfortunately, because they move so quickly I had a heck of a time trying to actually get a decent photo of one, and I don’t think I ever really got one that totally captured the experience.

After wandering through the desert, I decided to get a little snack at a place that came highly recommended from a friend of my who grew up in the area called eegee’s (stylistically not capitalized). It’s a local chain of sub shops, but their real specialty is frozen drinks called eegees that are like a perfect hybrid of a slushie and a smoothie, because there’s real chunks of fruit mixed in but it has that sweet icy cold slush feeling that lets you know it’s still got a decent amount of syrup in there and that it’s not pretending to be healthier than it is like smoothies do (for real though, I don’t get how Big Smoothie got that con going that they’re good for you. Sure compared to a milkshake, but then again on a purely technical level heroin might be better for you than a milkshake it still doesn’t mean you have to do it). I got a pina colada eegee because I was feeling tropical and the real pineapple and coconut absolutely did take it to another lever, and I understand now why my friend was adamant that they were more than just a 7-11 slush. Even better they had a deal on cookies while I was there and the cookie of the month also happened to be Nutella flavored so I was powerless to stop myself from getting one. It was a perfect cookie and I regret nothing.

After my snacking, I made my way to the Tucson Museum of Art. I spent a lot of time in the desert so I didn’t have a whole ton of time to spend there, but I figured it would still be worth trying to at least take a peek at everything before they closed, and I figured correctly because they had both a great permanent collection and some cool special exhibits. I started in the Art of the American West wing which in turn began with this incredible statue by John Coleman called Visions of change that features a cowboy and a native American both perched on a mountain looking out, the mountain the Native American looks out over gradually transforms into a herd of buffalo and the mountain the cowboy overlooks gradually becomes ranging cattle. It was a very dreamlike sculpture and I like that something as solid as bronze can look like it’s changing before your very eyes.

I’ll be honest the Western art was the section I sped through the most because I’d seen so much of it in the recent weeks, but there were still some highlights. My personal favorites were cowboy paintings by Olaf Wieghorst (a former child circus star funnily enough) and a charcoal drawing by Tom Hill of a woman returning from the market.

Outside of the western wing, the rest of the museum was actually in a different building, and to get there you had to walk through a peaceful sculpture garden filled with powerful images of Southwestern History.

The first artist on display in a special exhibition was a painter named Andy Burgess. Burgess meticulously photographs modern urban landscapes and then recreates the photographs in paint, but simplifying them to their geometric essentials rendering complex environs into streamlined two dimensional shapes. His austere geometry is complimented with bold solid color that makes his paintings really pop and suck you in. The paintings very intentionally lack any presence of humanity which in someways probably makes a statement about the coldness of these modern houses, but also really emphasizes their pure aesthetic value devoid of any connotation of being a "home”.

The other artist on special exhibition was a guy named Howard Post, who really impressed me. Post represents a contemporary take on classic American Western Art, and he sort of reminds me of a mix between Roy Lichtenstein and Frederick Remington, capturing very photorealistic images of traditional western life, such as rodeos, ranches, and horses, but with almost comic-book like color tones and stark black lines. It was at once very familiar and totally original.

After the special exhibits, I delved back into the museum’s permanent collection starting with the modern and contemporary art which was a fun and vibrant mix of styles from around the world. Highlights for me were the dark religious surrealism of Luis Cruz’s Oppression, the pop art sensibilities of Ed Ruscha, Rom Uttech’s apocalyptic landscape swarmed with different birds, Fernando Botero’s very fat Sailor Boy, and Guido Augusts’ cubist nude by a chest of drawers.

My favorite pieces here were by Robert Colescott and Harmony Hammonds. Colescott’s painting humorously deals with some unfortunate legacies in art history of racism and misogyny as the artist himself tries to draw a nude while over his shoulder a leering Pablo Picasso draws a fetishized nude behind, based on real paintings Picasso did based on African artifacts that relied heavily on racial stereotypes. I like that it grapples with these darker aspects of art history in its themes, while it’s actual craftsmanship pays homage to the lasting legacies of these unfortunately flawed artists. A very different piece, Hammonds’ piece Farm Ghosts is very minimalist and abstract in a way that doesn’t usually tend to grab me, but it’s complimented by this beautiful stream of consciousness ramble about a declining farm in a messy disjointed script which really grabbed me for whatever reason.

The next gallery was dedicated to Latin American Folk Art. The star of the show here was the insanely detailed clay sculpture of what seems to be the entire book of Genesis all at once, called History of the World by Tiburcio Soteno Fernández. Other highlights of incredible craftsmanship, included a wood carved church intentionally meant to look like it was growing like a flower by Heron Martinez, a painting done not with paint but with yarn by Antoni Lopez Pineda, some wonderful Skeletons dressed in their Sunday best for Dia De Los Muertos, a two-head clay Frida Kahlo by Josephina Aguilar, and several amazingly colorful and minutely-made religious scenes in devotional retablos. I could have taken art classes from the day I was born and I wouldn’t be able to do what these artists are naturally able to accomplish.

Next up came a gallery that featured more modern Art with traditional Western themes. Highlights included William Leigh’s hilariously named painting of a bucking bronco called The Rampage; beautifully barren landscapes by Maynard Dixon; a hauntingly staged photograph by Gregory Crewdson of a mysterious girl getting out of a cab at a remote mountain home; and a pop art recreation of a duel from Once Upon a Time in the West by Bill Schenck.

My favorite piece here was by Donna Howell-Stickles called And the Dog Jumped over the Moon, which features realistically rendered cowgirls evoking a postcard the artist enjoyed but with one differently colored square of backdrop interrupting the middle of the frame with an image of a dog jumping over the moon. I like that it could be a visual representation of a tall tale being told by the middle cowgirl or simply a surrealist touch disrupting the scene and reminding the viewer that things you see in postcards are maybe more in line with fantasy than reality.

After that gallery I took a brief walk outside of the main museum building to see a historic building included in the museum’s campus, La Casa Cordova. This small adobe home is possibly the oldest preserved building in Tucson, which is very cool on its own, but the thing that I loved even more was that it is currently home to El Nacimiento, an entire wall sized diorama of the birth and life of Christ complete with little christmas lights. It is monumentally impressive and monumentally tacky all wrapped into one, and I loved that pureness of it.

Walking back into the main museum building, I passed this statue in the courtyard that looks like it perfectly captures having an itch in that one part of your back that’s impossible to reach.

The next gallery was all modern and contemporary works by Native American artists. Much like the modern Western wing, this gallery often drew on traditional themes in Native American art but with content and style that was wholly contemporary using abstraction, non traditional, frames, other such avant-garde techniques. My favorite piece here (bottom right) was called Surrounded by Indians by David Bradley, which recreated Whistler’s Mother but with a more comic-strip-y style rendering her more like his own Native American mother and surrounding her with Indian versions of other famous artworks like the Mona Lisa to humorously make a statement about how Native Americans have been ignored by the fine art establishment.

Next up was art from the ancient world featuring early pieces from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Highlights for me here were Buddhist figurines made of stunningly colored rose quartz, a lactating fertility goddess that you and I will never be able to unsee, a richly detailed ivory fishing scene, and all manner of clay Effigy pots that are impressive in bot their artistry and functionality, though I think you might be upset if you were told one of these guys was meant to resemble you.

This floor was also home to a small but nice gallery of classic European Art including some renaissance pieces, some impressionism, and pieces in between with the highlights for me being a lush woodland bathing scene by William-Adolphe Bouguereau and a dramatic Goya etching of a passionate kiss.

Lastly on an outdoor courtyard of the museum overlooking the rest of Tucson, there was this big blue plastic alligator with a water bottle strapped to his back so between that and the view I was pretty happy.

For dinner, I went to a place recommended by the same friend who recommended eegee’s because she had already steered me true in Tucson’s culinary world (one that is apparently really taking off according to local news) once today. I went to El Guero Canelo, a small local chain of Mexican restaurants that looks totally unassuming but is also home to one of the best burritos I’ve ever eaten, with an excellent blend of chicken, guac, beans, rice, cheese, and salsa in possibly the most perfectly toasted tortilla I’ve ever encountered. It was also pretty giant and packed with tons of flavor, all for the ridiculously low price of $8! It was pretty unbelievable.

By the time I finished dinner, I was in pretty desperate need of a coffee. Luckily a place called Black Crown Coffee was there to meet my need. It was a cozy hipstery cafe with great art, big beards, and lots of creative coffee drinks. For my part, I went with a seasonal special called the Dubliner (more likely a holdover from the recent Saint Patrick’s Day than a James Joyce reference, though it could always be both). It had Irish cream flavor, a little dark chocolate, and a little mint, and it was a mighty tasty way of filling my caffeine debt.

Re-energized I set sail for the night’s open mic at a comedy club called Laff’s Comedy Caffe. It was a really nice club with a great set up and a real audience so naturally there were lots of comics there. Because it was such a good venue, they wanted to keep it that way so they asked the comics to either join the audience and listen or to hang out in the green room so as to not be a distraction to the crowd. I was torn by wanting to socialize and wanting to listen, but my brain decided to throw weird mix of social anxiety and claustrophobia at me in the green room so the choice became easier and I hung out in the audience quietly enjoying some beers and some laughs. I mention this mainly to explain that while everyone there seemed really friendly and nice, I personally didn’t do my best at actually getting to know anyone as much as I have in other places because I got too in my own head.

That being said the open mic was very solid all the way through with the audience really being in the mood to laugh. My personal favorite comic of the night was a woman named Sheryl Anderson who talked about grappling with middle age in several funny anecdotes with my favorite single line being “I’m getting to the point where ‘I’ll show you my tit’ has gone from being a nice offer to a scary threat”

Other Highlights:

Dom (didn’t get a last name) - I only go to work so I can guarantee I’ll be sober at least 40 hours a week.

Tony B (the host) - did an incredible impression of Louie Armstrong singing DMX songs

Philip Showers - I know I’m fat because when I bend down to pick something up I have to use two fingers like a claw just to reach.

Jeff Boiles- I don’t know how to convince my mom I’m straight. I’ve been married to the same woman for four years and I haven’t gone roller blading in months

Dani Toki - I’m not the person my vagina wants me to be.

Michael Chelly - I love Tucson, I can’t wait until it’s finished.

Ryan Paul - There’s a “Play All” button on Pornhub. Who is that for?!

Ryan Fletcher- I wanted to be a scientist because I read a study where they gave Rabbits LSD but then I realized you don’t have to be a scientist to do that.

My own set actually went very strongly as well. I did something I rarely do, and I tried a new joke that I came up with that day. Normally I like stew on a joke a little bit, because sometimes things that are funny in your head in the moment don’t stand the test of time, but when I told it to my cousin, Kevin, on the phone (my test for most jokes really) he liked it so much I figured I’d do it. Maybe the fact that I was considering doing this added a bit to my greater than usual anxiety, but when I got onstage it all sort of disappeared which is a very strange phenomenon that I’m sure a lot of comics can relate to. The new joke landed which made me happy, and then I was able to just float on that confidence boost and do my more tried and true material.

After the mic I made my way back to Scottsdale, but I was glad I got to actually get a full day in Tucson.

Favorite Random Sightings: Rugged Maniac ( the most insanely named outdoor wear place ever); a Jet Engine lying in a field by the highway (nothing at all suspicious or concerning about that); Teens: Be a Fire Explorer (sounds like a trap); A sign that says “I got all your Marbles”

Regional Observations: I love that it was march and I could just be out and about with just jeans and a t-shirt. As northeastern boy, that’s very exciting but lots of people around here warned that while it’s nice now the heat can be really overwhelming in Arizona come summer.

Albums Listened To: Schmilco by Wilco (I appreciate the nod to my fave, Harry Nilsson, but I was very annoyed by how few supposed music journalists got the reference when the (all good) reviews for the album came out); Schoolboys in Disgrace by the Kinks (an excellent rock opera unfortunately overlooked by many due to its deeply unappealing album art) Scion A/V Presents: Danny Brown Grown Up by Danny Brown (I don’t really know why Scion sponsored this, but it’s a solid single); The Scofflaws by the Scofflaws (a bit of ska, a bit of punk, a bit of jazz, real fun live); Sea of Cowards by the Dead Weather; Searching for a Melody by Westbound Train (good Boston Boys); Second Chances by Sammy Kay; Secrets of the Hive (Disc 1) by Procol Harem (weirdly literary British proto-prog rock with church organs, I’m all in!)

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AZ Day 4 - Deserts, Diverse Art, and Decidedly Large Cacti