Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

The Classic Pick of the Week for the week of February 17, 2020 - Van Morrison's 1970 album Moondance.

[caption id="attachment_62514" align="alignnone" width="620"] Samantha Bounkeua. Photo by Ruth Christopherson[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_62515" align="alignnone" width="413"] Samantha Bounkeua. Photo by Ruth Christopherson[/caption]

 

We record this episode at Harbor Lighthouse Studios, where we talk with Samantha Bounkeua, aka RogueViolin; a queer experimental musician, composer and producer specializing in non-traditional violin performance. We have an in-depth conversation about the challenges involved in making a living in Tucson as a musician, and how Samantha plans to address some of those challenges through Harbor Lighthouse Studios. Part of her proposed solution--and business--is a LGBTQIA catalog of original music set up especially for sync licensing.  She also talks about why inclusion needs to be a priority for the Tucson music scene, (there's a shout out to Jamie Manser and a nod to her recent article in Zocalo), including examples related to being the only femme-identified person on stage, recurrent issues with sound engineers, bro-dominated studio sessions, among other things. Samantha also treats us by sharing her personal artistic trajectory, starting with playing on a quarter size violin at age four, performing in the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra by age twelve, her time at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the burn out, disenchantment and eventual artistic rebirth involving bands, tours around the world an eventual landing in Tucson.

Curtain Credits: Glass Bottle Heart by Sapphocracy

Listen to the full-length podcast by hitting play above (link to the mini below)!

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On February 13, 2020, No More Deaths hosted a benefit entitled An Evening with Luis Alberto Urrea at El Casino Ballroom. Luis Alberto Urrea is the acclaimed author of 18 best-selling books. Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss, and triumph. He lived in Tucson for a time in the 90s where he connected with some of his literary heroes, began The Hummingbird’s Daughter, and met his wife Cindy. He continues to be a frequent visitor to Tucson and has presented at the Tucson Festival of Books each year since its inception.

No More Deaths is an advocacy group based in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, United States, that seeks to end the deaths of undocumented immigrants crossing the desert regions near the United States-Mexico border.

Reverend John Fife was the moderator. He served as Pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson for 35 years. He was a co-founder of the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s and is a founding volunteer with Samaritans and No More Deaths, No Mas Muertes.

The program begins with Reverend Fife introducing Luis Alberto Urrea. Urrea described the events in his life that lead to his bearing witness. He then went on to tell a story inspired by a nephew who thought he was born in the United States and discovered that he wasn't when he ran into problems with the law. A version of the story can be found in The Water Museum.

Recorded and produced by Amanda Shauger. This is part 1. Thank you for listening to 30 Minutes. You can find this and all recent episodes on the 30 Minutes program page at KXCI.org where you can find our social media links and subscribe to the podcast.

The anniversary of my 500th show came and went without me noticing. That's OK cause I'm no where near done with getting out in the 4 Corners Region.,

Southwestern Trails on KXCI on Facebook. https:///www.facebook.com/SouthwesternTrailsonKXCI

Alex Alvarez is an MD/PhD Candidate at the University of Arizona. While Alex hails from Albuquerque, NM, he now calls Tucson home having completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at the U of A in 2015. In his free time, Alex likes to dance, race bikes, and travel around the world with his partner.

"My name is Hannah Ball and I am a junior majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Arizona. I am in the Undergraduate Biology Research Program and work in Dr. Zarnescu's lab. Our lab studies ALS using fruit flies as a model. For my project, I look at how metabolism affects the progression of ALS and how an enzyme called PFK could potentially help improve the side effects of ALS. In my free time I love going to concerts and spending time with friends."

The Classic Pick of the Week for the week of February 10th, 2020 - Junior Walker's 1965 debut album, Shotgun.

I enjoy hearing friends talk about the plants that they’ve seen on walks or hikes and when we share our…

Desert anemone (Anemone tuberosa) is in the Buttercup Family. Buttercups are the genus Ranuculus and the family name is Ranunculaceae.…

Jacques Feyder's 1935 comedy, about the women of a Flemish town disarming an occupying Spanish army with wit and charm, embodies the lost ideals of an earlier time.

In 1935, Hitler had been in power in Germany for two years. The rest of Europe desperately hoped that the disaster that was the Great War of 1914 to ‘18 would not be repeated. It was too horrible to contemplate, even though German rearmament made the prospect impossible to ignore. It was against this historical background that the distinguished French director Jacques Feyder made a film dramatizing the tensions between two countries back in the early 17th century. Adapted from a story by the Belgian writer Charles Spaak, it’s Carnival in Flanders.

Flanders was a Dutch-speaking country that is now the northern part of Belgium. Along with The Netherlands, it was controlled by the Spanish empire for about 150 years, until popular revolt forced the Spanish out in 1714. These facts would be fairly common knowledge for European audiences in 1935; not so much now.

Anyway, Carnival in Flanders takes place in the year 1616. The government of a Flemish town named Boom learns that a Spanish duke is on his way with his army to occupy the town. The whole population is on the verge of panic. The Spanish are known as rapists and butchers, and the fear of chaos and carnage runs rampant. The burgomaster, or what we could call the mayor, played by André Alerme, decides to fake his own death, lying in state in the hope that the Spanish will respect the town’s official decree of mourning and leave quickly. The rest of the aldermen, and most of the men in the town, decide to lie low and basically go into hiding during the crisis. This act of mass cowardice places the responsibility for protection in the hands of the town’s women, headed by the burgomaster’s clever and resourceful wife Cornelia, played by the magnificent Françoise Rosay. Thus begins one of the most delightful film comedies ever conceived.

Part of the greatness of Carnival in Flanders is its impeccable production design. Feyder’s team created a beautiful and convincing replica of a Renaissance-era Flemish town, both in its buildings and costumes. They studied the art of the time (in fact one of the characters is a young portrait painter) and they succeeded in making the entire film look like a work by Bosschaert or Jan Breughel.

The women defend the town with the weapons of wit and charm. And this isn’t just the idea of using their feminine attractions, so to speak, although that is an element here. They also employ fine manners, generosity, intelligent conversation, and subtle flattery. The Spanish duke, played by Jean Murat, is won over by Madame Cornelia, and the mayor must continue to play dead while his wife flirts with the enemy. The picture is filled with amusing incidents and plot details, in which the men appear increasingly ridiculous and the women confident and in control.

I adore this movie, in which the brave, witty women of a town triumph over the men. It's a memento of a wonderful dream that is now lost forever: that love and friendliness has the power to tame human savagery. It was banned in Belgium for insulting national manhood. Here in the U.S. it was condemned by the Legion of Decency for its free morals. We never see anything that could be referred to as indecent—this was 1935 after all—but just the hint of it was enough to outrage conservatives. And Nazi Germany banned it as well, for its pacifism. But despite all this, the film was a huge international hit.

Then, after World War II was over, critics attacked it for supposedly advocating collaboration. I can almost understand this too: from the jaded perspective we must now adopt after the horrors of the 20th century, the fil