Posts by Jon Talton

Joe Gatti's iconic Seven Arts mosaic on the old Coronado High auditorium

Everybody paid attention to the round, white clock on the west wall. The room was big and carried sound. We were suited up and while some sat silently preparing or exercising, others congregated, working off nerves with jokes and stories. Those tales of past exploits were entertaining in themselves, but they often contained important lessons. The jokes let off steam. Individuals handled the stress of these moments differently; a few thrived on it, others tried to set aside their self-doubt. As the hands of the clock moved, the payoff from months and even years of training and preparation would come — or not. What began in the new few minutes, and it would be over so fast, all you had was what you brought tonight. Except…except, those seconds of improvisational magic on which everything might turn.

The reputation of the school was at stake, its deep traditions, its prestige. Everyone was deeply invested in the event that was to come, but many of us had college scholarships at stake, a few even hoped to turn pro. As the time approached the noise in the room grew until Mr. Newcomer made his entrance, his customary clipboard in hand. Silence. In an authoritative baritone, he ticked off a few last notes to a quiet team. Then we all stood and clasped hands — as I recall it was arm-over-arm, so one's right hand held the other's left hand and so on, bringing the circle closer, making the fellowship unbreakable. And we all recited the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done… Afterward, one of the assistants opened the door and we filed out, ready.

This was theater at Coronado High School, in what is now "south Scottsdale," in the early- and mid-1970s. While many high schools had a "senior play," we have a theater season that usually consisted of eight major productions, including two musicals (one with faculty), spring repertory and a summer play. The fare was ambitious in its difficulty and scale: Twelfth Night, Fiddler on the Roof, Of Mice and Men, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail, A Midsummer Night's Dream and West Side Story among them. Under the leadership of Jim Newcomer, the theater program's excellence was always at the college level, often surpassing it. Theater instructor Judie Carroll and Ralph Bradshaw from the fine English department also directed productions. Nor was the theater program unique.

A tiny pinprick in the earth, as author Simon Winchester puts it, offered an object lesson in just how vulnerable our high-flying, high-tech civilization has become. The American media are obsessed with the grounded airline passengers, and, because our society now must always put a price tag on everything, how many hundreds of millions of dollars it is costing the airlines.

They are oblivious to other things: How much of Europe is doing fine because of its excellent rail system. How the global interconnections that have arisen over the past 30 years bring dangers more profound that the intertwined investment banks that nearly blew up the world economy. These connections are complex yet highly limiting and unsustainable. Consider Wal-Mart's 10,000-mile "supply chain" facing a future of higher energy costs and shortages. Yet just as America once had a great intercity rail system, it could once feed and clothe itself. In many cases, that's no longer true. Phoenix once produced a huge variety of foods, from strawberries to steaks. Now if the global links shut down, Phoenix would starve. You can't eat foreclosed houses.

I think about that when I am at Pike Place Market in Seattle, five blocks from my home, watching the tourists ooh and ahh over the bounty of food and flowers, most of it grown and harvested locally. Then they go back home and shop at Wal-Mart. Do they even wonder if their towns once had such markets? Most did, if not the size and abundance of choices available here. Now, except for a few hippy-dippy eat-local places, they're gone. It might not prove to be the best choice in the decades to come.

If my editor and publisher allow it, the new David Mapstone Mystery, South Phoenix Rules, will come out in December. I've never written a novel in, essentially, three months, but I know Mapstone fans have been without a fix for some time. Thanks to blog readers for their patience.

In Arizona, two passings. Stu Udall, who served as one of the small state's two or three congressmen, and later became the distinguished Secretary of the Interior under Kennedy and Johnson, died at 90. The gift of years had its pain: Seeing his beloved West become overrun with people, independent old Arizona become a hotspot of white-right extremism and the conservation ethic he embodied undone in so many ways. Roy Elson also passed away. As the powerful top aide to Sen. Carl Hayden, Elson was one of the most important players in winning the Central Arizona Project. So lacking is the Information Center in institutional knowledge or curiosity — or a desire to be relevant — that it failed to note Elson's death for a week after it was being discussed in Phoenix. When what should be the state's newspaper of record thinks "there's no history here," why should we expect a different attitude from the Midwesterners and inland Californians who have swarmed the place like a biblical plague? Elson was a friend of my mothers, and after I returned to the state, I vowed to trek to southern Arizona and spend time hearing of the old water-war days. I regret that I never did it.

The Kookocracy has begun to attain its goals as Arizona becomes the first state to eliminate health care to children of the working poor. This underscores the cruelty, "devil take the hindmost" and sociopathic nature of the white-right (see "The Party of Cruelty" on The Front Page). Much more is being churned out of the Legislature, including the destruction of the state park system, draconian cuts to education and Medicaid, and hundreds of other measures. They will make Arizona's dire economic situation worse. But will voters reject the Kooks? Or will the state's large number of Anglos in low-wage jobs, who have seen their living standards drop and opportunities whither because of Republican policies, be led by talk radio to vote for more of the same? It's a national question, too. And, of course, the ruling elites want you to be stupid.