Allophile

food. film. photos.

An 'urban' weekend for us.
After living here for a year and a half, we finally tried a restaurant,
not too far from us, for DIM SUM. (Yes. In Tucson.)

And we were pleasantly surprised--
it was delicious and dépaysant;
We felt transported back to downtown Vancouver, or Chinatown in San Francisco:
the tables of Asian families chatting over lazy susans laden with a dozen dishes;
the carts; the fun-to-decipher accents as we point to various steaming dumplings;
the little handle-less cups of jasmine tea; the perils of using chopsticks to pick up Chinese broccoli coated in oyster sauce...

All very authentic.
Here in Cactusland!
Yeah...

And then--just down the road,
a French film at a little independent movie-house.
(Thank goodness the University of Arizona is in this town...)
"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime," multiple-award-winner in Europe
and nominated for the Golden Globe for Best actress/drama & Best foreign film.
I agree with most of the L.A. Times review; click here to read it.
I don't often recommend movies; go see this one if it comes to your town...

Afterwards, we went downtown.
As with most mid-sized US cities, Tucson's downtown is a combination of city-council-optimism, flight-to-the-suburbs-induced-decay, and inferiority-complex-fueled pretentiousness.

A bit harsh, perhaps?
(ay ay ay--this comes across, perhaps, as the usual erstwhile bigger-city resident bemoaning smaller-city realities...
Not completely, I hope...
But, to be honest, to enjoy Tucson, you have to look more at what surrounds it--the climate, the landscape, the proximity to open spaces and pre-Columbian history, the mix of Spanish and Native influences--rather than what's in it--inadequate public transport, drug-violence, low-wages, lack of pedestrian life...)

But in all fairness--downtown Tucson has lots of potential, and there are bright spots...

A friend of ours, a photographer, was hosting a reception for a temporary exhibition that she and another artist friend are having, and we were invited.
Here's a link to her website and some of her photography.

Come on down...