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Post by the Scribe on Jun 12, 2021 11:41:10 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 14, 2021 9:15:32 GMT
Steller: Ronstadt's carping about Tucson gets oldtucson.com/news/local/column/steller-ronstadt-s-carping-about-tucson-gets-old/article_b909c9b0-682a-5b9d-a9e8-71215b534899.html
Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star Aug 23, 2014 Updated Sep 30, 2015
Did you hear? One of Tucson’s most famous native children doesn’t live here anymore because she doesn’t like our “car culture.”
She also objects to the “Stalinist” new architecture downtown.
And of course there are the “exotic attitudes” here — by which she seems to mean the few conservative ones.
Linda Ronstadt, raised in Tucson but now a resident of San Francisco, can’t seem to stop talking smack about Tucson. Yes, her critical comments are couched in affection, especially for the rose-colored Tucson of her youth and for nearby northern Sonora.
But people keep asking her about this place where she hasn’t lived for more than a decade, and she keeps expounding on our home’s faults. One year it’s the strip malls she dislikes; another year it’s the dust. One year it’s the jet noise; another year it’s the chain stores. Tucson and Southern Arizona just can’t measure up to what they were in her apparently idyllic childhood.
The latest instance occurred Aug. 16, when the Arizona Republic published a Q-and-A with Ronstadt. Writer Megan Finnerty had heard Ronstadt criticize Arizona on “The Diane Rehm Show,” which is broadcast across the country on National Public Radio stations, but the comment was at the end of the show and truncated. So Finnerty looked Ronstadt up and asked her to elaborate.
www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2014/08/16/linda-ronstadt-tucson-mexico-border/14188117/
thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-07-29/singer-linda-ronstadt-her-life-music
She got comments like this:
“I still like Tucson; I still like to come back and I love to see my friends. I love to go to Mexico, which is more like Tucson was when I liked it than Tucson is anymore. ... I’m sad about the downtown. I’m glad that people are down there, but the buildings look like Stalinist Russia. They’re so generic. They didn’t seem to realize that Tucson in the old days had a distinctive architecture.”
You know, most of the new architecture in downtown isn’t brilliant, and I wish it were better, but “Stalinist” may be overstating it just a bit. And the symbolic significance of those buildings — the rebirth of downtown as a place to invest money — seems to have escaped her. Of course, a person who can afford to spend her days surrounded by the brilliance and riches of San Francisco might have a little trouble relating to the challenges of more humble places.
Asked for the umpteenth time why she left Tucson to make San Francisco her permanent home, Ronstadt said:
“One thing, it was a car culture. To take (my son) to school, it would take about 25 to 30 minutes. ... It was like living in Los Angeles. And where we moved in San Francisco, my son could walk or ride a skateboard to school; it was just three blocks. It gave him a chance to develop a concept of neighborhood culture that was made on a human scale for foot traffic.”
I can see her main point here, but “it was like living in Los Angeles” — really? Also, living in Colonia Solana, right in the middle of Tucson, Ronstadt could have chosen plenty of fine schools closer than a half-hour drive.
Ronstadt also told Finnerty she was upset with the fact that in Tucson her kids brought home anti-gay talk from school and had friends who believed people would go to hell if they weren’t Christians.
“It kept happening, so eventually I decided that (they needed to move). Safety is small groups of like-minded people, and the group was so small in Tucson. It was certainly there; I have wonderful friends there and I’m really glad that I went back because I got to pick up those friendships in a certain way that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t lived there for 10 years. But I just didn’t want my children to be influenced by that kind of thinking.”
This is a revealing comment. Ronstadt seems to mean here that she wants to live among like-minded people, but that in Tucson the group was too small. Sure, it’s nice to have like-minded people around, but it’s also crucial for a person’s growth to have to grapple with different perspectives. It makes you wonder if she fled from them instead.
All Ronstadt’s comments would be more notable and useful if she hadn’t been making similar critiques repeatedly. The Star has been among those who quoted her over at least eight years about the many reasons she left Tucson. In 2007, she told my colleague Cathalena Burch that a top reason for her departure was the bad air caused by dust stirred up by rapacious developers blading the desert.
Ronstadt also rails against the “greedy and cynical development” of the Catalina Foothills in her 2013 memoir, “Simple Dreams,” in the short section describing her wonderful upbringing. And in last year’s romanticized writings in The New York Times about traveling with Ronstadt down the Rio Sonora Valley, she said, “It feels so much like home, more like Tucson than Tucson.”
To Ronstadt, I say, enough already. We understand you don’t like how Tucson has changed from the way it was in your youth, a half-century ago in the 1950s and 1960s. But you don’t live here anymore. And you’re not saying anything that we haven’t heard already or couldn’t figure out ourselves.
To the writers who keep asking her about leaving Arizona, I say, Why? What more does she have to offer on the subject? Ask her about her music and induction this year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Or ask her about San Francisco, where she actually lives.
Contact columnist Tim Steller at tsteller@tucson.com or 807-7789. On Twitter: @senyorreporter
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Post by the Scribe on Jan 7, 2022 6:35:58 GMT
'Linda Ronstadt's Tucson' is in New York Times spotlight
tucson.com/news/local/linda-ronstadts-tucson-is-in-new-york-times-spotlight/article_a859a9a4-bfa0-11ee-97fe-c7a6fce01d7b.html
Arizona Daily Star Jan 31, 2024 Updated 4 hrs ago
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson’s Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Linda Ronstadt, back in the spotlight partly because Selena Gomez is set to star in a biopic about her, sings the praises of her hometown in a New York Times article published Tuesday.
Her list of five favorite places to visit in Tucson contains no surprises, but she describes her connections to them in intimate and intricate details.
At Mission San Xavier del Bac, for instance, she recalls lighting candles with slide guitarist/songwriter Ry Cooder; and seeking respite, mid-recording-session, with fellow chanteuse Emmylou Harris, with whom she dueted on 1999’s “Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions.”
That album was recorded at the Arizona Inn and Ronstadt tells the paper, “It’s my favorite hotel in the world.”
She cites the history, lore and landscaping, the Audubon Bar & Patio with its piano, “and the fireplace and sunlight that illuminate her favorite guest room.”
Arizona Inn
“It’s my favorite hotel in the world," Linda Ronstadt says of the Arizona Inn.
Photo courtesy of Arizona Inn
Ronstadt, 77, has long lived in the San Francisco Bay Area but says she stays at the inn when visiting.
She also lists artisanal baker Don Guerra’s Barrio Bread — “I always go there straight from the airport” for her go-to order, the Cubano with sesame seeds; Mission Gardens, the ode to more than 4,000 years of local agriculture, with Indigenous, Spanish, Chinese and Mexican plots; and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, which she lauds for feeling “refreshingly untamed”, the Times writes.
Linda Ronstadt says she appreciates the use of local heritage grains, including Sonoran white wheat, at artisanal bakery Barrio Bread.
Mike Christy, Arizona Daily Star file
“You’re not looking at some perfect geometry imposed on the desert,” Ronstadt says of the animals’ habitats at the Desert Museum. “Nature hates perfect geometry.”
Mission Gardens celebrates 4,000 years of agriculture in the Tucson valley. “I love going over there to get a mouthful of something fresh,” Linda Ronstadt says.
Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star 2021
“You’re not looking at some perfect geometry imposed on the desert,” Linda Ronstadt says approvingly of the animals’ habitats at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. “Nature hates perfect geometry.”
A.E. Araiza, Arizona Daily Star file
Those are the top five attractions of “Linda Ronstadt’s Tucson,” as the article is titled.
But she spreads some love for other spots, too, in this city where she was born and raised — El Minuto Cafe, Hotel Congress, the Fox Tucson Theatre “where her father used to perform as Gil Ronstadt and His Star-Spangled Megaphone,” and the 1927 Temple of Music and Art, which she says is “just magic.”
As for San Xavier Mission, she reveals, “I’m an atheist, but I baptized my children there,” as she feels magic behind its walls, too.
She’s “adjusted the patron saint’s prayer-charm-studded blanket ‘to make sure he’s comfortable’.”
“Atheist or not, she finds something sacred there. To borrow from the Latin choral classic on her recently rereleased Christmas album: Life is full of ‘mysterium’,” writes the author of the Times article, Abbie Kozolchyk, who was also born and raised in Tucson.
Related to this story
Selena Gomez to play singer Linda Ronstadt in biopic
tucson.com/life-entertainment/nation-world/movies-tv/selena-gomez-to-play-singer-linda-ronstadt-in-biopic/video_a5835b82-70b5-5a7b-a197-249fb65e7f20.html
Selena Gomez is set to play the legendary singer Linda Ronstadt in a new movie.
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San Xavier del Bac Mission, completed in 1797, is the oldest intact European building in Arizona. Inside its walls, Linda Ronstadt says, she can feel magic.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
5 FAVORITE PLACES
Linda Ronstadt’s Tucson
www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/travel/tucson-arizona-linda-ronstadt.html
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer known for hits like “Blue Bayou” and “Long Long Time” recommends spots she adores in the city where she was born and raised.
By Abbie Kozolchyk
Like Linda Ronstadt, Abbie Kozolchyk was born and raised in Tucson.
Jan. 30, 2024
In the course of becoming a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner and the subject of a forthcoming biopic set to star Selena Gomez, Linda Ronstadt has packed theaters around the globe. But her favorite sits on a one-way side street in Tucson, Ariz.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/selena-gomez-linda-ronstadt-biopic-movie-1235784783/
Ms. Ronstadt in Tucson in September 2022. She still makes occasional trips to the city, where she was born and raised.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
With a courtyard draped in vines and string lights and a main stage the size of “a good little opera house,” the 1927 Temple of Music and Art is “just magic,” said Ms. Ronstadt. Before the onset of progressive supranuclear palsy — a Parkinson’s-like disorder that ended her singing career in 2009 — she could fill the auditorium with her unamplified voice (little surprise to anyone who’s ever heard her belt out “Blue Bayou” or “Long Long Time,” for the legions who may have just discovered her on “The Last of Us”). She also loves the theater’s proscenium: a stage-framing arch that instantly focuses the eye — “like that fireplace,” she explained, gesturing toward a wall near the sofa where we chatted in her cozy San Francisco living room.
azopera.org/temple-music-and-art
www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/progressive-supranuclear-palsy/symptoms-causes/syc-20355659
www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/arts/music/linda-ronstadt-documentary.html
www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/linda-ronstadt-long-long-time-the-last-of-us-billboard-charts-1235250935/
www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us
At 77, Ms. Ronstadt now lives in the Bay Area, close to her kids, but the Sonoran Desert borderlands where she was born and raised will always be home. And despite the changes she sees when she returns every six months or so, plenty of familiar local pleasures remain, for starters: bubbling-hot cheese crisps at El Minuto Cafe, ice-chilled shrimp cocktail at Hotel Congress, giant saguaros at every turn and live entertainment of all kinds at the Fox Tucson Theater, where her father — a businessman with a renowned baritone — used to perform as Gil Ronstadt and His Star-Spangled Megaphone.
www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/travel/linda-ronstadts-borderland.html
www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/feels-like-home/
www.elminutotucson.com/
hotelcongress.com/
foxtucson.com/
The Ronstadts have been part of the Tucson music scene since her grandfather arrived from Mexico in 1882 and helped found the Club Filarmónico Tucsonense civic band. And perhaps no place highlights the family’s cultural legacy like the former Tucson Music Hall, rechristened the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall in May 2022. The naming ceremony took place during a mariachi spectacular that featured Jesús “Chuy” Guzmán, who’d recorded with Ms. Ronstadt on the 1987 “Canciones de Mi Padre” — still the best-selling non-English album in U.S. history. This ode to the borderland classics she’d grown up on was remastered and rereleased last fall, and there may be no better soundtrack for exploring her hometown.
Here are five of her favorite places to visit in Tucson:
1. Barrio Bread
Ms. Ronstadt always stops at the artisanal bakery Barrio Bread on her way from the airport when she visits.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Her first stop is a relative newcomer: a 15-year-old artisanal bread company that earned its owner, Don Guerra, the James Beard Award for Outstanding Baker in 2022. “I always go there straight from the airport,” said Ms. Ronstadt, who used to bake her own bread (the loaf pictured on the back of the “Feels Like Home” album is one of her creations). She loves the heritage grains Mr. Guerra uses (white Sonoran wheat, for one), and especially in her go-to order: the Cubano with sesame seeds, which is so flavorful, she prefers it unadorned.
www.barriobread.com/
www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/dining/don-guerra-barrio-bread-tucson.html
www.jamesbeard.org/blog/the-2022-james-beard-award-winners#
www.45worlds.com/cdalbum/cd/7559617032
www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/dining/linda-ronstadt-recipes.html
static01.nyt.com/images/2024/01/24/multimedia/00LindaRonstadt-5Places-01-kplw/00LindaRonstadt-5Places-01-kplw-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
The Cubano with sesame seeds is one of Ms. Ronstadt’s favorites at Barrio Bread.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
A loaf at Barrio Bread decorated with a saguaro cactus, a symbol of Tucson and the Sonoran region.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
2. Arizona Inn
“It’s my favorite hotel in the world,” Ms. Ronstadt says of the hotel, a Spanish Colonial Revival landmark.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
“It’s my favorite hotel in the world,” said Ms. Ronstadt of the 1930 Spanish Colonial Revival landmark where she stays when she’s in town. The place is rich in family history — both her own (she’s been attending celebrations there since she was a girl) and that of the owners. Isabella Greenway, Arizona’s first congresswoman and Eleanor Roosevelt’s bridesmaid, opened the inn’s doors four generations ago. Beyond the lore, Ms. Ronstadt loves the native landscaping, the piano-equipped Audubon Bar & Patio, and the fireplace and sunlight that illuminate her favorite guest room."
www.arizonainn.com/
The fireplace inside the guest room where Ms. Ronstadt prefers to stay at the Arizona Inn.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Ms. Ronstadt says she loves the hotel’s Audubon Bar & Patio, which has a piano.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
3. Mission Garden
Fresh produce for sale at the Mission Garden, an ode to more than 4,000 years of local agriculture.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
The Mission Garden includes Indigenous, Spanish, Chinese, Mexican and African plots, among others.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Planted at the site of an ancient Indigenous settlement, this ode to more than 4,000 years of local agriculture is several kinds of gardens in one — some born of the region, others imported through migration. Native mainstays such as corn, beans and squash grow in the O’odham, Yoeme and Hohokam plots, while citrus trees scent the Spanish colonial orchards, jujube adorns the Chinese garden and leafy greens thrive in the Africa in the Americas fields (to name a few of the hundreds of crops on site). Docents are generous with samples of whatever looks ripe during the guided tours, but there are also dedicated tastings and food events on the calendar. “I love going over there to get a mouthful of something fresh,” Ms. Ronstadt said. Tip: If the garden-made orange marmalade is in stock, buy some.
www.missiongarden.org/
www.tonation-nsn.gov/history-culture/
www.nps.gov/articles/yoeme.htm
www.nps.gov/articles/hohokam-culture.htm
www.missiongarden.org/events
Making fresh food for the garden’s visitor shop. The homemade orange marmalade is one favorite.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
The Mission Garden was planted at the site of an ancient Indigenous settlement.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
4. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
The agave garden at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Javelinas, boar-like animals native to Arizona, at the Desert Museum.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
In the 1950s, when her father was a founding member and her mother was one of the original docents, the Desert Museum, as locals call it, was “just a little roadside attraction,” Ms. Ronstadt said. “I’d go to see George L. Mountainlion,” the first in a series of adopted mountain lions to live there. The place has since grown into a renowned zoo, botanical garden, aquarium, gallery and natural history museum, but still feels refreshingly untamed. “You’re not looking at some perfect geometry imposed on the desert,” she observed of the animals’ habitats. “Nature hates perfect geometry.”
www.desertmuseum.org/
www.desertmuseum.org/ml/#:~:text=The%20Desert%20Museum%20traditionally%20adopts,2013%20weighing%20only%2015%20lbs.
One of a series of adopted mountain lions at the museum’s renowned zoo.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
The cactus garden at the museum, where Ms. Ronstadt’s father was a founding member.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
5. San Xavier del Bac Mission
Behind the altar of San Xavier del Bac Mission, which is still an active church. Though Ms. Ronstadt says she is an atheist, she baptized her children there.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Completed in 1797 (though restoration is ongoing), this national historic landmark on Tohono O’odham land is Arizona’s oldest intact European structure — and still an active church. “I’m an atheist, but I baptized my children there,” said Ms. Ronstadt, citing the magic she feels behind the mission’s white walls. In the kaleidoscopic interior — all ornate carvings, frescoes and trompe l’oeil — she’s lit candles with Ry Cooder, sought mid-recording respite with Emmylou Harris and adjusted the patron saint’s prayer-charm-studded blanket “to make sure he’s comfortable.” Atheist or not, she finds something sacred there. To borrow from the Latin choral classic on her recently rereleased Christmas album: Life is full of “mysterium.”
sanxaviermission.org/
www.grammy.com/artists/ry-cooder/11263
www.ronstadt-linda.com/westwall.htm
www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/booming/a-full-circle-for-emmylou-harris.html
shop.lindaronstadt.com/products/linda-ronstadt-a-merry-little-christmas-cd-pre-order
Ms. Ronstadt says she has found respite within the church walls.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
The inside of the church is all ornate carvings, frescoes and trompe l’oeil.Credit...Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024.
www.instagram.com/nytimestravel/
www.nytimes.com/newsletters/traveldispatch
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/travel/places-to-travel-destinations-2024.html
Family Guy - Peter Visits Tucson
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Post by the Scribe on Dec 20, 2022 5:52:32 GMT
Life
Linda Ronstadt Opens Up About Why She Opted To Leave Tucson
www.webpronews.com/linda-ronstadt-opens-up-about-why-she-opted-to-leave-tucson
www.webpronews.com/?s=Linda+Ronstadt
AUGUST 20, 2014
Linda Ronstadt has been a resident of Tucson, AR for the majority of her life.
However, the 68-year-old singer recently decided that she needed a change of scenery.
According to the Arizona Republic, the Grammy Award-winning singer opened up about her decision to pack up and move during a recent interview with The Diane Rehm Show back in July. The interview was conducted shortly after the “You’re No Good” singer was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Obama.
During Ronstadt’s hour-long chat with Rehm she opened up about her battle with Parkinson’s disease, her induction into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, and her feelings toward her hometown. She revealed the two main reasons why she desired to move to the west coast.
“There were two things. One thing, it was a car culture. To take (my son) to school, it would take about 25-30 minutes. It was like living in Los Angeles. And where we moved in San Francisco, my son could walk or ride a skateboard to school; it was just three blocks. It gave him a chance to develop a concept of neighborhood culture that was made on a human scale for foot traffic. ”
She also shared her opinion of Arizona politics.”Well, the politics were getting so gnarly in Arizona. I just, I mean, I grew up in Arizona, I love it. I’m a part of the desert. I feel like, really, I’m from the Sonoran Desert, which is — extends to both sides of the border. I’m really from that part of Mexico also. And I hate that there’s a fence, you know, running through it.”
Although she admitted she’s doesn’t favor the modernized Tucson architecture, she’s still quite fond of her hometown.
“I still like Tucson, I still like to come back and I love to see my friends. I love to go to Mexico, which is more like Tucson was when I liked it than Tucson is anymore … I’m sad about the downtown. I’m glad that people are down there, but the buildings look like Stalinist Russia. They’re so generic. They didn’t seem to realize that Tucson in the old days had a distinctive architecture.” |
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Post by goldie on Dec 25, 2022 0:07:44 GMT
Top 10 Reasons NOT to move to Tucson, Arizona. (Re-Upload)
191,196 views Jun 1, 2020 #354
If you are thinking about moving to Tucson, Arizona you should watch this video. Don't get me wrong, Tucson is a great city, it just has it's problems like every city. They do have great people and great tacos. If you are thinking about calling a real estate agent and picking up a mortgage, watch this before.
If you enjoy these videos I would love to hear about it. Most of these videos are made to help people who are thinking about relocating, looking for real estate, or just wanting to learn about the United States. We look at the best and worst cities, states, towns, and neighborhoods in the United States. But, most of the time focus on the negative side of locations. If you only want some happy positive information about a city, town, or state, I would suggest looking up local mortgage and real estate companies or maybe the locations website. They are trying to sell you something so it will be nothing but sunshine, rainbows and a bunch of smoke up your skirt. They won't tell you about crime, poverty, bail bondsmen, or insurance you'll need because of natural disasters. I will. And I will try and make it entertaining.
The United States Scratch Map: amzn.to/36clykO
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