Armando Adrian-López doesn’t farm anymore, but he still looks to the natural world for inspiration and materials, using corn husks, dried flowers and found objects to create fantastical winged and horned creatures.

In the same vein of “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and “Catcher in the Rye,” Rudolfo Anaya’s “Bless Me, Ultima” has evolved into one of the most widely beloved and challenged books of all time. In some high schools this best-selling Chicano novel is considered a mandatory reading. Other schools have banished the book for its use of profanity, references to witchcraft, and religious themes. For anyone with an open mind, “Bless Me, Ultima” is certainly an enriching read-through about acceptance, family, faith, culture, and independence. The charm of Anaya’s novel sadly doesn’t shine through this adaptation by Carl Franklin, which gets bogged down by wooden performance and insipid direction.

I can’t say I agree with some of what Governor Jan Brewer has advocated or seen enacted. But now, after having lived in a cultural milieu right on our borders — what to me seems a strange, even bizarre cultural environment, full of perversions of power and social dysfunction that is absolutely destructive — I definitely agree with at least one idea: We must get total control of our border.

A crowd of a couple hundred people took a break from shopping to pay their respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe at Mesa’s Fiesta Mall on Wednesday.

After performing about 80 three-and-a-half-hour shows, including a three-month European leg on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Wrecking Ball Tour during the past year, Nils Lofgren is getting ready to crash at home and have a break from what he describes as the “greatest musical job in the world.”

Welcome to President Obama’s second term, America — that special place where ridiculousness replaces raison d’etre, and presidents give us things like gun control a’ la United Nations.

During a weekend visit to Danny's home state of Iowa, a longtime friend of his treated us with a bag of culinary goodies she collected during her trip to Spain: a creme of sardine and whiskey pate in a small red-and-gold tin; a scorpionfish pate in a box with a drawing of the notoriously ugly sea creature on it; a tin of pimenton and another containing blood-sausage pate.

Mesa Arts Center hosts this annual Dia de los Muertos community celebration with live entertainment, a Mercado, kid’s activities, and five contemporary altars, including a community altar where attendees are invited to leave memories of loved ones.

As we barrel down the two-lane road, historical markers tell us we are traveling along the original El Camino Real, the frontier wagon trail from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Dating to 1598, it is the oldest European-American trade route.

Mariachi Pajarillo, Mariachi Flores Mexicanas, Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli, Ballet Folklorico Esperanza and Tradiciones Dance Co. perform at Chandler Center for the Arts in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

In the cool cover of night, R.E. Wall and Margaret Dewar stand on scaffolding, brushing paint on the side of a store on Mesa Main Street. When the sun comes up, they put their paints away and crawl into their own one bedroom — the back of an old work truck parked out back — and sleep through the heat of the day.

For several years now, the neighborhoods along the north side of Mesa’s Main Street in the city’s downtown district have had an identity within a serene setting of historic districts.

You've seen the buddy cop movie a million times before, especially the mismatched buddy cop movie. Having the police officers come from different racial backgrounds is an especially tried-and-true element of this genre; it allows them to make fun of each other for the way they talk, the stuff they like, the activities that take up their free time. It's good for a reliable laugh, in theory.

Hominy is one of those foods you might think you’ve never tried, yet almost certainly have. Or at least a close relative of it.

El Palacio’s Mexican Restaurant in Chandler is celebrating Mexico’s independence from Spain with a homemade salsa competition, live mariachi bands, dancing provided by Ballet Folklorico Quetzalli and a kids activity zone. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Xico — a nonprofit arts organization.

Alexis Molina was just 10 years old when his mother was abruptly cut out of his life and his carefree childhood unraveled overnight.

The organizers of a cultural festival celebrating Mexican Independence Day are looking for volunteers to help staff the Chandler event. The volunteers will help set up, tear down, staff the ticket booth and help vendors.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After 97 years, Our Lady of Lourdes School was closing — enrollment had dwindled to just 35 children last year at what was once one of the West Coast's biggest Catholic schools.

EAST LONDON – Echoes of traditional Mexican folk music filled the air of Island Gardens Park here Saturday when the performers from Tucson’s Ballet Folklorico La Paloma and Viva Arizona dance groups took the stage at the park’s American Dance Festival.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — When Sandra Day O'Connor was a member of the Arizona Senate in the 1970s and needed to get business done, she would bring folks from both sides of the aisle to the adobe house she and her husband built, serve Mexican food and beer and work things out, civilly.

“Savages” is a much better movie than it could have been mainly thanks to the gifted directorial talents of Oliver Stone.In the hands of somebody like Michael Bay, this easily could have been another soulless, meaningless summer blockbuster like “Bad Boys II.” Stone however, manages to tell a compelling story about a Mexican drug cartel with effective violence and characters. The film probably won’t go down as one of the preeminent outings from Oliver Stone. As an entertaining B-movie with no shortage of attractive stars though, “Savages” is ultimately a success.

LOS ANGELES — Oliver Stone has smoked great marijuana all over the world, from Vietnam and Thailand to Jamaica and South Sudan. But the filmmaker says the best weed is made in the USA and that pot could be a huge growth industry for taxpayers if it were legalized.

LOS ANGELES — Taylor Kitsch struck out twice this year in the failed films "John Carter" and "Battleship," spoiling the "Friday Night Lights" actor's hopes to leap from TV to big-screen star.

"Viva Christo Rey!"