TAKING THE OFF-RAMP

Saloons were the most socially active establishments in 19th-century Arizona. Barbershops took second place, where the proprietor played host, made his customer comfortable and spiced a shave and haircut with local news or gossip. While cleaning up the local gentry, a barber created a much-needed sense of community in the Territory's dusty towns.

Cinematic Cowboy

"It was the days when the good guys always won," says Michael Klein, owner of Hollywood Cowboy, a Cave Creek gallery of vintage Western movie poster art. A New York native, Klein relocated to Arizona and has been buying and selling Western movie posters for 26 years. Now a selfprofessed cowboy (he writes cowboy poetry and cowboy songs), his obsession with the West originated with cowboy movies.

In earlier days, big movie studios lavished a fortune on poster campaigns. Striking graphics and bold copy lured ticket buyers in theater lobbies and on billboards during the golden age of the silver screen.

Information: (480) 949-5646

CD Road Trip

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things," claimed author Henry Miller. Tour Guide USA takes this approach to travel in its recently released "Driving Audio Adventures" series. The first tour offered takes road trippers from the Valley of the Sun past Sedona and Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, then loops back through Prescott and Wickenburg to west Phoenix. The compact disc chronicles the history, culture, geology, plants and wildlife in 14 narrated segments. Stops along the way include Jerome, Arcosanti, Sunset Crater and U.S. Route 66. So pull out the map, slip in the CD and enjoy the journey.

Information: (480) 446-8500 or www.Tour GuideUSA.com.

A 6-Mile Book Made of Tiles

You'll never be at a loss for words when visiting Tempe Town Lake east of Phoenix. Six hundred granite tiles line the perimeter of the water, creating a "book" 6 miles long. Artists Karla Elling and Harry Reese and poet Alberto Rios worked together to convey the past, present and future of the lake through words and images carved in 8-pound granite tiles.

It takes 2 tons of granite to tell the story, and each tile reads like its own story, such as: "In the desert/ water/was the animal/ hunters tracked first." Rios combined metaphor and humor to achieve what he calls a "finger snap" or immediate insight. The style utilizes the gregueria literary form created by Spanish writer Ramon Gomez de la Serna in 1911.

"Fish/in the water/are the river's/ thoughts," reads another tile by Rios. Fossils, fish, frogs, birds, lightning scenes, leaf patterns and additional images fill other tiles conveying symbolic messages. The whole collection is based on memories and stories representing a sense of history as well as community unique to Tempe's man-made lake.

Wish Upon a Star at Verde Canyon

Starry-eyed romantics, amateur astronomers and wildlife watchers seeking summer skies find the answer to their dreams on starlight train rides conducted by the Verde Canyon Railroad. Passengers get to see the Verde Canyon, its nocturnal wildlife and a spectacular star show every Saturday night from May through August.

The Verde Canyon Railroad's 38 miles of track, built in 1912 at the cost of $1.3 million, were originally built to support the mining industries of Clarkdale and Jerome. Today, the railway runs as a tourist train, taking sightseers on an exclusive excursion along the rambling Verde River.

The starlight trips provide a perfect opportunity to see nocturnal wildlife emerge in this productive cottonwood-willow riparian habitat. As the sun sets, the purple, gray and pink tones that dress the canyon walls deepen into a wild cloak of violet, blue and red. Unhindered by city lights, stargazers might be able to pick out glittering constellations against the night sky. With the sunset, moon and stars, the trip makes a perfect way to spend a celestial summer night.

Information: toll-free (800) 2937245 or www.verdecanyonrr.com.

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SMOCA'S Magnetic Appeal

It all started with a rogue magnet, a nondescript business magnet barely bigger than a half dollar stuck just above head height on the metal north wall of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMOCA). When Ted Decker, associate director of development at SMOCA, reached up to grab the magnet-ping-the light went on in his creative head. "I started thinking how famous museums These magnets depicting works of art and other tchotchkes as reminders of peoples' visits," he recalls. "Here was this big wall waiting for attention."

Decker's idea gave birth to "SMOCA Magnet Mania" during May 2002. The museum invited people to bring magnets from refrigerators, desks and drawers, then stick them on SMOCA's wall. Participants could add one or take one.

First the staff put up their magnets. Then the media got wind of the event. Even the mayor appeared, wondering what was going on at the SMOCA building. Magnets-everything from pictures of kids to homemade ones-transformed the 400square-foot wall into a mosaic. At the end of May, the staff collected the magnets for students of the museum's Vision Kids educational program to incorporate into artwork to sell in the museum store. The money netted from the artwork is donated to the Phoenix Children's Hospital. But the metal north facade didn't stay empty. The magnets came back. First a handful, which the maintenance crew scrupulously removed. Then more. "It's become a site that's very much about rituals and personal exposure, especially at a time when we need it," says Decker. "This is the interactivity we like art to turn into."

Man on a Star

His baskets tell stories. He weaves in the stories with the fibers of the yucca, the bear grass, the banana roots and the devil's claw. Raymaon Novelto started weaving baskets as a boy, following the ancient example of his people, the Tohono O'odham, and the living example of his grandmother, mother and aunt. "I just watched and watched," he recalls.

Novelto excels in a field often and erroneously equated as the province of females. His trademarks include symbols of men, stars and turtles incorporated into his baskets. You can see his work at the San Xavier Plaza and the gift shop at Mission San Xavier del Bac, off Interstate 19, south of Tucson. Information: (520) 294-2624.

Question of the Month

Q The secret of "talkative tree rings" was discovered by a scientist at which Arizona school?

A While working for the University of Arizona in Tucson during the early 1900s, A.E. Douglass discovered dendrochronology, or the dating of past environmental events such as climatic changes, through the study of tree rings.

LIFE IN ARIZONA 1900s BIG BIRTHDAY BASH

Theodore E. Litt began his career in 1888 as a 17-yearold pharmacy apprentice in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Six years later he was delivering wagonloads of medicine from a pharmacy in Prescott to nearby mining camps.

Moving on to Tucson, he set up his own drugstore in 1908 and relocated it one year later to the busiest intersection in town, the corner of Stone Avenue and Congress Street, where he operated the business for the next 30 years. Litt sold sundry merchandise that no other drugstore carried. In 1952 he boasted that he was "the first drug man to combine the 5&10 business with pharmacy." Litt celebrated his birthday every July 8 by hosting a kids' bicycle parade through downtown. He gave out prizes and treated all participants to a movie at the Fox Theater, just down the block. Nearly 1,500 children cycled or marched in the last birthday parade he held. Litt died at age 81, having left fond memories for a generation of Tucson's children.