Tucson Show 2006.(What's New in Minerals)

[January 28-February 12]

Sometime during the early hotel-show period, we Tucsonans had our hundredth consecutive day without rainfall. Already in Arizona's back country there are forest fires, and although temperatures in town remained in the 60's and 70's one could spot by the roadsides some sad brownings and wrinklings, even of otherwise hardy-looking bearpaw and saguaro cacti. Amid organic nature's distress, however, the supply of fine minerals that was on view is best described (in the established cliche) as a "flood"--few major new discoveries were on hand, but the sense was still of a great ongoing abundance.

Marty Zinn's Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show again was held at the Smuggler's Inn, Clarion and InnSuites hotels (these were for mineral people: fossilists hung out largely at the Ramada). This multi-location hotel show will undergo some reshuffling for 2007, but this year it was still well-attended and flourishing as usual.

The Executive Inn show, once part of the Zinn enterprise but now under direct management of the hotel, was also worth a checkout. And out on the "funky row" (as I call it) of motel shows along I-10, the cruiser on foot could find, besides the odd interesting crystal specimen, anything lapidary, souvenirish, or arts-and-craftsish he may desire: my wife recommends particularly the Huichol artworks, with special attention to the polychrome crescent moons, lizards and snakes.

Dave Waisman's small, elite Westward Look show on the north edge of town has been operating for four years now, under the concept of showcasing just 25 or so high-end dealers who set up in hotel rooms in a series of alcoves in a resort complex, amid gorgeous desert scenery. The show also offers a special exhibit each year (this time it was Irv Brown's super collection of pegmatite minerals), and one evening of socializing and lectures in one of the hotel's conference rooms (this year, Steve Smale and Bryan Lees gave slide talks on their favorite mineral specimens and major specimen-mining projects respectively). Dave Waisman plans to keep the Westward Look show at its present size, for he thinks, justifiably in my view, that an ideal balance between an "elite" atmosphere, an open-to-all display of mineral beauty, and an educational-social agenda, has been achieved. But plan carefully for this one, so you don't miss it: Westward Look goes on for only five days in the very middle of Showtime, and its venue is located pretty far from the general center of gravity.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

And finally there is the accustomed climax at the Tucson Convention Center, the "main show," where Minerals of Canada was the theme this year. All of these productions and more are in general what Tucsonans mean by "The Show" (or, as they all somewhat annoyingly say, "The Gem Show"); and surely the whole thing is, as is often said of the Grand Canyon, an experience which everyone owes him or herself, at least once in a lifetime.