A Mania for Armenia

It's 10 p.m. at the Hotel Congress, the neon-lit epicenter of bohemia in Tucson. In Club Congress, the hotel's cavernous nightclub, a local avant-garde French pop singer, Marianne Dissard, is warbling a French song about love's "little lies" with unusual forcefulness. She's accompanied on electric guitar by her husband, the improbably named Naim Amor. But while there's nothing flawed about Naim's guitar playing, there's no mistaking who's the star of this show. A documentary filmmaker and all-around Tucson scenester, Dissard has the martini-sipping crowd of about 75 wrapped around her finger. "Tonight is a very special night for me," she says, squinting through the glare of the stage lights. "I am celebrating the 10th anniversary of when I moved to Tucson. I feel so glad I found this amazing, diverse, artistic city. I love you all." The audience whoops loudly. "You tell it, sister!" one man shouts. Earlier that afternoon, an innkeeper was using similar adjectives to describe Tucson: "It's arts-oriented, tolerant, and culturally diverse," said Jeff DiGregorio, co-owner of the Royal Elizabeth B&B Inn, in a 128-year-old adobe mansion downtown. "I'm biased, but I think we're very intellectual, too." All this enthusiasm can get suspiciously fervent, but there must be something to it. Tucson, 120 miles southeast of Phoenix, has long been known as a laid-back Southwestern cowboy city with near-perfect weather; lately, the town of 510,000 is making more noise. Says DiGregorio, "Tucson has the culture of L.A., but with the intimacy of Santa Fe." The 1930s-era Hotel Congress has one foot in the past and the other in the present. There's an Old West-style bar (the Tap Room), a sleek separate restaurant (the Cup Café), retro rooms, and neon signs throughout. Then again, not everyone wants to sleep above a nightclub. The Royal Elizabeth--or The Liz, as it's known around town--is furnished in a style DiGregorio calls an "antiques medley," where pieces from the Victorian, craftsman, and art deco eras casually coexist. DiGregorio, a Tucson native, and his partner, Chuck Bressi, were living in Washington, D.C., when they saw the building online and bought it sight unseen. Two weeks later, they moved to Tucson and got to work. Bressi handles the books and the cooking--and amuses guests with his quiet wit. DiGregorio, meanwhile, is a walking encyclopedia of downtown history. He also always seems to be around to help when it's time to make dinner plans. The restaurant where he's most likely to send guests is the nouveau Mexican Café Poca Cosa. Suzana Davila, the café's waifish chef, is a former model from Guaymas, Mexico, and she imported her love of mole, a rich sauce made with chocolate, red wine, and chilis. Handwritten chalkboard menus at each table change daily. If a diner gives Davila carte blanche, she'll recommend her favorite: a chocolateless Oaxacan mole verde--made from pumpkin seeds, pistachios, cilantro, and serrano peppers. Another part of downtown, along 4th Avenue, is considerably funkier. There are counterculture bookstores, and, this being the Southwest, there are shops selling therapeutic crystals. The unofficial mayor of the avenue is Dominique Francesca. She's often found standing in the doorway of Café Jinx, surveying the scene. Francesca is also an artist and photographer, and the café's expert cook; her baby spinach frittata and dark French Roast coffee are hits with the rock bands rolling through Tucson. Francesca hasn't always been a fixture here, though it often seems that way. She explains that she spent half of the '90s "getting my head together" on a road trip in her Chevy Suburban. Upon arriving in Tucson, she ditched her Suburban for a room at the Hotel Congress, and met artists who convinced her to settle in town for good. "The city has quite a funky groove," she says. "I guess I sort of feed off it." A mission beyond downtown Like so many Western cities, Tucson has its share of sprawl. It's worth braving for the ghostly San Xavier del Bac Mission (1950 W. San Xavier Rd., 520/294-2624, free), near the Tohono O'odham reservation southwest of town. Built by Franciscans in 1797, the white adobe church has spectacular arches, domes, and towers. One of the better craft stands outside the mission is a Hopi jewelry shop called Loo-Lol-Ma's. What stands out are the fetishes, alabaster Zuni charms that come in different animal shapes. Lodging   Hotel Congress 311 E. Congress St., 520/622-8848, hotelcongress.com, rooms from $69   Royal Elizabeth B&B Inn 204 S. Scott Ave., 877/670-9022, royalelizabeth.com, rooms from $115 Food   Café Poca Cosa 88 E. Broadway Blvd., 520/622-6400, Oaxacan mole verde $18   Café Jinx 344 N. 4th Ave., no phone, spinach frittata $4

Two Vancouver neighborhoods--the Gastown district and South Main--are emerging as hubs for boutiques with reworked vintage clothing. "Designers for our shop use fabrics like curtains and crocheted afghans and create new items out of them," says Wendy de Kruyff, owner of Dream, in Gastown (311 W. Cordova St., 604/683-7326). Most of those designers are locals like Kim Brower, whose labels read 100 PERCENT RECYCLED--TRY IT! She took a green tank and enhanced it with embroidered flowers and denim detailing along the hemline and sides ($50). Dream's accessories are given the recycled treatment, too: Suzanne Cowan makes photo albums from old LPs ($61); Mishi Perugini uses candy wrappers to create wallets ($19). Two miles southeast of Gastown, in up-and-coming South Main, a number of chic boutiques line Main Street. Chief among them is Eugene Choo, with its sleek SoHo sensibility (3683 Main St., 604/873-8874). The store specializes in pieces that don't try to hide their roots: An A-line trenchcoat dress by Toronto designer Preloved prominently displays the original London Fog and Pierre Cardin labels ($127), and Vancouver designer Erin Templeton reconfigures leather miniskirts into purses ($174). Regular menswear selections include navy-and-white blazers made out of old sweatshirts, and gray jackets constructed from chinos ($100-$122). With pop-art rugs and graphic print wallpaper, South Main's Mod to Modern has the groovy vibe of a '60s rec room (3712 Main St., 604/874-2144). Sadly, the store's fabulous '60s and '70s lamps aren't for sale. "As you can imagine, the supply of good furniture is pretty limited around here," says owner Michelle Bergeron-Mok. "But how about that dress?" She's pointing to a piece from her own line, a stretchy halter dress adapted from clothing picked up at thrift stores ($85). Her latest designs also include remade sweaters, using hand-cut wool in earth tones ($95-$145). Mod to Modern sells repurposed accessories, too, such as zippered wallets made out of thin inner tubes ($19) and necklaces mixing both old and new beads ($30). At Barefoot Contessa, tea towels and silky slips--and the white picket fence used as decoration--create a '50s feel (3715 Main St., 604/879-1137). Pastel sundresses made from recycled cotton fabrics couldn't be more girly ($130). The shop also carries jewelry, in the back, underneath an antique refrigerator door. Aspiring Doris Days will fall for flower brooches fashioned, naturally, from vintage fabrics ($23). Vintage for real At DeLuxe Junk Co. in the Gastown district, period accessories are paired with vintage duds--a faux-Prada purse in green vinyl ($30) and ropes of bright plastic and glass beads ($7) add flash to a strapless black gown ($26) with a bow-tie front (310 W. Cordova St., 604/685-4871). For guys, there are wool trousers, silk ties, and the occasional conversation piece, like a 1970s leather fish-scale jacket ($59). Front & Company, the 13-year-old anchor of the South Main strip, has a reliably massive selection of clothing, accessories, and housewares (3742, 3746, and 3772 Main St., 604/879-8431).