Valentine’s Day is a phony holiday created by cruel corporations to sell diamonds, chocolates and cards by provoking our insecurities. Of course, to those who get all kinds of diamonds, chocolates and cards, it’s a pretty good day.

The Alibi tries to help everyone feel good, hence the eighth annual Valentine’s Day Card Contest.

As Christina Aguilera began to stumble through the national anthem before Sunday’s Super Bowl, nobody in the SCI stood up.

Praises were sung at the Monday, Feb. 7 Council meeting about the way city employees handled weather-related problems. Councilor Rey Garduño started the accolades, and others chimed in, thanking police officers, the fire department and street workers for keeping the city safe during some of the coldest February days in New Mexico’s recorded history.

Gov. Susana Martinez’ administration got started on the wrong foot.

She’s tried to create the image of a state in near-total collapse—one facing a “financial crisis” of historic proportions that requires a stern and steady leader. That diagnosis is wrong, and therefore the prescription (cut, slash, burn) is also sadly off the mark.

I have to chalk up her first state of the state address as a missed opportunity, a rehash of campaign stump speeches and standard-issue GOP sound bites. It was as short on substance as it was chilling—and not inspirational—in tone.

Dateline: China—China’s government is embarrassed after it was caught demonstrating its latest military hardware through old clips of the Tom Cruise film Top Gun. Footage supposedly showing the new J-10 fighter knocking another jet out of the sky with an air-to-air missile was broadcast by state-sponsored China Central Television on Jan. 23. Internet observers quickly noticed similarities between the training exercise footage and the ’80s action flick. The Wall Street Journal published a side-by-side comparison between the two videos online. Sure enough, the images are identical. The footage has since been removed from the CCTV website and network officials are refusing to comment.

Every year some state legislator from outside the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area proposes some bill to end the tax rebate program that’s fueling the film industry here in Albuquerque. You can’t really blame them. Few films are shot outside the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area. As a result, few of our smaller communities see much tangible economic impact. Nonetheless, every year, the proposal gets shot down.

There’s a major David and Goliath matchup in this year’s Oscar race. Wedged between multimillion-dollar, 3-D computer-animated films How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 in the Animated Feature category is the humble, hand-illustrated French film The Illusionist. The film is director Sylvain Chomet’s long-awaited follow up to his 2003 charmer The Triplets of Belleville.

What did we learn from this year’s Super Bowl, class? That turnovers are key to the game. That Christina Aguilera doesn’t know the words to the national anthem. That the Black Eyed Peas sound like ass outside of a studio. That the economy has obviously affected major advertising.

Don’t limit it by calling it music, man. Jazz derangements, electronic debris and heaving melts of guitar are just part of it. What Sabertooth Cavity offers up with its first album, En Lak Ech, is a little more meta. Or a little more Dada. However you want to take it.

It bummed me out when La Posada de Albuquerque closed in 2005. The lobby bar was one of my favorite places in Albuquerque—it was an elegant, jazz-filled, brown-and-white respite from the Downtown riffraff, the flashing neons, the ill-fitting fashions and questionable taste in mechanical beats. Little did I know that four years later the 1939 building—New Mexico native Conrad Hilton’s fourth hotel, and first outside of Texas—would open anew, having been reinvented as green boutique lodging. Hotel Andaluz not only has 107 rooms and suites, but also a fine Mediterranean-inspired restaurant (Lucia), rooftop bar (Ibiza) and, as of the end of January, a live music venue called Casablanca.

Red Light Cameras, Ya Ya Boom and the 5 Star Motelles invite you to be theirs on Valentine’s eve eve—that’s Saturday, Feb. 12, starting at 9:30 p.m. The bake sale, love poem contest, handmade Valentine sale and rock show happen at Burt’s Tiki Lounge (313 Gold SW) and admission is free. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)

Russell Pyle is a vocalist and guitar player in the lauded local bluegrass group The Porter Draw. The band will be your Valentine on Saturday, Feb. 12, when it performs at Blackbird Buvette. The show, called “An Arrow Through the Heart,” begins at 10 p.m. and is free. Below is a random peek into Pyle’s music library. “It made me realize how much punk and hardcore I have on my iPod,” he says.

Valentine’s Day tends to make me feel barfy. Another thing that makes me want to vomit is people who hate on gay folks. It’s a big deal. ... I will now get off my soapbox and give an enthusiastic shout out to It’s Just Love. What’s Everyone So Scared Of? put on by the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus. I’ve never seen a gay men’s chorus live, only on television being used as a weapon against hateful people on a Michael Moore program. It was delightful. The concert series, to have the chorus people tell it, is about how love is unifying. Gay love is no scarier that hetero love; it’s also just as scary. Come hear cabaret, jazz and pop standards out at the VSA North Fourth Art Center (4904 Fourth Street NW) on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 11 and 12, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 13, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $20; $15 for students and seniors; $10 for kids ages 10-and-under. Show ’em some love.

I know Shakespeare is, well, Shakespeare. Many diehard theater lovers consider him the best playwright to have ever grasped an ink-imbued instrument. Most actors and/or theater companies want to eventually try their iambic-pentameter-loving hands at one of the man’s plays. I realize this will put me on the blacklist of a number of theater patrons in town, but the question I always ask myself before seeing one of Shakespeare’s works on stage is: Why?

With the 50th anniversary of Tamarind Institute still glimmering in the rearview mirror, I sat down to talk with gallery director Arif Khan about fast forward: four for the future, which features pieces by Anna Hepler, Fay Ku, Mark Licari and Ethan Murrow. The show is a mix of work made by these artists during their time at Tamarind and in their own studio practices, ranging from high-definition film to inflatable sculptures, wall drawings and watercolors.

Noda’s Japanese Cuisine—I’m mourning the loss of one of the best Japanese restaurants in the state. Some friends and I were planning a night out and wanted to make reservations for Noda’s omakase dinner—a sumptuous, prix fixe feast prepared in a manner you’d expect from a four-star establishment. Noda’s inventive dishes included top-quality ingredients in distinctive presentations. I once had a dessert consisting of a sweet rice cake shaped like a fig, stuffed with sweet bean paste and partially wrapped with a fragrant, salty/sweet shiso leaf. Alas, Noda’s closed the doors at its Trinity Plaza location in Rio Rancho this winter.

The process by which restaurants get selected for this column involves equal parts strategy and serendipity. New restaurants, if they’re any good, are no-brainers for coverage. But sometimes a case can be made for older places, especially if the Alibi has never covered them.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Before I loved you, nothing was my own," wrote Pablo Neruda to his lover in one of his sonnets. "It all belonged to someone else—to no one." Have you ever experienced a sense of being dispossessed like that, Aries? A sense of there being nowhere and nothing in the world that you can call your own? And have you ever fantasized that your emptiness could be remedied by the intimate presence of a special companion? I wish for you to have that consoling experience in the coming week. In fact, I predict it. Happy Valentine Daze!