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Arts
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| gophila.com |
In this week's Agenda section, Lauren F. Friedman covered the hell out of the Equality Forum she picked its best events, which include a discussion with San Fran mayor Gavin Newsom and the big ass rally supporting GLBT rights on May 3, just for you. But that's hardly all EF has to offer. Today marks its beginning, which includes a V.I.P. party at City Hall. If you can't sneak your way into that, there's also an all-are-welcome panel on transgender civil rights issues, with Joelle Ruby Ryan (the lady who founded the group Transcendence) moderating, or the Richard Amsel exhibit. Even if you don't recognize the former artist by name, you'll know Amsel's work immediately he's responsible for that sexy Raiders of the Lost Ark illustration.
Richard Amsel Retrospective: Through May 14, free, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, 333 S. Broad St., 215-732-3378, equalityforum.com; National Transgender Panel: Mon., April 27, 8-9:15 p.m., free, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-732-3378, equalityforum.com.
We're clearly a little bike-happy over here at CP. But when it's this nice outside, and our muscle mass is shrinking by the second, can you blame us? The video above is a trailer for I Love My Bicycle: The Story of FBM Bikes, which was made by local filmmaker Joe Stakun. (Full disclosure: Both of us being Temple students, I've been to a few of the same parties as Stakun. It's a small world over there on Broad.) The film is nominated for best documentary at the Bare Bones Festival in Oklahoma, where it aired last week. Yo, Joe we're proud of you and all, but don't go and get talented and then leave Philly for good, mmkay? We still have PFF here, after all.
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| howartandmusiccanchangetheworld |
| David & Jean, the happy duo/artists/ musicians. |
Talk about an optimistic statement David Lester and Jean Smith think that art and music can change the world as we know it. Part of the lit pop group Mecca Normal, they've been traveling the country to convince people of their starry-eyed beliefs. Through PowerPoint, speech and performance, they'll discuss how their art has created social change, what it means to be D.I.Y. performers and the nitty gritty of collaboration. Here's a sample of what they'll be discussing:
"In our early years I spoke from the stage," Jean says. "Between fairly literal songs about feminism, poverty and housing issues, to encourage women to start bands with other women, as opposed to being audience members. The social movement known as Riot Grrrl began and its founding members cited Mecca Normal as an inspiration to its inception. We connected with audiences who were encouraged to, in this case, focus on feminist concerns using music and culture. This direct linearity of events inspired us to address the idea that it is not possible to change the world. We did change the world."
Call 'em naive if you want, but in this climate I call it refreshing.
Wed., April 22, 8 p.m., $8, NEXUS/Foundation for Today's Art, 1400 N. American St., 215-684-1946, nexusphiladelphia.org.
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Depending on how uptight your boss is, the clip above may not be safe for work. It shows the burlesque star Annie A-Bomb purring, stripping and doing things that one generally would not do in a cat costume (unless it was Halloween and you were a Penn freshman). She'll be part of the ragtag bunch of cabaret performers at L'Etage tonight, with The Abinsthe Drinkers, Gina Izzo and Nicki Jaine also presenting their strange, freakish arts. The Absinthe Drinkers are a lit-pop band that frequently attends shows with alien masks on, and projects images on the wall to coincide with their music. Gina Izzo is a photographer, and Nicki Jaine sings like an old-timey European girl and plays the fiddle. It's a variety show, essentially but darker. Darker and better.
Thu., April 16, 8 p.m., $10, L'Etage, 6th & Bainbridge sts., 215-592-0656, creperie-beaumonde.com/letage/index.html.
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| artvoice.com |
| The story slam is somehow going to involve this guy. |
I'm not sure how seriously to take Painted Bride's Anti-Poetry Month. Celebrating the absence of poetry sounds like a very Zen way to show people how much verse pops up in our daily lives. (Unless PB means Anti-Rhyming-Poetry Month, which I can definitely get down with.) No matter. Their Anti-Poetry Month Story Slam promises to mesh Henry Rollins with Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and will force attendees to do improv writing with each other. Winners get a free notebook, cash and other prizes perhaps a Black Flag album? The latter would be cool, but it better not be the only way Rollins is involved.
Tue, April 14, 7:30-10 p.m., free, Bubble House, 3404 Sansom St., 215-925-9914, paintedbride.org.
Don't know what to do tonight? Don't worry, we've got you covered.
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| For some reason, they didn't have a flier for tonight's event. But this one is cool enough to feature twice, no? |
Feeling a bit interdisciplinary? Scatterbrained? Like one event won't satisfy you, but maybe a hodge-podge of a few will? Me too. Which is why I'll be heading to Copabanana's twice-monthly event, The Exchange, tonight. Its title is literal it features a bunch of musicians, spoken word artists, comedians, live painters and dramatists getting together to do their thing and swap ideas. The folks over at the Community Cultural Exchange, which put this on, suggest bringing your own talent with you, whether it be improv or knitting. The latter, we worry, may be a bit too quaint for such an overstimulating event.
Tue., April 7, 7 p.m., free, Upstairs at The Copabanana , Fourth & South sts, 215-923-6180, communityculturalexchange.org
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Baz Luhrmann wasn't the first to do it. From long-winded author Charles Dickens to psychology star Sigmund Freud, artists, philosophers and writers have been aping William Shakespeare's works for more than 400 years. But why him? Why not get inspired by Hemingway or Aristotle? (Well, OK, so people copy them too. But with such fervor, so that even The Lion King mimics their themes? Didn't think so.)
Villanova and NYU profs, including William Electric Black and Paul Spiro, will wonder why we can't help but look up to Shakespeare at tonight's lecture on his far-reaching influence. Coinciding with Lantern Theater's production of Hamlet, they'll especially focus on the our obsession with his freaky-deaky Oedipal work.
And while we're on the subject of Shakespeare, have you heard all the hoopla about how he might be way hotter than we'd originally thought?
Mon., April 6, 7-9pm, $5-$10, Lantern Theater, 10th & Ludlow sts., 215-829-0395, lanterntheater.org
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| Penguin, $18 |
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There hasn't been a family that's simultaneously captured America's attention and disgusted us so since the Mansons. In Coll's new book, he outlines the history of the bin Ladens, including the childhood of Osama. Here's what Shaun Brady had to say about the book in this week's Agenda section:
The New Yorker scribe tells that story with epic sweep, exhaustive research and a touch of irreverence, making for a page-turner that is nonetheless crammed with densely packed detail. It reads like a mirror history of the 20th century, alternately reflecting, echoing and rebutting the familiar western narrative. The 54 children of Mohammed bin Laden almost inevitably form a microcosm of Saudi society and undertake the same struggle between the strictures of Islam and the temptations of modernity that define the region.
The tale unfolds as a series of parallels: the rising power of the al-Saud family comes to shape the rags-to-riches journey of patriarch Mohamed bin Laden; his death leaves his sons to trace divergent paths, exemplified by his profligate, freewheeling eldest, Salem, and the black sheep you-know-who.
Tue., March 31, 7:30 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org
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In my ninth grade English class, I got lucky. While my friends' teachers believed that reading Little Women and Wuthering Heights was a good enough introduction to women writers, my own thought otherwise he had us read several works by Joan Didion, including "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" and "Goodbye to All That." The first inspired me to pursue journalism (which, at the time, meant writing articles about why the drinking age should be lowered to 18); the second made me want to pack up my bags and move to New York City.
Didion's great strength is being able to write beautifully about the darkest aspects of life, without being macabre or exploitative in her coverage of a small-town murder in "Some Dreamers...," she somehow employs symbolism and foreshadowing into a news piece without it appearing forced. She's also got a knack for extraordinary, biting sentences, like "It is the season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows." At tonight's reading, though, she likely won't be discussing her '60s and '70s works. Instead, I bet she'll read from her book The Year of Magical Thinking, which covers the untimely deaths of both her husband and daughter. Always a tough broad, Didion shows her unyielding emotional strength in this work which, contrary to my initial guess, is far from depressing.
Mon, March 30, 6:30pm; Tue, March 31, 10:30am, free, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-WRIT.
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| St. Martin's Griffin, 432 pp., $14.95 |
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It's no secret that here at City Paper we love the best mythological creature around: zombies. Because we love books a great deal too, Jonathan Maberry's undead tale Patient Zero: A Joe Ledger Novel seems like something out of our wildest, most night terror-inducing dreams.
Well, OK. It's like any other zombie narrative Joe Ledger has to keep terrorists from unleashing a bio-weapon that transforms ordinary people into zombies. But honestly, the zombie formula is pretty hard to mess up.
Plus, it's a bit like a cross between The Wire and 24: "Joe Ledger is a Baltimore detective who has just been secretly recruited to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle." Am I stretching it? Maybe. But what can I say? I'm part of the elite, zombie-biased media.
Tue., March 24, 5:30 p.m., free, Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St., 215-686-1776, jonathanmaberry.com
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