Developers, particularly Bart “I made Northern Liberties shiny” Blatstein, have been trying very hard lately to buy up and rebrand the Spring Garden neighborhood/former industrial area where David Lynch lived and shot his surrealist classic Eraserhead. Lynch, who lived at 13th and Wood streets as a PAFA student in the mid-’60s, has described the area as “a very sick, twisted, violent, fear-ridden, decadent, decaying place.” Until pretty recently, it’s remained a bit of a wasteland, with desperate Craigslist landlords attempting to pass it off as the Loft District, Fairmount, Art Museum, West Poplar and North Chinatown. (They avoided the catchiest name, the Eraserhood, for obvious reasons.) It looks like the new developers’ preference for calling the area “Callowhill” may catch on, if only because it doesn’t evoke images of squalling mutant babies. But PhilaMOCA, a few blocks away from Lynch’s former digs, is reacting to the seeming inevitability of neighborhood rebranding with a new Eraserhood mural, Jack Nance’s hair poking proudly over the top of the building. The party for its unveiling involves more art, live music from Void Vision and Full Blown Cherry and curiosity-piquing sets of Lynch-themed sketch comedy and burlesque. 

Fri., July 13, 8:30 p.m., $10, PhilaMOCA, 531 N. 12th St., 267-519-9651, philamoca.org.