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Jack is back.
And not a moment too soon. I’ve been feeding my addiction with late-night marathon viewings of seasons 1-6 (shout out to Blockbuster Rewards’ two-for-one deal). Season 7 premieres Sun., Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. with the two-hour “24: Redemption.” Jack’s in South Africa protecting the children, killing the bad guys and torturing evildoers when necessary. Plus, it’s in real time, y’all
Local all-around arts maven Louise Runyon and former CL dance and lit critic Tom Bell present their new contact improvisation piece “Chairs: Unseated” this weekend during Language/Listening. The duet forms the centerpiece of the evening’s four dance performances and involves two individuals vying for a single chair, the pair floating back and forth to illustrate the give and take of sharing. Post performance, Bell and Runyon will lecture on and demonstrate contact improvisation methods.
Among the show’s other bits and bobs, local poet, artist and activist Alice Lovelace will perform from forever, her recently published book of poetry informed by her relationship with her daughter and the loss of her husband. Runyon will also take the stage as a poet to read from her latest work LANDSCAPE/Fear & Love.
But wait … there’s more! Women’s drumming group ConunDrums opens and closes the evening with rhythmic West African, well, drumming. A smorgasboard of treats from the Decatur Organic Farmers Market tops everything off.
Language/Listening. $10. Fri.-Sat., Nov. 21-22, 8 p.m. Beacon Hill Arts Center Studio Theatre, 410 W. Trinity Place, Decatur. 404-728-8991. www.LouiseRunyonPerformance.com
It’s that time of year again folks - Fiction Contest time! And we know that given the current economic situation (there’s some serious cash at stake here people), there are more starving artists out there than ever.
So, submit a manuscript of no more than 3,000 words either as a hard copy to our offices or online. All works of fiction must in some way incorporate the word “pop” — as a theme, a metaphor, whatever. You can use the word as any way you like; just use it well. Originality is encouraged, and the word count is enforced.
DEADLINE IS TODAY, FRI., NOV. 21 AT 5 P.M.
Click on the image below for more details or to submit an entry.
Laura Bush (left), YEA member Kamil McFadden, YEA executive director Debi Barber, PCAH representative Caren Prothro
The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities recognized the local African-American youth theater company last Fri., Nov. 14 with $10,000 and a ceremony at the White House.
From the press release:
The Coming Up Taller Awards recognize and support outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America’s young people, and provide them with new learning opportunities and a chance to contribute to their communities. … “The connection between YEA participation and academic success is a testament to the power of the arts for motivating young people to be their very best,” said Adair Margo, chairman of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
This is the second Coming Up Taller award for YEA. They were first recognized in 1998.
Catch the Youth Ensemble of Atlanta Dec. 11-21 at the 14th Street Playhouse when it stages its annual holiday performance Urban Holiday Soup. The video below shows YEA’s performance of “Soweto!” at the Trumpet Awards, and should give you a little pre-show taste of what the group has to offer.
It’s that time of year again folks - Fiction Contest time! And we know that given the current economic situation (there’s some serious cash at stake here people), there are more starving artists out there than ever.
So, submit a manuscript of no more than 3,000 words either as a hard copy to our offices or online. All works of fiction must in some way incorporate the word “pop” — as a theme, a metaphor, whatever. You can use the word as any way you like; just use it well. Originality is encouraged, and the word count is enforced.
Click on the image below for more details or to submit an entry.
It’s that time of year again folks - Fiction Contest time! And we know that given the current economic situation (there’s some serious cash at stake here people), there are more starving artists out there than ever.
So, submit a manuscript of no more than 3,000 words either as a hard copy to our offices or online. All works of fiction must in some way incorporate the word “pop” — as a theme, a metaphor, whatever. You can use the word as any way you like; just use it well. Originality is encouraged, and the word count is enforced.
Click on the image below for more details or to submit an entry.
After two years of labor-intensive restoration efforts, SCAD reopened Atlanta’s historic Peters House, aka Ivy Hall, on Oct. 3. The mansion, located at 179 Ponce de Leon Ave., dates back to 1883 and was home to one of the city’s founding families. Its Queen Anne-style design is the “best and earliest surviving example of residential architecture from Atlanta’s post-Civil War era,” according to the National Register of Historic Places. It also housed the Mansion restaurant for nearly 30 years until a fire in 2000.
PBA 30 continues airing the locally produced five-part series documenting the restoration process Nov. 1, 8, 15 and 22 at 6:30 p.m.
(Photo courtesy www.scad.edu)
Local grassroots arts organization Idea Capital has tapped Shana Robbins, Jason Kofke and Rory Golden as its fall 2008 awards recipients. Robbins will receive a cool grand, and Kofke and Golden will get $500 and $250, respectively, to pursue experimental art projects.
From today’s press release:
Ms. Robbins will use the cash to fund a multi-media performance-based work
dealing with the “Monstrous Feminine,” while Mr. Kofke has proposed a city-wide
street art campaign titled “Everything Will Be OK,” which includes both permitted
and guerilla art tactics. Mr. Golden will create a fictional visual narrative
installation titled “You Think I Can Eat All That Chicken Here?” which includes a
150-year-old ex-slave, food addiction, and an extreme religious conversion.
Idea Capital was founded by Susan Todd-Raque, Stuart Keeler, Pam Rogers, Louise Shaw, and Cinqué Hicks “to encourage experimentation and investigation with funds designed to give artists permission
to pursue new ideas.” Visit the group’s website for more info on membership, donations and future grants. See examples of their art below.
Full disclosure: Hicks is CL’s freelance visual arts critic.
When Atlanta native and former editor of American Jewish Life Benyamin Cohen felt his Jewish faith faltering, he did what any other lost soul in the Bible Belt would do - he went to church.
The son of an orthodox rabbi, Cohen spent a year going from Christian rock festival to megachurch service to Catholic confession on a quest for higher learning. He chronicles his experiences in the funny and insightful memoir My Jesus Year. Cohen appears at the Barnes & Noble in Buckhead this Sunday and again at the MJCCA’s 17th annual Book Festival in November.
I was particularly intrigued by the following quote of yours: “What are they [Christians] doing so right that we Jews are doing so wrong? Is their church experience simply more fun?” Would you describe your pre-book perceptions of Christians and modern Christianity and explain what you mean by “right” and “wrong” in the above statement?
Wow, that’s a tough question. I never looked at it like that. I certainly don’t see one religion as being right and another as being wrong. What I do think, though, is that there are a lot of aspects – in any religion – that has room for improvement. Judaism may be thousands of years old, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve on, say, how we reach out to newcomers. Churches do an amazing job of outreach and marketing themselves to new visitors. In the book, I tell a story of how I got preferential treatment (first-time visitor parking in the front next to the handicapped spots) at a megachurch in Lithonia. Once I walked inside, I was treated like a rock star. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing when a wandering Jew walks into a synagogue for the first time. That’s my long way of saying we’re doing something “wrong” and Christians are doing something “right”. (more…)
Atlanta’s nothing if not a maze of idiosyncratic neighborhoods.
SAND (South Atlantans for Neighborhood Development), whose neighborhoods include Benteen Park, Boulevard Heights, Glenwood Park, McDonough-Guice, North Ormewood, Ormewood Park and Woodland Hills, hosts its annual tour of homes this Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Tickets are $12-$15 and proceeds benefit the neighborhood’s public safety initiatives, neighborhood watches, beautification and public areas maintenance, and various neighborhood committees and public events.
Check out SAND’s website for details.
(Photo courtesy www.sandatlanta.org)
It used to be that Wednesday night couldn’t come fast enough. It used to be that “Project Runway” was a glorious train wreck of attitudes and outfits you loved to hate and hated to love. It used to be that people actually gave a crap who won. Not so much with season five.
I was rooting for Leanne (in addition to having a tiny girl crush on her), but I can’t say that I was gossiping rabidly about it, creating pools with my coworkers or pulling my hair out anticipating a twist in the weeks leading up to last night’s finale. So, yeah, Leanne won and I think she deserved it. But am I salivating for season six? Meh.
Season four’s designers rated slightly higher on the fabulous scale thanks to Chris March, Ricky Lizalde and Jack Mackenroth (sorry folks, you’ll have to look elsewhere for a diehard Christian Siriano fan). Unfortunately, Jack had to leave the show early due to health complications. He’s been HIV positive for 20 years and a bacterial infection that caused his lips to swell posed a serious threat.
Jack’s in Atlanta this weekend to participate in AIDS Walk and host a coming out of sorts for his new educational campaign Living Positive by Design. I spoke with him this morning and got him to dish about J. Lo’s absence, Leanne’s win and his new “project.” (more…)
This week CL Charlotte’s Matt Brunson discusses the DVD releases of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Strangers and more.
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008). Let’s try to put this in perspective, shall we? On the Scale of Cinematic Achievements, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull places dead last among the four big-screen Indy adventures. Given the quality of its predecessors, however, that can hardly be construed as a smackdown. Read the rest here.
(Photo by David James/Paramount & Lucasfilm)
Billed as “a childhood memoir,” the complete title of Wilson’s novel is Holy Roller: Growing up in the Church of Knock Down, Drag Out; or, How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus. Phew. That’s almost as tricky to say/type as it is for a 9-year-old to sit still in church while the preacher hollers fire and brimstone.
Or so I gather from Wilson’s story. She was raised a Rapture-fearin’ Pentecostal, while I grew up in the Cult of Mary (aka Catholicism). Wilson’s 9- to 10-year-old self chatterboxes through her childhood narrative, sometimes meandering into stream-of-conscious monologues, but always capturing the guilt-inducing push and pull between curiosity and indoctrination.
But being an author is more of a side project for Wilson, a fourth-generation Texas fisher(wo)man and co-founder of Code Pink who’s made headlines as an environmental activist keen on hunger strikes and nonviolent disobedience (she’s been arrested around 29 times). She also inspired the award-winning documentary Texas Gold, which screens periodically on the Sundance channel.
Wilson appears tonight, Tues., Sept. 30, at 7 p.m. at the Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta, 470 Candler Park Drive. 404-378-5570. www.acappellabooks.com. Georgia for Democracy, the Atlanta chapter of WAND and A Cappella Books are sponsoring the event.
(Photo courtesy Chelsea Green)
While the Beltine mucks through the financial and political bogs holding back its progress, photographer
