1) Donny Vomit emcees an evening of burlesque, carnival-themed films and music at the Five Spot.
2) The Plaza Theatre celebrates the 25th anniversary of Purple Rain.
3) George Dawes Green discusses Ravens at Margaret Mitchell House & Museum.
4) Walter Trout plays Smith’s Olde Bar.
5) Italian classic Pinocchio continues at the Center for Puppetry Arts.
(Photo courtesy www.coneyisland.com)
1) Dine out on a budget during Downtown Atlanta Restaurant Week.
2) Sarah Dunant signs Sacred Hearts at Margaret Mitchell House & Museum.
3) 42nd Street opens at the Fox Theatre.
4) The Vans Warped Tour rolls into town.
5) Paolo Nutini performs at Variety Playhouse.
(Photo courtesy Central Atlanta Progress)
1) The Decemberists play the Tabernacle.
2) Charis Books & More hosts Stigma No More: Intersections of Mental Illness, Disability, Queerness & Race.
3) I Was a King plays the Earl.
4) Songhai to Symphony Hall continues at Hammonds House Museum.
5) Wendy Wax discusses her book, The Accidental Bestseller, at Margaret Mitchell House & Museum.
(Photo © Capitol Records)
NOM DE PLUMAGE: Flannery O'Connor with one of her trademark peacocks
Flannery O’Connor’s life never went to the extremes of her work. How could it?
In her unique, off-putting novels and short stories, O’Connor crossbred humor, horror and piety; her output had such hybrid vigor that she virtually established the genre of the Southern grotesque. Her first novel, Wise Blood, critiques Southern religion by way of homicide, self-mutilation, mummies and gorilla suits. Her famous, oft-anthologized short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” begins with a mundane family road trip and ends with psycho killer, as if A Trip to Bountiful received a surprise visit from No Country for Old Men’s Anton Chigurh.
As Milledgeville, Ga.’s most famous resident for the majority of her brief life, O’Connor wrote unnerving tales that probably kept the town’s name synonymous with “mental instability” almost as much as the notorious Milledgeville Lunatic Asylum. Yet O’Connor lived the life of a genteel spinster, devout Catholic and famed bird-fancier, having contracted lupus, a disease that claimed her father, narrowed her personal horizons and took her life in 1964 at the age of 39. O’Connor told a friend in a letter, “There won’t be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.”
Brad Gooch uses that quote as the epigram for Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, the first biography of one of the South’s most iconic literary figures. “After spending five years with Flannery O’Connor, I see it more as a coy challenge than a statement of fact,” Gooch says of the remark. “Certain editors and people, including [O’Connor’s friend] Elizabeth Hardwick, asked me ‘Do you think there’s a life there?’ She was perceived as the Emily Dickinson of Milledgeville.”
1) Hairspray opens at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
2) The creators of the Silver Scream Spook Show and Atlanta Horrorfest host Splatter Cinema at the Plaza Theatre, with a screening of Street Trash.
3) Bernie Schein discusses If Holden Caulfield Were in My Classroom at the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum.
4) Helen Kim and Robert Henry perform at Kennesaw State University.
5) Vickie Robin discusses Your Money or Your Life at Wordsmiths Books.
(Photo © 2006 Phil Martin)
1) Chrome/Helios Creed, Sour Vein and Tenth to the Moon play the Drunken Unicorn.
2) Captured, the art show by, for and about cell-phone photography, opens at Apache Cafe.
3) Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City, reads from her new novel, One Fifth Avenue, at Margaret Mitchell House & Museum.
4) Atlanta’s best paired band names on the same bill this week, Climax Denial and Stillbirth, play Eyedrum.
5) The Journey group exhibition at Bennett Street Gallery lives out its final days.
(Photo courtesy Helios Creed)
