1) Greg Fitzsimmons performs at the Punchline.
2) Graveyard Tavern holds Make Homelessness History, a benefit/dance party.
3) The Fiery Furnaces perform at Variety Playhouse.
4) Laughing Skull Lounge hosts the Marijuana-logues.
5) Children opens at Opal Gallery.
(Photo courtesy Super Artists)
1) Matthew H. Bernstein discusses Screening a Lynching at Decatur Library.
2) Beauty from the Beast continues at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center Gallery.
3) The Balkans and Abby Go Go play 529.
4) Brian Ray discusses Through the Pale Door at Opal Gallery.
5) The Hurt Locker continues in area theaters.
(Photo by Don Chambers)
1) Gladys Knight and Smokey Robinson perform at Chastain Park Amphitheatre.
2) Murray Browne discusses The Book Shopper at Opal Gallery.
3) Vegan Coke and Scarab play Eyedrum.
4) G2: Transformations continues at Swan Coach House.
5) The Earl Smith Strand Theatre hosts Triple Feature Indie Night.
1) Under the Sea continues at Fernbank Museum of Natural History.
2) Richard Doster discusses his book, Crossing the Lines, at Opal Gallery.
3) Puppets Take Atlanta & Beyond kicks off with The Box? A Show of Feelings.
4) Only Dick, No Jane continues at Trois Gallery.
5) Public Enemies continues in area theaters.
(Photo © Jeff Wildermuth/Warner Bros. Entertainment)
1) Adron performs at the Star Bar.
2) Screen on the Green comes to a close with viewer’s choice Ghostbusters.
3) Charis Books & More hosts a panel discussion in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
4) Land Marks opens at Opal Gallery.
5) Those Darlins play at the Drunken Unicorn.
(Photo by Gray Scott)
1) Tradin’ Paint continues at Theatre in the Square.
2) George Jones performs at Fox Theatre.
3) Vinyl hosts the Superhero Showdown.
4) Jessica Handler discusses Invisible Sisters, a memoir about the loss of her two sisters to rare disease, at Opal Gallery.
5) Charis Circle screens the fifth episode of Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?
(Photo by MJ Conboy)
GENRE: A debut novel about trying to write a debut novel. That’s a genre, right?
MEET SLATER BROWN, FICTIONAL NOVELIST: “He’d come to San Francisco expressly for the purpose of writing something that would last forever. Only he didn’t feel he could share this personal ambition with just anyone. They would think what? That he was a fruitcake! That he had lost contact with reality? It was a tricky situation, having a plan you couldn’t share. Nevertheless, for the first three days he exerted the plan flawlessly and with maximum concentration from the his perch in the back of TK’s. In the evenings he would reread what he’d written by the bar’s dim light. Nobody paid him a scintilla of attention.”
NEUROMANCY: Beth Lilly can photograph your future.
Last week Atlanta Celebrates Photography announced the selection of “Gifted,” a proposal by local artist and photographer Beth Lilly, for its next ACP public art project. More details will solidify as “Gifted” marches toward completion, but for the moment, this much is clear: The project will involve the literal gift of 1,200 limited-edition prints, distributed to the public for free during ACP’s citywide festival in October.
Beth Lilly (aka the Oracle @ Wifi) specializes in collaboration — that is, she creates art by embracing and reworking the social networking trends of our digital media-saturated society in surprisingly novel ways. Lilly’s Oracle @ Wifi series, for instance, is an ongoing, improvisational performance-meets-photography project. On the seventh day of each month, Lilly invites the public to call her with a “question for the Oracle.” Basically, you can ask her anything, so long as the wording is tasteful and involves a future event. Over the past three years, the Oracle has fielded queries as specific as “Will I get into law school and become a successful lawyer?” to such fantastic head-scratchers as “What do I really really really want?” and “Are my family and me moving to the United States?” The Oracle’s response comes in the form of three photos, taken at whatever location Lilly may be, which are then randomly assigned to each caller’s question. As in other forms of divination, the meaning of these “image-fortunes” is a matter of free association.
1) Emory’s Vega String Quartet and choreographer George Staib collaborate for Contemporary Dance — Vintage Music.
2) Complete Desire opens at Opal Gallery.
3) David Hajdu discusses The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America at Wordsmiths Books.
4) Zoroaster, Chopper and Gripplyaz perform at Drunken Unicorn.
5) The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center screens Nathaniel Kahn’s 2003 documentary My Architect: A Son’s Journey.
(Photo by Fernando Decillis)
Nami Mun’s debut novel Miles from Nowhere follows Joon, a Korean American teenager growing up on the streets of New York during the ’80s. Mun, like the protagonist, came of age as a teenage runaway on the streets of the Bronx. These days, she’s the recipient of a coveted Pushcart Prize and teaches creative writing at the Columbia College in Chicago. She comes to A Cappella Books/Opal Gallery Mon., Jan. 19, 7 p.m.
How closely is Joon based on your own experiences growing up?
Joon and I are both Korean American and we were both runaways. But the similarities pretty much stop there. I mean, what happens to her, the decisions that she makes and the events that occur in the book, are completely fictional and in many ways are much more interesting than anything that ever happened to me in my own life. Fiction is always more interesting to me. (more…)
CUTTING IT CLOSE: “Michael”
Given the sheer volume of stuff bursting Flickr’s virtual seams and tumbling out of studios belonging to everyone from fine artists to part-timers at Sears, is there anything new to discover about the overexposed, early 21st-century human form? Self-taught photographer Thomas Dozol wades into this glut of human images in a new solo exhibition at Opal Gallery. And with some aplomb he manages to peel back yet another layer of the onion that is our shared humanity. (more…)
Photographer Peter Feldstein will be at the Opal Gallery in Little 5 Points (next to Savage Pizza and A Cappella Books) for a signing and discussion of his latest book, The Oxford Project.
The Oxford Project is a dense and riveting journey into the wilds of rural Iowa. Where tranquility is not only a way of life, but a blanket that covers sadness, elation, regret and triumph as experienced by the residents of Oxford, Iowa (population 676).
In 1984 photographer Feldstein set out on an ambitious project: photograph every living soul in Oxford. Twenty years later, he did it again and came close … 670 out of 676. But for his second go-around he got more than just photographs. He brought author Stephen G. Bloom on-board to capture his subjects’ stories. Throughout the book they share their memories, fantasies, failures, secrets, and fears. The result of their collaboration is a collection of words and images that capture the true spirit of Oxford with sometimes sweet, sometimes very sad tones.
Feldstein is an artist working at the intersection of photography, drawing, printmaking, and digital imaging. His work has been shown in galleries across the country and has been included in group exhibitions at the Center for Creative Photography, Walker Art Center, and the Rhode Island School of Design. For more than three decades, Feldstein taught photography and digital imaging at the University of Iowa School of Art & Art History.
Feldstein’s reading at the Opal Gallery is free and starts at 7 p.m.
1) Brigitte McReynolds’ The Journey continues at Bennett Street Gallery.
2) Thomas Frank discusses The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule at Decatur Library.
3) International Black Docufest kicks off at the High Museum of Art.
4) Matt Rothschild discusses Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn’t for Sisses at Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse.
5) Opal Gallery hosts Another Evening with the Garbage Man.
(Image by Brigitte McReynolds)
Atlanta photographer Michael David Murphy headed to Jena, La., in June 2007 to observe and document the turmoil brewing around the Jena 6.
Murphy posted his photos and writings from the Sept. 20, 2007, protests in Jena on whileseated.org, as well as in a slideshow on YouTube. People flocked to the websites and commented profusely. He mined the more than 3,000 responses and fused them with his photographs to create a multimedia study on race and the kind of “conversation on race” that the uninhibited speech of the blogosphere can cultivate.
The Jena Project opens at Little Five Points’ Opal Gallery Fri., Sept. 12, 7-9 p.m., runs through Sept. 27, and includes a panel discussion at the Hammonds House Museum Sat., Sept. 20 at 2:30 p.m.
(Photo by Michael David Murphy)
