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1) The Jet Age performs at Lenny’s Bar.
2) Kenji Jasper discusses and signs Got and Cake at Wordsmiths Books.
3) Smith’s Olde Bar hosts Luchagors, Dollyrots and Jesse Nobody.
4) Salman Rushdie reads and discusses The Enchantress of Florence at the Carter Center.
5) Watch footage of Running of the Bulls while enjoying tapas and flamenco dancers at Cuerno.
(Photo by D. Wade)
1) Check out our Fourth of July fireworks roundup!
2) Welcome King Khan and the Shrines to Lenny’s Bar and experience the Indian guitar guru’s magic.
3) Watch comedian Greg Morton incorporate Mick Jagger and Tina Turner into his bit at the Punchline.
4) Celebrate Pride Day of Local Musicians and Poets this Fourth of July at Wordsmiths Books.
5) Atkins Park Tavern invites chef Andrew Smith to roast a Fourth of July Pig.
1) Fiona Zedde (pictured) reads Hungry For It at Charis Books & More.
2) Los Angeles duo No Age performs at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery.
3) Hector Manuel Sagunto continues at Art Space International.
4) The Five Spot hosts the 4th of U-Lie concert, featuring NY Oil, Ishues, Stacy Epps and more.
5) APEX Museum screens its July Movies with a Mission, The Lion Mountains: A Journey Through Sierra Leone History.
(Photo by Monica Holder)
In my interview with Salman Rushdie this week, I talk about how the Satanic Verses author and Emory professor has not just a rock star level of fame, but comes close to being an actual rock star. He’s not a musician (that I know of), but his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet concerns a fictional Indian rock band that becomes as big as The Beatles. U2 took inspiration from the book to pen a song titled “The Ground Beneath Her Feet,” using the words from Rushdie’s own lyrics in the book, and giving him a “writer” credit. Here’s the video for “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” (from the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ film The Million Dollar Hotel):
But that’s not all…
1) Stephen Wing signs and discusses Free Ralph! An Evolutionary Fable at Wordsmiths Books.
2) Elli Perry, Hammer Down and Martha’s Trouble perform at Smith’s Olde Bar.
3) A (new) Genre Landscape continues at Brownwood Park.
4) Silver Apples perform at the Earl.
5) SCAD professor Karen-Sam Norgard’s Perishable Constructions continues at Trois Gallery.
(Image by Karen-Sam Norgard)
Sunday offers us the first-ever Georgia Author Book Bash, presented by Atlanta magazine and the Literary Center of the Margaret Mitchell House. The event will take place from 4-7 p.m. at the Margaret Mitchell House. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 members. Guests can schmooze with the LL (local literati) on the front lawn and wrestle them to the grass for an autograph. There’ll be hors d’oeuvres, live jazz (as opposed to dead jazz) and a cash bar.
One question: How the hell is anyone going to be able to meet and greet 50 authors, much less get their John Hancock on their books? Good luck trying.
The Big 50 in attendance is about as impressive a list of local authors as you’ll find this side of the AJC Decatur Book Festival, and even then. The names are so obvious and familiar, I’m almost embarrassed to mention them — although it does give me an excuse to provide cool hyperlinks to coverage of several of them. For example, there’s former CL Fiction Contest judges Joshilyn Jackson and David Fulmer, as well as Mike Luckovich, Bill Osinski, Ferrol Sams, Goldie Taylor and Tina McElroy Ansa. And of course there’s CL’s own Hollis Gillespie, whose new book, Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility, is due out Aug. 1.
It’s also a chance to check out our sleeper pick, Gay and Lesbian Atlanta, by Wesley Chenault and Stacy Braukman of the Atlanta History Center for Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series. It’s quite the trip down memory lane, broken down into four chapters/epochs: “Unconventional Lives and Ambiguous Identities: 1900-1940,” “Quiet Accommodation: 1940-1970,” “Parties, Politics, and Pride: 1970-1990″ and “Collective Power and Culture Wars: 1990-2000.” Nice way to get in some infotainment before next week’s Atlanta Pride.
(Image courtesy Arcadia Publishing)
1) Aslyn performs at Smith’s Olde Bar.
2) The Beam hosts its 2007 Emerging Artist Concert with choreography by Molly Schneider Perez.
3) Merle Haggard performs at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
4) Ben Jones signs and discusses Redneck Boy in the Promised Land at Manuel’s Tavern.
5) A Common Space by Charlotte Foust and Melissa Stern continues at Barbara Archer Gallery.
(Photo courtesy Aslyn)
1) The Wrights perform at Eddie’s Attic with Scott Miller.
2) Tibetan Sacred Arts, a night of cultural art and philosophy, is at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
3) Dunwoody Library hosts screenings of new independent and foreign films at the Film Series Movement.
4) Denis Johnson discusses and signs Trees of Smoke at the Decatur Library.
5) Flicks on Fifth continues with The Bourne Ultimatum at Technology Square in Midtown.
(Photo courtesy the Wrights)
1) Journalist Thomas Laird discusses and signs The Story of Tibet, and Columbia University professor Robert Thurman discusses and signs Why the Dalai Lama Matters at Jimmy Carter Library & Museum.
2) Comedian Eddie Izzard performs at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
3) Chicago, the Doobie Brothers and Nicola Congiu perform at Chastain Park Amphitheatre.
4) Paintings, works in oil by Barry Sons, continues at Watson Gallery.
5) The Toadies and Lions perform at Masquerade.
(Photo Amazon.com)
The theme for this year’s AJC Decatur Book Festival could easily be “Bigger, Stronger, Faster.” Bigger, in that its programming has been expanded. Stronger, in that the authors lineup continues to improve in this, the festival’s third year. And Faster, in that, much to the staff’s relief, the lineup is all but set. (Compared to last year at this time, about half the lineup had been confirmed.)
So the organizers could be forgiven for their delighted grins at Monday morning’s press conference, held at the Old Courthouse in Decatur’s Downtown Square to announce the programming. The conference was hosted by co-founder Daren Wang; and the lineup went live on the website later in the morning.
I’ll dispense with the laundry list of big names, but Decatur native and humorist Roy Blount Jr. was on hand to give an idea of the local flavor at the festival. Blount, a regular on the NPR quiz show “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” (carried by WABE on Saturdays at 11 a.m.) has become a fixture at the festival. Some other major names this year include former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins (2001-2003). (Check out his now-famous poem “The Names,” which he read to a joint session of Congress after Sept. 11, 2001.) Other heavyweights include John Dean (pictured) and his new book, Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches; Sara Shepard, author of the “Pretty Little Liars” series, who will help kick off the festival’s new “The Escape” programming for teens; and John Bemelmans Marciano, author of Madeline and the Cats of Rome, the first story from the famed “Madeline” series in 50 years. (Marciano is the grandson of the series’ creator, Ludwig Bemelmans.)
OK, so it’s a laundry list. Sue me. The festival runs Aug. 29-31 (Labor Day Weekend) in downtown Decatur.
(For images from the press conference, visit our new Sideshow photo blog.)
