PopSmart

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…

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Matt Brunson of CL’s Charlotte paper serves up another batch of DVD reviews in his weekly “View from the Couch” column. This week, Brunson reviews a spiffed-up re-release of The Teena Brandon Story, along with Charlie Bartlett, City of Men and Drillbit Taylor. The Teena Brandon Story (1998) appears to be the clear winner here, which preceded by one year Hilary Swank’s Oscar-winning turn in Boys Don’t Cry. One interesting footnote to the doc, according to Brunson’s review:

This chilling nonfiction piece offers some additional facts that writer-director Kimberly Peirce wasn’t able to work into Boys Don’t Cry. Perhaps most shockingly, we learn that a third person was murdered alongside Brandon and his friend Lisa Lambert: Philip Devine, a 22-year-old black male who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(Photo courtesy Docurama Films)

On Thursday, July 3, The Process Theatre, Whole World Theatre and Outwrite Books present an evening dedicated to the work of popular playwright Del Shores (pictured). The program features theatrical scenes from Southern Baptist Sissies and Sordid Lives as well as a talk-back session with Shores himself.

The timing couldn’t be better. “Sordid Lives,” Shores’ TV series adaptation of his sleeper hit movie and stage play, debuts on July 23 on Logo. I interviewed Shores last year and he talked about the first time he realized that “Sordid Lives” had a runaway cult following:

The phenomenon started in Palm Springs, where it showed at a movie theater for two years, and people were saying favorite lines or showing up in costume. It was shocking to me! It has been such a wild ride, and I feel blessed for it. I don’t think we really realized how popular it was until we took the play on a national tour with some of the film cast last year. The play usually lasts for two hours and 20 minutes, with the intermission, but opening night in Florida went on for three hours, with people laughing and shouting out lines. I told the actors “You better get your lines right, because they know them, and they’ll correct you!”

The event takes place at Whole World Theatre’s main stage, 1226 Spring Street, and tickets are $35. Here’s a little video fun from the 2000 film, featuring Atlanta’s own Leslie Jordan as “Brother Boy.”

(Photo courtesy Del Shores)

CL has launched a new blog called Sideshow that exists merely so happy party-goers can see their happy faces the day after. We want to help people remember exactly how much fun they had before they were hungover. And we need a couple awesome photographers to do that.

We’ll be giving you the access to the coolest shows, parties and festivals. You’ll be posting wicked photos to our website. And we’ll pay you. It’s an exceedingly symbiotic relationship.

If you think you’re down for the task or know someone who is, contact me at taralynne.pixley@cln.com. Send me some shots you’ve taken that pass for “nightlife photos” (i.e. you and your friends at a party, drinking in your backyard or wreaking havoc elsewhere) and you just might get picked to be CL’s photo ambassador to the nightcrawlers of Atlanta.

Email me with any questions but check out the Sideshow photo galleries first to get an idea of what we’re looking for. Don’t send me photos of your dog, your grandma or that artsy shot of a fire hydrant. Party pics, people.

1) Power Plays Festival continues at Essential Theater.

2) Peter Murphy performs at Center Stage.

3) Sweetwater Brewery hosts a brewery tour that offers up tastes of Hummer, 420 and others.

4) Boz Scaggs, David Jacobs-Strain and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra perform at Chastain Park Amphitheater.

5) War and Peace by Benji Williams, Sid Watters, Leslie Ditto and Cynthia Tollesfrud continues at Alcove Gallery and Studio.

(Photo by Sonny Knox)

Essential Theatre celebrates its 10th anniversary with POWER PLAYS FESTIVAL, another triple header of local and world-premiere plays. This year’s lineup, selected by artistic director Peter Hardy, includes Paul Rudnick’s comedy Valhalla, featuring Topher Payne as Mad King Ludwig; Gina Gionfriddo’s heavyweight drama After Ashley, opening Wed., JULY 2, about the media circus surrounding a mother’s murder; and Atlanta playwright Letitia Sweitzer’s award-winning West of Eden, a comedy about Adam and Eve in middle age. Through July 27. $15-$25. In repertory Mon.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 and 7 p.m.; no 2 p.m. show Sat., July 5; no show Mon., July 7. 7 Stages Backstage Theatre, 1105 Euclid Ave. 404-523-7647. www.essentialtheatre.com.

(Photo by Sonny Knox)

Local poet and member of the Atlanta Art Amok! Slam Team, Shannon Leigh, died yesterday, having been in critical condition for more than two weeks following a cave-diving accident June 14. She was 20 years old.

She had gotten trapped in an underwater cavern at Ginnie Springs in High Springs, Fla., when her breathing apparatus came out. It’s unknown how long she was underwater before Mike Woods, a diving instructor, found her.

From the Gainesville Sun:

“I saw a dive buoy but I couldn’t see any scuba diver’s bubbles coming up so I swam over there to the entrance to Devil’s Eye,” an underwater cavern, Woods said. He said his plan was to descend to the cavern’s entrance, but when he got about 10 feet below the surface, he saw a woman’s face looking up at him.

“I realized that she was in dire emergency status — she was pressed up against two submerged logs and I understood my limit,” Woods said.

Unable to rescue her alone, Woods enlisted the help of two other divers and called 911.

At 19, Shannon got third place at the National Poetry Slam indies competition. She was the only woman to place in the top 10. Kodac Harrison, local poet and emcee of the Java Monkey Speaks weekly open mic, said, in an email, “She was so young, so beautiful and so very talented … We are so fortunate to have witnessed such a great talent in our area.”

Here’s Shannon performing her poem “Sudanese Children” on HBO’s “Def Poetry” in 2007.

Her death is a tremendous blow, not only to the Atlanta poetry community, but to everyone who ever heard her read. I did not know her personally, but as a poet, an Atlantan and a young woman, I feel her loss very strongly. She will be greatly missed.

Shannon’s Wishes is a LiveJournal community for friends and fans of Shannon Leigh. People are encouraged to write poems in her memory. For more of Shannon Leigh’s credentials and poetry, visit her MySpace Music page. To donate to her hospital bill fund, go to getwellshannon.com.

Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Curt Holman discussin OnStage Atlanta’s production of Urinetown: The Musical. (Through July 12.)

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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1) New Exhibits continues at ART Station Contemporary Arts Center.

2) Barbara Ann’s features Blues Jam Session with Frankie Lee Robinson.

3) Lyfe Jennings plays at Center Stage.

4) DJ Romeo Cologne hosts Funk Disco at Star Bar.

5) Summer Slaughter Tour 2008 comes to the Masquerade.

(Image by Bob McGill)