Monthly Archive for May, 2010

Next Week: The Encyclopedia Show

Don’t miss the next installment in the exciting reading series:

The Encyclopedia Show, Austin!

Thursday, May 20, 2010
7:30pm – 10:00pm
ND @ 501 Studios
501 I-35 Austin, TX

Thursday, May 20, 2010 7:30pm – 10:00pm ND @ 501 Studios501 I-35 Austin, TX

Each month a topic is picked from a real live encyclopedia and a clutch of volunteering writers are given assignments on that entry. There are Def Poetry Jam vets, writing professors, slam poets, stand-up comics, fiction writers, and LOTS of feelings!

This month’s topic: Explosives!

Featuring Contributors:
Amelia Gray (Author of AM/PM, Host of 5 Things in Austin): The Large Hadron Collider
Faylita Hicks (Spoken Word Artist, Host of Austin’s Neo Soul): Shrapnel
Krissi Reeves (Frontera Fest “Best of Fest” Selection, Slam Poet): MacGyver
Kyle Schultz (Encyclofriend, Forensics National Champion): Bath School Disaster
Jackie Swanson (Actress, Dance Captain): ACME Corporation
Dan Kerrigan (Standup/Sketch Comedian): Krakatoa

Featuring:
Katelyn Wood as Wiki Lake
Mike Slefinger as Lord Professor Michael Patrick Slefinger
Chris Hatcher as The Intern
Betsy McCann as Gypsy Magnolia
Gy Odom as The Fact Checker

And your hosts, the Mikes and Ralph!

You HAVE to come! Only $6! Nothing in this world is $6. Except this.

Pre-show and drinks start at 7:30pm. Show starts promptly at 8:13.

Thanks!

Great readers, great music, and a great night…it was another great Five Things. Thanks for coming out, buying books, supporting local artists and small presses and generally being the greatest audience in town. Thanks to our readers, musicians, special co-hosts, and the Art Seen Alliance.

We’re on summer break now, but we’ll be back in the Fall with new readers, new music, and more. In the meantime, keep checking this site for pictures from the show and updates on reading events happening all summer long. See you soon!

Five Things!

For this episode, we’re casting new light on the stops to seek out on your next touring trip.

Come see fantastic writers read their five-minute tourist trap inspired stories: Bill Cotter (Fever Chart), Annie La Ganga (Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints), Les McGehee (Les McGehee Plays Well With Others: A “Grown-Up” Handbook of Improvisation and Play), Erin Pringle (The Floating Order), and Philly visitor Christian TeBordo (The Awful Possibilities, We Go Liquid, The Conviction & Subsequent Life of Savior Neck and Better Ways of Being Dead). Don’t bring any bananas, they make the car smell like bananas.

Doors open at 7pm. Come early for the sweet lefty sounds of Southpaw Jones, stay late for bass groves by Brady Muckelroy and toe-tapping tunes by Jennifer Ellen Cook. $2 for a night of road trip fun, and you don’t even have to chip in for gas.

Hosted by Amelia Gray, Stacy Muszynski, and special guest Rudy Ramirez.

*
The Writers and their weirdest stops:

BILL COTTER was born in Dallas in 1964. He lives with the poet Annie La Ganga here in Austin. His first novel, _Fever Chart_, was published last summer. It is available for $15 in the trunk of his car.
**Weirdest roadside attraction visited: the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Find out why on May 14.)

ANNIE LA GANGA lives in Austin with her boyfriend Billy and their awful little cat Vinny. Annie loves candy and hates housework. She is the author of _Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints_, the first book she’s written that she didn’t have to print and staple together herself.
**Favorite strange roadside attraction: the Prada store on Highway 95 just outside of Marfa. (Find out why on May 14.)

CHRISTIAN TeBORDO has published three novels. His first collection of short fiction, _The Awful Possibilities_, is just out from featherproof books. He lives in Philadelphia.
**Roadside attraction? He wants to say the Sedlec Ossuary (“the bone church”) in Kutna Hora, Czech Republic, but. . . (Find out ‘but what’ on, you guessed it, May 14.)

Rudy Ramirez is a director, performer and writer working in, on or about Austin, TX. He is the performance director for The Austin Bike Zoo and has directed Wheels of Wonderland, “Cardigan” and “Spit” for Frontera Fest 2010, and Luna Tart Died (co-written with Laura Freeman). He was a performer for Spike Gillespie’s The Dick Monologues and has performed at Camp Camp, 5 Things, and The Museum of Ephemerata. He has hosted Burlesque for Peace, Texas Burlesque Fest and Carousel Cabaret. His first full-length one-man show, Promised Land: A Radical Queer Revival will travel to New York and Philadelphia this fall.

Near-native Austinite Jennifer ellen Cook has been called a “sensational vocalist” with “shining” stage presence and excellent songs. The Austin Chronicle recently described her new CD, A Storytelling of Crows, as stories with “elusive charm”: “’60s-influenced indie pop” with “wisdom and lyrical accuity.” I suppose it’s to be expected–she has a degree in literature. Fortunately, she also has a groovy rhythm section in Nathan Lynch and Julio Figueroa.