Walking in and being greeted with flower bearing characters on stilts forces your mind to the place it should be: imagery and imagination and letting go of those pesky grown up thoughts that nag and plague us all.

As we waited for the doors to open so we might take our seats, we wandered about eying (and buying) schwag, opting out of the hours devours being passed by staff dressed in black and masks, and watching the “making of” and snippits from the show being projected on flat screens throughout the climate controlled (bless you, Cirque) tents that form the show compound.

The show itself wasn’t terribly unlike the only other Cirque show I’d been to: Allegria. I was particularly fond of the women who contorted themselves in ways that seemed impossible, but clearly wasn’t. Who should have snapped their spines, but didn’t. The music was different, the story was different, the set and the players were different, but what remained the same was the length the choreographers and performers go to when throwing themselves about on stage for our entertainment…and how well they did it.

At dinner before the show, we were asked twice if we were “going to the circus”. We laughed smugly, because a circus means the stench of elephant dung, droopy cotton candy, and a scary old dude in a top hat. In hindsight, we were wrong. The similarities are there if you’re able to see ‘em: to awe the audience, to cause them to gasp, to allow them a place where they can let go of the world and its burdens, and to connect to a quieter more youthful mind. Sure, there were dirty jokes and innuendo that the children (kicking my chair) didn’t get, but the wee ones in my sight all sat on the edges of their chairs, just like I was.

If you have the opportunity to see the show during its run (Jan 2 - March 1), and can find loot in your budget for tickets (anywhere from $38 - 125), I recommend it wit a two wee caveats:
- Don’t bother trying to have dinner at Atlantic Station first unless you make reservations. The wait at Rosa Mexicana was 1hr 20min, and the service at Strip was hideous (there will be a Yelp posting about that, shortly)
- If ya gotta “go”, do it before you walk over. The loos are probably clean, but are those mini-building deals you have to walk up steps to get to that have four stalls per.

Footnote: many thanks to Dave Coustan for the comp tickets that allowed me to begin my new year the way it should: with the arts.

This move was apparently not for the better, and last week they closed their retail doors for good (if you were in the know you may have picked up bargain planters and pots like I did, HT to Amanda for the heads up). According to co-owner Robin Marcus they’ll still be conducting workshops, performing landscape design and many of the other outreach programs they had running. It’s sad to see them go.

In related news, Farmer D has opened a retail shop in Atlanta which is being run out of (ironically enough) one location of a car wash chain he founded when he was 14. Amazing and true, as is the story of his relationship with Whole Foods Markets and our having an unsung environmental hometown hero in our midst. Read more about him here and visit his little shop, they’ve got most of what you need for your gardening delights, and what they don’t have yet, they will. Be sure to keep an eye on them come spring as well, when they’ll be offering classes and the like.

Now on to food stuffs. Does anyone have the scoop on why last night when I called in a delivery from Johnny’s O4W the phone was answered “Jack’s Pizza and Wings”? A surprise to be sure, and I’m not clear yet on if the change of name involved a change of ownership, if it was just the one store or the whole chain, or who designed their new logo (enh).

Drive A Faster Car, MailChimp & Atlanta Web Design are hosting something called “Unwrapped” at The CW /

Deets follow:

We know what you’re thinking. It’s the day after Christmas and you are sick of the holidays. Unwrapped is your chance to let loose from the family and drink, mingle, network, dance with others in Atlanta you may have seen around the internet. Bloggers, designers, developers, and Facebook addicts alike are all invited.

Half of all proceeds are going to One Laptop Per Child to help create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

Friday, December 26
8pm - 2am
Vinyl @ CW Music Complex
1374 W Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30309

Official Event Link: here.

Our very own newbie author Ben will be in attendance and writing on it, as will the famous Will Hindmarch. Stop out, give up the green and mingle. The c’mon back here to see how your experience matches up with that of Ben and Will.

According to local Castleberry Hill businessman Mike of Elliot Street Deli & Pub, they’ll be partnering with FM in a unique way: ring them up, tell them you have a toy to donate, and someone will hop on a bike to race to your location, pick it up and return it to ESP.

Bueno, no?

More details as they become available, but in the meantime check out the FM since it will be there first. While you’re there, be sure to read up on the benefit for Rachel of Sopo Bikes and local DJ Chris Devoe that will take place on Thursday at 9 p.m. @ The Highland Inn ballroom.

I was fortunate enough to catch wind of Isay speaking this evening at The Margaret Mitchell House where he spoke of the project and book, played some of the two minute pieces we’ve all enjoyed with watery eyes and made a made a pretty significant announcement for Atlanta.

Five years and one month ago, StoryCorps started with one booth in Grand Central Terminal and since then, they’ve recorded 24 thousand stories. The news for Atlanta readers: they’re planning to open their second permanent booth in our fair city.

The details are still being worked out but according to both Dave Isay (founder and president of Story Corps) and WABE leadership, the temporary booth will be located in Studio 3 of their offices on Bizmark road. They plan to open the permanent location in the Center for Civil and Human Rights in 2011.

Atlanta was chosen in part due to The Griot Project, a special initiative launched in Atlanta to document African American voices including that of Morehouse School of Medicine professor Dr. Lynn Weaver. Dr. Weaver is one of the Atlanta residents whose story is featured in the book Listening is an Act of Love - A Celebration of American Life From the StoryCorps Project.

The success of the The Griot Project combined with the work of three women Isay and WABE referred to as “the league of extraordinary gentlewomen” we have won the privilege of being a part of StoryCorps and CPB history.

Soooo wonderful. I don’t know about you, but I’m already making a mental list of the friends I want to take to the booth and spend forty minutes sharing stories with.

(For those of you who have been livin’ in your mommas basement without cable or interwebs for the last year and a half, here’s what you need to know about Twitter. C’mon back here when you’re up to speed.)

Tessa (of Drive a Faster Car and #atlgas fame) and I decided to start hosting monthly Twitter love-ins in the ATL metro area a few months back. The response and the community have been amazing (207 members to date in the ATL Tweets facebook group) with three absolutely delightful TweetUps under our belt.

We never thought we’d be the end-all be-all for peeps in the ATL who like to tweet. We knew there would be others, just as there was in blogging. Factions start to form: entrepreneur bloggers, mommy bloggers, poetry bloggers, photo bloggers, music and art scene bloggers etc etc etc ad nauseam until the pipes are clogged with blogs abandoned with single entries like tumbleweeds in a western town when the gold has all dried up. Or flaked off. Whatever. What was my point?

Oh right. So a new (I say new, but we’re all “new”…) group of Twitterers in Atlanta hosted a meet-up last night (12/4) at the airport Sheraton. It’s not *our* group, per se, but we did throw their event out there to folks in “our” group in the event they were interested.

Call us match makers.

Problems - not hilarity - ensued with confusion on group names and which event belongs to who and blah blah blah. It’ll all come out in the wash as we get our bearings but now we find the community firmly divided into two camps…and I’m not talking about #atltweets v #atltweetup. I’m talking about those of us who think there’s plenty of love to go around and those who are confused and threatened by people we don’t know with similar but divergent interests.

What say you, the jury?

Oh, and BTW, the next ATL Tweeters event is Weds, December 17th at Thinking Man Tavern in Decatur.

He’s laying neatly on the yellow paint of the center divider between Forsyth Fabrics and TDS/Figo on Huff Rd. waiting for someone to recognize him and pick him up. He doesn’t know his name or his parents names, or where he lives.

I’ve concocted several possible explanations for how he came to be there, but none are right or real. I’d love to find the truth.

He looks to be a classic lever model, black, and no longer in working condition.

Is he yours?

I wasn’t embarrassed of her enough, so she has to come here and compound it by supporting Saxby? I know her visit all about me and getting under my skin. Go away already. I don’t want you or need you here in Atlanta. I don’t want people associating me with you. It was bad enough when it was just Jewel people associated with Alaska, and she’s not exactly high on my list after lying publicly and repeatedly about going straight her grandfathers homestead to Big City, California when she went to high school with me in Anchorage. I just love it when people leave out key details.

I feel so strongly about Palins visit I had half a mind to rally together the aforementioned escapees to rally in shirts with snappy jabbing slogans, but I’m too busy with other bits. Like planning ATL Tweet-Ups. WHAT? You don’t know? Tsk tsk. Search for ATL Tweeters on facebook and join in the fun.

The only rule is you can’t mention Palin when you meet me.

I probably won’t be able to afford any of the art displayed, but that’s not going to stop me from going and soaking it all in. Saturday December 6th from 11-7 and Sunday December 7th from 1-6.

A complete list of artists and directions could be found on their site if they had one, or I could easily locate it. You’re welcome.

Inman Park Cooperative Preschool’s 24th Annual Auction: Growing Up Green

At the Historic Trolly Barn, it would be a shame if I didn’t hoof it up the street to catch this on Sunday November 24th from 3-7p. I will say that the postcard flyer didn’t tell me a lick about what items will be up for auction and finding it on the site (http://www.ipcp.org) was over 3 clicks which has me hesitant to go out of my way, but the co-op and I have mutual friends so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

But inside?

Inside would be a small market.

It would be small and quaint and bustling but not so much so that you can’t move. It wouldn’t be big enough for shopping carts or women who have undergone plastic surgery. It would have shelving as tall as I am (5’4”) so you could see aisle to aisle and *maybe* it would have a glass case.

All that would be for sale here would be goods produced within a 15 mile radius of the store.

That’s my dream. Now, would someone please build it?

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to Farmer D opening a storefront in Atlanta. Rumored to be establishing roots (see what I did there?) near Briarcliff and LaVista, the planned storefront is said to be a retail and educational space.

That’ll do pig, that’ll do.