Then you visit Atlanta’s sewing lounge and in-town fabric store:  Whipstitch*.  Whipstitch is co-located with the Beehive and opened June 26.  There are classes for beginners, intermediates, and whatever you call advanced people without saying “advanced people.”  Experienced?

Featured recently on Good Day Atlanta, Whipstitch fabric and sewing lounge is where you should go if you tire of packing food and gassing up the SUV to go OTP.  It’s where you can get chic fabrics and learn how to piece them together into a usable medium.  All the while, you’re supporting local merchants and designers and decongesting the connector.

That’s what Devo would do.  And don’t we all want to be more like Devo?  I thought so.

*My wife totally owns Whipstitch.  But that doesn’t detract from its awesomeness even remotely.

Scratch that.

The first time I paid attention to the name David Sedaris was when a girlfriend from work insisted I see him with her at Woodruff – I’d heard of him/heard him on NPR – telling me time and again in the days leading up to it what a talented writer he was, how hysterical he was and how much I’d love his snark. It was several years ago, after the dot.com bust but after all my gray hair arrived. 2003?

At the time I think Sedaris was pushing “Me Talk Pretty One Day” which is still my favorite of his works – bypassing Holidays on Ice, SantaLand Diaries (done regularly as a monologue production at Horizon Theaterr in L5P) , When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Barrel Fever and Dress Your Family in Corduroy in Denim by quite a stretch. Maybe it was my fantasies of living in Europe and horrifying people with stories that didn’t translate. Maybe it was the explicit stories about his brothers dogs and their unique bathroom habits. Either way, it’s still my favorite.

Rewinding though – back to 2003 or earlier – I went to the reading skeptical that I could be wow’ed but found myself chuckling. I was amazed by his wit and use of big words to tell funny, self deprecating stories, and enchanted by his tales spun with colors and character and brutal ruthless honesty charms and disarms. I was in love.

If you haven’t read his stuff, enjoy this link a friend left in my comments on facebook today when I twittered about going.

Go ahead. Read it. I’ll wait.

Done then? Did you LOL? For realz? Me too, and I’d read the story before.

Tonight at The Cobb (can I call it that? Makes it sound more fun than it is.) he had me squirming and chuckling and EWWWWWWWWWWWWing again. In fact, I think his goal tonight was to gross people out. I’ll give you a highlight: making butter from breast milk.

He read from his diary, breezed a few not-so-short shorts that aren’t in books (yet) and took a few questions from the audience. The first one he responded to was “why don’t you twitter” and I’m curious to know if that person was planted, and/or if it was someone I know.

All that to say it was good, that coming from me who is biased and really really likes him. Was it $30 good? Yup. Was it nearly $50 good after the pounding in the ass I got from Ticketmaster? Meh. For the experience and opportunity to have him sign a book, youbetcha. For having your seat kicked and being distracted (see also: ADD to begin with) extensively? Tough to say. Am I glad I went? Hells yes.

With regards to The Cobb, I have a few words of advice:
- Go to dinner before at Top Spice by Babies R Us (huge ups to one of my girls for suggesting)
- Walk from there to The Cobb and save yourself $5-10 for parking and the headache of getting out
- Don’t plan to check email, twitter or anything else once you’re in the theater, b/c it’s a dead zone. Especially a PITA if you’re planning to hookup with friends seated elsewhere
- If you’re a tall – or even “normal” sized man – please stay home. While there isn’t a bad seat in the house, there’s also no room for your legs, knees or feet. At one point last night I leaned over to one of the girls I was with and said “I have a Leatherman in my bag. Do you think it would be okay if I spiked his foot to the floor with my pliers? That was the 34th time he’s kicked my seat in 5 minutes.”

On a related note: I can only assume most of the people seated in our row and the rows in front of us grew up in a land without culture or common sense, since the event was only two hours and we had to stand a handful of times to let people in and out of the row. Really? REALLY? You didn’t go BEFORE the show? AYFKM? Then sit in the aisle and live with the repercussions of your inability to plan.

Who exactly would I work with to make it so these people and the people who arrived late are permanently banned from attending shows of any kind in Atlanta? One strike. We could gather their thumbprints or brand them. Whatcha think? Ticketmaster could probably handle that for us, right? I mean, as long as their already sodomizing us with golf clubs and stealin’ our lunch money…?

But I’ll admit that I’m just bitter. My wife was one of the people laid off from the museum on Monday. The story, though, will be that the High brass bravely took pay cuts. [This is where I cut some honest criticism for the sake of politeness.]

Here’s what the actual NPR piece sounded like:

“Five percent for the majority of the staff, six percent for the [department directors], and seven percent for myself.” Shapiro says five full time and 3 temporary positions will also be eliminated. The changes are effective immediately.

To be fair, I understand why an Atlanta institution is the story and not the handful of souls that got cut loose, but I want to attract a bit of attention to the faces in the statistics here. In the news, people tend to be identified by their age and their occupation. People who get laid off get shuffled into a statistical purgatory where they wait to get their faces back. When we do point a lamp at them, it’s usually to back-light a scary economy.

In our case, the jobs that drew us here and bound us to this city have given us up. The Atlanta job market being what it is, our house being devalued as it has, we’ve got to look as far and wide as we can for work now. Who knows if we’ll still live here in 40 or 60 days?

For more on the High Museum budget cuts, check out the press release after the jump:

High Museum of Art Announces $1.4 M in Budget Cuts

ATLANTA, February 25, 2009 – The High Museum of Art announced a series of budget cuts today, including across the board pay cuts and a 7% reduction of its staff. These reductions, combined with previous cost-cutting measures, will result in $1.4 million dollars in savings and will reduce the operating budget for fiscal year 2009 to $23.7M. These measures will enable the museum to continue to provide high quality and meaningful art and educational experiences to the community.

The High has instituted a series of pay cuts across the board, starting with the Director’s office. Michael Shapiro will take a 7% pay cut and other Director-level employees will take a 6% pay cut. All other employees will take a 5% pay cut. These cuts will extend through May 31, 2009. Beginning June 1 and extending through fiscal year 2010, salaries will be reinstated but employees will be required to take 2.6 weeks of unpaid leave. The staff reductions have been achieved through hiring freezes, redistribution of staff responsibilities and the elimination of five full-time positions and three temporary positions.

“As with many non-profit institutions both in Atlanta and across the country, the High Museum of Art has been affected by the economic downturn, experiencing shortfalls in income we receive through donations and membership as well as losses to our endowment,” said Michael E. Shapiro, the High’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green Jr. Director. “These are challenging times and few decisions are harder than one that involves staff reductions. However, the High needs to take these prudent steps in order to balance its budget and ensure that we can continue our role as the leading art museum serving the Southeast.”

“We are gratified by the tremendous response and record-breaking attendance for our ‘First Emperor’ exhibition; however, admission is a small piece of the museum’s overall budget. For the past fifteen years, the High has operated in the black and we will continue to operate without a deficit to ensure the institution’s long term health and stability,” Shapiro continued. “We are continuing to monitor our budgets and the economy and in looking towards fiscal year 2010, we are conscious that potential declines in corporate sponsorship, individual giving, membership, and losses to our endowment may require us to make additional reductions.”

These cuts follow a series of previous budget reductions which have been implemented throughout the past year. Working across departments, the High has taken a number of measures to trim expenses, including examining and adjusting exhibition schedules, instituting a hiring freeze and a ban on non-essential travel, reducing energy use, and strategically trimming programming without impacting the core visitor experience.

High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the southeastern United States. With more than 11,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of nineteenth and twentieth century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s Media Arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005, the High opened three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for the arts” at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. For more information about the High, please visit www.High.org.

The Woodruff Arts Center
The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. A not-for-profit center for performing and visual arts, its campus comprises the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art, Young Audiences and the 14th Street Playhouse.

eat. sleep. tweet.

this author actually met albert last night at the atl tweet-up (and in interests of full disclosure he gave me and many others a free t-shirt) and i thought his stuff was cool enough to pass along. and since they are local and atlanta-based what better place to put it out.

you can check him out at eatsleeptweet.com.

also check out the site for his parent company micah apparel where you can learn all about his very strong commitment to social responsibility and clean water.

hope you like. i know i did and am already loving my new eat. sleep. tweet. t-shirt.

The party’s called Chin Up ATL. In their own words:

We’re looking for some positivity in Atlanta right now. So, teaming with SOPO, we’re getting together at the Bike! Bike! Conference to make some shirts that promote the good of our city. Jimmie Myers and Staci Janik have designed two different screens. There will be several colors to choose from. Lots of good people to be around. (I hear rumor there might be tall bike jousting?) There’s sure to be some going out afterwards . . . possibly in our new garb! So, let’s show Atlantans that there is still good here.

They’ll have about 50 American Apparel shirts on hand for you to buy and get screen-printed on the spot for $15. They may run out! So you can bring your own stuff, like shirts or skirts or socks, and get it screen-printed for $7 per screen.

All proceeds benefit the SOPO Bicycle Coop to aid in opening a new shop on the west side of town.

Check out the event’s Facebook page for details and comments.

When you walk into the market you’re greeted by a large, industrial but cozy room. The exterior walls host a variety of vendors: to your right is Flower Bar, beyond that is a woman who sells handmade soaps and beauty products, beyond that is another room with art, books and my favorite clever greeting cards on a spinning rack (you need to go yourself to see). In the main room continuing counter clockwise is a cupcake maker, a fabulous cookie bar and beyond that a coffee bar. That brings you around to the left side of the room and its anchor businesses: Jake’s.

There’s another room to your left as you come in, hosting framed photography on the walls, comfy couches and more intimate lighting with two adjoining alcoves for privacy and conversation. Back in the main room, you’ll find couches, armchairs and the family table flanking retro ovens being used as displays for other locally made wares.

Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Jake or his business adventures, and while I had patronized the Irwin Street Market (lunch at Jake’s, flowers from Flower Bar for the housewarming, cupcakes from Button Cakes Bakery) I wasn’t entirely clear on what was happening in the space, and hadn’t given a lot of thought to the eclectic collection.

Friday night, I got the 411. Simply stated, it isn’t just the goal of the market, but the intent behind everything Jake does: to nurture and help local business grow. On the website for ISM, its declared as our neighborhood s urban artist market, and it is.

It’s an incubator for small business who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford a storefront, who wouldn’t normally have the coaching and support of someone who has tried, stumbled, succeeded and found himself in the process.

As someone with a unquenchable passion for small business and a soft spot for “the little guy”, I’ll be undoubtedly be spending more time at the market. Bonus: free wifi and loads of comfy spots to sit without loud-not-my-taste music rattling your thoughts out of your head. Perfect for plotting about and noodling your own business dreams, which you can see to fruition right there at the Irwin Street Market.

Oh yeah, and remember that post several weeks back where I said that if I wasn’t so lazy I’d start a small local produce stand? Great minds think alike: keep an eye out for just that at Jake’s in the next couple of months.

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.

Kraftwork shows at the Young Blood Gallery blend indie-boutique offerings with gallery style.

Deep ITP, you’ve got this Thursday’s Kraftwork show at Young Blood Gallery on Highland Ave. just a couple of blocks south of Ponce de Leon. This one goes from 7 to 10 pm. Atlanta ’s finest indie crafters will be on hand (including my wife) selling handmade art and gifts for everyone on your shopping list. (The Kraftwork shows always have unique and surprising goods that run the gamut from useful to adorable.) Entrance is FREE for shoppers to both Kraftwork and the Young Blood Gallery & shop.

The Spruill Center for the Arts is a modern gallery in an historic house.

Meanwhile, out on the Perimeter, the Spruill Gallery is hosting the opening reception of its Holiday Artist Market, featuring a wide variety of hand-crafted gifts by Southeastern artists. The opening reception runs from 6 to 9pm and is FREE admission.

My wife’s handmade books are a part of this market, too, but she got double-booked tonight with the Kraftwork show, so we need someone to visit the opening and let us know how it went. Drop a comment here if you attended the show or the opening and let us know what you thought!

If you can’t make the opening, though, don’t fret: The Holiday Artist Market runs all month at the Spruill Gallery store, from December 5th to 24th, Monday-Saturday 10am-6pm. The Spruill Gallery is right near the Perimeter Mall, so if you’re already up there doing chain-store shopping, please consider stopping off to support local artists, too.

Yes, if I was really smart I would’ve mentioned all this earlier. Sorry about that.

Simply submit a one-page essay on “Why Great Theatre Matters to Atlanta” and e-mail or snail mail it to the Alliance by Monday, June 16 for consideration. Five reviewers will be selected and notified by the end of June, and will get to attend not just all the Alliance and Hertz Stage shows, but also get free tickets for an additional showing!

Of course, I would’ve found out about this after I got my subscriber package, but if you’re a subscriber also, that doesn’t rule you out. Hurry up and submit!

Be an Alliance Reviewer for the 2008-09 Season! [link]