Viewing: Autumn - View all posts

Happy September!! 



Photo by A.D. Gaspard

September is here! And there are a lot of great things going on!

First of all, I have some upcoming events:
  • Friday, September 3rd - Sara Crawford and the Cult Following at Smith's Olde Bar - The Atlanta Room - 9:00 PM - 21+ - $8 - My band and I will be playing a set at Smith's Olde Bar in the Atlanta Room. Also, our good friend Kayesha Belnap is moving back to Utah, so we're making this a send-off show! She's going to sing a song with us, too. :-)
  • Saturday, September 4th 1:00 AM, Sunday September 5th midnight - The short film I wrote, Leapfrog, will air on Atlanta Shorts on PBA 30, Atlanta's PBS Station - Tune in and check it out!
  • Tuesday, September 7th - My chapbook of poems, Coiled and Swallowed, will be released. It will be available here on my website or through Virgogray Press
  • Friday, September 24th - Sara Crawford and the Cult Following at MINT Gallery - 10:00 PM - $4
There are a ton of really great events going on this month that I'm excited about! Here are a few:


MUSIC
 THEATER
  • A Confederacy of Dunces - Theatrical Outfit - Running until September 12th - A World Premiere Stage Adaptation by Tom Key based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Novel by John Kennedy Toole - Directed by Richard Garner - Like Shakespeare’s Falstaff, Ignatius Reilly of A Confederacy of Dunces has the bombastic comic power to subvert reality and his madcap adventures in the 1960s French Quarter of New Orleans prove to be as laugh out loud hilarious as they are brilliantly revelatory of the human condition. It is a tumultuous story, filled with the truly rendered accents and dialects of New Orleans rebels. Two voices, however, dominate: a sharp-eyed omniscient narrator and the sometimes hapless and self-destructive Ignatius J. Reilly. Despite those tendencies, Reilly composes brilliant sketches of his adversaries and dramatizes a set of restrained values that contrasts dramatically with the world in which he moves, through various insignificant jobs and sometimes slapstick mishaps. These are dramatically played off against the equally untidy lives of a host of supporting characters, including his comically oppressed mother, a radicalized girlfriend who taunts him from New York, a strip-bar operator, a pants factory owner, and a Keystonian New Orleans policeman. Richard Garner, Producing Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Georgia Shakespeare Festival, directs.

  • Becky Shaw - Actor's Express - Running through September 25th - Playwright: Gina Gionfriddo - Director: Freddie Ashley - ATLANTA PREMIERE - "Gina Gionfriddo is some kind of genius! Devastatingly funny. Sends little shockwaves of delight through the house." - Newlywed Suzanna fixes her best friend Max up with her husband's beautiful but odd co-worker Becky Shaw. The blind date ignites a fuse that will soon set Becky off in the midst of Suzanna's family. The resulting blast of dysfunctional hilarity has everyone scrambling for cover, but finding none.


                                                                                                                                   
  • The Nerd - Kudzu Playhouse - Running through September 19th - By Larry Shue - Directed by Wally Hinds - This extraordinarily inventive, side-splitting comedy is one of the funniest plays ever written. The action centers on the hilarious dilemma of a young architect who is visited by a man he's never met but who saved his life in Vietnam—the visitor turning out to be an incredibly inept, hopelessly stupid "nerd" who outstays his welcome with a vengeance. "Shue delivers a neatly crafted package that uses some classic comic forms to bring the audience to its knees, laughing."

VISUAL ARTS/OTHER
  • D. Lammie Hanson - art and music - Friday, September 3rd - 6:00 PM - Avisca Fine Art Gallery - Multi-disciplinary artist D. Lammie Hanson debuts new artwork from her 4 Elements series and perform music she created in conjunction with the art project . Free

     
  • LUCKY STAR: An Evening of Art & Burlesque inspired by Madonna - dooGallery - September 25 - 8:00 PM - $10 donation - Madonna’s unfettered spirit of individuality will be used to benefit The Rainbow Center, an Atlanta-based organization who serves the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered (GLBTQ), those questioning their sexual orientation and gender, their families and friends. The Rainbow Center is a community resource and support center for social, therapeutic, spiritual, educational or volunteer pursuits.
     
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
  • QuickSylver Productions seeking short films for SylverReel: A Night of Shorts - The event will be held at the Midtown Arts Cinema. Built in 1987, operated by Landmark since 2003, and located in the Midtown Promenade Center (at 8th & Monroe), the Midtown Art Cinema is quickly becoming the premier home for independent, foreign language and documentary films in the heart of in-town Atlanta. Click here for submission info.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you all have a wonderful fall, and I hope you all get out there and support local and independent artists!

Thanksgiving, Working Title Playwrights, Levi Weaver 



Fall Kiss by A.D. Gaspard


Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which is really one of my favorite days of the year. It seems like everyone (myself included) does a lot of complaining these days, and it's nice to be able to take a day and try to focus on gratitude. I know I certainly have a lot to be thankful for. I have the most amazing family and friends, who are always supportive of me, and every day, there are countless opportunities to share, experience, or create art!

And on that note, there are a couple of things that you should definitely check out!




Working Title Playwrights - This is an organization in Atlanta dedicated to helping playwrights develop new works and get them on stage. They are constantly having writing workshops, critiques, staged readings, and other events to help keep new works alive. If you've never been to check out one of their readings, I highly recommend it. As a playwright, one of the most valuable things is having the opportunity to hear your work aloud and get audience feedback. They really are an amazing group, and one of my New Years resolutions is to be more involved with them next year. Check out their website for more info or to get involved!



Photo from Levi Weaver's website

Levi Weaver (musician) - Last week, my friend, Bel, invited me to go see Kate Havnevik at the Red Light Cafe. Obviously, she's an amazing performer, and her songs were incredible. Levi Weaver was also touring with her, and I had not heard his music before. Usually singer/songwriters have a tendency to get overlooked (I should know!), which even I am guilty of sometimes. It's hard to sound "full" when it's just one person and a guitar. Weaver, though, was quite the opposite. He used loop pedals and live effects to give his acoustic set more of a full band sound, which was definitely cool, but as he kept playing, I realized that he didn't even need any of that. His songs were good enough to stand on their own with just stripped down acoustic guitar and vocals. His lyrics were so poetic and sincere, and he had so much raw passion. It's musicians like him that remind me why I want to be a musician. (And of course it helped that he threw in an AMAZING cover of "Idioteque" by Radiohead!!) So go visit his website or his myspace and give his music a listen.

(I think it's important that we support independent musicians...especially after accidently watching the American Music Awards the other night. I mean, really, is that what popular music is these days!?! But that's a rant for another time. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'll just say I'm thankful that there are independent musicians who make good music so I don't have to listen to that crap.)

So, there you are everyone. Support new plays, check out some new (awesome) music, support independent musicians, and have an awesome Thanksgiving filled with lots of turkey (or tofurkey), good times, and people you love. :-)


In a bloggy mood... 



Photo by Beverly Crawford.

Yes, as in my mom took that photo. I really like her photography. It's mostly nature shots, but I think they're all really full of life. You might even see one of her photos on my poetry book cover, Coiled and Swallowed, when it comes out next summer or fall.

Well, it's autumn, and I'm listening to the Cockteau Twins, and I'm in a rather bloggy mood. That should be a new word. Bloggy.

Things have been going really well for me lately. I'm getting a lot done artistically, I'm being a pretty productive employee, I have been reading a lot more this year, exercising more, being a healthier person, and most importantly, I have the most supportive and awesome family and friends. Everyone in my life has really been there for me lately, even my friends who have moved to other states, and I really, really appreciate it. More than any of you probably know. I'm just really grateful. There's so much negativity on the internet these days (I'm definitely not excluded from that!), but I just wanted to take a second and say that I genuinely appreciate everyone in my life. Even if the contact we have seems insignificant. Even if it's just a facebook comment every now and then. I still really appreciate it. So many people have supported me, especially in my artistic efforts, and I really just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for coming to my shows, thank you for listening to my music or reading my poetry, thank you for coming to see my plays, thank you for reading my random blogs. Haha. Really. I can't even begin to express how much that means to me. And you're awesome.

Speaking of being positive, I made a bunch of "sampler CDs" to take with me to Pride this Saturday. I was planning on handing them out to promote my new CD. They have three tracks, "Excommunicated," "Cyclone," and "Wait," all of which will be on Unsent Letters. I decided it'd be cool if I decorated the CDs myself with sharpies. Different colored sharpies! Most of them just say "Sara Crawford" and list the names of the tracks, but on some of them I put random little positive messages like, "Thanks for supporting local music!" or "Sara Crawford (thinks you're awesome)" or "I love people who listen to new music! You just made my day!" I put all of the CDs in little (multicolored) sleeves with a little (multicolored) piece of paper that has printed information about my CD, so from the outside of the sleeve, you can't see what's written on the actual CD. I just know that if I picked up a CD from someone at a festival and got home and opened it up to a message like "Yeah! You're awesome!" it would definitely make me smile. So hopefully, I'll get to spread some love on Saturday. (But not in an obnoxious way? Haha.) I was thinking maybe some time next month, I'll make some more sampler CDs with happy messages and put them in random coffee shops and places around town where people will pick them up.

Anyway. That's all for tonight. Thanks for listening...er...reading, rather.

Songs listened to while I typed this:
1. Lorelei - Cocteau Twins
2. Dancing - Elisa
3. Morning Bell/Amnesiac - Radiohead
4. She's Got You High - Mumm-Ra
5. Soldier On - The Temper Trap
6. Light My Fire - The Doors

And you should listen, too:

Poetry news, music news, Scent of Autumn mixy  

Lots of things going on right now!

First of all, Virgogray Press will be publishing my poetry chapbook, Coiled and Swallowed, in the summer or fall of 2010! I just found out about this last week, and I'm pretty stoked. They have some really great chapbooks so check them out!

Secondly, I'm hard at work on Unsent Letters (my album), and I will be releasing that here on December 1st. It will be available for download, or you can order a physical copy. I should be playing some sort of CD release show around that time, too. I'm not sure where that will be yet, but I will keep you posted.

Also, Novo Luna is no longer playing shows. We've all sort of gone our separate ways musically, I suppose. I will always be grateful for the time I spent singing with those guys, though, and I will never forget the songs! I really learned a lot singing with them, and I definitely had a blast. I definitely plan to support all of them in their future artistic projects as well.

In other news, my new unnamed musical project is quickly picking up speed. We have Michael Tillman on guitar/vocals, myself on keys/vocals, and now, Kyle Weisse on violin. We've jammed out with a couple of drummers, and we're still putting together the entire ensemble, but stay tuned! We should be out playing shows within the next few months. The first couple of shows may be just me, Michael, and Kyle, but we're planning on getting out there soon.

AND it's that time of year again! Autumn. Every autumn, I made a mix CD called "The Scent of Autumn." It's usually a mix of songs that feel nostalgic, songs you can drive around and feel reflective to, and songs that I happen to be particularly into that year. So here is this year's scent of autumn mixy!

Scent of Autumn
1. Under the Milky Way - The Church
2. Before it All Ends - Kent
3. Special Needs - Placebo
4. Heart of Chambers - Beach House
5. Possibly Maybe - Bjork
6. When No One Calls (It Will Be Alright) -  Starflyer 59
7. That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore - The Smiths
8. Master of None - Beach House
9. Soldier On - The Temper Trap
10. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) - The Arcade Fire
11. Bubble - Red House Painters
12. Shiva - The Antlers
13. Cheerleader - Grizzly Bear
14. No Surprises - String Quartet

So, in honor of the Scent of Autumn, and in light of my poetry news, I'll leave you with a poem from Coiled and Swallowed and a song from my Scent of Autumn mixy - 2009 edition.


Cement Steps

a poem by Sara Crawford

Sometimes I wish you would take me back
to that scene
where little girls jump on cement steps
and young men wear sunglasses,
blowing the smoke from their
personally-rolled cigarettes,
watching it swirl away
into the strategically placed trees,
and the wind blows
wrinkled, old pages
from the woman’s notebook.
She struggles to pick them up,
scared to lose the moments she preserved
before she picked up her cup of green tea
to take a sip.

I miss being light enough
to be scared of a breeze,
bracing myself on something
that’s weighed down,
occasionally letting go,
out of curious anxiety.

Subscribe with iTunes RSS feed Download