Well, shiver me timbers! This quarter is really starting to pick up! Between the essays, exams, and numerous projects eating away at valuable time, yours truly is having a little trouble getting into the nighttime swing of things. Anyhow, I'll be back on the shag in no time...you just rest assured of that!...and although I've been a little tied up, your valiant crusader of 'hip' has come back with the booty again! Really, now, did you expect any less?!
In spite of my disco down nature, today, I'm gonna get a wee bit artsy on your bum. My latest plunder is the Backdrop Gallery located at 495 Peachtree St., a short walk from the Varsity and, for all you perves out there, ONE block before the 9 1/2 Weeks on Peachtree(as you head from Tech towards downtown). Anyhoot, this place offers an escape from the mechanical routine of our beloved campus. The best way to describe this place is that it is a modern attempt at the long forgotten European coffeehouses, places where free thinkers and artisans were encouraged to get together and share their voice. It is quite a noble idea, but does this find a niche in the middle of corporate-laden downtown Atlanta?
Well, the Backdrop Gallery has been thriving! I went to a party they had there a while back and it was INsane! They had aerial acrobatics, folk musicians, poets, photographers, and other sorts just doing their thing. It was beautiful! Of course, some of the stuff was pompous crap, but the atmosphere, as a whole, was electric, the creative and thinking transformed into an energy that united everyone there. I was, upon my first visit, a bit leery, but after taking up conversations with the ultra-friendly locals there, I felt perfectly at home. They have a coffee bar/lunch counter, which is a little pricey, if you so desire, but the main reason to venture there is for the art on the walls or the intellect-stimulating(although generally freakish) clientele. It is a really great place to just let your artistic side BUG OUT!
The Backdrop Gallery also has a whole plethora of gigs lined up for every month with such things as art exhibits, book signings, poetry (every Thurs. night), Jazz (every Fri. night), and even a crazy rock opera about "the rise and fall of a skinhead gang leader who poses as an author of a cookbook" (Sat. nights until Nov. 15). Admittedly, I haven't been yet to check out the rock opera, but how can you go wrong? Ok, it may not be the way you normally picture spending a Saturday night, but, man, at least it's something different!!!
