This year, Philebrity is proud to be the media sponsor for The 215 Festival – Philly’s annual literary arts festival. Now in its seventh year — it started up in 2001 with Neal Pollack at the helm under the moniker “The McSweeney’s Festival” — the annual congregation of writers, musicians and performers has played host to a diverse array of writers, among them, David Foster Wallace, Jeffrey Eugenides and Patti Smith. This year, the fest has a special focus on DIY publishing, from graffiti to zines to home-bound books, and will host appearances from Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain, graffiti legend Cornbread, Ian Svenonius, photographer Martha Camarillo, as well as a special reading honoring the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. After the jump, we offer a quick preview of the week’s events.

Thursday, October 4

Festival Kickoff: On the Road 50th Anniversary Celebration
7 p.m. – Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St. – FREE
Celluloid Literati: An Evening of Experimental Films
9 p.m. – The International House, 3701 Chestnut St. – FREE
Kerouac collaborator David Amram and John Leland, author of Why Kerouac Matters and Hip: The History lead off the fest with performance and discussion of Kerouac’s classic of American literature. Afterward, local filmmaker Ted Passon curates a great evening wild short films, culminating in a rare screening of Pull My Daisy narrated by Jack Kerouac and starring Allen Ginsberg and Alice Neel.

Friday, October 5

The Birth of Graffiti and the Cry of the City
7 p.m. – Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118 N. Broad St. – FREE
Cornbread himself is in the house to present Sean McKnight’s documentary, Cry of the City Part 1: The Legend of Cornbread, detailing the original bomber’s rise to infamy in the dilapidated Philly of the 1970s. (Check the preview at right.) Then…
Philebrity Presents: “How to Start a Group,” a lecture by Ian Svenonius
9 p.m. – The Latvian Society, 531 N 7th Street – $5
He’s been the Sassiest Boy In America; he’s been the singer in Nation Of Ulysses, The Make-Up and Weird War; but these days, he’s an author and quite possibly the smarmiest television host in America — which is saying something. He’s Ian Svenonius, and tonight, he’s presenting “a thought-provoking instructional lecture entitled HOW TO START A GROUP for all those would-be musicians and anyone else interested in what rock ‘n’ roll is, what it should be, what its uses are, and how to best subvert the official noxious narrative of the culture.” Afterwards, of course, we host a dance party with Svenonius DJing alongside Golden Ball’s David Chadwick.

Satuday, October 6

Lovingly Bound: Book and Art Fair
Noon to 4 p.m. – The Latvian Society, 531 N. 7th St. – FREE
About 40 exhibitors gather for an afternoon of the many facets of DIY publishing: artists books, comics publishers, hand-bound blank books, literacy orgs, etc who hail from Canada, NYC, MD, VA, DE, and our fair city. Plus beer, food and music from DJ Hi-Res aka Jesse Pires from I-House and WPRB. The highlight of the afternoon is a presentation by NY photographer Martha Camarillo, whose mesmerizing photo book Fletcher Street is about our own mysterious Urban Cowboys. She’s bringing some of the littlest cowboys to talk about riding horses through the streets of Strawberry Mansion.
Philebrity presents Please Kill Me: An Evening with Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
9 pm – National Mechanics, 22 South 3rd Street- FREE
Iggy. Dee Dee. Joey. Debbie. Patti. Nico. Sid. The story of punk is told by those who lived it in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by co-founder of Punk magazine, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Join Legs and Gillian for an intimate reading and an uncensored history lesson about the origins of the punk movement.

AND THOSE ARE JUST SOME OF THE EVENTS! FOR MORE, STAY WITH PHILEBRITY THIS WEEK AS WE DELVE DEEPER AND VISIT 215FESTIVAL.COM!!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 5:04 pm.