Friday 3/13 – Thursday 3/19
If meat’s not your meat, perhaps the “maggots, rodents, whores, junkies, and blacked-out, anonymous creeps” that dominate local artist and poet Tony Fitzpatrick’s latest drawings will float your boat. Twenty-five of his disturbing “Dope Drawings” are featured in his new book, Dirty Boulevard, with text by Lou Reed. Fitzpatrick will sign copies tonight from 7 to 9 at Edward R. Varndell Gallery, 2153 W. North. It’s free. Call 773-486-2052.
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14 SATURDAY Treatment is one component of the federal Weed and Seed antidrug strategy, the others being community policing, law enforcement, neighborhood restoration, and drug prevention. Yet Leola Spann, president of the Northwest Austin Council, complains that her neighborhood has “only ten beds available for substance abuse treatment. We need to figure out where the treatment dollars are, and how to get them into our community.” Today a coalition of groups–including the South Austin Coalition, the Westside Health Authority, and Bethel New Life–will attempt to do just that at a free forum. Reverend Lewis Anthony, a consultant to the Justice Department, will deliver the keynote speech. It’s from 11 to 1 in the sixth floor auditorium of Loretto Hospital, 645 S. Central. Call 773-379-7822.
18 WEDNESDAY Poet Pattiann Rogers believes writers have an obligation: “We must produce for our time the finest, the best, the clearest, the most imaginative and beautiful literature that we can.” Presumably she’s not referring to the self-indulgent addiction confessionals and tell-all incest memoirs that have been garnering so much attention lately. So far she’s lived up to her own high expectations, writing seven books of poetry and winning four Pushcart Prizes. Rogers will read from her latest, Eating Bread and Honey, tonight at 6 in the ballroom of the School of the Art Institute, 112 S. Michigan. Admission is $8, $6 for students. Call 312-899-7483.
