Also this issue: Learning to Fly Shelley Spector chats about her life, her art and her upcoming show. -Robin Rice Boxed In In a story of a con man turned boxer, Darin Strauss loses sight of the core of truth. -Justin Bauer First Friday Focus The Galleries at Moore | Temple Gallery | Ashley Gallery -Lori Hill Blind Date Two artists are grouped together for an exhibit at Seraphin Gallery. -Robin Rice East Meets Midwest Wisconsin artist T.L. Solien is featured in two gallery shows this month. -Susan Hagen

June 6-12, 2002

artpicks

Poe's Own Twilight Zone

In 1849 Edgar Allen Poe was found unconscious on a street in Baltimore. Much ink has been spilled theorizing as to what happened in the days preceding his mysterious death (drugs? epilepsy? alcohol?), and now Thaddeus Phillips adds his two cents to the ongoing fascination with the Granddaddy of Gruesome Paranoia with Poe's Own Twilight Zone.

Using fragments from Poe's poems and stories, along with a miscellany of other stuff (Baudelaire, Twilight Zone, Siddhartha), Phillips (whose recent King Lear in a box and Lost Soles were Fringe hits) performs in collaboration with James Sugg (who recently provided the excellent sound effects for Pig Iron's Flop) and aerialist (!) Janette Hough, (Trapezius Aerial Dance Co.), under the direction of Lars Jan (Early Morning Opera), with music composed and performed by Andy Bresnan (Big Mess Cabaret).

Lucidity Suitcase promises "an irresponsible historical document worthy of Poe's peculiar spectral imaginings." That it will be historically irresponsible is guaranteed; whether it's "worthy" of Poe remains to be seen.

Opens Thu., June 6, through June 23, $10, Christ Church Annex, Second and Church sts., 215-413-2036.

—Toby Zinman