Also this issue: Bad for the Business A trio of showbiz books walks on the mean side. -A.D. Amorosi artquicks More stuff going on this week... Wozzeck -David Shengold ComedySportz Cares -Juliet Fletcher "Martians and Motorcycles" -Andrew Parks "Privacy Writes: Public Lives, Personal Letters" -Juliet Fletcher PII Gallery | Stedman Gallery | And Then Thereâs · -Lori Hill Neal Barnard -Vance Lehmkuhl

July 3- 9, 2003

artpicks

Fourth Of U LIE Rebel Party

Billed as a "rebel party," Detroit's Upsidedown Culture Collective storms into town in the name of freedom and justice for all -- and to promote their new book, All the Days After: Critical Voices in Poetry and Artwork. In this radical, honest and uncompromising anthology, artists of every medium explore a post-9/11 world through poetry, animation, collage and "other art." Celebrating the powerful combination of politics and art, wordsmiths Walidah Imarisha, Samantha Barrow, Maleka Fruean, Ewuare Osayande and Lamont Steptoe deliver stinging sociopolitical verse, while Naima Penniman and Alixa Garcia work their visual media magic at the same time. UPTONOGOOD Puppet Troupe will put on a show; visual artist and poet Theodore Harris brings collage to life; finally, activist folksinger Erik Peterson gets down with song and story, along with performances from Arkansas political punk band The Thing That Always Explodes and Beantown's hip-hop-funk-soul troupe The Insurrection. Paul Robeson once said eloquently, "Art is a weapon." These artists are out to prove the revolution won't just be televised -- it will be incredibly creative and immeasurably different than anything labeled Welcome America.

Fourth Of U LIE Rebel Party, Fri., July 4, 8 p.m. (preceded by 7 p.m. potluck), free, The Rotunda, 4012 Walnut St., 215-386-6081.

—Ainé Ardron-Doley