Thinking Outside the Book

Digging for treasure at this year's 215 Festival.

by Tami Fertig

Digging for treasure at this year's 215 Festival

The idea behind the 215 Festival is simple: Bookworms, geeks though they are, still like rocking out as much as the next guy. So, since 2001, Philly's homegrown lit fest has been bringing all of these amazing authors, musicians and artists to places other than stuffy auditoriums and bookshops. Like bars. And art galleries. Sometimes they're kinda hard to find, but hey, that's half the fun. (Visit www.215festival.com for more details.)

Say happy birthday to the Beat bible, On the Road, with some Kerouac experts of sorts. His onetime sweetie Joyce Johnson and Beat scholars Penny Vlagopoulos and John Leland chat about Jack, while multi-instrumentalist/Kerouac collaborator David Amram performs jazz tunes popular in the '50s. Here's hoping for cake, too.

Thu., Oct. 4, 7 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St.

Small Change Screening Series' Ted Passon curates this program of movies about words, including 1959's Pull My Daisy, a rarely seen short starring a buncha Beat poets (Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky) and narrated by Kerouac.

Thu., Oct. 4, 9 p.m., free, International House, 3701 Chestnut St.

Graffiti photog Jon Naar, best known for his 1974 book Faith of Graffiti, chats about his new one, The Birth of Graffiti. Meanwhile, Philly's own Darryl "Cornbread" McCray, often called the father of modern-day graffiti and hip-hop, gets props in Sean McKnight's biopic, which will be screened and presented by Cornbread himself.

Fri., Oct. 5, 7 p.m., free, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 118 N. Broad St.

There's this hilarious video for Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube" where the band's record company sends them to rock school to turn them into badass, tear-shit-up rock stars. We're hoping this lecture is sorta like that, only hosted by the Make-Up's frontman, Ian Svenonius (who's also a published author). Boozing and dancing follows with Svenonius at the turntable.

Fri., Oct. 5, 9 p.m., $5, The Latvian Society, 531 N. Seventh St.

This Punk Rock Flea Market for word nerds features readings, films, comics presentations, queer lit talks, you name it. Schmooze with local bookish peeps — who'll be selling litmags, art books, handmade journals and the like — over Latvian beer.

Sat., Oct. 6, noon-4 p.m., free, The Latvian Society, 531 N. Seventh St.

Philly artists including Paul DeMuro, Hawk Krall and Jesse Moynihan show their comics, but the real treat comes from NYC (sorry): Arthur Jones, art director for Dirty Found magazine and co-curator of the Post-it Note Reading Series, shares four or five little stories, illustrated on, yup, Post-it notes that he projects behind him as he reads.

Sat., Oct. 6, 7 p.m., free, Padlock Gallery, 1409 Ellsworth St.

Zinesters from across the country bring their glued and stapled creations for your perusal. Look out for the adult coloring books of New York's Girls Not Chicks, and local guy Justin Duerr's Decades of Confusion Feed the Insect (which he started in 1995). Show up early to snatch some yummy vegan snacks.

Sun., Oct. 7, noon-6 p.m., free, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., www.phillyzinefest.com

West Philly puppeteer Beth Nixon illustrated 12 palindromes (words that read the same forward and backward) for her colorful, totally weird calendar, which can be picked up at this party. Our favorite: A sneering, naked toddler holds a knife in one hand and an anthropomorphized, terrified vegetable in the other. The caption reads, "May a moody baby doom a yam?" Expect participatory palindrome-y activities.

Sun., Oct. 7, 6 p.m., free, E.R.A. Bar, 2743 Poplar St.

The competition's gonna be tough at this bee, and it'll probably bring back repressed memories from elementary school. Luckily, there's beer, music and, uh, magic to help you forget again.

Sun., Oct. 7, 8 p.m., free to enter, $5 to play, E.R.A. Bar, 2743 Poplar St.