Kaleidoscope

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Published: Feb 16, 2010

Not sure what a manifesto's supposed to look like, but I'm pretty sure David Shields' new Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (Knopf, Feb. 23) — with its tangential thinking and curiously arranged fragments — strays from the script. Which is, of course, the point. Shields is calling for some kind of writing revolution (a movement toward lyricality and acceptance of truthiness, perhaps). If nothing else he'll inspire you to take up a pen and fight.

It's a parody movie, yes, but Scott Sanders' Black Dynamite , now out on DVD, is also a love letter to the blaxploitation flicks of yore — complete with deliberate editing mistakes and grainy footage. Michael Jai White (who also co-wrote the film) stars as the titular, Afro'd hero, who must avenge his brother's death, keep smack out of the orphanages and stop the consumption of dick-shrinking malt liquor, all while looking fine in a pair of bell-bottoms and platforms. Can you dig it?

Pretty Brit band Clientele has been riding the reverb for so long, it took me a second to realize they'd actually achieved a kind of bliss-rock nirvana with last year's Bonfires on the Heath . It's just a really sweet, tranquil, cinematic piece of work, and they oughta play the whole damn thing at Johnny Brenda's on Monday.

It's one thing for Gillian Pears and Ryan Widger to create an eerily empty atmosphere — in photographs and on film, respectively — that makes us question the space we take up with our bodies. But what happens if you remove "Occupant" from its traditional white-on-white gallery setting? Visit 2200 Walnut St.'s Victorian-era CITYSPACE real estate offices, full of ornate furniture and marble fireplaces, where Area 919 owner Michael Garden's pushing the boundaries of where art ought to be viewed. Stop by the opening reception tonight (area919.com), and see if you don't start thinking differently about the space you inhabit.

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