Poetic Soul (Athens) and Eyedrum (Atlanta): two good reasons to get out on a Tuesday night

Who says there's nothing to do on a Tuesday night? Tonight, if you live in the Atlanta / Athens area here are two reasons to get out of the house. Poetic Soul is a continuing experiment of "poets, singers, songwriters, readers and thinkers ... swapping stories and ideas" that meets every Tuesday in downtown Athens.

At Atlanta's Eyedrum gallery, it's the second in a long-delayed program featuring experimental composer and film-maker Mauricio Kagel. It's not the mall, or the local googolplex cinema, and in this day of reduced arts budgets it's good to support local groups and artists who continue to provide something different. Here's a bit of information about both programs; the words about Poetic Soul and photo of Showyn Walton (above) come by way of Online Athens.

IN ATHENS

Poetic Soul 8 p.m. Tuesdays Where: New Earth Music Hall, 227 W. Dougherty St. Cost: Free Call: (706) 202-3555

After bouncing around several bars in Athens the past few years, Poetic Soul has a sturdy home and a growing following. Showyn "Buddah" Walton and Montu "Mon2" Miller, the two longtime Athens performers who organize Poetic Soul, see more people and more talent arrive every week.

"It's growing every week, and it's getting more and more diverse," Miller said. "You have so many different styles of artists, so many kinds of people just hanging out and getting along."

Poets, singers, songwriters, readers and thinkers all mingle before and after the show, swapping stories and ideas. Before the first act, everyone embraces each other as if they were in a Baptist church.

Walton and Miller know the problems of force. For years, they tried to get Poetic Soul to succeed in different bars in downtown Athens.

Then they left downtown altogether, ending up at the Bulldog Cafe.

"It was hard to do in a pub," Walton said. "Poetry can't survive in a bar setting."

The program has found solid ground at New Earth.

The owners already were big fans of spoken word, Walton said, so Poetic Soul's performers instantly felt welcome. Now, more than 50 show up each week.

And they're talking about more than just the arts. Walton and Miller see Poetic Soul as a medium for activism and change.

IN ATLANTA

Film: Two-Man Orchestra (1973, 71 minutes)

Eyedrum | Thursday, November 11, 2010 | 8:00 pm, 290 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, Atlanta, GA 30312

Tonight at Eyedrum is an exceedingly rare screening of Kagel’s film Two-Man Orchestra. Two musicians are inserted into Kagel’s specially built one-man-band setups (of over 250 instruments!) which they control with their fingers, feet, legs, heads and any other possible way. Trapped in these enormous, overgrown constructions and dealing with their unpredictable malfunctions, the performers evoke everything from Charlie Chaplin to circus music to complete atonality in a virtuoso physical and musical feat.