Philadelphia really screwed with David Lynch.

His surreal masterpiece Eraserhead is a “dream of dark and troubling things” that was directly inspired by the director’s time spent living at 13th and Wood Street while attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The cold industrial feel of his neighborhood coupled with the crime and decay that ran rampant through the area during his 1966-70 stay shaped not only his feature debut, but all of the works that came after it. (You can check out a detailed collection of quotes in which Lynch riffs about the City of Brotherly Love here).

These days Lynch’s old hood is experiencing a rebirth. Affectionately nicknamed “The Eraserhood,” the Callowhill area is home for businesses like the revived Trestle Inn and art hubs such as the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Arts. The latter of which is currently planning on paying tribute to Lynch with its “art show of Lynchian proportions” Eraserhood Forever.

The event won’t open until July 13th, so if you’ve ever wanted to paint a portrait of Henry and Mary’s bizarre baby from Eraserhead or any other Lynch-themed artwork (all mediums are welcome) you can do so by e-mailing digital files or photos of your creations to PhilaMOCA curator Chip Schwartz. The deadline for submissions is June 29th, and there will be a $25 participation fee for all selected works.

To paraphrase Eraserhead’s Lady in the Radiator, you’ve got your good things. So why not submit them to a fascinating exhibition that aims to pay tribute to Lynch and the Philly weirdness that helped spark his genius?

Eraserhood Forever
July 13th – 24th, 2012

PhilaMOCA
531 N. 12^th Street
www.philamoca.org

Have you ever watched a parade and then had a burning desire to build a float of your own and take it for a spin? Or watch as floats go by you in person? If you said no, then, well, go to the next post and have a nice day.

However, if you said a resounding yes, then get your tools out and get to building. As part of the Trenton Avenue Arts Festival, they will be holding the 6^th annual Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby on May 19^th at Trenton Ave. and Norris St. in Philadelphia.

Last year over 120 people participated in the Derby, which features human powered floats parading down Trenton Avenue, all heading for the infamous mud pit and the judge’s panel. But that’s not all! You will also be able to check out the wares of over 150 art vendors and more food choices than you could possibly imagine.

The activities begin at 12:00 and go until 6, so you will have plenty of time to watch the Derby and do some shopping as well. It all goes toward the revitalization of the neighborhood and is a great way to spend a Saturday in the city.

Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby
www.kinetickensington.org

Steampunk has long been one of the most underground of underground subcultures. Just try to explain what Steampunk is to someone and you might understand why. It is a genre that oftentimes defies description and can result in blank stares from those who don’t “get” it.

But over the last few years, Steampunk has become more and more mainstream, with the genre being a large plot point in the fifth season of The Guild and even having an episode of ABC’s hit series Castle devoted to it.

And now, anyone can go and experience the thrill and uniqueness of Steampunk at the Steampunk World’s Fair taking place on May 18th through the 20th at the Radisson of Piscataway in New Jersey. There you will be able to enjoy what is billed as the best Steampunk Festival in the world. It will include guests such as Leanna Renee Hieber, V is for Villains, PJ Schnyder and many more as well as a midway, an Absinthe tasting, a costume extravaganza and too much more to describe here.

Tickets, hotel information and more can be found on their website. So whether you are an old hat to the world of steam or if Steampunk is something that always intrigued you but you didn’t know where to start, The Steampunk World’s Fair is where you probably want to be.

Steampunk World’s Fair
May 18th – 20th, 2012
http://steampunkworldsfair.com

Are you a local filmmaker? Want to see your creation on the big screen? This week marks your last chance to submit to this year’s Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity.

There are many categories for entry including your standard film fare in addition to some new and interesting such as “Mini’s” (Cell phone, iPod, etc) and “Trailers.”

Be sure to postmark your submission by May 14th to be considered for the festival and stay tuned to Geekadelphia for more PIFF coverage!

You can find all the details and submission guidelines here. Good luck!

On a quiet block in a neighborhood nestled between Rittenhouse Square and the Avenue of the Arts is a curious little shop. Omoi (meaning “thoughts and ideas” in Japanese) is one of Philly’s finest little retail stores. Elizabeth Seiber opened the shop in 2006 as a way to introduce Philadelphia to different cultures through products and as a way to break new brands in the U.S. “I’ve always been fascinated with other cultures – my family has some wonderful and unsual collections from around the world, and I guess I just naturally did the same thing.”

After studying in Japan for the second time, Liz decided to come back to Philly bringing some of east along with her. For over half a decade now, customers have been drawn to her heavily-curated “zakka” shop–a small type of store in Japanese retail culture intended to be packed with brilliantly alluring little treasures.

“I discovered that Japan was the holy grail for collecting. Not only do Japanese artists and companies make some incredible pieces to covert, but they also dominate in the wide world of curating.”

Omoi’s selection of accessories, apparel, home goods and stationery has earned its reputation of being an excellent gift shop, especially amongst the geeky and eccentric crowd. Liz tells us that zakka shops are a mainstay in Japan, with emphasis on every items that may be small in size but have a good quality, feeling and design. “… the idea isn’t to be a shop about Japan, but more like the kind of shop you would actually see in Omotesando or Umeda.” Liz states.

Frequent patrons may notice some recent arrivals in the realm of designer stationery, which has been a popular sell on the website. New to the shop this season are “DAYS Collection” pens, pencils and notebooks, along with tons of new masking tape colors. For the non-stationery geeks, Liz has made mention that the Omoi folks are currently obssessed with playing cards from IDEA, a Japanese home and design company. For lovers of t-shirts from SEIBEI, Omoi is also happy to share that they’ve recently restocked.

All in all, Omoi continues to grow both in-store and online. So be sure to visit the shop on Pine Street, OmoiOnline.com or check out their Tumblr for their thoughts and musings.

Image via Moo Noo

Celebrate the warm weather by perusing gallery window-fronts…

First Friday: Friday, May 4th

West Looked East @ Arch Enemy: Gallery ML, the kickstarter-funded body art venue, has opened a sister gallery on Arch Street in Old City. The first show is by local artist Gabe Tiberino. Opening reception 5-10pm.

Philadelphia @ Part Time Studios: New paintings by AJ Rombach. “Since moving here, August 2010, I’ve been struck by the nature of the city: it’s subcultures, it’s layout, it’s people and it’s movements… A body of work largely representational, although not completely, of scenes uniquely Philadelphian’.” Part Time Studios in Fishtown.

Bright Visions @ Bluestone Fine Art Gallery: Opening reception for local artist/ friend of Geekadelphia, Britt Miller. Free event, 5-9pm.

Other artist events and open galleries for May 2012:

Saturday, May 5th events:

Lost Treasures: Screenprints of Photos Taken Under the El: Opening for Ralph Stollenwerk show 6-9pm @ Slingluff Gallery in Fishtown.

TBA @ Art in the Age: a vague ‘First Friday @ AITA’ post was left on their blog calendar… not sure on a formal showing (they had their hands full with the Federal Donuts drinks for your donuts party), but it’s possible that the Warby Parker eyeglasses showroom is still on display?

Plastopia; Visual Works by MooNoo: Opening reception 6-10pm @ Phantom Hand Gallery On South Street.

Send gallery tips to geekadelphia@gmail.com

It’s 2012. Penn Museum is celebrating the imminent end of the world by building sand castles.

Before giving away all your worldly goods and drinking strychnine-laced Kool-Aid, though, we recommend you check out the upcoming premiere of Penn Museum’s Maya 2012: The Lords of Time, an exhibition that will commence with the construction outside of 30th Street Station of a 25-ton recreation of famed Mayan monument Altar Q, located in present-day Honduras.

The sculpture will be made of sand, the only medium truly worthy of the enterprise—because it can crumble like your hopes and dreams before the onslaught of the apocalypse!

Artists Greg and Bandi Glenn are starting work on the sculpture today and aim to finish it by May 5, just in time for the public opening of the May 2012 exhibition. On May 3 at 5pm, visitors to the sculpture can meet a host of Penn and Honduran officials, including the Ambassador of Honduras, Jorge Ramon Hernández-Alcerro, Dr. Richard Hodges, Penn Museum Director; Loa Traxler, Curator of MAYA 2012; and the artists themselves, Greg and Brandi Glenn.

Visitors may not stomp on the sculpture, as it could precipitate the end of the world far ahead of schedule. Respect the sculpture, folks; no one has ever trifled with Mayan eschatology using sand before.

The original Altar Q was carved in 776 AD and depicts the kings of Copan, the site at which the monument is located, as the Mayan “Lords of Time.” The exhibition explores the rise and fall of Copan and Mayan concepts of time and the calendar.

Visitors can see artifacts recently excavated from the site and hear modern Mayan concerns for the future… if there is one.

Learn more about the exhibit at the Penn Museum’s official website.

I paused for a second the first time I ever heard the word “Paleoartist”, even in context, I had to stop and think about it. But considering the nature of what Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger, what would you call it? Bob and Tess are as knowledgeable of dinosaurs as they are skilled in their renderings.

When you meet them, they speak with a passion so strong that if harnessed for evil, it could darken the sky and bring about another ice age. When I swung by Bob and Tess’ studio, I thought that few people would ever know two of the world’s most brilliant and talented dinosaur artists reside in the heart of Fairmount. Behind some unassuming rowhomes, they’ve got their studio where they’ve fashioned together everything from the world’s largest dinosaur mural to the illustration that would later be the Spinosaurus in 2001′s Jurassic Park III.

The path to dinosaur art was one Bob started down at the age of four, when he saw the foldout cover of LIFE magazine. It featured Rudolph Zallinger’s mural of dinosaurs from the Peabody Museum. From then on, there was no turning back. For Tess, she took her love of art and science, and gravitated toward paleontology when she met Bob. Along the way, she even became good friends with the paleo guys at the Smithsonian.

Seasoned veterans in traditional fine art, they’ve since gravitated to doing their work entirely digital. As they stated themselves, the pair work at the intersection of art, science and technology — and I’m hard-pressed to think of a finer example than their stunning work depicting plants and animals long since departed from our world. (more…)

Sonar Love by Doug LaRocca of the Autumn Society

The Holy Trinity of hated animals are bats, snakes and rats. But don’t you think it’s time we give the winged mammals a break? After all, living in Philly means that your chances of having a nasty horror movie-styled run-in with the flying beasties isn’t exactly too high. Besides, they could really use your help.

Currently, several bat species are suffering from White Nose Syndrome — a fungal disease that was first identified in 2006. Since then, it has killed millions of bats throughout North America and continues to threaten countless more. With no cure in sight as of yet, the best tool seems to be raising awareness… and funds.

Thus, the Bat Conservation International organization has dedicated itself to “conducting and supporting science-based conservation efforts” in order to “ensure bats will be helping to maintain healthy environments and human economies into the future.”

Impressed by the work that the outfit is doing, local artists Ryann Casey, Jeanne D’Angelo and Michael Murkowski (all of whom are members of BCI) have organized this week’s Empty Night Skies art opening and sale at South Philly’s Grindcore House. Featuring bat-themed works from over 25 area artists, the ambitious show aims to raise funds so that BCI can help combat White Nose Syndrome.

Even if you still loathe bats, you should check it out to support your friends and neighbors who have gathered together to ensure that these creatures of the night stick around.

Empty Night Skies: A Show to Benefit Bat Conservation International
Friday, April 20th, 2012 7pm-10pm.

Grindcore House
1515 S. 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA
www.grindcorehouse.com

match.com website.

Have we told you lately that we love Scott Derby? Because we do!

Honestly, it’s kind of hard *not* to dig Derby, a hometown hero who has had 7 of his old school tattoo designs appear on TeeFury.com.

Derby makes it an even 8 with his latest illustration, this time paying homage to the immortal Doctor Who. The simple black and white concept is a bit of a departure from Scott’s typically colorful work but definitely gives The Doctor the iconic due it deserves.

No matter which Doctor (the 4th Doctor is MY Doctor) is yours, all of the TV Time Lords are represented with this awesome tee.

But remember – act fast! This shirt will be available for 24 hours only on April 18th. So make sure you visit Teefury promptly at midnight!

This Tuesday, the Keswick Theatre will be overrun by puppets behaving badly when the Stuffed & Unstrung tour rolls into town.

Serving as ringleader for this adult puppet improv circus is Patrick Bristow. A successful actor (you may remember him from Ellen and Showgirls) and improv teacher in Los Angeles, Bristow co-created, directs and hosts Stuffed and Unstrung for the Jim Henson Company.

Here’s what he has to say about making felt perform spontaneously, how this isn’t the usual Muppet show, and how he feels about being a part of the most notorious film of the ‘90s.

How did you get involved with Stuffed & Unstrung?

Before it was Stuffed & Unstrung it was just a series of classes. Brian Henson wanted to add improv techniques to the skill set of some of the puppeteers that he hired on a regular basis for their various film and TV projects. He heard about me and brought me in to teach six weeks of a once a week three-hour class. The puppeteers took to it really quickly. Some of them actually had improv training before, but they hadn’t really done it with puppets, and that’s a different ball of wax entirely. So they were just doing so good and the classes were so fun that I suggested that we do an informal performance for the other Henson employees and give these puppeteers a chance to try doing puppet improv in front of a real but friendly audience.

Brian took it a step further and he scheduled the soundstage on the Henson lot — which is the old Charlie Chaplin lot –and brought in bleachers and sound equipment and everything. Before we knew it we had an audience of about 200 people for that first demonstration of puppet improv. There was no notion of doing it as a show at that point. There was a thought of “hey maybe this is a TV show down the road.” So we did that performance and there were people from the Aspen Comedy Festival there and they said bring your show to the festival in February. And we were like it’s not really a show, it’s just a demonstration, but okay.

So we went there and there were reps from the Edinburgh Festival there. They booked us for the following August and before you knew it we were getting these bookings kind of by kismet. So we started forming a show based on those early endeavors. The show has really taken its form over several years of performances here, there and everywhere. It became Stuffed and Unstrung, which is a puppet variety show that’s mostly improvised, but there are some set pieces as well. (more…)

When I was just a little kid, my mom wouldn’t let my brother and I have guns. Wisely, because we were like 5 and 7 years old. She also wouldn’t let us have toy guns, but that was a losing battle. You see, we loved acting out scenes from the surprisingly violent movies we were allowed to watch. Every stick became either a sword, rocks were grenades, and mailing tubes were bazookas.

Every day we were diving in slow-mo, twitching and pulsing as we took hundreds of imaginary bullets to the chest, gasping out instructions for the other to carry on without us, turning in performances that would make David Caruso accuse us of overacting. The amount of spittle spent on machine gun noises would probably gross us out today, but in our back yard we were heroes.

The one thing we always wanted, but could never convince mom or dad to get us, was fake blood. We would have settled for the packets you bite down on a la The Sting, or even just the liquid stuff that we could smear on our shirts during the dramatic “DON’T YOU DARE DIE ON ME” moments.

Alas, we never got it, but it did make us enthusiastic for the theater at a young age when we saw an outdoor production of Macbeth with enough of the red stuff flowing to make it appear that the Kool Aid man had been shot.

Which is a long winded lead up for the fact that ol’ Billy Wigglestick’s bloodiest play, Titus Andronicus, is being performed by the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater from April 18 – May 19th. In addition to puppets and special light effects, the production will feature lots and lots and lots of fake blood.

I can hardly wait.

Titus Andronicus @ the Philly Shakespeare Theatre
April 18th – May 19th, 2012

Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre‎
2111 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 496-9722
phillyshakespeare.org‎