Local favorites Hammer No More the Fingers don’t make releases — or appearances — much these days, so when they do, it’s not something to miss. In 2023, the the Durham trio of Duncan Webster, Joe Hall, and Jeff Stickle released their first album in eleven years, Silver Zebra, which Jordan Lawrence reviewed in the INDY, writing that the band’s vibe remains “fanciful, carefree, and somewhat jock-ish,” able to balance an “approachably offbeat aesthetic with the looming specter of more serious feelings.” Canine Heart Sounds (another longtime local favorite) opens alongside Just Jess. Tickets are $19 in advance.
Poet Crystal Simone Smith’s latest collection — Runagate, out earlier this summer with Duke Press — applies Japanese poetic forms haiku and tanka to narratives of the enslaved, drawing on archival material like bills of sale, interviews, narratives, and fugitive runaway ads. The effect is powerful, as Alexis Pauline Gumbs writes: “Smith centers the voices of freedom seekers and survivors of US chattel enslavement with an intimacy and simplicity that gives these ancestors room to breathe.” This free public reading takes place at the Horton Grove location at Historic Stagville and will be followed by a Q&A.
This annual festival celebrates its sweet sixteen this year, with many years of Labor Day weekend programming under its belt. Bring the kids: There’s an array of child-friendly activities (and a kids’ corner) like an interactive Art Wall, theater and puppetry workshops, and storytelling sessions. This lively Fayetteville Street staple will also feature live music, a stacked vendor marketplace, and food trucks. If you want to make a day of it, stop by the Raleigh Market, held every Saturday at the State Fairgrounds.
Here’s one for anyone whose first flirtation with ink has led to a full sleeve: Tattoo historian C.W. Eldridge of the Tattoo Archive is delivering a talk on the form, exploring “the shift from the old Sponge & Bucket Shops to the rise of professional studios, tracing how and when tattoo conventions were born.” Eldrige, based in Winston-Salem, has been archiving and researching tattoos for decades. This event kicks off at 5 p.m. with pop-up shops from the Tattoo Archive and BookMistress (also based in Winston-Salem), with the lecture at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15; all proceeds go to the Freedom German Shepherd Rescue.
Performance artist Avital Meshi has spent months wearing a GPT device, making herself, in essence, a “hybrid AI-human entity.” In this performance piece, she will be sitting in the Ruby Lounge at Duke’s Rubenstein Arts Center, available for conversation to anyone who wants to participate. The twist: The participant decides whether they want Meshi to respond as herself or with her “GPT-aided self.”
Personally, I find this concept a bit distressing, but am interested in the ways that it invokes Marina Abramović’s 201 performance at MOMA, where she sat in silence in a long red dress for 700 hours, as viewers came and sat across from her, and am curious what response this performance will evoke in students and locals alike. Plus: If you want a palate cleanser, go check out Colombian artist and engineer Miler Lagos’s Merx Tree, a site-specific installation that begins September 2 and runs through October. Meshi will also have a second session on September 4.
