Rev. James Lawson may not be the best-known figure in the struggle to end segregation, but he was integral to its success. After embracing pacifist principles as a youth, he was imprisoned for resisting the draft. He later studied Gandhian methods of nonviolent protest while working as a Methodist missionary in India. A fortuitous meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. inspired him to pursue a long-standing desire to fight Jim Crow in the South, and in 1958 he moved to Nashville and enrolled in Vanderbilt’s Divinity School. Along with local civil rights activists such as Kelly Miller Smith, he conceived and organized the lunch counter sit-ins that desegregated downtown Nashville. These protests provided a model for similar actions across the South and got Lawson expelled from Vanderbilt. He went on to participate in many of the landmark events of the civil rights movement and in recent years has been active in a broad range of peace and justice issues, including immigrants’ rights and opposition to the Iraq war. Vanderbilt welcomes him back to deliver the keynote address, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” for its 2006 MLK Commemorative Series, Jan. 16-20. Lawson will speak on Tuesday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m. in Benton Chapel. The event is free and open to the public. For a complete list of events in the series, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/mlk/, or call 322-2457. —MARIA BROWNING   Music Thursday, 12th SLEEPING IN THE AVIARY Unless you’re from Wisconsin, you’ve probably never heard of Sleeping in the Aviary, punk rockers from Madison acclaimed for their eccentric dress and energy-infused performances. The trio, who are putting the finishing touches on their debut album, have undertaken to make every one of their shows memorable: fishnet stockings, face paint and spontaneous covers of ’60s hits by female singers ranging from Lesley Gore to Petula Clark all complement the band’s pop-friendly, guitar-heavy scream rock. Although Sleeping in the Aviary’s music is clearly influenced by grunge, pinpointing their sound can be elusive. There are traces of early Nirvana mingled with the raw, edgy quality of The Violent Femmes and the thick, layered sound of Smashing Pumpkins. Whatever you hear, this show is recommended for angst-ridden teens and those who remember what it was like to be one. (www.myspace.com/sleepingintheaviary) The Basement —DAVE RUDOLPH THE FEDORA BROTHERS w/GENO & ZENO A disregard for strict genre boundaries isn’t just a contemporary phenomenon, and it’s encouraged by the rich legacy of wide-ranging material found in the rural Southern music of the early 1900s—country blues, brother duets, gospel and more. Performing here under the name Geno, Gene Bush is best-known around town as a bluegrass Dobro player (though his solo debut, Mississippi Made, is filled with John Hurt-style guitar), while Bruce Nemerov—a.k.a. Zeno—has earned recent laurels as a blues scholar with his book, Lost Delta Found. As the Fedora Brothers, the two men explore that legacy with warmth, chops and a deep knowledge of how to use them. Station Inn —JON WEISBERGER Friday, 13th THE BOX SOCIAL This Milwaukee band’s latest EP, Blown to Bits, brims with a young, loud, snotty rock ’n’ roll abandon that’s a couple generations removed from the Midwestern punk of bands like The Dead Boys, but it’s also got the good-humored smarts that made bands like Superchunk and Rocket From the Crypt so appealing in the ’90s. So even when they’re laying down thunderous guitar riffs that have the force of a gut punch, they also leave just enough space in their songs to allow for tension and release, as wiry guitar and bass lines uncoil into a surge of power chords and half-shouted vocals. Plenty of bands have got the sound down pat, but The Box Social’s music also crackles with verve and energy. To put it another way, other bands might sound fashionable, but these guys have style. The 5 Spot —JONATHAN MARX Friday, 13th-Saturday, 14th BELA FLECK AND THE FLECKTONES The intricate interlacing of bluegrass with jazz and whatever else proffered by banjo swami Fleck and his Flecktones (saxophonist Jeff Coffin, bass player Victor Lemonte Wooten and percussionist Roy “Future Man” Wooten) may be a tad NPR-ish for traditional high-lonesome fans, but the group’s virtuosic interplay can be riveting. The foursome recently reconvened after taking a year off for side projects, including a Fleck concerto that the Nashville Symphony will premiere in September. More immediately, his new album with the Flecktones, The Hidden Land, is set for release in mid-February. Coming after 2003’s bloated, guest-star-laden triple-CD set Little Worlds, it’s a pleasure to hear the stripped-bare sound of four outrageously skilled players talking to one another with their fingers—even if it’s still pretentious enough to kick off with a Bach fugue. Jackson Hall, TPAC —CHRIS NEAL Saturday, 14th BLOWFLY Clark Kent has Superman; mild-mannered R&B performer/songwriter Clarence Reid has Blowfly—you know, the masked man on the cover of all those albums your parents kept waaaay back in the closet. Along with his recent tourmate Rudy Ray Moore, his XXX-rated 1970s “party records” are the missing link between Redd Foxx, 2 Live Crew and Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and his “Blowfly for President” campaign picked up steam with the release of last year’s Fahrenheit 69—the cover of which has him busting a hole in the Capitol dome with his weapon of mass defucktion. The man is all about free erections. The End —JIM RIDLEY LESLIE & THE LY’S At first glance, Leslie Hall, the queen of the gem sweater, might appear to be the big, shy, awkward girl that got teased mercilessly in high school, but don’t be fooled—she’s a savvy performance artist with a keen sense of humor and a clearly defined vision, not the butt of any mean-spirited joke. Sure, there’s a dollop of irony in a Leslie & the Ly’s performance, but it’s not so much mockery as a life-affirming appreciation of all that’s absurd and weird in American culture. (And these days, an appreciation of the absurdity of our culture is an essential survival tool.) Though she plays on her corn-fed, mall-infused Iowa upbringing, she went to the Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and her shows are multimedia events that incorporate video, music, dance and, of course, her inimitable sense of fashion. So what if Leslie and the Ly’s don’t actually play their instruments live. Don’t we already get enough of that in Music City? (www.leslieandthelys.com) The Basement —JACK SILVERMAN Sunday, 15th LET FREEDOM SING! More than 40 years have passed since Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and laid out his vision for America: a “beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” Some years we seem closer to realizing that dream than others. But every year at this time, the nation celebrates King’s passionate pursuit of social justice and the powerful message of community that endures long after his death. Once again, the Nashville Symphony, the Celebration Chorus and the Celebration Youth Chorus mark the occasion by presenting Let Freedom Sing!, a fitting tribute to King’s life and legacy that intersperses excerpts from his writings with the gospel music that inspired him and some contemporary pieces that evoke his spirit. Now in its 13th year, the event will also feature a reading of the winning essay from the “I, Too, Have a Dream” contest, written by seventh-grader Anna Fleming of Brentwood. TPAC —KATIE DODD CINDY BULLENS Half a lifetime ago, shortly after Bullens put out a tough, passionate rock debut, she jumped off a San Francisco club stage onto a long table and, while playing a lead run, kicked a pitcher of beer onto me and a friend while strutting down the table and back. We stayed, too turned on by Bullens’ commitment to rock’s life-opening possibilities to worry about wet clothes. She was as good as her peers Tom Petty and John Mellencamp back then, and 26 years later, she remains a gutsy writer and an uncompromising rocker. “I never take things for granted,” she sings on her recent album, Dream #29, and the ageless crunch of the guitar chords and the joy in her voice prove she still finds transcendence in making music. Bullens may no longer recklessly jump on tables, but she’s still a believer. 3rd & Lindsley —MICHAEL McCALL Monday, 16th AN ALBATROSS They have a song called “Revolutionary Politics of Dance,” but it’s not a class war on the dance floor that An Albatross are looking to start. And if they did start one, there’s a good chance it would be over before most people knew it had started. This is a band that released an EP, We Are the Lazer Viking, that lasts all of eight shrieking, morphing, brain-pounding minutes. When your last album is roughly the length of a Built to Spill guitar solo, your live show has to be something unto itself, and An Albatross, ever the conceptualists, present their audiences with performances that are a lot like their music: hard to define, easy to enjoy and exploding with a crazed, absurdist energy. (http://analbatross.com) The End —STEVE HARUCH GREG GARING’S MUSIC CITY CIRCUS This week, Garing brings his touring Music City Circus home to roost. A new, mobile incarnation of his Alphabet City Opry—a grassroots music jamboree that garnered serious press and drew SRO crowds to a tiny bar in New York’s East Village in the late ’90s—the Circus is a showcase for Garing’s favorites on Nashville’s roots music scene. Last time it passed this way, the audience was treated to country blues, rockabilly and bluegrass from an assortment of guests, as well as a healthy dose of the man himself. There’s nothing vintage, throwback, alt or nostalgic about Garing’s brand of honky-tonk. His sound is jagged and effortless, unvarnished and dynamic—and pretty encompassing, judging by the eclectic crowds he draws. This isn’t to say that he and his band aren’t virtuosic; instrumental in the early-’90s neobilly revival on Lower Broad, Garing surrounds himself with wonderful, like-minded musicians. And his most effective instrument of all is his singular voice—arresting, haunting and sublime. ( ww.greggaring.com) The Basement —LEE STABERT Tuesday, 17th ERIC BRACE, THAD COCKRELL, DANIELLE HOWLE AND JULIE LEE In 2006, it’s not easy to name rock bands who are focusing on tones identifiable as alternative country and gaining new recognition for it. Last Train Home are one of them, though, and their lead singer and principal songwriter Eric Brace is key to their untimely success. Long a music journalist for the Washington Post, Brace brings a broad knowledge of honky-tonk, bluegrass and post-Dylan rock to his songwriting, yet manages to keep his literate lyrics and catchy tunes as admirably simple as the best country, all with a hip, of-the-moment sensibility. Also part of this formidable in-the-round is Thad Cockrell, whose honky-tonk and rock songs were producing tears in beers when so many in alt-country only dared to scream, and who’s gaining new praises, as of late, for his harmonious duets with Caitlin Cary. Danielle Howle, known for her lightly insinuating, nearly perky jazz- and R&B-influenced songs and comic between-song monologues, might just be Cockrell’s opposite number. Julie Lee combines folk themes and urban sophistication in ways that split the difference and round out this unusually strong bill. Bluebird Café —BARRY MAZOR Classical AMY JARMAN For this program of songs by American composers, soprano Jarman selected works that involve a strong engagement with American history and language. She’ll open the free Saturday concert at Turner Recital Hall with a classic modern work, Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs. Based on medieval Irish texts, this cycle shows Barber’s strengths as a composer of sustained passages of unmatched lyricism, but also with a liveliness more typical of musical theater. She follows that with a very recent piece by Benjamin Broening, on which she’s accompanied by electro-acoustic sounds. After these pieces, the program heads more deeply into American cultural sources: songs by Libby Larsen that use cowboy/cowgirl poems and a poem by Robert Creeley, John Kander’s setting of a Civil War letter, and songs based on Emily Dickinson poems by Aaron Copland and Robert Beaser. Kander is best known as the composer of Broadway musicals like Cabaret and Chicago, and that background serves him well in devising a musical setting to deliver the text of a letter from a Union officer to his wife soon before his death at Bull Run. The piece has stylistic similarities to Samuel Barber, as does Beaser’s writing, and these pieces should neatly tie the program together under Barber’s model. —DAVID MADDOX BRADLEY HUNTER WELCH Organ recitals in church settings may seem inescapably liturgical, no matter how diverse the selections. It’s also unlikely that any one organist will turn the classical establishment on its head in the same way that a prodigious soprano or violinist sometimes will do. But the program that young musician Bradley Hunter Welch has been touring with is distinctive for its historical breadth and his remarkable facility. Beginning with Bach’s founding innovations, his programs draw a clear line through a selective yet broadening tradition in each of the centuries that followed. Works by 19th century French composers Charles-Marie Widor and Alexandre Guilman integrate impressionistic tendencies with an orchestral range of the organ’s colorations, breaking free from earlier chorale traditions. Welch ends with modern American composer William Albright, whose “improvisational wandering” in one piece evokes “an inebriated Sunday school teacher.” He’ll give a free recital Jan. 15 at the First Presbyterian Church, 4815 Franklin Road. —BILL LEVINE Theater JOHN HOLLEMAN AND CO. After a highly productive 2005, this adventurous company returns with another evening of performances united by atmospheric music, an improvisational sensibility and unusual, carefully crafted stage masks. Director Holleman has gathered a cast that includes players both with and without serious mask background, as he continues to work original material and hone his troupe’s developing skills at the same time. Among the new pieces is a Holleman one-act, “Swansong,” inspired by the writings of Anton Chekhov. Mask work aside, the players represent some of Nashville’s better actors, including John Devine, Wesley Paine, Marin Miller and five others. Presented Jan. 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Darkhorse Theater. For tickets, phone 228-9050. —MARTIN BRADY CARRIE WHITE The 1976 horror film Carrie, based on Stephen King’s novel, effectively exploited more thematic material than you’d ever find in a 21st-century Japanese chiller: adolescent self-consciousness, peer pressure, teenage bullying and prom night—not to mention telekinesis. Goodlettsville’s New Day Theatre Company brings in the new year with Daryll Aderman’s stage adaptation of the story, which features a surreal, Gothic setting and generous amounts of gore, along with smoke, laser and strobe effects. Recommended for mature audiences, performances are Saturdays at 8 p.m., Jan. 14-28. For reservations, phone 859-0059. —MARTIN BRADY Art HANH HO: “THICKER THAN WATER” Each year the Hamblet Award goes to a graduating senior at Vanderbilt, with the prize money earmarked to support a year of travel and study related to studio art; upon returning home, the award winner stages an exhibit at the university’s Fine Arts Gallery. The 2004 winner was Hanh Ho, who will show the results of her Hamblet year this month. Ho created a series of self-portrait photographs casting herself in everyday settings like standing behind the counter of a convenience store, retrieving items at a dry cleaner or looking out of an elevator cab. The method sounds like Cindy Sherman, but the result is different: Ho is conscious of herself as a minority and enters settings that have distinct associations for someone who looks like her. Rather than seeing her appearance as a mask, she feels it reflects genetic makeup that goes along with heritage and culture to “weigh on who we are and the identity we create for ourselves.” The photos set up an encounter with Ho’s image as a minority, and much of her interest is in the uneasy dynamics of public encounters between minorities as strangers. The show opens with a reception 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12, and will run through Feb. 2. —DAVID MADDOX KEITH ANDREW SHORE AND KEITH WARREN GREIMAN: “CHAMPAGNE CAMPAIGN” The subjects of TAG Art Gallery’s latest show share the same first name, the same hometown (Philadelphia) and a similar aesthetic. Shore and Greiman approach their paintings and drawings with a sensibility that merges an appreciation for cartoon art and folk art alike, and their work is eye-catching and colorful enough that it’s been adapted for use by glossy magazines, newspapers, rock-band merchandise and other commercial enterprises. But Shore and Greiman both infuse their work with a distinct style and sensibility that goes beyond easy marketability. Greiman’s work at times conjures a vibrantly colorful fairy tale world where humans and animals commingle, while Shore’s imagery leans more toward drawings of characters, with a rich use of simple lines and colors. The show, which opened last weekend, runs through Jan. 28. —JONATHAN MARX CHAD AWALT AND SUZY SCARBOROUGH Currently showing at Gallery One, Atlantan Awalt and Columbia, S.C., painter Scarborough approach the human portrait from strikingly different vantage points. Awalt combines his studies in anatomy and physiology with woodcarving, a medium he was first drawn to by watching his artist grandfather. The result is exquisitely carved forms that go beyond simply observing the body as an object, as Awalt seeks to convey some emotional or narrative quality as well, often drawing on classical subject matter. In “Felicitas,” a female torso carved out of white oak winds upward in a spiral form, the sculptor’s use of negative three-dimensional space suggesting a lightness and buoyancy that’s fitting for a work inspired by the Roman goddess of success. Suzy Scarborough’s more meditative mixed-media paintings also seek to communicate inner states, though in her case she fixates on the nature of time as it relates to an individual’s own experience. Thus, in her untitled works, women gaze out contemplatively as birds look on and grids of geometric patterns suggest the tension between the physical, temporal world and the subjectivity of human consciousness. Even so, her subjects have an earthy quality, affirming the idea that we remain rooted in some fundamental way, no matter how lost in the clouds we may feel. The two artists show their work at Gallery One, 5133 Harding Road, through Feb. 12. For more info, visit www.galleryone.biz. —JONATHAN MARX Books CLIFFORD CONNER Is science always the result of inspiration in great minds? Not according to former Nashvillian Clifford Conner. In A People’s History of Science; Miners, Midwives, and “Low Mechanicks” (Nation Books), he emphasizes the role of often illiterate, uncited and undocumented artisans, craftsmen, tradesmen, laborers and slaves in furthering the knowledge of nature. In this “external” history, Conner argues that technology, usually thought of as the fruit of science, was more often its womb, and that class and intellectual biases often hindered the spread of knowledge generated by those who were actually working with nature. Conner demonstrates impressive scholarship and command of the secondary sources in this sweeping yet readable treatment that is sure to be controversial among those accustomed to the traditional narrative of science. He will discuss and sign his book at the Brentwood Barnes & Noble, 1 p.m. Jan. 14, and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, 6 p.m. Jan.18. —RALPH BOWDEN LOUIS SACHAR When last we encountered Armpit and X-Ray, they were doing time at sinister Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Facility, digging thousands of holes in a lizard-infested desert. In Small Steps, a sort-of sequel to Sachar’s awesome Holes—the last book in the world you should read kids at bedtime, unless you want a chorus of “Nooos!” every time you stop—Armpit takes center stage as he tries to follow five “small steps” toward a brighter future. It doesn’t take 15 pages for quick-talking scam artist X-Ray to trip him up with a scheme involving ticket scalping and a restless teenage pop star, whose music contains a cry for help only Armpit can hear. And once again, as with Holes, you’re in the passenger seat with a natural born storyteller behind the wheel, the kind who knows that the bumps and curves make the ride. Sachar reads from his new book 4 p.m. Tuesday at Davis-Kidd. —JIM RIDLEY Film BARRY LYNDON The best movie playing this week in Nashville theaters, Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 Thackeray adaptation is among the most ravishing films ever made—a sumptuous period piece for which cinematographer John Alcott used special lenses to work with candlelight. The first half charts the rise of a social-climbing Irish scoundrel (Ryan O’Neal); the second charts his downfall with a merciless fatalism film noir couldn’t match. It hasn’t screened here in at least 20 years; thanks to the invaluable Nashville Premieres group, the Frist Center presents a newly struck reel-to-reel print 7 p.m. Friday, free to the public. —JIM RIDLEY GAY & LESBIAN MINIFEST Good timing for the Belcourt: at a moment when the mainstreaming of gay-themed movies is the hottest topic going in entertainment coverage, the theater offers a four-film survey of current queer cinema, from the engagingly raunchy documentary Gay Sex in the 1970s to the gender-bending lesbian drag-ball study The Aggressives. The biggest coup is the local premiere of Craig Lucas’ The Dying Gaul, a bitter tale of compromise and bisexual head games in contemporary Hollywood; Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson star. The fest starts Friday and closes next week with one of Noel Murray’s favorite movies of 2005, My Summer of Love. —JIM RIDLEY BREAKFAST ON PLUTO While Brokeback Mountain was breaking the bank at Green Hills last weekend, Neil Jordan’s daffy picaresque about a young drag queen (Cillian Murphy) flouncing his way through the Troubles in 1970s Belfast snuck in almost without notice. Co-starring Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea and Bryan Ferry as a serial killer, the film plays at least through Thursday. —JIM RIDLEY 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT: HD SHOWDOWN Congratulations to Non-Sense Productions, the Nashville team selected for the finals of the 48 Hour Film Project on the strength of their short film “pieces.” Starting 7 p.m. Friday, filmmakers Greg Hallmark and Trey Mitchell, actress Kai Porter, and the rest of the Non-Sense crew will have exactly 48 hours to complete another film, in competition with crews from San Francisco, Miami, Des Moines and Cincinnati. The crews will be using a nifty new Panasonic HD camera; the winner gets to keep it. Follow their progress at nonsensefilms.blogspot.com. —JIM RIDLEY THE CRUCIBLE Arthur Miller adapted his McCarthy-era depiction of the Salem witch trials for this forceful 1996 film version, with Daniel Day Lewis as the farmer destroyed by the malice of a vengeful teenage accuser (Winona Ryder). Sponsored by Project Dialogue, the film screens Tuesday as part of the Sarratt Cinema’s spring schedule. —JIM RIDLEY