People, Places and Things

HAPPY LABOR DAY!!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!

TODAY…

**ENSLEY’S FOOD TRUCK THURSDAYS, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. at 601 19th Street in Ensley.

**EVERY THURSDAY HAPPY HOUR, 5:30 – 9 p.m. at the Kappa Komplex, 45 6th Avenue South.

**TASTEMAKER THURSDAY – Every Thursday at Blaze Ultra Lounge, 228 Roebuck Plaza Drive, 8 p.m.- 12 a.m. with DJ Ace Twon (95.7 JAMZ) in the mix hosted by Audio Life and GMC Promo.

**READ THE BIRMINGHAM TIMES. Catch up on the news!

**R&B & KARAOKE THURSDAYS at 4 Seasons Sports Bar & Grill, Happy Hour 4-8 p.m. with DJ SLIP mixing Live and hosted by KURVY KERRI and Le’DARIUS HILLIARD.

**THIRSTY THURSDAY at Hookah 114 17th Street No.

**STARDOME SHOWCASE at the StarDome Comedy Club.

**THIRD THURSDAY BLUES JAM, 7 p.m. at TrueStory Brewing.

**FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE KARAOKE WITH DOMINIQUE at Perfect Note.

FRIDAY…

**QUE’s BAR & GRILL GROOVIN’ on 19th Street in Ensley.

**LIT FRIDAYS WITH RIPCORD, 8 p.m. – 2 a.m. at 4501 Gary Avenue in Fairfield.

**ON THE BORDER and THE EAGLES TRIBUTE at Iron City.

**THE SIDEKICK SHOW WITH JR. AND SPECIAL K at the StarDome Comedy Club.

**FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE KARAOKE WITH DOMINIQUE at Perfect Note

SATURDAY…

**WOODLAWN STREET MARKET, 12 p.m.

**CARIBBEAN BLOCK PARTY AND FAMILY FUN DAY, 2-4 p.m. at Fairfield Civic Center with kids activities, limbo line contest and $100 for the winner. FREE. Call (205) 427-0710 for more.

**SATURDAYS IN THE GARDENS at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

**WINE DOWN HAPPY HOUR, 4-9 p.m. at Saferoom Lounge Bar.

**A VEGAS SHOW WITH LOGAN THE ENTERTAINER at Perfect Note.

**THE SIDEKICK SHOW WITH JR. AND SPECIAL K at the StarDome Comedy Club.

SUNDAY…

**WORSHIP AT THE SIXTH, 9:30 a.m. at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church.

**FAMILY TIME, GOOD FOOD AND MOVIES.

**THE SIDEKICK SHOW WITH JR. AND SPECIAL K at the StarDome Comedy Club.

MONDAY…

**REGGAE MUSIC EVERY MONDAY NIGHT with DJ DUSTY, 8 p.m. at Black Magic 2904 Lomb Avenue.

**EVERY MONDAY is MONSLAYYY – THE CARIBBEAN WAY, 8 p.m. at the Vault with TRINI and BRENT TRINI-FRESH PIERRE. FREE.

TUESDAY…

**EVERY TUESDAY – TRUE STORY BREWINGS PRESENTS TUESDAY JAZZ SESSIONS, 7- 10 p.m., 5510 Crestwood Blvd.

**TASTY TUESDAYS at Platinum of Birmingham.

**EVERY TUESDAY LIT AND JAZZ with DAVID TALLEY AND FRIENDS, 7 p.m. at Lit on 8th, 518 Rev. Abraham Woods Blvd.

WEDNESDAY…

**INTERFAITH NOONDAY PRAYER SERVICES every Wednesday, Noon at Linn Park in Downtown Birmingham.

**WEDNESDAY NIGHT LAUGHS WITH BENNIE MAC at the StarDome Comedy Club.

**REGGAE WEDNESDAY NIGHTS, 8 p.m. at Blue Onyx.

NEXT THURSDAY…

**READ THE BIRMINGHAM TIMES. Catch up on the news!

**COMEDIAN DERRICK STROUP at the StarDome Comedy Club.

NEXT FRIDAY…

**QUE’s BAR & GRILL GROOVIN’ on 19th Street in Ensley

**LIT FRIDAYS WITH RIPCORD, 8 p.m. – 2 a.m. at 4501 Gary Avenue in Fairfield.

**COMEDIAN LAVELL CRAWFORD at the StarDome Comedy Club.

**RUBEN STUDDARD UNPLUGGED BIRTHDAY WEEKEND at Perfect Note.

FOR MOTORSPORTS LOVERS…HISTORY IN THE MAKING…

**MYLES ROWE FIRST BLACK DRIVER TO WIN INDYCAR RACE – MYLES ROWE (with Alabama ties) became the first Black driver to win an Indycar-Sanctioned race on what would have been the 100th birthday of Wendell Scott, the only Black NASCAR driver to win in the premier Cup Series. Rowe (21 years old) made history in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship, completing a thrilling last-lap pass for victory in the middle race of a series triple-header Sunday at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, New Jersey. The New York resident, (from Atlanta) who drives for the new Force Indy team, overcame wet conditions on the 2.25-mile track to seize the lead from points leader Kiko Porto on the last of 20 laps after starting 10th. Force Indy is led by African-American team principal Rod Reid, who has put an emphasis on hiring Black American men and women in all departments of the team (from office staff to mechanics to drivers such as Rowe, who was hired in February). Rowe’s mom is from Atmore, Alabama. Rowe is attending college in New York studying film/photography. He will debut in the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barbers Motorsports Park, April 24th, 2022 Season Opener. CONGRATULATIONS MYLES ROWE!!

NEWS TO USE…

FOR MUSIC LOVERS…

**AFROJAMS is Saturday, 7 p.m. It is a free live music concert with SISAUNDRA LEWIS, featuring TOOFAN. This is a free on-line event.

FOR ART LOVERS…

AT BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM OF ART…

**SEPTEMBER 16 – ART IN CONVERSATION/POWER WOMEN OF ASIA, 10:30 a.m. on September 16, join Hina Zaidi for an insider look of the Power Women rotation in the Asian galleries which explores ways art can help us to look critically at the social standards to which women have been held.

FOR BUSINESS LOVERS…

**JARVIS ESCOTT RECEIVES RENASANT ROOTS CERTIFICATION – Jarvis Escott, First Impressions Marketing Group, LLC completed the Renasant Bank Entrepreneurial Success Series Capacity Building Workshop Program. The program was held July through August, 2021. Others around the southeast that attended the virtual program were Derrick Walker (Birmingham), Kim King (Birmingham), Roderick McWiliams (Montgomery), Teco Stephens (Bessemer), Cassandra King (Birmingham), Sharon Fletcher Jones (Orlando, Fla.), Treao Jackson (Franklin, Tenn.), Kara Bond (Clarksville, Tenn.), Shirley Hendrix (Tupelo, Miss.), Donn S. John (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) and David A. Sadler (Montgomery).

FOR COMMUNITY LOVERS…

**UAB MEN’S SOCCER FOR A CURE CLASSIC is Friday and Sunday at BBVA Compass Field.

**TITUSVILLE FREE SOCCER CLINIC – Boys and girls ages 7-17 are invited to the free soccer clinic, September 14th, 21st and 28th and October 5th, 12th, 19th. Clinics are 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. at Memorial Park, 526 6th Avenue South. Call Jay Hammond (205) 451-9895 for more.

**BPL FOOD FOR FINES – Birmingham Public Library (BPL) holds Annual Food for Fines Campaign. The 7th annual “Food for Fines,” a canned food drive is held each September that allows patrons to pay off up to $10 toward their library fines by donating canned or boxed foods. One dollar in fines will be waived for each item of food donated at any of the 40 locations. The waived fees apply to fines only. The food drive is open to anyone, even if they do not have overdue materials. Expiration dates on food must be visible on all donated food items. Contact the library for more details.“Food for Fines” is held in conjunction with the annual “National Library Card Signup Month.”

**VIRTUAL CAHABA RIVER FRY DOWN – This catfish Cook-Off and Festival is online now with Grand Finale Live on October 2 at noon. Free for everyone to watch. Vote with your donation.

**PHOTO CHALLENGE – For more info, go to: www.birminghamal.gov/photochallenge. Send entry agreement and photos to: photochalenge@birminghamal.gov.

**SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITIES WITH ACHE STUDENT GRANT PROGRAM – The Alabama Commission on Higher Education is coordinating for higher education in the State of Alabama. Application deadline is September 15. The scholarship award is up to $1,200. The Alabama Student Grant Program is a state student assistance program established to provide financial assistance to residents of the State of Alabama for undergraduate, non-sectarian education at independent, nonprofit, post-secondary institutions of higher learning located within the State of Alabama. Applicants must be a citizen of the United States or in the process of becoming a citizen. Must not be enrolled and not intend to enroll in a course of study leading to an undergraduate degree in theology, divinity, or other religious vocation. This grant is available only to students at an eligible independent Alabama college or university. This is not a need based program. Grant amounts vary from year-to-year based on the availability of funds, but cannot exceed $3,000 per academic year. The following institutions are the only participants of the Alabama Student Grant Program: Amridge University, Birmingham Southern College, Faulkner University, Huntingdon College, Miles College, Oakwood University, Samford University, Spring Hill College, South University – Montgomery, Stillman College, U.S. Sports Academy, & University of Mobile. Go to : ache.edu.com

**BUILD UP COMMUNITY SCHOOL ENROLLING – Enroll now at the Build Up Community School for 9th and 10th Grade. For more; call (205) 847-4086 or go to www.buildup.work/enroll.

**NEED SPANISH TUTOR – EZ World Academy is teaching classes. Register at: ezworldacademy.com.

**ENSLEY GATHERING at TASTY TUESDAYS, September 7, 5 p.m. until with FREE Dinner Buffet and Drink Specials at Platinum of Birmingham. For more, call (205) 413-9846.

**AFRICAN HEALERS NETWORK monthly event of healers with reiki music, meditation, martial arts, healthy eating and more will be September 25, noon – 4 p.m. at 121 Tuscaloosa Avenue S.W.

FOR PLANT LOVERS…

BIRMINGHAM BOTANICAL GARDENS …

**FALL PLANT SALE – Birmingham Botanical Gardens will host its annual Fall Plant Sale on Saturday, September 11, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. outdoors in the Gardens’ Formal Garden and Hill Garden in person at Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Hundreds of plants—many of which have been nurtured at the Gardens by the Friends’ dedicated volunteer growing groups—will be available for purchase. Proceeds from the sale will support the Friends’ mission: to protect, nurture, and share the wonders of Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Members of the Friends will enjoy first dibs on plant offerings through the Friends’ Members-Only Online Shopping (Friday, August 27) and Member In-Person Priority Shopping (4–5:30 p.m. on Friday, September 10). Members will also receive their annual member plant gift: a hydrangea ‘Blue Billow’ (Hydrangea serrata ‘Blue Billow’) courtesy of Leaf & Petal. Shoppers are encouraged to bring portable shopping carts such as a folding utility cart, collapsible wagon, or little red wagon to the sale. For more information about the Friends’ Fall Plant Sale, visit bbgardens.org/fallplantsale.

FOR ART NEWS AND LOVERS…Around the World… (Some taken from ARTnews, and Art in America. For more, visit: ArtinAmerica.com.)

TEN EXHIBITIONS OPENING IN SEPTEMBER…AROUND THE WORLD… Here’s a list of the most significant exhibitions opening around the world in September—from retrospectives of historical figures to new commissions from dynamic young artists.

**RAUL DE NIEVES – Raúl de Nieves has been a member of the art-noise band Haribo, an actor in several Ryan Trecartin videos, and an opera with composer Colin Self. He also has his own, distinctively individual work as a sculptor, a kind of bizarre couture of beads, bells, and fringes, often presented in all-over environments of plastic and foil styled to look like stained glass. For his solo exhibition at the ICA Boston, de Nieves is debuting a new body of work. Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Sept. 1, 2021– July 24, 2022.

**JOAN MITCHELL – Among the few women members of the Eighth Street Club, Joan Mitchell was a stalwart of the Abstract Expressionist movement. This retrospective follows the full arc of her career by bringing together works produced in the U.S. and Europe. Featuring rarely seen paintings, pastels, and works on paper, as well as sketchbooks and archival photographs, the show explores both Mitchell’s artistic practice and her daily life.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Sept. 4, 2021–Jan. 17, 2022; Baltimore Museum of Art, Mar. 6–Aug. 14, 2022.

**CAMILLE PISSARRO – Regarding Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne once wrote: “He had the good fortune to be born in the West Indies, where he learned how to draw without masters.” Occasionally, the case needs to be made that Pissarro was more interesting than he may seem, both as an artist and as a person. His image is staider than that of Cezanne, the bad boy of proto-Modernism. But he was no less an innovator. Often credited with founding Impressionism, he pushed and pulled the style in many subtle ways. “Camille Pissarro: The Studio of Modernism,” the first presentation of the artist’s work in Switzerland in over sixty years, fleshes out Kunstmuseum Basel’s stock of eight paintings and many works on paper with numerous loans. Kunstmuseum Basel, Sept. 4, 2021–Jan. 23, 2022.

**BIENAL DE SAO PAULO – When curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti announced his vision for the 34th Bienal de São Paulo in 2019, the event promised to be one of the biennial’s most ambitious. Unfolding over several months from March to December 2020, the main group exhibition in Parque Ibirapuera is complemented with solo shows, performances, and more across the city and beyond. The pandemic caused a yearlong delay and a substantial reduction of programming. But at its core, the exhibition still considers art’s relations to its surroundings, and how these connections evolve—a fitting theme in a time when everything rapidly changes from one moment to the next. Titled “Faz escuro mas eu canto” (“Though It’s Dark, Still I Sing”), the exhibition includes ninety-one artists, including Alfredo Jaar, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Belkis Ayón, Deana Lawson, Gala Porras-Kim, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, and Tony Cokes. Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Sept. 4–Dec. 5, 2021.

**OSCAR MUNOZ – While established artists often work at a large scale, using material presence to convey an expansion on the ideas of their prior work, Oscar Muñoz has remained dedicated to ephemerality and disappearance as both thematic and formal parameters. Many of his serial drawings, sculptures, videos, and photographs are portraits rendered in coal dust, refracted in water, abstracted into a grid of coffee-stained sugar cubes, or revealed only by hot breath on a mirror. The Phoenix Art Museum’s mid-career survey of fifty works elucidates the tangible events—war, assassinations, urban development, cyclical political conflicts—that drive the Colombian artist’s critical and poetic oeuvre. Phoenix Art Museum, Sept. 11, 2021–Jan. 16, 2022.

**THEA DJORDJADZE – Thea Djordjadze’s metal sculptures and site-specific installations follow the cold geometry of organizational systems. But her titles (I trust the liar. With pleasure, tea or that is the last item on this list: a glass of anger) and secondary materials (sheer curtains, foam wedges) hint at psychological tensions and slanted logics that keep her work feeling enigmatic. The Berlin-based artist’s exhibition of new and prior works responds to the distinctive neo-Renaissance architecture of the Gropius Bau, and is installed in the galleries that once held displays of archaeological finds by a pioneer of the field, Heinrich Schliemann. Gropius Bau, Berlin, Sept. 18, 2021–Jan. 16, 2022.

**BARBARA KRUGER – In the 1980s and early ’90s, Barbara Kruger’s deconstructed ad-like photos and terse, incisive phrases (“I shop therefore I am,” “your body is a battleground”) seemed be everywhere—magazines, exhibitions, posters, billboards—assailing power structures and their victims with strident black, white, or red lettering.

Making extensive use of screens and LED videos, “Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You” brings together sixty works from every phase of the artist’s career, ranging from early single-page paste-ups to full room “wraps” to sound and digital moving-image works produced from about 2000 onward. Art Institute of Chicago, Sept. 19, 2021–Jan. 24, 2022; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mar. 20–July 17, 2022; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2022.

**RAFAEL BARRADAS – Rafael Barradas, a self-taught artist from Uruguay, was only twenty-three when he followed an old friend to Paris, where he ended up immersing himself in Cubism, Futurism, and other various avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century. Barradas developed a style he called Vibrationism. Dedicated to capturing the energies of modern life, Barradas’s paintings often featured crowded streets, taverns, and card players, melding their settings and subjects together in frenzied wholes. “Rafael Barradas: Arrow Man” opens at Malba as part of the museum’s twentieth anniversary celebrations. The retrospective showcases oils, watercolors, and works on paper from 1913–23, a prolific period he spent in Spain. Malba (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), Sept. 21, 2021–Feb. 14, 2022.

**HUANG RUI – Once an urban youth “sent down” to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution, Huang Rui emerged as a central figure of the Great Opening-Up that swept China following the death of Mao Zedong. A co-founder of the Stars group, whose experimental work prompted police action outside the National Art Museum in 1979, Huang went on to help run the journal Today, to self-exile in Japan for fifteen years, and to return in 2000 as a major force behind the 798 contemporary art district in Beijing. “Huang Rui: Ways of Abstraction” presents non-representational work from every phase of the artist’s career, which encompasses oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, ink painting, photography, and performance, all of them balancing Western and traditional Chinese influences. UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, Sept. 25-Dec. 19, 2021.

**JASPER JOHNS – A quintessential American artist, Jasper Johns became known for his emblematic depictions of flags, maps, and other ubiquitous images of postwar mass culture. Johns’s radically inventive style helped propel new directions in Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual art. “Jasper Johns: Mind/Mirror,” running concurrently at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, emphasizes practices of doubling that the artist has continually employed over his seven-decade career. Across the two institutions, the retrospective includes nearly five hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, working proofs, and monotypes, with both iconic pieces and previously unseen ones, as well as works from Johns’s own collection by Japanese artists he befriended while exhibiting and studying with master printers in Tokyo in the 1960s and ’70s.

FOR COMEDY LOVERS…

AT THE STARDOME COMEDY CLUB…

**TODAY… THE STARDOME SHOWCASE …Check out ‘the best’ of the best in Birmingham and what the surrounding areas have to offer. You could witness a future star right here on the StarDome stage.

**FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY… THE SIDEKICK SHOW with JR. AND SPECIAL K… Steve Harvey has now made Kier Spates a regular member of the Steve Harvey Morning Show. He delivers daily funny tips as Junior at 7:48 a.m. EST, Monday through Thursday on the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Junior is also the spokesperson for the popular dating site Locateyourlove.com. Finally, you can catch Junior as the opening act on Steve Harvey’s Grand Finale Comedy Tour. Critics everywhere have responded by calling Junior “THE NEXT BIG THING IN STAND-UP COMEDY”. Comedian/Writer/Radio Personality/Actor Karl “Special” K. Douglas holds it down daily on The Rickey Smiley Morning Show; the funniest and fastest growing syndicated radio morning show in the country. His voice is heard by millions in over 65 affiliate markets.

**WEDNESDAY….WEDNESDAY NIGHT LAUGHS WITH BENNIE MAC… Wednesday Night Laughs returns with Bennie Mac and he’s bringing comedian Niki Coleman, Robeezy and Joyhance Collins headliner and Comedic narrator Bennie Mac. Don’t miss this entertaining performance.

**NEXT THURSDAY…COMEDIAN DERRICK STROUP,,, Alabama native and stand-up Comedian Derrick Stroup is not your average slow talking Southerner. With the cadence of an angry auctioneer, he locks people in with his detailed stories and over the top energy. He started doing comedy nine years ago in Jacksonville, Alabama. Derrick moved to Denver, Colorado in 2015 and has never looked back. Since then, he has become a regular at several clubs in the state and the country. He regularly goes on the road with John Crist and Josh Blue and he even won one of the biggest Comedy Contests in the Country in 2019 at the world famous Comedy Works in Denver. The well respected competition has over 250 entries each year. Derrick also recently shot his Dry Bar Comedy Stand-Up special which was released in summer 2021. Don’t miss your chance to see one of America’s rising stars in stand-up comedy

**NEXT FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY… COMEDIAN LAVELL CRAWFORD.

COMING SOON…

**SEPTEMBER 10 – HIS SHADOW by LOY A WEBB at Encore Theatre and Gallery

**SEPTEMBER 12 – BATTLE OF THE BANDS (MEET ME AT THE 50th)

**SEPTEMBER 25 – SISTAH STRUT at Legion Field.

**OCTOBER 1-3 – EARTH LIBRARIES BOOK FAIR at 6 55th Place S.

**OCTOBER 5 – FREDDIE GIBBS at Zydeco

**OCTOBER 10 – ERYKAH BADU at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater.

**OCTOBER 31 – CLAY FALL FESTIVAL at Clay-Chalkville High School Football Field.

**JULY 7-17, 2022 – THE WORLD GAMES are coming. Look for more!

Well, that’s it.Tell you more ‘next’ time. People, Places and Things by Gwen DeRu is a weekly column. Send comments to my emails: gwenderu@yahoo.com  and thelewisgroup@birminghamtim