Here are three days worth of things to do. Happy weekend!

P.S. Reader Wes made a request in the comments that the rest of you might be interested in — while there are some musical performances listed in the daily and weekend to do lists, you can find days worth of music best bets, plus new tickets-on-sale info and other stories up at our Atlanta Music Scene blog. Still not enough? Run a search in the AccessAtlanta.com calendar above! It’s all there!

Friday, August 28

Books: Georgia Tech Professor Michael Dobbin discusses “Urban Design and People,” 6:30 p.m., Barnes & Noble-Georgia Tech, Atlanta. FREE.

Comedy: Kathleen Madigan performs, 8 p.m., The Punchline, Atlanta.

For families: Summer concert series continues with The Mike Veal Band, 7:30 p.m., Thrasher Park, Norcross. FREE.

Music: Los Lobos perform, 8 p.m., Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta. Q&A with band member Steve Berlin.

Music: The Return, a Beatles tribute band, performs, 8 p.m., The Cumming Playhouse, …

Continue reading Weekend to do list: August 28-30 »

What is this? And where is it? Give it a guess for this week’s Access Points photo game!

UPDATE: Think you know? Here’s the answer.

Access Points: Can you guess what and where this is?

My readers are awesome and out-and-about, so the first Access Points games have always yielded a correct response.

Let’s give it another go: if you know what it is and where to find it, share in the comments, or on Twitter @insideaccess! I’ll reveal the answer and its story at 4 p.m. Thursday.

Continue reading Access Points 5: Guess what and where this is! »

Starlight Drive-In opened in 1949. Here it is in 2000. AJC file photo.

The Starlight Six Drive-In theater turns 60 this year, and I’m not just being sweet when I say it hasn’t aged at all.

To celebrate, it’ll hold the 10th Starlight Six Drive-Invasion on Sept. 6, and throw in some birthday party antics.

Two stages, five films, 11 bands and “countless pre-1964 hot rods” will be there. Live acts include Wanda Jackson, Los Straitjackets, Detroit Cobras, Deadbolt, The Woggles, Gargantua and the Psycho Devilles.

On screen, you can catch “The Blues Brothers,” “Zardoz,” “Frogs,” “Shanty Tramp” and a surprise selection for Drive-Invaders.

What I don’t know: what kind of cake are we having?

Want to go? Starlight Six Drive-Invasion. 11 a.m. Sept. 6 at the drive-in, 2000 Moreland Ave., Atlanta. $28, children ages 9 and younger are $5. 404-627-5786, www.starlightdrivein.com. Ticket info.

Continue reading Starlight Six Drive-Invasion to celebrate theater’s 60 years »

Saturday's not-quite-record-breaking water balloon fight to benefit Camp Twin Lakes. AJC/Jamie Gumbrecht.

After all the water balloons were thrown everybody was soaked, the 2,107 folks at The Masquerade on Saturday hadn’t broken the record for the world’s largest water balloon fight. (Missed it? Here are photos from the water balloon fight and some very wet video.)

For now, organizers say, the Guinness World Record still belongs to a 2,800-person fight from a few years ago.

Saturday’s $5 admission fees went to non-profit Camp Twin Lakes in Rutledge, but there’s no totaled-up dollar amount yet. A lot of younger kids who attended arrived with bags full of coins, and they can take a while to count, said balloon fight organizer Jaynie Coffee, of Door 44.

Don’t be too disappointed, though: Coffee said they’ll definitely do it again next year.

For instant updates, follow @insideaccess on Twitter.

Continue reading Water balloon fight not a record breaker — next year, it’s on! »

A"Thriller" dance party in Underground Atlanta was organized to remember Michael Jackson in June, but we're not done yet! AJC file photo.

It’s been a few months now and Michael Jackson’s death is more the stuff of news updates than all-day coverage.

Atlanta just can’t stop dancing.

Here’s a list of upcoming Michael Jackson tributes, two of them this weekend, just in time for what would’ve been the King of Pop’s birthday.

Michael Jackson Tribute Celebration
7 p.m. Aug. 28. Free with donation. Georgia State University Alumni Hall, 30 Courtland St., Atlanta. 717-448-1610.
Live music by Vinson Baker, Fusion, The 54 and Level 7even, plus food, giveaways, contests, and lots and lots of dancing, as we can only assume Michael would have wanted. Come with a donation of canned food, clothing, school supplies or used instruments; they’ll be donated to local charities and Atlanta-area schools.

Moonwalk to Remember
1 p.m. registration, 2:30 p.m. walk, Aug. 29. $5 suggested donation. Walk …

Continue reading Atlanta celebrates Michael Jackson with weekend tributes »

Books: Author James Braziel discusses and signs “Snakeskin Road,” 7:15 p.m., Blue Elephant Book Shop, Decatur. FREE.

Comedy: Super Comedy Competition, 8 p.m., The Punchline, Atlanta.

Film: Atlanta Underground Film Festival begins, all day, venues throughout the city, Atlanta.

For kids: Children’s Garden Storybook Time, 10 a.m., Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta.

Music: The  Flaming Lips perform, 7:30 p.m., Chastain Park Amphitheater, Atlanta.

Stage: “MacHomer” by Georgia Shakespeare opens, 7:30 p.m., Conant Performing Arts Center, Atlanta.

Visual art: “From the Fire: Contemporary Korean Ceramics” continues, all day, The Art Gallery at Kennesaw State University’s Sturgis Library, Kennesaw. FREE.

Got an event, venue, restaurant or performance in and around Atlanta? Add it to theAccessAtlanta.com calendar.

For instant updates, follow @insideaccess on Twitter.

Continue reading To do list: August 26 »

'Is that a dagger I see before me? D’oh!' Special/Michael Cooper

Simpsons fans have seen Homer, our animated everyman, do “Macbeth.” (Season 20? “Four Great Women and a Manicure?” Eh? Eh?)

Now Atlanta theatergoers can see “Macbeth” done on stage, as Homer Simpson might, were he not, you know, a cartoon.

‘MacHomer,’ a one-man show by Rick Miller, maintains most of William Shakespeare’s language, but Simpsonizes the delivery.

From the AJC story, “Homer Simpson meets the Bard in “MacHomer”:

Q: Is your production an amusement for Shakespeare fans or an introduction to Shakespeare for Simpsons fans?

A: They’re both passionate. I tour a lot of high schools and I play to people who have never stepped foot into a theater. But three-fourths of the words are from Shakespeare. I only added ones like ‘exxxcellent’ and ‘okely dokely!’ People tend to dismiss ‘The Simpsons’ as a dumb cartoon. It really is brilliant. It’s very smart and also very funny. And Shakespeare was an …

Continue reading Simpson + Shakespeare = ‘MacHomer,’ opening this week »

"Sunset on the Winter's Marsh," by Henri Gogarten from the Oglethorpe Museum exhibition "Dachau Before Dachau: European Artist Colony, 1860-1914."

I can’t file this one under “fun stuff to do,” when it fits far better among “important things to do.”

We’re in the last week of a combination exhibition at Oglethorpe University’s Museum of Art, one that remembers the serene work that came out of a European artists’ colony, and another that reveals the horror of a World War II concentration camp. They are the same place, Dachau.

A piece by Georgia Humanities Council President Jamil S. Zainaldin that ran in the AJC earlier this month stuck with me well after the morning tea and newspaper:

And, now here in the Oglethorpe University Museum exhibit, I learned that from 1860 to 1914 Dachau was the site of an artist gathering. This was a side of Dachau I had not seen or even imagined: as a setting where artists from Germany and Europe had come to set up their easels to create lasting …

Continue reading Last week for Oglethorpe’s ‘Dachau Before Dachau’ exhibit »

Books: Author Eric Jerome Dickey reads “Resurrecting Midnight,” noon, Borders-CNN Center & 7 p.m., Barnes & Noble-Buckhead, Atlanta. FREE.

For families: Frog Slog, 7 p.m., Panola Mountain State Park, Stockbridge.

Music: Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire perform, 7 p.m., Chastain Park Amphitheater, Atlanta.

Poetry: Franklin Abbott reads with Karen Head, Ken Martin and Queen Sheba, 7:30 p.m., Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Atlanta. FREE.

Sports: Atlanta Dream vs. Sacramento Monarchs, 7:30 p.m., Philips Arena, Atlanta.

Sports: Atlanta Braves vs. San Diego Padres series begins, 7 p.m., Turner Field, Atlanta.

Stage: Reading of “Buried Child” by Sam Shepard, PushPush Theater, 7 p.m., Decatur. FREE.

Got an event, venue, restaurant or performance in and around Atlanta? Add it to the AccessAtlanta.com calendar.

For instant updates, follow @insideaccess on Twitter.

Continue reading To do list: August 25 »

"Sita Sings the Blues" shows during Animation Attack! this week. Photo courtesy NinaPaley.com.

Film buffs are smiling this week. Not one, not two, but three indie film festivals will take over eight venues around Atlanta this week with more than 100 films.

There’s a handy guide to the Atlanta International Documentary Film Festival, known as DocuFest Atlanta, and the Atlanta Underground Film Festival over at the Arts & Culture blog, “Two indie film fests light up screens around the city.”

New to the festivals this year is a series of free drink-and-discuss cocktail gatherings with the film directors — they’ll run at 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday at The Studio Bar at The Artmore Hotel, 1302 W. Peachtree St.

But let’s not forget the sibling festival, Animation Attack! It includes blocks of animated shorts shown at the Midtown Arts Cinema and Eyedrum, and the 90-minute film, “Sita Sings the Blues,” showing at The Five Spot at 10:30 p.m. Aug. 30.

Here’s a trailer:

Want to …

Continue reading Atlanta Underground Film Festival, DocuFest, Animation Attack! show more than 100 indie films this week »