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This Issue 10/26/2006

Also in this issue

• Annoying professors
• Listings
• Bloody 'ell!
• Badly Drawn Boy
• Annoying students
• Bloody 'ell!

Mind Altering ArtPenn First WednesdaysInstitute of Contemporary Art118 S. 36th St.Wed, 7 p.m., free with PennCard(215) 898-7108www.icaphila.orgIn 1965, it was Penn’s very own ICA that first played host to a solo Andy Warhol exhibit, and when the chief executor of the Factory himself got to campus, he was mobbed by star-struck Penn students. Some stuff has changed since that fateful day (for example, these days silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s soup cans would be way too traditional for the ultra-avant-garde ICA), but some hasn’t: witness how many current female Penn students seem to channel Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick by wearing black tights. The ICA still aims to expose Penn students to the kind of off-the-wall art they’d never see at a more traditional museum, which is why they open their doors for free the first Wednesday of each month. There’s coffee, intellectual conversation, performances, the occasional bizarre film, and frankly, some weird-ass art you definitely won’t see anywhere else. — Heather SchwedelE Downs SyndromeGreg Downs Book EventPenn Bookstore3601 Walnut St.Tonight, 7:00 p.m., free(215) 898-7595www.upenn.bkstore.comWho knew an up-and-coming literary sensation was living in our own backyard? (And no, it’s not that self-important freshman in your creative writing class.) West Philadelphia resident Greg Downs is the author of Spit Baths, a new Flannery O’Connor Award-winning collection of short stories. Like all good stories, the tales are Raymond Carver-esque, sad sagas grounded in the forgotten dirt roads of a neglected America. It makes sense that Downs has so many stories to tell; after all, he’s done more in 35 years than most of us could do in five lifetimes. After being raised alternately in Kentucky, Tennessee and Hawaii, he worked as a teacher, karaoke performer, journalist and basketball coach. And, oh yeah, he’s also got a B.A. from Yale, an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a newly-minted History Ph.D. from dear old Penn. Wannabe overachievers, eat your hearts out and get your books signed.— H. S.Ballet CalienteTania Pérez-Salas Compañia De DanzaAnnenberg Center for the Performing Arts3680 Walnut St.Tonight, 7:30 p.m., $32-44(215) 898-3900www.pennpresents.orgIf your idea of Latin heat is adding salsa to your tortilla chips, then it’s time you really spice things up by paying a visit to the sizzling Philadelphia debut of the Tania Pérez-Salas Compañia De Danza at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Critically dubbed “the muse of Mexico,” Pérez-Salas infuses American modern dance with sensual Latin flavor in her innovative, award-winning choreography. Still not impressed?