L to R: Opal Foxx (Benjamin), Conjurewoman (David Goldman), DeAundra Peek (Rosser Shymanski), Dick Richards, and Col. Lonnie Fain (Paul Burke), The American Music Show, December 1989

How to Live in the City: The Story of The American Music Show
#5: National Holidays

Friday, December 1, 2017
7:30 pm (doors open 7:00 pm)
at Whitespace Gallery in Inman Park
814 Edgewood Ave, Atlanta, GA 30307
$8

Curated and hosted by Andy Ditzler

Halloween Safety Tips from the "Fulton County Cooperative Extension Service." A post-King Day depression remedy with the help of "vienner" sausages and a blender. Conspiracy theories for the New Year, and a brutal competition for Christmas dollars – as we careen into December, Film Love presents "National Holidays," the fifth screening in How to Live in the City, our retrospective of the landmark television program The American Music Show.

Holidays were assiduously observed at The American Music Show – just not in the expected way or at the most flattering angle. Dick Richards, Potsy Duncan and crew found something to satirize in every fraught occurrence, from the neuroses of Christmas prep to their perverse and astounding take on the Thanksgiving parade. And the show also reveled in these holidays’ unofficial seasonal counterparts and underbellies such as April tax seminars, baseball season’s tomahawk chop, JFK collectibles, and other weirdnesses. In the loving hands of The American Music Show, these clockwork national rituals are both comfortingly regular and utterly exposed.

This program features clips chosen from throughout the show’s twenty-five year history. Included is a rarely noted 1989 Christmas episode featuring Opal Foxx (the legendary Atlanta performer Benjamin, as seen in the acclaimed documentary Benjamin Smoke). For this screening, Film Love returns to Whitespace gallery in Inman Park, mere blocks away from The American Music Show’s longtime taping location.

Whitespace
814 Edgewood Ave
Atlanta, GA 30307
404 688 1892
whitespace814.com