Atlantan David Stephens
Location: David Stephens’ home puppetry studio
Date taken: July 29, 2012
It was a standard fifth grade assignment on the Gold Rush of 1949, but David Stephens felt nervous about standing up in front of the class. So, for his presentation, he decided to try and recreate a little bit of his favorite show, The Muppet Show. David made hand puppets out of paper, turned a table on its side and improvised a show about the Gold Rush. His classmates cheered and laughed. His teacher, Mrs. Harris, was so impressed she had him perform again for another class.
“That was a magic moment,” David recalls. “I thought ‘This is a powerful thing … to be the person who is presenting the magic, entertaining people, getting people to laugh.’ It was an extension of me but not really me.” David grew up mesmerized by Jim Henson’s Muppets from a young age. He would wake up early every Saturday to watch The Muppet Show in syndication at 5:30 a.m., subscribed to Muppet Magazine and frequently drew the show’s characters.
By high school, David was performing puppet shows at libraries, preschools and birthday parties in his south Alabama hometown. Since then, his career has been all puppets (and a little banjo ‒ check out David Stephens and Banjolicious). From performing original works at Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts to receiving national awards and grants to working on Sesame Street to crafting handmade puppets, David has come a long way since his first performance in Mrs. Harris’ class.
David’s All Hands Productions features several shows and handmade puppets. In October, David Stephens and Banjolicious will be playing every Thursday evening at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
Wander around a historic cemetery
Location: Oakland Cemetery
Date taken: July 5, 2012
Historic Oakland Cemetery Interesting Facts:
• Established in 1850 as Atlanta Graveyard or City Burial Place
• Listed on National Register of Historic Places
• Bobby Jones, Margaret Mitchell, Maynard Jackson and other well-known Atlantans are buried here
• Final resting place of approximately 6,900 Confederate soldiers
• Home to second oldest Jewish burial ground in the state
• Atlanta’s first greenhouse was located in the cemetery
• Historic Oakland Foundation offers weekend tours, twilight tours, Halloween tours and audio tours
• Cemetery hosts an annual Run Like Hell 5K and Run Like Heck Fun Run
Atlantan Lindsey Kerr
Location: Lindsey Kerr’s home office
Date taken: July 10, 2012
Her two older brothers collected and traded baseball cards. But as a child, Lindsey Kerr collected things that were a little more unique – Band-Aids, pencils and stationery. She loved things with patterns and prints, especially pretty pieces of paper. The stationery store at the mall in her hometown of Lake Jackson, Texas, was a frequent shopping destination for Lindsey and her friends. They would spend their allowances on individual sheets of paper and envelopes − then trade them. Lindsey kept her collection in three-ring binders, where she could flip through the sheets and admire them often (sometimes for hours at a time).
A few decades later, as she was ordering invitations for a friend’s wedding shower, the inefficiency of the process led Lindsey to an epiphany. She thought, “I could do this better.” So, Lindsey started handling invitations for a few friends, and slowly she began to build her own business of pretty pieces of paper − Linvites. She researched stationery lines, bought printers, started an e-commerce site, taught herself Adobe Creative Suite and created her own designs. Although being a small business owner presents some tough challenges, Lindsey says, “I can’t imagine giving this up.”
Linvites is a stationery design studio and boutique based in Atlanta that features invitations, personalized stationary and unique gifts. Recently, Linvites has started offering items for businesses and corporations, including employee recognition gifts. Contact Lindsey at www.linvites.com.
Explore art in the park
Location: Seat at Freedom Park
Date taken: July 4, 2012
I’ve often wondered why there aren’t more benches in Freedom Park. And now, at least through September 22, there are 300 additional seats. You may have passed by the SEAT structure while driving/walking/riding down Moreland Avenue. Up close, the art installation provides lots of interesting views and a few seats you can actually sit on.
Leave a book, take a book
Location: Little Free Library
Date taken: July 5, 2012
I’ll admit that e-readers have their conveniences. They’ll fit easily in your bag or purse. You can carry multiple books in one slim little case. But with electronic books, you can’t do one of my favorite things – pass good books along to someone else. If, like me, you still read paper books and frequently have a stack of completed books on your shelf, check out the map of Little Free Library and keep an eye out for one of its book boxes (which I first mistook for a giant mailbox) near you. It’s an easy way to pass books along to your neighbor — and pick up a new book for yourself.
Discover a new view of the city
Location: Eternal flame at The King Center
Date taken: June 26, 2012
Atlantan Marcus Rosentrater
The year was 1997. The name of the film was “A Hamster’s Tale.” The shooting location was Marcus Rosentrater’s cousin’s house in nearby Littleton, Colorado, where 12 hamsters resided. The film starred Marcus and his cousins, who, at the time, all dreamed of growing up to become movie stuntmen. The film’s action-oriented plot allowed the actors to show off their skills – fighting, wrestling, jumping off the roof, jumping off the trampoline and jumping over furniture. Marcus was the film’s editor, using his family’s video camera, VCR and a CD Walkman to create the final product. When the 10-minute film was complete, the young actors and producer showed it to anyone who would watch and then started planning their next action flick.
From his first movies featuring Legos and Micro Machines to ones like “A Hamster’s Tale” to the videos he turned in for school assignments in high school, Marcus’ passion for film has been constant. When he moved to Atlanta in 2004, his first stop off the plane was to fill out a job application at Movies Worth Seeing, where he would eventually work for five years. “Pretty much everything good in my life in Atlanta has stemmed from that place,” he said.
This includes co-producing with co-worker Gideon Kennedy. So far, they’ve collaborated on three short films, including Clandestine, which has been shown at more than 30 film festivals, and are working on their first feature-length film. When Marcus realized there weren’t many venues in Atlanta for a film like Clandestine, which was made from archival footage, he decided to create a micro cinema and provide similiar films with a platform to be seen and shared. And that’s how Contraband Cinema, which hosted nine events in its first two seasons this past year, was born.
Contraband Cinema is a micro cinema safe house that brings the best local and international experimental films to Atlanta audiences.
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