Education of the Modern Doctor: Marcus Welby vs. House 
"Conure" by Deborah Butterfield
Art
Bold State-ment: With L Street Fine Art and the recent opening of Alexander Salazar Fine Art, there are some great places to see contemporary art in Downtown San Diego. And now, the San Diego State University Downtown Gallery will open (at 725 Broadway, in the Electra Building across from Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego) with a reception from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, April 9. Designed to be an exhibition space for pioneering international artists and designers, the inaugural show, Divergence, will feature the works of three locals (and SDSU alumni): John Baldessari is probably most well known for his text paintings, while Andrea Zittel designs modernist furniture and Deborah Butterfield makes horse sculptures out of found objects. downtowngallery.sdsu.edu.Dynamic duo: In the past year, artist Michael Carini has overcome injuries—head trauma and damage to his eye that left him unable to see out it for a month—that he sustained during a violent attack in his University Heights apartment. But he’s rallied to produce a new body of work that’ll be featured in Anomalies and Associations at Thumbprint Gallery, 2637 University Ave., Suite A, in North Park. Carini’s precision-meet-chaos paintings will be exhibited alongside Eric Wixon’s, whose work’s been featured on CityBeat’s cover and has been described in these pages as blending the influences of street culture and modern masters. The show opens with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, April 10, and runs through May 2. www.thumbprintgallerysd.com.
Books
‘Dude, this leaf is talking to me’: Remember that acid trip you endured in college—that hellish six-hour plunge during which you convinced yourself you were irreparably insane? Sure you do. You might be so young that you don’t know that a man named Tim Leary and some cohorts once thought LSD was going to lead to a new collective understanding of psychology and religion—instead, they helped change American culture. At 7 p.m. Thursday, April 8, Don Lattin, who has specialized in writing about alternative religions, will discuss his book The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America, at The Book Works in the Flower Hill Mall, 2670 Via de la Valle in Del Mar. A Q&A and book signing, with wine and cheese, will follow. www.book-works.com.
Special Events
Tongue lashing: Some here at CityBeat have long wondered who’s the bigger asshole of a critic: CityBeat’s Seth Combs or American Idol’s Simon Cowell. We’ll find out on Tuesday, April 13, at Dimestories: Literary Death Match, where Combs will be one of three judges spewing opinions about San Diego’s brightest writers’ three-minute fiction bombs. Of course, Combs isn’t the primary draw: We love words read aloud but can’t abide 85 percent of “spoken-word poetry” and loathe slams. This is spoken prose, and it doesn’t get much better than this. The doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m. $6 in advance, $10 at the door at The Loft, on the second floor of UCSD Price Center East. www.artpwr.com.
Music
A fest supreme: In the late 1950s, free improvisation was musicians’ expression of the end of our collective denial: The world is insane and has always been insane. For its 9th Annual Spring Reverb Fest, held April 8 through 11, the music collective Trummerflora is pulling in its affiliated artists from the outer limits of consciousness—noise, jazz, electronic, acoustic—to remind us that creative schizophrenia is a lot more interesting than restricted social order. The main event is a most-of-the-day show that starts at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 10, at Kava Lounge Gallery (the space next to the bar), 2804 Kettner Blvd., with evening gigs on the other nights at various locations. Free as the music is, the events are not: $10 per show. For a program of events visit www.trummerflora.com.Cool kids: If you fancy yourself a hip parent but can’t find a sitter for Coachella because you don’t think Junior is quite ready for the awesomeness of Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin,” then Kidchella might be a nice compromise. Not to worry: We know how annoying Justin Bieber and Kidzbop are, and there will be none of that from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 10, at the New Children’s Museum (200 West Island Ave., Downtown). Rather, organizers have found acts that will appeal to young and old, such as Hullabaloo, who play a mix of funk, rock, folk and blues that they say will “entertain kids without making their parents want to jump out of a moving mini-van.” Also included are L.A.-based R&B masters Rhythm Child and the kid-fronted house band from the Paul Green School of Rock. $10. www.thinkplaycreate.org.
Fashion
Shop ’til you drop: Malls are for suckers. There’s just something about being in the presence of all that overzealous consumption that’s really depressing. But here’s something that’s not depressing: a huge space that was once a department store that for one day only will be filled with mini-boutiques run by local, independent designers. From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 11, you can shop directly from more than 100 indie designers at the Thread Show at the Horton Event Space (Fourth Avenue and Broadway, Downtown). For this show, Thread has moved beyond clothing and will have art, furniture and accessories for sale—plus, food and drink, music and a photo booth for good measure. Way better than any mall we’ve ever been to. $8 with RSVP, $10 at the door. www.threadshow.com.
Dance
A real piece of work: Showing something to an audience before it’s finished is probably a terrifying thought for most artists. Whether it’s a painting that’s missing a few brushstrokes, a dress that’s not stitched up all the way or a dance that not everyone knows by memory—yet. That’s why we have the utmost respect for the Studio Series, where the Malashock Dance Company “invites you into the private world of artistic trial and error.” They’re in the process of creating choreography for The Floating World, an upcoming multimedia collaboration between them, filmmaker / video artist Tara Knight and the San Diego Museum of Art. The final product will be seen as part of Dreams and Diversions, an exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints. Performances are at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 10, and 5 p.m. Sunday, April 11, at Dance Place (2650 Truxton Road., Studio 200, in Point Loma’s Liberty Station). $15. www.malashockdance.org.
