Philadelphia Weekly

>>film

Secret Cinema 15th Anniversary

Fri., March 23, 8pm. $6. Moore College of Art and Design, 20th and Race sts. 215.965.4099. www.thesecretcinema.com

On March 9, 1992 at the Khyber Pass nightclub the Secret Cinema (SC) showed Don't Knock the Rock and a bevy of "unusual short subjects" for an audience of eight. Three programs later they had their first of many sell-outs. In the ensuing 15 years SC has put on hundreds of screenings, all the while resisting the tawdry siren that is video projection. For this anniversary night (a couple weeks late, mind), they return to their first sell-out: 1968's inscrutable time capsule The Touchables. Described as a "psychedelic screwball comedy," the swinging London-set film finds a clan of kooky birds kidnapping a pretty-but-hollow pop star and mucking with him in their large inflatable dome hideaway. Fashion photographer-turned-filmmaker Robert Freeman (he of the Rubber Soul cover) makes no pretense toward narrative coherence, even before a gay black wrestler called Lilywhite impregnates their fortress of solitude. In other words it's pure Secret Cinema. (Matt Prigge)

>> DJ/Music

Sugar Town

Fri., March 23, 9pm. $6. With Beretta76, Bells Bells Bells, Richard B. Grande, Elizabeth Fiend, DJs Lizbot + MJ Fine. Tritone, 1508 South St. 215.545.0475. www.tritonebar.com

As the resurrected Sugar Town rolls into the second month of its second life, organizer Sara Sherr continues to make the lady-centric event an eclectic mishmash. Instead of booking a rock show, a DJ night, a reading or a drag performance, Sherr crammed them all into one. Each guest is headliner-worthy, starting with storyteller Elizabeth Fiend, host of the Drexel-broadcast cult TV show Big Tea Party. Then it's Richard B. Grande, the current Mr. Drag King Philadelphia, who offsets that brassy persona with serious folk songs under her given name Nicola Visaggio. (She'll be in Richard mode here.) DJ sets by MJ Fine and WPRB's Lizbot will bookend the live music of Bells Bells Bells' shadowy noise-pop and Beretta76's zippy bubblegum-garage. Given the night's bustling lineup, it'll be a miracle if Sherr saved some acts for next month. (Doug Wallen)

>>Art

Roxana Perez-Mendez: "La Declaracion"

Through April 1. $5. Powel House, 244 S. Third St. 215.627.0364. www.philalandmarks.org

Outside the Colonial mansion on Third Street hangs a Puerto Rican flag, part of Roxana Perez-Mendez's Landmarks Contemporary Project at the Powel House. It's just one of the subtle Caribbean subversions inserted into the Georgian-era house where George Washington and Ben Franklin dined. Perez-Mendez's touch is light, and the piece works best in the upstairs music room where harpsichord music broadcasts via a small Radio Shack transmitter placed on a music stand. The music sounds like Bach but is actually "La Borinque�a," Puerto Rico's national anthem. Its mournful, fugue-like strains are believably Baroque and fit in well with the ambience. It makes you imagine a colonial-era Puerto Rico, something most Americans visiting Powel House won't have considered. Perez-Mendez creates--on video monitors set up in the parlor--a fantasy of a Spanish-speaking colonial-era woman trapped in a time warp, isolated but longing for connection. A metaphor for America's stepchild island nation, Perez-Mendez's piece suggests we should tell the story of Puerto Rico alongside the story of America. It's a great idea. (Roberta Fallon)