Tonight at USAA–Five Things: Fractured Tales and Funny Fables

The good ship Five Things is hauling booty back from ancient Greece with gyro meat in its teeth and fables on its mind.

The ship runs aground at the doors of United States Art Authority at 7 p.m. just in time for a night of fractured tales and funny fables. Plus 21st-century pan flutists and lyres.

We like to think it’ll be the kind of night that would make Aesop twirl his toga in disgust!
The readers:
Evie Worsham | Giuseppe Taurino | Gretchen Phillips | Greg Koehler | Willy Razavi

The musicians:
The Gary | Aly Tadros | Emcee Eats

GREG KOEHLER hasn’t exactly traced his family roots back to Aesop’s horse trainers, but he’s sure got a fable to blow apart the stable. Greg lives in McKinley Heights, Austin, Texas. He has received fellowships from the Michener Center for Writers and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He’s an editor with Richmond-based magazine Makeout Creek, and his own writing has appeared in jubilat, Ninth Letter, ANTI-, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. Look for it.

GRETCHEN PHILLIPS was born in Galveston, Texas, to a musical family. (Word is, back in ol’ Greece her people set Aesop’s fables to pan flute and lyre and interpretive dance.) As soon as this 21st-century gal was on her own she started singing about the joys and challenges of being queer.  Initially achieving early success she has subsequently toiled in relative obscurity, devoting herself to her solo career, which has consisted of forays into disco, country, spoken word, rock and whatever else she can think of.

GIUSEPPE TAURINO would liked to have been the one who freed Aesop from slavery for his wit and intelligence. As it is, he is the Education Programs Manager at Badgerdog Literary Publishing. He’s won a Barthelme Memorial Fellowship in Fiction and two scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, but he’s most proud of winning $715 gambling on football this year.  His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Epoch, New South, The Potomac Review, and Word Riot.

Writer/director/actor/arborist WILLIAM M. RAZAVI was born in Iran, raised in Texas, and is the author of numerous plays, including The Sign of the Times, which will debut next week in San Antonio as part of the Luminaria arts festival. Willy is grass-fed, hormone-free (save his own, naturally occurring) and can be seen this May in Slasher at Attic Rep Theatre.

EVIE WORSHAM aka The Only June Doe smokes. She owns the best collection of friends and memories ever. She’s always in trouble of some sort. Her life gives her constant comedy. She is fond of coffee and she reads. What else? “I talk too much,” she says, and, “I don’t check myself–I expect people to use the context clues.”

Five “Fabled” Things | March 5 | Doors 7 p.m. | USAA | fivethingsaustin.com