Maybe there was never really a there there, which in my experience is usually the case with sociopaths. Rampaging ids with no restraining superego, they stomp around the playground stealing other people’s toys any way they can. It’s mean. Convinced of their own supremacy, but unable to understand the viewpoint or needs of anyone besides themselves, they’re hollow shells. That spells out Mesrine, at least according to these movies. He’s fascinating but opaque, raging when Pinochet’s coup in Chile knocked his own coverage off the front page of newspapers. And the women in the film — his moll Sylvie (Ludivine Sagnier, below) and Anne Consigny as his rule-breaking attorney — are mere eye candy.

Richet’s movie is as skillfully made as its preceding half, and will surely received the same plaudits. But it all boils down to a series of surface-skimming episodes: He did this, then he did that. Then he died. Fin.

“Mesrine: Public Enemy #1.” With Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric. Directed by Jean-François Richet. 133 min. Rated R. In French with subtitles. Atlanta’s Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.

The organizers laid the groundwork for understanding the cultural milieu with tours of the city. Its long, tumultuous history and biblical roots are incarnated in the architecture. Vestiges of Roman, Ottoman, Crusader and British rule as well as mid-20th-century European modernism abut or top one another, all swaddled in tawny Jerusalem limestone that supplies a lovely but metaphorically deceptive cohesion.

The organizers, to their credit, didn’t shy away from Israel’s contemporary problems. Not that they could. There’s no escaping the tensions between Arabs and Jews, or the friction between the Haredi Orthodox and the secular Jews. Jerusalem seems to be the flash point for everything that is contested in Israel: boundaries, political and religious power, identity. As artist Gary Goldstein said, “In Israel, nothing is clear.”

The intensity of the place fueled and directed much of the art we saw. The feelings of instability and precariousness that pervade the culture were evident, for instance, in works by tAmAr Shippony, a young Israeli artist, and Palestinian art professor Faten Nastas.

 Shippony — who has studio space at Mamuta, an incubator for emerging artists — screened “In Between,” a video (left)  in which she is trying to balance a rootless tree on her face while standing in a gently rocking rowboat.

“It’s a struggle balancing between left and right,” she said. “I’m only in the center momentarily. It’s a fragile moment.”

Mamuta’s location in Ein Karem added to the video’s resonance: One of the few intact Arab villages, it brought to mind the intractable right-of-return issue.

Nastas’ abstract sculpture, on view the Palestinian Art Court –al Hoash, looked at first glance to be a cylindrical marble carving of Arabic script. The piece (right), which reads, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” was actually constructed with Styrofoam and multi-part — easily knocked over and rearranged.

Ahmed Caanan’s large-scale metal sculpture (below), a boat piled high with keys, was installed outside the entrance. The boat resembled the vessels of the ancient Phoenicians, the artist’s ancestors, who had settled the coast of Palestine and became known as Canaanites. The keys, he said, symbolized Palestinian refugees, who kept their house keys when they fled from their homes in 1948 after Israel was declared a nation, assuming they would return.

The gallery, devoted to Palestinian art, was in East Jerusalem, an area Israelis were afraid to enter during the two Intifadas. A number of the JSOC organizers had never been to the center before. Though the visit was civil, a testy interchange between the gallery director and the leader of an Israeli foundation committed to furthering peace laid bare the simmering anger that roils even well-meaning people.

Israeli artist Raphie Etgar founded the Museum on the Seam in 1999 as a neutral zone where artists of all stripes can express themselves on political and social issues. For “HomeLessHome,” the show we saw, Etgar had assembled a wide-ranging group from Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, whose offered a global prespective of displacement and other political and social ramifications “home.”

Some examples:Jeffrey Aaronson, an American, contributed a photo (taken presciently in Arizona) of an immigrant returning to Mexico with a trailer stuffed with belongings. German artistJosephine Meckseper’s stolid sculpture (left) conflated bunker and burqa. Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota covered the museum façade with a striking tangled web of black thread, suggesting confinement and defense. 

If artists like Canaan were intent on building identity, many of the Israelis seemed to use art to question theirs. They feel justifiably angry about the long history of Arab attacks on them, Arab refusal to recognize their state, yet many Jews, accustomed to rectitude as history’s victims, feel guilty about their country’s treatment of Palestinians.

“Your morals and country’s morals are always a question,” said Sha’anan Streett, leader of Hadag Nahash, a funk hip-hop band.

The impotence felt in the face of daunting problems was brilliantly captured in a film by students at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, in which Don Quixote charges downhill on his horse to attack the border barricade with his spear, which, of course, bounces off the wall, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Ido Suliman expressed the frustration with the sacrosanct place of the Holocaust in Israeli culture among children of the third generation. He created posters for fictional Nazi films so deliberately over-the-top that they were perversely funny.

“It’s an untouchable issue,” he told us during a visit to the Jerusalem Artists’ House. “I wanted to open the subject for discussion. We [the young] might have something to say about it.”

Some were revenge stories in the manner of “Inglourious Basterds.” Others portrayed Hitler as a pathetic pervert: “We’ve made him to a myth,” Suliman explained. “He’s really just a horrible person.”

As with so many issues here, Suliman was ambivalent. On one hand, he wanted to break the taboo and address the Holocaust. On the other, he wanted to let go of the burden of those memories. “It was so far away,” he said. “We want to be happy.”

To be sure, plenty of the artists we met did not make Israel’s problems the focus of their work. It seemed to me, however, that an atmosphere in which even a straightforward image of a landscape is fraught with meaning discourages frivolity.

Consider Sha’anan Streett’s rap song, “Bella Bellisima,” which he based on an actual event. A group of Israelis had nabbed a Palestinian who had just stabbed some children on the street with a kitchen knife and were in the process of beating him to settle the score when an Haredi Orthodox woman threw herself on his body. Sheendured the beating herself because, she said, only God can make decisions about life and death.

Streett muses in the song on the unlikely hero, not a soldier but a mother, who leaves the side of her own children to shield a murderer, and a Haredi, the group most vehemently right wing. He muses about what he would have done, the importance of her example.

Political music has a long history, of course, but issues are usually framed in black and white. Streett raps in shades of gray. In grappling with the complexity of Israel’s social, political and moral terrain, he and so many Jerusalem artists demonstrate the role artists can play in a culture’s self-examination.

Rina Castelnuovo: "Gush Katif, 2005." The site of 17 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, which were dismantled in 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral disengagment program.

Wór’s career is going international as she exits her 20s. She’s made substantive contributions to the local scene for a decade, first as a student at Georgia State University and later with countless local groups, from the Cobb Symphony in Mahler’s Second Symphony to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in Handel’s “Messiah” (under Norman Mackenzie) and Bach’s Magnificat (under Robert Spano). She’ll return to the ASO in December with another “Messiah” and Vivaldi’s Gloria.

In that Magnificat review, from 2006, I wrote, “The standout voice belonged to mezzo-soprano Wór … she brought unexpected warmth to ‘Esurientes implevit bonis’ (‘The hungry he has filled with good’), a darling little aria accompanied by two flutes. She garbled a few words, but it was otherwise a pleasure to hear the plush textures and dark, chocolatey timbre of her voice.”

At 11, Wór’s family moved from the picturesque Polish spa town of Lądek Zdrój, near the Czech border, to the U.S. — her father is a physiotherapist — eventually settling in Duluth, a suburb north of Atlanta. She describes her family as somewhat musical, with a grandfather who was a professional accordionist and bandleader. An only child, she started piano lessons at 7 and was soon in the choir at a Polish-language Catholic church in Lawrenceville, where she served as cantor till 2006, when she won a coveted spot in the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program with the Washington National Opera.

Along the way, Wór made it to the finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2002 — having won the Southeastern regionals — which led to her covering a small role at the Met. She made her professional debut in November 2008, playing comically cruel stepsister Tisbe in “La Cenerentola” at the Atlanta Opera (photo below).

Now her repertoire is expanding in several directions. She was the “cover” for countertenor David Daniels in the Atlanta Opera’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” and in April 2010 sang her first Carmen with the Palm Beach Opera (with Rafael Davila as Don José, pictured below). A competition win at the Baltic Opera of Gdansk, Poland, will lead to concert performances and a lead role in an opera production in the city famous for the Solidarity workers’ protests a generation ago.

“Right now I’m a chameleon and people look at me quizzically,” Wór said. “They wonder how I can sing the Witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and also Carmen and Dorabella [from 'Cosí fan tutte'], which is a ‘second soprano’ voice. The hardest thing about being a young artist is patience. Everything is booked two or three years in advance, and I’m slowly finding my way.” She calls the baroque and classical repertoire especially suited to her voice and temperament, from Mozart “trouser” roles (Cherubino et al.) to the charismatic heroes premiered by castratos in the 18th century, including Handel’s Ariodante and Andronico.

Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater — the hymn of the Virgin Mary suffering at the Crucifixion — was composed in an era when women were barred from singing in churches. A castrato likely sang at the 1712 premiere, and the singer doesn’t impersonate Mary but reflects on her misery. “I find the music very spiritual. It’s my Catholic faith, but it’s one step removed as narrator,” said Wór. “Vivaldi recycles the music and it’s really very, very focused on the words.”   

Indeed, the Stabat Mater shows Vivaldi’s genius of simplicity. Most of the music is in F minor, the orchestration is spare, the tunes from the beginning are repeated at the end, and the mood is steady and somber throughout.  

Yet the line “Dum pendebat Filius,” in the opening movement, is one of many phrases that reach for the sublime, both sensuous and sorrowful. For all its pious expression, it’s music from a time when churches in and around Venice were competing for parishioners to boost donations and patronage. Sacred entertainments, like the Stabat Mater, hitched the intense emotions and lyricism of the opera house to Latin texts.

New Trinity Baroque and Wór will record this weekend’s Stabat Mater. Although most of her stuff remains in storage in Washington, she’s living with her parents in Duluth. “I’m homeless right now,” she offers with some resignation, adding that she plans one day to move back to D.C. “Living in Atlanta isn’t so bad. I can easily take lessons with my teacher [Georgia State’s Magdalena Moulson-Falewicz], and I take everything I’m preparing to her. There’s easy access to New York, to fly there for auditions. I can work with wonderful groups like New Trinity. And I can send out my press kit from anywhere.”

McKenna is now a respected independent science journalist, and her latest book has brought her wide and deserved acclaim, including a lengthy interview on public radio’s “Fresh Air.” The bug in her book is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, an “almost perfect pathogen” that is resistant to many antibiotics, kills at least 19,000 Americans a year and incapacitates thousands more, and is now showing up in our food chain as well as in our hospitals. Scientifically dense, richly reported and full of heartbreaking stories of victims and their families, “Superbug” is not an easy read, but it is a compelling one.

McKenna, who now lives in Minneapolis, will be back in town to talk about “Superbug” at the Decatur Book Festival at 1:15 p.m. Sunday, September 5, at Decatur United Methodist Church.

Phil Kloer: You’ve received a lot of recognition for “Superbug” from people and places that follow public health issues, but what sort of feedback have you gotten from the general public?

Maryn McKenna: When you write a scary disease book, there’s always a certain audience that is primed for it, the disease geeks who are really happy to hear the next scary disease story. Of course, those are my people. The hope is that it’s also an education for the public who are at risk but don’t know it.

Kloer: I love the idea of a disease geek community. What are they like?

McKenna: Some people are fascinated by the science, and they geek out on the complexity of it. Some people like to read people-in-peril stories, at least if the people in peril survive. So it’s like a thriller to them. Scary disease stories really fit into a very old cultural archetype. They’re monster-under-the-bed stories, or campfire stories. It’s a sense of a complex and I almost want to say clever (because it’s hard to write about diseases without assigning them a personality) danger that is much closer to us than we know. And there’s a hope of escaping if we do things just right.

A lot of people who heard about the book thought it would be like “The Coming Plague,” “The Hot Zone” or Michael Crichton novels. It turns out that “Superbug” is actually the flip side of that. In Michael Crichton novels or “The Hot Zone,” they’re scary tales but it turns out we’re not really at much risk. The reason “Superbug” is the flip side is that it’s a scary, fascinating disease that we’re all at risk from. And that’s been sort of a hiccup for the book: it’s too scary-real for some people.

Kloer: Was it tough to research and write?

McKenna: It was so tough. I talked to maybe 100 victims and families of victims, plus about 100 researchers, bearing witness to what this bug can do. When people die of this, they do not die nicely. To hear the details was really quite grueling. Last fall after I was done writing, but before it was published, I took a fellowship with a group called the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma. It’s kind of like PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] treatments for journalists who have been war correspondents or have covered natural disasters. I told them there are a lot of dead children in my book, I have to talk to somebody about this. And they said you’re one of us, come on!

Kloer: You also write about MRSA getting into the food chain through big agribusiness livestock farms.

McKenna:  So much of antibiotic resistance is this long stroll through the Department of Unintended Consequences. We thought we were gonna beat back infectious diseases, and look what we created. We thought we were providing the world with an inexpensive source of protein. But it led to factory farming and bugs like this.

Kloer: You tell the story of our mutual friend Diane Lore, who had a tremendous battle with MRSA, and you quote her, and I’m paraphrasing here, that the medical system is greedy, has no integrity and can’t help keep people safe. Do you agree with that view?

McKenna: I quote her because I think it’s important for the victims’ voices to be heard. I do think American health care has not done what it could to control the spread of bugs like this. Which does not mean American health care is careless or evil. It’s more that we have built a system that manages to be both extraordinarily complex and yet unbelievably lacking in accountability.

The awards are designed to highlight the mission of the CCA, including “discovery, societal impact, courageous inquiry, innovation, collaboration, human spirit and the exploration of new frontiers.” In addition to the two community awards, other awards will be given to Emory staff, alumni and students for “significant artistic and administrative contributions to the arts in metro Atlanta.”

Honors are becoming something of a streak for Cullum, who received the inaugural Nexus Award earlier this year. What we said about him then remains true:

“Cullum has been a backbone of the art community for more than a quarter century. A critical voice in the AJC, national publications and the blogosphere as well as at Art Papers, he has curated exhibitions and written countless catalog essays for local artists, often gratis, and spent so much time mentoring and encouraging them that one dubbed him the art community’s parish priest. Cullum’s broad knowledge of world religions, literature and history distinguish his writing and create a rich context for the work he discusses.” (For examples of Cullum’s ArtsCriticATL writing, see here and here.)

Stallings and her dance company gloATL have challenged and engaged audiences with innovative choreography, melding movement and architecture in site-specific performances at Lenox Square and the Woodruff Arts Center and in Castleberry Hill. This fall, gloATL will make its debut at the Joyce Theater in New York and will return to the Duo Theater there.

As ArtsCriticATL’s Cynthia Bond Perry says, “There’s something extraordinary about Stallings choosing Atlanta as her home base, and about the city’s support for her troupe.”

The award presentations will be made at the CCA’s Creativity & Arts Soiree on September 10. The festivities, free and open to the public, will begin at 6:45 p.m. at Emory’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.

Any museum exhibition worth its salt, even if it’s about a familiar artist, shows us something we didn’t know. What artist has been more studied, exhibited and parsed than Picasso? Yet “Picasso Looks at Degas,” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., surprised me with revelations of the extent and depth of the elder artist’s influence, even on the iconic “Demoiselles d’Avignon.”

Similarly, one might imagine that there’s nothing new to be said about Salvador Dalí, or at least, for those who dismiss him as a showman and panderer, nothing of interest. The High Museum of Art’s exhibit “Salvador Dalí: The Late Work” is likely to alter that perception.

True, Dalí knew more about branding than Don Draper, and he was a huckster. But his eager and imaginative experimentation with all sorts of mediums — film and jewelry design as well as painting and photography — is worthy of respect, and, as I wrote in my AJC review, ”it’s eerie how frequently his work presages future developments, from Roy Lichtenstein’s signature Ben-Day dots to Spencer Tunney’s combination of performance, photography and body art. (See ‘Voluptate Mors,’ in which the tuxedoed artist arranges nude models to form the shape of a skull.)

“The artist’s canny manipulation of media, celebrity and provocation as well as his embrace of American capitalism and consumerism live on in the careers of Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami.”

We know that Dalí loved using his painting skills to make impossibilities like melting watches seem real. In “The Late Work,” levitation is a recurring theme. Many of the photos he made with Philippe Halsman turn on the idea of defying gravity. The Assumption of Mary is a frequent subject, which Dalí sought to explain through a cockamamie theory involving nuclear physics. The Crucifixion is airborne in “Christ of St. John of the Cross.”

One thing that didn’t rise, however, was my opinion of Dalí’s post-Surrealist paintings. From my review: “Perhaps his elaborate philosophizing stifled his expressivity. Perhaps his desire to equal his masters drove him to these flashy displays of technical prowess. The work is stiff and cold, except for ‘Christ of St. John of the Cross,’ in which he channeled his skill to convey a personal and moving reinterpretation of the iconic image.

“What a contrast to the energy and freedom of smaller-scale efforts. Examples include the lithographic series illustrating ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘Annunciation,’ a genre-bending drawing in which Mary and the angel are depicted as energy vectors, and the insouciant photographs made with Halsman. Unfettered by precedents and the need to make important painting, Dalí relaxed and let his imagination go and made the best work of the period.”

In the end, his skill, his will to experiment and his outrageous persona are more admirable than his art. To read the full review, click here.

“The Magicians” is the latest you-gotta-read-this, pass-around book for fantasy fans who want something a little edgier than the popular young adult titles. And Grossman is now writing the sequel in what is projected as a trilogy. 

Grossman, who’s also the book critic for Time magazine (he did the recent cover story on Jonathan Franzen), will appear Sunday, September 5, at the Decatur Book Festival (at 2:30 p.m. at Decatur First Baptist Church) to talk about “The Magicians.” Here is an edited version of a recent conversation we had with him.

Phil Kloer: You recently wrote on your blog: “Currently I am working full time, plus writing the sequel to ‘The Magicians,’ and doing night feedings for a 5-week-old baby.” Has life gotten any easier?

Lev Grossman: People say the first six weeks with a newborn are the hardest. But I’m 41; I’m too old for this. When you’re writing fiction you want to feel like you have every single neuron in the game, but these days I don’t always feel that way. If I can, I like to write first thing in the morning. For some reason, things go better that way.

Kloer: You’re working on your third novel .…

Grossman: Actually this is my fourth novel, although I do not always cop to my first novel, which was a very small affair. That novel is called “Warped.” It doesn’t appear on my “other works by” page. I think it’s been expunged from history, although unfortunately not from Amazon, where you can still find it.

Kloer: Does writing novels get easier or harder?

Grossman: Two things are easier. I’m experienced. When I write a novel, I plan things, and then the plan completely falls apart. The first few times that happened, I panicked, I freaked out. So I know not to panic when that happens. The other thing that’s good is this is the first novel I have written for a contract. When I spent four years writing “The Magicians,” I did that with no guarantee that anyone would publish it. This is the first time a publisher has offered me money and acceptance in advance, which just changes you psychologically.

Kloer: When you started “The Magicians,” did you see it as a trilogy?

Grossman: No, that never occurred to me. I felt as though it had ended sufficiently. I didn’t feel like I had to go on with it. But I had an idea I really liked. The tentative plan is to do a trilogy. In retrospect it will dovetail very neatly.

Kloer: What level of fandom are you getting for “The Magicians?” I imagine this is a book people read and care about, contact you, talk to each other, wear the T-shirt, etc.

Grossman: It’s really gratifying. I get a lot of mail from people who feel as though the book fit into a slot in their souls that was previously unfilled. That was 98 percent of the reason for doing it in the first place. At a reading in Portland, a guy showed up in a Brakebills T-shirt [Grossman’s very different version of Potter’s Hogwarts School], which I had never seen before. I went through the looking glass at that point. And there’s fan fiction. That feels pretty amazing.

Kloer: I read “The Magicians” on my Kindle and loved it, so I tried to download your second novel, “The Codex,” but it wasn’t available on Kindle. What the hell is up with that?

Grossman: Is that right? That’s weird. This is news to me. “Codex” was a different publisher. It surprises me they wouldn’t put it out there. This is the most horrible thing I could say, but I’m prouder of “The Magicians” than I am of “The Codex.” “The Magicians” was a turning point for me. The cliché applies: I found my voice.

Welcome to “Pageant: The Musical Comedy Beauty Contest!,” a giddy, pastel-colored send-up of pageant culture, the cosmetics industry and regional stereotypes. Parading its coiffed and manicured self around the 14th Street Playhouse through October 24, this throwaway bit of nonsense is about six gorgeous women vying for the title of Miss Glamouresse. (Lest you haven’t guessed already, the main gag is drag.)

With music by Albert Evans and book and lyrics by director Bill Russell and co-author Frank Kelly, “Pageant” boasts a bevy of good performances and enough laughs to fill a plus-size Glamouresse makeup case, but it’s not going to win any crown for smart writing or the breadth or depth of its material. (Glamouresse, by the way, is the name of the fictional beauty products company that sponsors the fictional pageant, and promoting those cosmetics — from “lip snack” to a device that vacuums up messy face powder spills — is a running joke.)

Except for an outburst from sunny Miss Great Plains (Dustin Lewis), whose oral essay on the rape of the land becomes a deep and personally felt feminist rant, the piece purposefully brooks no interest in speaking to the social or political issues of our time. For better or worse, it mostly steers clear of the bawdy humor and sexual innuendo normally associated with this variety of camp. “Pageant” is more silly and one-dimensional than subversively smart or offensive.

It’s all about personalities — the bigger, the better. Styled, shellacked and fluffed within an inch of their lives, these contestants run through talent numbers involving roller skates and accordions (Nick Morrett as Miss Industrial Northeast), “Hee Haw”-worthy ventriloquism (Greg Bosworth as Miss Deep South) and an interpretive dance on the seven stages of life that suggests Courtney Love trapped in a recurring Japanese Noh nightmare (Ben Isabel as Miss West Coast). Emceed by the extraordinarily effervescent Frankie Cavalier (Geoffrey Brown), who maintains his self-congratulating smile long after the bubble of his laugh line has burst, “Pageant” uses a panel of audience-member “judges” to pick its nightly winner.

Chances are you’ll find Miss Deep South to be the prettiest, Miss West Coast the most catatonic and Miss Bible Belt (Bernard D. Jones, above) the sassiest. Morrett’s take on the zaftig Latina (and another role that we don’t want to spoil here) is very funny, and the actor seems more relaxed and confident here than ever I’ve seen him. I also admire the way Isabel finds the truth of his space-cadet character and never lets her go.

But the real screamer here is Miss Texas (Brian Clowdus, at left), a hard-looking redhead of the Joan Crawford school, whose galumphing tap dance routine is one of the funniest bits of tomfoolery I’ve seen onstage this year. Even when she’s standing still and uttering nary a word, she’s pistol-whipping her competition with laser-sharp eyes. This statuesque man-killer doesn’t ooze sarcasm, but there’s a knowing look, a slight arching of the brow, that signals total warfare with every withering glance. Don’t mess with Texas! (Clowdus also caught our attention recently at the Serenbe Playhouse.)

Lewis, who doubles as costume designer and over-the-title producer, has a delightful time dolling up the girls with over-the-top outfits, but BJ Garmon’s sets (mostly billowing fabrics) aren’t all that impressive. From start to photo-finish, this drolly shallow “Pageant” zings along on its own dingy formula. But like lipstick and mascara, its gimmicks are purely cosmetic and have all the staying power of cheap hairspray. Poof.

While there aren’t many releases on the books before the end of the year, local musicians are busy recording and finishing projects. Next up will likely be the Joe Gransden Big Band’s Café 290 shows from July, set to come out on CD in November.

An invitation-only house concert by drummer Justin Chesarek (photo at left), featuring Akeem Marable on alto saxophone, Craig Shaw on bass and Ryan Rosello on guitar, will be packaged as a CD/DVD combo in December.

Singer Kemba Cofield (below) is putting the final tweaks on “Here She Comes” (Bluesback Records), a disc of original compositions. “There are a variety of different styles of music on my record,” Cofield, who expects the album to arrive in stores in the spring, wrote in a message. “This record is very passionate. You’ll feel my pain, my anger and my heart in this record.” She recorded in Augusta and in Jersey City, N.J., with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon (who even plays keyboard on a few tunes). Local pianist Tyrone Jackson also appears on the disc.

Alto saxophonist Mace Hibbard will have a busy fall as well. He went into the studio last week to lay down initial tracks for his second album. (His debut, “Since Last We Met,” came out in 2007.) Joining Hibbard is his regular rhythm section — Louis Heriveaux on piano, Marc Miller on bass and Justin Varnes on drums — and trumpeter Melvin Jones. Jones, the former band director at Morehouse College, will turn the tables on Thursday, when he’ll start working on his own album for local label Turnaround Records, featuring Hibbard and Heriveaux.

The most significant CD of next year, however, most likely will be Hot Shoe Records’ all-star saxophone project. Label head Tony Wasilewski will take to the studio in the next few months with Hibbard, alto saxophonist Brian Hogans, tenor saxophonist Sam Skelton and one other horn player to create a de facto primer for the jazz saxophone in Atlanta. As it’s planned now, each artist will play a few tunes backed by a rhythm section, with the last piece reserved as a jam by the entire cast.

These anticipated new releases follow what has already been a strong year. In May, for example, flutist Bradford Rogers unveiled “Guiro,” his first disc as a leader since his 1998 debut. Gransden released “Live From Churchill Grounds” on Hot Shoe (with liner notes by yours truly) a month later, and Hogans also hit the recording scene with his debut on Turnaround.

Many of these artists frequently play in clubs around metro Atlanta. Chesarek’s band has a standing Wednesday gig at Churchill Grounds, and it’s nearly impossible to go anywhere jazz-related and not run into Gransden or a member of his band. But while these musicians are well known within the tight-knit local jazz community, these coming new recordings will help introduce them to a wider audience and serve as further proof that Atlanta’s straight-ahead recording industry is thriving.

WSB-TV, which first reported the dust-up, presented it as a version of ”But is it art?” — the creaky and deliberately provocative trope commonly used to diss contemporary art. But that’s not the point, according to Peggy Denby, director of Keep Atlanta Beautiful.

John Morse: "Roadside Haiku," 2010, Moreland Avenue

“I’m not opposed to poetry. I’m an artist myself,” says Denby, who is an avocational painter. From her perspective, an illegal sign is an illegal sign is an illegal sign (my apologies to Gertrude Stein). That goes for meta-illegal signs like Morse’s, which comment on and offer positive alternatives to ad pollution. Whatever their content, bandit signs are ”litter on a stick,” says Denby, who routinely informs politicians and businesses about the ordinance. 

Upon receiving the notice, Anne Dennington, Flux Projects executive director, called a contact in the city’s Department of Public Works to ask for guidance. Her contact confirmed the existence of the ordinance but admitted that it isn’t always enforced, especially, it seems, in benign circumstances such as neighborhoods posting announcements of community activities. The city representative did not tell her to take the signs down, Dennington says.

“Of course we didn’t intend to do something illegal,” she says, “and we never planned to leave them up indefinitely. We wanted to put art where people might encounter it in their daily lives, in this case, while driving their cars.”

Denby is right about one thing. As with the “Living Walls” exhibition of graffiti artists around town, the meaningful question is not, Is this art? For my money, it is: What is (or should be) the nature of public space in a democratic society? Which leads to more questions. Who controls it? Is consensus possible? Is community possible? What role can art play?

I certainly don’t have the answers, but I see one in Morse’s “Roadside Haiku.” If art can be a catalyst in getting us to think about what we see, what we accept in our environment and leading us to the other questions, it has a very important role to play.

The signs are scheduled to come down October 31.