The V Side: Far-out fashions and plenty of laughs

FRIDAY / We can’t help but headline the week’s offerings with our own NolaVie 11.11.11 PopUp Party, from 8 to 11 p.m. Friday at Studio 3, 3610 Toulouse Street (behind American Can in Mid-City). Celebrating emerging artists and entrepreneurs, the event showcases the outrageous fashions of Alicia Zenobia, the edgy jazz sounds of Robin Barnes and the Soul Heirs, Djaying by the other-worldy Frank Jones of the Jean-Eric band, food from Geaux Plates, instant poems with Poetry to Go by Emily Yonker, a vodou blessing and lots more, all set in a Carnival warehouse filled with giant float figures and props (remember the catapult from the Capital One commercial set in New Orleans? It’s there). Admission is $11, with the first drink on the house. Meet the writers and artists of NolaVie, and support a non-profit dedicated to supporting their talents and works. Click here for tickets.

THURSDAY-SATURDAY / The Hell Yes Fest, an annual comedy festival held in Austin and New Orleans (Nola in November), continues through Saturday with laughs all around town. Click here for the schedule and tickets; and here to read Brian Friedman’s NolaVie article with all the info.

SATURDAY / The celebration of Mahalia Jackson’s 100^th birthday continues with a free street party dedicated to gospel and Afro-Ecuadorian flair. The fifth annual Gospel and Arts Festival takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday in the 1700 block of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, in front of the Ashe Cultural Center. Special guest is “the undisputed professor of gospel music” James Hall. While in the neighborhood, be sure to catch the Central City Home Tour, which starts at Zeitgeist Theater at1618 OC Haley, any time between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Go to myccra.org for more.

SATURDAY / The annual Magazine Street Blues Festival supports the men in blue, and takes place from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the corner of Magazine Street and Napoleon Avenue, in front of the 2^nd District Police Station. Food, music, artists and more are the draw, and the entire family – including four-legged members – its welcome.

Catch Alicia Zenobia’s experimental fashion (this design out of human hair) at NolaVie’s Art Pop-Up on the auspicious 11.11.11

SATURDAY / We love our Saturday art markets here in New Orleans – and now we can take that passion into the evening at the St. Claude Night Market, from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday at St Claude and Bartholemew. Buy, sell, trade, eat, drink, dance, whatever you want at an event that may well start a local trend.

SATURDAY-SUNDAY / Swimming to Spalding is a 70-minute monologue reflecting on Lián Amaris’ pilgrimage to the sites in Thailand which Spalding Gray evokes in his account of the filming of The Killing Fields. Performances take place at 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp St. Tickets are $20 ($15 for members and $10 for students).

SATURDAY-SUNDAY / There’s nothing else quite like it in New Orleans. Press Street’s annual 24-hour Draw-a-thon is an art experience in which people are invited to take up pencils, pens, pain and create whatever they want. Everyone is invited to participate in the all-ages free event, and the materials are all there for your taking. It starts at 6:30 a.m. Saturday and closes at 6:30 a.m. Sunday at the Old Iron Works, 612 Piety St. Bonus event: Meet Press Street’s Anna Gisleson at the next People Say Project, a talk-show type town meeting taking place Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the Louisiana Humanities Center, 938 Lafayette Street; it’s free, it’s fun and there will be food and drink.