Press Picks

The jam needs some folk percussionists. Guitarists and harmonica players show up in droves, but they'd like a few bongo and washer players, maybe even some Davy Jones wannabes to shake maracas. Hoi Polloi, 3106 White Oak, 869-8438. No cover.

wednesday
may 25
Nature story time It's puppets, songs and other entertainment for kids, pre-schoolers in fact. There is a paucity of entertainment for tots -- possibly because they frequently lack ready cash. Enter the Nature Discovery Center, along with the ongoing exhibits in the discovery room and children's classes they have scheduled a half-hour every week for the environmental enlightenment of small children. 12:30-1 p.m. Nature Discovery Center, 7112 Newcastle, 667-6550. Free, donations appreciated.

Birds Frightened by Machinery Spoken word is headed uptown. Live readings are traditionally found in smoky coffee houses, or in MTV sets styled to look like same, but now the Flying Dutchmen Writers Troupe has dressed up and taken its act to a stylish enclave, Cezanne. The troupe has been spouting prose and poetry, publicly, for five years. The artistes are R.T. Castleberry, Carolyn Davis, A.B. Griffith, Herman "Shake It Baby" Kluge, Janet Lowery and Joyce Walker. What they mean by Birds Frightened by Machinery is, at this juncture, unclear. The frightening thing is, they probably do mean something by it. Many of your literary-event types just throw together a name like that, but with these birds, you can't be too sure. 8-10 p.m. Cezanne, upstairs from the

Black Labrador, 4100 Montrose, 529-0298. No cover.