Everyone from filmmakers to spoken worders to slammers, fire throwers, drag acts, musicians, visual artists and satirical clowns have hopped onto the stage at Backroads Pizza over the past year. They've come to Santa Fe's new hipster hangout at the invitation of the legendary Cooper Lee Bombardier, a transgender visual artist and performer who hosts a monthly queer and trans performance cabaret called Lisp.

Among the pantheon of golden age rock and rollers, Buddy Holly is in a class by himself. He didn't have Chuck Berry's poetry or riffs. He didn't have Little Richard's erotic, animalistic fury. He didn't have Elvis' slippery voice or demonic pelvis. What Holly did have, however, was an immediately identifiable hiccupy singing style that expressed so much more than the plain meaning of his goofy, teen-oriented lyrics. He also had a choppy guitar technique that, while not as flashy as Berry's, made up for its lack of intricacy with pure, raw emotional force. (For my taste, the chord-based break in "Peggy Sue" ranks among the greatest guitar solos of all time.)

The Israel Solo Show Festival in Acco, Israel has traditionally only featured Arab performers. Next month, however, our very own Kerry Morrigan, of Tricklock Company fame, will be the first American ever invited to perform in the festival. Is that cool or what? Her one-woman show, Death's Door, which she performed in January during the Revolutions International Theatre Festival, showcases some of her trapeze work. Catch it now before she boards a jet bound for the land of oil and blood. Morrigan will perform Death's Door for one weekend only at the Tricklock Performance Space on Friday, June 25, and Saturday, June 26, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, June 27, at 6 p.m. $12 general, $9 students/seniors. 254-8393.

For New Mexicans the subject might be old hat, but Europeans, I've noticed, are often obsessed with the Wild West. Starting this weekend, three Europeans (Stefka Ammon, Bjorn Hegardt and Godrun Rauwolf) and an American (Ethan D. Jackson) will re-examine the cultural refuse of the West in an exhibit that's traveled from Berlin to Philadelphia to Texas and finally comes to downtown Albuquerque's 516 Magnífico Artspace. The show gives us locals a chance to view our own cultural heritage through the eyes of some very perceptive outsiders. Wild West opens this Friday with a reception from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and runs through July 31. 242-8244.

Andrei Codrescu is an undeniable genius of the spoken word. This widely acknowledged fact isn't merely due to his thick-as-a-brick Romanian accent, although that definitely doesn't hurt him. Anyone who's heard Codrescu's essays on NPR or elsewhere knows this guy is capable of brilliantly unpredictable commentaries on the human condition. At his best, there's no one better. Like Nabokov, Codrescu is one of those remarkable immigrants who somehow managed to acquire a facility with the English language that transcends all but the very best native speakers.

Singapore's Christina Sng is a composer of dark imaginative verse, often as beautiful as it is, well, macabre. While her distinctive work makes its way onto magazine racks now and again, Sng's poetry graces small press periodicals beyond number. As if that weren't enough, her own publication, Macabre, debuted in 2002.

Whitcomb funnels 15 years of real-life FBI experience into a novel that deftly braids four narrative strands into a gripping counterterrorism thriller. By most accounts, Black is an action-packed, well-plotted page turner from a talented new voice in fiction.