Five Brenner Tips To Spark Your EAST Experience

1) When checking out "Monster Show 6" at Domy Books (see "Fiends With Benefits,"), 913 E. Cesar Chavez, make sure you look at the ceiling at the far end of the gallery: It's up there, waiting.

2) How can you, scraping by on that income, find something original and hangable for just $25? Birdhouse Gallery, 1304 E. Cesar Chavez, is selling dozens of tiny artworks – varied and vivid and 4 inches by 4 inches – for just that much. Bonus: Agave Prints pop-up next door, with works by Sev Coursen, Leon Alesi, Virginia Fleck, and more.

3) You like grackles? Well, then you're a sick little monkey, but you won't want to miss "The Great Grackle Show" at Clayworks, 1209 E. Sixth, where the vile bird is celebrated in ink, in paint, in glass, in ceramics, and on "Grackle con Chee-to" T-shirts.

4) Grab a bite at Buenos Aires Cafe, 1201 E. Sixth. Not just any bite and don't look at the menu; never mind the other stuff, no matter how putatively tasty. Just go in, sit down, and order a chicken empanada. That's right, just a chicken empanada. My email is listed in the Chronicle masthead: You can thank me via that address.

5) Big Medium, 5305 Bolm #12. Don't even get me started on thisplace, this busy warren of artists and studios and relentless creation, the very epicenter of EAST. They should be more accurate; they should call it Big Fucking Medium. Simply: Wow.

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