SELECTIONS

Thursday•14

Innovation and Team Creativity With Brian Collins One of those people who love to tell you how much fun their job is, Brian Collins is the executive creative director at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, one of the country's largest international marketing and advertising agencies, with clients such as Hershey, Yahoo! and Mattel. He leads the Brand Integration Group (called the BIG), the agency's brand design division, and his team recently completed the new global design for Coca-Cola and directed the new design for the Tribeca Film Festival. So what's he doing here? Collins is bringing his big-league experience and innovative ideas to graphic design professionals and enthusiasts at Full Sail in a program sponsored by the American Institute of Graphic Arts. AIGA has described Collins' workplace as "nothing less than a laboratory for imagination and storytelling." This guy knows how to please the suits without becoming one. (6:30 p.m. reception, 7:30 p.m. lecture ;at EB Auditorium, Full Sail Real ;World Education, Winter Park; $20; ;orlando.aiga.org)

Friday•15

WHiRR: Robot of Leisure What do robots do in their spare time? Surely we aren't the only ones who have asked that question (whether it was 4:20 p.m. or not). But now we have an answer: pillow fights, parties and drinking "WD-40tinis." Freelance writer and graphic designer Katharine Miller depicts her creation, Boris the retired robot, and his friends in both mixed-media works and a web comic, which can be found — along with supercute robot merch — at www.blissfullybitter.com. But today is the last day to check out this display. (7 a.m.-1 a.m. at Austin Coffee & Film, Winter Park; free; 407-975-3364)

;Flickerstick Long before Tina Yothers was crying about gastric bypass while eyeing Carnie Wilson on Celebrity Fit Club, VH1 was making one last Matt Pinfield stab at keeping music cred in the realsploitation equation with Bands on the Run. The 2001 series pitted four struggling regional acts against each other in vans that looked like they smelled like beer vomit, forcing them to tour, fuck and fight like the Real World with guitars in it. Flickerstick of Dallas won (although we loved the fat angry Bangles hair of Harlow better) and went on to record one negligible, poorly titled com-rock record for Epic, Welcoming Home the Astronauts. Predictable disinterest followed, and the band was duly released into obscurity and what appears to be a life of touring their 16th minute (Camel cigarettes and Jägermeister spokes-jobs included). Their stick, however dim, has some flicker left in it. Ha! Heh. (9:30 p.m. at the Social; $12; 407-246-1419)

;Wolfmother On one hand, we agree with Mike Patton's recent Internet-;circulated comment regarding Wolfmother: "What is this shit?" We get it, you know? We understand that Wolfmother is perhaps the apex of regressive rock & roll and likely the final indication that the genre has nothing left to offer except a continuing journey into the past darkly. But this Australian group is so retardedly retro, so unabashedly enamored with the stupid glory of sloppy, Neanderthal riffs, so convinced that an ironic wink and tight jeans can confuse listeners into equating visceral rock-out joy with something "more," that we have to love 'em. In secret, of course. (with Mess Hall; 7:30 p.m. at House of Blues; all ages; $15-$17.50; 407-934-2583)

Saturday•16

Orlando Reunion Concert Although the titling and organization of this event may seem laissez-faire (the announcement says the music will start "sometime after 4 [depends on the final band count]"), for fans of Orlando's hushed history of '60s garage bands, this concert is anything but a casual affair. It reunites a clutch of the rockers — most notably We the People — who made their names with shows at the Orlando and Winter Park youth centers. It's most definitely a nostalgia trip, but one that fans of the modern garage movement would do well to take. (with We the People, Birnam Wood, Covington Tower, Rush ;[no, not that one], Salvation Alliance, ;Tin House; 2 p.m. at Bahia Shrine Auditorium; $20; 407-660-8811; www.aliveandrockinproductions.com)

Monday•18

Musica Fresca Tour American music has Latin roots that run deeper than Shakira, and this month's Musica Fresca (Fresh Music) tour presents an opportunity to hear homegrown acts that, while not as commercially malleable as the queen of hip-notic gyrations, definitely celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. For example, born in Michoacan, brothers Sergio and Francisco Gómez of Mexican-American rappers Akwid grew up in South Central L.A., listening to N.W.A. and Snoop Dogg on the streets and Los Tigres del Norte and Lorenzo de Monteclaro at home. The siblings' lyrics en Español are set to hip-hop beats punctuated by powerful blasts of the brass used in rancheras. Radio Mundial is an Afro-Latin electro-funk conglomeration with members from Chile, Puerto Rico, Peru and Sweden. Latin funk collective Yerba Buena offers an amalgamation of world influences but insists their roots are Afro-Cuban. They call their sound "urban tropical," a lexical and conceptual fusion that's given them a more diverse audience than other acts on the bill. Music insiders Gary Kurfirst and Chris Blackwell organized Musica Fresca, filled with bands on the rise and at the forefront of soundscapes that meld traditional and contemporary Latin music. (6:30 p.m. at House of Blues; all ages; $20-$22.50; 407-934-2583)

Tuesday•19

A Forum on the Iraq War We're tired of this whole Iraq thing. Everywhere you look, there's another young soldier dead, another suicide bomb in Baghdad, another administration official or sycophant telling you that if you think this war is misbegotten, you hate America. And with the November elections coming up, well, God knows it's only going to get worse. But this is the issue of our time, so we might as well learn all we can about it. The Iraq War forum that Central Florida for Democracy plans at Rollins College is about as top-tier as it gets, with former officials from the Clinton and Reagan administrations — including Lawrence Korb, who authored the oft-misrepresented redeployment plan steamrolled by Jack Murtha — and experts on the intricacies of the increasingly intractable situation. (7 p.m. at Tiedtke Hall, Rollins College; free; 407-897-6061)

Wednesday•20

A Nightmare on Elm Street In anticipation of the Sept. 26 special edition DVD release of the classic horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street (with remastered picture and sound, and a special feature with alternate endings), Freddy Krueger gets the opportunity to strike fear at least one more time on the big screen. As horror fans well know, the monstrous character of Krueger, a former child molester who was burned alive by the town's parents, haunts teenagers only to kill them in their dreams. Director Wes Craven's legendary 1984 bloodbath, which was marks the film debut of Johnny Depp, enjoys two special screenings this week that also feature a compendium of clips titled Freddy's Best Kills. Don't fall asleep. (8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 20 and 21, at Regal Waterford Lakes Stadium 20, 407-207-9110, and Regal Winter Park Village Stadium 20, ;407-628-0035; $10; www.nightmareonelmstreet.com)