Poet Miguel Algarin howls away at last year's fest.

Top 5 Picks
The best events at downtown’s Howl! festival make us want to holler.

1. Allen Ginsberg Poetry Festival: Country rocker turned lit gadfly Steve Earle opines on politics and poetics, reads a little Ginsberg, and then cedes the floor to usual suspects like Tracie Morris and Edwin Torres in the heart of Beat country: tamed but not forgotten Tompkins Square Park.
• Tomkins Square Park Bandshell, 7th St., between Aves. A and B; howlfestival.com. 8/20, 5-9 p.m.

2. All-Star Poetry Jam: Thanks to Moby, Suzanne Vega, and impresario Bob Holman, the emphasis of this performance-poet benefit is definitely on the performance—which is not to say there won’t be some true bards (Torres, Carl Hancock Rux) in the mix.
• Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette St., publictheater.org. 8/22, 9:30 p.m.

3. KGB Book Party: New York’s Mark Jacobson (co-editor of the new KGB Bar Non-Fiction Reader) curates a soirée filled with contributors and other book-world luminaries—Jack Newfield, Fab 5 Freddy, J. Hoberman, Luc Sante, and Earle again—to celebrate the new house volume.
• KGB, 85 E. 4th St., 212-505-3360. 8/20, 7 p.m.

4. Is Another City Possible? Writer-activists Sofia Quintero (Explicit Content) and James Tracy (Still a Beating Heart: San Francisco After the Brown Years) join tour guide–activist Bruce Kayton (the “Radical Walking Tours”) to discuss social-justice movements and the cities where they roost.
• Bluestockings, 172 Allen St., 212-777-6028. 8/22, 7 p.m.

5. Dissent Through Design: Graphic designer Nicholas Blechman, along with a few contributors, speaks about his anthology Empire: Nozone IX, which rallies artists and designers against the forces that dominate our politics and culture.
• Housing Works, 126 Crosby St., 212-334-3324. 8/24 at 7 p.m.

spotlight
Howl! Nightlife Highlights
In New York, gentrification is about as inevitable as death and taxes, and no one knows this better than the restaurateur Phil Hartman. The owner of the Two Boots pizza empire, Hartman has been in the East Village all along, from the Save the Robots era to the $800-per-square-foot-condo years. Last summer, sensing that his neighborhood could use a nudge back toward bohemia, Hartman launched the Howl! festival of concerts and readings—named, of course, for Allen Ginsberg’s greatest poem. “We had overflowing crowds at many events, particularly at Wigstock,” Hartman remembers. “There was so much good karma out there that we didn’t have any of the problems that most outdoor festivals have, namely noise complaints.” For its second year, the festival has grown—“We’re about 50 percent bigger in terms of artists and venues with this year’s festival,” Hartman says—but the real difference, of course, is the Republican National Convention. Indeed, the highlight of this year’s festival—which runs from August 17 to 24—will likely be the closing-night party at Webster Hall, “Welcome to the RNC,” where the smart folkie Dan Bern will perform and activist groups like the ironists known as Billionaires for Bush plan on appearing. And in the fall, says Hartman, his organization, FEVA (Federation of East Village Artists), is going to expand beyond the festival: “We’re going to have a monthly event called ‘Saturday Night FEVA,’ and we’re looking to build about 50 artists’ studios on Avenue D between 7th and 8th streets. So many of our artists can’t afford to stay in the city—that has to change.”—Ethan Brown

• At venues around the East Village including the Angel Orensanz Foundation (172 Norfolk St., 212-529-7194). The main festival location is Tompkins Square Park, which hosts "Wigstock" on 8/21. Visit howlfestival.com for more details.