FRIDAY [1] party • Rare Magazine Summer Issue Launch Party at Mean Eyed Cat (5:30pm) bikes • Republic of Texas Biker Rally at All Over Austin dance/benefit • Project Transitions Hosts 12th Annual Texas Swing at Saengerrunde Hall and Scholz’s Beer Garten ($40, 8-Midnight) art • Opening Reception: Cantanker/us, the Cantanker Magazine staff show at Else Madsen Gallery, 411 Brazos, Suite 99 (7-11pm) art • The B Scene at The Blanton Museum of Art,......

What happens when you throw music, dance, poetry, photography, visual art, theatre, film, and -- why not? -- opera into a great big blue box and shake? You get an explosion of proportions that only the creative geniuses at Refraction Arts can contain. This year's Fuse Box Festival, featuring artists from Brooklyn to Portland and places in between, showcases works you've never seen before and aren't likely to see hence. Things start gearing up this......

"Checkers," by William Hundley. Part of "Retroreflection," a group show at Else Madsen Gallery also featuring works by Stacey Farrar, Eric Weller, and Paul Moncus. Opening reception is tonight, from 5-8pm. Synopsis, from the gallery website: Photography as an artistic expression has grown upon itself throughout the last century. The work in Retroreflection shows a juxtaposition of styles and techniques from traditional to contemporary, and some with a mix of both. However this is......