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Category: books
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Steve Macek of Project Censored (& Guests) Discuss Censored 2020 at Quimby’s 10/17
Project Censored’s yearbook Censored 2020: Through the Looking Glass (Seven Stories Press) examines the most important but underreported news stories of 2018-2019. These stories expose the corporate news media’s systemic blind spots while underscoring the crucial role played by independent journalists in providing the kind of news and information necessary for a vibrant democracy. The book also examines this year’s lowlights in “junk food news” and “news abuse”– revealing how corporate media often functions as propaganda by entertaining rather than informing—and highlights the work of exemplary organizations that champion “Media Democracy in Action.” Additional chapters address the importance of constructive journalism, the untold story of Kashmir, news coverage of LGBTQ issues in the Trump era, “fake news” as a Trojan horse for censorship, and online memes as a form of political communication.
Professor Steve Macek of North Central College, who edited Censored 2020’s Media Democracy in Action chapter, will be joined by students who researched some of the underreported stories included in the book to talk about Project Censored, the book and the political implications of Project Censored’s analysis of contemporary news media.
“A crucial contribution to the hope for a more just and democratic society”—Noam Chomsky
“[Project Censored] is a clarion call for truth telling.” —Daniel Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers
“Project Censored . . . has evolved into a deep, wide, and utterly engrossing exercise to unmask censorship, self-censorship, and propaganda in the mass media.” —Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, lawyer, former presidential candidate and author
For more info:
Thurs, Oct 17th, 7pm
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Alexander Herbert Talks About What About Tomorrow? An Oral History of Russian Punk at Quimby's 10/19
What About Tomorrow? An Oral History of Russian Punk chronicles the history of punk rock in Russia from its earliest manifestation in 1978 to its current standing. It looks at how punk entered the Soviet Union and managed to persist despite the cultural police, how it struggled for definition in the 1990s, and how punks formed Antifa, animal rights, and feminist groups to help carve out safe spaces in an otherwise conservative country. The book is compiled from over one hundred interviews, fanzines, and releases, and is the first history of its kind in any language.
The title of the book What About Tomorrow? is a call for punks around the world to think about what punk has meant, and what it should mean. At this discussion, author Alexander Herbert will talk briefly about why he researched the book, and then gives a brief chapter outline before talking about the larger narratives. Then, during the Q and A, he invites everyone to think about the successes and failures of Russia’s punk scene as a way of critiquing our own counter-cultures and learning to use them to achieve the world we want.
Alexander Herbert is a doctoral student at Brandeis University focusing on the history of the late Soviet Union. His research interests include social movements, youth culture, macabre film, music, and politics toward the end of the socialist experiment. He is a devoted father to a beautiful daughter, veteran vegan, self-ascribed environmentalist, occasional musician, opportunistic freelance writer and translator, and fan of beer and pickle pizza.
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Chris Ware Rusty Brown Event, In Conversation with Marnie Galloway, Sept 27th
A major graphic novel event more than 16 years in progress: part one of the masterwork from the brilliant and beloved author of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth and Building Stories.
Rusty Brown is a fully interactive, full-color articulation of the time-space interrelationships of a couple people in the first half of a single midwestern American day and the tiny piece of human grit about which they involuntarily orbit. A sprawling, special snowflake accumulation of the biggest themes and the smallest moments of life, Rusty Brown aims at nothing less than the coalescence of one half of all of existence into a single museum-quality picture story, expertly arranged to present the most convincingly ineffable and empathetic illusion of experience for both life-curious readers and traditional fans of standard reality. From childhood to old age, no frozen plotline is left unthawed in the entangled stories of a child who awakens without superpowers, a teen who matures into a paternal despot, a father who stores his emotional regrets on the surface of Mars and a late-middle-aged woman who seeks the love of only one other person on planet Earth.CHRIS WARE is widely acknowledged to be the most gifted and beloved cartoonist of his generation by both his mother and fourteen-year-old daughter. His Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth won the Guardian First Book Award and was listed as one of the 100 Best Books of the Decade by The Times (London) in 2009. Building Stories was named a Top Ten Fiction Book of the Year in 2012 by both The New York Times and Time magazine. Ware is an irregular contributor to The New Yorker, and his original drawings have been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial, in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and in piles behind his worktable in Oak Park, Illinois. In 2016 he was featured in the PBS documentary series Art 21: Art in the 21st Century, and in 2017 an eponymous monograph of his work was published by Rizzoli.
Chris Ware will be in conversation with Marnie Galloway.
Marnie Galloway is a Chicago cartoonist who makes literary & poetic comics that experiment with book form and narrative structure. She is best known for her Xeric Award winning wordless comic, “In the Sounds and Seas,” which made the Notable Comics list in Best American Comics, and was highlighted in the Best Comics of 2016 by the AV Club. Other comics of note include Particle/Wave, published by So What Press; Burrow, self published with support from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation; and Slightly Plural, a short collection of poetry comics. She served as an organizer for CAKE, the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, for four years, and has had comics published by the New York Times, Cricket Magazine, Saveur Magazine, Cambridge University Press, and Ask Magazine, where she currently works as the staff cartoonist. marniegalloway.com
Advance praise for RUSTY BROWN by Chris Ware
09.24.29 | Pantheon | ISBN: 9780375424328
“Remarkable . . . Masterfully illustrated, brilliantly designed, and bursting with compassion . . . This is without a doubt one of the most exciting releases of the year.”—Library Journal [starred Editor’s Pick]
Previously circulated:
“Ware delivers an astounding graphic novel about nothing less than the nature of life and time as it charts the intersecting lives of characters that revolve around an Omaha, Neb., parochial school in the 1970s . . . Ware again displays his virtuosic ability to locate the extraordinary within the ordinary, elevating seemingly normal lives into something profound, unforgettable, and true.”
—Publishers Weekly [starred]
“Ware fans rejoice . . . Curious and compelling . . . As with Ware’s other works of graphic art, the narrative arc wobbles into backstory and tangent: Each page is a bustle of small and large frames, sometimes telling several stories at once in the way that things buzz around us all the time, demanding notice . . . a beguiling masterwork of visual storytelling from the George Herriman of his time.”
—Kirkus Reviews [starred]
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Al Burian Brings Anarchy and Apocalypse to Quimby's June 20th
Writer, musician, comic artist zine-maker (and former Quimby’s employee) Al Burian (best known for his Orwellian-themed band Milemarker and darkly humorous personal zine Burn Collector) reads from new work and presents his newest book, NO APOCALYPSE: PUNK, POLITICS AND THE GREAT AMERICAN WEIRDNESS, a collection of columns and miscellany from turn-of-the-millennium publications such as PUNK PLANET and THE SKELETON. Seen through our contemporary lens, The 00’s reveal themselves to have been a time of splendidly naive optimism: remember when we all thought George W. Bush was the worst US president there could possibly be? Remember when the neighborhood seemed too crappy to ever get gentrified? Return to those carefree days, when the Y2K computer virus had just failed to happen and environmental collapse was still near-future science fiction.
The evening also sees the first US appearance of DEAN STREET, an epic comic book series (we dare not say “serialized graphic novel”) by Al Burian and Berlin comic artist Oska Wald. The action in DEAN STREET takes place in a mythical version of Chicago, and features a zany cast of characters, some unnerving supernatural occurrences, and the best rock show ever drawn.
Plus a brief music performance by ANARKUSS, the post-apocalyptic no-electricity song and story act. A glimpse into what punk bands will sound like when the power grid fails and we all revert to eating nuts and berries…
“Al Burian is the bastard love-child of Spalding Gray and Henry Rollins” -Ex Berliner
Thursday, June 20, 2019 7pm – Free Event
More info:
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Jaime Hernandez Book Launch for Is This How You See Me? in conversation with Anya Davidson
In Is This How You See Me?, Maggie and Hopey get the band back together — literally. Now middle-aged, they leave their significant others at home and take a weekend road trip to reluctantly attend a punk rock reunion in their old neighborhood. The present is masterfully threaded with a flashback set in 1979, during the very formative stages in Maggie and Hopey’s lifelong friendship, as the perceived invincibility of youth is expertly juxtaposed against all of the love, heartbreak, and self-awareness that comes with lives actually lived. The result is no sentimental victory lap, however — this is one of the great writers of literary fiction at the peak of his powers, continuing to scale new heights as an artist.
“One of the most talented artists our polyglot culture has produced.” — The New York Times Book Review
Hernandez’s acclaimed ongoing comics series Love and Rockets has entertained readers for over 35 years, and his beloved characters — Maggie, Hopey, Ray, Doyle, Daffy, Mike Tran, and so many others — have become fully realized literary creations. Is This How You See Me? collects Hernandez’s latest interconnected vignettes, serialized over the past four years in Love and Rockets, into a long-form masterpiece for the first time.
Jaime will be in conversation with Chicago-based artist Anya Davidson, author of Band For Life, School Spirits & more.
For more info:
Cohen(at)fantagraphics(dot)com
Here’s the invite for this event on Facebook.
Monday, March 11th, 7pm – Free Event
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Christina Ward presents a thrillingly gruesome slide show talk about 20th Century American food at Quimby’s. (Yes, there will be snacks!)
In Christina Ward’s new book American Advertising Cookbooks-How Corporations Taught Us to Love Spam®, Bananas, and Jell-O® (Process Media, a Feral House imprint) is a deeply researched and entertaining survey of American food history; connecting cultural, social, and geopolitical events. Author Christina Ward (Preservation: The Art & Science of Canning, Fermentation, and Dehydration, Process Media, 2017) uses her vast collection of cookbooks to tell the fascinating and often infuriating story of corporate greed and advertising and the manipulation of American cuisine. Academic researchers have published histories of American food and politics, but Ward brings all these elements together to tell the larger story of why we eat what we do. Though easy to mock, once you learn the real history, you will never look at Jell-O® the same way again! American Advertising Cookbooks, How Corporations Taught Us To Love Bananas, Spam®, and Jell-O® features full-color images and essays uncovering the origins of favorite foods.
In this engaging book, readers will learn of the role bananas played in the Iran-Contra scandal, how Sigmund Freud’s nephew decided Carmen Miranda would wear fruit on her head, and how Puritans built an empire on pineapples. American food history is rife with crackpots, do-gooders, con men, and scientists all trying to build a better America-while some were getting rich in the process. Loaded with full-color images, Ward pulls recipes and images from her vast collection of cookbooks and a wide swath of historical advertisements to show the influence of corporations on our food trends. Though easy to mock, once you learn the true history, you will never look at Jell-O the same way again!
“A bizarrely tantalizing read, Christina serves up a feast of fascinating facts about food and cookbooks and shows us how corporations wooed and seduced the American working-class palate.” –Alice Bag, Punk Rock founding goddess and author of Violence Girl-LA Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story
Christina is a featured contributor to Serious Eats, Edible Milwaukee, The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, Remedy Quarterly, and Edible magazines. Christina, despite klutziness, is often found in classrooms and community kitchens with sharp knives, spilling vinegar into unsuspecting handbags while wildly gesticulating as she teaches folks how to make perfect pickles. She is a featured guest food expert on morning television programs and public radio stations across the United States.
For more info: feralhouse.com / info(at)feralhouse(dot)com
Here’s the Facebook invite for this event!
Friday, March 1st, 7 pm – Free Event
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MLA Comics and Graphic Narratives Forum: David Carlson and Landis Blair Present The Hunting Accident 1/4
The MLA Comics and Graphic Narratives Forum Is Delighted to Sponsor a Presentation and Social Event at Quimby’s with Creators of The Hunting Accident David Carlson and Landis Blair.
Drawing in the Imagination: The Power of Image and Text
It was a hunting accident—that much Charlie is sure of. That’s how his father, Matt Rizzo—a gentle intellectual who writes epic poems in Braille—had lost his vision. It’s not until Charlie’s troubled teenage years, when he’s facing time for his petty crimes, that he learns the truth.
Matt Rizzo was blinded by a shotgun blast to the face—but it was while participating in an armed robbery.
Newly blind and without hope, Matt began his bleak new life at Stateville Prison. But in this unlikely place, Matt’s life and very soul were saved by one of America’s most notorious killers: Nathan Leopold Jr., of the infamous Leopold and Loeb.
In The Hunting Accident, light comes from darkness, crime leads to redemption, and killers save lives. It’ll probably be a movie or Netflix show in a couple years, but for now, it’s a damn great comic book.” —GQ
“The subtitle barely captures the scope of this ambitious debut graphic novel, a mix of biography, history, social commentary, literary analysis, and more.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
For more info: Susan Kirtley skirtley(at)pdx(at)edu
Here’s the Facebook invite for this event.
Fri, Jan 4th, 7pm – Free Event
Refreshments will be provided.
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Anne Elizabeth Moore Reads From Sweet Little Cunt: The Graphic Work of Julie Doucet in Convo with John Porcellino at Quimby’s 11/1
In Anne Elizabeth Moore’s new book Sweet Little Cunt: The Graphic Work of Julie Doucet (Uncivilized Books), long considered one of the most influential women in American independent comics—although she left the field, and is Canadian—Julie Doucet finally receives a full-length critical overview of her work, from Anne Elizabeth Moore, a noted chronicler of independent media and critical gender theorist. Sweet Little Cunt is the first book-length critical analysis of a female cartoonist by a female theorist in the English language. It is a landmark production, both in Moore’s unique and defiant analysis of Doucet’s work, and the significance of a woman reorienting the entire dialogue around Doucet and comics in general, in a field that is so thoroughly and toxically dominated by men.
Anne Elizabeth Moore is an award-winning journalist, best-selling comics anthologist, internationally lauded cultural critic, and called “one of the sharpest thinkers and cultural critics bouncing around the globe today” by Razorcake, a ‘general phenom’ by the Chicago Reader, and “a critic” by the New York Times. She is the former editor of Punk Planet and the Best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin, as well as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. Her book Unmarketable was named Best Book of 2007 by Mother Jones. Body Horror is on the Nonfiction Shortlist for the 2017 Chicago Review of Books Nonfiction Award and was named a Best Book of 2017 by the Chicago Public Library. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the College for Creative Studies. Quimby’s would like to congratulate Ms. Moore on her new position as editor of the Chicago Reader!
John Porcellino was born in Chicago in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. His celebrated self-published series King-Cat Comics, begun in 1989 and still running, has inspired a generation of cartoonists. He lives in Illinois. His most recent book is From Lone Mountain, which collects stories from King-Cat Comics.
About Body Horror by Anne Elizabeth Moore:
“[D]evastating in its unwillingness to flinch … Body Horror is an incredible, touching, intelligent collection that looks beyond what’s comfortable to examine what is true.”
– Foreword, Five Star ReviewSat, Nov 1st, 7pm – Free Event
For more info:
emma(at)uncivilizedbooks(dot)com
Facebook Invite for this Event
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Quimby's Welcomes Slackjaw Columnist Jim Knipfel, with Andy Slater 7/19
Born in Wisconsin, Jim Knipfel was a staff writer at the now-defunct weekly alternative newspaper New York Press for thirteen years, where wrote the long-running and popular “Slackjaw” column, a cynical, misanthropic look at daily life. He is the author of ten books, including Slackjaw, Quitting the Nairobi Trio, These Children Who Come at You With Knives, The Blow-off: A Novel, and, most recently, Residue. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Village Voice, The Believer, OZY, and countless other publications. He’s also blind, and currently lives in the last remaining vestige of true Brooklyn.
Self-described local blindo, Andy Slater aka Velcro Lewis, will host the event. Slater will be sharing excerpts from his comic How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up, his new stand-up act Permission To Fail, and details of his work with the Society of Visually Impaired Sound Artists.
This event is supported by 3Arts, Bodies Of Work, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
“[Slackjaw] is an extraordinary emotional ride, through the lives and times of reader and writer alike, maniacally aglow with a born storyteller’s gifts of observation, an amiably deranged sense of humor, and a heart too bounced around by his history, and ours, not to have earned Mr. Knipfel, at last, an unsentimental clarity that is generous and deep.” –Thomas Pynchon
“Life hasn’t been easy for Jim Knipfel. He’s blind…He’s got a drinking problem. He’s been in an out of mental hospitals. He’s attempted suicide. But he’s managed to keep his sense of humor.”—Boston Herald
Thurs, July 19th, 7pm
More info:
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Chris Robé Presents Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas 5/12
Don’t miss this event! Saturday, May 12th Chris Robé presents Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas with film clips and discussion at Quimby’s.
Breaking the Spell offers the first full-length study that charts the historical trajectory of anarchist-inflected video activism from the late 1960s to the present. Robé fills in historical gaps by bringing to light unexplored video activist groups like the Cascadia Forest Defenders, eco-video activists from Oregon; Mobile Voices, Latino day laborers; and Outta Your Backpack Media, indigenous youth from the Southwest. Chris’s groundbreaking discussion deepens our understanding of more well-researched video activist movements by situating them within a longer history and wider context of radical video activism. Chris will show archival film clips and discuss their historical significance. The book is published by PM Press
“Christopher Robé’s meticulously researched Breaking the Spell is an invaluable guide to the contemporary anarchist media landscape that will prove useful for activists as well as scholars.” —Richard Porton, author of Film and the Anarchist Imagination
“Breaking the Spell is a highly readable history of U.S. activism against neoliberal capitalism from the perspective of “Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas,” the subtitle of the book.
—Dorothy Kidd. Professor and Chair, Department of Media Studies, University of San Francisco
Chris Robé is an associate professor in Film and Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University. He has published essays on radical media in journals like Jump Cut, Rethinking Marxism, and Journal of Film and Video and written a monograph titled Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture. He is also a frequent contributor to the online journal PopMatters.
For more info:
Facebook Event Invite for this event.
on Chris Robe and the book: http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/ChrisRobe
Contact the author at crobe@fau.edu or Steven at PM Press steven@pmpress.org
Free event.
