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Category: Local writer/artist
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Debate, Enlightenment and Performance from The Last Man, by W.C. Turck 7/14
WC Turck’s new book The Last Man, warns of a world ruled by a single powerful corporation and the one man who defied it. More than fiction, The Last Man is a prophetic story, a freedom manifesto, a celebration of diversity, and reminder that one man can make a difference. With all proceeds going to support Occupy Chicago, reading The Last Man is like standing in solidarity with those who demand a better tomorrow.
In 2011, Turck’s first play, Occupy My Heart: A revolutionary Christmas Carol made national headlines and helped change the media narrative about the Occupy movement. The Last Man continues that effort and support with the only novel endorsed by Occupy Chicago. Turck has been featured on podcasts and radio shows such as The Thom Hartman show, Words with Wings, WCPT and The Chicago Tribune. His first book, Broken: one soldier’s unexpected journey home, was recommended by the national Association of mental health Institutes for its treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Turck is also the author of “Everything for Love,” a personal memoir of the Siege of Sarajevo, of the popular WordPress blog and more.
For more info: http://occupychi.or
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All The Writers I Know Presents: No Pleasure Is A Guilty Pleasure Queer Literary Showcase 6/22
Quimby’s will be hosting the next installment of All The Writers I Know on June 22nd, titled, “No Pleasure Is A Guilty Pleasure.” Readers Patrick Gill, Rosy Phinick, Mar Curran, ellie june navidson, and Jamie Royce, among others, will be reading pieces about the pleasures people find and create in life.All The Writers I Know is the brainchild of Gill and Phinick, who realizing their social circles contained many talented writers who had no queer-focused space to read their work, started hosting the showcase in Gill’s livingroom. As it has moved outside his home to Southside Hub of Production in Hyde Park and now Quimby’s, Gill has sought to retain the intimacy among the readers and audience the showcase was first known for. With a growing fan base and audience, audiences will recognize recurring performers such as Gill, Phinick, and Curran, while hearing new talented writers such as navidson.
Maintaining a queer-focused space in which pleasure could be openly celebrated and embraced is important for Gill and Phinick, as well as their writers, who feel that fostering queer voices in safe spaces allows for open dialogue about pleasure and its importance in their lives.
“Queer people are often alienated from society and culture. It’s important to celebrate ourselves and the pleasure we derive from our experience to reject dominant narratives on the value of queer folks and, more importantly, to acknowledge the real beauty in our lives,” said navidson.
Readers will also have zines of their work available for purchase.
For more info:
stuffqueerpeopleneedtoknow.wordpress.com
Fri, June 22nd, 7pm
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Jeffrey Brown Celebrates Free Comic Book Day Here on 5/5
Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown explores, What if Darth Vader actively raised his son? What if “I am your father” was just a stern admonishment from an annoyed dad? In this hilarious and sweet comic reimagining, Darth Vader is a dad like any other—except with all the baggage of being the Dark Lord of the Sith. Celebrated artist Jeffrey Brown’s delightful illustrations give classic Star Wars moments a fresh twist, showing that the trials and joys of parenting are universal, even in a galaxy far, far away. Life lessons include lightsaber battling practice, using the Force to raid a cookie jar, Take Your Child to Work Day on the Death Star, and the special bonding moments shared between any father and son. Humorous and touching, Darth Vader and Son is the perfect gift for dads of the Star Wars generation.And guess what? For Free Comic Book Day Jeffrey Brown is debuting a free comic book specifically for folks who come to this event at Quimby’s!
Jeffrey Brown is the author of numerous graphic novels and comics, including Cat Getting Out of a Bag, Cats Are Weird, Clumsy, Unlikely and other titles. Jeffrey also co-wrote and created artwork for the film Save The Date, which was selected for Dramatic Film Competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. A lifelong Star Wars fan, he lives in Chicago with his wife and five-year-old son.
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Roctober 20th Anniversary Book/Magazine Release Party 3/30
WHAT: ROCTOBER 20TH ANNIVERSARY RELEASE PARTY
WHEN: Fri March 30, 2012, 7pmSince 1992 Chicago’s own Roctober magazine has celebrated popular music at its most unpopular, exploring previously unexamined corners of music history to explore absurd, dynamic, and obscure musical heroes in passionate, heavily researched articles, exhaustive critical discographies and inane comics.
On March 30th, Roctober celebrates its 20th anniversary with a shindig at its favorite store, Quimby’s. Copies of the epic Roctober #50 will be available, as well as two recent books by Roctober contributors, Flying Saucers Rock n Roll: The Best of Roctober (Duke University Press) and Aaron Cohen’s Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace (Continuum), his entry into the popular 33 1/3 series of books on iconic records.
The event will include brief readings from both books, a Q&A about the history of Roctober, and Aretha/Roctober karaoke (including Chic-A-Go-Go host Ratso doing his tribute to Michael Jackson). Books will be available for purchase and signing by Cohen and Roctober editor Jake Austen, and Roctober#50 will be unveiled.
For more info:
facebook.com/roctobermagazine
jake@roctober.com -
Adam Levin & Tim Kinsella Read 3/13
Adam Levin (The Instructions) Reads from Hot Pink with Tim Kinsella, author of The Karaoke Singers Guide to Self Defense
Adam Levin’s debut novel The Instructions was one of the most buzzed-about books of 2010, a sprawling universe of “death-defying sentences, manic wit, exciting provocations and simple human warmth” (Rolling Stone). Now, in the stories of Hot Pink, Levin delivers ten smaller worlds, shaken snow-globes of overweight romantics, legless prodigies, quixotic dollmakers, Chicagoland thugs, dirty old men, protective fathers, balloon-laden dumptrucks, and walls that ooze gels. Told with lust and affection, karate and tenderness, slapstickery, ferocity, and heart, Hot Pink is already Flavorpill’s most anticipated books of 2012.Adam Levin’s novel The Instructions won the NYLP’s Young Lion’s Fiction Award. His stories have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Esquire. Winner of the 2003 Summer Literary Seminars Fiction Contest and the 2004 Joyce Carol Oates Fiction Prize.
In Tim Kinsella’s novel The Karaoke Singers Guide to Self Defense, a family reunites for a funeral, leery of one another, comparing splintered memories. Will bathes his grandmother. Mel gives her wig a haircut. Norman is not prepared to take over his father’s club. Jesse has never known how old he is. They each cope with limited options and murky desires. Long bus rides through a post-industrial Gothic Midwest, Classic Rock, and compulsive brawls hum a requiem for the late night life of Stone Claw Grove.
Tim Kinsella has fronted such bands as Cap’n Jazz, Owls, Friend/Enemy and Joan of Arc. His writing has appeared in The Chicago Reader, Monsters & Dust, and Stop Smiling.
For more info:
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This Just In! "Zine Firsts" Submissions Wanted
Are you a Chicago-based zinester or a zine-friendly reader? One of our Quimby faves, Jami Sailor, wants to hear from you. Here she is, we’ll put her on the line…
Recently I did a reading at Quimby’s that evolved into a talk about how we get into zines, the first zine we encounter and how that encounter has influenced us, and other first experiences relating to zines. This lead me to
want to make a project focusing on this topic ZINES and FIRST TIMES = the first time you heard about zines, the first zine you ever got, your first zine fest (attending or tabling), the first time you bought something from a distro or from a brick and mortar store like Quimby’s, first time reviewed in Factsheet 5, Zine World, MMR, any first relating to zines.Please consider submitting. For the first issue I am focusing on (present and past) zinesters currently living in the Chicago area. The deadline for the first issue will be April 1, 2012. Submissions can be text, comics, or a combination. You can submit a comic, write an essay, submit a photograph, your choice. If you would prefer I could also interview you on this topic. Just let me know.
Topic: Firsts relating to zines
Deadline: April 1, 2012
Format: I will layout text pieces unless you have thoughts about how your piece should be laid out. No word limit. If you are submitting a comic or graphic-based piece, the dimensions are half letter size. Try to keep your comic four pages and under.If you are interested in submitting let me know, and I will harass you. If you are not interested let me know, and I will not harass you. If I don’t hear from you, you may be harassed. Please forward this onto any current or past zine and mini-comic creators you think might be interested. I would really appreciate it. Thanks for your time and I look forward to your submissions!
Jami Sailor,
yoursecretaryzine (at) gmail (dot) com -
Vittorio Carli Reads A Passion For Apathy, with Friends 2/11
Vittorio Carli Reads A Passion For Apathy,
with Vince Bruckert, Dave Gecic, Lynn Fitzgerald, Bradley Lastname, and other special guestsIn A Passion For Apathy, (published by Press of the Third Mind), Vittorio Carli experiments with many types of genres, and his poems were primarily influenced and informed by beat writings, dada, children’s literature, formalist verse, absurdism, fluxus, and surrealism.
“I need to make it clear that this relatively small (68 pages) collection is in no way narrow or repetitious, either stylistically or thematically. Far from it; There is free verse, rhyming verse (where Carli shows the least originality and strength), language poetry, story-poems, repetitive poems, and even a bit of vispo, and the ending poem of the book: “Theological Parody” is something else again, and well worth a few careful reads. Poet–publisher Bradley Lastname and Press of the 3rd Mind continue to be at the forefront of the small and independent press…” -Joey Madia in New Mystic Reviews
“A book by Vito Carli is long overdue. He is an ever changing fixture on the Chicago poetry scene, and seeing his work on the page, (mostly for the first time) does not pin him down in any one genre. He is a constant experimenter, and seeing his poetry in print gives the reader a far greater appreciation for the nuances in his work.” -Dave Gecic (publisher of Pudd’nhead Books)
Vittorio Carli’s poems have been published in Best of Chicago Poetry, Online! the Chicago Poetry Renaissance, Café Review, Rambunctious Review, Polvo, The American Dissident, Dissent, Struggle: The Journal of Revolutionary Literature, Mind in Motion, Alphabeat Press, Alternative Press, Poems of the World, Religious Humanism, The World Salad Anthology, and The Anti Mensch. Vittorio has done music, art and film reviews for The Star newspapers, The Southtown Star, Chicago Artists News, the Daily Herald, “Letter eX,” “Dialogue,” and reelmoviecritic.com. He currently does film commentary on WZRD (88.3 FM) on Sundays at 3:30, and he writes a poetry blog at www.examiner.com.
For more info: carlivit@gmail.com artinterviews.com bradleylastname.com bankley.org.uk/Artist-Carolyn-Curtis-Magri
Sat, February 11th, 7pm
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Martha Bayne Discusses The Soup & Bread Cookbook 2/9
Everybody loves soup. But why?Sure, it’s nutritious, affordable, and infinitely variable. Soup can be a rustic meal in a bowl or a dainty palate cleanser. It can showcase the pure flavors of fresh spring peas or provide a last-ditch use for tired celery and the stalest bread. From borscht to pozole to udon, it’s the hallmark of home cooking across cultures. It soothes the sick, it nourishes the poor–and it can trick children into eating their veggies. And, alone among foods, a pot of soup can be a powerful tool to both draw people together and help them to reach out to others.
The Soup & Bread Cookbook, inspired by author Martha Bayne’s Soup & Bread series at Chicago’s Hideout, aims to explore this social role of soup, in the midst of a collection of terrific, affordable recipes from food activists, chefs, and others, providing a quirky exploration of the cultural history of soup–and its natural ally, bread–as a tool for both building community and fostering social justice.
The social functions of soup don’t stop at the soup kitchen door. Everyone’s familiar with the “stone soup” fable — the tale of a hungry town that feeds itself when every citizen contributes something to the pot. But have you heard about Re-Thinking Soup, a weekly free soup lunch started in Chicago by Sam Kass, the Obamas’ personal chef? Or about Empty Bowl, a nationwide grassroots effort to raise money for hunger relief by partnering with local arts groups?
Soup has a powerful effect on how people gather, eat, and share. A few years ago in Seattle, Knox Gardner had a brainstorm. Eating your way through a pot of soup day after day can get boring–why not get together and swap some with friends? The idea took off like chicken and noodles, and now neighbors across the country are getting together regularly for home-based “soup swaps,” with a date at the end of January annually designated (by soupswap.com) as National Soup Swap Day.
In Chicago, the arts collective InCUBATE uses soup as a microfunding tool. Each month since the Sunday Soup project launched in 2007, the group hosts a casual soup dinner for members and likeminded friends; the proceeds to go fund a different art project each month. And of course, soup can be a political statement: The radical volunteers of Food Not Bombs have been providing free vegetarian soup to the hungry as a protest against war and social injustice since 1980.
These are just a few examples of the stories Bayne wraps around a collection of delicious, accessible and tested soup recipes, the diversity of which epitomizes the wide-ranging potential of soup as a community building tool. “Celebrity” chef contributors share the pages with food activists, farmers, writers, soup geeks, and regular folks involved in grassroots food projects around the country.
For more info: soupandbread.net
One of the top ten essential cookbooks for fall 2011.
-Time Out ChicagoBeautifully written, generous and honest, the book looks at community building through lenses as various and diverse as the country has to offer. Bayne finds people of many kinds – immigrants, nuns, urban farmers, artists and activists – each using soup to bring people together and knit up what has become unraveled.
-Eiren Caffall, Tikkun Daily
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David David Katzman reads from A Greater Monster With Illustrator Caitlin McKay 11/10
David David Katzman’s second novel, A Greater Monster (Bedhead Books), is a groundbreaking multimedia work that includes 65 pages of illustrations, numerous graphic design elements, visual text poetry, and links to two websites, one of which features original music composed to mirror events in a scene of the book and another featuring an animated sequence.
This story itself is a psychedelic fairytale for the modern age, influenced by Alice in Wonderland, Williams S. Burroughs, and graphic novelist Grant Morrison. This darkly poetic tale takes you on a trip into a twisted alternate reality that reflects civilization like a funhouse mirror. A Greater Monster breathes new life into the possibilities of fiction.
“Brilliant, insane, and utterly unique…”—Jen Knox, author of To Begin Again (2011 Next Generation Indie Book Award winner)
“I can’t express how brilliant my favorite scenes in A Greater Monster are. In this extraordinary work, Katzman pushes language to do things, which are truly astounding.”—Carra Stratton, Editor, Starcherone Press
“This is bizarro fiction at its most intense. It contains scenes and unique designs that seem engineered by some Mad Hatter and Chuck Palahniuk cross-breed.”—Lavinia Ludlow, author of alt.punk
David David Katzman’s first novel, Death by Zamboni follows anti-hero Satan Donut through a world of mimes, TV stars, zombies, blockheads, mad scientists, riot grrls, and werewolves. It continues to be an acclaimed cult success. Katzman ‘s work has been published in Bridge Literary Magazine and Tailspins. He has a Master’s Degree in English Literature from University of Wisconsin-Madison and has performed as an actor and improviser throughout Chicago.Also in attendance will be the book's illustrator Caitlin McKay, who contributed over 60 pages of sequential illustrations to the book!For more info:
daviddavid.net
goodreads.com/daviddavidThurs, November 10th, 7pm
