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Category: Local writer/artist
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Robert K. Elder shares memories from THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE May 10th
Award-winning author, former rock photographer and journalist Robert K. Elder has composed the perfect walk down music memory lane in THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE: A Do-It-Yourself Music Memoir (Running Press; Trade Paperback Original; ISBN-13: 978-0762464074; 192 Pages/ $14.99).
THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE is a journal that guides user to write their autobiography through their music collection.
Sample questions from the book include:
What song or artist can’t you listen to because of a past romance?
What songwriter lied to or misled you?
What song allows you to time travel — that brings back a time and place so strongly that it’s palpable?No matter which musical generation you belong to, or whether your musical tastes range from doo-wop to Daft Punk, THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE can be instant conversation starter among friends and family.
Also enjoy work from these fine readers!
Andrew Huff
Liz Mason
Lou Carlozo“We all know that music is deeply intertwined with memory. The Mixtape of My Life is an astonishing tool for unlocking your long-forgotten histories.”
—Jason Bitner, author, Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves
Elder is the author of seven books, including 2016’s Hidden Hemingway. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, and many other publications. He has worked for Sun-Times Media and Crain Communications, and is the founder of Odd Hours Media.
For more info, visit: mixtapeofmylife.com
Thursday, May 10, 7pm – 8pm
Free Event
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Justin O'Brien Reads From Chicago Yippie! '68
Justin O’Brien’s new book Chicago Yippie! ’68 (Garret Room Books) is a true chronicle of his experiences during the week of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. What promised to be a music festival and protest against the war in Vietnam turned into a “police riot,” as deemed by the official investigation report, Rights in Conflict. This historic event, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, has relevant echoes in the protests of today. Even other participants have been amazed by this detailed description of events. O’Brien’s gripping narrative is interwoven with additional eyewitness accounts and includes more than 150 color and black and white photos—most of them never before published, and three original maps help the reader pinpoint the action. Handbills, posters, newspapers, political buttons, and other paraphernalia—all from the author’s collection—provide fascinating visual references and offer graphic evidence of this historic Chicago moment.
“Justin O’Brien seemingly was ever-present during 1968’s Chicago Convention Week. His lively recollections from the streets and the parks resurrect a polarized time of counterculture protest and potential.”
—Abe Peck, Professor Emeritus in Service, Northwestern University;
Author, Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press“There is no book more loyal to the events that occurred over four August days in Chicago in 1968 than Justin O’Brien’s riveting Chicago Yippie! ’68. With his lucid, engaging prose, O’Brien effortlessly unwinds the various discordant threads that were so tightly woven into the fabric of the anti-war movements that defined the 1960s. Chicago Yippie! ’68 will take you back to a place that time may have muted, but that Mr. O’Brien has never forgotten.”
—Pat OwensWith more than 400 by-lines on a variety of subjects, Justin O’Brien has written extensively about blues music over a forty-year period, and for several decades has been associated with Living Blues magazine of the University of Mississippi. His work has also appeared in Juke Blues, Sing Out!, UIC Alumni News, Chicago Parent, Digital Chicago, Southern Graphics, and other publications. He has contributed to the Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge Press, 2005), Armitage Avenue Transcendentalists (Charles Kerr, 2009), and Base Paths: The Best of the Minneapolis Review of Baseball (Wm. Brown, 1991), to which, coincidentally, former Senator Eugene McCarthy, the “peace candidate” of 1968, wrote a foreword.
Friday, March 23, 7 p.m. – Free Event
For more info: garretroom.com
Facebook invite for this event here!
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Nick Drnaso launches Sabrina on Thurs, May 24th, Interviewed by Jessica Campbell
When Sabrina disappears, an airman in the U.S. Air Force is drawn into a web of suppositions, wild theories, and outright lies. He reports to work every night in a bare, sterile fortress that serves as no protection from a situation that threatens the sanity of Teddy, his childhood friend and boyfriend of the missing woman. Sabrina’s grieving sister Sandra struggles to fill her days waiting in purgatory. After a videotape surfaces, we see devastation through a cinematic lens, as true tragedy is distorted when fringe thinkers and conspiracy theorists begin to interpret events to fit their own narratives.
The follow-up to Nick Drnaso’s LA Times Book Prize winning Beverly, Sabrina depicts a modern world devoid of personal interaction and responsibility, where relationships are stripped of intimacy through glowing computer screens. An indictment of our modern state, Sabrina contemplates the dangers of a fake news climate. Timely and articulate, Drnaso’s graphic novel leaves you gutted, searching for meaning in the aftermath of disaster.
At this event, Chicago-based cartoonist Jessica Campbell will interview Nick Drnaso. Her new book XTC69 is in stock now! In it, a commander with the same name as the author of the planet L8DZ N1T3 and her crew are searching for men to breed with when they discover the last human on Earth, the cryogenically frozen Jessica Campbell. With a new, but familiar crewmember, the search for men continues, but will it be worth it?
“Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina is the best book—in any medium—I have read about our current moment. It is a masterpiece, beautifully written and drawn, possessing all the political power of polemic and yet simultaneously all the delicacy of truly great art. It scared me. I loved it.”—Zadie Smith
Nick Drnaso was born in 1989 in Palos Hills, Illinois. His debut graphic novel, Beverly, received the LA Times Book prize for Best Graphic Novel. He has contributed to several comics anthologies, self-published a handful of comics, been nominated for three Ignatz Awards, and co-edited the second and third issue of Linework, Columbia College’s annual comic anthology. Drnaso lives in Chicago, where he works as a cartoonist and illustrator.
For more info:
Julia Pohl-Miranda and Sruti Islam at publicity@drawnandquarterly.com
Thurs, May 24th, 7pm – Free Event
Quimby’s Bookstore, Chicago, IL quimbys.com
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Press about Sabrina!:
Chicago Magazine
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Reader -
John Porcellino: From Lone Mountain at Quimby's 3/16
John Porcellino will be comin’ round Lone Mountain with his newest D+Q book here at Quimby’s on Friday, March 16th!
From Lone Mountain (in stores March 20th) collects stories from his influential zine King-Cat, and sees John entering a new phase of his life—remarrying and deciding to leave his beloved second home Colorado for San Francisco. Grand themes of King-Cat are visited and stated more eloquently than ever before: serendipity, memory, and the quest for meaning in the everyday.
A view of America—as seen in small towns, rural roads, and its overlooked in-between places
John Porcellino makes his love of home and of nature the anchors in an increasingly turbulent world. He slows down and visits the forests, fields, streams, and overgrown abandoned lots that surround every city. He studies the flora and fauna around us. He looks at the overlooked. Porcellino also digs deep into a quintessential American endeavour—the road trip. Uprooting his comfortable life several times in From Lone Mountain, John drives through the country weaving from small town to small town, experiencing America in slow motion, avoiding the sameness of airports and overwhelming hustle of major cities.
Over the past three decades, Porcellino’s beloved King-Cat has offered solace to his readers: his gentle observational stories take the pulse of everyday life and reveal beauty in the struggle to keep going.
About John Porcellino:
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.
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Facebook Event Listing for this event.
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Zizobotchi Rises at Quimby's: Selected Readings from Volume 2 on Friday, March 2nd
Join us for a night of selected readings from Zizobotchi Papers: volume 2, fall, 2017.
Zizobotchi Papers is a literary journal dedicated to the novella. Think double feature, with a paperback spine instead of a marquee.
Jeff Phillips will read from his latest novella, God’s Least Likely to Succeed, about the derailing of a secret agent’s first day on the job by an ancient cult’s infiltration of their operation.
Erin Makowski will read from Dan MacRae’s latest novella, The Dollmaker’s Grin, where an altercation changes a shuttle bus driver’s life, for better, and for much much worse.
Copies of the book will be for sale for $13.
Find out more about Zizobotchi Papers on the web at Zizobotchi.com
Jeff Phillips is a washed up varsity cross country skier and storefront theatre method actor. For two years he was co-host of The Liquid Burning, an apocalypse themed reading series, and for just shy of three years, he co-hosted the Chicago reading series Pungent Parlour. His short fiction has appeared in Seeding Meat, This Zine Will Change Your Life, Metazen, Chicago Literati, and Literary Orphans. He is the co-founder of Zizobotchi Papers, a literary journal dedicated to the novella and a regular contributor of short stories and essays at the site Drinkers With Writing Problems. You can find him on Twitter as @TheIglooOven or at theotherauthorjeffphillips.com
Erin Makowski has been acting and singing since her childhood. Her first production was as Gretel in ‘The Sound of Music’. Most of her younger years were spent in the Gilbert and Sullivan Company of El Paso going from the high seas in ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ to a little maid in school in Mikado. After her early schooling in the theater Erin received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College right here in Chicago. Erin has worked with many companies in town, played extras on TV and sung her heart out for Cabaret audiences.
Fri, March 2nd, 7pm – Free Event
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Chris Ware Signs MONOGRAPH 11/3
While Chris Ware’s singular body of work is often categorized as comics, his writing/drawing defies classification. Whether he’s creating graphic novels, making paintings or building sculptures, Ware explores social isolation, emotional pain and human desperation with a fine visual clarity and uncertain mnemonic organization, the end result being intentionally empathetic and complex. Like Charles Schulz, Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb before him, Ware has attempted to elevate cartooning to a fine art form.
MONOGRAPH is a personal, never-before-seen look at how the artist’s private and work life intersect, beginning with the influence of his newspaper family to his art school days in Austin and Chicago to his life from the early 1990s to the present day. The book delves into how, as a storyteller and builder, Ware’s work in three dimensions feeds into the thinking of his finely textured narrative art, offering a prismatic look at his work, including rarely-seen early attempts, previously unpublished strips and notes, all serving as a window into how artwork made for reproduction is still fundamentally “art.”
“There’s no writer alive whose work I love more than Chris Ware. The only problem is it takes him ten years to draw these things and then I read them in a day and have to wait another ten years for the next one.” –Zadie Smith
About the Author: Chris Ware is a contributor to the New Yorker, and his “Building Stories” was selected as a best book of the year by both the New York Times and Time magazine. Ira Glass is the creator and producer of the radio program This American Life. Françoise Mouly is the publisher of TOON Books and the art editor of the New Yorker. Art Spiegelman is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Maus.
MONOGRAPH
By Chris Ware
Contributions by Ira Glass, Françoise Mouly, and Art Spiegelman
Hardcover, three-piece case / 13” x 18” / 280 pages / 300+ color and b&w photographs
$60.00 U.S., $80.00 Canadian, £45.00 U.K.
ISBN: 978-0-8478-6088-3 / Rizzoli New York / Release date: November 2017
www.rizzoliusa.comHere’s the Facebook invite for this event!
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Singer-Songwriter-Guitarist and Author Phil Circle Launches His New Book The Outback Musician's Survival Guide 10/19
In Phil Circle’s new book The Outback Musician’s Survival Guide (Guilt By Association), he uses his 30+ years as an independent musician to shed some light on the real world of music for 99% of American musicians. Through a series of tales both whimsical and dark, reflections on the craft and the business, and admissions of his own faults, he brings a human face to a seemingly glamorous world. You’re likely to find that some of what you’ve heard about being a musician is sadly or hysterically true, and that other widely held beliefs are little more than hot air.
“Towards the end of the book, Phil says, “I don’t have some profound message.” In fact, by sharing his humanity and his failings as well as his high points, he has created a profound message. It is often in mere survival that we create greatness, although we ourselves don’t know it at the time. The touch of human grief amidst all of the adrenaline pumping adventure makes this book something of a celebration of what it means to be human.” -Sarah Jane Clarke, Beat Media, Oxford, UK
Phil Circle has written, recorded and produced eight albums of his own music and two albums of cover songs, one featuring almost entirely music by Chicago songwriters. As a writer, Phil’s work has appeared in articles for various music zines and other publications over the years, including Chicago Music Guide, Pro-Am Guide and a report on the industry for NARAS.
For more info: www.philcirclemusic.com @philcircle
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Thursday, October 19th, 7pm – Free Event
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“Godzilla” Director Ishiro Honda’s New Biography Presented by Author Ed Godziszewski at Quimby’s 10/13
Godzilla first laid waste to Tokyo more than 60 years ago in a symbolic reenactment of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. But even as the monster has become recognizable worldwide, the filmmaker who brought it to the screen has remained in Godzilla’s giant shadow.
Ed Godziszewski comes to Quimby’s Bookstore to present ISHIRO HONDA: A LIFE IN FILM, FROM GODZILLA TO KUROSAWA, the first major overview of the life and career of Ishiro Honda, the director behind the original GODZILLA and many of its beloved sequels and spin-offs of the 1950s and ‘60s. Godziszewski, a lifelong Chicagoan, is one of the leading scholars of Japanese science-fiction and fantasy cinema and publisher of JAPANESE GIANTS magazine. He co-wrote the book with Steve Ryfle, also a noted genre scholar. Nearly 10 years in the research and writing, the book is published by Wesleyan University Press.
Honda was the most internationally successful Japanese director of his generation, with an unparalleled succession of genre movies that were commercial hits worldwide, including MOTHRA, RODAN, THE MYSTERIANS, and many others. Honda’s films reflected postwar Japan’s real-life anxieties and incorporated fantastical special effects, a formula that still appeals to audiences around the globe. The new book sheds light on this long-overlooked director’s work and the experiences that shaped it—including his days as a reluctant Japanese soldier, his witnessing of the aftermath of Hiroshima, and his lifelong friendship with Akira Kurosawa.
“This carefully researched and detailed book gives us a full picture of the man and his life.” — Martin Scorsese
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Fri, Oct 13th, 7pm Free Event
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The Rose That Grew From Concrete Video Installation Unveiled In Our Window!
Welcome to our new window installation by Chicago-based artist Vincent Hung. He’s been exhibiting this video installation The Rose That Grew From Concrete in various venues around the city including Meyvn, Jugrnaut, Maybe Sunday and more. Quimby’s is its Wicker Park venue. Come visit it and watch the TVs change!
Vincent Hung (b. 1993) received his BFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. vincenthung.com
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Quimby's Opens Wicker Park Lit Fest: 3 Songs with Jonas, Marc Lazar, Kathy Moseley & The Blue Ribbon Glee Club 9/14
Quimby’s is proud to to open this year’s Wicker Park Lit Fest with 3 Songs, the reading series that combines words and music, during a festival that celebrates this neighborhood’s rich legacy of literature and entertainment in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. WP Lit fest continues through the 17th at a variety of venues around Wicker Park!
Three writers read one piece each, and each song is performed by Chicago’s only a cappella punk rock group The Blue Ribbon Glee Club. BRGC regularly performs songs by Fugazi, Gang of Four, the Dead Kennedys, the Buzzcocks and more.
Readers featuring their work at this performance:
Jonas, zinester – “Words and Guitar” by Sleater-Kinney
Marc Lazar, performer – “Glad Girls” by Guided By Voices
Kathy Moseley, zinester – “Dress” by PJ Harvey
Jonas writes zines and stuff. He wrote a long zine about punks and parenthood called Cheer the Eff Up, and a whole lot of other zines he probably can’t remember at the moment. They’re all probably also about punks and parenting in some stupid way. He also wrote a novel called The Greatest Most Traveling Circus. He lives here in Chicago with his wife and two little minions. He likes music a whole lot. The song he picked is “Words and Guitar,” but he almost picked David Bowie’s “Suffragette City” because aaaaaawwwwwwwww WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM!
Marc Lazar works with adults with autism, and is a storyteller, former journalist, and member of BRGC. He is a fan of books, TV shows, and music about outsiders and misfits (including The Misfits), and recently discovered the joys of vegan elote pizza. (It’s better than it sounds, but kind of messy!)
Kathy Moseley has been publishing the zine SemiBold since the last century, is a 15-year-old girl living in the body of a 50-year-old woman. She blogs at semibold.wordpress.com.
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#WPLITFEST
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facebook.com/blueribbongleeclub
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