Category: readings

  • Suggested Holiday Gift: 'Za The Pizza Zine

    Perhaps you love pizza? But you missed the ‘Za The Pizza Zine event here at Quimby’s on November 10th with cutie Nicki Yowell (below) and friends? Well, you may have missed the event, but you can still get the zine here at Quimby’s. It’s a great stocking get-stuffed stuffer. Click on this sentence or the picture on the left to get a sloppy slice of this hot pizza-themed zine!

  • Quimby's December Events and News

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  • Off-site Event: Indie Lit Roadshow: The Last Annual Midwest Pop-Up Bookshop

    At The Green Lantern Gallery/The Paper Cave, 2542 W. Chicago Ave., Storefront

    This is not at Quimby’s, but Quimby’s will be tabling at this curatorial pop-up bookshop at the Green Lantern Gallery. Besides book shopping, this event will feature sporadic performances, some of which will be in Artifice Magazine’s papier-mâché cave, you can crawl into to hear some of the best in Chicago readings. Lots of different types of book stores, presses and magazines will be present besides Quimby’s, including Featherproof Books, Knee-Jerk Magazine, The Book Cellar, Another Chicago Magazine, Rose Metal Press, THE2NDHAND, Dzanc, Make Magazine, The Show ‘n Tell Show, Other Voices Books, The Encyclopedia Show, Sara Ranchouse Publishing, Vouched Books, Switchback Books, PANK Magazine, Golden Age, Stop Smiling Books and more!

    The weekend of December 10-12 is the The Indie Lit Roadshow, a cross-country celebration of the best in independent literature. It represents a coming-together of independent bookstores, presses, journals, magazines, reading series and pop-up bookshops, all rooted in the home-grown literary scenes blossoming in the following places besides Chicago including Austin, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Brooklyn, Portland, Seattle and more!

    For more info:

    http://roadshow.ampcommunity.com

    http://thegreenlantern.org

    http://www.thepapercave.com

  • Steven Blush Celebrates American Hardcore: A Tribal History Second Edition at Quimby's!

    AMERICAN HARDCORE: A TRIBAL HISTORY was released in 2001 to great success.  The book is now in five languages, and led the way to the creation of the acclaimed documentary AMERICAN HARDCORE: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986.  With the resurgence of punk rock, and continued interest in the significant American DIY movement, Blush has expanded the book and into a second edition.

    Author Steven Blush promoted hardcore shows in Washington D.C. in the early 80s. He moved to New York in 1986, and founded SECONDS Magazine, publishing 52 issues through the year 2000.  Blush has written three books on the subject of rock: AMERICAN HARDCORE: A Tribal History (2001, Feral House); AMERICAN HAIR METAL (2006, Feral House); and .45 DANGEROUS MINDS: The Most Intense Interviews From Seconds Magazine (2005, Creation Books).  His writing has appeared in publications including SPIN, Details, PAPER, Interview, Village Voice and The Times of London.  For twenty years he worked as a New York City club DJ and promoter, noted for his “Rock Candy” parties at Don Hill’s and sound designs for fashion pioneer Stephen Sprouse.

    For more info: americanhardcorebook.com

    Fri, Dec 3rd, 7pm

  • Edie Fake Celebrates the Release of Gaylord Phoenix

    Eight years in the making ,  Gaylord Phoenix collects  all of Edie Fake’s  raunchy queer comics serial in one volume. Perverse and surreal , Gaylord Phoenix follows  the  danger-fraught journeys of the Gaylord Phoenix, a creature willing to sacrifice anything for lost love and hidden memories. In an ever-shifting landscape full of ever-shifting genders,  Gaylord Phoenix plunges head-first into a realm full of murderous psychedelic smut and  intense magical beauty.

    Shenanigans are planned for one fun and epic release night at Quimby’s. Fake will be on hand to crack bad jokes and sign books, along with homemade penis-shaped cookies and special limited-edition mix tapes and objets-de-arte available for free with each Gaylord book and comic purchase.

    Edie Fake was born in Chicagoland in 1980. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2002 and has since clocked time in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore. He’s received a Critical Fierceness Grant for queer art and was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists. His drawings have been included in Hot and Cold, Creative Time Comics, and LTTR.  Gaylord is his first full-length book. Currently, he lives in Chicago where he works as a minicomics sommelier for Quimby’s Books.

    For more info: www.ediefake.com

    Thurs, December 9th, 2010    7pm

  • Canada’s Illegal Ad Vigilante Rami Tabello With Anne Elizabeth Moore at Quimby's 11/12

    “We fight illegal advertising using the rule of law,” Rami Tabello says when asked to describe the Toronto organization he founded to fight criminal billboards, Illegal Signs. It’s funded through donations and Tabello’s gambling take—a crazy support system for a group that spends a lot of time scrutinizing city bylaws and calling in complaints to the proper authorities. Tabello’s been called both “a fearless advocate for public space” and “annoying” by Toronto city residents and elected officials. He’ll present his work fighting—and beating—corporate criminals at Quimby’s in Chicago, a city with a massive illegal advertising problem of its own.

    Tabello is presented by Chicago author Anne Elizabeth Moore on the occasion of the re-release of the underground hit The Manifesti of Radical Literature (MRL). Out of print for over a year, MRL is an anarchist style guide for cultural producers, with chapters on such foundational political acts as throwing away one’s dictionary, creating one’s own system of punctuation, and refusing to abide by the language imposed upon us by corporate entities. Also, it is funny and of a pleasing form and light heft, perfect for spiriting away in one’s back pocket for an evening of street stenciling or shopdropping. The expanded second edition, features a new Introduction and Afterword­ and improved jokes. Moore’s Unmarketable received favorable reviews in Forbes, the LA Times, Advertising Age, and the Guardian, and was called “an anti-corporate manifesto with a difference” by Mother Jones and “sharp and valuable muckraking” by Time Out New York.

    Come hear about the work of Illegal Signs, pick up a copy of MRL, and meet Tabello and Moore at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 12.

    For more info:

    Truthout

    Pressing Concern

    Previous edition of Manifesti

  • Jay Ryan at Quimby's on 12/10!

    Quimby’s is proud to  welcome Chicago-based poster artist Jay Ryan, celebrating the release of AN UPDATED AND REVISED GREATEST-HITS COLLECTION of Jay Ryan’s first decade of compelling posters, 100 Posters/134 Squirrels. Known for his hand-drawn type, humorous animal subjects, and muted color selections, Jay Ryan has been making screen-printed concert posters in Chicago since 1995. He’s worked for thousands of rock bands, as well as clients like Patagonia clothing, Converse shoes, Burton Snowboards, and the BBC.

    The work in 100 Posters/134 Squirrels is framed by essays from luminaries in the music, design, and poster worlds–including Steve Albini, Art Chantry, Greg Kot, and Debra Parr. This 2005 debut collection of Jay’s was praised by Chicago media and publications across the globe, including:

    “Not only a gorgeous catalog of the artist’s many memorable posters,  but a history of sorts of the Chicago underground rock scene in the  last 15 years.”                                     –Chicago Sun-Times

    “Jay Ryan takes the germ of an idea and makes it uniquely great. His genius is in knowing what matters and what doesn’t . . . His genius is in having the image matter.”                        –Steve Albini

    Since the release of that book, he has honed his craft continuing without the use of computers, and screen-printing the work in his shop called the Bird Machine for bands such as the Melvins, the Shins, Modest Mouse, Andrew Bird, Shellac, My Morning Jacket, and hundreds of others. His book, Animals and Objects In and Out of Water, features 120 of Jay Ryan’s favorite pieces of art from the last three years, including text about each of the prints, detail photos (shot at the  MCA in Chicago), and original drawings.

    For more info: thebirdmachine.com

    akashicbooks.com/100posters_reissue.htm

  • Mike White Reads From Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection 12/4

    Harangue for Hollywood! From the blighted urban squalor of Detroit—Paris of the Midwest—came enfant terrible Mike White and his mutant publication, Cashiers du Cinemart. For fourteen years and fifteen issues the writers of Cashiers du Cinemart provided a treasure trove of writing on film and popular culture.

    This book collects the best articles from the fifteen year history of Cashiers du Cinemart magazine with sections dedicated to Quentin Tarantino, Star Wars, Black Shampoo, unproduced screenplays, celebrity interviews, and much more. Everything has been refreshed, polished, and improved for this volume of movie mayhem.

    “Obsessive, indulgent, wildly erratic, yet Impossibly Funky still warms my hardened critic’s heart because of the burning passion for movie going of the writer. It’s manifested in the nutty, beyond-left-field takes on popular geeky movies, and, even better, the stretch beyond Lucas and Tarantino to Kenneth Fearing, Travis McGee, and the unheralded comic genius of Canadian cinema, John Paizs. I’ve got to get my butt to Black Shampoo!” – Gerald Peary, critic, The Boston Phoenix

    For more info: http://www.impossiblefunky.com

    Saturday, December 4th at 7PM

  • Josh MacPhee Reads From Celebrate People’s History 11/11

    Since 1998, Josh MacPhee has commissioned and produced over one hundred posters by over eighty artists that pay tribute to revolution, racial justice, women’s rights, queer liberation, labor struggles, and creative activism and organizing. Celebrate People’s History! presents these essential moments—acts of resistance and great events in an often hidden history of human and civil rights struggles—as a visual tour through decades and across continents, from the perspective of some of the most interesting and socially engaged artists working today.

    Josh MacPhee, artist and activist, is the founder of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, an organization that promotes radical art forms. He is the author of Stencil Pirates: A Global Study of the Street Stencil (2004) and co-edited Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority (2007) and Reproduce and Revolt (2008). MacPhee is also the curator of the printmaking exhibition Paper Politics, which has been on tour in the United States since 2004.

    Featured Artists in the book who will be at the event, the list is growing!:

    John Jennings

    Marc Nelson

    Damon Locks is a visual artist and a musician here in Chicago. He performs in both The Eternals and The Exploding Star Orchestra. Always up for a good conversation, he was happy to participate in the Celebrate Peoples History book event at Quimby’s.

    André Pérez, Founder of the Transgender Oral History Project, developer of educational materials about trans issues, and organizer with GenderQueer Chicago.

    For more info: justseeds.org

  • ‘Za the Pizza Zine Release and Pizza Party at Quimby’s 11/10

    As spicy and sassy as a stick of pepperoni, ‘Za the Pizza Zine is a compilation about, what else, the wonders of pizza. Still, it’s about more than simply reveling in pepperoni prose for creator Nicki Yowell and her baker’s dozen of bi-coastal contributors. The Chicagoans are plenty and include Ramsey Everydaypants of List, Eric Bartholomew of Junk Drawer, gore poet Mason Pierce and Dining with Words’ Caroline Liebman. ‘Za combines fiction, essays, comics, illustration and photography to create an all-out snack time explosion. Come for the reading of eloquent odes to ‘za and stay for the pizza party, featuring actual pizza.

    For more info: zathepizzazine.wordpress.com