Category: readings

  • 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 LTTRGaylord 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

  • Charles Burns Discusses X'ed Out At Quimby's on 11/3!

    From Charles Burns, the creator of Black Hole, comes X’ED OUT, the first volume of an epic masterpiece of graphic fiction in brilliant color.

    Untitled1
    Doug is having a strange night. A weird buzzing noise on the other side of the wall has woken him up, and there, across the room, next to a huge hole torn out of the bricks, sits his beloved cat, Inky. Who died years ago. But who’s nonetheless slinking out through the hole, beckoning Doug to follow. What’s going on? To say any more would spoil the freaky, Burnsian fun, especially because X’ED OUT, unlike Black Hole, has not been previously serialized, and every unnervingly meticulous panel will be more tantalizing than the last. Drawing inspiration from such diverse influences as Hergé and William Burroughs, Charles Burns has given us a dazzling spectral fever-dream—and a comic-book masterpiece.

    Charles Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman’s Raw magazine in the mid-1980s and took off from there, with an extraordinary range of comics and projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to the latest ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992, he designed the set for Mark Morris’s delightful restaging of The Nutcracker (renamed The Hard Nut) at BAM. He has illustrated covers for Time, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. He was also tapped as the official cover artist for The Believer magazine at its inception in 2003.

    “A haunting first chapter in what promises to be a spellbinder…Masterful…it will leave you begging for the rest of the story.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

    “Like an apocalyptic hallucination…the visionary artistry of Burns exists beyond the bounds of time and constraints of conventional narrative.” –Kirkus starred review

    “Long awaited first chapter in what promises to be a trippy, wildly experimental and typically disquieting epic.” –NPR.org

    “Anything by comics master Burns is a big event and this is no exception.”—Comics Beat

    For more info: www.pantheonbooks.com

  • Carol Novack, Joseph Suglia, Garrett Cook and Eckhard Gerdes

    Eckhard Gerdes’s new 2-in-1 book of novels is “The Unwelcome Guest” plus “Nin and Nan” and is published by Enigmatic Ink (http://enigmaticink.com/) and Carol Novack’s collection of stories “Giraffes in Hiding” is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press (http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/). Garrett Cook is the author of “Jimmy Plush, Bear Detective,” published by Eraserhead Books (see http://jimmyplush.blogspot.com/). For info about Joseph Suglia, see josephsuglia.com.

    Eckhard Gerdes is the editor of The Journal of Experimental Fiction, an occasional publication dedicated to the furthering of forefront fiction. He has published criticism in The Review of Contemporary Fiction, American Review of Books, Electronic Book Review, and other magazines. His fiction has appeared in Fiction International, Notre Dame Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Golden Handcuffs Review, Coe Review, Oyez Review, Rampike, and in many other fine magazines and journals. Gerdes’s previoius novel, My Landlady the Lobotomist, was a top five finisher in the 2009 Preditors and Editors Readers Poll and was nominated for the 2009 Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel of the Year. His The Million-Year Centipede was selected as one of the top ten mainstream novels of 2007 in the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll and was nominated for the 2008 Wonderland Award. He has twice been the recipient of the Richard Pike Bissell Creative Writing Award for excerpts from Przewalski’s Horse, has also been a finalist for both the Starcherone and the Blatt fiction prizes for his unpublished manuscript White Bungalows, and for Cistern Tawdry he was nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Award in the Fiction Category. He lives near Chicago and has three sons, to whom this new book is proudly dedicated.

    Carol Novack is the former recipient of a writer’s award from the Australian government, the author of a poetry chapbook, an erstwhile criminal defense and constitutional lawyer in NYC, and the publisher of Mad Hatters’ Review http://www.madhattersreview.com/. She immigrated to a mountain ridge in Asheville in May, and will be launching her collection of fictions, fusions, and poems, “Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack” (Spuyten Duyvil Press), due to emerge this October. Works may or will be found in numerous journals, including American Letters & Commentary, Caketrain, Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse, Fiction International, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Literature, LIT, Notre Dame Review, and Otoliths, and in many anthologies, including “The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets,” “Diagram III,” and “The &Now Awards: the Best Innovative Writing.” Writings in translations may or will be found in French, Italian, and Romanian journals.  See her blog http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/

    Garrett Cook, a 27-year-old author of horror and Bizarro fiction, is the winner of the First Annual Ultimate Bizarro Showdown. He has four exciting pulp novellas in print, including the first two books in his infamous and destined-to-be cult classic trilogy Murderland.

    Joseph Suglia earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. His other books include Hölderlin and Blanchot on Self-Sacrifice, Years of Rage, and the first edition of Watch Out . What will become of him is anyone s guess. In Suglia’s Watch Out, Jonathan Barrows is a perfect being. He’s arrogant, defines pompous and is arguably the first human to benefit from Body Deity Morphia (confidences that oneself has a Godly physical existence). Knowing JB is like kissing your lover on the lips and tasting your own sexual flavors. Familiar, exotic and taboo.

  • Van Gogh's Ear volume 7 Release Event

    VGE1.7International prose & poetry anthology series VAN GOGH’S EAR will hold an event to celebrate the launch of its SEVENTH volume. Van Gogh’s Ear is a joint publication of French Connection Press (Paris) and Committee On Poetry (New York), a non-profit organization created by Allen Ginsberg.

    Van Gogh’s Ear is among the most popular of international books in the field of creative writing at the moment and is also an affluent resource for teachers and a library basic. Since its début in 2002, Van Gogh’s Ear has gained international acclaim for its original work by more than eighty celebrated and emerging talents per volume including Yoko Ono, James Dean; Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Charles Manson, Xaviera Hollander, Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, Taslima Nasrin, Carolyn and Neal Cassady.

    The event will be hosted by four local Chicago readers and contributors of Van Gogh’s Ear: Marc Smith, Carlos T. Mock, Larry Sawyer, Joel Craig, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, and Larry Sawyer.

    Volume 7 includes work by Jorge Artajo, Camille Feinberg, Fern C.Z. Carr, Saint James Harris Wood, Imani Tolliver, Reginald T. Jackson, Jayanta Mahapatra and many more!

    For more info: www.frenchcx.com