Your cart is currently empty!
Category: readings
-
Steve Miller Talks Detroit Rock City Book and Punk Rock Provocateur Tesco Vee Squawks Touch and Go
Michigan madmen Steve Miller and Tesco Vee, veterans of the unbridled musical sounds that made the Midwest famous, appear together July 26 to talk about Miller’s new oral history, Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Five Decades of Rock ‘N Roll in America’s Loudest City (Da Capo). The two will also discuss the classic punk rock tome Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79-’83 (Bazillion Points), the 576-page monsterpiece written by TV and edited by Miller.
Steve Miller is a noted true crime author, award-winning investigative journalist, and former singer of hardcore punk legends the Fix. In Detroit Rock City, Miller spins a tale of rust belt rebellion culled from hundreds of hours spent interviewing a litany of rock titans, from Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop to Jack White and John Brannon. Miller does the walkin’ and lets the principals do the talkin’ as he creeps through 50 years of hard rockin’ magnificence from the “Mitten.”
Tesco Vee is the irascible, ageless, iconic punk rock impresario, renaissance man, and founder of Touch and Go. His band The Meatmen continue to amaze and astound. His rapier wit will be on full display Friday.
Detroit Rock City is …A sharply edited oral history that nails most of the major players and includes the inherent contradictions in each person’s account of how history went down, it offers up that singular Detroit attitude that somehow fuses an inferiority/superiority complex into something loud, aggressive, and delightfully unique. Not to be crude, but– holy crap. – Dave DiMartino, former editor, Creem magazine
“Creem may have taught me how to piss, but Touch and Go taught me how to shit. I owe my career to that magazine.”—John Brannon, Negative Approach
-
Fan Interference: The Best of Zisk Zine Release Event with Mike Faloon, Steve Reynolds and Jake Austen 7/19
Intending to cover baseball from a fan’s perspective, the first issue of Zisk was published in the summer of 1999 and is now published twice a season. Named for the former “South Side Hitman” Richie Zisk, the zine is for those who love the charm, history and quirks of America’s pastime. The publication is edited by New York-based writers Mike Faloon and Steve Reynolds and is touted as “the Baseball Magazine For People Who Hate Baseball Magazines.” FAN INTERFERENCE: A COLLECTION OF BASEBALL RANTS AND REFLECTIONS (Blue Cubicle Press, 2013) is an anthology of the best musings culled from over 15 years of Zisk. Edited by MIKE FALOON (Go Metric, Egghead.) and STEVE REYNOLDS (Trouser Press, Party Like It’s 1999) and featuring contributions from academics to punk rockers, comedians to fans with an ax to grind, FAN INTERFERENCE examines the intersection of baseball, lifestyle and music — all colored with bit of nostalgia, a great deal of humor and, often, a tongue planted firmly in cheek.
In addition to Faloon and Reynolds, contributors to the anthology include JAKE AUSTEN (author, TV-A-Go-Go: Rock Music on Television from American Bandstand to American Idol), SEAN CARSWELL (college professor, co-founder of the independent music magazine Razorcake and the independent book publisher Gorsky Press), KEVIN CHANEL (Punk Rock Confidential), BRIAN COGAN (The Encyclopedia of Punk), DR. NANCY GOLDEN (writer; wildlife toxicologist), JOHN SHIFFERT (author, Base Ball in Philadelphia), TODD TAYLOR (founder and executive director of Razorcake/Gorsky Press Inc.), CHARLIE VASCELLARO (journalist, Washington Post, Chicago Sun Times, Los Angeles Times), ARI VOUKYDIS (comedian/writer, BuzzFeed, GQ, Grantland, etc) and REV NORB (musician; inventor of Sick Teen magazine, former writer for Maximum Rocknroll).
FAN INTERFERENCE: A COLLECTION OF BASEBALL RANTS AND REFLECTIONS (Blue Cubicle Press, 2013)
Anthology – Paperback
238 pages Print – $22.95
ISBN: 978-1-938583-04-9
“…For those who love baseball for its charm, history and eccentricities and not merely as something to play a fantasy league around. It’s for the true fans who populate the upper deck, not the party animals in the bleachers.” – Chicago Tribune
“Baseball is the most important thing in the world. It’s also completely meaningless in the grand scheme of life. These guys recognize that those two philosophies can co-exist in the human brain, which makes their writing a truly electric, and all too rare, jolt to the synapses.” – Variety
Fri, July 19th, 7pm
For more info:
-
Thai Comic Horrors Vol. 2 Release Event with visits to Buddhist Hell, Tropical Ghosts and Other Strangeness 7/23
Join Quimby’s for the release of Thai Comic Horrors Vol.2, a compilation of overlooked pulp horror comics from the Kingdom of Thailand. Translated into English for the first time these stories offer a glimpse into folklore and superstition often unseen by outsiders. The new issue of Thai Comic Horrors is themed around body horror and showcase stories involving Thai ghosts that share an unquenchable desire to consume fresh human intestines! For this event Logan Bay will present a slide show and lecture reflecting on the four years spent abroad. Lecture topics will include visiting Buddhist Hell parks and an introduction to Thai ghosts & superstitions.
Artist (and former Quimby employee!) Logan Bay has created a diverse body of work over his artistic career. Past projects have included: publications, audiovisual performance, installation, graphic design and illustration. Active as a curator and organizer Logan has produced shows in New York, Chicago, & Bangkok. He is currently enrolled at Rangsit University, Thailand working towards a MFA in design.
For more info visit: loganbay.com or loganbaybay@gmail.com
Click here for the Facebook event invite.
Tues, July 23rd, 7pm – Free Event
-
Quimby’s Welcomes Dan Gleason and Friends 7/6
It’s a celebratory event for the release of Dan Gleason’s 50th zine, ‘A Book Of Themes!’ Skip all of those 6th of July firework-filled galas, which inevitably end in the emergency room, and take heed to the words of a cavalcade of weirdos at your favorite local bookstore. This night’s roster of readers includes the great Rachel McPadden, former lead singer of the hardcore punk band Shit Ass, the artists behind the early 90’s hit ‘Playground.’ She has contributed to Mr. Skin’s website and is the only person ever to have claimed a crush on film actor George C. Scott. Mike McPadden – he’s head writer at Mr. Skin and author of the books ‘Heavy Metal Movies: From Anvil to Zardoz, the 666 Most Headbanging Movies of All Time’ and ‘If You Like Metallica.’ He also briefly replaced Bowzer in Sha Na Na back in ’83 after that artist’s split from the group. Gregory Jacobsen is lead singer of the band Lovely Little Girls, the Fatty Jubbo behind Fatty Jubbo’s Cake and Polka Parade podcast, brought to you by WFMU, and the finest painter in all of Chicagolandia. For a time he danced with a box on his head on the Chic-A-Go-Go! show, too. Jenny Inzerillo writes, paints, molds the minds of the youth and is the only thing worth two shakes any more in that stinking Logan Square neighborhood. She aspires to leave this planet one day soon on Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo. Gabriel Wallace is Jeffrey-Elaine Shotzenberger, and host of the Pamela monthly reading series, and Dan Gleason is a hirsute hermit who has produced fifty of those little fold up zine/books that you (hopefully) enjoy.
Come try their words on for size, evolve, and then leave the premises with a much more promising outlook on life, which should include a sudden longing to work with wicker, the ability to make your own gillie suit with only a half dozen discarded hairnets and five feet of twine, a won’t for knowledge of the ‘inner algorithms,’ a potential subscription to the H&R Block monthly newsletter, a lust for vice, a turning out, a tuning in, a tuna rolling, and a rin-tin-tin-atuding. GET DOWN FOR THE UPSTROKE! ’88 was great, ’99 was fine, but damn do I miss the music of GENUWINE! LOVE LIVING- AND BE THERE!
Dan Gleason has at least 25 books on the market for your pleasure, here are the titles of just a few of them: The Unexpected Gratification I Received From Taking In The Sexual Act With A Homeless Person And Other Less Contemplative Thoughts Rendered In Short Story Form By Dan Gleason, The NCA’s Introductory Book To Your Newest Saints, Fairy Tales With Important Morals For Children And Other Unambitious Writings By Dan Gleason, The Great American Novella, Stories Of Life Minus Context And Sense Plus Other Little Ditties By Dan Gleason, I Married A White Woman, Satansbraten: Stories For The Season Of The Witch, The Gospel According To Dan Gleason, All Of Those Happier Thoughts I Was Too Afraid To Express Before (AKA My Big Bland Book Of Feelings) By Dan Gleason, Memoirs Of A Guy In The Band, and Interludes. He is a Quimby’s favorite.
For more info: stopgostop.com/dangleason/
Saturday, July 6th, 7pm – Free Event
-
Off-Site: Quimby's Co-sponsors the EX. MONEY. RACE. GENDER Ladydrawers Exhibition
Quimby’s Bookstore (and our sister store, Chicago Comics) are proud to be a sponsor of the Ladydrawers Comics Collective exhibition entitled SEX. MONEY. RACE. GENDER, curated by Anne Elizabeth Moore, at Columbia College Chicago’s A+D Gallery, opening June 27th. S.M.R.G. will also feature a series of workshops that explores hot button topics with everything from site-specific murals to performance to empirical conversations to yes, comics.
Beginning with the opening night spectacle, the gallery (Columbia’s A+D Gallery, not Quimby’s) will be activated through fun, radicalthinking, and art making, a space to observe and reflect on ideas of SEX, MONEY, RACE, and GENDER. Instead of creating a catalog for the show, Quimby’s is proud to co-sponsor a comics anthology including work by Robyn Chapman, Danielle Chenette, Clay Harris, Lyra Hill, MariNaomi, Corinne Mucha, Laura Szumowski, Lauren Weinstein.SEX. MONEY. RACE. GENDER. The Ladydrawers (of Chicago, IL)
Exhibition & Workshop Schedule
Opening Reception: June 27, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
Exhibit closes on July 27th
Curated by Anne Elizabeth Moore
S.M.R.G OPENING NIGHT EXTRAVAGANZA!
Featuring comedy, art making, readings, performance, and much more. Come explore issues of SEX, MONEY, RACE, and GENDER with a sprinkling of humor and pathos through stand up comedy, femcore anthems, live mural making, and interpretations of texts, personal readings (in the bathroom!), and even hula hooping. Join us, won’t you?
Opening Night Performers
Sarah Bell, Blizzard Babies, Gretchen Hasse, Lyra Hill, Elliott Junkyard, Francis Kang, Ever Mainard, Carolina Mayorga, Katie McVay, Yasmin Nair, Polly Yates
Exhibition Participants
Nicole Boyett, Jacinta Bunnel, Danielle Chenette, Gretchen Hasse, Elliott Junkyard, Francis Kang, Carolina Mayorga, Melissa Gira Grant, Lyra Hill, Franny Howes, Nia King, Viet Le, Nicole Marroquin, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Sarah Morton, Liz Rush, Rachel Swanson, Laura Szumowski, Bonsovathary Uoeung, Lauren Weinstein, Sarah Welch, Elizabeth White, Mara Williams, Polly Yates
S.M.R.G Workshops
These workshops are collaborative and exploratory projects lead by outstanding cultural producers and thinkers—all amazing, smart people that you will like very much.
Radical Noticing: Riot Grrrl Press and Contemporary Comics
May Summer Farnsworth and Jamie Davida Lee
Saturday, June 29, 2013 2:00-4:00 p.m.
May Summer Farnsworth will discuss her experiences working on the formation of Riot Grrrl Press in 1993. Cartoonist Jamie Davida Lee will simultaneously lead a silent workshop on making comics and zines.
Lexicon of Sexicana
Esther Pearl Watson and Terri Kapsalis
Thursday, July 11, 2013, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Speech balloons! Giant boons! Big muscles! The hundred-year-old lexicon of comics was developed by its most prominent practitioners, mostly straight white dudes. It’s time to re-think the language of comics. Esther Pearl Watson and Terri Kapsalis will create a work exploring sexual health based on Mort Walker’s satirical look at comics devices for cartoonists, The Lexicon of Comicana.
Life and Labor
Delia Jean Hickey and Sarah Jaffe
Thursday, July 18, 2013, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
We all know what it means to work, but what extra effort do certain forms of labor extract from us? This workshop explores what it takes to make an honest living, with a particular focus on the service industry.
Boi Band Poser Poster Workshop
Viet Le and Morgan Claire
Thursday, July 25, 2013, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
This workshop challenges identities and identifications through pop and props. Thinking through gender, race, and (inner and outer) space, participants will form and “perform” their own pop bands and solo acts. Fun FOBulous times!
-
Teens Read Work Inspired by Chicago Zine Fest 5/14
In the week following March’s Chicago Zine Fest, 13 high school students participated in a series of talks and workshops with exciting self-publishing artists from the greater Chicagoland area. Now here’s their chance to present and read from their self-published works inspired by what they learned during the series, that include essays, poems, comics and stories. Quimby’s is proud to support the next era of self-publishers.
F E A T U R I N G T A L E S OF . . .
Eggplants <> Deep Fears <> Deep Loves
White Castle <> Radio Reception and more!
Tuesday (a good day for mail), May 14th, 7pm
-
Pete Jordan Reads From In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist 5/5
Pete Jordan, author of Dishwasher, tells the story of his love affair with Amsterdam, the city of bikes, all the while unfolding an unknown history of the city’s cycling, from the craze of the 1890s, through the Nazi occupation, to the bike-centric culture adored by the world today.
Part personal memoir, part history of cycling, part fascinating street-level tour of Amsterdam, IN THE CITY OF BIKES: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist is the story of a man who loves bicycling in a city that is obsessed with bikes.
When Pete’s story begins, his goals for an upcoming semester abroad are clear: study how to make America’s cities more bicycle friendly, and then return home—simple and straightforward. Once he sets foot in Amsterdam, however, Pete falls immediately in love with the city that already lives life on two wheels—and suddenly, he can’t imagine living anywhere else.
But hardships loom in Pete’s adopted homeland. As Pete skips from one short-term apartment rental to the next, stability stays just out of reach and work is increasingly difficult to find. Meanwhile he stumbles upon unforeseen pleasures in his daily bike rides and begins his dig into the city’s cycling past. What he discovers there is no less an untold cultural history of Amsterdam.
From cycling’s beginning as an elitist pastime in the 1890s to the street-consuming craze of the 1920s, from the bicycle’s role in city-wide resistance to the Nazi occupation to the legendary (yet mythical) success of the White Bikes in the 1960s all the way up to the mysterious bike fishermen of today, in IN THE CITY OF BIKES Jordan illuminates the bicycle’s integral role in shaping both the psyche and city of Amsterdam.
“An excellent choice for bikers and those who appreciate how a city’s history can be changed by the simplest of passions.”
–Kirkus Reviews
“Part memoir, part history, the book gives readers looking to unlock the city’s secrets an opportunity to follow in the author’s tracks.”
–Publishers Weekly
Pete Jordan is the author of the memoir Dishwasher: One Man’s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States. Pete’s work has been featured on public radio’s “This American Life” and in The New York Times. He lives with his son in Amsterdam.
Sunday, May 5th, 3pm – Free Event
For more info, download In the City of Bikes Press Release from the publisher.
-
Briefly Knocked Unconscious By A Low-Flying Duck Event 2/22
Quimby’s welcomes Patricia Ann McNair, J.C. Aevaliotis, and Eric May, reading from Briefly Knocked Unconscious By A Low-Flying Duck
In 2nd Story’s new essay anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious By A Low-Flying Duck (Elephant Rock Books), the twenty-three contributors unveil a wide range of topics through their personal narratives. We’ve got race relations in Roger’s Park, teaching kids about Dr. King, a gay man falling in love with a high school girl in Godspell, sex clubs in Amsterdam, murder in Rockford, death at Sea World Ohio, shower dances with drag queens, Xena Warrior princess, kiss-off letter to major universities, Sam Weller getting propositioned by a porn star two weeks after his wedding, fairies appearing in backyards, a guy trying to replicate Thoreau’s Walden cabin, chaos at The United Skates of America, slaying the great dragon of addiction, a Korean girl realizing her identity as she puts on eye shadow for the first time, and the life and death nature of teaching creative writing. The uniqueness of this anthology lies within the fact that each story was once performed upon a stage before an audience.
“…what a treat, the genre, the writers, and the Chicagoness of it all. As we said, sometimes things come to you, and they’re like a gift, and this collection is a gift, and it will linger, so please do take a look, because it just might change your life.” -Ben Tanzer, This Blog Will Change Your Life
PATRICIA ANN McNAIR is the author of The Temple of Air, a finalist for the Society of Midland Authors Best Book Award and Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award. She’s received four Illinois Arts Council Awards and was nominated for the Carnegie Foundation US Professor of the Year. McNair teaches in Columbia College Chicago’s Fiction Writing Department.
JC AEVALIOTIS is a Chicago-based writer and performer who holds a master’s degree in religion and theater from Yale Divinity School. He has performed with various Second City-affiliated ensembles and several live-lit outfits in Chicago, and his writing has been seen in Playboy and heard on Chicago NPR affiliate WBEZ.
ERIC CHARLES MAY is an associate professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago and a former reporter for The Washington Post. His fiction has appeared in Fish Stories and F Magazine. In addition to Post reporting, his nonfiction has appeared in Sport Literate and the Chicago Tribune.
For more information about 2nd Story please visit www.2ndstory.com
For more info visit www.erpmedia.net/books/Briefly.htmlFriday, February 22, 7pm – Free Event
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/411951955556254/?ref=2
-
Thomas Frank Reads From Pity the Billionaire 10/23
From the bestselling author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, this witty and highly provocative book asks a simple question: How is it possible that the disastrous collapse of the free market economy in 2008 could have heralded a popular revival—of the right?
In Pity the Billionaire, a brilliant, funny, and disturbing tour de force, Thomas Frank analyzes the sleight of hand involved in the right’s resurgence—all the upside-down grievances that have transformed economic suffering into valentines for the rich and powerful. This great chronicler of American paradox dissects the contradictions at the heart of the country’s politics, and in this “dazzling” book once again shows himself as “one of the best left-wing writers America has produced” (The Guardian).
Founding editor of The Baffler, Thomas Frank is the author of One Market Under God, The Conquest of Cool and other titles. He is also a contributor to Harpers, The Nation, and the New York Times op-ed pages.
Tues, Oct 23rd, 7pm
-
A Night of Ritual Filth: Adam Parfrey & Peter Sotos at Quimby's 10/17
Adam Parfrey Presents Ritual America & Peter Sotos Discusses Pure Filth
ADAM PARFREY presents the strange history of secret societies in America in a slide show.
“Adam Parfrey is one of the nation’s most provocative publishers.”—Seattle Weekly
Based in Port Townsend, Feral House and Process Media are two of the most adventurous, often surprising publishers in the U.S., with a bent for revealing the otherwise obscured, undisclosed or under-documented. Adam Parfrey, himself a writer but also the publisher of both these presses, comes to Quimby’s, to talk and show images from his own new book, Ritual America: Secret Brotherhoods and Their Influence on American Society: A Visual Guide (Feral House) co-authored with Craig Heimbichner. Ritual America illuminates the context and preponderance of American males who belonged to fraternal orders and the place of things today in new ways.”Ritual America won a silver medal from the IPPY awards for American history.
For more info: feralhouse.com/ritual-america/
PETER SOTOS describes his collaborative effort with “Gonzo” porn maven Jamie Gillis.
Jamie Gillis appeared in over one hundred films, and as such was a primary performer in pornography’s “Golden Age.” Gillis is also known for inventing the “Gonzo” genre of pornography, played out in the film Boogie Nights by Burt Reynolds’ character.
Pure Filth appears as transcripts from the films Jamie produced during these early years of radical and highly personal pornography.
Extreme novelist Peter Sotos was a good friend of Jamie Gillis, and Sotos’ unusual perspective makes this volume possible.
Wednesday, October 17th, 7pm – Free Event
