Category: Store Events

  • Chris Robé Presents Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas 5/12

    Don’t miss this event! Saturday, May 12th Chris Robé presents Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas with film clips and discussion at Quimby’s.

    Breaking the Spell offers the first full-length study that charts the historical trajectory of anarchist-inflected video activism from the late 1960s to the present.  Robé fills in historical gaps by bringing to light unexplored video activist groups like the Cascadia Forest Defenders, eco-video activists from Oregon; Mobile Voices, Latino day laborers; and Outta Your Backpack Media, indigenous youth from the Southwest. Chris’s groundbreaking discussion deepens our understanding of more well-researched video activist movements by situating them within a longer history and wider context of radical video activism. Chris will show archival film clips and discuss their historical significance. The book is published by PM Press

    “Christopher Robé’s meticulously researched Breaking the Spell is an invaluable guide to the contemporary anarchist media landscape that will prove useful for activists as well as scholars.” —Richard Porton, author of Film and the Anarchist Imagination

    “Breaking the Spell is a highly readable history of U.S. activism against neoliberal capitalism from the perspective of “Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas,” the subtitle of the book.

    —Dorothy Kidd. Professor and Chair, Department of Media Studies, University of San Francisco

    Chris Robé is an associate professor in Film and Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University. He has published essays on radical media in journals like Jump Cut, Rethinking Marxism, and Journal of Film and Video and written a monograph titled Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture. He is also a frequent contributor to the online journal PopMatters.

    For more info:

    Facebook Event Invite for this event.

    on Chris Robe and the book: http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/ChrisRobe

    Contact the author at  crobe@fau.edu or Steven at PM Press steven@pmpress.org

    This book on Quimazon!

    Free event.

  • 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

    Here’s the Facebook Invite for this event!

     

  • Esther K Smith & Dikko Faust show and tell Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type Borders &c & Purgatory Pie Press 4/19

     

    Rustic Bride Mun! The Most Beautiful Book in the World! Esther K Smith & Dikko Faust of Purgatory Pie Press will show and tell William H. Page’s classic book Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, &c.: The 1874 Masterpiece of Colorful Typography.

    Esther K Smith first saw The Most Beautiful Book in the World at Chicago’s Newberry Library. As she turned the pages, she knew she needed to work with a big publisher to reprint the book so that she could own a copy. Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type Borders &c (Rizzoli) is a reprint of WH Page’s 1874 catalog of typography and ink from the exuberant early decades of manufactured color–available to the public for the first time. Page produced the largest and most detailed wood type which he distributed his type all over the world– throughout the US, Europe, and Asia–even Burma. One librarian said that though clothing faded and architecture was repainted, the brilliant inks inside the book retained the vivid intensity of the Victorian era. The text is found poetry which one viewer likened to Gertrude Stein. Smith and Faust will show pages from the book and talk about producing the reprint, working with six original copies in three rare book libraries. And they will discuss their own experience at Purgatory Pie Press, one of the longest running artist presses, printing and designing with wood type. Chromatic Wood Type is an opera of a  book–and the opera it inspired (Soundscapes of Color) premiers April 22 at 6018 North. The composer, Michal Dzitko, will be present and they will show a short clip of the opera-in-progress.

    “Take a wild ride through the polychrome world of nineteenth-century poster type. These letters are slathered with more ink and ornament than a tattooed sailor.” –Ellen Lupton, Senior Curator, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

    “WOW. What a treasure to be saved and savored. And what an insane genius craftsman William H. Page was. this book is as fun to read as it is to look at, with its accidental (or perhaps totally intentional) bits of poetry, decades ahead of its time.” —Chip Kidd,  

    Esther K Smith is the author of the best-selling How to Make Books and Making Books with Kids, which Bank St. Education included in their Best Children’s Books of the Year. Smith collaborates with Dikko Faust making limited editions and artist books at Purgatory Pie Press. Their work is in many collections including the Newberry Library, The Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and London’s V&A.

    For more info:

    Images from the book!
    Specimens-cover
    detail 
    wood type
    page
    another page

    esther(at)purgatorypiepress(dot)com

    purgatorypiepress.com

    Facebook Event Invite for this event.

    Thurs April 19, 7pm – Free Event

  • Georgia Webber Reads From Dumb: Living Without a Voice 5/31

    Toronto-based cartoonist Georgia Webber’s new book, Dumb (Fantagraphics Books), Part memoir, part medical cautionary tale, Dumb tells the story of how the book’s author copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the practical hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her increasingly lonely journey to regain her life. Her raw cartooning style, occasionally devolving into chaotic scribbles, splotches of ink, and overlapping montages, perfectly captures her frustration and anxiety. But her ordeal ultimately becomes a hopeful story. Throughout, she learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined.

    “Webber wields the full power of the comics medium to address the life-changing catastrophe of being forced into silence.”

    – Broken Frontier

    Georgia Webber is a cartoonist living in Toronto, where she is a freelance comics in addition to editing the comics section of carte blanche. She is best known for Dumb, her autobiographical comics series about living with a vocal disability.

    For more info:

    Facebook Event invite.

    fantagraphics.com/dumb

    Quimazon

    Media inquiries to: cohen@fantagraphics.com

    Thursday, May 31st 7pm – Free Event

  • Philip Becnel Reads From Freedom City 6/22

    In his debut novel FREEDOM CITY, Philip Becnel hilariously ridicules the current kakistocracy (government run by the worst people) in a gripping satire that pays homage to The Monkey Wrench Gang. After President Trump unceremoniously dies from a stroke, an eclectic band of rebels from Washington, D.C. sever the heads of Confederate statues and wage a comedic guerrilla war on post-Trump America. When President Pence enlists droves of fascist volunteers to crush the “alt-left” uprising, the rebels must risk their lives to run the fascists out of D.C. What follows is not only a battle for survival—but also a desperate search for remnants of what once made America great.

    “Someone at Netflix needs to check out Freedom City. It’s a short novel, but the character’s backgrounds could fill out a six part series! Hurry!” – Christopher Leibig, Author of Almost Mortal

    FREEDOM CITY draws on Philip Becnel’s nearly 20 years of experience working as a private detective in D.C., where The Washington Post has referred to him as the “Bogart of body language” for his interviewing skills. He previously published Introduction to Conducting Private Investigations and Principles of Investigative Documentation, two books widely considered must-reads in the investigations industry. He has also written articles in a variety of legal and popular journals such as Time Magazine, and he has been interviewed by several major news organizations, including CNN and U.S. News & World Report, for his unique expertise and perspective.

    For more info please visit https://philipbecnel.com.

    Facebook Event Invite here.

    Fri, June 22nd, 7pm – Free Event

  • 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 Owens

     

    With 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!

     

  • Off-Site: Chicago Zine Fest 2018, May 18th and 19th

     

    Watch this space for more info about Chicago Zine Fest 2018!

    Quimby’s is proud to co-sponsor The Chicago Zine Fest, a celebration of small press and independent publishers, with free workshops, events, and an annual festival. CZF 2018 will be held May 18-19. All events are free!

    Friday, May 18th: Panel Discussion & Exhibitor Reading, 6:30-9:30pm at the Institute of Cultural Affairs, 4750 N. Sheridan Road in Uptown. The topic is On Speaking Terms: Zines, Librarians and Communities and the panel will feature local zinester and Chicago Public Library employee Oscar Arreola, Doro of the School of the Art Institute’s Zine Collection, Milo from Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP), and moderated by the University of Chicago’s zine archivist, Sarah G. Wenzel. Then stay for the exhibitor reading featuring performances by Zach Auburn, Shira Mario, Megan Metzger, Ariel Chan, Marian Runk, Katie Armentrout and Cathy Hannah. Facebook event invite for that event here.

    Saturday, May 19th: Tabling Exhibition, 11am-6pm at The Plumbers Union Hall, 1340 W Washington Blvd in Chicago. The exhibitor list is here.  And Facebook event invite for that event here. Come see us at Table S3!

    And don’t forget about the Chicago Zine Fest Afterparty w/ Punk Rock Karaoke at the Co-Prosperity Sphere from 7:30 to midnight on Saturday night. (Here’s the Facebook event invite for it.) $6 goes to fundraiser for the CHIPRC.

    PRK flyer by Miguel Centeno.

     

    For more info:

    chicagozinefest.org

    facebook.com/chicagozinefest

    twitter.com/chicagozinefest

    chicagozinefest.tumblr.com

    instagram.com/chicagozinefest

    Interested in volunteering? Contact CZF here!

    CZF 2018 artwork by Yewon Kwon.

  • 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:

    nickdrnaso.tumblr.com

    Julia Pohl-Miranda and Sruti Islam at publicity@drawnandquarterly.com

    Thurs, May 24th, 7pm – Free Event

    Quimby’s Bookstore, Chicago, IL quimbys.com

    Here’s the Facebook Event Invite for this!

     

    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.

    For more info:

    johnporcellino.blogspot.com

    king-cat.net

    drawnandquarterly.com

    Facebook Event Listing for this event.

     

  • Tommi Parrish at Quimby's for The Lie and How We Told It 2/6

    Cartoonist, illustrator, and art editor Tommi Parrish stops at Quimby’s with The Lie and How We Told It, a book that has received praise from NPR, Paste Magazine, Sequential State, and others.

    Tommi Parrish is a cartoonist, illustrator, and art editor from Melbourne, currently based in Montreal. Their work has appeared in various anthologies, magazines, mini comics, gallery shows in New York, Argentina, and throughout Australia, the online column Advicecomics and they were previously an art editor of the Australian literary journal The Lifted Brow. Their previous publications include Perfect Hair (2dcloud) and Perfect Discipline and Unbending Loyalty (Perfectly Acceptable Press).

    About The Lie: 

    After a chance encounter, two formerly close friends try to salvage whatever is left of their decaying relationship. They are in for an awkward, painful night that leaves them feeling lonelier, more uncertain, and more estranged than ever before. Parrish’s first graphic novel for Fantagraphics is a visual tour de force, always in the service of the author’s ever-prevalent themes: navigating queer desire, masculinity, fear, and the ever-in-flux state of friendships.

    Parrish makes emotionally loaded painted comics about everyday relationships, doubts, and anxieties. The psychological acuity in the work pairs perfectly to the graphic style. The Lie and How We Told It is a remarkably resonant work from an exciting new voice in contemporary graphic novels. 

    Don’t miss Tommi here on Tuesday, Feb 6th, 7pm.

    Here’s the event invite for this on Facebook.