Category: Store Events

  • Quimby’s October Newsletter Available Now

    Read it here and make sure you sign up to get it in your inbox at quimbys.com.

  • Zine Club Chicago Online: The Business of DIY — Conversation With Jenna Blazevich of Vichcraft, Tues. Oct 17th

    Zine Club Chicago Online: The Business of DIY —
    A Conversation with Jenna Blazevich of Vichcraft
    7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, October 17 on the Quimby’s YouTube channel
    Free!

    This month, Zine Club Chicago is excited to welcome Jenna Blazevich of Vichcraft for a conversation about the business of DIY! Jenna, a local artist and chainstitcher, has channeled her DIY passions into one of Chicago’s most inventive independent businesses.

    Want to know more about the nuts and bolts of making a living with your art while expressing your DIY values, building an indie business from the ground up, and forging successful partnerships with other creative folks? Jenna will discuss all this and more — including how her secondhand risograph printer was a major score — in conversation with Zine Club Chicago producer Cynthia E. Hanifin.

    Please join us for Zine Club Chicago Online: The Business of DIY — A Conversation with Jenna Blazevich of Vichcraft at 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, Oct. 17 on the Quimby’s Bookstore YouTube channel. No need to RSVP – just head over to YouTube.com/QuimbysBookstore.

    Do you have questions for Jenna? Please email them to us in advance at zineclubchicago@gmail.com or join the YouTube chat during the event to take part in the Q&A segment of the discussion.

    Vichcraft recently collaborated with us to create some special merch for our 32nd anniversary! You can check out the limited-edition t-shirt and more here: Quimby’s x Vichcraft

    Vichcraft is the independent and collaborative, multi-disciplinary studio of Jenna Blazevich.

    Since being founded in 2015, Vichcraft has steadily been building a collection of social-issue driven projects made with various tactile handcraft mediums. Currently there is a focus on creating embroidery work using a 100 year old hand-cranked machine, lettering design collaborations with socially-conscious companies, and conceptual stained glass.

    Vichcraft strives to work right around the line between art, craft, and design to create historically-informed work that provokes new ways of thinking.

    Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago, the city’s only book club-style event for people who read zines. This free monthly series is produced by Cynthia E. Hanifin and sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Anna Jo Beck designs our monthly flyers, created our logo, and made our Zine Club Chicago Shout-Outs site, where folks can peruse and recommend zines we’ve discussed at our events.

    Facebook link here. More info on the Zine Club Chicago social media channels: @zineclubchicago

    Image description: A red-blue-and-grey infographic flyer with a photo of Jenna Blazevich of Vichcraft holding one of her birds, a background featuring photos of several of Vichcraft’s designs, and text that reads: “Zine Club Chicago: The Business of DIY Edition — A Conversation With Jenna Blazevich of Vichcraft; Online! Free! More info on quimbys.com; 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023; YouTube.com/QuimbysBookstore”

  • Shovelin' USA: The Estrus Records Book Tour Stops at Quimby's, Oct 21st

    Korero Press is happy to announce that a hefty slab of punk rock history is coffee-table-ready: Shovelin’ The Sh!t Since ’87 is a 250+ page book of influential artwork, photographs, interviews and text detailing the history of the legendary garage rock label, Estrus Records. For nearly two decades, Dave Crider’s Bellingham, Washington-based operation churned out hundreds of releases from mainstays in garage, trash, surf, and punk — among them, The Mummies, Man or Astroman?, The Makers, Teengenerate, and Crider’s own Mono Men. And because the imagery associated with Estrus’ releases matched the ferocity of the music, this beast is filled with vivid concert posters, iconic album covers and bizzare oddities created by a handful of elite graphic artists — including visionary Art Chantry, who was behind much of the label’s artwork.

    Author Chris Alpert Coyle and designer Scott Sugiuchi are taking copies of the new book with them on the Shovelin’ USA Tour. Join them here at Quimby’s Bookstore in Wicker Park on Saturday, October 21st beginning at 1pm. The Q&A session with Chet “The Cheetah” Weise (Quadrajets, Immortal Lee Co. Killers), Alex Wald & Marty Perez will be an opportunity for folks to ask questions about the iconic label’s history — and Coyle and Sugiuchi can give insight on what the multiyear project was like.

    The book does not go on sale to the general public until late November, so Quimby’s will be one of the few places people can buy it ahead of time at the event on October 21st!

    FREE EVENT!

    Bios!

    Chris Alpert Coyle is a nomadic music journalist (and serious journalist) whose material has been featured on CBS News, WGN, CBS Radio and The Inlander. As a musician, he has toured much of the United States with two different punk rock combos. As an outside linebacker for the ’79 Pittsburgh Steelers, wait…Different guy, actually. Never mind. Yeah, this guy (above) just writes stuff.

    Scott Sugiuchi has been designing for more than 30 years. Highlights include work for Artisan Films (The Blair Witch Project), the American Film Institute and countless bands, record labels and venues. He is the founder of Hidden Volume Records, a boutique record label with more than 50 releases and is currently the Art Director for Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

    Chet Weise’s poetry and fiction have appeared or been anthologized in publications such as Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days, Birmingham Poetry Review, Constant Stranger: After Frank Stanford, Copper Nickel, Peach Mag, and the Rough Trade 40th Anniversary Journal. A musician, too, Weise toured and recorded with groups The Quadrajets and ?the Immortal Lee County Killers?. He was banned from Canada during 2008. Weise currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is the editor at Third Man Books and plays guitar in Kings of the Fucking Sea.

    Alex Wald: Painter; illustrator for Estrus Records, Wired, Playboy, Hustler, many more; comic artist and colorist, art director, First Comics; kaiju scholar and collector, Astromonster Co., Ltd. designer and proprietor; blues harp player, ex-Dirty Wurds, Sunnyland Slim, Johnny Young and others; still making coffee.

    Marty Perez is a Chicago-based photographer who has been documenting the parallels between the worlds of underground rock as well as some of the biggest stars of pop music, from 1976 to the present.

    Very important links!

    Facebook Event Post

    instagram.com/estrus_records_book

    facebook.com/estrusrecordsbook

    koreropress.com/estrus-shovelin-the-shit-since-87

    kickstarter.com/projects/estrus/estrus-shovelin-the-shit-since-87

  • Does God have a recipe? Find out in Holy Food! Oct 13th

    Join Christina Ward to celebrate Holy Food: How Cults, Communes, and Religious Movements Influenced What We Eat:
    An American History on Friday, October 13th, 7pm, here at Quimby’s!

    “Holy Food doesn’t just trace the influence that preachers, gurus, and cult leaders have had on American cuisine. It offers a unique look at the ways spirituality—whether in the form of fringe cults or major religions—has shaped our culture. Christina Ward has gone spelunking into some very odd corners of American history to unearth this fascinating collection of stories and recipes.” — Jonathan Kauffmann, author of Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat

    Religious beliefs have been the source of food “rules” since Pythagoras told his followers not to eat beans (they contain souls), Kosher and Halal rules forbade the shrimp cocktail (shellfish are scavengers, or maybe G-d just said “no”). A long-ago Pope forbade Catholics to eat meat on Fridays (fasting to atone for committed sins). Rules about eating are present in nearly every American belief, from high-control groups that ban everything except “air” to the infamous strawberry shortcake that sated visitors to the Oneida Community in the late 1800s. In America, where the freedom to worship the god of your choice and sometimes of your own making, embraced old traditions and invented new ones.

    Holy Food looks explores the explosion of religious movements since the Great Awakenings birthed a cottage industry of food fads and at the obscure sects and communities of the 20th Century who dabbled in vague spirituality and used food to both entice and control followers. Ward skillfully navigates between academic studies, interviews, cookbooks, and religious texts to make sharp observations and new insights into American history in this highly readable journey through the American kitchen.

    Holy Food features over 75 recipes from religious and communal groups tested and updated for modern cooks. (Dough Gods! Funeral Potatoes! Yogi Tea! Mother F*cker Beans! The Source Family’s infamous Aware Inn Salad!) Also includes over 100 historic black and white images.

    Christina Ward is an independent food historian, a Master Food Preserver (Wisconsin), and writer who works in the publishing industry. www.christinaward.net

    For more info see: info(at)processmediainc(dot)com • www.processmediainc.com

    Facebook Event Invite here.

    Free Event at Quimby’s Bookstore.

  • Jeremy Kitchen Discusses Mr. Crabby You Have Died with Kirin Wachter-Grene, Oct 14th

    JEREMY KITCHEN

    discusses his new book

    MR. CRABBY YOU HAVE DIED

    with literary scholar

    KIRIN WACHTER-GRENE

    Saturday, October 14th, 7pm

    Free Event at Quimby’s Bookstore

    Mr. Crabby You Have Died is the first full-length work by Jeremy Kitchen — a public librarian, former dope fiend, and U.S. Army artillery observer in Desert Storm. Swaying between memoir and fiction, Kitchen lays bare his world through a series of interlocking exorcisms that deny linear time and good taste. Lost years in the Sarin-laced Persian Gulf drift backwards into Detroit’s acid trash landscape, only to corkscrew forward again into a seemingly endless Chicago night of heroin, handguns, and idiot pranksterism.

    Comic as it is horrifying, Mr. Crabby You Have Died is a collection of parables about the stupid beauty of youth, the boredom of addiction, and the intensity of dreams.

    On Saturday nite, October 14th, Kitchen will discuss all things Mr. Crabby with Kirin Wachter-Grene, a writer and scholar based in Chicago. Wachter-Grene is Assistant Professor of Liberal Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she teaches classes on literature, history, and gender & sexuality studies.

    Mr. Crabby You Have Died has been published by First To Knock out of Michigan City, Indiana. First To Knock titles have been featured in outlets such as Los Angeles Review of Books, Hermitix, CrimeReads, The Washington Post, Apocalypse Confidential, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Cinepunx, Tulsa Public Radio/NPR, KCRW Los Angeles, and Weird History. Chris Via of Leaf by Leaf has called First To Knock “one of my favorite presses.”

    For more info: www.firsttoknock.com

    Facebook event link here.

  • Zine Club Chicago 5th Anniversary Party: Juvenilia Edition with Special Guest Justin Kern of The Museum of the Unintentional, Sept. 16th!

    A red-and-blue infographic flyer, with photos of a vintage suitcase filled with ephemera and Justin Kern of the Museum of the Unintentional with his hand over half of his face, and text that reads: “Zine Club Chicago: 5th Anniversary Party: Juvenilia Edition with Special Guest Justin Kern + The Museum of the Unintentional; In Person! Free!; Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave. in Wicker Park; 6-9 p.m. Friday, September 16, 2023”

    Zine Club Chicago 5th Anniversary Party: Juvenilia Edition with
    Special Guest Justin Kern of The Museum of the Unintentional
    6-9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16
    Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave.
    Free!

    This month, Zine Club Chicago is celebrating its 5-year anniversary here at Quimby’s Bookstore! Since 2018, these monthly meetups have been hosted in person and online by our shop. So of course we’re commemorating the occasion with a special event and party!

    Join us for Zine Club Chicago 5th Anniversary Party: Juvenilia Edition with Special Guest Justin Kern of The Museum of the Unintentional, 6-9 p.m. Saturday, September 16 at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Avenue in Wicker Park. Free!

    We’re thrilled to welcome special guest Justin Kern of The Museum of the Unintentional presenting a collection of found, loaned and contributed multimedia expressions in pop-up style exhibition. In this first showing in Chicago, The Museum, largely contained in one musty suitcase, unfurls for a special presentation of writings, photos, cassettes and personal items in their context, once removed. In honor of this special anniversary at Quimby’s, a one-of-a-kind zine will serve as program and companion during your unique visit through ephemera in this uncollection, presented by conservateur naiveté Justin Kern, a Milwaukee musician, writer and public moron.

    Justin Kern of the Museum of the Unintentional stands, with a drink in hand, next to a bronze statue of a person in a hunting cap with ear flaps.

    And y’all are invited to contribute to this one-night-only museum installation! Bring an item that represents your own juvenilia: An early attempt to create something in one of your chosen art forms, whether that’s writing, comics, visual art, or the fanciful doodles you drew on your 9th-grade history notebook.

    We’ll also be holding an open mic for anyone who would like to show off and discuss the juvenilia they’ve brought.

    Contribute to and explore The Museum of the Unintentional from 6-7 p.m.; open mic begins at 7 p.m. Yes, we’ll have snacks on hand! Masks are strongly encouraged when you’re not noshing.

    Online friends, Zine Club Chicago will be back on Zoom with y’all in October for a special event that will be part of our shop’s own 32nd anniversary celebrations. More info coming soon!

    Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago, the city’s only book club-style event for people who read zines. This free monthly series is produced by Cynthia E. Hanifin and sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Anna Jo Beck designs our monthly flyers, created our logo, and made our Zine Club Chicago Shout-Outs site, where folks can peruse and recommend zines we’ve discussed at our events.

    Facebook link here. More info on the Zine Club Chicago social media channels: @zineclubchicago

    Description of image #1: A red-and-blue infographic flyer, with photos of a vintage suitcase filled with ephemera and Justin Kern of the Museum of the Unintentional with his hand over half of his face, and text that reads: “Zine Club Chicago: 5th Anniversary Party: Juvenilia Edition with Special Guest Justin Kern + The Museum of the Unintentional; In Person! Free!; Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. North Ave. in Wicker Park; 6-9 p.m. Friday, September 16, 2023”

    Description of image #2: Justin Kern of the Museum of the Unintentional stands, with a drink in hand, next to a bronze statue of a person in a hunting cap with ear flaps.

  • Quimby's 32nd Anniversary T-Shirt Celebration Featuring Vichcraft Live Chainstitching, Sat, Sep 30th

    Wahoo! Quimby’s is turning 32!*

    To help us celebrate Chicago gem of a printer and chainstitcher Vichcraft (aka Jenna Blazevich) has designed some new merch for us to premiere at A LIVE CHAINSTITCHING EVENT HERE AT QUIMBY’S ON SATURDAY, SEPT 30TH from 6-9pm! She designed a spanking new Quimby’s t-shirt that is BEAUTIFUL (trust us) we’ll be debuting at this event. And we’ll be unveiling some other unexpected merch too — but we don’t want to spoil the surprise!

    Vichcraft will be on hand with her 80-year-old Cornely machine to chainstitch a variety of items, including felt pennants and other things for sale. For a fee, she can customize items, so bring your stuff you want to have personalized.*

    Vichcraft is the multi-disciplinary design studio run by Jenna Blazevich in Chicago, Illinois since 2015. Find her at https://vichcraft.shop/ and on IG: @vichcraft

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Jenna Blazevich (@vichcraft)

     

     

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    A post shared by Jenna Blazevich (@vichcraft)

    Here’s the Facebook event invite if you want it!

    *Our actual anniversary is September 15th! This event is not actually on the 15th! But you should buy us a birthday cake on that day anyway. Happy birthday, us!

    *Here are helpful hints about what materials are ideal for your customized chainstitched item!:

    Ideal items:

    Woven fabrics: Canvas, Denim, linen
    Crewnecks or sweatshirt type knits
    Beanies
    Bandanas

    Materials to avoid:

    Thin knit fabrics (tee shirts)
    Loosely knit fabrics (sweaters, scarves)
    Items with sherpa linings or excessive batting

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Jenna Blazevich (@vichcraft)

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Jenna Blazevich (@vichcraft)

  • M.S. Harkness Celebrates Time Under Tension: a Graphic Memoir at Quimby's Bookstore With Evan Salazar & Caroline Cash, Oct 6th!

    M.S. Harkness Celebrates Time Under Tension: a Graphic Memoir
    at Quimby’s Bookstore
    With Evan Salazar & Caroline Cash
    Fri, Oct 6th, 7pm
    Free!

    Time Under Tension is a smart, funny, no bullshit work of autobiography, a story of searching for dignity in a world that rarely affords it and taking agency of adulthood in the face of so many easy excuses not to.

    M.S. Harkness is graduating from art school in Minneapolis and facing a crossroads in life. She has a strained relationship with her mother, a sexually abusive father on parole, and is in love with an aspiring MMA fighter who mostly hangs out with her to get high and already has a girlfriend and career prospects with a fight promotion. An art career feels untenable — as one professor tells her, “Don’t expect to get by on this fucked-up broke girl shit.” She decides to get a personal trainer’s certificate — it seems like a feasible and sensible career option — but continues to dabble as a sex worker and weed dealer because the money is too irresistible. With idle hands due to no classes or full-time work, M.S. has ample time to aimlessly fuck around — or, to get her shit together. “I want to be better, I want to be stable and solid. I don’t want to keep aimlessly shifting between untenable situations.”

    Harkness’s bold, precise black-and-white cartooning and eye for storytelling invites the reader in, while her sharp wit and naturalist ear as a writer takes it away from there. Never didactic, always real, Time Under Tension is a spirited and assured work of graphic memoir.

    M.S. Harkness was born in Oklahoma and lives in Columbus, Ohio. She was featured as an up and coming cartoonist at the Angouleme Comics Festival in France, and was a recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Visual Artist Grant. Harkness occasionally teaches comics at Columbus College of Art & Design, in addition to working as a personal trainer. This is her third graphic novel, following Tinderella and Desperate Pleasures (both from Uncivilized Books). Find M.S. Harkness on IG at @m.s.harkness.

    Joining the celebration of Time Under Tension are artists Evan Salazar and Caroline Cash.

    Evan Salazar is a cartoonist originally from Tucson, Arizona. His main project is the self-published comic book Rodeo, which explores the secret passageways that connect memory, imagination, and family. Salazar has been published internationally, was the recipient of a 2020 MICE Mini-grant, participated in the Hocking Hills Cartoonist Retreat, founded the Tucson Comix Club, and has presented his work at comics festivals across the United States. He currently lives in Arizona with his dog, Margie. For more info see rodeocomics.com.

    Ignatz award winning cartoonist Caroline Cash, known for such titles as Girl In the World and Pee Pee Poo Poo, used to work at Quimby’s. She can be found on IG at cash_browns.

     

    More about Time Under Tension:

    See M.S. Harkness on tour!

    Want the Facebook Event Invite for this Quimby’s event? Go here!

  • Zine Club Chicago Online: Zine Heroes Edition, Aug 22nd

    Zine Club Chicago Online: Zine Heroes Edition

    7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, August 22 on Zoom

    Free!

    Who are your zine heroes? This month, Zine Club Chicago is honoring the zinemakers we admire, those illustrious creators whose work most thrills and inspires us. Not all heroes wear capes, but ours might be wielding a long-arm stapler.

    Grab your favorite zines made by your personal self-publishing icons, BYOS(nacks), and join us on Zoom for Zine Club Chicago Online: Zine Heroes Edition at 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, August 22!

    ** RSVP required ** We want to make sure that our online Zine Club Chicago events are a safe space, so we won’t be releasing the Zoom link publicly. If you’d like to attend, please email zineclubchicago@gmail.com to RSVP by 9 p.m. CT Monday, August 21 (the evening before our event). We’ll email you the Zoom link by 5 p.m. CT Tuesday, Aug. 22.

    Zine newbies and longtime enthusiasts alike are always welcome at Zine Club Chicago, the city’s only book club-style event for people who read zines. This free monthly series is produced by Cynthia E. Hanifin and sponsored by Quimby’s Bookstore. Anna Jo Beck designs our monthly flyers, created our logo, and made our Zine Club Chicago Shout-Outs site, where folks can peruse and recommend zines we’ve discussed at our events: https://zineclubchicagoshoutouts.spread.name/

    More info on the Zine Club Chicago social media channels: @zineclubchicago

    Description of image #1: A red-and-blue infographic flyer, with a photo of zine hero (and former Quimby’s employee) Neil Brideau of Radiator Comics, and text that reads: “Zine Club Chicago: Zine Heroes Edition; Online! Free! Zoom info on quimbys.com; 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, August 22, 2023”

     

    Description of image #2: A red-and-blue infographic flyer, with a photo of a stack of Crap Hound zines, and text that reads: “Zine Club Chicago: Zine Heroes Edition; Online! Free! Zoom info on quimbys.com; 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday, August 22, 2023”

  • Robbie Q. Telfer reads from new weird chapbook at Quimby’s 8/17

    Robbie Q. Telfer’s lonely line breaks: ChatRQT (Bottlecap Press), came about when Robbie Q. Telfer asked ChatGPT about his poetry, and it replied with entirely made up poem titles and synopses that Robbie Q. Telfer had not written. Telfer wants to defend ChatGPT’s integrity, so he has written some of the poems that it has said he has already written. Now ChatGPT is no longer a liar, but a prognosticator. This collection is proof that poetry is really very easy to write and all you need is a helpful robot to get you started. Welcome to the future of art!

    “…a creative and inventive approach to writing poetry! It’s fascinating to see how you’ve used the fictional titles and synopses generated by our conversations as a starting point for your own poetic exploration.” –ChatGPT, AI Powered Chatbot, coauthor

    Robbie Q. Telfer has performed and taught in hundreds of places in nine different countries. His work appears in places like SEISMA, Connecticut River Review, cream city review, Sinking City Review, The New Territory, and many others. He’s been an individual finalist at the National Poetry Slam and has a poetry collection from Write Bloody Publishing. He currently works for The Morton Arboretum and Friends of Illinois Nature Preserves trying to protect and celebrate what’s left of our wild spaces.

    For more info: robbieqtelfer.com, bottlecap.press

    Robbie will be joined by poet and teacher Tim Stafford. His work has appeared in The Offing, Taco Bell Quarterly, and 68to05. He is the editor of the Learn Then Burn anthology series (Write Bloody Books). His debut collection “The Patron Saint of Making Curfew” was published by Haymarket Books in 2021.

    Here’s the Facebook Event Invite if you get into that type of thing.

    Thursday, August 17th, 7pm – Free Event