Category: Store Events

HOLY COW!!!!Dishwasher PeteTuesday May 22nd 7:30 PMHe has a long overdue book coming out, so join us for a reading and signing.
Dishwasher Pete at Quimby?s!
Most people would love to travel the country, work at unique places, see beautiful and renowned cities and landmarks, and preferably not spend a lot of money. But who has the money or the time? Pete Jordan had the time, didn?t have the money, but he made it happen?by washing dishes.
 
Pete Jordan was a college drop-out, a self-proclaimed slacker, and was always looking for free grub or a place to crash, but had the desire to travel and explore. As a result, he became a man with a mission ? to wash dishes in all 50 states. After chronicling some of his experiences in his self-published ?zine called Dishwasher, which erupted into a cult following of 10,000 people, contributing to public radio?s This American Life, and being approached by countless publishers, Pete finally decided to immortalize his outrageous 12-year journey through countless kitchens across America in the paperback original, DISHWASHER: One Man?s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States
 
After a few short dishwashing stints, Pete soon learned the ropes of the covenant position of dishwasher, or plongeur, as the French say. But it was not until he followed a girl to Alaska where he took up a dishing job at a mess hall for fisherman that he realized dishwashing could quite possibly be the perfect job. Pete ended up losing the girl, but he had found his calling.
 
In DISHWASHER, ?Dishwasher Pete? as he was famously dubbed, highlights some of the more interesting adventures, of which there are many, on his crusade to dish in each American state. He learned about a ?three day soaker? and the best places to get a ?bus tub buffet.? He worked on an oil rig, college campuses, at a nature camp and a casino in Reno. Pete never knew where his next job would be or how much he would get paid (or if he would get paid,) which makes his story and the cast of characters he meets along the way all the more extravagant. Irreverent, entertaining, enlightening, and sometimes a little disgusting, DISHWASHER is one man?s journey to find love, stability, and the elusive happily-ever-after. And despite that Pete walked out on most of his jobs, slept on the floors of friends and friendly establishments, he was able to meet the love of his life.
 
Pete Jordan, aka ?Dishwasher Pete,? spent twelve years on his cross-country quest before finding love and abandoning both the dish-room and his country. In 2002 he moved to Amsterdam with this wife and began a new life as a bicycle mechanic and writer. Jordan chronicled his adventures in dishing on pubic radio?s This American Life and in the ?zine Dishwasher, which amassed a cult following of nearly 10,000 readers. Dishwasher?s subscribers have been waiting for Dishwasher #16 and soon they will wait no longer, as it is being published simultaneously with his book. DISHWASHER is his first book. www.dishwasherpete.com

Matthew Sharpe reads and signs his new book JamestownThursday May 17th 7PMwith local favorites Elizabeth Crane and Anne Elizabeth Moore reading stuff too!
 
Set in the indeterminate but not too distant future, Jamestown chronicles a group of “settlers” (more like survivors) from the ravaged island of Manhattan, departing just as the Chrysler Building mysteriously collapses, heading down what’s left of I-95 in an armor-plated vehicle that’s half-schoolbus, half-Millenium Falcon. They are going to establish an outpost in southern Virginia, look for oil, and exploit the Indians controlling the area.
 
The story is of course based on the actual accounts of the first ten years of the Jamestown settlement from 1607 to the death of Pocahontas in 1617. Set against a cataclysmic backdrop, the book features the historical characters?John Smith, Pocahontas, her father Powhatan, John Ratcliffe, John Martin, and John Rolf?but in an act of wild re-imagination, akin to Baz Luhrman’s re-interpretations of Shakespeare (the great playwright of the Jamestown era), Powhaton is half-Falstaff, half-Henry V (with a psychiatrist consigliere, Sidney Feingold); John Martin gradually loses body parts in a series of violent encounters, while John Smith is a ruthless and pragmatic redhead continually undermining the aristocratic leadership; and Rolf’s and Pocahontas’s romance is conducted by text-messaging, IM-ing, and ultimately telepathy.
 
Despite the grim sounding circumstances and large quantity of spilled blood, it’s a romantic book, a meditation on history and interpretation, told in language that is endlessly delightful?the jokes, the rhymes, and the rimshot dialogue throw the story’s bleak underside into brilliant relief. It’s a big book?a cross between the terrific maximalist novels of Barth and Safran Foer and the minimalist magical satire of George Saunders.
 
About the author: Matthew Sharpe is the author of the novels The Sleeping Father (Soft Skull, 2003, translated into nine languages) and Nothing Is Terrible (Villard, 2000) as well as the short-story collection Stories from the Tube (Villard, 1998). He teaches creative writing at Wesleyean University. His stories and essays have appeared in Harper’s, Zoetrope, BOMB, McSweeney’s, American Letters & Commentary, Southwest Review, and Teachers & Writers magazine. He lives in New York City.
 
Local Authors Elizabeth Crane and Anne Elizabeth Moore will also read at this event.
Elizabeth Crane is the author of the upcoming YOU MUST BE THIS HAPPY TO ENTER (coming this fall from Punk Planet Books) and two collections of short stories from Little, Brown, WHEN THE MESSENGER IS HOT and ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY. www.elizabethcrane.com
 
Anne Elizabeth Moore is the co-editor of PUNK PLANET, the editor of the BEST AMERICAN COMICS, and the authoress of HEY KIDZ, BUY THIS BOOK and the upcoming UNMARKETABLE: BRANDALISM, COPYFIGHTING, MOCKETING, AND THE EROSION OF INTEGRITY. www.anneelizabethmoore.com

Mark Todd and Esther Pearl WatsonFriday May 11th 7PM
 
SAY WHAT? YOU HEARD IT RIGHT. ROLL OVER TO QUIMBY’S TO MEET MARK TODD AND ESTHER PEARL WATSON (OF UNLOVABLE FAME). ARTISTS, ZINESTERS AND AUTHORS, READY TO TALK ABOUT THEIR LATEST BOOK, WHATCHA MEAN, WHAT’S A ZINE?, A VISUAL HOW-TO OF COOL TIPS AND TRICKS OF SELF-PUBLISHING. IT WILL SURELY BE A FUN FILLED EVENING OF INTERESTING STORIES, ENTICING TIDBITS AND VISUAL OVERLOAD.
 
Mark Todd graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in 1993. He then moved to New York City, working with clients such as Mtv, Coca-Cola, Sony Music, The New Yorker and The MTA. In 2003, he moved back to southern California with his wife and fellow artist, Esther Pearl Watson and their 5 year old daughter Lili, an avid artist herself. Mark also co-teaches with Esther at Art Center College of Design. Their latest book for teens, “Whatcha mean, What’s A Zine?” about creating zines and mini-comics, published by Houghton Mifflin, was recently released.
 
Esther Pearl Watson grew up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Her family moved often, since her father’s hobby of building huge flying saucers out of scrap metal and car engines didn’t always sit well with the neighbors. Esther’s pieces are often overtly narrative, clear but mysterious scenes of houses or figures ornamented with snippets of prose telling just enough to get the viewer’s own imagination engaged, wanting to know more. Some are about family, some about places, all have a rich interior life. Her works without words are just as suggestive of story, also exerting a deep emotional pull. Her works have been comissioned for magazines including Time, New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly.

Kay Rosen, Amira Hanafi & Sally AlataloThursday, May 10, 7pm
 
KaySays: Essays and Interviews by Kay Rosen
 
the book is a collection of essays and interviews that kay has written about her language-based work (mostly paintings and drawings), and includes three page-formatted art/text pieces.
kay will read from the book.
 
amira hanafi is a writer based in chicago who will read from her textual translations of kay’s work.
 
sally alatalo is a publisher, writer and artist. she will read “vowels” by arthur rimbaud and probably some other poems that come to mind when thinking about kay’s work.
 
Michael Avella, Andrew Blackley, Amira Hanafi, Jaclyn Jemc, Jessica Moore, Tiffany Slade, Jeremy Tinder, and Polina Zoints have produced an accompanying boxed collection of responses to Rosen’s work and will distribute free copies to the first 30 people to buy Rosen’s book.
 
kay’s website is: kayrosen.com

Wednesday May 9th 8PM
The2ndHand is hosting NY author Tao Lin in support of his new story collection “Bed” and novel “Eeeee Eee Eeee” (both from Melville House).
 
Tao Lin is the author of a small poetry book: THIS EMOTION WAS A LITTLE E-BOOK (Bear Parade) a small fiction book: TODAY THE SKY IS BLUE AND WHITE WITH BRIGHT BLUE SPOTS AND A SMALL PALE MOON AND I WILL DESTROY OUR RELATIONSHIP TODAY (Bear Parade) a poetry-collection: YOU ARE A LITTLE BIT HAPPIER THAN I AM (Action Books) a story-collection: BED (May 2007 Melville House) and a novel: EEEEE EEE EEEE (May 2007 Melville House)
 
Check out Tao?s blog
http://reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com/
 
Jeb Gleason-Allured, the Chicago editor of The2ndHand.com, will also be reading and hosting this event.

Fish Fry Reading Series
Friday May 4th 7PMwith zine readings by:
 
Wesley Stokes (I Often Think of Them When It Snows)
Dave Fried (Black Carrot, Save Your Fork, There’s Pie!)
Daniel Gleason (all them books he writes…)
Ross Wolinsky (Hypocritical Mass)
Matt Guack (Next Stop Adventure!)

Don your trench coast and dark glasses and join us for authors Allan MacDonell and Josh Alan Friedman as they read and sign copies of their most recent books with host Mike McPaddenSaturday, April 28st, 7:00 PM
 
ALLAN MACDONELL is the author of PRISONER OF X: 20 YEARS IN THE HOLE AT HUSTLER MAGAZINE. Just as the subtitle of his memoir states, Allan MacDonell rose through the ranks at Larry Flynt Publications over the course of two decades. He ultimately ran America’s Magazine from 1991 until 2002, when he was fired following his barbed jokes during a Larry Flynt Roast.
 
During his tenure, Allan brought numerous underground artists and writers on board as Hustler contributors, including Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, Joe Coleman, Lisa Carver, and Feral House publisher Adam Parfrey. Among the derring-do detailed in PRISONER OF X are Allan’s viewing of a sex tape involving Ted Turner, Jane Fonda and a strap-on dildo, pulling pranks on Dennis Hopper and Frank Zappa, and spearheading The Flynt Report, which prompted multiple Republican resignations from Congress in 2000. Post-Hustler, Allan has been a regular contributor to the LA Weekly.
 
JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN is the author of TALES OF TIMES SQUARE, WHEN SEX WAS DIRTY, I, GOLDSTEIN: MY SCREWED LIFE (co-authored with Al Goldstein), ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD (with Drew Friedman), and WARTS AND ALL (with Drew Friedman). The son of ’60s satirist Bruce Jay Friedman and the brother of astonishing illustrator Drew Friedman, Josh Alan Friedman carved out his own niche as the premiere chronicler of New York lowlife just moments before AIDS, crack and mainstream panic ended one of the sleaziest periods in the city’s history. Josh was SCREW magazine’s man on the (42nd) Street at the height of midtown Manhattan’s professional sex explosion, an experience he turned into the anthropological mind-blower TALES OF TIME SQUARE.
 
In 2004, Feral House issued a follow-up titled WHEN SEX WAS DIRTY, and presently plans to edit the books together into a single volume. While covering the peepshow beat, Josh also wrote scripts that his brother illustrated for comic strips that hilariously and horrifically illuminate the lowest underbelly of show business. These works endure in the Fantagraphics collections ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD and WARTS AND ALL. In 2006, Josh returned to work with his former employer, SCREW magazine founder turned homeless crank Al Goldstein, on the latter’s memoir I, GOLDSTEIN: MY SCREWED LIFE. Josh has been the subject of a documentary titled BLACKS AND JEWS (2003), and a movie adaptation of TALES OF TIMES SQUARE is currently filming.
 
The evening will be hosted by MIKE McPADDEN whose career highlights include: MRSKIN.COM (Editorial Director), HUSTLER, Entertainment Editor (1993-1995) & Contributing Editor (1992-2006), SCREW Contributing Writer (1993-1999), and HAPPYLAND, Editor and Publisher (1991-2001)

Friday, April 27th, 7:00PM
Glenn Barr signs Glenn Barrs Haunted Paradise: The Art of Glenn Barr

Matt Briggs ReadsSunday April 22nd 4PM
 
Matt Briggs is from Snoqualmie, a river valley draining into Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast of North America. He is the author of a novel, SHOOT THE BUFFALO, published by Clear Cut Press. The Before Columbus Foundation awarded the book an American Book Award in 2006. StringTown Press published two collections of his stories, MISPLACED ALICE and THE MOSS GATHERERS. His first book, a collection of linked stories, was published by Black Heron Press. Recent stories have been in or will be in First Intensity, The Clackamas Literary Review, Spork, and The Steel City Review. Briggs has never lived in a large American city and has on occasion lived in houses with intermittent access to running water and/or electricity. www.seedcake.com/mattbriggs
 
Elizabeth Crane is the author of the upcoming YOU MUST BE THIS HAPPY TO ENTER (coming this fall from Punk Planet Books) and two collections of short stories from Little, Brown, WHEN THE MESSENGER IS HOT and ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY. Her work has also been featured in publications including Washington Square, New York Stories, Sycamore Review, Book, Florida Review, Eclipse, Bridge, Sonora Review, the Chicago Reader, Sleepwalk, the Believer, McSweeney’s Future Dictionary of America, The Banana King, and All Hands On: The 2ndhand Reader. She received the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award, granted by The Chicago Public Library Foundation, in October 2003. A New York City native, she now lives in Chicago with her husband and teaches writing at Northwestern’s School of Continuing Studies andThe University of
Chicago. www.elizabethcrane.com
 
Patrick Somerville grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, went to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, lived in one or two large American cities, and earned his MFA in creative writing from Cornell University. He has taught creative writing at both Cornell and Auburn SCF. His first book of
short stories, TROUBLE, came out in September of 2006 (Vintage). He lives in Chicago and is 428 years old. www.patricksomerville.com
 
Anne Elizabeth Moore is the co-editor of PUNK PLANET, the editor of the BEST AMERICAN COMICS, and the authoress of HEY KIDZ, BUY THIS BOOK and the upcoming UNMARKETABLE: BRANDALISM, COPYFIGHTING, MOCKETING, AND THE EROSION OF INTEGRITY. For two years running, she has been the recipient of the coveted Anne Elizabeth Moore Award for Excellence in Awesomeness. She lives in Chicago. www.anneelizabethmoore.com
Sunday, April 22th, 4:00 PM

Larry BlaskoSaturday, April 21st, 7:00 PM
 
Larry Blasko will discuss and sign his new book Opening the Borders: Solving the Mexico/U.S. Immigration Problem For Our Sake and Mexico?s. Every day tens of thousands of illegal immigrants stream north across the border, overtaxing our healthcare and education system and bringing drugs, disease, and potential terrorists across the border with them. In spite of this, Larry Blasko suggests that the best solution is not a closed border, but an open border policy similar to that enjoyed in the European Union by member countries.
 
About the author, Larry Blasko served for more than three decades with The Associated Press working as writer, editor, columnist and executive.
 
What people are saying about the book:
 
\”With political irreverence as refreshing as the new ideas he proposes, Larry Blasko tells why and how to make the U.S. – Mexico border more open and at the same time more secure against illegal crossings. His is a fresh take on an intractable, urgent issue.\” — Walter R. Mears, Pulitzer Prize winning political reporter and executive for more than 40 years with the Associated Press
 
?With wry humor, thorough research and compassionate insights, Larry Blasko offers a novel approach to resolving the thorny issue of illegal immigration from Mexico, with a win-win proposal for both immigrants and the American economy.\” –Claude E. Erbsen, retired AP correspondent and executive with over 40 years? experience in Latin American affairs