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Category: Store Events
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Thumbs + Knuckles and The Dreaded Biscuits Zine Launch and Reading
What do you get when you mix 36 graphic designers, 34 writers, and 3 illustrators? The result is a double Zine featuring emerging writers and designers from Columbia College Chicago. Columbia faculty members Craig Jobson, Patrick Hogan, Jotham Burrello, Rob Duffer, and John Upchurch, the intrepid Production Manager, supervised the production of a 68-pp full color “Zine Columbia — Summer 2009,” aka “The Dreaded Biscuits / Thumbs and Knuckles”.
The Zine’s on-line presence can be found at:
http://adweb.colum.edu/~thumbsandknuckles/
http://adweb.colum.edu/~thedreadedbiscuits/
Please come celebrate the eighth Zine produced since 2003, and the first one printed offset. Featured readings and merriment will ensue between the book stacks of Quimby’s.
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Off-site Event: The Interview Show at the Hideout
The Interview Show, a talk show at The Hideout, is back Friday, Oct. 2, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Host Mark Bazer welcomes guests Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot, co-hosts of “Sound Opinions;” novelist Gillian Flynn (“Dark Places,” “Sharp Objects”) and Joe Winston, director of the documentary “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” $5. Plus, Quimby’s will on hand to sell books by the guests. The Hideout is located at 1354 W. Wabansia. -
Metralingua’s Down the Block Reading
Featuring Chicago authors Peter Zelchenko, Hugh Iglarsh, Sharyn Elman, and John Banas
Chicago authors Peter Zelchenko, Hugh Iglarsh, Sharyn Elman, and John Banas will read their contributions from Metrolingua’s anthology Down the Block.
As the “Metro” in Metrolingua implies urban life, Down the Block confronts and even celebrates life in the city. The authors’ interaction with cities reveal both complimentary and antagonistic reactions, expressing the complexity of what cities mean to us, whether we live within them or are just passing through.
Zelchenko is “an outspoken activist who pursues his causes long after most people would have given up” (Chicago Reader), and writes for Gapersblock.com, Thepoint.com, and has a popular column for the Chicago Journal. He also wrote the critically acclaimed exposé, It Happened Four Years Ago: Mayor Daley’s Brutal Conquest of Chicago’s First Ward.
Iglarsh has published satire, reviews and essays in such periodicals as The Lyric Opera Study Guide, New City, Bridge Magazine, World Jewish Digest, and Context.
Elman has worked as a broadcaster and producer for television and radio in Los Angeles and Chicago, and now teaches broadcasting at Columbia College.
Banas has experienced enough layoffs to write about it for this anthology and get involved in politics in DuPage county while pursuing other writing.
Metrolingua is a micro-publisher created by Margaret Larkin, to celebrate the human movement of writing in the 21st century as an alternative to the publishing monoliths that have emerged in the increasingly consolidated publishing business. See a full preview of the anthology and hear audio at: Metrolingua.com
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Grazfest Stops at Quimby's
With Sunny Outside Press, Featuring Nathan Graziano, Micah Ling and Charly “the city mouse” Fasano!
Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire with his wife and two children. He is the author of Teaching Metaphors (sunnyoutside, 2007), Not So Profound (Green Bean Press, 2004), Frostbite (Green Bean Press, 2002), and seven chapbooks of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in Rattle, Night Train, Freight Stories, the Coe Review, the Owen Wister Review, and others. His third book of poetry, After the Honeymoon, will be published in fall 2009 by sunnyoutside press.
Micah Ling is the author of the collection Three Islands, which is forthcoming from sunnyoutside press. She earned her MFA at Indiana University. Her poems have appeared in Harpur Palate, Flyway, Fifth Wednesday, and others. Her chapbook, Thoughts on Myself, was published by Finishing Line Press. She teaches writing and literature classes at Indiana University and at Butler University. She also serves as Deputy Editor for Keyhole Magazine. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
Charly \”the city mouse\” Fasano is a poet and spoken word performer from Chicago. His stories/poems are inspired by his experiences touring with rock and roll bands, failed relationships and being lost in familiar places. He is the co founder of book publisher and cassette tape label Fast Geek Press / analog empire. He is determined to present the general public audio recordings and books that document the work of underground poets, musicians, artists and comedians in dead media formats. His monthly contribution to Lubricated Zine Online called “City Slicker Coconuts” is an examination of life in Chicago.
For more info:
nathangraziano.com
sunnyoutside.com
myspace.com/charlythecitymousefasano
http://lubricatedzine.blogspot.com
fastgeekpress.com
myspace.com/fastgeekpress -
John Porcellino reads from Map of My Heart
Map of My Heart celebrates the twentieth anniversary of John Porcellino’s seminal and influential comics zine, King-Cat Comics, which he began self-publishing in 1989, and which has been his predominant means of expression ever since. In this collection, Porcellino, while living in isolation and experiencing the pain of divorce, crafts a melancholic, tender graphic-ballad of heartbreak and reflection. Known for his sad, quiet honesty, rendered in his signature deceptively minimalist style, Porcellino has a command of graphic storytelling as sophisticated as the medium’s more visually intricate masters. Few other artists are able to so expertly contemplate the sadness, beauty, and wonder of life in so few lines.
John Porcellino was born in Chicago in 1968, and began drawing and writing at an early age, compiling his work into little hand-made booklets. His acclaimed self-published zine, King-Cat Comics and Stories, begun in 1989, has found a devoted worldwide audience, and is one of the most influential comics series of the past twenty years.
For more information please visit www.king-cat.net or www.drawnandquarterly.com.
Also on the bill is musician and poet PATRICK PORTER who will read from his work and perform an acoustic set.
“Beneath the crude linework and dream-journalism, Porcellino has crafted an affecting scrapbook of a part–time artist’s life. The decade-plus remove from these comics’ initial publication only adds another layer of poignancy, since so many of its concerns are those of a young man, unaccountably adrift in a decade geared towards his generation… A–”
—THE ONION AV CLUB“Porcellino is a master at miniature poignance.” –ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
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Barred For Life Interviews
Got a Black Flag tattoo? Come to Quimby’s to get interviewed for a book about it! For more info, go here. -
Ethan Gilsdorf Geeks Out at Quimby's
Come commune with your inner fantasy fan or gaming geek with Ethan Gilsdorf, author of the travel memoir / pop culture narrative “FANTASY FREAKS AND GAMING GEEKS: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.”
The book is an exploration and celebration of fantasy and gaming subcultures. On a quest that begins in his own geeky teenage past and ends in our online gaming future, former D&D addict Gilsdorf crisscrosses America, the world, and other worlds—from Boston to Wisconsin, France to New Zealand, and Planet Earth to Middle-earth to the realm of Aggramar. He asks game-players and fantasy fans—old, young, male, female, able-bodied and disabled—what attracts them to fantasy worlds, and for what reasons. What he discovers is funny, poignant, and enlightening.
Gilsdorf was an obsessive Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) player back in the 1980s. He quit the fantasy role-playing game when he graduated from high school. Decades later, at age 40, Gilsdorf found a box of his old D&D gear in his parents’ basement. The discovery inspired him to write the book. Fantasy and gaming subcultures covered in the book include readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and viewer of the Lord the Rings movies, players of the online game World of WarCraft, and participants in the medieval reenactment group the Society for Creative Anachronism and fantasy conventions like Dragon*Con. Gilsdorf is also launching a contest from the book’s website, the Great Geek Giveaway, which offers prizes for those who share their geekiest moment. People can submit essays, photos or video during the month of September.
More info:
www.fantasyfreaksbook.com -
Grant Reynolds Signs Comic Diorama
Grant Reynolds has been making and self-publishing comics for the better part of his life. By the time you see him at this event he will have turned thirty years old only a few weeks prior. You might wanna wish him a happy birthday (belated) when you see him sitting at the table signing copies of his new book published by Top Shelf entitled Comic Diorama, or even ask how his summer was. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Grant Reynolds, where have I heard that name before?” …well, it might have been from The Skeleton News or Trubble Club, or you may have read one of his books, like Smaller Parts or To the Mouth of the Source…or maybe you both just talked about movies in someone’s kitchen at a party. In any case, if he owes you money, never returned that book he borrowed, or you’ve just got some personal score you’ve been waiting to settle, you’ll know where to find him on October 6th at 7pm.
“Chicagoan mini-comics mastermind.” — Al Burian, Burn Collector
For more info: http://www.myspace.com/grantreynolds
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Hans Rickheit Presents The Squirrel Machine
WHAT IS THE SQUIRREL MACHINE? A rodent ensnarement device? A mechanism for concealing one’s guarded harvest? An anachronistic fable for the convulsive elite? A nugatory diversion for the subliterate? The answer to that question can be obtained in the form of an unusual new graphic novel in a book-signing tour ploughing its way through the northeast coast this Autumn.
THE SQUIRREL MACHINE is the brainchild of HANS RICKHEIT, who will be making appearances to autograph books, make sketches and speak personally to curious readers.
The Plot: Situated in a fictive 19th Century New England town, two brothers, Edmund and William Torpor confront public scorn when they reveal their musical creations built from strange technologies and scavenged animal carcasses. Driven to seek a concealment for their aberrant activities, they make a startling discovery. Will they divine the mystery of THE SQUIRREL MACHINE?
This book is a meticulously-rendered creation that defies all known genres. It can best be described as “PROTO-SURREALIST” or “RETRO-FUTURIST” Disregarding labels and buzz-phrases, it is ultimately an immutably strange and haunting narrative that transcends known logics and presumptive dream-barriers. A distillation of subconscious beauty and madness. A dangerous object for the incautious. A revelation for the undernourished crypto-seeker .
HANS RICKHEIT was born in 1973 and grew up in New England, lived in the basement of an eccentric art gallery/performance space called the Zeitgeist Gallery from 1997-2002, and currently resides in Philadelphia. Aside from his many self-published efforts, he has appeared in many anthologies, including PAPER RODEO, HOAX and KRAMERS ERGOT.
“Rickheit is a vastly under-seen talent.” – Tom Spurgeon, THE COMICS REPORTER
www.squirrelmachine.org, www.thesquirrelmachine.blogspot.com www.chromefetuscomics.com
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The Week Behind Celebrates 17 Years on the Internet
On October 7, The Week Behind will celebrate its 17th anniversary as the oldest online magazine in America. Before Slate, before Salon, and almost 10 years before the invention of blogs, The Week Behind was entertaining Chicago audiences with its lively coverage of the arts, culture, politics and technology.
Join original founders Scott Jacobs, Marilyn Wulff and Bob Brink discuss how The Week Behind evolved from the in-house newsletter of IPA, The Editing House into an Internet sensation (Cool Site of The Day on December 31, 1992.) Meet current contributors and find out how you can write for today’s magazine.
On hand for this special celebration will be Stump Connolly, chief political correspondent of The Week Behind, reading and signing his recently released book about the 2008 Campaign The Long Slog: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The White House.
The Long Slog is Connolly’s irreverent account of his 20 months following the presidential campaign. Read his first hand reports from New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio, see how he sneaks into the Republican and Democratic conventions, and join him for Barack Obama’s triumphant Election Night rally in Chicago.
Rick Kogan calls Stump “as clear-eyed and sharp-eared a reporter as there is in the land.” Tom Geoghagen says he is “a modern day Poor Richard, a witness of uncommon good sense to the nonsense of our presidential elections . . . an American Original.”
“I don’t think anyone had more fun covering the campaign than Stump, or reading him than me,” adds Bill Kurtis. “You laugh and learn at the same time.”
For a lively evening of fun, politics and surprise guests, don’t miss The Week Behind Birthday Bash at Quimby’s. The first 20 people in the door are eligible to purchase the last 20 original copies of the 1992 classic “The Week Behind: A Year in the Life of Small Business.”
For more info: www.theweekbehind.com