Category: Store Events

  • Cheryl Wagner Reads From Plenty Enough Suck to Go Around: A Memoir of Floods, Fires, Parades, and Plywood at Quimby's!

    The cliché “New Orleans gets into people’s blood” happens to be very true — just not always convenient. For Cheryl Wagner (along with her indie-band boyfriend, a few eccentric pals, some ne’er-do-wells, and two aging basset hounds) abandoning the city she loved wasn’t an option.  This is the story of Cheryl’s disturbing surprise view from her front porch after she moved back home to find everything she treasured in shambles… and her determined, absurd, and darkly funny three-year journey of trying to piece it all back together again.  In the same heartfelt and hilarious voice that has drawn thousands of listeners to her broadcasts on the public radio program This American Life, Wagner shares her unique yet universal story of rebuilding a life after it’s flooded, dried, died… and then the copper thieves moved in.

    Cheryl Wagner is a contributor to public radio’s This American Life, and her work has also been featured on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation’s The Current and Definitely Not the Opera. Her work has appeared in many print and online publications including Harper’s, McSweeney’s, the Mississippi Review, and Five Dials in London. Her cover stories for the The Times of Acadiana won first place for best continuing coverage of Hurricane Katrina or Rita from the Louisiana Press Association. A Louisiana native, she is a graduate of Tulane University and the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. She lives in New Orleans.

    For more info:
    www.cheryl-wagner.com

    As always, this Quimby’s event is FREE.

  • Michael Roberts & Jason McBeth at Quimby’s

    Touring America through the Spring and Summer of 2009, The Lightning Bug Romantics are 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam runner-up Jason McBeth and Michael Roberts, author of the Puschcart Prize nominated collection “No More Poems About The Moon” (2008 Write Bloody Press).

    As a pair, these two touring performance poets are polar opposites. Peanut butter and Jelly and siamese twins. Michael Roberts is trustworthy, heroically humble, and a recognized saint in seven different religions in 32 languages. He has been the opening act for indie rock bands at the famous Troubadour in Hollywood, has shared the stage with such spoken word legends as Buddy Wakefield, Derrick Brown, and Beau Sia, and recently toured eastern Europe, performing in Prague, Czechoslovakia; Budapest, Hungary; and Split, Croatia.

    Jason McBeth is currently the second ranked performance poet in the world and among the many venues at which he has performed are London’s Globe Theater, The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Western Regional Poetry Slam in Big Sur, and Hollywood’s Da Poetry Lounge.

    In addition to “No More Poems About the Moon,” Roberts contributed to the Write Bloody Anthologies “The Last American Valentine” and “The Good Things About America.” McBeth also contributed to “The Good Things About America” and his first book, The Cities Under Your Tongue’ is to be published this spring by Write Bloody. For more information: www.myspace.com/lightningbugromanticstour
    www.thehopemeat.com
    www.writebloody.com

    FREE EVENT AS ALWAYS!

  • Kevin Christensen Signs The Chair at Quimby's

    chair_

    A psychological thriller set on death-row, THE CHAIR focuses on Richard Sullivan, an inmate that has spent the past 10 years awaiting execution for crimes he claims he never committed. But lately strange events have started occurring in the prison, including a piling body count of tortured inmates, a viciously sadistic warden, and enough twists and turns to make Sullivan question his own sanity.  At its core, THE CHAIR is a book about the choices we make in life and how they can affect everything and everyone around us. Written by PETER SIMETI
    Artwork by KEVIN CHRISTENSEN and PETER SIMETI.

    Kevin Christensen is a freelance cartoonist, currently living in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from The Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Sequential Art in 2004, and is currently pursuing a second bachelors degree in art education, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. THE CHAIR is his first graphic novel.

    Go to www.alternacomics.com for more information.
    FREE EVENT

  • Book Release Party With Joe Meno & Friends For Meno’s New novel, The Great Perhaps!

    greatperhaps

    In his new novel, The Great Perhaps, local Chicago writer Joe Meno continues to employ his keen observations of human nature, this time exploring the tumultuous landscapes of a contemporary Chicago family. The narrative rotates between members of the Casper family, giving each time and space to dig into their respective quirks. Jonathan, the father, is a scientist caught in a quest for a prehistoric squid and is prone to seizures at the sight of clouds. Madeline, Jonathan’s wife, also a scientist, studies the behavior of her murderous lab pigeons and is distressed by the growing distance between family members: elder daughter Amelia is a teenage anticapitalist crusader already becoming weary of the fight; youngest daughter Thisbe’s desire to find God is met with much concern from her atheist parents; grandfather Henry’s sole desire is to make himself disappear. As the family’s preoccupations rattle on and bang up against one another, the recently begun war in Iraq provides background noise and another dimension to the intricate and intimate tale. Meno’s handle on the written word is fresh and inviting, conjuring a story that delves deeply into the human heart.

    Joe Meno is the best-selling author of the novels Hairstyles of the Damned, The Boy Detective Fails, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender As Hellfire. He was the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago.

    Also performing: Jonathan Messinger, Timeout Chicago Books Editor and author of Hiding Out! Jon Resh, author of Amped and musical accompaniment by The Astronomer!

  • Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking Release Party with Nic Collins at Quimby’s!

    workshop-tokyo

    Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making – as well as creatively cannibalizing – electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure but no need for prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly.

    This revised and expanded second edition is extensively illustrated and includes a DVD featuring 87 video clips and 20 audio tracks by over 100 hackers, benders, musicians, artists and inventors from around the world, as well as 13 video tutorials demonstrating projects in the book. Further enhancements include additional projects, photographs, diagrams, and illustrations.

    What might happen at this event? Maybe some and/or all of the following: an anarchic hacking orchestra composed of multiple uncoordinated performances distributed around the store, each performer using individual small sound systems? Speakers amplifying bent toys, battery-operated mini-amps, video, and demos of a few projects? Who knows?

    Nicolas Collins, an active composer and performer of electronic music, and has worked with John Cage, Alvin Lucier, David Tudor, and many other masters of modern music. Dr. Collins is Professor of Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has led hacking workshops around the world. Since 1997 he has been editor-in-chief of Leonardo Music Journal. For more info: http://www.NicolasCollins.com

  • A Night of Bizarro Fiction

    Join four authors from the Bizarro fiction movement: D.Harlan Wilson, Andersen Prunty, Eckhard Gerdes and Garrett Cook as they read from and sign their books. The material is sometimes profane, sometimes funny, but always weird and engaging.

    D. Harlan Wilson is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, literary critic, screenwriter, and assistant professor of English at Wright State University-Lake Campus.  His recent books include a novel, Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria (Raw Dog Screaming Press 2008), a novella, Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance (Shroud 2009), and a book of cultural theory, Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction (Guide Dog Books 2009).  Visit him online at www.dharlanwilson.com

    Andersen Prunty is the author of The Overwhelming Urge, Jack and Mr. Grin, Zerostrata, Market Adjustment and Other Tales of Avarice, and The Sorrow King (forthcoming). He naps in Dayton, Ohio. You can call him Andy and visit him on the web at www.andersenprunty.com

    Eckhard Gerdes is the author of several unusual novels, including My Landlady the Lobotomist (a top-five selection for novel of the year in the Preditor’s and Editors Poll), The Million-Year Centipede (a top-ten selection the year prior and a nominee for the Wonderland Award), Przewalski’s Horse (which won the Bissell Award), and Cistern Tawdry (nominated for the Georgia Author of the Year Award). He teaches at Lake Forest College, DePaul University, and Triton College. He has three sons and lives in the Chicago area.

    Garrett Cook is a Bizarro, horror and crossgenre novelist currently residing in Warrenville, IL. While he is not reading submissions for Evil Nerd Empire publishing (www.evilnerdempire.com) or dealing with his duties as Associate Editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens magazine, he is promoting his book Murderland Part 1: H8.

    Other info: find out more about Bizarro fiction at www.bizarrocentral.com

  • Gabriel Boyer and Malcolm Felder at Quimby’s!

    surveyweb1

    Gabriel Boyer began his performing career at the age of eighteen, singing-Blood-Sweat-and-Tears-while-adorned-in-condiments, this period ending when, at the age of twenty-one, he discovered soul music and formed the band Extra Play with Malcolm Felder (who will also be in attendance in the band Normal Feelings with Mr. Boyer), then abandoned said musical project to relocate to New York City where he curated the spoken word portion of the DUMBO Arts Festival in ‘99.

    In summer of ‘03 Mutable Press (a company founded by Zachary Katz and Gabriel Boyer) released its first book, a collection of manifestoes edited by Mr. Boyer. In the winter of that same year Mutable Press released How to Tell the Living from the Dead, a novel by Gabriel Boyer. In the course of the following year Mutable Press released four books, among which was Seven Nights in the Bedroom, a memoir of Bedroom Theater, also by Gabriel Boyer.

    Then Mr. Boyer moved to China for a year to contemplate what he had done. Afterwards, relocating to an anarchist commune just south of Eugene, OR, where he filmed an anarchist musical entitled Free-Thinking Man as Commodity. After a brief stint working in a fish processing plant in the Bering Strait, he and Malcolm Felder recorded a radioplay, Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies in the spring of ‘08 at Shady Pines Studios. He now resides in Chicago, IL where he and Felder run Mutable Sound.

    Gabriel Boyer will read from his new book, A Survey of My Failures this Far, which is actually a collection of seven books.

    For more info:  www.mutablesound.com/home

  • Off-Site Event: COME IN THE NAME OF CRUMB! at the STOP SMILING Space

    crumbforquimbys

    Quimby’s and STOP SMILING present an evening with R. Crumb (or, rather, the documentary about R. Crumb, CRUMB!).*

    The new issue of STOP SMILING features an in-depth cover-story interview with the legendary comic-artist provocateur, who rarely speaks to the press. Crumb and Celia Farber, who made her name as an investigative journalist covering AIDS research, discuss her area of expertise as well as his, which makes for a lively and telling dialog.

    The Crumb! documentary is a cinematic portrait of the artist as a weird man, and explores Crumb’s traumatized family, his strange sexual tastes, and allusions of racism and sexism that some find rampant and disturbing in his work. From his childhood home to the San Francisco streets where he started Zap Comix, the film sets Crumb in a panoply of settings, all of which come across as somehow unsettling.

    Copies of the new issue of STOP SMILING with the R. Crumb cover, as well as an array of R. Crumb merchandise from Quimby’s, will be on hand.

    WHEN: April 2, 2009, 7 p.m.
    WHERE: The STOP SMILING Storefront (1371 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago)

    Free drinks will be provided (21+)
    To attend, email rsvp@stopsmilingonline.com (subject: Crumb)

    *R. Crumb, the actual person, will not be at this event

  • CANCELLED!! Michel Gondry at Quimby's

    Due to last minute circucmstances beyond our control, the Michel Gondry Event scheduled at Quimby’s Bookstore on Saturday, March 14th has been cancelled.

    We apologize for any inconvenience this causes, including getting your hopes up and everything. We’re just as bummed as you are, I assure you!

    XOXO,
    Quimby’s Bookstore
    Michel Gondry Event Cancelled

    Join leading filmmaker Michel Gondry as he signs his new memoir You’ll Like This Flim Because Your in It at Quimby’s

    Michel Gondry’s debut book is a functional memoir of his quest to put the tools of filmmaking in the hands of as many people as possible. At New York’s Deitch Projects, in February and March of 2008, Gondry emulated the heroic example of his characters, constructing a do-it-yourself film studio in which any visitor could assemble their own film from extant plot summaries and rent the results. His aim: “I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it…Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.” This book chronicles Gondry’s journey towards what he calls “The Be Kind Rewind Protocol”, and serves as an inspirational guide to creativity and the art of having fun.

    Michel Gondry is the filmmaker of the features Human Nature, the Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep, Dave Chapelle’s Block Party, and Be Kind Rewind. He has created groundbreaking videos for artists including the White Stripes, Bjork, The Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk. Gondry is also the author of a comic book, We Lost the War But Not the Battle, published by PictureBox. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.