Blog

A Night with Bitch Magazine
Saturday November 8th 8pm
 
Lisa Jervis, Marisa Meltzer, and Andi Zeisler of Bitch magazine will come to Quimby’s to read from their Family themed Fall issue (as well as some old favorite articles) and answer questions in what should hopefully be a lively Q&A session.
 
Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture is a print magazine devoted to media criticism, and witty, occasionally snarky pop culture analysis. It features critiques of TV, movies, magazines, advertising, and more?-plus interviews with and profiles of cool, smart women in all areas of pop culture.
 
Lisa Jervis is the editor and publisher of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and books, including Ms., the San Francisco Chronicle, the Utne Reader, Mother Jones, the Women’s Review of Books, Bust, Hues, Salon, Seventeen, Girlfriends,
Punk Planet, Adios Barbie (Seal Press), 2sexE (North Atlantic Books) and The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order (Penguin). She was the co-editor of Young Wives’ Tales: Feminists on Love and Commitment (Seal Press). A transplanted New Yorker, she lives in Oakland, California, with her two
cats.
 
Marisa Meltzer is the Publicity Manager and frequent contributor to Bitch. Her work has also appeared in Venus, Index, and Black Book. Copies of the latest issues of The Baffler and US Weekly currently coexist peacefully on the coffee table in the Brooklyn, New York home she shares with her dog.
 
Andi Zeisler is a writer, editor, illustrator, textile designer, and human Zip disk for all manner of pop-culture trivia. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture and the former pop-music columnist for the SF Weekly and the East Bay Express. Her work has also appeared in Ms., Bust, Hues, Mother Jones and the Pottery Barn catalog. She lives in San Francisco, where she spends her private time reading magazines and record shopping, and her non-private time playing Nerf basketball with her husband and discussing their French bulldog.
 
sponsoring this Bitch Magazine mini-tour is the Chicago Chapter of the National Organization for Women; aka NOW
 
www.bitchmagazine.com

James Wagner reads from The False Sun Recordings
Wednesday, October 29th, 8PM
 
James Wagner’s work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. He will be reading and siging his first book the false sun recordings.

Jennifer Bannan reads from Inventing Victor
Friday October 17 8:00pm
 
Join Jennifer Bannan for the release of her first book Inventing Victor. Inventing Victor is a collection of short stories ranging in scope and subject: A teenage girl with an imaginary boyfriend, a middle-aged suburbanite confronted by an unwelcome reminder of his youth, and a gay teacher in love with a married man all drift through the book?s the landscape. Many of the stories in Inventing Victor dwell on people seeking some kind of normalcy in their lives, but whose efforts to belong only alienate them from others?and themselves. In the title story, an insecure teenage girl tries to impress her popular best friend by inventing a larger-than-life relationship with an imaginary boyfriend. Her increasingly complex web of lies ensnares not only her but her friends as well, with disastrous consequences
 
“This collection is an almost tender evisceration of contemporary yuppie neuroses, and it mercifully doesn?t take place in New York City. Jennifer Bannan gets the details right,”
-Neal Pollack
 
For more info check out Jennifer?s weblog http://www230.pair.com/engelr/

Robbie Conal book release for Art Burn
Friday, November 14, 7PM
 
Robbie Conal-guerrilla poster artist-will be present to sign copies of his new book Art Burn
 
Artburn is a collection of the best pages from the last five years of Robbie Conal’s satirical monthly column in the LA Weekly, updated with background factoids and secret war stories about his subjects, including the likes (and dislikes) of: Dubya, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Rush Limbaugh, Bill, Hillary and Monica, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, even Bill Gates, among others. Artburn reveals production shots of the original pages Robbie and his midnight deadline crew perpetrated at the very alternative LA Weekly, and a chapter of images and voices of the denizens themselves. We’ve even thrown in a dozen late-night remixes that were too hot for the Weekly to print. Artburn is RDV Books’ second publication, following the acclaimed It’s a Free Country: Personal Freedom in American After September 11, which features Robbie Conal’s “Tower of Babble” on the back cover.
 
Robbie Conal grew up in New York City and became a stone-cold Hippie in San Francisco, landing in a storefront in the Haight Ashbury district in 1964. He did time in Connecticut–with time off for bad behavior in SoHo–then moved to Los Angeles, where he now makes street posters and caricatures for the LA Weekly, satirizing politicians of both parties, televangelists, media pundits, and global capitalists. Robbie has gained national prominence as the country’s premiere poster artist; his work has been featured on “CBS This Morning,” “Charlie Rose,” and in Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and many other national publications. His first book, Art Attack: The Midnight Politics of a Guerilla Artist was published in 1992.
 
More info at www.robbieconal.com
 

Thomas Frank will be reading and signing BOOB JUBILEE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 26, 4PM
 
Thomas Frank – Editor of THE BAFFLER, co-editor of BOOB JUBILEE, author of ONE MARKET UNDER GOD and THE CONQUEST OF COOL will be reading and signing BOOB JUBILEE-now in paperback.

Neal Pollack reads from his first novelNever Mind the Pollacks
Thursday, October 16, 7:30pm
 
Acclaimed humorist and Vanity Fair contributor Neal Pollack, has been satirizing political and social absurdity to hilarious results in such publications as Vanity Fair, GQ, Men\’s Journal, The New York Times, Slate, Salon, McSweeney?s and The Stranger, as well as on his website www.nealpollack.com.
 
His first novel Never Mind the Pollacks is an epic history of rock-and-roll told through the eyes of two rival rock critics. The novel spans the decades from the 1940s to the present day, and includes such real-life characters as Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Bruce Springsteen, Joey Ramone, Patti Smith, Kurt Cobain, and many more.

Todd Dills and Mickey Hess read printed words OUT LOUD!
Friday November 7th 8pm
 
The 2ndhand flings issue #12 at you with a night of vigorous readings. Mickey, contributor to a McSweeney’s and The 2nd Hand, and author of books like El Cumpleanos de Paco and Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory, is in town for the Midwest MLA Convention. He will skip Friday night academic hobnobbing to rub elbows with the Quimby’s crowd. Todd is editor of The 2nd Hand, and author of the story collection For Weeks Above the Umbrella.
 
more info at
www.mickeyhess.net
www.the2ndhand.com

Noah Berlatsky celebrates the release of Angry White Clerihew
Saturday, October 4th, 6:00pm
 
Noah Berlatsky will read from Angry White Clerihew, a new zine featuring vicious, unsubstantiated attacks on the life and work of Emily Dickinson, Tom Frank, Eric Clapton, Chris Ware, and various Australian mammals. Contributing artists Bert Stabler, Keith Herzik, Marcy Boggs, Ryan Walters, and Laura Barghusen will also be on hand to aid in the consumption of FREE pizza and beverages. Group discussion of just what is a clerihew, anyway, to follow reading.
 
Berlatsky is known to at least five or six people as the author of Johnny Monomyth, The Adventures of Eustacia H. Cow and Super-Heroes I Have Known. In the past, he has read aloud from one of the Best American Poetry anthologies and the Babar books.

Kristin Henderson reads from DRIVING BY MOONLIGHT
Monday, October 27th, 8PM
 
Kristin Henderson will be reading and signing her new book Driving by Moonlight a story of one woman’s search for inner peace while cruising the American highways. In this fast-paced memoir, Kristin ponders the meaning of peace, the strength of her faith and religious beliefs. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, a meditation on how life resists strict borders, and on the freedom that comes with letting go.

Jake AustenA Friendly Game of Poker:52 Takes on the Neighborhood GameOctober 10th 7:30PM
This anthology features essays by a diverse group of writers capturing the joys, regrets, friendships, philosophies, and adventures experienced through neighborhood poker. Contributors include Bill Zehme, Chris Ware, Nick Tosches, James Porter, Neal Pollack, Richard Meltzer, Heather McAdams, Jason Lutes, Ruth Lopez, David Greenberger, Carrie Golus & Patrick Welch, Robert Elder, Nolan Dalla, Gentleman John Battles and a couple of dozen others.
 
The book release event will feature readings from the book by JAKE AUSTEN (Roctober, Chic-A-Go-Go), DAN KELLY (Baffler, mrdankelly.com), STARLEE KINE (This American Life) and YUVAL TAYLOR (The Future of Jazz). Enjoy live music by one man band extraordinaire BUD MELVIN. Plus an open-to-everyone nickel-ante poker table and a Kenny Rogers Karaoke Kontest!