Tag: events

  • James Hannaham Reads From God Says No

    godsaysno

    In God Says No (McSweeneys) by James Hannaham, Gary Gray marries his first girlfriend, a fellow student from Central Florida Christian College who loves Disney World as much as he does. They are nineteen, God-fearing, and eager to start a family, but a week before their wedding Gary goes into a rest-stop bathroom and lets something happen. God Says No is his testimony—the story of a young black Christian struggling with desire and belief, with his love for his wife and his appetite for other men, told in a singular, emotional voice. Driven by desperation and religious visions, the path that Gary Gray takes—from revival meetings to out life in Atlanta to a pray-away-the-gay ministry in Memphis, Tennessee—gives a riveting picture of how a life like his can be lived, and how it can’t.

    James Hannaham has written for the Village Voice, Spin, New York Magazine and once, circa 1997, a tiny sidebar in the front section of the New York Times Magazine. His fiction has appeared in The Literary Review, Nerve.com, Open City, and several anthologies.

    For more information about James Hannaham, see www.jameshannaham.com.

  • Megan Milks and Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf Read

    Megan Milks, a true gem in the Chicago literary scene, marks a new kind of adventure with her chapbook, “Kill Marguerite.”  The story runs with its variations on a theme and bends them with a retro twist: life in an old school video game. The result is a fresh, entertaining story with a heroine the reader lives and dies with, again and again, while continually forgetting that she is nothing but a pixelated image on a screen, whose volition is tied to the trivial push of an A or B button.

    Semi-professional mascot and full-time whiz kid Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf is currently getting his MFA at the School of the Art Institute, but more importantly he writes short little things that have been assembled in “An Implausibility of Gnus.” The book is the product of Bengelsdorf’s compulsive pick-pocketing from the coats of the American psyche. Over 30 stories pack into the collection, each revealing sparkling tidbits of the ordinary or ordinary disclosures of the fantastical.

    An Implausibility of Gnus will be available in late June from Another New Calligraphy. “Kill Marguerite” is out now. Another New Calligraphy is a new non-profit project that supports Chicago writers and musicians.

    For more info about this event, see www.anothernewcalligraphy.com
    For more information about events at Quimby’s, see http://quimbys.com/blog/store-events

    This event, as all events at Quimby’s, is a FREE EVENT.

  • Bob Odenkirk Signs Here!

    BOB ODENKIRK COMES TO QUIMBY’S TO SIGN COMEDY BY THE NUMBERS© BOOK-ON-TAPE CD
    (With Possible Special Funny Guest!)

    With the belief that “true creativity comes from simple formulas and the memorization of data,” COMEDY BY THE NUMBERS© BOOKON-TAPE CD! is nothing short of an indispensable audio guide on how to be funny. Prof. Eric Hoffman & Dr. Gary Rudoren first reduced comedy to an easy-to-follow manual in the McSweeney’s humor bible COMEDY BY THE NUMBERS©, and now, for the first time ever, their work has been lovingly adapted to the medium of sound with the help of the brightest stars in the comedy galaxy. Would you like to make your co-workers laugh but have zero sense of humor? No problem! Take a tour of comedy history as you discover the power of such tried-and-true humor staples such as; “#-14-Catch Phrases,” “#16-Clowns,” “#86-Novelty Items,” “#24-Cursing,” “63-Jews & Their Idiosyncracies,” “#95-Pathos,” “#144-The Double Take,” “#82-Movie Spoofs,” “#101-Pie In The Face” and much, much more!

    Guest readers featured on the CD include: Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Zach Galifianakis, Patton Oswalt, Andy Kindler, Paul F. Tompkins, Matt Walsh, McSweeney’s founder Dave Eggers and many more!

    The question isn’t, “Can I live without this book-on-tape CD?”
    The question is, “How have I lived this long without it?”
    Executive producer by Bob Odenkirk (of “Mr. Show fame) will be on hand to sign copies of the CD with a special guest!

    For more info on the CD: www.astrecords.com

    This event is free.

  • Drawn + Quarterly Artists Adrian Tomine and Seth at Quimby's

    Please join Quimby’s and Drawn & Quarterly at an event with Optic Nerve cartoonist Adrian Tomine and Palooka-Ville cartoonist Seth. The two New Yorker illustrators will be celebrating their own new releases – Tomine’s new editions of Shortcomings and 32 stories and Seth’s new graphic novel George Sprott 1894-1975 as well as the releases of the books they have edited and designed – Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s A Drifting Life (edited and designed by Tomine) and The Collected Doug: Canada’s Master Cartoonist (edited and designed by Seth). The two authors will be in conversation, take questions from the audience and will sign books.

    This event is free!

  • Mike Edison Reads From I Have Fun Everywhere I Go

    Quimby’s is excited to welcome Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot Porn Punk Rock Pro Wrestling Talking Apes Evil Bosses Dirty Blues American Heroes and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.

    A rollicking, high-octane, always irreverent journey through the seamy side of the publishing industry. Mike Edison’s resume spans twenty years and a slew of notorious titles, including Screw, High Times, Penthouse, and Hustler. An Ivy League dropout who’s never looked back, Edison embarked on a career that’s landed him in the producer’s chair for one of the worst B movies of all time; on tour with the likes of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, GG Allin, and the Ramones; undercover at a religious cult; on a bender with Evel Knievel; feuding with Hulk Hogan; smoking dope with Ozzy Osborne; and authoring some twenty novels you wouldn’t want your mother to catch you reading—let alone writing. I Have Fun Everywhere I Go combines the fear and loathing of Hunter Thompson’s journalistic thrill rides with the acerbic insider voice of Toby Young. It’s an eye-opening, gleeful view of life on the edge—and the outlaws and oddballs encountered there.

    “If you have any interest in pot, pornography, punk rock, or professional wrestling, just buy this fucking thing.” —Nick Tosches

    Mike Edison is a writer, editor, and musician. He lives in New York City. At his event here at Quimby’s, he will be accompanied by the Interstellar Groove Machine, a “Rube Goldberg contraption built out of an electric organ, a tape loop generator, and theremin.” Expect literary mayhem of the highest order.

    Check out his video here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE_0_gtMMdE

    For more info: www.mikeedison.com

    FREE EVENT

  • Hal Niedzviecki, author of The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors Reads

    Peep Diaries_cover final_bleed

    The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors is the story of one man’s journey through a rapidly transforming culture of lying, spying, revealing, and confessing.

    We have entered the age of “Peep Culture”: a tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon that is dramatically altering notions of privacy, individuality, security and even humanity. Peep culture is Reality TV, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, over-the-counter spy gear, blogs, chatrooms, amateur porn, surveillance technology, Dr. Phil, Borat, cellphone photos of your drunk friend making out with her ex-boyfriend, and more. In the age of Peep, core values and rights we once took for granted are rapidly being renegotiated, often without our even noticing.

    With hilarious, exasperated acuity, social critic Hal Niedzviecki dives into Peep, starting his own video blog, joining every social network that will have him, monitoring the movements of his toddler, selling his secrets on Craigslist, hiring a private detective to investigate him, spying on his neighbors, trying out for reality TV, and stripping for the pleasure of a web audience he isn’t even sure exists. Part travelogue, part diary, part meditation and social history, The Peep Diaries explores a rapidly emerging digital phenomenon that is radically changing not just the entertainment landscape, but also the firmaments of our culture and society.

    The Peep Diaries introduces the arrival of the peep culture age and explores its implications on entertainment, society, sex, politics, and everyday life. Mixing first-rate reporting with sociological observations culled from the latest research, this book captures the shift from pop to peep and the way technology is turning gossip into documentary and peeping toms into entertainment journalists. Packed with stranger-than-fiction true-life characters and scenarios, The Peep Diaries reflects the aspirations and confusions of the growing number of people willing to trade the details of their private lives for catharsis, attention, and notoriety.

    HAL NIEDZVIECKI’s writings on culture have appeared in newspapers
    and magazines across North America. He is the founder of Broken Pencil magazine and has published numerous works of social commentary and fiction, including Hello I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity and We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture.

    FREE

  • Quimby’s welcomes James Danky, co-author and co-curator of Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics Into Comix

    The impact of American underground comix is profound: They galvanized artists both domestically and abroad; they forever changed the economics of comic book publishing; and they influenced generations of cartoonists, including their predecessors. While the works of Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman are well-known via the New Yorker, Maus, and retrospective collections, the art of their contemporaries such as Gilbert Shelton, Trina Robbins, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, S. Clay Wilson, and many other seminal cartoonists who came of age in the 1960s is considerably less known.

    Underground Classics (Abrams) provides the first serious survey of underground comix as art, turning the spotlight on these influential and largely underappreciated artists. Essays from the book’s co-writers and co-curators James Danky and Denis Kitchen, alongside essays by Paul Buhle, Patrick Rosenkranz, Jay Lynch, and Trina Robbins, offer a thorough reflection and appraisal of the underground movement. Over 125 original drawings, paintings, sculptures, and artifacts are featured, loaned from private collections and the artists themselves, making Underground Classics indispensable for the serious-minded comics fan and for the casual reader alike.

    James Danky is the author/editor of dozens of books on topics as varied as African-American newspapers, women’s publications, and the Native American press. In 1974 he published his first book, Undergrounds, a bibliography of alternative newspapers. He is on the faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also founded and directed the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America. In 2007 Danky retired from the Wisconsin Historical Society after building their nationally renowned collections for thirty-five years. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

  • 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!

  • Not at Quimby's But Cool Anyway: Opening Day Ceremonies of The Chicago Unlympic Games at InCUBATE, Sat., 1/24/09

    The Unlympics is a month-long sporting event series intended to encourage active dialogue—extremely active dialogue—around the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. The Unlympics looks at highly organized, internationally recognized, massively marketed, thoroughly branded, and extremely expensive sporting events not from a pro or con standpoint, but from a questioning standpoint.

    Opening Day Ceremonies take place on January 24 and will include:

    6 p.m. GATHER AT InCUBATE (2129 North Rockwell; please be prompt.)
    6:15 p.m. PARADE OF NOTIONS (Come costumed in the attire appropriate to the national, creative, ethnic, political, economic, social, linguistic, imaginary, or other affiliation you intend to represent, and feel free to bring noisemakers, confetti, or protest signs as your conscience dictates.)
    6:45 p.m. ARTISTIC SECTION (Bring a hankie.)
    7:00 p.m. THE UNLYMPICS OATH (Like anyone is going to follow it.)
    7:15 p.m. THE LIGHTING OF STUFF ON FIRE (BYOS*)
    7:30 p.m. SPEECHES BY THE PRESIDENTS (Boring.)
    7:45 p.m. THE GAME WHERE YOU WIN (To get your competitive juices flowing.)
    8:00 p.m. AWARDS CEREMONY (BYOB)
    *S = Sparklers
    Dance troupes, pirates, marching bands, baton twirlers, sports enthusiasts, mud wrestlers, and good old patriots of any nation are encouraged to come out and join the parade. Please dress “appropriately.” This event is free and open to all ages.

    For more info, see: The Unlympics

    Also, don’t miss the Spelling Bee event of the Unlympics at Quimby’s on Feb 7th! Why is Quimby’s involved in this? Quimby’s Bookstore is proud to be the official bookstore and intellectual sponsor of the 2009 Winter Unlympic Games. For over 16 years, Quimby’s Bookstore has championed the freedom of the press in offering a variety of independently published or small press zines, books and comics. This literature is important in providing alternative, subversive or controversial viewpoints necessary to make informed decisions about one’s community.