Archive for the 'Store Events' Category

Author Kyle Smith Reads from His New Novel 85A

Published on July 24, 2010 in Event, Local writer/artist, Store Events, fiction and punk. 0 Comments
Sep
4
7:00 pm

85A

Kyle Smith will read from his Chicago-set coming-of-age novel out this summer from Bascom Hill Publishing Group. Set in late 1980s Chicago, 85A follows its half Johnny Rotten, half Holden Caulfield antihero, Seamus O’Grady, through a watershed day in his adolescent life. As a gay teen from a conservative Catholic home—in one of the most racist neighborhoods of a notoriously segregated city—Seamus begins to seek his niche in 1980s Chicago’s multicultural punk and bohemian circles.

Originally from Chicago, Smith infuses 85A with the rich detail of his own experiences with the Chicago punk scene as his protagonist struggles with universal themes of identity, rebellion and belonging. Today, Smith lives in Brooklyn, New York and regularly contributes to Edge, The Brooklyn Rail, and WhiteHot Magazine.

“Like Holden [Caulfield], Seamus serves as an important reminder of the universal urge to self-define in a world hostile to anyone who dares to be different.” – Edge on the Net

“[Seamus'] treatment at the hands of his family and his teachers is heart-wrenching.” – Booklist

For more information, visit: http://85anovel.com/events.htm

William Upski Wimsatt discusses PLEASE DON’T BOMB THE SUBURBS

Published on August 12, 2010 in Event, Store Events and readings. 0 Comments
Sep
8
7:00 pm

PleaseDontBomb

In PLEASE DON’T BOMB THE SUBURBS, William Upski Wimsatt weaves a first-person tour of America’s cultural and political movements from 1985-2010. It-s a story about love, growing up, a generation coming of age, and a vision for the movement young people will create in the new decade. With humorous story-telling and historical insight, Wimsatt lays out a provocative vision for the next twenty-five years of personal and historical transformation.
Social entrepreneur, philanthropic consultant, journalist, and political organizer, Mr. Wimsatt published five books including Bomb the Suburbs, and No More Prisons. He has written for Vibe, Chicago Tribune and is also the winner of the 1999 Firecracker Book Award for Political Non-Fiction. He has spoken at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and was named by Utne Magazine as “Utne Visionary” and to The Source Magazine’s “Power 30”.

As a 2010 Fellow at Movement Strategy Center, Mr. Wimsatt runs The Field 3.0 Project, a community dialogue and documentation effort to envision the future and drive innovation in movement building. He also runs ALL HANDS ON DECK: WIN AGAIN 2010, a voter engagement program targeting likely drop-off voters, focused in key battleground states and coordinates a 12 Week Plan to organize volunteers in the lead up the mid-term elections. Previously, Wimsatt founded and ran the League of Young Voters (2003-2008) which organized 3000+ youth to create 300+ voter guides and impacted 29 state and local elections or pieces of legislation. In 2005, Wimsatt co-founded Generational Alliance. Over his career as a funder and fundraiser he has helped move more than eight million dollars to social change. In 2008, he created and ran the Ohio Youth Corps program for the Ohio Democratic Party/Obama For America, which trained and deployed 50 staff throughout Ohio. Wimsatt has worked for Green For All, consulted for Rock The Vote, MoveOn.org, Hull Family Foundation, The DC Project, The Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing, and completed Rockwood’s year-long course for executive leaders.

For more info: http://www.akashicbooks.com/pleasedont.htm

Tao Lin Reads From Richard Yates

Published on July 29, 2010 in Event, Store Events, fiction and readings. 0 Comments
Sep
15
7:00 pm

RichardYatesTaoLin

Richard Yates is a startling change of direction for Lin: his trademark minimalism takes on a much darker edge as he narrates the story of a young man dealing with the consequences of an affair with an underage girl.  But buried within Lin’s work is a more troubling question—what exactly constitutes illicit sex for a generation with no rules?  Tao Lin’s second novel tracks the relationship between writer Haley Joel Osment, a New Yorker in his early twenties, and Dakota Fanning, his 16-year-old lover.  Moving between Fanning’s suburban home and Osment’s Wall Street apartment, the couple increasingly shuns the outside world as they work to navigate the moral ambiguity of their love. But as they grow more obsessive and become more intimately involved, Fanning reveals her increasingly self-destructive personality.  Osment’s own guilt and anger entrap him as they find the relationship—and their lives—hurtling out of control. 

“Richard Yates is hilarious, menacing, and hugely intelligent. Tao Lin is a Kafka for the iPhone generation. He has that most important gift: it’s impossible to imagine anyone else writing like he does and sounding authentic. Yet he has already spawned a huge school of Lin imitators. As precocious and prolific as he is, every book surpasses the last. Tao Lin may well be the most important writer under thirty working today.”
—Clancy Martin, author of How to Sell

For more info: http://www.mhpbooks.com and http://richardyates.info

A Night With Continuum’s 33 1/3 Book Series

Published on August 18, 2010 in Event, Store Events, books, music and readings. 0 Comments
Sep
17
7:00 pm

33.3 Series

33 1/3 is a series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the past 40 years. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music.  The series now spans over 70 titles, covering a wide range of albums, from Public Enemy and Slayer to ABBA and Celine Dion. Indeed, this event is probably the only time in history that AC/DC and Belle and Sebastian will share a bill. Three writers, three albums. One event.

Joe Bonomo – AC/DC’s Highway to Hell

Joe Bonomo strikes a three-chord essay on the power of adolescence, the durability of rock & roll fandom, and the transformative properties of memory. Why does Highway To Hell matter to anyone beyond non-ironic teenagers?  Blending interviews, analysis, and memoir with a fan’s perspective, Highway To Hell dramatizes and celebrates a timeless album that one critic said makes “disaster sound like the best fun in the world.”

Joe Bonomo teaches in the English Department of Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band (Continuum 2007), and Installations (Penguin), a collection of prose poems.  His personal essays and prose poems have appeared in numerous literary journals.

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Mark Richardson – Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka

“[A] wildly accessible, entertaining, and thoughtful book about the importance of an album that nobody talks about much anymore.” -The Stranger

The Flaming Lips’ 1997 album Zaireeka is one of the most peculiar albums ever recorded, consisting of four CDs meant to be played simultaneously on four CD players. Approaching this powerful and complex art-rock masterpiece from multiple angles, Mark Richardson’s prismatic study of Zaireeka mirrors the structure the work itself. Thoughts on communal listening and the “death of the album” are interspersed with the story of the Zaireeka’s creation (with assistance from Wayne Coyne) and an in-depth analysis of the music, leading to a complete picture of a record that proved to be a watershed for both the band and adventurous music fans alike.

Mark Richardson is the managing editor of Pitchfork. He was a contributing editor to The Pitchfork 500 and his writing on music has appeared in publications including the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and Metro Times Detroit.

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Scott Plagenhoef – Belle and Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister

If You’re Feeling Sinister shows how Belle & Sebastian transformed themselves over the space of a decade, from a slightly shambolic cult secret into a polished, highly entertaining, mainstream pop group. Along the way, the book shows how the internet has revolutionized how we discover new music—often at the cost of romance and mystery.

Scott Plagenhoef is Editor-in-Chief for Pitchfork Media.

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For more info: http://33third.blogspot.com/

Zines On Toast Show at Quimby’s

Published on July 21, 2010 in Event, Store Events, readings and zines. 0 Comments
Sep
18
7:00 pm

RadIllustrRumLSSR2ZineOnToast1

An evening of entertainment and information with zine writers from the UK (Rumlad, Last Hours, Hey Monkey Riot and Morgenmuffel) on tour with Portland’s Alex Wrekk (Brainscan zine and Stolen Sharpie Revolution). Join them for accounts of UK zine culture including stories from Alex’s trip to the UK last year, plus tales of the London zine symposium, vegan mass catering, UK social centres, revolution, punk rock, anarchy and more! For more info: http:www.zinesontoast.co.uk

Alex Wrekk “Author of the popular how-to guide of zine-making, Stolen Sharpie Revolution, over fifteen years of zine-making under her belt, and the most intimate details of her life photocopied, stapled, and mailed around the world, this is a woman committed to taking her experiences in life and putting them on display in a way that is not for ratings or profit. Rather, she does it for the love of writing, creating, and sharing.” (Feminist Review) www.smallworldbuttons.com

Isy Morgenmuffel “For the past ten years Morgenmuffel comic zine has been documenting the world that Isy inhabits. A world of riots in the city of London, cooking for hundreds of punks, starting housing co-ops, local social centres, or simply hanging out with friends and drinking. Through it all Isy’s love of life, and humour, is at the heart of the stories.” (Last Hours)  www.morgenmuffel.co.uk

Edd Baldry, a radical illustrator and editor of Last Hours, and creator of Hey Monkey Riot: “Edd’s perhaps one of the few people drawing autobio comics who actually does interesting stuff, … with an angle on activism which is celebratory rather than polemical, yet also unafraid to point out absurdities.” (Lucid Frenzy) www.eddbaldry.co.uk

Steve Larder “Rum Lad is part comic, part scene report, part diary but all with a subtle positivity that works to remind you that being a punk is fucking awesome.” (Pete Willis)  www.stevelarder.co.uk

Tom Fiction and Natalie of Last Hours magazine and resource for creative resistance, and the London Zine Symposium, an annual event now in its 6th year.  www.lasthours.org.uk