Monthly Archive for May, 2005

Sam Brumbaugh reads from
GOODBYE, GOODNESS
Wednesday, April 27th, 7PM
FREE
 
Hayward Theiss is on the lam, hiding out in a Malibu beach house that is not his, and trying to understand how he got there. A car crash, a bag of dope, a sinister producer, and his best friend?s strange escape from rehab all figure into the story. To further complicate matters, Hayward is the great-grandson of a massively ambitious robber baron named Finn Theiss, who had a long-ago affair with the sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Hayward begins to untangle the convoluted estrangement between these two, and confronts the possibility that Annie Oakley is in fact his great-grandmother. The novel includes beautifully interwoven excerpts from Oakley?s autobiography that have never appeared in book form. Goodbye, Goodness is a simultaneously hopeful and bleakly realistic, hilarious, and devastatingly sad book about the American dream coming to the end of the line.
 
Brumbaugh writes with the exquisite, nonchalant precision of a master chef preparing an early dinner for friends. Readers will be thrilled at the arrival of this new voice?and this new take on coming of age while fervently reckoning with the past.
 
Sam Brumbaugh has worked in the music industry for two decades, touring with bands such as Pavement, Cat Power, and Mogwai, producing music specials for PBS, and, most recently, a documentary on the great Texas musician Townes Van Zandt. His fiction has been published in Open City magazine and The Southwest Review. A relative of Annie Oakley himself, he lives in New York City.
 
For the event Sam Brumbaugh will read and sign copies of his book.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal reads & signs
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Tuesday, February 1st, 7:00 PM
FREE
 
Amy Krouse Rosenthal is, alphabetically, an author of adult and children?s books; contributor to magazines and NPR; host of the literary and music variety show Writers? Block Party on WBEZ radio; and mother of some kids. She lives in Chicago.
 
How do you conjure a life? Give the truest account of what you saw, felt, learned, loved, strived for? For Amy Krouse Rosenthal, the surprising answer came in the form of an encyclopedia. In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life she has ingeniously adapted this centuries-old format for conveying knowledge into a poignant, wise, often funny, fully realized memoir. Using mostly short entries organized from A to Z, many of which are cross-referenced, Rosenthal captures in wonderful and episodic detail the moments, observations, and emotions that comprise a contemporary life. Start anywhere?preferably at the beginning?and see how one young woman?s alphabetized existence can open up and define the world in new and unexpected ways.
 
Amy Krouse Rosenthal will read from and sign copies of her book
 
Visit www.encyclopediaofanordinarylife.com
 

Do You Want To Be Famous?
Speed Zine? with HOTCAKES
Saturday, March 5th, 7PM
FREE
 
Don?t miss this opportunity to meet the secret, underground, shadow society, the Hermeneutic Organization Toward Celebritification, Advancement and Knowledge of Everyday Subjects (HOTCAKES), in a rare, overground, indoor public appearance! HOTCAKES invites you to an evening of Speed Zining? wherein participants will, in one night, spend five minutes at each member\’s station, becoming part of zine and audio project history (!) in as many as SIX different amazing published projects, to be presented at a later date.
 
Here?s your chance to double your fifteen minutes of fame! You will receive five minutes of individual attention from each of the six members of HOTCAKES, whose secret code names may or may not be:
 
?Dr. Christa (Killer) Donner,? editor of Ladyfriend and Free Advice zines, who will record your counsel on a variety of topics.
 
?Professor Anne E. (Evil) Moore,? authoress, who will demand explicit details on your musical identity.
 
?Countess Ruth (The Knife) Oppenheim-Rothschild,? expert, who will collect your sex dreams.
 
?Becca (Knuckles) Taylor, CPA,? creator of the comic Wonderful Year, who will steal your soul.
 
?St. Liz (T-Bone) Mason,? creator of Caboose zine, who will collect photos of you wearing the clothes you wear when you do your laundry (provided you wear or bring them with you).
 
?Julie (The Shark) Atomic, Esq.,? audio documentarian, who will record your musings on a wide variety of Very Important topics.
 
Q: What is Speed Zining??
A: Speed Zining? is based on the scientific strategies of speed dating, wherein individuals rotate five-minute conversations with each other in hopes of acquiring a suitable companion. Speed Zining? is pioneered by Dr. Speed Zine, Emeritus, whose laboratory work at the Institute of Public and Personal Association for Non-Celebrity Advancement for Knowledge and Etymology (PPANCAKE) has resulted in chemical and biological advances in the fields of independent publishing and breakfast ingestion. Speed Zining? differs from speed dating in that the goal of Speed Zining? is to contribute to projects and increase personal fame and renown instead of acquiring a mate. Participation in a Speed Zine? event will result in your inclusion in six research-based, multi-media projects, to be released and presented at a later date by the above mentioned HOTCAKES.