| Feb ’07 |
| 24 |
| 12:00 am |
Oyez Review Issue 34 EventSaturday Feb 24th 8PMWith Jotham Burrello and J.
Weintraub, plus two other contributors to the new issue.
Monthly Archive for February, 2007
| Feb ’07 |
| 21 |
| 12:00 am |
John Sheppard and Evan ManderyWednesday, February 21st, 7:00 PM
SMALL TOWN PUNK by John SheppardTrapped in dreary Sarasota, Florida in the early 1980s–during Reagan’s “Morning in America,”–going to high school with junior fascists by day, working at Pizza Hut by night, his family a dysfunctional nightmare, 17-year old Buzz Pepper feels that nothing matters in life beyond drinking, drugs and punk rock.
As the country around him is becoming more conservative and corporate, and adulthood seems like the ultimate corrupt existence, Buzz can only find solace within a close-knit group of fellow disillusioned teens, which includes his devoted younger sister, Sissy. As they drive around in Buzz’s beat-up van, encountering redneck cops, mocking the local “geezers,” and wondering if there is any meaning in what seems to be a meaningless world, Small Town Punk perfectly captures how it is to be young, yet feel that you have no future.
John Sheppard currently lives in Chicago, and his fiction has been published in Bridge Magazine.
DREAMING OF GWEN STEFANI by Evan Mandery.Mortimer Taylor Coleridge is a unique man. With a mind of rare mathematical precision, he is obsessed with imposing order upon the chaos of every day life. A once brilliant student of evolutionary biology at Columbia University, he has turned his back on a promising academic career to devote his life to selling hot dogs at Papaya Queen. And Mortimer has used his keen intellect to become the quickest and most efficient of hot dog men, devising a numerical-based system to sell hot dogs which maximizes both time and effort.
One day while watching TV, Mortimer comes upon VH1, and his life is instantly transformed. While watching Behind the Music: No Doubt, he decides that he and Gwen Stefani are soul mates, destined to be together. When Mortimer discovers that her favorite food is a Papaya Queen hot dog, he dedicates his life to preparing for the day, which he knows will come, when Gwen Stefani will walk into the Papaya Queen where he works, order a frankfurter and fall in love with him.
Evan Mandery is the author of two works of nonfiction. Dreaming of Gwen Stefani is his first novel. He lives in New York City.
Both Authors will be present to read and sign their new books.
| Feb ’07 |
| 16 |
| 12:00 am |
M. Dylan Raskin reads fromBandanas and October SuppliesFriday, February 16th, 7:00 PMFREE
In Bandanas and October Supplies, M. Dylan Raskin (MDR to friends) is back with the most unexpected of books?an offbeat love song to his ailing mother?that reads like a punk-rock version of The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Of course, there\’s a twist.
As always, young Mr. Raskin has a lot on his mind. His generation is still stocked to the gills with morons and \”walking clich?s,\” and MDR?s favorite things?blanket forts, fleece pants, cozy trees, and the month of October, to name just a few?are still in woefully short supply. But when his mother is diagnosed with cancer, MDR?s usual troubles are forced to the backseat. Together, mother and son hit the road in their little Honda del Sol and scour America for peace and quiet and the \”October supplies\” they need to keep going.
Equal parts road story, elegy, and hallucinatory bildungsroman, Bandanas and October Supplies is a bittersweet love story that is like no other book ever written about death, life, and the complex devotion between a mother and a son.
M. Dylan Raskin will read and sign his new book at this event
| Feb ’07 |
| 15 |
| 12:00 am |
Michael McColly reads from The After Death RoomThursday, February 15th, 7:00 PM
Michael McColly begins his new memoir The After-Death Room in South Africa, where he traveled in 2000 to teach yoga to those in attendance at the International AIDS conference. But instead of teaching, McColly becomes the student to the scores of AIDS activists he meets in Africa who challenge him to take his spiritual beliefs off the mat and out into the harsh but life-affirming world of AIDS activism.
Part spiritual memoir, part investigative journalism, McColly?s riveting account of life inside the AIDS pandemic is one of the first ever written by an HIV+ writer. From Africa to Asia to neighborhoods in his own home of Chicago, McColly takes readers into struggling lives of Asian commercial sex workers, African-American prisoners, and Vietnamese street children as well as the spirited activism of Zulu traditional healers, Islamic mullahs of Senegal, African-American pastors, and Buddhists monks working with the dying in Thailand.
William Finnegan of the New Yorker and author of Cold New World calls The After-Death Room ?a revelation, an epic 21st century canvas on which the themes of courage, ingenuity, solidarity, and justice stand out just as boldly as those of cruel indifference and despair. . . McColly brings the global AIDS story home to Americans in a way no other writer has done.?
Michael McColly is the author of The World Is Round, a collection of immigrant narratives on coming to America. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, In These Times, The Sun, Ascent, and Salon.com. He?s a recipient of fellowship awards to MacDowell, Yaddo, Blue Mountain and Ragdale. He lives in Chicago where he teaches yoga and creative writing at Columbia College and Northwestern University.
Michael McColly will be joined by Lex Sonne and Jessica Tierney whom will read from original fiction at this event.
| Feb ’07 |
| 9 |
| 12:00 am |
Jordan Tate reads from The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual EuphemismsFridayday, Feburary 9th, 7:00 PMFREE
Do terms such as camel toe and money shot make you laugh? How about phrases like bury the bone or choking the chicken? Photographer and writer Jordan Tate uses his penchant for taking pictures to illustrate the aforementioned catchphrases and more in a hilarious new compilation, The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms (St. Martin?s)
Along with both literal and sexual definitions of each euphemism, this unique dictionary also has photographs shot by Tate himself and, of course, an example of each term used in a sentence. An in-your-face, hilarious assemblage filled with all of the euphemisms you may?and may not?have already heard, it includes:
?Pearl Necklace, n. ? A sexual act whereby a controlled ejaculation of semen around the neck and shoulders of the recipient leaves small, collected, pools of semen that roughly resemble pearls connected by thin strands of semen left in the dragging of the penis along the skin
?George Walker, n. ? A predisposition to anal intercourse or any anal activity that borders on obsession
?Rodeo, n. ? Attempting to maintain penetration of the recipient for eight seconds after informing him or her of your sexual encounters with any relative or close friend of the recipient
?Shooting Putty at the Moon, v. ? Male masturbation
?Snail Trail, n. ? Labia
Until now, no dictionary has ever attempted to record the fascinating and often raunchy inventory of English sexual euphemisms. Jordan Tate has confronted this task with gusto and the results are nothing short of gratifying. The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms is a hysterical, unabashed, and at times shocking compilation of every sexual euphemism you?ve ever heard?and many more you haven?t. It is perfect for those who still get a kick out of looking up dirty words in the dictionary.
About the Author
jordan tate attended Miami University?s Western College Program and earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2003. He is currently an M.F.A. candidate at Indiana University?s Henry Hope Radford School of Fine Arts. Some of his work is held in the permanent collection at the Kinsey Institute for Gender, Sex, and Reproduction. For more on Tate and his work, please visit www.JordanTate.com.
