Author Archive for liz

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William Upski Wimsatt discusses PLEASE DON’T BOMB THE SUBURBS

Sep ’10
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

Weekly Top 10

1. Henry and Glenn Forever Perfect Bound Deluxe New Edition by Igloo Tornado (Microcosm) $6.00 – The gay love of Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig? I’d get in that van.-EF

2. All My Friends Are Dead by var. (Chronicle) $9.95
3. Cats Are Weird and More Observations: A Cat Book by Jeffrey Brown (Quirk) $12.95 – If you’re a cat person you’re in good company: Art Bell, William Burroughs and now Jeffrey Brown.

4. Yeti #9 $11.95 – The comics and illustration really stand out in this issue -a fetching cover by Lori D plus work by James Turek, Lizz Hickey, Tuli Kupferberg reprints and an old interview with the late trickster collagist Bruce Conner. The mix cd really goes some special places too, like always.-E

5. Believer #73 2010 Music Issue $12.00

6. Bitch #47 $12.00

7. Brains Brilliancy Bohemia: Art and Politics In Jazz-age Chicago by Marc Moscato (Dil Pickles Clearing House) $13.00 – “Presenting photographs and copies from Chicago’s ill-forgotten radical nightclub, The Dil Pickle Club, hobo gatherings, and 1910s-20s ephemera, Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia provides a timely look at the origin of American counterculture and working class art leading up to the Great Depression. Book also includes a DVD of the short film, The More Things Stay The Same, a documentary on the life and world of hobo king and prostitute physician, Dr. Ben Reitman.”

8. Brilliant Mistake #1 by Carrie $1.00 – What a gem of a debut zine! Beautifully quilted together from bits of a questioning heart, Brilliant Mistake #1 pares down the aches of the social games we play. -EF

9. Bear in Underwear by Todd Doodler (Blue Apple) $12.99

10. We Should: A Selective Guide to Chicago by Laura Szumowski $7.95

Tao Lin Reads From Richard Yates

Sep ’10
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

Joe Janes and Friends Read From 365 Sketches

Aug ’10
21
7:00 pm

365 Sketches

Joe Janes does not believe in writer’s block. To prove the point, he wrote a full comedy sketch a day for a year and posted them live on his blog for everyone to read and comment on. Pretty brave for a teacher at the famed Second City and Columbia College. Many of his best friends tried to talk him out of doing 365 Sketches, but Joe decided to put his butt on the line. The general quality of the scenes were so high and the topic and styles so varied, all 365 sketches were performed at Strawdog Theater in a WNEP production earlier this year over the course of eleven nights with 26 directors and over 175 actors. The book is being lauded for not only being a fun read, but also a primer for comedy writers.

Joining Joe Janes will be some of Chicago’s finest comedic actors; Kevin Gladish, Chloé Ditzel, Bernie Balbot and Heath Cordts. They will be performing some of the most popular comic monologues from 365 Sketches.

For more info: http://365sketchesbyjoejanes.blogspot.com

Weekly Top 10

1. Scott Pilgrims vol 6 Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Oni) $11.99
2. Touch and Go The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine 79-83 by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson (Bazillion) $29.95
3. Is It the Future Yet by Corrine Mucha $3.00
4. Henry and Glenn Forever Perfect Bound Deluxe New Edition (Microcosm) $6.00
5. Black Carrot #15 Free Sandwich Zinewich by DF $5.00
6. Debbie’s Story by Kelly Froh $2.00
7. Doris #27 by Cindy $2.50
8. Nine Ways to Disappear by Lilli Carre (Little Otsu) $12.95
9. Meanwhile 3856 Story Possibilities by Jason Shiga (Abrams) $15.95
10. Acne Paper Sum 10 $15.00