Archive for the 'Local writer/artist' Category

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HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING UP? Release Event With Andy Slater and Marisa Choate 11/21

Published on October 21, 2015 2 Comments
Nov ’15
21
7:00 pm

How Many Fingers Cover
You may have seen blind man-at-large, Andy Slater (aka Velcro Lewis) walking around Chicago with his trusty white cane. He makes being blind look so easy but if you ask him about his disability he’ll tell you just how hard it can be. From the stereotypical Mr. Magoo routines like walking into a tree to the confrontations with people who accuse him of faking his disability, Andy’s stories can be both amusing and heartbreaking. In an honest one-on-one or a sardonic rant, Andy is always willing to talk about his experiences.

Slater’s Chick Tract-inspired comic, How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?, chronicles his experiences as a blind pedestrian enduring harassment from aggressive ableists and the unwanted “help” from busy-body gawkers. The book doubles as a DOs & DON’Ts guide on assisting blind folks.

The comic was created so that Slater had something physical to hand to curious people or aggressive jerks that he runs into. Witnessing Slater cut a loudmouth down to size is an act of beauty but has weighed on the author’s soul. This comic ends the debate before it starts and saves many from embarrassment.

Slater looks to spread his propaganda like a Chick comic. Illustrated by Steve Krakow How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?, stays true to the Chick tract format. The comic will blend perfectly on any church’s reading rack between The First Jews and The Gay Blade.

Andy Slater will read from his comic and share more or his absurd experiences. There will also be a Q & A with the author. Ask anything… learn everything!: “How do you wipe your butt?” “Can you fight like Daredevil?” “How come you don’t have a guide dog?” “Do blind people dream of invisible sheep?” “Do you know Stevie Wonder?”

Artist, Marisa Choate, will read excerpts from her piece, 1000 Voices, a collection of personal stories about disability told by people with and without disabilities. Slater will also make chili!

More info: thisisandyslater.com

Facebook event invite to send to people can be found here on Facebook.

Sat, Nov 21st, 7pm – Free Event, Quimby’s Bookstore

P.S. You might be interested in his most hilarious video he made for Rock Trauma:

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Daniel Makagon Reads From Underground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Shows With Photographers Patrick Houdek and Craig Kamrath 9/15

Published on August 13, 2015 0 Comments
Sep ’15
15
7:00 pm

BookCoverNoSpineIn Daniel Makagon’s new book Underground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Shows (Microcosm), he writes about DIY punk shows in the USA. The book focuses on the development of a DIY punk touring network, the emergence of punk house shows, and the establishment of volunteer-run community punk show spaces. Makagon describes how DIY punk shows provide opportunities for punks to form communities and enact social and economic alternatives to top down mainstream music industry practices. Underground weaves interviews with punk band members and show promoters to flesh out an argument about the reasons why punk shows are at the core of doing DIY.

“Daniel Makagon was there, and he’s likely forgotten more about DIY than many of you will ever know.”
-Adam Pfahler, Jawbreaker

Patrick Houdek has been photographing punk shows for nearly three decades. He founded the P&S Productions cassette compilation label in the 1980s and was involved with early show promotion at Lost Cross house in Carbondale, IL.

Craig Kamrath has been photographing punk bands in the Midwest for the past ten years. He’s documented long-lasting and short-lived show spaces in Chicago as well as some of the most important DIY spaces in the Midwest.

Patrick’s photos and Craig’s photos are featured in Underground.

For more info contact Daniel Makagon: dmakagon(at)depaul(dot)edu

Facebook event post for this event is here.

Tuesday, September 15th, 7pm – Free Event

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Ben Tanzer and Jonathan Travelstead read from The New York Stories and How We Bury Our Dead With Zoe Zolbrod and Seth Berg 7/7

Published on June 10, 2015 0 Comments
Jul ’15
7
7:00 pm

nystoriesbeerIn 2006, celebrated author Ben Tanzer began working on a series of short stories all set in the fictional upstate New York town of Two Rivers, most of them published in various literary journals over the years and eventually collected into the three small volumes Repetition Patterns (2008), So Different Now (2011), and After the Flood (2014). Now for the first time, all 33 of these stories have been gathered in The New York Stories, for what is already being recognized as career defining collection.

 

“With great humor and the natural voice of your closest confidant, Ben Tanzer brings us stories set in our shared fictional hometown of Two Rivers, NY. With tenderness and heart, Ben brings us real people and their poignant, messy struggles, reminding us of the folly of our youth and the beauty in even our most mundane histories. Though my family left when I was small for the big city, Tanzer has given this reader the gift of a sliding door here, and I think you’ll feel the same way, wherever you’re from.” – Elizabeth Crane, author of We Only Know So Much

 

Winner of the 2013 Cobalt Poetry Prize for his poem “Trucker,” Jonathan Travelstead has compiled an astounding collection of adrenalized poetry. How We Bury Our Dead is a narrative work which follows a single speaker as he jumps from one intense situation to the next in order to avoid his mother’s struggle with cancer. An Air Force firefighter, he volunteers to accompany his unit to Kuwait, and, after returning and still unable to cope, he hitchhikes his way across Alaska before finally going home.

“Jonathan Travelstead maps the quest for his elemental “end points and beginnings.” Doing so, he spans topography as various as Southern Illinois strip mines, automobile accident scenes, and Iraqi battle zones. What results are narratives that bare-knuckle gut-punch easy redemption. These poems honor the dead and the dying, refusing to avert the eye from certain explosion. It’s no wonder the keenest offer “prayers” for hand tools that do something palpably useful, say, prying open the wrecked heart’s flaming chariot of half-spoken desires.”   —Kevin Stein, author of Wrestling Li Po for the Remote

Tanzer and Travelstead will be joined Zoe Zolbrod, author of the acclaimed novel Currency (Other Voices Books, 2010) and poet Seth Berg, co-author of The Aviary, the recent Twin Antlers Prize for poetry from Artistically Declined Press.

For more info: Ben Tanzer:   tanzerben(at)gmail(dot)com

Tuesday, July 7th, 7pm – Free Event

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CAKE Presents . . . A Conversation with Eleanor Davis, John Porcellino, and Keiler Roberts Moderated by Hillary Chute 6/5

Published on May 5, 2015 9 Comments
Jun ’15
5
7:00 pm

Poster_Low-Res porcWhat better way to usher in CAKE weekend than a conversation with three of the most innovative cartoonists working today? If there’s a graphic narratives supergroup—the Emerson, Lake, & Palmer of American indie comics—this is it.

 

Eleanor Davis’s Fantagraphics collection How to Be Happy was just nominated for a 2015 Eisner Award. Keiler Roberts’s series Powdered Milk is a consistently stunning example of why so many of us fell in love with autobiographical comics in the first place. John Porcellino’s The Hospital Suite was one of the most critically acclaimed comics of 2014. With King-Cat Comics and Stories now 25 years old and going stronger than ever, John remains one of the guiding lights of the indie comics scene and for CAKE itself. Hillary Chute, comics scholar extraordinaire, author of Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics and Outside the Box: Interviews with Contemporary Cartoonists, will moderate this exciting roundtable.

Please join us for a rocking, inspiring kick-off event for CAKE 2015! For more information on this event & on the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, visit cakechicago.com . CAKE is June 6th-June 7th. Quimby’s is proud to be a co-sponsor.

Click here for the Facebook invite for this event.

Friday, June 5th, 7pm – Free Event!

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Jessica Hopper Reads From The First Collection of Criticism By a Living Female Rock Critic 5/29

Published on April 29, 2015 0 Comments
May ’15
29
7:00 pm

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Featherproof is proud to announce the publication of legendary rock critic Jessica Hopper’s newest book, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic, in Spring 2015.

Jessica Hopper’s music criticism has earned her a reputation as one of the firebrands of the form, a keen observer and fearless critic not just of music, but the culture around it, revealing new truths that often challenge us to consider what it is to be a fan.

With this premiere volume, spanning from her punk fanzine roots to her landmark piece on R. Kelly’s past, The First Collection leaves no doubt why the New York Times has called Hopper’s work “influential.” Not merely a selection of two decades of Hopper’s most engaging, thoughtful and humorous writing, this book serves as a document of the last 20 years of American music making and the shifting landscape of music consumption.

Through this vast range of album reviews, essays, columns, interviews, and oral histories, Hopper chronicles what it is to be truly obsessed with music, the ideas in songs and albums, how fantasies of artists become complicated by real life, and just what happens when you follow that obsession into muddy festival fields, dank basements, corporate offices or court records.

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST COLLECTION OF CRITICISM BY A LIVING FEMALE ROCK CRITIC BY JESSICA HOPPER

“Jessica Hopper’s criticsm is a trenchant and necessary counterpoint not just on music, but on our culture at large.” —Annie Clark, St. Vincent

“In this crucial book, Hopper schools us all on the art of criticism. You’ll be reminded, as I was, why you care to read and write about (and listen to!) music to begin with. Hopper’s relationship with music is a joy to behold.” —Tavi Gevinson, Editor-in-Chief, Rookie

“I read Hopper’s book with a sense of bewildered gratitude. She concedes nothing to the idea that it is dumb to care so much. The excitement in her work is that these things are worth scrapping about.” —Rob Sheffield, author of Love is a Mixtape

About Jessica Hopper:

Jessica Hopper’s music criticism has been included in Best Music Writing 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2011. Her first book, The Girls Guide to Rocking, was named one of 2009’s Notable Books for Young Readers by the American Library Associa- tion. She is Senior Editor at Pitchfork and the Editor-in-Chief of The Pitchfork Review. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two young sons.

Click here for the Facebook invite for this event.

For  press inquiries:   Dana  Meyerson   dana(at)biz3(dot)net

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