Archive for the 'readings' Category

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Matthew Gavin Frank Reads From Barolo

Published on August 18, 2010 0 Comments
Sep ’10
24
7:00 pm

Barolo

After a childhood of microwaved meat and saturated fat, Matthew Gavin Frank got serious about food. His “research” ultimately led him to Barolo, Italy (pop. 646), where, living out of a tent in the garden of a local farmhouse, he resolved to learn about Italian food from the ground up. Barolo is Frank’s account of those six months.  At once an intimate travelogue and a memoir of a culinary education, the book details the adventures of a not-so-innocent abroad in Barolo, a region known for its food and wine (also called Barolo). Along the way we meet the region’s families and the many eccentric vintners, butchers, bakers, and restaurateurs who call Barolo home. Rich with details of real Italian small-town life, local foodstuffs, strange markets, and a circuslike atmosphere, Frank’s story also offers a wealth of historical and culinary information, and musings on foreign travel, all filtered through food and wine.

Matthew Gavin Frank worked for over fifteen years in the food and restaurant industry in positions ranging from dishwasher to sous-chef, server to sommelier, menu consultant to catering-business owner, farmhand to janitor. A visiting assistant professor of writing at Grand Valley State University, he has published essays in Gastronomica, Creative Nonfiction, and Best Food Writing 2006.

“Aaahhh . . . ! Here are all the joys of being young and exuberant and passionate and in love with women, and life, and better yet . . . in Barolo. This remarkable and enchanting tale makes me want to set the clock back many years and to book passage to Italy and to the sips of the world’s greatest wine, and to be inspired by all the things that make life such a wonderful journey! Kudos to Matthew Gavin Frank for reminding us what really makes life worth living!”—Charlie Trotter, chef, author, and host of PBS’s The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter

“Suddenly you are in Italy, suddenly you are in love, suddenly you are picking the delicate Nebbiolo grape under a burning sun—and in a moment Matthew Gavin Frank has captured your unwavering attention, with a firm grasp that continues for all three hundred pages of this delightful and incisive book.”—Lee Gutkind, editor of Creative Nonfiction magazine and author of Almost Human: Making Robots Think

For more info: http:// www.matthewgfrank.com

William Upski Wimsatt discusses PLEASE DON’T BOMB THE SUBURBS

Published on August 12, 2010 0 Comments
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

Tao Lin Reads From Richard Yates

Published on July 29, 2010 0 Comments
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

Published on July 28, 2010 0 Comments
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

Zines On Toast Show at Quimby’s

Published on July 21, 2010 0 Comments
Sep ’10
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://zinesontoast.org

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