Archive for the 'readings' Category

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Quimby’s Welcomes Slackjaw Columnist Jim Knipfel, with Andy Slater 7/19

Jul ’18
19
7:00 pm

Born in Wisconsin, Jim Knipfel was a staff writer at the now-defunct weekly alternative newspaper New York Press for thirteen years, where wrote the long-running and popular “Slackjaw” column, a cynical, misanthropic look at daily life. He is the author of ten books, including Slackjaw, Quitting the Nairobi Trio, These Children Who Come at You With Knives, The Blow-off: A Novel, and, most recently, Residue. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Village Voice, The Believer, OZY, and countless other publications. He’s also blind, and currently lives in the last remaining vestige of true Brooklyn.

Self-described local blindo, Andy Slater aka Velcro Lewis, will host the event. Slater will be sharing excerpts from his comic How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up, his new stand-up act Permission To Fail, and details of his work with the Society of Visually Impaired Sound Artists.

This event is supported by 3Arts, Bodies Of Work, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

“[Slackjaw] is an extraordinary emotional ride, through the lives and times of reader and writer alike, maniacally aglow with a born storyteller’s gifts of observation, an amiably deranged sense of humor, and a heart too bounced around by his history, and ours, not to have earned Mr. Knipfel, at last, an unsentimental clarity that is generous and deep.” –Thomas Pynchon

“Life hasn’t been easy for Jim Knipfel. He’s blind…He’s got a drinking problem. He’s been in an out of mental hospitals. He’s attempted suicide. But he’s managed to keep his sense of humor.”—Boston Herald

 

 

Thurs, July 19th, 7pm

More info:

Facebook Invite For This Event

jimknipfel.com

missioncreep.com/slackjaw

electronpress.com

books by Knipfel 

Robert K. Elder shares memories from THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE May 10th

May ’18
10
7:00 pm

Award-winning author, former rock photographer and journalist Robert K. Elder has composed the perfect walk down music memory lane in THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE: A Do-It-Yourself Music Memoir (Running Press; Trade Paperback Original; ISBN-13: 978-0762464074; 192 Pages/ $14.99).

THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE is a journal that guides user to write their autobiography through their music collection.

Sample questions from the book include:
What song or artist can’t you listen to because of a past romance?
What songwriter lied to or misled you?
What song allows you to time travel — that brings back a time and place so strongly that it’s palpable?

No matter which musical generation you belong to, or whether your musical tastes range from doo-wop to Daft Punk, THE MIXTAPE OF MY LIFE can be instant conversation starter among friends and family.

Also enjoy work from these fine readers!
Andrew Huff
Liz Mason
Lou Carlozo

“We all know that music is deeply intertwined with memory. The Mixtape of My Life is an astonishing tool for unlocking your long-forgotten histories.”

—Jason Bitner, author, Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves

Elder is the author of seven books, including 2016’s Hidden Hemingway. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Salon.com, and many other publications. He has worked for Sun-Times Media and Crain Communications, and is the founder of Odd Hours Media.

For more info, visit: mixtapeofmylife.com

Thursday, May 10, 7pm – 8pm

Free Event

Here’s the Facebook Invite for this event!

 

Esther K Smith & Dikko Faust show and tell Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type Borders &c & Purgatory Pie Press 4/19

Apr ’18
19
7:00 pm

 

Rustic Bride Mun! The Most Beautiful Book in the World! Esther K Smith & Dikko Faust of Purgatory Pie Press will show and tell William H. Page’s classic book Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, &c.: The 1874 Masterpiece of Colorful Typography.

Esther K Smith first saw The Most Beautiful Book in the World at Chicago’s Newberry Library. As she turned the pages, she knew she needed to work with a big publisher to reprint the book so that she could own a copy. Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type Borders &c (Rizzoli) is a reprint of WH Page’s 1874 catalog of typography and ink from the exuberant early decades of manufactured color–available to the public for the first time. Page produced the largest and most detailed wood type which he distributed his type all over the world– throughout the US, Europe, and Asia–even Burma. One librarian said that though clothing faded and architecture was repainted, the brilliant inks inside the book retained the vivid intensity of the Victorian era. The text is found poetry which one viewer likened to Gertrude Stein. Smith and Faust will show pages from the book and talk about producing the reprint, working with six original copies in three rare book libraries. And they will discuss their own experience at Purgatory Pie Press, one of the longest running artist presses, printing and designing with wood type. Chromatic Wood Type is an opera of a  book–and the opera it inspired (Soundscapes of Color) premiers April 22 at 6018 North. The composer, Michal Dzitko, will be present and they will show a short clip of the opera-in-progress.

Take a wild ride through the polychrome world of nineteenth-century poster type. These letters are slathered with more ink and ornament than a tattooed sailor.” –Ellen Lupton, Senior Curator, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

“WOW. What a treasure to be saved and savored. And what an insane genius craftsman William H. Page was. this book is as fun to read as it is to look at, with its accidental (or perhaps totally intentional) bits of poetry, decades ahead of its time.” —Chip Kidd,  

Esther K Smith is the author of the best-selling How to Make Books and Making Books with Kids, which Bank St. Education included in their Best Children’s Books of the Year. Smith collaborates with Dikko Faust making limited editions and artist books at Purgatory Pie Press. Their work is in many collections including the Newberry Library, The Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, and London’s V&A.

For more info:

Images from the book!
Specimens-cover
detail 
wood type
page
another page

esther(at)purgatorypiepress(dot)com

purgatorypiepress.com

Facebook Event Invite for this event.

Thurs April 19, 7pm – Free Event

Georgia Webber Reads From Dumb: Living Without a Voice 5/31

May ’18
31
7:00 pm

Toronto-based cartoonist Georgia Webber’s new book, Dumb (Fantagraphics Books), Part memoir, part medical cautionary tale, Dumb tells the story of how the book’s author copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the practical hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her increasingly lonely journey to regain her life. Her raw cartooning style, occasionally devolving into chaotic scribbles, splotches of ink, and overlapping montages, perfectly captures her frustration and anxiety. But her ordeal ultimately becomes a hopeful story. Throughout, she learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined.

“Webber wields the full power of the comics medium to address the life-changing catastrophe of being forced into silence.”

Broken Frontier

Georgia Webber is a cartoonist living in Toronto, where she is a freelance comics in addition to editing the comics section of carte blanche. She is best known for Dumb, her autobiographical comics series about living with a vocal disability.

For more info:

Facebook Event invite.

fantagraphics.com/dumb

Quimazon

Media inquiries to: cohen@fantagraphics.com

Thursday, May 31st 7pm – Free Event

Justin O’Brien Reads From Chicago Yippie! ’68

Mar ’18
23
7:00 pm

Justin O’Brien’s new book Chicago Yippie! ’68 (Garret Room Books) is a true chronicle of his experiences during the week of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. What promised to be a music festival and protest against the war in Vietnam turned into a “police riot,” as deemed by the official investigation report, Rights in Conflict. This historic event, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, has relevant echoes in the protests of today. Even other participants have been amazed by this detailed description of events. O’Brien’s gripping narrative is interwoven with additional eyewitness accounts and includes more than 150 color and black and white photos—most of them never before published, and three original maps help the reader pinpoint the action. Handbills, posters, newspapers, political buttons, and other paraphernalia—all from the author’s collection—provide fascinating visual references and offer graphic evidence of this historic Chicago moment.

“Justin O’Brien seemingly was ever-present during 1968’s Chicago Convention Week. His lively recollections from the streets and the parks resurrect a polarized time of counterculture protest and potential.”
—Abe Peck, Professor Emeritus in Service, Northwestern University;
Author, Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press

“There is no book more loyal to the events that occurred over four August days in Chicago in 1968 than Justin O’Brien’s riveting Chicago Yippie! ’68. With his lucid, engaging prose, O’Brien effortlessly unwinds the various discordant threads that were so tightly woven into the fabric of the anti-war movements that defined the 1960s. Chicago Yippie! ’68 will take you back to a place that time may have muted, but that Mr. O’Brien has never forgotten.”
—Pat Owens

 

With more than 400 by-lines on a variety of subjects, Justin O’Brien has written extensively about blues music over a forty-year period, and for several decades has been associated with Living Blues magazine of the University of Mississippi. His work has also appeared in Juke Blues, Sing Out!, UIC Alumni News, Chicago Parent, Digital Chicago, Southern Graphics, and other publications. He has contributed to the Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge Press, 2005), Armitage Avenue Transcendentalists (Charles Kerr, 2009), and Base Paths: The Best of the Minneapolis Review of Baseball (Wm. Brown, 1991), to which, coincidentally, former Senator Eugene McCarthy, the “peace candidate” of 1968, wrote a foreword.

Friday, March 23, 7 p.m. – Free Event

For more info: garretroom.com

Facebook invite for this event here!