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Hans Rickheit Presents The Squirrel Machine

Published on September 11, 2009 0 Comments
Oct ’09
10
7:00 pm

WHAT IS THE SQUIRREL MACHINE? A rodent ensnarement device? A mechanism for concealing one’s guarded harvest? An anachronistic fable for the convulsive elite? A nugatory diversion for the subliterate? The answer to that question can be obtained in the form of an unusual new graphic novel in a book-signing tour ploughing its way through the northeast coast this Autumn.

THE SQUIRREL MACHINE is the brainchild of HANS RICKHEIT, who will be making appearances to autograph books, make sketches and speak personally to curious readers.

The Plot: Situated in a fictive 19th Century New England town, two brothers, Edmund and William Torpor confront public scorn when they reveal their musical creations built from strange technologies and scavenged animal carcasses. Driven to seek a concealment for their aberrant activities, they make a startling discovery. Will they divine the mystery of THE SQUIRREL MACHINE?

This book is a meticulously-rendered creation that defies all known genres. It can best be described as “PROTO-SURREALIST” or “RETRO-FUTURIST” Disregarding labels and buzz-phrases, it is ultimately an immutably strange and haunting narrative that transcends known logics and presumptive dream-barriers. A distillation of subconscious beauty and madness. A dangerous object for the incautious. A revelation for the undernourished crypto-seeker .

HANS RICKHEIT  was born in 1973 and grew up in New England, lived in the basement of an eccentric art gallery/performance space called the Zeitgeist Gallery from 1997-2002, and currently resides in Philadelphia. Aside from his many self-published efforts, he has appeared in many anthologies, including PAPER RODEO, HOAX and KRAMERS ERGOT.

“Rickheit is a vastly under-seen talent.” – Tom Spurgeon, THE COMICS REPORTER

www.squirrelmachine.org, www.thesquirrelmachine.blogspot.com www.chromefetuscomics.com

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The Week Behind Celebrates 17 Years on the Internet

Published on September 11, 2009 0 Comments
Oct ’09
7
7:00 pm

On October 7, The Week Behind will celebrate its 17th anniversary as the oldest online magazine in America. Before Slate, before Salon, and almost 10 years before the invention of blogs, The Week Behind was entertaining Chicago audiences with its lively coverage of the arts, culture, politics and technology.

Join original founders Scott Jacobs, Marilyn Wulff and Bob Brink discuss how The Week Behind evolved from the in-house newsletter of IPA, The Editing House into an Internet sensation (Cool Site of The Day on December 31, 1992.) Meet current contributors and find out how you can write for today’s magazine.

On hand for this special celebration will be Stump Connolly, chief political correspondent of The Week Behind, reading and signing his recently released book about the 2008 Campaign The Long Slog: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The White House.

The Long Slog is Connolly’s irreverent account of his 20 months following the presidential campaign. Read his first hand reports from New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio, see how he sneaks into the Republican and Democratic conventions, and join him for Barack Obama’s triumphant Election Night rally in Chicago.

Rick Kogan calls Stump “as clear-eyed and sharp-eared a reporter as there is in the land.” Tom Geoghagen says he is “a modern day Poor Richard, a witness of uncommon good sense to the nonsense of our presidential elections . . . an American Original.”

“I don’t think anyone had more fun covering the campaign than Stump, or reading him than me,” adds Bill Kurtis. “You laugh and learn at the same time.”

For a lively evening of fun, politics and surprise guests, don’t miss The Week Behind Birthday Bash at Quimby’s. The first 20 people in the door are eligible to purchase the last 20 original copies of the 1992 classic “The Week Behind: A Year in the Life of Small Business.”

For more info: www.theweekbehind.com

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PUNCHBUGGY BOOK TOUR 2009

Published on September 9, 2009 0 Comments
Oct ’09
5
7:00 pm

Don’t miss this comics extravaganza, featuring Liz Baillie, MK Reed and Ken Dahl!

PunchbuggyWeb
Join acclaimed cartoonists Liz Baillie (My Brain Hurts, Freewheel), MK Reed (Cross Country, Americus) and Ken Dahl (Welcome to the Dahl House, Monsters) as they each celebrate the debut of new graphic novels! All three will be reading selections from their latest works and will be available after the event to sign books, babies, and body parts.

For more info: www.punchbuggytour.com

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Jeff Phillips Reads From Whiskey Pike: A Bedtime Story for the Drinking Mankind

Published on August 26, 2009 0 Comments
Sep ’09
23
7:00 pm

Much as a child draws a picture of a favorite animal, Jeff Phillips has attempted to do something similar with a favorite beverage. It is illustrated in the fashion of a child’s bedtime story book. Only this story book delves into adult themes of corruption and takes us into the land of the source of an intoxicating ingredient, offering a bedtime story not for the dozing child but the soul of a somewhat hardened drinking type. Shane Bowermaster reaps the land and sells his crop of barley to sustain the family pastime and habit; whiskey. Inspired to try his hand at brewing the beverage of choice, a new trade consumes the Bowermaster family, leading them down a path toward one wild and wicked toast.

“Through the construction of what may be called a bedtime story, Phillips extends a hand to the drunkard and by extension, to the modern reader who looks to fiction to fill up the emotional gaps left barren by historical platitude. So Phillips imbues his text with details from an alternate history, leaping ideas of the type told by a drunken dreamer who truly believes he is awake—“I can drive! I can drive!”—; so he does drive, forward and quick, passing through a national landscape so defined and attentive that the reader instantly recognizes the semi-soft surprise of an erection unexpectedly pushing against the base of a wooden dinner table in full use and spread. However, this same reader cannot identify the story’s setting or time period—1890s? 1970s?—unless hard pressed and squeezed. This is an unusual thing. Let it be known: “Whiskey Pike” is the intoxicating mixture of a young man under many influences.” – James N. Kienitz Wilkins, director of Nature Mature and Public Hearing.

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

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Scott Inguito and Sandra Lim Read

Published on August 25, 2009 0 Comments
Sep ’09
19
7:00 pm

Visiting from San Francisco, poet and artist Scott Inguito will read from two poetry chapbooks along with Sandra Lim, who will read from her first book, Loveliest Grotesque (Kore Press).

Scott Inguito is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His chapbook, Dear Jack, is out from Momotombo Press, and his latest chapbook, The Vernacular Sounds of Dog Noise, a collection of woofs, barks and yelps written in Mexico in January 2008, is something he is working on. His poems have appeared in Shampoo, Fence, and 1913: a journal of forms. His collage-play “Trying to Create Intimacy with a Narcissist” was performed at California College of Art, San Francisco, for Small Press Traffic, in December 2008. Scott lives in San Francisco. His paintings and pictures from his play can be seen at scottinguito.com.

Sandra Lim was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Stanford University, and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her poems have appeared in several literary journals including Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, and ZYZZYVA. Her book of poems, Loveliest Grotesque (2006), won the Kore Press First Book Award. She lives in San Francisco. She is currently the Elma Stuckey Emerging Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College in Chicago.

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