Archive for the 'Store Events' Category

Amy Guth author ofThree Fallen WomenThursday, September 21st, 8:00 PMFREE
 
Amy Guth will be reading from THREE FALLEN WOMEN (published by So New Media).
 
Guth’s violent and shimmering debut novel is the story of three women caught in the vortex of breaking down. For Helen,a painter reawakening after a long period of self-destruction, peace is the choice between the love of her life and her new-found freedom. For Carmen, addiction will define the final throes of her broken heart. And for Frieda, the perfect housewife, catharsis is defined by sex and murder.
 
THREE FALLEN WOMEN unapologetically weaves graphic adventure with heartbreak and sweetness to fashion a new brand of fiction. Equal parts feminist battle cry, anti-love story, and twisted metamorphosis, this is a novel that refuses conventional storytelling and lands a hard suckerpunch in the gut of the patriarchy.
 
Amy G?th has written about sex, racism, hate crimes, art, blaxploitation and cult films for The Believer, Monkeybicycle, and Four Magazine, among others. She currently writes a monthly socio-feminist column called ?Elethromaniac? for OutCry Magazine. You can read her sarcastic rantings and vague questions to nobody in particular on her blog: www.bigmouthindeedstrikesagain.blogspot.com.
 
She has garnered a solid reputation in indie-lit circles as a consistently dynamic and entertaining live performer. Her readings are nothing short of performance art spectacles, including audience participation, props, and a punk rock energy that always attracts a large and enthusiastic crowd.
 
More details can be found at www.guthagogo.com.

Tuesday Sept 19th 7PMFree
 
Arkansas author Danen Jobe will be reading from and signing copies of his new book, Niagra Blues: Slingerland. The short novel is a fictional history of legendary ?outsider? musician Jandek, imagining the performer as a young man in the Ozark Mountains developing his unique musical ideas against a backdrop of cultural change and family turmoil. It is published by Single Cell Press, and is projected to be the first in a series tracing an imagined life for the performer.
 
Not intended to be taken as the ?real? story of Jandek, this book offers a unique approach to the artist based principally on gleanings from his music, and the project has been written with the consent and cooperation of Corwood Industries, the sole publisher of Jandek?s catalog since 1978. It is also a story of the people who came from rural Arkansas and the folk and blues music that formed a soundtrack to their lives. Among the other characters represented in the book are legendary blues Founder Son House and the celebrated southern poet Frank Stanford.
 
National Book Award winner Ellen Gilchrist, who mentored Jobe at the acclaimed Writing Program at the University of Arkansas, calls Jobe ?the most curious and inventive student I ever had.? Jobe teaches English and Literature at the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith, and lives with his wife and two children in the country outside Fayetteville.
 
Jandek is a notoriously reclusive musician who has released forty-six albums between 1978 and 2006. Granting only one interview in 1985, the Houston-based performer has maintained an anonymous identity and did not perform live until October, 2004. He has previously been the subject of a documentary, Jandek On Corwood, released in 2003. The artist approved of that project as well, though he did not contribute directly to it.
 
Jobe?s reading is designed to coincide with Jandek?s appearance in Chicago on September 20th at the Empty Bottle, located at 1035 N Western Ave. Tickets to Jandek?s show are $15 and can be purchased at the Empty Bottle, or on the net at www.ticketweb.com. Jobe?s reading is free to the public.

Josh Karp author ofA Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy ForeverTuesday Sept. 12th 7PMfree
 
Join Josh Karp as he reads and signs his new book “A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever” a history/bio of the rise and fall of NL and its founder Doug Kenney – the golden boy of 1970s counterculture comedy – who wrote Animal House and Caddyshack before falling mysteriously to his death at the age of 33 in 1980. It’s published by Chicago Review Press.
 
The ultimate biography of National Lampoon and its cofounder Doug Kenney, this book offers the first complete history of the immensely popular magazine and its brilliant and eccentric characters. With wonderful stories of the comedy scene in New York City in the 1970s and National Lampoon?s place at the center of it, this chronicle shares how the magazine spawned a popular radio show and two long-running theatrical productions that helped launch the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner and went on to inspire Saturday Night Live. More than 130 interviews were conducted with people connected to Kenney and the magazine, including Chevy Chase, John Hughes, P. J. O?Rourke, Tony Hendra, Sean Kelly, Chris Miller, and Bruce McCall. These interviews and behind-the-scenes stories about the making of both Animal House and Caddyshack help to capture the nostalgia, humor, and popular culture that National Lampoon inspires.
 
Josh Karp is an Evanston-based writer -his work has appeared in the Atlantic, Premiere, Salon, LA Times Sunday Magazine, TimeOut New York, the Sun-Times, Chicago Magazine and numerous other publications.
 
Check out www.dougkenney.com