Saturday, 20 May 2006
THE2NDHAND #20 release party
7:30 PM
 
THE2NDHAND\’s broadsheet installment #20 is Austin writer Lauren
Trojniar\’s \”This Is How You Paint a House,\” a tale of the giddy, drunken
moral collapse of a suburban couple and a sometime housepainter.
Trojniar, a preschool teacher by day, makes the trek to Chicago for this
reading, at which she\’ll be joined by THE2NDHAND contributors Susannah
Felts and Gretchen Kalwinski and editor Todd Dills, who plays host.
 
Lauren Trojniar is the author of THE2NDHAND\’s 20th Installment, \”This Is
How You Paint a House,\” the story of Greg and Moira, a suburban couple
loosed from the strains of rearing children and attending yoga classes
by the introduction into their lives of one housepainter, Tomas, a
Dominican immigrant who shares with Greg a taste for whiskey. Trojniar
teaches preschool in Austin, TX, where she also lives.
 
Susannah Felts is on the faculty of SAIC\’s creative writing department,
and she\’s a frequent contributor to the /Chicago Reader/, among other
publications.
 
Gretchen Kalwinski lives and writes in Chicago. Lately, her
journalistic work has appeared, in addition to her fiction being
featured at THE2NDHAND.com, in /Venus/ and a host of other publications.
 
Todd Dills is the editor of THE2NDHAND. His first novel, Sons of the
Rapture, is due out August/September from Chicago publishers Featherproof.

Book Signing withTony Fitzpatrickfor the new bookThe Wonder: Portraits of a Remembered City, Volume 2, The Dream CityThursday May 18th 7:30PM
FREE
 
The Wonder: Portraits of a Remembered City, Volume 2, is a collection of new works by Chicago artist, writer and raconteur Tony Fitzpatrick. Stories of his city and its denizens permeate Fitzpatrick?s art, already in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Wonder: Portraits of a Remembered City, Volume 2, The Dream City, is the newest collection in a three-part series of drawing-collages books.
 
Tony Fitzpatrick will be signing copies of his book at this event.
http://www.tonyfitzpatrick.com

Josh Frank author of Fool the World
(an oral history of a band called the pixies)Tuesday, May 16th, 7:00 PMFREE
 
During their initial seven-year career, Pixies would play some of Europe\’s most gigantic festivals, keep the press guessing, and cultivate a fervid international fan base hungry for more and more of their unique surf punk. The band worked fast, cranking out four albums at a breakneck pace, but ultimately the pressures of the road and personality clashes took their toll: Pixies broke up just as bands like Nirvana were singing their praises as the rock\’n\’roll innovators. For twelve years a Pixies reunion seemed impossible, but a sudden announcement in 2004 proclaimed the unthinkable – Pixies were getting back together. Their extremely successful reunion tour finally gave the group something they\’d always lacked in their homeland: proof that their bone-rattling music had left an indelible impact.
 
Fool the World tells Pixies\’ story in the words of those who lived it, from the band members to studio owners, from A&R executives, producers, and visual artists who worked with them to admirers of their music, such as Bono, PJ Harvey, Beck, and Perry Farrell. With new cartoons by Trompe Le Monde illustrator Steve Appleby and prints by Simon Larbalestier (photographer of all Pixies covers) Fool the World is a complete journey through the life, death, and rebirth of one of the most influential bands of all time.
 
Fool The World was written in dialogue from the band own words and the words of those who knew them best. Since Josh Frank came from a theatrical background instead of just reading segments on his own, he will bring together a number of talented actors to each read different characters from the book at this event.
 
Josh Frank is a pop culture dramatist. A director, producer and writer of plays, films, and books, he currently has a number of projects in development and is spending much of his time waiting for his dog to tell him who and what his next book should be about. He is thirty years old and lives in a state of mind somewhere between Austin, Texas and New York City.