Tag Archive for 'events'

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Hal Niedzviecki, author of The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors Reads

Published on May 6, 2009 0 Comments
Jun ’09
4
7:00 pm

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The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors is the story of one man’s journey through a rapidly transforming culture of lying, spying, revealing, and confessing.

We have entered the age of “Peep Culture”: a tell-all, show-all, know-all digital phenomenon that is dramatically altering notions of privacy, individuality, security and even humanity. Peep culture is Reality TV, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, over-the-counter spy gear, blogs, chatrooms, amateur porn, surveillance technology, Dr. Phil, Borat, cellphone photos of your drunk friend making out with her ex-boyfriend, and more. In the age of Peep, core values and rights we once took for granted are rapidly being renegotiated, often without our even noticing.

With hilarious, exasperated acuity, social critic Hal Niedzviecki dives into Peep, starting his own video blog, joining every social network that will have him, monitoring the movements of his toddler, selling his secrets on Craigslist, hiring a private detective to investigate him, spying on his neighbors, trying out for reality TV, and stripping for the pleasure of a web audience he isn’t even sure exists. Part travelogue, part diary, part meditation and social history, The Peep Diaries explores a rapidly emerging digital phenomenon that is radically changing not just the entertainment landscape, but also the firmaments of our culture and society.

The Peep Diaries introduces the arrival of the peep culture age and explores its implications on entertainment, society, sex, politics, and everyday life. Mixing first-rate reporting with sociological observations culled from the latest research, this book captures the shift from pop to peep and the way technology is turning gossip into documentary and peeping toms into entertainment journalists. Packed with stranger-than-fiction true-life characters and scenarios, The Peep Diaries reflects the aspirations and confusions of the growing number of people willing to trade the details of their private lives for catharsis, attention, and notoriety.

HAL NIEDZVIECKI’s writings on culture have appeared in newspapers
and magazines across North America. He is the founder of Broken Pencil magazine and has published numerous works of social commentary and fiction, including Hello I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity and We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture.

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Quimby’s welcomes James Danky, co-author and co-curator of Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics Into Comix

Published on April 29, 2009 0 Comments
May ’09
28
7:00 pm

The impact of American underground comix is profound: They galvanized artists both domestically and abroad; they forever changed the economics of comic book publishing; and they influenced generations of cartoonists, including their predecessors. While the works of Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman are well-known via the New Yorker, Maus, and retrospective collections, the art of their contemporaries such as Gilbert Shelton, Trina Robbins, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, S. Clay Wilson, and many other seminal cartoonists who came of age in the 1960s is considerably less known.

Underground Classics (Abrams) provides the first serious survey of underground comix as art, turning the spotlight on these influential and largely underappreciated artists. Essays from the book’s co-writers and co-curators James Danky and Denis Kitchen, alongside essays by Paul Buhle, Patrick Rosenkranz, Jay Lynch, and Trina Robbins, offer a thorough reflection and appraisal of the underground movement. Over 125 original drawings, paintings, sculptures, and artifacts are featured, loaned from private collections and the artists themselves, making Underground Classics indispensable for the serious-minded comics fan and for the casual reader alike.

James Danky is the author/editor of dozens of books on topics as varied as African-American newspapers, women’s publications, and the Native American press. In 1974 he published his first book, Undergrounds, a bibliography of alternative newspapers. He is on the faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also founded and directed the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America. In 2007 Danky retired from the Wisconsin Historical Society after building their nationally renowned collections for thirty-five years. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Kevin Christensen Signs The Chair at Quimby’s

Published on April 11, 2009 0 Comments
May ’09
9
1:00 pm

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A psychological thriller set on death-row, THE CHAIR focuses on Richard Sullivan, an inmate that has spent the past 10 years awaiting execution for crimes he claims he never committed. But lately strange events have started occurring in the prison, including a piling body count of tortured inmates, a viciously sadistic warden, and enough twists and turns to make Sullivan question his own sanity.  At its core, THE CHAIR is a book about the choices we make in life and how they can affect everything and everyone around us. Written by PETER SIMETI
Artwork by KEVIN CHRISTENSEN and PETER SIMETI.

Kevin Christensen is a freelance cartoonist, currently living in Chicago, Illinois. He graduated from The Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Sequential Art in 2004, and is currently pursuing a second bachelors degree in art education, from the University of Illinois at Chicago. THE CHAIR is his first graphic novel.

Go to www.alternacomics.com for more information.
FREE EVENT

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Book Release Party With Joe Meno & Friends For Meno’s New novel, The Great Perhaps!

Published on April 9, 2009 0 Comments
May ’09
7
7:00 pm

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In his new novel, The Great Perhaps, local Chicago writer Joe Meno continues to employ his keen observations of human nature, this time exploring the tumultuous landscapes of a contemporary Chicago family. The narrative rotates between members of the Casper family, giving each time and space to dig into their respective quirks. Jonathan, the father, is a scientist caught in a quest for a prehistoric squid and is prone to seizures at the sight of clouds. Madeline, Jonathan’s wife, also a scientist, studies the behavior of her murderous lab pigeons and is distressed by the growing distance between family members: elder daughter Amelia is a teenage anticapitalist crusader already becoming weary of the fight; youngest daughter Thisbe’s desire to find God is met with much concern from her atheist parents; grandfather Henry’s sole desire is to make himself disappear. As the family’s preoccupations rattle on and bang up against one another, the recently begun war in Iraq provides background noise and another dimension to the intricate and intimate tale. Meno’s handle on the written word is fresh and inviting, conjuring a story that delves deeply into the human heart.

Joe Meno is the best-selling author of the novels Hairstyles of the Damned, The Boy Detective Fails, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender As Hellfire. He was the winner of the 2003 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and is a professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Also performing: Jonathan Messinger, Timeout Chicago Books Editor and author of Hiding Out! Jon Resh, author of Amped and musical accompaniment by The Astronomer!

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Not at Quimby’s But Cool Anyway: Opening Day Ceremonies of The Chicago Unlympic Games at InCUBATE, Sat., 1/24/09

Published on January 23, 2009 0 Comments

The Unlympics is a month-long sporting event series intended to encourage active dialogue—extremely active dialogue—around the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid. The Unlympics looks at highly organized, internationally recognized, massively marketed, thoroughly branded, and extremely expensive sporting events not from a pro or con standpoint, but from a questioning standpoint.

Opening Day Ceremonies take place on January 24 and will include:

6 p.m. GATHER AT InCUBATE (2129 North Rockwell; please be prompt.)
6:15 p.m. PARADE OF NOTIONS (Come costumed in the attire appropriate to the national, creative, ethnic, political, economic, social, linguistic, imaginary, or other affiliation you intend to represent, and feel free to bring noisemakers, confetti, or protest signs as your conscience dictates.)
6:45 p.m. ARTISTIC SECTION (Bring a hankie.)
7:00 p.m. THE UNLYMPICS OATH (Like anyone is going to follow it.)
7:15 p.m. THE LIGHTING OF STUFF ON FIRE (BYOS*)
7:30 p.m. SPEECHES BY THE PRESIDENTS (Boring.)
7:45 p.m. THE GAME WHERE YOU WIN (To get your competitive juices flowing.)
8:00 p.m. AWARDS CEREMONY (BYOB)
*S = Sparklers
Dance troupes, pirates, marching bands, baton twirlers, sports enthusiasts, mud wrestlers, and good old patriots of any nation are encouraged to come out and join the parade. Please dress “appropriately.” This event is free and open to all ages.

For more info, see: The Unlympics

Also, don’t miss the Spelling Bee event of the Unlympics at Quimby’s on Feb 7th! Why is Quimby’s involved in this? Quimby’s Bookstore is proud to be the official bookstore and intellectual sponsor of the 2009 Winter Unlympic Games. For over 16 years, Quimby’s Bookstore has championed the freedom of the press in offering a variety of independently published or small press zines, books and comics. This literature is important in providing alternative, subversive or controversial viewpoints necessary to make informed decisions about one’s community.

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