Date: Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: The Book Cellar

Akashic has just published Silent Pictures, a collection of photographs by prolific rockerazzi Pat Graham. The book features live shots of the early career of my idol, Kathleen Hannah (pictured, right), as well as other bands like Fugazi (yay!) and Modest Mouse (blech!). We received an e-mail from Book Cellar bookseller extraordinaire and man about town Javier Ramirez informing us that “a musician from the book will be there as (Graham’s) very super secret special guest.” Whom could it be? Whom could it be?

Date: Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Danny’s Tavern
Participants: Christian Hawkey, Zachary Schomburg

We’ve ever-so-helpfully provided links to augment the Danny’s newsletter:

Christian Hawkey is the author of The Book of Funnels (winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award), the chapbook HourHour, which includes drawings by the artist Ryan Mrozowski (Delirium Press, 2005), and Citizen Of (Wave Books, 2007). In 2006, he was given a Creative Capital Innovative Literature Award, and in 2008 he will be a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellow. He teaches at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of a book of poems, The Man Suit (Black Ocean Press, 2007), the co-editor of an online poetry magazine, Octopus, the co-editor of a small poetry press, Octopus Books, the co-curator of the The Clean Part Reading Series, and a PhD student at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He has poems from a second book in some of your favorite magazines and he is currently translating the Russian-language poet Gennady Aygi.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, eMusic is a subscription-based music download service. They’re the ones who passed out those cards at Pitchfork and Intonation a couple years ago promising 100 Free Downloads. In addition to a rate of 25 cents a song, eMusic keeps us honest, since cheap, easy access to the latest music dampens the spirit of piracy.

After my wallet was stolen as I waited in line at the Chick-fil-A in the food court in the Towne Centre Mall of Towson, Maryland, my eMusic subscription lapsed because they couldn’t automatically charge a credit card which had been cancelled. In their latest efforts to woo me back, they’ve offered me 75 free downloads — pretty excellent on top of the 40 downloads I get every month for $9.99.

But I digress. At the bottom of this offer was a special new promotion for audiobooks with the following hook: “Choose from our rapidly growing selection of classics, bestsellers and award-winning titles from authors like William Gibson, Anthony Bourdain, Chuck Palahniuk and Jon Stewart.”

What can be discerned from this list? For starters, all the above authors are dudes. Second, all are tuff dudes who write about tuff dude things (except, of course, Jon Stewart, whom even I won’t make fun of). Cyberpunk! Rogue chef! Fight club! This, of course, implies that eMusic subscribers are men themselves, and the majority of them probably are. The problem is not that eMusic correctly identifies their marketing demographic — it’s that they identify their marketing demographic as a bunch of dudes interested in badass dude books. Dude!

This could be symptomatic of the strengthened gender segregation in our culture, or not — I’ll let you know if I get a discounted audio book by Alice Sebold the next time I download some Cat Power (middlebrow lady author/musician names interchangeable, of course). But my blood is up because they’re pimping Chuck Palahniuk. Gah! That guy drives me bonkers.

Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Time: 7-?; complimentary Effen Vodka and 312 beer from 7 to 9 p.m.
Location: Relax Lounge (1450 W. Chicago Avenue in Chicago)

The inestimable Venus Zine is having a party to celebrate the release of their Winter issue (with Ms. Dita Von Teese on the cover), with their bash featuring guest DJs The 1900s, a band Venus has covered extensively. As long as you’re visiting the site, you should check out this article on this book by a former server — definitely a book for foodies. Also, free shit lovers: swag bags for the first 50 guests! Woot.

For shame, Chicago Reader. The short-sighted layoffs of your investigative reporting team have echoed all the way to New York City. Not only was there an article in the New York Times, but also a serious post on Gawker. Way to go!

As these articles have pointed out, investigative reporters are good for both circulation and the common good. That said, I want to know exactly what the Reader is gunning for. Time Out has cornered the market on doing stuff, and the only reason to pick up the Reader was to find investigative reporting and in-depth coverage of the entertainment scene (compare this article in Time Out about the band Celebration with this one in the Reader). I hope they don’t follow suit and can their remaining senior critics! What is going on over there?

The layoffs of the star reporters Tori Marlan, John Conroy, Harold Henderson, and Steve Bogira at the Reader are bad for journalism in Chicago–no other way to put it. Literago is officially saddened to hear that the meticulous investigative stories that these writers are known for are no longer valued at that publication. It bodes poorly for the weekly, we’re sure of it.

Ellen Wadey of the Guild Complex was kind enough to give us a response to the “Wednesday” question we posed last week in this entry. I’m posting it on her behalf, below.

“Well, I’m not going to say that the Guild Complex started it…but we’ve definitely contributed to it. We started hosting readings on Wednesdays — at that point every Wednesday night because the executive director back then obviously had too much energy — nearly 19 years ago now. Also, in bar culture, where you always find writers, Wednesdays are not too close to the beginning of the week, and you don’t compete with the music nights on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There is some kind of hidden psychology to it, though, as every time I hear of a new reading series — which I’m always glad to hear about — I already know it’s going to be on a Wednesday night. Go figure.”

Date: Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: The Hopleaf

Yannick Murphy has a snazzy website and a snazzy belt.

Date: Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433

Born in 1922, Art Shay has published 30,000 photographs and become known for his portraits of Liz Taylor, Simone de Beauvoir, J.F.K, Hugh Hefner, and most famously, Nelson Algren. He’s also published a number of books of his pics. Tonight, he presents his collection of 120 black and whites compiled in Chicago’s Nelson Algren, photos taken of Algren in the 50s.

** Addendum: why are there so many literary readings on Wednesdays above all other days? Does anyone know?

Date: Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, 618 S. Michigan, 312-322-1773, $30, advance tickets required.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman will read tonight as part of the ongoing series titled “Center for Public Dialogue on Issues of the Day Lecture Series.” That’s a mouthful. In any case, Friedman’s most recent book is titled The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century. Friedman, in case you weren’t aware, is also the author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree and a host of post-9-11 controversial essays about the threat of terrorism. He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat”.