Literago is on vacation for two weeks –

– but we’ll see you on March 7th, brightly-eyed and bushily-tailed.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Go to the Artifice release reading on February 27th!
Limited edition screenprints! Theatrical readings! Free beer!
All info here.

Michael Robbins wrote a poem about chiropractors and velociraptors, sort of, and Daniel Borzutzky published a book with an inflatable monkey on the cover. Both are old pros at smarty pants rhythm and riff, both fun to hear live.

And this Saturday, February 20th, both will read at the free Myopic Poetry Series, curated by Larry Sawyer. The magic starts at 7pm, Myopic Bookstore (1564 N Milwaukee Avenue). Check the series website for future poets — including Matvei Yankelevich, whose book on Kharms totally rules. (img src)

… its fifth issue, featuring work from over two dozen artists and writers.

The magazine, sponsored by the Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute and edited by Alyssa Martinez and Mark Schettler, is brave and graceful and not lame. Some of the work it publishes is of SAIC folks, and some isn’t. In Preparation is in print and online, too.

The opening shindig starts Friday, February 19th at 6pm and goes until 11pm at HungryMan Gallery (2135 Rockwell). It’s free, with a suggested donation of $1 for your copy of the journal.

There’ll be readings from a lot of people (Andrew Gamble, Emma Furman, Mink Smithsonian, Dan Kugler, Alyssa Martinez, Alexandra Lukens, Tyler David Sherman, Peter O’Leary, Rebecca Cooling-Mallard, Molly Shea, Wendy Spacek, and others), and art from a lot of others (Garret Durant, Dain Oh, Evan Conley, Arend de Gruyter-Helfer, Ben Bertin, Eric Kaepplinger, Benjamin Love, Robb Todd, Juho Heikkinen, B. Ingrid Olson, Mikhail D. Poloskin, Raychill Winterton, Matthew Sairio, and Robin Juan).

Come support! Congrats, friends.

This Friday at the Book Cellar (4736 N. Lincoln Avenue), Jerry Gabriel and Patrick Somerville and Mark Rader will read stories to you for free, most immediately to celebrate Gabriel’s new book, Drowned Boy. All three writers do fancy, CV-worthy things — Pushcart nominations, thumbs up-ses from The New York Times, lecturing, etc. — but even more importantly, they do really cool story-worthy things, too. For example, according to Jerry Gabriel’s interweb page, he’s taught Engineering Communications (which is even awesomer than William Carlos Williams being a doctor) and has a hound dog named Moxy. The reading starts at 7pm.

While I blocked all mentions of Farmville from my Facebook feed as soon as I realized that I had that power (duh), I do like farms in real life. Very much so. And in snowy, gray February, who doesn’t long for a warm-weather visit to a real working farm, a sunshiny stroll among the baby lambs (*swoon*) and happily wallowing pigs and chickies and such?

Then again, children’s lit is, of course, lousy with farms. There are enough tractors and cluck-clucks and benevolent, overall-clad farmers to make you long for anything BUT the pastoral setting for your story-time travels. I have spent the past year of my life mooing and neighing and baaing, surely more than I have in the past thirty-odd years combined, and there’s more to come. But have I begun hiding all farm tales behind the couch? Nah. I’m cool with farms.

Here we have two groovy farm-related books, one new, one published a few years ago.

Jarret J. Krosoczka’s PUNK FARM tells the story of some rockin’ farm animals—cow on drums, sheep on vocals, chicken on keyboard, goat on bass, and pig on guitar—who kick out the jams all night long. As the band prepares for tonight’s big show, their farm animal fans line up around the barn, waiting to show IDs to the bouncers (that would be the horsies). The band is a big hit, belting out—you guessed it—a rendition of “Old MacDonald,” and ending with a true-to-life, “Thank you, Wisconsin!” The next day, Farmer Joe is bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to work; the animal rockers are much more bleary.

The paintings are lively, colorful, and cartoonish in a child-pleasing way, and while I don’t know about your kid, mine snaps up any opportunity to belt “EE-I-EE-I-O!!” repeatedly. But I can’t help feeling that the book misses some great opportunities. There are so many silly directions you could go with the conceit of a farm animal rock band, right? Instead of much of the story being devoted to several verses of that familiar song, the band could’ve cranked out farm-takes on some classics, hung out backstage with some pretty heifers, and slamdanced (”Careful with the horns, dude!”). And considering that this book came out in 2005 and features a bovine percussionist, I was pretty surprised that a “More cowbell” joke didn’t show up as a wink-wink moment for the parents. And you kind of have to wonder why the concert wasn’t billed “LIVESTOCK”…and so on. Still, it’s a very fun concept, and not just another baby-animals-on-display title.

A totally different sort of farm music can be found in the just-released OUR FARM: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary, by Maya Gottfried and fine artist Robert Rahway Zakanitch. Gottfried imagines the voices of various animals, then lets them narrate the sweet, mostly free verse poems that make up this book. Take the beginning of “Freedom!”, by J.D., a piglet:

I’m free!
And I’m running, and I’m running,
and oh, I can feel the sun on my snout.
There goes a fence post!
(…)

Or this haiku, by Barnaby the rabbit:

See me in the grass?
Maybe I will hop to food…
Or go sniff pansies.

Barnaby, J.D. and the other animal “poets” on display in this lovely book (the lamb on the cover makes me swoon a little every time I look at it) are real-life residents of Farm Sanctuary, a shelter for neglected and abused animals, and a portion of the book’s proceeds will be donated to the organization, which “works to end cruelty to farm animals.” Gottfried captures the animals’ characters—shy, gentle, twitchy, docile, frisky, playful, wise, and so on—in her poems, and their personalities seem equally realized in Zakanitch’s watercolor and ink paintings, which blend into and are accompanied by rough pencil sketches on bright white pages, bringing to mind a young artist’s sketchbook full of inspired doodles dancing with more finished pieces. The whole book feels carefree and springy, artful in a loosey-goosey (sorry) way. (I will not be at all surprised to find it on prominent display at Anthropologie.) It’s nice, too, to see farm animals’ genuine nature represented—the wary eye of a rabbit, the curious gaze of a goat—rather than the ubiquitous anthropomorphic take. I’ll be reading this one to Thalia, living vicariously through the warmth its pages exude, until we can get out and take some farm tours of our own later this spring. . .

Visit the book’s Facebook page.

It’s hard for us to ogle that picture at left and not hum “Rebel Girl”: the glasses, the lips. The cooly-blown hair. We’re not sure where Drew Dir, Resident Dramaturg at Court Theatre, found it, but we know we want to be her — Joan Didion, author of over twenty works (fiction, nonfiction, drama, screenplay), including The Year of Magical Thinking, which is about death and analytical yet still breaks your heart neatly, like a pencil.

To wrap up its muchly-praised theatrical run of Magical Thinking, Court Theatre presents The Center Did Not Hold, a (free!) reading of treasures magpied from two of Didion’s most badly-assed collections, Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album. The reading, which starts at 4:30 this Sunday, February 14th — Valentine’s Day! — features Hyde Park glitterati like Mary Beth Fisher, Chris Sullivan, Sean Graney, Kaitlyn Bird, Christopher Piatt, Heidi Coleman, Chloe Johnston, and Paul Durica, phew. The show’s at Court Theatre, 5535 S Ellis Ave, in Hyde Park — bring your lover, then hit the Point.

A beautiful show’s opening at OhNo!Doom (1800 N. Milwaukee) this Saturday, February 13th (6pm-10pm). Curator Josh Lucas paired Chicago writers with Chicago artists, asking each duo to write and illustrate a section from a kid’s book not yet in existence.

Artists featured in “The Following Are Pages Torn From Our Most Favorite Imaginary Children’s Books” include Ben Tanzer and Dom Holmes, Jill Summers and Andrew Thompson, Zach Dodson and Allison Burque, Joe Meno and Cody Hudson, and James Kennedy and James Kennedy’s younger self. The pages themselves feature poppies, a dolphin parade, and something called a “squichon.”

The show is free and runs through the end of the month. Josh hopes to make it an ongoing series — The Torn Pages Show — and also to make a coloring book from tonight’s glory. To help, visit his Kickstarter page.

Wells Tower became famous for his story about steakhead vikings, which became the title of  his debut collection, now in paperback. He’ll be interviewed by Victoria Lautman at the Harold Washington this Thursday at 6pm.

My verdict? Ridiculously awesome (ridicu-awesome). You can read my interview with him here and the Bookslut interview with him right here.

We’re drooling over the candy great, newly-unveiled featherproof book covers, all designed by old pro Zach Dodson. Gawk at Patrick Somerville’s, above — and others, for works by Lindsay Hunter (omg it’s a cigarette case) and Christian TeBordo — at www.featherproof.com.

Funny Ha-Ha — “it’s just a reading for people who like to laugh,” says Claire Zulkey, lovely host (and author of a book with pink shag carpeting on its cover). “Plus we incorporate a few different media.”

This month’s show — on Tuesday, February 9th at the Hideout, per usual (1354 W Wabansia, $5 suggested donation) — starts at 6:30 and features some super-awesome folks: James Kennedy, Cameron Esposito, Fred Sasaki, Robbie Q. Telfer, Kate Harding, and Steve Delahoyde. Not to give anything away or anything, but we’ve been following some of these kids around so are stoked for a night that might possibly include/reference blue feathers, fancy pants, pizza, and/or cats on keyboard.

Bonus: When you arrive, check the walls for the Hideout’s new and glorious February calendar, designed by Alana Bailey. It should be up by then and is wowzers.