Dalkey Archives and Stop Smiling Books present a reading and Q&A with authors Joshua Cohen and Jesse Ball. Cohen’s novel Witz was profiled by Literago’s own Mairead Case earlier today. Ball joined him onstage at the Stop Smiling storefront to read selections of their fiction and then to hold a Q&A session with Dalkey Archives editor Martin Riker. The fiction was strong and the discussion featured a symbolic articulation of the relevance of being an anteater and how the world really doesn’t need more of anteaters, as well as Martin Riker’s confession and innuendo that he had both played in a band on a cruise ship and that this experience had colored his understanding of the world. Tune in later on Chicago Amplified to stream the event in its entirety.

Two of Chicago’s more interesting poets, one a young up-and-comer and the other a nationally-known entity, read from their work on May 2nd at the venerable Myopic Poetry Series. After some finagling and promises to never photograph the books, I was allowed to take my trusty d90 up to the second floor of Myopic Books, located at 1564 N. Milwaukee Ave., and snap photos of the majestic and Appalachian-bred Philip Jenks, the enthusiastic and Texas-buttered Connor Stratman, and the debonair and razor-sharpened mustache of series curator Larry Sawyer.

Chris Bower’s super-secret word-of-mouth series is simply not to be missed as each installment features a new theme, some tremendous comedy writing, and, best of all, Ray himself. April’s version was dedicated to the theme of “Shame” and featured a hynotically addictive theme song penned by Alan of The Bitter Tears. Performances ranged from the straight-forward fiction of Natalie Edwards to the improvised riffs of Tim Racine and Chris Bower. When it was finished, we all crept forth into the rainy night unashamed and reeking of Ray’s.

P.S. Want details about the series? Contact Chris Bower at cbower54@gmail.com — he’ll hook you up.

This Wednesday, May 19, at 7 p.m., Literago favorites John Beer and Suzanne Buffam will read poetry from their recent Canarium Books publications. Both books are currently listed in Small Press Distribution’s “Poetry Best-sellers”, with Buffam’s The Irrationalist ranking 7th and Beer’s The Wasteland and Other Poems ranking 9th. The reading will occur in Lincoln Square’s The Book Cellar, located at 4736-38 North Lincoln Ave.

Beer and Buffam will be joined by Whiting Award winning novelist Nami Mun, whose debut novel Miles from Nowhere has garnered her a great deal of industry buzz and established her as a writer to watch.

As always, the event is absolutely free, which means that you should come prepared to buy a book!

Revolving Door Reading Series needs poets for its ‘June Ekphrastik Installment.’

Click here for details!

And click here if you don’t know what ekphrastic means…

How to Wreck a Nice Beach

With three free events, author Dave Tompkins will discuss How To Wreck a Nice Beach, his exhaustive study of the vocoder. Featuring top-notch illustrations by Kevin Christy and a slew of lovely archival photographs and images, this 335-page volume chronicles “the story of how a military device became the robot voice of hip-hop and pop music.” Tompkins, a former columnist for The Wire, writes frequently on hip-hop and popular music. His work has appeared in Vibe, The Village Voice, Wax Poetics, and The Believer. Nearly a decade in the making, this is his first book.

On Thursday, May 6th, from 7-9 p.m., Tompkins will appear at the Stop Smiling Storefront, located at 1371 N. Milwaukee Ave, for a free slideshow and discussion that will be moderated by James Hughes (editor of How to Wreck a Nice Beach).

From 9 p.m. until the bar closes, Stop Smiling will host an afterparty at The Charleston, located at 2076 N. Hoyne Ave, and will feature DJ sets by Dante Carfagna, Courtland Green, and Dave Tompkins himself. Books will be sold at a discount throughout the evening.

On Friday, May 6th, from 4 p.m. – ???, Tompkins will be will be on hand at Dusty Groove, located at 1120 North Ashland Avenue, to sign books and play records.

Again, all events are free to the public. Afterparty is 21 and over, so don’t bring the kiddies.

Expect to be vocoded, pilgrims.

On Saturday, May 1st, Green Lantern Press hosted a release party for their current author Devin King’s book-length poem *CLOPS* and John Beer’s ‘best-selling’ Canarium Books release *The Wasteland and Other Poems*. A crowd of around 40 souls attended and were treated to Devin’s splendid singing, a nice sampling from CLOPS, and an experimental poem involving personal favorites Lux Interior and Skeeter Davis (among others). John Beer followed with a poetic cycle from his book (that originally appeared in Another Chicago Magazine #47) entitled “The Perfumed Crypt, or Four Quarters in Eight Bits,” which was accompanied by a slide-show featuring Uma Thurman and a ruinous castle. Afterward, drinks were had, conversations were held, and we were ushered forth into the spring night with red wine and Shiner Bock in our ‘broken mouths.’.

Caroline Picard introducing the readers to the assembled souls as faint strains of a Mayday Cinco de Mayo concert bleed through the plate glass windows

Caroline Picard wears rad shoes.

Inspired by the ambient sounds of the band next door, playing a melange of ska and salsa, Devin King hearkens back to his teen years spent in a Ska band devoted to singing about the goodness of music.

Devin King reads from CLOPS, his book-length retelling of *The Odyssey*, which uses 'lyrical language, repetition and abstraction,' ultimately, 'implicating the reader in the action of war.' Hearing it live was a powerful experience as the long lines and repetitions did indeed bleed into the subconsciouses of his listeners and compel them towards the bloody realities of his text.

Some of the gathered souls absorbing Devin King's *CLOPS*.

John Beer follows with 'The Perfumed Crypt, or Four Quarters in Eight Bits,' which features Lancôme, Uma Thurman, and, in this slide, a snowy scene involving our hero and perfumier Armand Petitjean's mad quest to give 'women the most beautiful things possible.'

'That light that shines from within, her ability to marvel, the zest for life that emanates from her smile all make Uma Thurman the ideal choice for the Lancôme Woman.'

'God in my broken mouth. / Imagine them dancing without light.'

Featherproof’s release party for The Awful Possibilities was held on April 26th at The Whistler. A crowd of over 50 souls attended and was treated to an evening with host Zach Dodson’s naked upper-lip (not pictured), who oversaw readings by: Christian TeBordo, Lindsey Hunter, Adam Levin, Tim Kinsella, and Jeff Parker.

The Whistler crowd looks on, awash in red.

Tim Kinsella (of Cap'n Jazz and Joan of Arc fame) kicks things off with a short story.

Linsday Hunter follows with a short entitled "Food Luck" that will appear in the forthcoming issue of ACM.

Adam Levin is third, reading his 'only story that is 3 pages long' which comes as no surprise given that his forthcoming novel is rumored to be over one-thousand pages long.

Jeff Parker reads from his new Dzanc Books release "The Taste of Penny"

The star of the show is Christian TeBordo, who reads a stunning and hilarious short story about a potential school shooter (which is in "The Awful Possibilities").

They came. They saw. They milk-chugged.

The Featherproof performance at the ACM/MAKE AWP Afterparty on Friday, April 9th began simply enough.

Zach Dodson and Patrick Somerville talked a bit. They'd come from the 'Shots & Shorts' reading elsewhere in Denver and seemed perhaps a little beat.

Until the milk emerged.

And then the music kicked in.

And things got a little bit seedy - sort of like a crusty milk mustache you passed out with that awakened you the next morning with its funky aroma

And rock star stances were struck.

And milk was chugged by Amelia Gray and Lindsay Hunter.

Oh milk, milk, milk!

And it was awesome!

We ♥ Featherproof!

But then the struggle to hold it down began!

By the time we got our bearings, Zach had dropped his pants.

This revelation was followed by still more singing and still more milk chugging.

And even more amazing rock star stances were struck.

We simply couldn't believe what we were seeing.

Zach kept slapping his inner-thighs until they turned bright red while the Patrick's banjo played on.

Those Featherproof boys kept to the rhythm, their facial-hair glistening in the gallery light.

One of the guys from Kneejerkmag tossed Zach a tambourine, so he slapped his thighs with that for a while

And then chugged milk as his inner-thighs purpled.

And the milk pooled on his shirt.

Amelia Gray had a Crystal Gayle moment.

This went on far longer than anyone expected.

It was the most awesome thing we saw at AWP.

I am not Cornel West/I am Cornel West Side

Chicagoan Lupe Fiasco has established a reputation as one of Hip Hop’s most promising young talents. After his first two albums received near-unanimous adulation from both mainstream and independent critics, Fiasco has become the intellect’s MC, consistently displaying his cerebral lyrics, dynamic flows, and tight productions. And along the way, a brilliant intellect has emerged alongside the artwork. Fiasco’s debut album functions on a metaphorical level, articulating his vision of a world torn between good and evil, between conflicting desires to build up and to tear down, in his words, between “your food and your liquor.” His second album dissects the established notion of “Cool,” looking at how inner city archetypes such as the thug and the gangbanger have been popularized and questioning if “there’s a heaven for a G.”

Fiasco’s vision is complex and conflicted and garnered him a spot on Kanye West’s “Glow in the Dark Tour,” as well as gigs on Letterman and at last summer’s Lollapalooza. Just short of being a household name, Fiasco seems on the verge of making a lasting mark on the culture he so eloquently dissects. So it should come as no great surprise that on April 3rd, the illustrious scholar Dr. Cornel West interviewed Lupe Fiasco at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The two covered subjects ranging from the nature of finding a voice through an invocation of past voices to the legacy of an artist once (s)he has passed away, and mapped out connections between Jazz and Hip Hop as well as between Hip Hop and Punk. For us, the highlight of the interview is an exchange about the nature of existence and being true to a self that might ultimately be corrupted in which Dr. West draws a correlation between Fiasco and soul-singer Marvin Gaye, proclaiming that we can:

“Go back to Marvin Gaye’s album “What’s Goin’ On?” [and find that] he’s got some deep truth there. But [on] “Let’s Get It On” he’s got some deep truth there. “I want Ya,” Troubed Man,” we can go on and on. Marvin’s being true to himself, when he looks at himself he’s sees a lot of what is inside of all of us, what Samuel Beckett called ‘mess.’ Being in time and space and the death sentence in time and space, no one is in time and space a lie. You got a mess – I got a mess. Being true to that mess, couldn’t you still be misleading?”

Fiasco replies with a discourse on “the makeup of self,” explaining that he sees a stark contrast between the “initial self [which is] simplicity achieved…nothingness. When you were first born, you came out simple. The basic, most primitive urges of hunger and affection,” but goes on to note that over time the self becomes much more dynamic. Based on the lessons we draw from others, our notions of self become a “corrupted concept” that Fiasco sees banging against the world around it in a quest for clarity and actualization only to find that “There’s nothing pure about self in society.” Using Dr. West’s explanation of Beckett’s ‘mess,’ Fiasco brings his point home by proclaiming that “The world is a mess. We are products of the world, the world is not a product of us. The world is built from the chaos of the universe. It is more proof to me that there is a god. When I look up and see the chaos of the sky at night, I look at myself and think I am chaotic too.”

The hour-long talk winds up with a lively Q & A between the audience, Dr. West, and Lupe Fiasco, ending with Fiasco explaining what he wants from his audience. Sadly the performance following the interview is not available currently.

For those less familiar with Lupe Fiasco, and for those convinced that Hip Hop is littered with inarticulate misogynistic types, this interview will come as a pleasant surprise. For fans of Lupe Fiasco, like the staff here at Literago, it will serve to strengthen love of the self-proclaimed “Chi-Town Rivera.” Anyone interested in listening to the full audio of the interview can download it here. More photos from the evening can be viewed here