Date: Friday, May 23rd

Time: 7:00 pm, $1

Location: The Hideout

Participants: Kevin Sampsell, Diana Slickman

I was fairly ambivalent about posting a listing for this event, not because I don’t love the Dollar Store, but because any advertising could cause it to sell out even quicker now.  From the email:

The Dollar Store comes back for a onetime show as part of the Pilcrow Literary Festival, and a sort of big Chicago hello to friend Kevin Sampsell, author of the new Creamy Bullets, who’ll read a story inspired by a piece of Portland dollar store junk, making it the first piece of DS junk that’s been on a commercial airliner (The Show has sprung for an extra biz-class seat for it, if you must know).

And joining him is Diana Slickman, a Dollar Store favorite who was gracious enough not to say no when we asked her to do something again.

The event is a must-see for the same reason it’s bittersweet: another Dollar Store won’t come around for a long while.

Photo of E. Hand courtesy of Locus; M. Sharpe courtesy of Small Spiral Notebook

Date: Monday, May 12, 2008

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Location: The Book Cellar

Generation Loss and Jamestown were not only two of the most engaging American novels published last year, but also two of the more entertaining literary meditations on violence released in recent memory. 

Loss bears the distinction of being the only postpunk hardboiled mystery in existence (please correct me if there’s one I don’t know about). I would have loved it only for the way Hand seamlessly name-drops John Holstrom, but her queasy-making depictions of blood, guts, violence and decay send her off into Blood Meridian Land, and to really good effect. I’ve never read George Pelicanos, but I would think this is George Pelicanos for music geeks.

And Jamestown is just flat-out hilarious. I remember being really afraid to start it, since I lurved Sharpe’s first book, The Sleeping Father, and I feared a sophomore slump.  But it was not to be! It was great!

Don’t miss it, kids.  Super awesome double-headers like this don’t come along that frequently.

I’ll be there, although now when I think of American Apparel, I think of this video on Jezebel.com

I remember the first time I caught a glimpse of The Facade Project on Western Ave., as I was stopped at a red light underneath the brown line tracks. I hadn’t been in Chicago long and didn’t know who was responsible or what the building was, but clearly the black & white grid of faces mounted on the windows was meant to remind the rest of us that there were a lot of dead soldiers in Iraq. It was hard to look away. Compelling in its blunt simplicity, the Facade Project is an unhappy reminder delivered in the form of a thoughtful art piece.

Poet Jennifer Karmin believes it’s an artist’s responsibility to remind people what is happening in the world, and show them how to think about these things in new ways. For 4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD, she’s collecting 4000 words for a public poem to read aloud at Looptopia this weekend, then she’ll distribute the words to passing pedestrians. Says Karmin, "For Looptopia, I want to literally bring this war back home to people in the United States and create a memorial for the dead. In an era where we don’t see images of our dead — of body bags and coffins, I think the number 4000 is a smack of reality."

Art & politics don’t always mix well. But politics can be powerful inspiration, and projects like 4000 WORDS, 4000 DEAD can be a more convincing & effective form of protest than, say, confrontational marchers waving "fuck bush" signs, who often alienate people with their anger instead of giving them something to think about. Agree? Then contribute to 4000 WORDS: Karmin will be taking submissions until Wednesday, April 30. And check out the reading at Looptopia on May 2, where Karmin will also be performing her companion piece to 4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD, Revolutionary Optimism.

Friday, May 2nd
5pm beginning in front of the Vietnam War Memorial
Wabash & Wacker along the Chicago River

8:30pm ending at the DePaul Center
1 East Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, IL

SUBMISSION DEADLINE
*April 30, 2008

SUBMIT:
*Send 1 - 10 words

CONTACT:
*Email submission with subject 4000 WORDS
to jkarmin@yahoo.com

Date: Monday, April 7, 2008
Time: Performance at 8:00 p.m.
Location: Weegee’s Lounge 3659 W. Armitage Ave.
Participant: Mark Grapey

by Edward Hemingway, illustrator

The Chicago Public Library’s One Book, One Chicago continues to celebrate its newest selection, The Long Goodbye. Veteran Chicago actor Mark Grapey will be reading a scene from Chandler’s Noir classic. I for one am excited to see the library venturing out to neighborhood spots. Weegee’s, named after photojournalist Arthur Fellig a.k.a. “Weegee,” seems perfectly suited to the genre. Fellig is best known for his black-and-white street-life photography, which captured everything from crime scenes to car wrecks during the 40s and 50s.

I’m sure Chandler would agree. Be sure to have a gin gimlet in honor of the man.

From The Long Goodbye:
“I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar — that’s wonderful.”

I agreed with him.

“Alcohol is like love,” he said. “The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl’s clothes off.”

Date: Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Time: 6:30 p.m. / $10, $8 for students, call (312) 899-1229 for tickets.
Location: Rubloff Auditorium / Art Institute of Chicago / 280 South Columbus Drive
Participants: Mary Oliver (sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and the Poetry Center of Chicago)

Mary Oliver is known for work based in the natural world. Humorous and frank, she sometimes addresses poems to her dog, which, amazingly doesn’t serve to lower her status as a first rate (and highly acclaimed) poet. In fact, she just sold out a 2,700-seat concert hall in Seattle. According to the Poetry Foundation, thus far in the 21st century, Mary Oliver’s only competitors for “bestselling American poet” have been Billy Collins and whoever is the current U.S. poet laureate. Her work and an ode to it can be found here and here.

Oliver’s bio can be found here, and her honors include an American Academy of Arts & Letters Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Prize and Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. If you’ve never seen her read, well, keep in mind that she’s 71, and this event is a middling $10. Just saying.

Date: Sunday, March 30, 2008
Time: 7:00 p.m., $5
Location: Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia)
Participants: Susannah Felts, author of This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record; Eileen Favorite, author of The Heroines; Patrick Somerville, author of Trouble: Stories and the forthcoming novel The Cradle; J Adams Oaks, author of the forthcoming novel Why I Fight

Full disclosure: This event is a book release for Susannah Felts, teacher, writer, and editor extraordinaire, (and contributor to this site). (More disclosure: I am finishing the book this eve and am happy to report it’s even better than I thought it’d be.) Her new novel This Will Go Down in Your Permanent Record (Featherproof Books), is the coming of age-ish story of two teenage girls in Nashville in the late 80s. Here, Felts, (also a Nashville native) responds eloquently to those inevitable “is it you?” questions in this interview, and the book–which nicely straddles the line between YA and adult fiction–is reviewed on a teen book review site, here. Issues of jealousy, competition, boys, sexuality, drugs, and y’know, the whole “figuring out one’s identity” are explored. Dying for more info before you head to this sure-to-be-killer-party at the Hideout with local faves Pat Somerville, Eileen Favorite, and J. Adams Oaks? Check her blog for exposition about the book and more.

Date: Friday, March 28, 2008
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: SAIC Ballroom (112 S. Michigan Avenue)
Participants: Answer Tag Home Press, Cracked Slab Books, Dancing Girl Press, Featherproof, Books, Fractal Edge Press, March Abrazo Press, Puddin’ Head Press, Switchback Books

“Pyromaniac” by Yoshitomo Nara

Unfortunately for the as-yet-unannounced readers, this event simply cannot be as lively as the discussion about National Small Press Month on the Time Out Chicago blog. What did we learn from the comments on this post? We learned that there is a Chicago literary scene, but it only consists of writers feeding each others’ cats. We learned that some people hate corporations, but others do not. We learned that people seem to enjoy introducing themselves by title as much as they enjoy addressing others formally. We also learned that we are the snobbiest newcomers ever to attempt to capitalize on the sweat of legitimate writers. I can’t wait to see what I learn on Friday — I’ll be the one wearing a construction helmet.

Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Location: Metro (3830 N. Clark)
Participants: Junot Diaz, ZZ Packer, Colin Channer, Hillary Carlip, Mucca Pazza

The awesome Z.Z. Packer

Poochie

This year’s Columbia College event at Metro gives Sun-Times writer Kevin Nance the opportunity to write a fluff piece that offended the heck out of my sensibilites and made me shed my second tear this week for Chicago cultural journalism. The angle of his article in Friday’s paper seems to be that Columbia’s decision to host a reading at Metro is bold and anti-establishment. Behold:

So you know all about literary readings, do you? Writers droning on from a podium in some stuffy auditorium, everybody in the room upright, uptight and dying for something wet to wash down all those words?

Is Nance unaware that Columbia has done this for a number of years? Does he know that zillions of other readings take place in bars? Why was he paid to write the above sentence? Is his editor Poochie? Where’s Martha Bayne when you need her? I’m not buying that the general audience at whom Nance directs the article would be alienated by a piece that acknowledges non-stuffy readings happen all the time to great fanfare (or doesn’t characterize the people who attend regular literary readings as passive victims of boring writers). Is Nance’s article isolated dumbassery of the lazy variety, or is it representative dumbassery? I really can’t decide.

I would be remiss not to mention the fact that I am counting the days until The Thousands, Z.Z. Packer’s debut novel, is finally published, and that the best time I ever had at one of these Columbia events was dancing with Nigel Gillet as Irvine Welsh DJ’d “This Charming Man,” or that you can read a great discussion about literary allusions in rock songs here.