Along with the Leo Lionni faves and the David Carter pop-ups and the requisite Goodnight Moon and Guess How Much I Love You, I sure would love to have a Myriopticon for my daughter. (Baby Einstein has nothing on this.) You can’t buy one, but you can see one from 1866 on display at a new exhibit at the Newberry Library: “Artifacts of Childhood: 700 Years of Children’s Books,” which showcases 65 of the library’s 10,000-plus books and games for children. This includes centuries-old Italian and French versions of Aesop’s Fables and some early- and mid-20th century selections from Chicago publishers, among other beautiful and rare items. The Myriopticon is “a small paper box shaped like a table television [containing] a long, continuous paper scroll printed with panoramas of famous Civil War battles that are wound past a ’screen’ on the box”–essentially a portable, small-hands-friendly form of the Cyclorama in Atlanta’s Grant Park. Pretty cool. The exhibit opened Saturday, September 27, and runs until January 17, 2009.

Sad news: David Foster Wallace hanged himself Friday night.

[Update from previous version of post]: Kakutani’s appraisal in the NYT, personal comments from fans, etc. on Metafilter (thanks, EW), and an old profile/memorial at the Trib. 

From the NYT piece:

[W]hile his own fiction often showcased his mastery of postmodern pyrotechnics — a cold but glittering arsenal of irony, self-consciousness and clever narrative hijinks — he was also capable of creating profoundly human flesh-and-blood characters with three-dimensional emotional lives. In a kind of aesthetic manifesto, he once wrote that irony and ridicule had become “agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture” and mourned the loss of engagement with deep moral issues that animated the work of the great 19th-century novelists.

For that matter, much of Mr. Wallace’s work, from his gargantuan 1996 novel “Infinite Jest” to his excursions into journalism, felt like outtakes from a continuing debate inside his head, about the state of the world and the role of the writer in it, and the chasm between idealism and cynicism, aspirations and reality. The reader could not help but feel that Mr. Wallace had inhaled the muchness of contemporary America — a place besieged by too much data, too many video images, too many high-decibel sales pitches and disingenuous political ads — and had so many contradictory thoughts about it that he could only expel them in fat, prolix narratives filled with Mobius strip-like digressions, copious footnotes and looping philosophical asides. If this led to self-indulgent books badly in need of editing — “Infinite Jest” clocked in at an unnecessarily long 1,079 pages — it also resulted in some wonderfully powerful writing.

The party of the season for Chicago literary types and those who love (or read) them, The Printer’s Ball wants to take you for a whirl this Friday, Aug. 22. Over 100 literary and arts organizations will converge for Poetry’s huge arts-and-lit party at the Museum of Contemporary Art. From 5:30-10 p.m., ballgoers can talk, listen, dance, sip, and browse an astounding array of free magazines, journals, books, weeklies, and posters.

But don’t get your heart set on curling up under the Jeff Koons bunny sculpture with a nice poem…creative crosspollination is the main order of business at the Ball. Printer’s Ball pan-literary performances include, Killing Him: A Radio Play by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai; a return of the surprise-rife Dollar Store Reading, this time with Usama Alshaibi, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Jonathan Messinger, and Julie Shapiro; and a screen-printing demonstration by poster wiz Mat Daly. Also, don’t miss the Librarians’ Boudoir, a viewing library of limited run publications, nor the Gnoetry poetry machine (writer’s block, begone!).

Music by Pure Magical Love and Stagecoach (members from Mahjongg…no waltz, surely?), will be presented by Proximity Magazine. Sets by DJs Logan Bay, Dustin Drase, and Greg Gaffud are enabled by CHIRP, Lumpen, and Venus Zine.

The Printers’ Ball is an annual celebration of print literature in Chicago, hosted by Poetry Magazine, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and Newcity. Admission is free and reserved for those 21 and over. Find the Museum of Contemporary Art at 220 E. Chicago Ave., just east of Michigan Ave. For performance times and a list of participating organizations, visit www.printersball.org.

In conjunction with the Newberry Library’s Annual Book Fair, the Bughouse Square debates will again take place in Washington Square Park on Saturday, July 26. Recalling Chicago’s history of free speech & soapbox oratory, the Bughouse Square debates provide an open forum for anyone with something compelling to say. This year’s speakers will address health care reform, US torture policy, and sexual abstinence, as well as some Chicago-specific issues including the city’s smoking ban & the actions of the Chicago Park District. The main debate features Illinois Democratic Representative John A. Fritchey and conservative Joseph Morris going at it, and the action begins at noon. For the full schedule and more details on Bughouse Square history, have a look at the informative Bughouse Square blog.

The debates conclude with the conferring of the Dil Pickle Award upon the day’s best orator, followed by the revival of the Dil Pickle Club just north of the Newberry & Bughouse Square at the Zebra Lounge, 1220 N. State Pkwy. Established by labor activist Jack Jones in 1914, the original Dil Pickle Club encouraged free speech & artistic expression in a social environment, and became one of Chicago’s best known Bohemian nightspots. Dil Pickle activities resume in the form of “short speaking” about the history of hobohemia, plus some new writing, piano cabaret and performance art, all put together by editors from Lumpen & Stop Smiling magazines. Things get started at 5pm and will wrap up around 8; many more details about the night’s events plus facts about Dil Pickle then & now at the Bughouse Square blog.

Nobody wants to spend money these days, but buying used doesn’t really count, right? Well, at least, you won’t feel quite so guilty about it. There’s nothing like a good used book sale to make you feel like your disposable income stretches further than Special Payday Lunch, and one of the best happens to be this weekend: the Newberry Library’s Annual Book Fair. Over 100,000 books & 32 hours of browsing/shopping spread out over four days, with many books priced under $2. In addition to books on subjects ranging from antiques to zoology, you can also score board games, vintage magazines, records, and some artwork, among other things. Everything’s organized into categories for easy browsing, and those intimidating checkout lines actually move pretty fast. The schedule:

Thursday, July 24, 2008, from 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Friday, July 25, 2008, from 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Saturday, July 26, 2008, from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Sunday, July 27, 2008, from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm

The Newberry is located at 60 W. Walton Street between Clark & Dearborn, an easy walk from both the Division or Chicago stops on the Red Line. Or take the Clark #22 or Division #70 bus, which drop you off at the front door. (Or ride your bike..racks & wrought iron fence aplenty!) Check the Book Fair’s website for parking information.

The world’s stupidest op-ed appeared in today’s Tribune. I do not mean this condemnation as hyperbole. This was literally the dumbest editorial I’ve ever read in that paper.

If we have any readership left after our impromptu hiatus (hi, Mom!), please be advised against reading Tom Mullaney’s paean to the lost greatness of Starbucks. Please don’t read the part where Mullaney tells us the sanitized, ubiquitous megaconglomerate had “enormous cachet and street cred.” Please skip over the part where Mullaney complains that today’s baristas “seem less knowledgeable about the coffees and each blend’s character” and who, unlike their predecessors, don’t find blending Frappuccinos for douchebags to be a “calling.”

Surely Mullaney was kidding when he quoted the following from a fellow Starbucks fan: “It’s a tragedy that the young kids won’t know the difference, and will never know how good it once was.” Surely he isn’t so brainwashed as to think that the subject of incalculable discourse on mass production and lifestyle marketing was in any way ever authentic.

The other headlines from this week’s editorial section: “New Kids on the Block Have Shit Tons of Street Cred,” “The Leaders of the Conservative Party are So Fucking Christian I Can’t Even Stand It.”

Ever read the New York Times Book Review and wondered 1). Why does this critique read so personally? 2). Did they get a woman to write that scather just so I won’t think it’s misogyny? 3). Where are the raves? or 4). Are they actually afraid of women’s writing?…then check out this essay over at Bitch magazine, in which Sarah Seltzer examines the phenomenon of women writer’s ludicrously low coverage in NYTBR, and the sexist skewering that happens once they do make it in, often at the hand of their own gender. Here’s my fav quote: “If the Times wants to remain the paper of record, it should stop seeking out hostile reviewers whose main critical thrust is one of self-aggrandizement (“Don’t worry, boys—I’m not strident like her!”) and intergenerational antagonism.
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Check it out at areachicago.org.

Date: Saturday, June 21st

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Location: Decima Musa, 1901 W. Loomis (Pilsen)

The Guild Complex is inviting writers to a restaurant in order to find others with whom to form workshops:

All you have to do is prepare a two-minute sound bite ready to blurt out about your writing, plus samples to hand to others with your contact info. We’ll keep you moving around to meet other writers. What happens from there is up to you.

Props to them for providing such a nice service.

We received the following press release. I’m passing it along as is because that’s how much I heart this bookstore: