Legendarily irascible comics (and novel) author Warren Ellis will be appearing at Wizard World Chicago (out in Rosemont) on Friday at 9 pm. The event is free and you don’t need a convention ticket to attend. If we’re lucky, he’ll bite the head off a cosplayer or something. (Thank or blame Avatar Press for setting the thing up.)
I recently picked up a copy of One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966) — one of the classic Travis McGee detective novels by John D. MacDonald. McGee’s normal setting is South Florida, but in this one he travels to Chicago to help out an old friend. McGee is… not really a fan of our fair city:
I met David Blixt in the summer of 2004, during rehearsals for Defiant Theatre’s final show, A Clockwork Orange. David provided the fight choreography. I recall his hair hung down to his shoulders in lazy curls, and he wore leather boots that laced most of the way up the calf. He looked as if he’d just come from a Renaissance Fair. During breaks David would crack open a laptop and start typing. I asked him once what he was working on, and he informed me that he was writing a book about the origins of the feud behind Romeo and Juliet. Of course he was, I thought. That’s exactly what a Ren Fair geek would write about.
Cut to last July, when Master of Verona hit the shelves.
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Starting tomorrow, libraries and bookstores across America will be celebrating Banned Books Week (September 29-October 6). The purpose? It’s a great celebration to our freedom to read even when the words written are unpopular or unorthodox.The American Library Association, The Newberry Library, and the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum will be celebrating with a Read-Out tomorrow, Sat. Sept. 29, from 1-4 pm at Pioneer Court (that’s the big plaza south of the Trib building that meets the Chicago river). There will be music, readings, and a general hootenanny at this free event. Can’t make it? There’s also an event online at Second Life happening during the same time.Factoid: AND TANGO MAKES THREE by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell was the most-challenged book of 2006. It was challenged for “homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group.” It’s the story of a family of penguins in picture book format.Consider reading it. Or any banned book this week.
Part of the appeal of blogging, I think, is that on the internet, as the famous phrase goes, nobody knows you’re hideous mouth-breathing basement-dweller. If you can string three or four words together into a sentence, someone will read your blog — even if it’s just your mom, inevitably finding your site just after you’ve posted a dark confession of the terrible things you did to pigeons in your youth. (Or maybe that’s just me.)
In any case, Joe Janes and Don Hall are bucking that notion with their blog reading event, The Nod. The first half of the event is an open mic of sorts (readers must be confirmed in advance) with Greg Wendling, Keri Myslinski, Amy Guth, and Claire Micklin already scheduled. The second half of the event will feature readings from Hall, Janes, Dave Awl, Nat Topping, and Thea Lux.
Wednesday, September 19th, 8pm at The Uptown Writer’s Space at 4802 N Broadway. $5 donation requested.
You may have noticed from the lack of posts that Chicago’s literary scene tends to slumber during the summer (at least I was).Now that slightly-crisper temperatures are with us again, it’s time to fall back into reading. As I return to the library to continue my all-but-forgot Library Project, the library itself is turning to readers with the latest incarnation of One Book, One Chicago. The current selection is Arthur MIller’s THE CRUCIBLE. You’ll hear more on that soon.Also, if you get a chance, check out 2nd Story Chicago tonight at 7pm at The Spot (4437 N. Broadway). Doors open at 6pm and it’s $10, but toss in the extra $5 for a flight of scotch, tequila, or bourbon. These storytellings are produced by Serendipity Theatre Collective. I saw it last month at Webster’s and it was fabulous.
So, there’s a new survey out that postulates that 1 out of 4 Americans haven’t read a single book in the past year.One of my favorite paragraphs from the AP article:”In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled “Reading at Risk” found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.”Is that true, Chicago? Is the Internet causing us to look at books with disdain? How many books have you read in the last year?(As you may have noticed, I like the Internet and I’ve read 37 non-work books since January 1.)
And speaking of sex, the Freakonomics blog has interviewed author Karen Abbott. Abbott’s new book Sin in the Second City is about Chicago’s Everleigh sisters and their famous turn-of-the century brothel. The interview focuses on the economics of the enterprise:
Q: Did police officers, government officials, and prosecutors receive a discount for services?A: Minna set a policy of entertaining newspaper reporters and state legislators for free. It worked: the Everleigh sisters got press when they wanted it, and stayed out of the headlines when they didn’t. They also made necessary donations to a roster of politicians in Springfield in attempts to help thwart harmful state legislation, including one check for $3,000.
It’s somehow comforting to me to remember in the middle of our current (deserved) out-pouring of “Roger Ebert is a Chicago treasure” that he’s not some kindly old lover of movies — the man is a critic who can dish it out as he sees fit. Your Movie Sucks is a sequel of sorts to Roger Ebert’s earlier I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie — both collections of his reviews of movies he enjoyed the least.
The earlier book covered a few decades of reviews and so it had the stringent requirement of one star or less; the new book covers just the 21st century and so, I assume to pad out the book a bit, includes 1.5 star movies. It does mean that some of the reviews are less vitriolic and more Ebert basically saying, “eh.”
But when Ebert is on a tear, ripping into a terrible movie, it’s quite a sight to behold. The book opens with an extended introduction detailing a few reviews that resulted in public exchanges with the director or stars, like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (from which review comes the title of the book) and Vincent Gallo’s Brown Bunny.
It should be noted that these books are, like so much these days, effectively free online — just go to the Advanced Search on Ebert’s site, set the “Star rating To” field to one or one-and-a-half stars, and click Submit. But it’s harder to take your computer into the bathroom, which just might be the natural home for this sort of book. Of course, you might also want to use it as a sort of affirmational — read one of these reviews right before you leave the house and there will be a certain spring in your step. No matter what you do or don’t do during the day, at least you didn’t make a terrible movie.
I just finished Soon I Will Be Invincible, the debut novel by Austin Grossman. It’s rather good.
The book is a superhero adventure told in alternating chapters by an experienced evil genius (he’s in prison for the twelveth time when the book starts) and a new cyborg hero. The action of the story is straight out of a silver age comic book (the villian says things out-loud like “Who dares?” and “In the coming era I will rule the world, as is my right.”) but the inner lives of the two narrators are complex and authentic.
Grossman will be reading at the Bookslut Reading Series on Wednesday, June 27 at 8:00pm at the Stop Smiling Storefront (1371 N. Milwaukee). Nick Bertozzi (The Salon) and Paul Hornschemeier (The Three Paradoxes) will also be reading.
