Here I am. It’s been over three months. A lot has happened in that time that’s made blogging irrelevant, really. But I’m pretty sure it’s summer now—can’t be positive—and I’m feeling like shedding some of that rust. And mixing some of those metaphors.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be reading with the incomparable James Kennedy at the incomparable Quimby’s. Come out and say hello. We can raise and clunk cans of High Life together.
March was a little ridiculous, but I’m looking forward to April as a sort of reprieve. I only have one reading on the docket, and it’s one that I’m really excited about. On Friday night, I’ll be a part of Chris Bower’s Fuck Storms: Imaginary Weather Phenomena, featuring stories/poems/monsoons inspired by made-up weather (I wrote a couple of “fact-sheets” for Miyagi’s Revenge and Suddenly Everything Turns to Glass). I had been working on a story about a guy who gets swept up into a tornado, only to discover an entire town living inside that tornado, but I think that’s been abandoned for something stranger. The show’s at a bar I’ve never heard of, Ray’s, at 3049 N. Kimball Ave. Here’s an awesome image by Susie Kirkwood to entice you:
Featherproof has really been rolling of late, so posts here have been a little infrequent. AWP was very good to us—just such a great experience meeting so many folks with whom we’ve chatted online, and getting to see what great work so many presses are doing right now. Very energizing, particularly given all the doom-saying about publishing. I simply didn’t feel it.
Lots going on with the ‘proof. To wit:
• Grow is now out and about. If you like children, you’ll like giving them a copy. Even if they’re strangers.
• Paper Egg, our new subscription imprint is soaking up subscribers like crazy. Currently working on Christian TeBordo’s The Awful Possibilities, our first title. And if you haven’t already, subscribe, and get a free copy of Amelia Gray’s AM/PM!
• The Featherproof Remix idea has generated some buzz, as has the contest attached to it. We’re remixing Scorch Atlas, Blake Butler’s novel-in-stories that arrives this fall.
• Reading tonight in Hyde Park at Series A. Planning on reading a new and an old piece.
• Release party for Patrick Somerville’s The Cradle on Monday night, with another mini-book release, and a beard-lift. It’s going to be some action.
After all of that, more posting here, not much going on until May, more sleep till Brooklyn.
Been away, largely because I’ve had loads of writing assignments over the past few weeks. One of them came to fruition last night at The Encyclopedia Show, a very cool show put on by Robbie Q. Telfer and Young Chicago Authors. I think it may be the first time I’ve read to someone in high school since the tour. A great night.
Monday night is the famed No Love for Love, which I’m hosting, and which Peter Sagal is headlining. A couple of years back, I performed there, and did a quiz show called “Guess the Context”, in which I recounted the many terrible things girls have said to me over my lifetime, and the audience had to guess the context of those statements. This time, it’ll likely just be a story, because now I’m married, and my wife is really nice.
After that, it’s all AWP, all the time. We have a big release party planned for AM/PM on Friday the 13th, and The Dollar Store will be a part of that. Here’s the poster, below (click (maybe twice) to make it bigger). Michael Renaud made it. It’s incredible. More soon!
Turns out, Jesse, Jr. is Candidate #5. I can easily explain this mistake: I often don’t know what I’m talking about.
It’s possible that his “emissaries” were not acting with his knowledge, I guess. And if it’s true that he’s “not a target of this investigation,” then the feds must think he’s clean. It’s my guess that if he, or even one of his advisors, had offered to raise $500,000 for Blago, he’d be strung up, too. I’m not convinced of this point, since it’s possible that the feds aren’t targeting him because they want his testimony.
But still, I don’t see him getting the seat if he’s this closely linked to the whole mess. Please, stay tuned for further inaccurate “insights.”
Ever since Obama looked like he was going to win, and the big Party in the Park was planned, there’s been non-stop chatter about how good this will be for the city (especially among those who think bringing the Olympics here in 2016 is a good idea). But now, in the same way Obama has been tamping down expectations for his first-term, Chicagoans may want to dim their own expectations. Yesterday, Tribune Media, owner of the Chicago Tribune filed for bankruptcy. Given that the Sun-Times has been on its last legs since fish grew legs, this is bad news for the city.
Oh yeah, and now Illinois has two consecutive governors come under federal indictment (or will, very soon). Just as former guv George Ryan tries to weasel a pardon out of the departing Bush administration, it turns up that current guv Blagojevich attempted some exceedingly unsubtle horse-trading to get a new gig or a big payoff for appointing Obama’s senatorial replacement. Obama, for his part, comes off clean to my mind and many others’. So far as I can recall, Obama has never really been in Blago’s corner, despite the occasional meaningless ad, etc.
It’s been fun today to read the country’s reaction (and not only because every news account has to breakdown the pronounciation (bluh-GOY-uh-vitch). Here in Illinois, we’ve known Blago’s as corrupt as they come since he set foot in office, prompting a fairly strong recall movement here (In Cook County, 60 percent of voters approved an advisory constitutional amendment that would allow for the recall of elected officials in the state). This is a man who declared at a Cubs playoff rally that he often asked himself—when making executive decisions—”What would Lou do?” And he got booed. At a Cubs playoff rally! And lest you think it’s because he’s a Sox fan, watch this video from the statue dedication at the Cell. Booed. Mercilessly.