Gapers Block has ceased publication.
Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
✶ Thank you for your readership and contributions. ✶
TODAY
Saturday, April 27
Slowdown
BY DAY
Wednesday, April 19 2006
Jonathan Safran Foer @ Goose Island Brewery
Bestselling author of Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close stops tonight at Goose Island Brewery to discuss his work. Presented in conjunction with the Book Cellar, the talk starts at 9:30pm at 3535 N. Clark. Call 773-293-2665 for more information.
Bilingual Poetry @ California Clipper
A new poetry series, Palabra Pura, focuses on Chicano and Latino artists, presenting local and visiting writers after 30 minutes of open mike readings. Tonight, Maria Melendez and Carlos Cumpian are featured. Doors open at 8 PM. Free. 1022 N. California Ave. For more information, call 877-394-5061, or visit the Guild Complex website.
Rec Room @ Black Rock Bar
Rec Roomer Scott Barsotti curates this second Rec Room event of the month, ""Wrecked Room." Says Barsotti, "To be wrecked is to be both torn apart and torn together. A car wreck joins a machine and another surface with such force that both are changed dramatically. A shipwreck fills the open spaces of a vessel with water, ultimately submerging them. A wrecking crew makes their livelihood by tearing structures apart. "Wrecked" will explore the nature of destruction, decay, and deterioration as a contradiction; that is to say, as a creative act or process. Rather than discussing violence of any sort, the wrecked room will bring together writers and visual artists who have pieces of work that speak to wrecked spaces and/or relationships; evoke the beauty and/or tragedy of a thing or person in decay; creation through destruction and vice versa: are they ever permanent as we think of the word?" See you at The Black Rock Bar, (Damen and Addison) at 8pm.
Opening: Golden Truffle @ Redmoon
The Golden Truffle is a madcap spoof of celebrity culture, set in a posh supper club. Redmoon Theater's first musical opens tonight at Redmoon Central (1463 W Hubbard) and runs Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays at 8pm and Saturdays at 7pm and 10:30pm. Tickets are $35-45 dollars and include a four course truffle tasting menu from Lincoln Park based Vosges Haut-Chocolat. Some strong language, dirty jokes, and references to European philosophers, make this show less appropriate for younger children. Through June 18. For more information call 312-850-8440 x111 or visit the website.
Harryette Mullen / Jean Valentine @ Columbia College
Harryette Mullen and Jean Valentine read poetry at this FREE Columbia College event: Collins Hall, 624 S Michigan Ave, room 602 (5:30 pm).
Harryette Mullen's poems, short stories, and essays have been published widely and reprinted in over 40 anthologies. Her poetry is included in the latest edition of the Norton Anthology of African American Literature and has been translated into Spanish, French, Polish, Bulgarian, and Swedish. She is the author of six poetry books, most recently Blues Baby (Bucknell, 2002) and Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California, 2002). The latter was a finalist for a National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2004 she received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts and in 2005 she was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. She was born in Alabama, grew up in Texas, and now lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches at UCLA.
Jean Valentine is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently Door in the Mountain, New & Collected Poems (Wesleyan 2004) for which she received The National Book Award in poetry for 2004. Valentine graduated from Radcliffe College, has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, NYU and Columbia University, and lives and works in New York City.
Steven Kinzer @ Newberry Library
The New York Times correspondent discusses his book Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq this evening at 6 PM. Free. 60 W. Walton St. For more information, call 312-255-3700 or visit the website.
