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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20190619T190000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20190619T210000
DTSTAMP:20260425T073752
CREATED:20190502T080829Z
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SUMMARY:Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
DESCRIPTION:with David Trinidad\, Amy Gerstler\, D.A. Powell\, Kevin Killian\, Dodie Bellamy\, Randall Mann\, and Roberto Bedoya \ncelebrating the release of \nPunk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith \nby Ed Smith\, Edited by David Trinidad \npublished by Turtle Point Press \nIn Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World\, David Trinidad brings together a comprehensive selection of Ed Smith’s work: his published books; unpublished poems; excerpts from his extensive notebooks; photos and ephemera; and his timely “cry for civilization\,” “Return to Lesbos”: put down that gun / stop electing Presidents. \nEd Smith blazed onto the Los Angeles poetry scene in the early 1980s from out of the hardcore punk scene. The charismatic\, nerdy young man hit home with his funny/scary off- the- cuff- sounding poems\, like “Fishing”: This is a good line. / This is a bad line. This is a fishing line. \nEd’s vibrant “gang” of writer and artist friends― among them Amy Gerstler\, Dennis Cooper\, Bob Flanagan\, Mike Kelley\, and David Trinidad― congregated at Beyond Baroque in Venice\, on LA’s west side. They read and partied and per-formed together\, and shared and published each others’ work. \nEd was more than bright and versatile: he worked as a math tutor\, an animator\, and a typesetter. In the mid- 1990s\, he fell in love with Japanese artist Mio Shirai; they married and moved to New York City. Despite productive years and joyful times\, Ed was plagued by mood disorders and drug problems\, and at the age of forty- eight\, he took his own life. \nEd Smith’s poems speak to living in an increasingly dehumanizing consumer society and corrupt political system. This “punk Dorothy Parker” is more relevant than ever for our ADD\, technology- distracted times \nEd Smith (1957–2005) was a poet involved in the punk and alternative arts scenes in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. His books were Fantasyworld (1983) and Tim’s Bunnies (1988). His poems appeared in Rolling Stone\, St. Mark’s Poetry Project Newsletter\, and other publications. Smith also worked as an animator on Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues. \nDavid Trinidad is the author of more than twenty books of poetry\, collabora-tions\, and edited volumes. These include Swinging on a Star (2017)\, Notes on a Past Life (2016)\, Dear Prudence: New and Selected Poems (2011)\, and Plasticville (2000)\, finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Trinidad is editor of A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos (2011)\, which won a Lambda Literary Award. He is a professor of poetry in the English and Creative Writing Department at Columbia College\, Chicago. \nCritical Praise For Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World: \n“In the very early ’80s Ed was intimidatingly skinny and gorgeous and as reckless and charismatic as that guy in The Libertines who got caught doing coke with Kate Moss\, but very\, very talented and massively intelligent\, and even when he was a little too wild\, he was always so kind and heartbreakingly sweet and smart. Saying he was our Rimbaud is way too lazy\, but there was that. I thought of him as LA’s John Wieners. Ed’s poetry has Wieners’s deep melancholy and low-key\, note-perfect lyricism\, mixed with Ed’s strange\, bright ideas and his dead-pan\, startling sense of humor. I’m one of the many people who misses his poetry a lot.” ―Dennis Cooper \n“Years ago my wife slept with Ed Smith and wrote him into her novel; we goggled\, bemused by his ubiquity. It was a time when Ed was everywhere\, or so it seemed\, and his energy and taste for the zany and the outrageous fit right in with what we in San Francisco appreciated most about the heroic LA artists―Bob Flanagan\, Mike Kelley\, Amy Gerstler\, Dennis Cooper\, so many more. The present anthology is not only the best of Ed’s writing but contains in his notebooks the single greatest account of the genius brewing in the Southland at that moment. Hats off to David Trinidad for bringing it all back home―his exquisite care in selecting and contextualizing is the greatest gift he could have given his late friend.” ―Kevin Killian \n“Sappho invented civilization\, and Ed Smith made it punk.”―Tony Trigilio
URL:https://litseen.com/event/punk-rock-is-cool-for-the-end-of-the-world-poems-and-notebooks-of-ed-smith/
LOCATION:City Lights Bookstore\, 261 Columbus Ave\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94133\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/EdSmithAnthology.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20190619T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20190619T213000
DTSTAMP:20260425T073752
CREATED:20190502T000750Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190502T000750Z
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SUMMARY:Alex Espinoza / Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime
DESCRIPTION:The Bindery hosts Alex Espinoza for his new bookCruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime. With him in conversation is the one and only Carla Trujillo! Please join us! \nAcclaimed author Alex Espinoza takes readers on an uncensored journey through the underground\, to reveal the timeless art of cruising. Combining historical research and oral history with his own personal experience\, Espinoza examines the political and cultural forces behind this radical pastime. From Greek antiquity to the notorious Molly houses of 18th century England\, the raucous 1970s to the algorithms of Grindr\, Oscar Wilde to George Michael\, cruising remains at once a reclamation of public space and the creation of its own unique locale — one in which men of all races and classes interact\, even in the shadow of repressive governments. \nIn Uganda and Russia\, we meet activists for whom cruising can be a matter of life and death; while in the West he shows how cruising circumvents the inequalities and abuses of power that plague heterosexual encounters. Ultimately\, Espinoza illustrates how cruising functions as a powerful rebuke to patriarchy and capitalism — unless you are cruising the department store restroom\, of course. \n\n“Alex Espinoza’s much-anticipated book takes readers on a unique ‘cruise’ through places of public gay-sex connections\, from early times to today’s apps and sites; and the result is as lively and entertaining as a boldly intimate\, and wonderfully written\, memoir.” – John Rechy \n“Espinoza’s painstakingly documented love letter to cruising is a rare achievement. Not only does he excavate an oft-hidden and -policed queer history\, but he also topples the myth that LGBTQ progress conforms to a single\, ‘straight’ narrative. In a culture that often flattens queer stories to fit assimilationist standards\, Espinoza’s book stands out as a beacon for future queer writers\, thinkers\, and activists. Reading these accounts\, I felt myself drawn into a past both wonderful and strange\, a world I hope we will continue to celebrate and preserve.” – Garrard Conley \n“Against all they have tried to do to bury our revolutionary past\, Alex Espinoza brings it to life in a work that is equal parts secrets shared in confidence\, sweeping historical account\, and learned analysis. Against all the neutering of our social movements and the treacly lure of assimilation\, Espinoza’s fast-paced\, compelling narrative shows readers the radical community of struggle\, contact and solace from which we came\, and to which we belong still.” – Jordy Rosenberg \n\nAlex Espinoza is the author of the novels The Five Acts of Diego Leónand Still Water Saints\, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times\, the New York Times Magazine\, NPR\, Salon\, the Los Angeles Review of Books\, Virginia Quarterly Review\, and elsewhere. His awards include a 2014 Fellowship in Prose from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2014 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for The Five Acts of Diego León. He lives in Los Angeles. \n  \nCarla Trujillo was born in New Mexico and received a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin\, Madison. Her first novel\, What Night Brings (Curbstone Press\, 2003)\, received the Miguel Mármol Prize for best first work of fiction by a Latino/a writer\, the Latino Book Award for fiction\, and the Paterson Fiction Prize. It was a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award\, ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year\, and was an honorable mention for the Gustavas Myers Book Award. What Night Brings was one of three finalists for the University of Washington’s “common book” for 2009 . Carla is the editor of Living Chicana Theory (1998) and Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (1991)\, which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Out/Write Vanguard Award. The anthologies and the novel are widely used in college and high school classrooms. Carla has also written various articles on identity and higher education. She is a founding member Macondo Writers Workshop. In addition to Macondo\, she has taught at Lambda Literary Foundation’s Emerging Writers Retreat\, U.C. Berkeley\, Mills College\, and San Francisco State University. Carla lives in Berkeley\, California. \n\nPlease note: this event will be held at The Bindery\, 1727 Haight. \nThis is an all ages event with mature themes. The bar opens at 7pm; event starts at 7:30pm. \nAs with all of our events\, seating may be limited; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out\, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of any of Alex’s books\, order here and include your request in the comments field; to request a signed copy of any of Carla’s books\, order here and be sure to include your request in the comments field. \nRSVP appreciated but not required.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/alex-espinoza-cruising-an-intimate-history-of-a-radical-pastime/
LOCATION:The Bindery\, 1727 Haight St\, San Francisco \, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CRUISING-COVER-FINAL.jpg
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DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20190619T193000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20190619T213000
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CREATED:20190502T000920Z
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SUMMARY:Stephen Markley / Ohio
DESCRIPTION:The Booksmith hosts Stephen Markley for Ohio. Join us! \nSince the turn of the century\, a generation has come of age knowing only war\, recession\, political gridlock\, racial hostility\, and a simmering fear of environmental calamity. In the country’s forgotten pockets\, where industry long ago fled\, where foreclosures\, Walmarts\, and opiates riddle the land\, death rates for rural whites have skyrocketed\, fueled by suicide\, addiction and a rampant sense of marginalization and disillusionment. This is the world the characters in Stephen Markley’s Ohio inherit. This is New Canaan. \nOn one fateful summer night in 2013\, four former classmates converge on the rust belt town where they grew up\, each of them with a mission\, all of them haunted by regrets\, secrets\, lost loves. There’s Bill Ashcraft\, an alcoholic\, drug-abusing activist\, whose fruitless ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to New Orleans\, and now back to “The Cane” with a mysterious package strapped to the underside of his truck; Stacey Moore\, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting the mother of her former lover; Dan Eaton\, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq\, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he’s tried to forget; and the beautiful\, fragile Tina Ross\, whose rendezvous with the captain of the football team triggers the novel’s shocking climax. \nAt once a murder mystery and a social critique\, Ohio ingeniously captures the fractured zeitgeist of a nation through the viewfinder of an embattled Midwestern town and offers a prescient vision for America at the dawn of a turbulent new age. \n\n“Markley [does] some extraordinary things with the structure of the book… Casual details suddenly take on new surprising significance. There’s real pleasure in this hopscotching narrative: with each new point of view\, a clearer sense of the hidden story emerges as the reader slowly pieces together some shocking revelations… The most moving parts of the book are those that step back and let the events and the actions speak for themselves\, as when one character (the shy bookish one from high school) recalls his first tours in Afghanistan. The beautifully precise details are all the more vivid for their lack of accompanying commentary. The real core of this earnestly ambitious debut lies not in its sweeping statements but in its smaller moments\, in its respectful and bighearted renderings of damaged and thwarted lives. It’s the human scale that most descriptively reveals the truth about the world we’re living in.” – Dan Chaon\, New York Times Book Review \n“Ohio isn’t just a remarkable debut novel\, it’s a wild\, angry and devastating masterpiece of a book. Markley’s debut is a sprawling\, beautiful novel that explores the aftermath of the Great Recession and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan\, and a powerful look at the tenuous bonds that hold people together at their best and at their worst. [Ohio] is intricately constructed\, with gorgeous\, fiery writing that pulls the reader in and never lets go.”– NPR \n\nStephen Markley is an author\, screenwriter\, and journalist. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop\, Markley’s previous books include the novel Ohio\, the memoir Publish This Book: The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote\, Sold\, and Published This Very Book\, and the travelogue Tales of Iceland. He lives in Los Angeles. \n\nThis is a free\, all-ages event. \nRSVP is appreciated\, but not required.  \nAs with all of our events\, seating may be limited and not guaranteed; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out\, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of Ohio\, order below and put your request in the comments field.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/stephen-markley-ohio/
LOCATION:The Booksmith\, 1644 Haight St\, San Francisco \, CA\, 94117\, United States
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Ohio_PB.jpg
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