Lilli Carre Interview

Check out this great interview with Lilli at the comics site, The Daily Crosshatch (http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2009/01/21/interview-lille-carre-pt-1-of-3/). We have been working with Lilli on a brand new book of stories that should be coming out in the near future, so stay tuned! Until then check out her excellent book, The Lagoon (published by Fantagraphics).

Event: Handmade Nation Movie Screening & Tabling

The San Francisco Film Society is screening the movie Handmade Nation and was nice enough to ask us and other local stores/crafters to have booths. Kirk will be manning our table along with George who will also be representing ZUM. The mini-craft fair will run before and after the movie and panel.

Handmade Nation

March 11, 2009, 7:30 pm

Mezzanine, 444 Jessie St, San Francisco

Tickets are $8 for SFFS members and $12 for non-members.
For all info: http://www.sffs.org/events/films/film_handmade_nation.html

(In full disclosure, we make a brief appearance in the trailer for the movie and so might be in the actual movie itself, but we haven't seen it yet.)

Benefit Show for Let Live Foundation

If you're in Portland be sure to check this out (From our friends at Food Fight! and Herbivore Magazine who do the Let Live Foundation).

Bands: Attica! Attica!, Camping Party, and Adam Brock

Location: Red and Black Cafe, 400 SE 12th (right around the corner from the Vegan MiniMall)

Price: $5

For all info: http://www.letlivefoundation.org/?p=201

Event: Jo Dery at Cinders in NY!

Join Jo Dery in celebrating the release of Quietly Sure- Like the Keeper of a Great Secret at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, NY on Sunday, March 8th at 7pm. Jo will be showing some of her animated films & videos (including the brand new movie "Woodpecker in Snowshoes") and showing off Quietly Sure to all interested parties. Colin Langenus (usaisamonster) will be playing music and fun should be had by all (word is there will be popcorn).

Jo Dery Book Release Party

w/ Colin Langenus (usaisamonster) doing music
Sunday, March 8th at 7pm

www.cindersgallery.com

Event: Simon Evans Show In NY

If you find yourself in New York you may enjoy Simon Evans' Show that opened yesterday at the James Cohan Gallery. Simon was nice enough to make this bookmark for us a while ago and we think it's some of the best 50 cents you can spend. Simon and Lart have been working on this show for months and months and it's awesome to see the results!

From the Gallery's website: "Simon Evan's delicate text-based works are collaged and assembled from prosaic materials including found paper, scotch tape, pencil shavings, colored pencil and white out. They describe a world poised between two poles of earnestness and irony. With his anxieties laid bare and his wry brand of melancholy, Evans presents us with a veritable laundry list of drawings that take the form of diagrams, charts, maps, lexicons, diary entries, inventories, cosmologies and epistolary entreaties that plunge the viewer into alternate states of pathos and hope. "

826 Valencia: Food Talk and Letters to Obama

Our officemate Chris Ying is hosting a Food Writing workshop at 826 Valencia (which resides just across the street from our SF store). Chris is an editor at McSweeney's and manages the Voice of Witness series (Lart C. Berliner did the cover art for this book and a few others in the series). The books give voice to human rights issues through first-person oral histories and are worth checking out if you get a chance.


In other 826-related news, their Programs Director and one-half of the Big Stone Head team (purveyor of tees, mini comics, postcards, and Lincoln pillows at our store), Jory John, has edited a new McSweeney's book of kids' letters and drawings titled Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country. You can get them at the Pirate Store or pick one up from us if they're closed.

Zum in the store, other items

You may or may not be aware of the fact that Yvonne and I (George) ran a record label together for nearly ten years, or just about there - starting in 1998. I took the label on as my own joy/burden last year, but Little Otsu still carries some Zum releases, and there are a few new ones available right now.
The Weird Weeds "Hold Me" LP is limited to 300 pressed on black vinyl, with covers screened by Michigan's VGKids from Lauren Pakradooni's amazing artwork.

I've been a fan of the band since hearing mp3s of this album while on tour in 2005.
Aaron Russell was in Nitre Pit and The Teethe with Greg Saunier. My bandmate Miya was in The Teethe also, and we were stuck in Gallup, NM in a hotel after our van died, listening to music to entertain ourselves. "Hold Me" originally came out as a self-released CDR, but lo these 4 years later it's finally on an "official" format.
We also have a split 7" with Zs and Child Abuse that has a fold out 7" x 14" reproduction of a painting/drawing by John Dwyer.

The juxtaposition of visual art with vinyl product is one of the fun "curatorial" parts of putting out records. I asked my friend Matt Hart to screen the cover art for the split 7" between Abe Vigoda and Mikaela's Fiend. We actually sold out of that initial pressing of 500, so we re-pressed that single on mixed color vinyl and converted Matt's art to an offset printing. You may have seen or heard Abe Vigoda on NPR the other day.

Next up is a 7" by Mark Evan Burden's Silentist project. The cover art is by Lanie Fletcher of the infamous "The Ripper" zine.

Other news - there are a handful of copies left of my drawing zine, "Shank", at Little Otsu. Collected drawings from flyers and mixtape covers and just random gags from 2003-08, photocopied and bound with a stylish rubber band. I also started a Twitter, am doing a bunch of shows in SF soon with my band Chen Santa Maria and doing a stand up comedy set with Sam McPheeters at Adobe Books on the 20th.

stamps

I do not consider myself a philatelist, but I do love a good postage stamp. I've been slowly amassing a random collection since the 90s when I did a lot of mailing for my zine/label. So it's not so much a collection placed carefully in binders, but scattered sheets here and there that I've bought to use but then can't bear to part with. There are many I wished I had kept, but part of the beauty of stamps is that they're fun to share. I try not to buy ugly stamps, but if I end up with some, I use them on bills or something where the recipient couldn't care less. Stamps are little pieces of art and can add a lot of personality to a correspondence. I'm sure most people don't notice, but when I'm not in a rush, I try to present an interesting panoply in that upper right corner. Here's a recent juxtaposition that amused me...

Quietly Sure wins an award!

Congrats to Jo Dery on winning the 2008 Boston Art Awards People's Choice Award for Books for Quietly Sure - Like the Keeper of a Great Secret! Thanks to everyone who voted for Jo and to Greg Cook for organizing the awards. Check out his great blog when you get a chance.