Friday 3/21 – Thursday 3/27
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Brent Ritzel started his exhaustive Evanston-based Zine Guide in late 1997 as an alternative to the now defunct Factsheet Five. Currently in its sixth edition, the guide provides reviews and listings of over 1,000 independent magazines, zines, and broadsheets, as well as an index cross-referencing the bands, people, and topics they cover. Tonight and tomorrow, March 22, Ritzel, who also publishes the zine Tail Spins, and associate editor Alicia Dorr will host two nights of free Zine Guide-sponsored readings at Quimby’s, 1854 W. North (773-342-0910). Tonight’s event starts at 7:30 and features Jessica Disobedience (Safety Pin Girl), Larry Roth (1544 West Grace), Aaron Cynic (Tail Spins contributor), Grant Schreiber (Judas Goat Quarterly), and Michelle Aiello (Indigo). Tomorrow’s installment, also at 7:30, brings together Jessica Hopper (Hit It or Quit It), Liz Saidel (Caboose), Al Burian (Burn Collector), Matt Fagan (Meniscus), and Todd Dills (The 2nd Hand).
22 SATURDAY The DuSable Museum is hosting a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Harold Washington’s election as mayor today, though the actual date Washington defeated Republican Bernie Epton was April 12, 1983. The program starts at 10:30 with a screening of a documentary on the reformist mayor, who died of a heart attack in 1987, during his second term in office. At 11, longtime Washington friend Dempsey Travis will discuss the mayor’s life and legacy and sign copies of his 1989 biography, Harold, the People’s Mayor. It’s at the DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl., and it’s free with museum admission; call 773-947-0600, ext. 225, for more information.
26 WEDNESDAY As a press agent in the latter part of the last century, Chuck Cannon did local publicity for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Peggy Lee. He also worked several times with the Three Stooges, who he calls “kind and gentle and not at all stupid people”; he was impressed that they didn’t rely on a script. “I’d watch them sometimes during rehearsal,” he says. “They would work from the plot and interpolate.” He’ll discuss his personal recollections of the Stooges and other celebrities tonight at 7 at the Norwood Park Historical Society, 5624 N. Newark. It’s free; for more information call 773-631-4633.
