CART...May Flowers
May 2012
Dear Readers,
Earlier this year I was reminiscing about the largely abandoned practice of making May Baskets and leaving them as surprises on the doorsteps of friends and neighbors. I decided to organize a May Day art show and fill the shop with floral inspired artwork, but the idea wasn't quite coalescing, and in the meantime the deadline was getting closer and closer.
Then, a few weeks ago, Amber W. Smith walked into the shop to consign her new artists' book Fluent Now in the Language of Grief. After she left I leafed through it and realized my May Day show was right there! When she popped back in later that day I invited her to show the original work and she happily accepted. Now, I didn't have sardonic funeral flower arrangements in mind originally, but as with many of my favorite Reading Frenzy encounters, being open to the unexpected worked out even better.
This month we have just a few events lined up after 1st Thursday -- The Loom of Ruin, My Day #20 Release Party, 100 Poems to Bestill Your Young Heart -- before we take a little break while Rose Festival revelers run amok in downtown Portland. Other than our June 1st Thursday opening we won't be hosting another event until the last ship has sailed.
In other news, the first week of May will bring the arrival of Crap Hound #6: Death, Phones & Scissors as well as scads of other new spring titles, including eight dozen new magazines and journals handpicked from across North America and beyond! Even if it never stops raining in beautiful Portland, Oregon this season is set to be the best spring we've had in many years.
Keep Reading!
Your Faithful Proprietress,
Chloe
The Ledger
Shoppe
More Recent Additions:
- Wholesale Order for Mark Pawson
- 10 Weeds You Can Eat
- Deer
- All the Pretty People
- Henry and Glenn Forever and Ever
- Cambodian Grrrl
- In Search of the Lost Taste
- The Book Bindery
- Learning Good Consent
- Living Things #6: Winged Creatures of the Natural World
Currently Showing
THURSDAY, MAY 3rd
- SUNDAY, JUNE 3rd
Fluent Now in the Langauge of Grief
Mourning Flower illustrations by Amber W. Smith
Join us to celebrate the opening of Fluent Now in the Language of Grief. A collection of imaginary mourning flower arrangements at turns heartfelt and cynical by Amber W. Smith.
A message from the artist: "Subversive mourning flower arrangements as visual one-liners. The thought seemed a welcome respite from the body-oriented figurative work I tend to produce, and a series of these funeral flowers a small personal challenge to draw for quantity, to be less rigid and meticulous. What began as a punch line quickly evolved into a more sincere and direct examination of grief, loss, and the often surprising and selfish ways they manifest. Sentiment presented as sentiment interests me less than sentiment wrapped in a darker package. Because of this leaning, it's my hope that the slight cynicism of these illustrations reveals an idea that's not really cynical at all. Recognizing and confronting one's honest reactions to loss, of any kind -- loved ones, a properly functioning body, joy -- can be as equally difficult as continuing without that departed thing, and the expectation for grief to be pure, pervasive sadness is unrealistic. A hyperbolic and humorous lens better allows what is ultimately sentiment to exist in the work without it appearing too immediately saccharine. After all, the heart is a muscle.
Still, mostly, I hope it's kind of funny. Happy May Flowers, everyone."
Amber W. Smith is an artist and musician. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her cat, Cabbage Cabbage.
"Fluent now in the language of grief" is a line from a short story by Amy Hempel.
Upcoming Events
FRIDAY, MAY 25th, 7pm
100 Poem To Bestill Your Young Heart
Reading and Signing with Kenneth Woods
We were immediately struck by high school poet Kenneth Woods. Wise without falling into the precocious trap of feigning experience beyond his years, Kenneth explores his changing identity, newly formed philosophies, and the tyranny of math. As snarky, tender, melodramatic, implacable and logical as any teen can be, 100 Poems defines the hopes, fears, and loves of the shy creative misfits we all once were.
THURSDAY, JUNE 7th, 6pm-9pm
Chickfactor NW
Photographs by Gail O'Hara
Reading Frenzy is pleased to present chickfactor nw -- a document of the international pop underground featuring (mostly) indie-rock titans from the Pacific Northwest. From 1992 to 2003, Gail O'Hara interviewed, photographed and had an awful lot of musicians stay at her indie-rock flophouse on 19th Street in Manhattan. This led to friendships and staying at those friends' houses while traveling. During her trips to Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, she attended festivals like Yo-Yo a Go-Go and Ladyfest 2000 and photographed many northwesterners such as Lois Maffeo, Nikki McClure, Sarah Dougher, Corin Tucker, Rebecca Gates, Scott Plouf, Calvin Johnson, Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss, Stella Marrs, Tae Won Yu and others. This collection reflects the community and friendships that developed during those special events and at a time when the indie-rock community was vibrant and fun. The portraits are intimate and her subjects are disarmed, laid-back and often more relaxed than they might typically be at a photo shoot. This is her first show in Portland and it is in conjunction with chickfactor's 20th anniversary.
"I started taking photographs as a small child, thanks to my father who gave me cameras. I have used an old Minolta, a Rollei spy camera, a Nickelodeon PhotoBlaster and a Canon Rebel. My lucky Canon is from 1990 and is deteriorating as we speak but I cannot stop using it anyway. I don't have a digital camera. I started taking photos of friends in high school and college, but it wasn't until the mid-'90s that I thought I might have a talent for portraits (the reason seemed to be figuring out what kind of film to use and where to get it developed, which means everything). I was lucky in that, at chickfactor, we were able to interview people early on in their careers, before they were famous sometimes and before they were weary of being photographed. We were fans and major supporters of music. It also helps that I am super-fast. Sometimes people don't even remember that I photographed them. I don't have a lot of training, apart from darkroom work, but I feel I have been able to develop an archive of wonderful intimate portraits of some of the finest musicians and artists in the world. I have developed a style that is dreamy and blurry and nothing like all the sterilized photoshopped nonsense that is out there. My heroes are Cecil Beaton and Lee Miller."
Gail O'Hara is a writer, editor, photographer, filmmaker, event organizer and documenter. She was born in Washington, D.C., learned a lot about music, journalism and film at Virginia Commonwealth University, and worked at the Washington City Paper, where she met Pam Berry. The two friends started a fanzine called chickfactor in 1992. For a decade she was its primary photographer, taking photos of musicians interviewed in it. O'Hara lived in New York City from 1992 to 2003, during which time she lived a super-music-intensive life, working at SPIN, Time Out New York as music editor, setting up chickfactor parties with live music, running a small label, interviewing and photographing and often hosting many artists at her apartment on East 19th Street in Manhattan. She became the primary photographer of Stephin Merritt's many projects from 1994 to 2002, and was commissioned to photograph such bands as Yo La Tengo, Low and Pavement. She moved to London from 2003 to 2007, where she photographed such bands as the Clientele, Pipas and the Would-Be-Goods and the city she adores. She co-directed and co-produced a documentary film called Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields (2010). She had a solo exhibition at Other Music in 2000, and was in a group show at Ladyfest 2000 in Olympia. She lives in Portland.
"There's something about Gail O'Hara's photographs that make me want to have dinner with everyone in them. They're intimate, sporty and have a scruffy sophistication that makes me thirsty for more." -- Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, author
"The key to Gail O'Hara's portraiture is her supernatural ability to relax her subject to the point where the camera is almost forgotten." -- Stephin Merritt, The Magnetic Fields
"Through Gail O'Hara's lens, the old look innocent, the young look wise, the ugly, seductive, and the beautiful, human." -- Lupe Nunez-Fernandez, songwriter-artist
THURSDAY, JUNE 14th, 7pm
Print Fancy!
Group Release Party and Self-Publisher Social!
Print Fancy! is a bi-monthly celebration of recently released self-published titles! A handful of top notch self-publishers read from their work. Plus audience participation! Refreshments! Prizes! More information coming soon...
THURSDAY, JULY 5th, 6pm
The Axiom Absurd
New work by Harlan Mahaffy
More details soon...
