This Season and its Performative Things
September 9, 2010
As the performance web site and calendar for the gallery is slowly coming together, I thought for my first blog post I’d give a quick overview of some of the different series and events we’ll be producing this fall.
The Open Secret: Curated by Brian Wallace and Joni Murphy, this series delves into how artists invest themselves in local community while still keeping an eye to the internet and the various new communities cyber-space affords. This series will be a mish-mash of artist talks, performances, and film screenings from those local and distant that’ll be wrapped up into a sassy publication.
Now It’s Dark: Local improvisor/art-music/nice hair dude Marc Riordan curates a series of experimental films with improvised scores other local improvisors. Marc was at the space yesterday telling me and Abby about one of the movies he’ll be showing: Peanut-butter and Robin the Boy-Wonder is all I’m gonna say. David Moré-who’s show of sound portraits is up at the moment-will be lending his singing saw to the movies, and Jeff Kimmel, Jason Roebke, and Brian Labycz will be around too.
Quiet Circle:More improvisation, but rather than facing a screen, the musicians will be arranged throughout the gallery–the better to make subtle noises that investigate spatiality and notions of collaboration at a distance, my dear. Everything I’ve ever seen curator Noé Cuéllar do is smart (pressed suit rather than SAT) and luscious (folds of thick corduroy rather than lip gloss): ten people playing politely in a circle isn’t just an idea he had, it’s his thing.
As Yet Untitled Experimental Movie Night:Co-curator Jesse McClean has been in Venice for the film fest for the last few days, so we’re still working out the title for this one, but it’s gonna be a doozy: three nights of film that investigate the connections between director and audience. 20 minute Van Halen solos? Middle school kids cussing? The entire cast of Hello Dolly recording the entire Harry Smith folk archive set under heavy sedation? One of these things will not be apart of this series. Co-curated with Eric Fleischauer.
As Yet Untitled Established Authors talking to Younger Authors:I really want to call this night Crosstalk! or At the Table! or Around the Coyote! (…) to give it the Sunday morning TV zazz I think it deserves. This night is being curated by Beth Sampson, who’s working on the new School of the Art Institute journal Dear Navigator, and she’s got poets coming out of her ears/flying in from all over, all of whom I can’t talk about yet. Why am I doing so? Because poetry is a passive-aggressive media.
The Parlor also begins tonight with Gina Frangello and continues through December: Atomix regular Adam Levin will be up in October reading from his new book from McSweeney’s and urban-running-womyn Lindsay Hunter reads sideways from her new featherproof book in November.
Devin King Reading at Danny’s Reading Series
August 26, 2010
posted by Caroline Picard
Here is a link to Devin’s reading!
Danny’s Reading Series
August 16, 2010
The Danny’s Tavern Reading Series
August 18th 2010!
9th Anniversary Reading
Featuring readings by Patrick Culliton, Devin King, and Caroline Picard
Patrick Culliton’s chapbook Hornet Homily is available from Octopus Books. Recent work has appeared, or will soon, in Another Chicago Magazine, Beeswax, Conduit, Eleven Eleven and elsewhere. He teaches at UIC and Loyola.
Devin King’s first book CLOPS is out from the Green Lantern Press. He lives and works in Chicago.
Caroline Picard is the Founding Director of The Green Lantern Gallery & Press, and a Co-Editor for the literary podcast The Parlor (www. theparlorreads.com). Her writing has been published in a handful of publications including the Phildelphia Independant, NewCity, Lumpen, MAKE Magazine, the Chicago Art Journal Review and Proximity Magazine.
Another Possible Space : A Summer of Metaphorical Architectures
August 15, 2010
It has been interesting to think about the idea of space over the summer, particularly what it means to build or define it. We’ve been working it over in a number of ways–from the on-going and often Quixotic search for a permanent location, to the building of a website, and then too, the building of our on-line bookstore. In the midst of these buildings, we are, meantime, developing our rapport as a team. We meet once a week as a group to talk over our anticipated program, touch base on various issues we’re struggling with and offer updates. The website should come together with a beta version on August 25th and we’re hoping to launch it properly this September. Meantime the on-line store is supposed to go on-line this October. There will still be a period of working out the kinks also, Zach and I are pretty sure we’ll use featherproof and the Green Lantern Press as guinea pigs, load those books on the site and then see what kinds of problems arise that way, before asking for books from other presses. Since it looks like we won’t have a physical bookstore until the new year (at the earliest) we’ll have ample time to trouble shoot.
That said, there is all of this other energy in the gallery aspect of the space–we’ve pretty much squared away all of fall’s programming and it’s super exciting to know that something physical is going to manifest from that aspect of this summer’s work. Similarly, Devin has been working out the public programming/events–another interesting aspect about that issue is that, while we hope to one day have a separate performance space, this fall the gallery and the performance space are one and the same. Therefore we have to co-ordinate the physical demands of those respective projects. In other words, if a performance artist wanted to come in and do a splatter paint Galager watermellon fest, it would be impossible–because there will inevitibly be art up on the wall, or installations on the ground. It means that our fall events programming has to be fairly modest in its theatrical proportion. Thus we have a lot of readings lined up, some film screenings, a number of talks and some music events. Here too, I can’t help feeling like it’s going to help us in the long run–because I feel like we can test the waters, figure out what works and what doesn’t, and then see if we can open up our venue for larger events.
It’s all so near–right around the corner. The last two weeks feel like there’s been a lull, a little–a kind of in-between time before which we’d planned everything we possibly could plan in advance. Now, preparations are starting in a new way, to get everything ready for the ever-nearer opening in September. It’s very exciting. My favorite thing, however–I ended up in a conversation last night about the Green Lantern in which a friend of mine asked about the longevity of the project. The Green Lantern has been operating in some form for about six years. However, this new stage of developement is totally new, totally different. I thought about the Marvel Green Lantern, and then it occured to me that actually what is starting up this fall, what has been incubating this summer, is a new generation of the project. What was originally setup in my house, and put together by one group of people, is now being established off-site, by an entirely new group of people. Further, there are new aims, new interests, and with those new individuals–Zach, Abby, Devin–each arm of the project has that much more weight behind it. Something I never could have accomplished before. Obviously there will be new issues to face, other areas of weakness or tension, but it’s incredibly exciting to be a part of a project that has enough flexibility to transform.
About PostWar Psych
July 20, 2010
Takeshi Mizutani’s guitar feedback is a circle built from tangents. Each tangent is the center of a two-dimensional vector-star that moves in vortices outwards and these stars can never touch except by violence. But the listener holds on to a secret, mongrel nature that expects the reverse in his musical substance; to them, Mizutani’s feedback becomes the stock characters of a post-war play or short story and the blank centers of the costumed stars enact a strange form of passive discipline, the irreversible movements of destined emotion.
Thoughts on the Reading Last Saturday
May 6, 2010
posted by Caroline Picard
Jacob Knabb wrote a pretty sweet little ditty, along with photos from last Saturday night’s event. I’ve included an excerpt below:
King Beer is Wasted: Green Lantern Press hosts a release party for *CLOPS* & *The Wasteland and Other Poems*
On Saturday, May 1st, Green Lantern Press hosted a release party for their current author Devin King’s book-length poem *CLOPS* and John Beer’s ‘best-selling’ Canarium Books release *The Wasteland and Other Poems*. A crowd of around 40 souls attended and were treated to Devin’s splendid singing, a nice sampling from CLOPS, and an experimental poem involving personal favorites Lux Interior and Skeeter Davis (among others). John Beer followed with a poetic cycle from his book (that originally appeared in Another Chicago Magazine #47) entitled “The Perfumed Crypt, or Four Quarters in Eight Bits,” which was accompanied by a slide-show featuring Uma Thurman and a ruinous castle. Afterward, drinks were had, conversations were held, and we were ushered forth into the spring night with red wine and Shiner Bock in our ‘broken mouths.’.
You can read the whole article, along with photographs taken by Jacob himself by going here.
Reflecting on a Book Release
May 3, 2010
we also got this write up in chicago now about the book release last weekend. i posted some of it below….
Tomorrow night Green Lantern Press will celebrate the release of three new titles. Devin Kings long poem CLOPS, a new translation of Rimbaud’s A Season In Hell by Nick Sarno andThe Concrete of Tight Places by Justin Andrews. I’ve read both CLOPS and Andrews’ book, and there are both quality releases. Given the title of the book I knew there would be some “tight places” discussed, but Andrews finds himself surrounded by bodies, by boarders, by the struggles to survive. The moments that he chooses to describe give the book that feeling of being grounded in reality. What was most fascinating is that he is describing states with countries that I had to look up just to make sure they existed. These are places you would never dream of visiting, but now you have a guide to tell you how to visit and what to look out for. Even when he is discussing the gentler side of Guerrilla Armies you can feel the exotic realism in the work. The Concrete of Tight Places was printed in an edition of 500 with silkscreen covers by Nadine Nakanishi of Sonnenzimmer, this book is an adventure that has its own unwashed and unseen beauty.
posted by caroline picard
On Saturday, May 1st 2010 The Green Lantern will host a book release, celebrating three new titles from The Green Lantern Press: Devin Kings long poem CLOPS, a new translation of Rimbaud’s A Season In Hell* by Nick Sarno and The Concrete of Tight Places, an unusual guidebook by Justin Andrews that provides a“halucinatory tour of the world.” To commemorate this release, you are cordially invited to readings by Devin King and John Beer (Canarium Books, The Wasteland and Other Poems) at 7pm at the former Green Lantern Gallery space, 1511 N Milwaukee Ave., second floor, Chicago IL 60622.
During this event, all Green Lantern Press books will be available at a $5 discount.
*Proceeds from A Season In Hell will go to St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital
—about the readers—
As per CLOPS. : Using lyrical language, repetition and abstraction, King retells the Odyssey representing the original characters as surface icons who move in and out of the first person. Implicating the reader in the action of war, King reforms the epic. Printed in an edition of 250 with color plates by artist Brian McNearney. Devin King lives and works in Chicago.
John Beer’s first book, The Waste Land and Other Poems, was published by Canarium Books in April 2010. His work has appeared in Verse, The Brooklyn Rail, Denver Quarterly, Crowd, and elsewhere.
Other Forthcoming Events at 1511 N Milwaukee (whilst we keep looking for The New Space which will one day (fingers crossed) happen):
Friday April 23rd8pm
As part of the Robert Duncan Symposium, The Green Lantern hosts a reading organized by The Chicago Poetry Project featuring Stephen Collis, Joseph Donahue, Siobhán Scarry and Brian Teare
Tuesday May 4th 7pm
The Parlor, a monthly reading series and podcast, is pleased to have Rob Elder come and read excerpts from his forthcoming book, Last Words of The Executed, (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
May 18th 7:30 pm
Jenny Boully will read as part of The Chicago Poetry Project’s on-going series.
June 15th 7:30pm
Brenda Cardenas will read as part of The Chicago Poetry Project’s on-going series.
for more information regarding any of these events please contact Caroline Picard at lantern.g@gmail.com.
Where Urbesque Went To
April 16, 2010
posted by Caroline Picard
Last Friday, MAKE Magazine put together an after-party in Denver, CO. A number of publishers and writers were asked to participate. I showed two short films, one about Lust&Cashmere, the other more abstract called “These Are Not My Memories.” In the meantime Devin King (CLOPS), put a tape recording of various people reading, Green Lantern Press authors old and new–Moshe Zvi Marvit (Urbesque, 2005), Erica Adams (The Book of The Mutation of Fortune, 2011/12), Amira Hanafi (Forgery, 2011/12), and an excerpt from CLOPS. That “mix” tape was played on a tape recorder in the refrigerator so that whenever anyone opened the fridge to get a drink of some kind, the spectral voices of said authors emanated out. After the party, we played it again in the street. (See super heroine Jac Jemc in the background.)
The Green Lantern Press 
