Lickety Split: Guerrilla Art and Advertising in the City

We will be hosting an opening reception for Meera Lee Sethi's exhibit Lickety Split: Guerrilla Art and Advertising in the City on Saturday, July 8 from 7-9. Lickety Split features photographs of street art, often ephemeral, sometimes transgressive, always strikingly original fragments of urban culture. The particular pieces of art showcased may have already disappeared from the streets of Boston and Cambridge—where these photographs were taken—but, as street art continues to flourish in cities across America and around the world, we guarantee that as soon as you leave the the exhibit, you won't be able to help seeing more. In addition to documenting the phenomena that is street art via photographs, Meera also brings a voice to the artists themselves by including their words and views, as they share their perspectives on their work, its origins, its meaning, and its subversive humor.

So, come one, come all for a night of subversive sticker and street art!

More New Stock!

We just got tons of new fun stuff in...Are you starting to sense a trend?? And my top 3 personal picks are:

Found #2: More of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World




You've seen the magazine, you've seen the dirty magazine, you may have even seen the first book, but now Davy Rothbart is back with another book of incredibly hilarious finds from folks all over the world! My personal faves are the announcer's script from a strip club, a sign selling a pen cap for 35 cents, a note found in a hotel room bed reading "If this is still here, they didn't make the bed after I slept in it," and multiple fan letters to Adam Sandler (what's up with that??)

Grrrl: A Novel by Jennifer Whiteford



Reminiscent of Michelle Embree's Manstealing for Fat Girls and Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned, Grrrl is a tale of coming of age complete with evil classmates, a love of music, sexual confusion, and all the other elements that help make up the teenage angst that we all know and love to read about.

Tattooed Memoirs #4 by Sage Adderley



I've always loved Sage's zine Tattooed Memoirs since the first time I read it. Sage is a heavily tattooed woman, a stay-at-home, and a participant in all that is cool and creative. She runs Sweet Candy Zine Distro, puts out multiple zines, and just started an alternative arts center and zine library in Philly. In this issue of her zine, she focuses a lot on her gardening exploits and her two daughters. Be warned, the pics of them are too cute for words!

And We're Back...

Did you miss me while I was gone?? In other news, when I returned, there were a ton of packages piled up, so we've got many, many new items in stock. In comic news, there are quite a few of Missy Kulik's things, including her book Personal Charm.



And, remember Pagan Kennedy will be in on Saturday at 4, reading from Confessions of A Memory Eater. Although different from her previous books, Confessions is equally impressive. I've loved everything she's ever written and this book was no exception. I never wanted it to end....

We Will Be Closed...

from June 14-16, reopening on Saturday, June 17. Thanks!!

Confessions of a Memory Eater by Pagan Kennedy--Reading and Signing--June 24, 4pm

What if you could return to the most delicious moments of your past and live inside them again with crystal clarity? What if you could decide to simply pop a pill and leave the difficulty of the present for a time of your choosing? The day you aced an impossible performance or heard the words “I love you” from someone you adore. What if you were diagnosed with a fatal disease? And what if there was a drug that enabled you, instead of spending your last days on earth surrounded by well-meaning relatives, to escape, to travel back to the time you were strongest in your life? Would you take the drug? What would you do to get it?

Win Duncan, the protagonist of Pagan Kennedy’s latest, Confessions of a Memory Eater, is at a cross roads in his career (and his marriage) when he is mysteriously summoned by Litminov, a wild but brilliant outlaw he knew in grad school at Columbia. Litminov has made millions since, and has bought a pharmaceutical company solely to develop Mem, an experimental drug that gives the user the ability to live inside one’s memories with crystal clarity. Duncan becomes a beta tester and loses himself to the most delicious moments of his past—until he finds that the present pales by comparison.

Pagan Kennedy is the author of seven previous books in a variety of genres, including novels and non-fiction narratives. Fascinated by pop culture and alternative lifestyles, she’s the highly acclaimed author of Platforms: A Microwaved Cultural Chronicle of the 1970s; Pagan Kennedy’s Living: A Handbook for Maturing Hippies; Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo; and several novels; as well as the creator of the ’90s zine Pagan’s Head. A proven master of underground literature, beat fiction, and narrative nonfiction, in Confessions, Kennedy takes on America’s obsession with the idealized past with freshness, wit, and an uncanny ability to measure the pulse of postmodern culture.

Pagan Kennedy will be reading from Confessions of a Memory Eater on Saturday, June 24 at 4 pm at Feed Your Head Books, 272 Essex Street, Salem, MA (accessible by MBTA via the commuter rail to Salem). Admission is free. For more information, please contact randie@feedyourheadbooks.com or call 978-744-4009.

And enough of the PR stuff. Seriously, Pagan Kennedy is one of my all-time favorite authors, so come and check her out. It's not just hype!

Want to Learn How to Fix Your Own Bike??

It is once again time for me to pimp our newest upcoming event: A Bike Repair Workshop led by Sam Tracy on Sunday, June 11 at 2 pm.

Sam Tracy, Boston-based bicycle mechanic and author of the book Bicycle: A Repair and Maintenance Manifesto will answer all your bike questions! He'll be reading from Bicycle! about bike maintenance and leading a workshop on basic bike repair, including fixing a flat tire, performing a bolt check (going over the basic safety test done at shops to make sure a bike is safe to ride), adjusting brakes and derailleurs, and more. Not just a bike mechanic, Sam is also a bicylce activist, a zinester, and all-around cool guy, so check it out!

This Just In...

The opening of Sensuality, desire . . . and other warm places: The artistic journey of Rose Henry was a huge success last night! If you didn't get a chance to stop in Rose's paintings will be on display at the store until the end of the month, so there's still time for you to check them out.


In other news, we just got a ton of new stuff in! In no particular order, we are now the proud stockers of Sticker Nation: The Big Book of Subversive Stickers (which may be by new favorite!); Confessions of A Former Dittohead, which started as Jim Derych's diary on the popular website Daily Kos; and Homegrown: Conversations on Race and Culture, the latest by bell hooks.


We also got in two of the latest books in the Feminist Press's Femme Fatales series: Women's Barracks by Torreska Torres and The G-String Murders by Gypsy Rose Lee. Women's Barracks, an account of life among female Free French soldiers in a London barracks during World War II, was originally published in 1950 and inspired a whole new genre: lesbian pulp! A mystery set in the underworld of burlesque theater, The G-String Murders was penned in 1941 by the legendary queen of the stripteasers.


For those of you who can't wait for Pagan Kennedy's signing on June 24 to pick up a copy of her latest, Confessions of A Memory Eater is now in stock. If it's not on display, just ask for it!

Tonight: Sensuality, desire . . . and other warm places

Reminder: The exhibit opening for Sensuality, desire . . . and other warm places: The artistic journey of Rose Henry will take place TONIGHT (Saturday, June 3) at 7 pm. Please join us for fine food and drink in appreciation of Rose's sensuous oil landscapes and bodyscapes.

Like Books by Crimethinc? Books About Wandering? Books About Growing Up and Trying to Find Yourself?

Then Manifesto's for you! Manifesto is an anonymous novel published by dedrabbit International Artist Collectives (an underground network of people committed to art, individual freedom and social activism). In the words of dedrabbit, Manifesto is about: punks, delinquents, drug-culture, growing up, dreaming, jazz, insanity, not liking anything, graffiti, absurdity, delirium, hope, darkness, dropping out, farming, moving around, maladjustment, not fitting in, wanting to be good, being drunk, lost, sad, alone, cold, sick, strung-out, fed-up, misunderstood, disenfranchised, bored, alienated, scared, confused, dispossessed, hungry, tired, self-absorbed, disappointed, deranged, disgusted . . .

Excerpt:

I hated school. I hated work. I hated boredom. I had no interests. I had a happy childhood. There was school, adolescence, growing up, questions about the future. I was twenty-one. I had no dream.

I dropped in and out of college. After three years I wasn’t going back. Students sat on lawns, drank coffee, held books, discussed ideas, wore expensive sandals and footwear. Professors taught classes on campus greens. Students basked in youth, in the fine times of college. I was told I’d meet my friends for life in college. Everywhere people smoked, sat on wide steps of academic buildings, enjoyed the outdoors together, like people in glossy-paged catalogues. I hated college atmosphere.

I left college for the last time as impulsively as ever—free and happy—like I had a bottomless pocket of money, fully funded, like my lungs were fresh and I could still run a mile in under six minutes. Cars passed slow with the wind brushing up my hair. I listened to the dusty dirt on the bottoms of my new leather shoes. I felt slow like a fish underwater, like a soft cloud pulled along. I was content to be slow, away from the vague traps between cause and effect. Birds made noise along the roadsides, up high in the light-green pine needles. I smelled the sandy heat. When I closed my eyes I believed I had a grand future; I had no problems; the past didn’t matter. I was going to make my life an adventure.

I hated being told I needed health insurance. I was sick of car insurance; tired of people that told me to go back to school, earn the degree, make something of my life. People went to college and got what they paid for. I hated the relationship, the equation, the vending machine dispensing crinkly-packaged candies and chips. I didn’t want a high-paying job. I hated jobs. I didn’t want an obvious life.

Buy It Here!

In Our Continuing Quest to Provide You With Quality Comics . . .

We just got in all 3 print issues of Mossdale Estate, Angee Lennard's long-run comic.

Mossdale Estate is a run of the mill nursing home in a run of the mill city. Rose, a leading character, is a strong willed lady who is having a hard time adjusting to dependancy. John, her good friend, is unwilling to accept his dependancy. Together they combat their surrounding and come out strong.

Each issue is beautifully produced and, hey, how can you not love a comic about something so unique?