Mildred Pierce #4: Comedy and the Grotesque is officially alive!! HUGE thanks to all who have helped make this issue possible.
This issue features cover art by Edie Fake, inside cover art by Eamon Espey; its guts include….
- A review of the cult horror film Slither by Daniel Moseley
- A slicing-dicing deconstruction by Bonnie Kaserman
- Two comic vignettes by Ellen Nielsen
- A Real Asshole — essay by Marc Baez
- Bernhard – Kinski – Theodore: Only a Madman Would Imitate Madness — essay by John Berndt
- FEH-MUH-NIST: A Consideration of Offense in Diane DiMassa’s Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist — essay by Vicky Lim
- Reinventing the Grotesque: Wangechi Mutu’s Beautifully Mutating Women — essay by Joyce Kuechler
- Charlottesville’s Lady Arm Wrestlers: A Bawdy, Rowdy, Satirical, Political, Feminist, Community-Based Performance Art Movement — feature by Leeyanne Moore
- Barf Transitive: Bulimic Writing as Feminist Resistance — essay by Megan Milks
- You Want to Make a Joke About That? A Brief History on the Development of My Lisp by Jim Joyce
- a feature on artist Jimmy Joe Roche by John Bylander
- a feature on puppeteer Sean Samoheyl by Leeyanne Moore
- fiction by James Tadd Adcox, Jake Hostetter, and Leeyanne Moore
- interviews with musician/writer Sabrina Chap and artists Edie Fake and Pippi Zornoza
- comics, illustration and art by Noel Freibert, Carrie Fucile, Zach Hazard, Gerry Mak, Sarah Magida, Jason Miles, and Ed Choy Moorman
- and more!
Those of you who pre-ordered, we’re in the process of getting your copies out. The rest of ya, for now, while we’re working on distribution, can purchase an issue through PayPal: send $9 ($8 + $1 shipping) to mildredpiercezine@gmail.com including your mailing address in the note.
See you at Quimby’s on Saturday, February 26th!
Filed under: art, comedy, grotesque, interview | Tags: art opening, baltimore, chelsea, jimmy joe roche, newyork
A still from one of the videos in "Under Pressure"
This week would be a good week to go and check out Under Pressure, Jimmy Joe Roche’s solo show at Rare Gallery in New York. I myself am trying to make it back there, having attended the opening a few weeks back. I am really excited about this show, and eager to get a second, closer look at some of the videos and installations before the show comes down. The forthcoming issue of Mildred Pierce features a profile of Roche and his work. If you have not been already, check out his site, and check out the show, up through February 3. Rare Gallery is at 547 W 27 St, #514, New York, NY.
Filed under: art, comedy, grotesque | Tags: chicago, issue 4, release party
AHOY CHICAGO!!!!
Please help us celebrate the release of MILDRED PIERCE ISSUE #4, “Comedy and the Grotesque” (cover designed and screenprinted by Edie Fake)….
at Quimby’s Bookstore (1854 W. North Ave) …
on SATURDAY, February 26th, 2011 at 7 pm.
Joining us to provide readings and performances are MP contributors James Tadd Adcox, Edie Fake, Jim Joyce, Vicky Lim, Ed Choy Moorman, and Ellen Nielsen!!!!! (Keep reading for these talented people’s bios.)
Wine and refreshments plus limited-edition zines! HOLY COW see you there.
James Tadd Adcox is the editor-in-chief of Artifice Magazine (artificemag.com). His work has appeared in The Literary Review, TriQuarterly, and Lamination Colony, among other places. He lives in Chicago.
Edie Fake is the author of Gaylord Phoenix, now available as a collection from Secret Acres. He’s received a Critical Fierceness Grant for queer art and was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists. His drawings have been included in Hot and Cold, Creative Time Comics, and LTTR. Currently, he lives in Chicago where he works as a minicomics sommelier for Quimby’s Books.
Jim Joyce graduated from St. Rita High School in 2004. His zine, Or Let It Sink, explores desire, failure, and personal mythology. Jim works in the education field and enjoys keeping a journal.
Vicky Lim has a zine (Dear Jaguar) and a blog (Personal Statements) and lives in Chicago.
Ed Choy Moorman is a New Jersey-raised, Minneapolis College of Art and Design-schooled, Chicago-based cartoonist. He is the editor and publisher of the 2009 Xeric Award-winning Ghost Comics anthology from Bare Bones Press. (http://edsdeadbody.com/ + http://edchoymoorman.wordpress.com/)
Ellen Nielsen is an interdisciplinary artist whose body of work includes writing, performance, objects, video, and graphic design. She received her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland and is currently pursuing her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Filed under: art, comedy, grotesque, interview, submissions | Tags: art, comedy, comix, contributors, cultural criticism, ha-ha, issue 4, submissions, writing
We welcome aboard the following writers, artists, and interviewees to the slow cruise ship that is MP#4:
James Tadd Adcox, Marc Baez, Max Eisenberg, Carrie Fucile, Bonnie Kaserman, Joyce Kuechler, Vicky Lim, Leeyanne Moore, Ed Choy Moorman, Dan Moseley, Ellen Nielsen, Jimmy Joe Roche, Sean Samoheyl, James Solitaire, Jennifer Tidwell.
Glad to have you! The rollout may be slow but it is sure.
Filed under: comedy | Tags: anti-oppression, comedy, ethics, gender, ha-ha, oppression, tv
Rachel McCarthy James (RJM) over at the Bitch blog TelevIsm has a great post up on how comedy can expose and work against oppression. Here’s a brief cut from her introduction:
Conditions for an Anti-Oppression Joke
IF a character on a television reflects or reinforces the kyriarchy through problematic/loaded language or actions.
AND the action/language is critiqued or rebutted by another character
AND said rebuttal/critique is framed as reasonable and valid
THEN the joke constitutes critique of kyriarchy in society.
These are, of course, not the only kind of jokes that can be critical of the kyriarchy. This applies to jokes on shows like The Office that are not rhetorically anti-oppression the way that shows like, say, Treme or The Boondocks are.
She then moves to an analysis of a scene from The Office to demonstrate how this can work. Really nicely broken down and useful criteria for thinking about comedy and oppression. Dig.
Filed under: comedy, grotesque, music | Tags: $$$, bakhtin, barf, buffets, camp, gaga, grotesque, ha-ha, humor, hunx, peaches, queer, xiu xiu
Swiped this vid from Young Creature. Behold Hunx & His Punx engaging in communal binging! Behold the eroticization of food/eating as well as the funny irony of the song’s sentiment in light of Hunx’s delivery both vocally and performatively! Voila la comedie grotesque!
(Interestingly, there is a thing called a hunkypunk, a regional term (Somerset, England) for a grotesque carving of a squatting animal, not unlike the sheelanagig (see PJ Harvey’s “Sheelanagig” for an explication of this image in rock). Look at these…
a 'hunkypunk'
a 'sheela na gig'
)
One wonders, is the comedic grotesque definitive of queer camp? I’m thinking Peaches, I’m thinking Xiu Xiu — both of whose videos tend to deliver their music with crassness and winks.
(See vids & read more after the jump…)
Filed under: comedy, grotesque | Tags: barf, bellamy, body, eating disordered language, grotesque, issue 4, literature, myles, new narrative, shit, vomit, xiu xiu, zambreno
1. In 2004, Eileen Myles gives a talk called “Everyday Barf.” I know nothing of this.
2. In 2008, Dodie Bellamy publishes Barf Manifesto, a chapbook collecting two lectures she’s written/delivered in homage to and appropriating in certain ways the style of “Everyday Barf.”
One of these lectures I have the opportunity to attend. It is scheduled for 8:30 a.m.; it is winter in Chicago; it is snowing. I sleep in.
3. I come across Barf Manifesto two years later by accident. Am thrilled by Bellamy’s defiantly loose and idiosyncratic approach to the essay form. (It is my first brush with Bellamy. Probably if I had gone to the lecture, who knows where I’d be different.)
4. Reading Bellamy’s response to “Everyday Barf,” I realize I own a copy of Sorry, Tree, the collection of Myles’ poetry in which “Everyday Barf” appears. I own this book by accident because I won it in a raffle. I read “Everyday Barf” and the rest of the collection, which I’ve since lent to a friend who needs to give it back to me; am bolstered by the reminder that Myles exists in my world and lifetime.
5. I go see Eileen Myles read in November 2009. She Is Great. Afterwards, go for dinner with friends, eat too much, go home, barf a lot, involuntarily. In a move that is often but not always unusual for me, I post personal information to my Facebook page about this uncommon incident: the barfing (I do not do it often). Trembling with the thrill of public confession accompanied by the immediate gratification of amused and supportive “likes” and comments, I comment and recomment on my status update, narrating a simultaneity of barfings, a layering of all of the recent and various barfings I’ve experienced (my own few, my oddly numerous encounters with the barfings of others). Next day, cringe,
6. Shortly thereafter, spurred by these electrolyte-deficient Facebook postings, I begin writing an essay for Mildred Pierce after the essays in Barf Manifesto which are after “Everyday Barf.”
7. Shortly thereafter, I chance upon Kate Zambreno’s blog, find her doing the same sort of thing!
8. Am initially crestfallen, like knife to heart, betrayed by shattered unreasonable hopes/illusions/etc, then realize no, I have never been original; there is an answer, which is to bring Kate Zambreno into the essay, particularly her v. fascinating thoughts on bulimic versus anorexic writing.
9. Begin internet-stalking Kate Zambreno. Turns out we attended many of the same panels at &NOW and probably sat in the same row at the Gurlesque panel (though on opposite sides of the room). Turns out she lived in Chicago while I also lived in Chicago. Turns out like MISSED CONNECTION. One day, Kate Zambreno, we will together spew.
10.
BARF BARF MANIFESTO MANIFESTO (working title) forthcoming, Mildred Pierce Issue 4, release date possibly May 2010.
