Summer Reads

 

Microcosm Publishing - Summer 2022 Lineup

Enter Sandwich: Some Kind of Vegan Cooking with No Connection to Metallica by Automne Zingg and Joshua Ploeg Available Now! Hey Ho Let's Dough!: 1! 2! 3! 40 Vegan Pizza Recipes Unrelated to the Ramones by Automne Zingg and Joshua Ploeg Available Now! Speak In Tongues: An Oral History of Cleveland's Infamous DIY Punk Venue by Eric Sandy and Ken Blaze Coming July 5th

Enter Sandwich: Some Kind of Vegan Cooking with No Connection to Metallica  by Automne Zingg and Joshua Ploeg Oh, aging rockers. We've all seen them struggle to get along and cope with life. Maybe they just need to sit around a backyard picnic table, share a vegan feast, and talk about their feelings. After all, to live is to stir fry. Automne Zingg, genius mastermind behind Comfort Eating with Nick Cave and Defensive Eating with Morrissey is back with hilarious illustrations of the band's revolving cast eating their feelings and expressing their enthusiasm for food, but in a tough and intense way. "Yeahms!" sings James, riffing on a giant yam. Zingg's work is coupled with the inventive and flavorful recipes of chef and queercore punk musician, Joshua Ploeg. Written in lyrical form, the recipes parody 40 of the most quintessential tunes. Crank up the volume while concocting plant-based recipes like Master of Nuggets, Pie of the Beholder, an All Nightmare Footlong, or maybe just a little stock. So let it be eaten. (Just don't try to illegally download this book.)

Hey Ho Let's Dough!: 1! 2! 3! 40 Vegan Pizza Recipes Unrelated to the Ramones  by Automne Zingg and Joshua Ploeg When you don’t wanna go down to the pizzeria, whip up these vegan pizzas. Automne Zingg—mastermind behind Comfort Eating with Nick Cave, Defensive Eating with Morrissey, and Enter Sandwich—has illustrated pizza-themed boys-from-Queens homages, as they eat pizza, sneer at pepperoni, and play pizza guitars. Joshua Ploeg’s recipes wittily incorporate vaguely familiar lyrics and humor. Pizzas range from traditional marinara with vegetables and veggie sausage (Texas Chain Sauce Massacre) and white sauce specials (Carbonara Not Glue), to variations like Beet on the Brat, Havana Pizza Affair, Thyme Bomb. “Well, I’m Against It,” comments Johnny, but you’ll find a pineapple pizza recipe in here as well. Pizza is deconstructed, reconstructed, and, like the best bands, turns into something far better than the sum of its parts.

Speak In Tongues: An Oral History of Cleveland's Infamous DIY Punk Venue by Eric Sandy and Ken Blaze  Speak In Tongues was a freewheeling, community-run underground music venue in Cleveland, Ohio that operated on a do-it-yourself basis throughout the late 1990s. The venue fostered a flourishing creative culture, where you could enjoy a puppet show from a spray-painted couch or meet other punks to start a band or a movement, but was also smoothly run with a great sound system and the best curation of music that you could hear in the city during its tenure. On any given night, you could go see hardcore punk, experimental jazz, or thrash shows where fireworks were set off inside the building. Traveling bands regularly booked shows there, including ones that went on to greater fame, like Modest Mouse, Avail, Lifter Puller, Jimmy Eat World, Alkaline Trio, Milemarker, and J Church. Venue operators, and later a management collective, contended with police surveillance, skinheads with knives, an exploding oil drum full of raw meat, a flaming car, and a different number of riots depending on who you ask.  There may not have been a bar, but a healthy BYOB policy ensures that everyone’s memory is different, resulting in an entertaining story of a place that truly was what you made it, the source of lifelong friendships and endless lore.  This comprehensive oral history tells a story that is greater than the sum of each person’s recollections, forming a picture of a unique, weird, special place that deeply informed the next twenty years of Cleveland’s underground culture.

Literacy, It's A Thing

Funny Bunny
James Corden

With Peter Rabbit opening February 9th the voice of the famed hare, James Corden took to the bunny trail to read the book the movie is based on to a group of school children.

He also announced Blue Jacket Day which drops on February the 3rd. The directive of the day is to promote literacy amongst kids. You read correct, on that day parents are to take their children to the, "gasp" library!

I remember in days of yore I went to the library quite frequently as a child. I actually won a library summer reading competition believe it or not. "Yes" I was the kid who read the most books that summer out of all the other ones participating. I don't recall how many that was, but I kicked some bookworm ass! 

Moving on...literacy it's a thing, mic drop!

For more info on reading and literacy hit up Reading Is Fundamental at:
https://www.rif.org/press-releases  

James Franco's Self Love

It's Better With A Friend
Keegan Allen & James Franco

"When I think about you I touch myself" - 

I Touch Myself, Divinyls 

Fact: Celebrities have sex too, as if you didn't already know that. Sometimes they have it with others and sometimes they are so busy that they only have time for some self love.

Judging from James Franco's comments regarding the subject matter I am guessing he's fly's solo more than playing well with others. "Yes" moments in bed with the likes of Keegan Allen of Pretty Little Liars fame are far and few between for James and his Franco. 

Here is what he has to say about how he let's go:

"It's like you have those days where it's just like, I have a ton of writing to do, or a ton of reading to do, and you're just like, okay, I'm going to be on the couch all day or in bed all day just doing that."

Get it? Got It? Good...Now you have the image of Franco going to his happy place lodged in your brain with no chance of banishment.

Chill out, as James would say "Relax!" 

James on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/JamesFranco