Weekly Roundup for 7/12/13
Every Friday, the Akashic team highlights industry news, reviews, and features from around the web. This week’s roundup comes to you from Akashic intern Melissa Bean!
News & Features
Chain & the Gang Announces US Summer Tour Dates
Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group author Ian F. Svenonius will be touring the US this summer with his band, Chain & the Gang!
“The Peyote Factory” by Jonathan Santlofer
I always told myself that I’d never use anything stronger than pot. I was a middle class kid away from home, NYU, my second year of art school, and hard drugs scared the shit out of me. But pot, I loved it. I smoked in the morning, afternoon and night. I’d go to school stoned, paint stoned, fuck stoned. It was 1970 and I was living on Avenue C. It looked like the set for an end of the world movie: deserted tenements, bums, hustlers, junkies and pushers on every corner . . .
Indie Bookstore Spotlight: Bank Square Books (Mystic, CT)
This week Akashic in Good Company is delighted to feature a virtual tour of an excellent indie bookstore in Connecticut: Bank Square Books!
“The Blood Work of Language” by Yusef Komunyakaa (from Thomas Glave’s Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh)
There are few voices as urgent as Thomas Glave’s. In Among the Bloodpeople, he neither hesitates nor attempts to prepare us for the unsayable “that” which divorces some men and women from their Jamaican families. No sooner than a quick leap, we are wound in the bloody, necessary realities of Politics and Flesh . . .
“The Alderman” by Vincent Francone
“I wanted him dead because of the foie gras ban. He was the guy who got it banned in Chicago. And he’s my alderman. I’ve lived in Rogers Park my whole life. I’ve seen a lot of asshole politicians come and go, a lot of machine Democrats and Daley patsies, but this guy is the worst . . .”
Events Featuring Prodigy of Mobb Deep
Join Prodigy of Mobb Deep at powerHouse Arena to celebrate H.N.I.C and the launch of Infamous Books!
Johnny Temple Interviews Marvis Johnson of Infamous Books
Marvis Johnson, a partner at Infamous, is the business manager of Albert “Prodigy” Johnson and co-manager of Mobb Deep, the renowned hip-hop duo made up by Prodigy and Havoc. Infamous has partnered with Akashic Books to create the Infamous Books imprint, which is launching with Prodigy’s novella H.N.I.C. Akashic publisher Johnny Temple asks Marvis about his background, how he and Prodigy came to work together, and about the current state of the music and book industries.