"lesbian enclave" by Ike Floor, "X2 major" by Carl Aagesen, "alien" by Riley, collage by Joe Bly

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collaborative poem by Alex Bonner, Jess Rose, and Joe Bly

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Happy 420!

inconvenience yrself tonite

tonite: live @ the inconvenience...

Rachele Eve, Lion Limb, Gabe Ruiz, Ryan Murphy, & DJ DOJO
5$@door pbr@$1 wine@$2
3036 N Lincoln

"rocket" by Riley, "parody" by Jess Rose, "good grief!" by HK

GRIT wants you!

Kneeling on Grits, a feminist zine outta good ol' Columbia college, is calling for submissions. they want poetry, fiction, nonfiction/essays, and visual art (digital art, drawing/paintings, photography, comics). Submissions should address feminist, gender/sexual orientation, race, class, or other issues of discrimination and oppression. email stephzanie@gmail.com by April 23rd (a week from this Thursday) and include the name you would like to be published under. You will be notified by April 30th if your work is selected.

speaking of gender...

come to Columbia's

GenderFusions 5: FREAK PARADE EXTRAORDINAIRRE!

Full Schedule

SATURDAY APRIL 18th: The event kicks off at 6pm with a presentation by keynote speaker Del LaGrace Volcano at Ferguson Hall, 600 S. Michigan Ave (1st flr). At 7pm, the FREAK PARADE will take off from this location, and anyone is welcome to join the parade- jugglers, poets, stilt walkers, drag queens, hippie cyclists, cowboys, tattooed ladies, midwesterners and their ilk will freak out the squares and make sum noise, and you're invited to join! Aaand... there will be FREE FOOD! At 8pm, the Spectacle begins at 618 S Michigan (2nd flr). The spectacle will include performances by drag queens, drag kings, musicians, poets (at least one, that is- yours truly) & writers, dancers (burlesque and otherwise) in fabulous costumes and all shades of gender expression. it's a mere $5 for students ($10 gen), with 75 FREE tickets being reserved for the first 75 kids to e-mail lgbtq@colum.edu . Performers include Del LaGrace Volcano, Lenelle Moise, La Dulce Palabra, Matthew Hollis, Darrell Jones, Lisa Danielson, Tristan Silverman, Avery R. Young, Misty DeBerry, Ames Hawkins, Sharon St. James, & Johnny T. oh, & HK.

Graffitti Loves You!

taken mostly in logan square in the loop, from the summer to spring of this past year. the last pic is from an actual police website dedicated to combating grafitti. while Elephant encourages the use of public space for artistic expression, we certainly do not endorse gang violence. the crayon grafitti that says kill pres i dent was in reference to bush, not obama. the CTA one was a sticker series that was posted on el cars. "rodents everywhere" was posted on the congress hotel, site of 5 year strike. that next to last photo says "implant this". a few of these are actually not grafitti, but cool anyway.

"How did I get to a place I never planned to be at?" by Alex Schmidt

"total 1" by Jen NW, "ready to leave" by Sean, "o'yea" by Riley, "gummo" by HK, Jess Rose, & OEM

^click on the image for a closer look^

SUPER FISH HOLE & "It's Just Bingo, Bitch!"

TONITE! CITYWIDE! BE THERE!

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This Friday: Pete Skvara's "SUPER FISH HOLE or how to get in shape" art opening show at 816 w 19th. exhibit will be open til the 30th. Wine & cheese. If you are epilleptic, be careful, there will be some crazy-ass lighting. Pete's past/current projects include Elephantz #1, the Mustache Gallery, and a stack of sci-fi books offset by a used bong, and Jettison Quarterly.

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This Monday is the 7th anniversary of "It's Just Bingo, Bitch! with Frida Lay and Lauren Jacobs", aka drag queen bingo, at Charlie's, a boy bar off the Addison Red Line stop. It's free with $2 well drinks, but be sure and bring some singles for tips- everytime B1 is called, everyone gets a free shot. If O69 is called, you have to make sex noises. The prizes vary from week to week and are pretty decent, but the real entertainment is the sassy queens- the second i sat down at the table, one of them called out "she looks like she could eat a pussy down". well, nice to meet you too Miss Lauren. Get there early if you want a seat- while the night I went it was pretty quiet, regulars say the place is usually packed, and the ladies will be dressed in their finest, so you're gonna want front row seats. 11pm-1am 3726 N Broadway St

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I finally managed to get out to the Ashland Open Mic, and let me tell you, it was well worth the trip. Musicians dominated, so poets, let's get out there! The Ashland is a neat, cozy little bar in Bucktown that sports Batman paraphanelia and colorful surreal local art. It was White Trash Wendesday, which meant $2 tallboys, a great deal that doomed me by the end of the night, trying to stave off the spins til Rachele and Niko, good folks that they are, got my ass home, altho i might not've made it if not for the free hot dog somebody gave me. one of the bar tenders was sporting a Dave McKean tattoo and we talked comics for a while, the other had mad dreds and talked about festivals. Some of the acts weren't that great, a few blew me away,The short time limit made the less than kickass acts more enjoyable. and they were all entertaining, and the crowd was enthusiastic and supportive. Thanks Rachele!

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Joe Bly has posted a bunch of new poems on the redfloors blog. Haven't read them all yet but I am super fuckin excited to do so.

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Also, buy a streetwise in the next week and you may see a familiar name (I'm in the West Loop issue) as well as gaining 2 bucks wortha karma points.