Needles & Pens presents,
A reading by Dream Whip zine author & film maker,
BILL BROWN
@ The Luggage Store Gallery
1007 Market St (at 6th Street) San Francisco, CA
Saturday, May 18 from 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
INFO:
Bill Brown delights us with a personal appearance, in from North Carolina with a charming “how-to” volume, “Action!” The artist-author reads from this self-illustrated guide to film- and video-making and also from the latest issue of his beloved travel ‘zine, DREAM WHIP. Bill then introduces an inspiring mid-career overview of his personal documentaries, headlined by the West Coast premiere of Memorial Land, a careful consideration of architectural sites honoring the 9/11 dead. ALSO: Chicago Corner, Confederation Park, Mountain State, and his recent Document, a laser-printer-to-16mm rendering of a redacted CIA text. Q&A, and books available! $6
Bill Brown’s Dreamwhip zine is a raw little chunk of America full of darkened crop-fields and desert moonlight and sad, empty diners. Now in its 14th issue, Dreamwhip is a zine with some history behind it. “I was skateboarding one night, back in early ’90s,” Bill explains over email. “It was late, and it was cold. I hit a rock and, suddenly, I was lying on my back and the sky was full of shooting stars. I was dizzy for a year. I started doing a zine to take my mind off my broken head. I finally got better, more or less, but the zine kept going.” The long-running Dreamwhip is an informed, articulate, patient piece of existential storytelling. In a tone that’s half Ira Glass, half Cometbus, Bill’s 344-page pocket-size 14th issue gives us stories of biblical theme parks and border-crossers, of Dutch punks and haunted houses. His is a wide-spanning, optimistic, Technicolored America, more Woody Allen than Kerouac, but always on the road. As says Bill, “Dreamwhip is a bad country song full of open roads and achy hearts and ratty motel rooms where I take stock of how many miles I’ve gone and how many I’ve still got to go.”
