Spotty Dog – Books & Ale

Wednesday, April 2nd 7:00pm

A New Sense of Luxury

Book Launch and Reading with Shanekia McIntosh. Free.

With musical accompaniment and DJ set by Rager.

A New Sense of Luxury (Eureka Press) is a sharp and thought-provoking exploration of mass consumption. Like holding a mirror to oneself, McIntosh forces the reader to confront the space they have in a world filled with corporate greed and digital escapism.

SHANEKIA McINTOSH
is an interdisciplinary artist rooted in poetry, performance, and installation. Her work explores memory and archives. Guided by an insatiable curiosity and interest in philosophy and history, McIntosh probes the stories we tell ourselves and interrogates who gets to tell them. Her work has been featured in the New Museum, Charim, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art’s TBA Festival, NY Live Arts, and many others. In 2021, she released her debut chapbook, Spiral as Ritual, published by Topos Press.

A New Sense of Luxury will be released three years after McIntosh’s revered chapbook Spiral As Ritual. While working on A New Sense of Luxury, McIntosh has produced several works that utilize existing signage as poetic interventions. Such works have been primarily produced in the Hudson Valley such as Hudson Amtrak Station in partnership with CREATE Council On The Arts (2024), Collarworks Gallery and the Albany Center Gallery at the Madison Theater and Palace Theater in Albany, NY (2021) as well as TAKK House in Troy, NY (2021) more recent interventions at the Catskill Community Theater (2023) and Gallery 495 (2023) in Catskill, NY simultaneously presenting the poem in two stanzas. Visit here for more information on McIntosh’s public interventions.

McIntosh is engaging in a new series of interventions to celebrate the release of A New Sense of Luxury utilizing Mid-Hudson Cablevision public access Channel 11. The poem currently airing is the first verse of the upcoming book and can be seen on the Mid-Hudson Cablevision System, which covers Greene, Southern Albany, and parts of Columbia counties.

A New Sense of Luxury is a sharp and thought-provoking exploration of mass consumption. Like holding a mirror to oneself, McIntosh forces the reader to confront the space they have in a world filled with corporate greed and digital escapism.

Eureka! Press has operated in Kingston, NY, since 2020 as a small press and residency centering QTBIPOC artists, writers, organizers, and culture-bearers. Eureka! is expanding and reimagining its printing and distribution with new collaborations and partnerships and launching an online store this year. Eureka! has previously worked on projects with local and national artists and organizations including the Center for Artistic Activism, Brick Aux, D.R.A.W. at MAD, Kites Nest, MoMA, Bard College, Strippers United, 1080Press, Wayne Koestenbaum, Vivien Sansour, Narcissister, Tivali Thomas, Antonia Crane, Rise Up Kingston, DonChristian Jones, Women’s Studio Workshop, Queer Ecology Hanky Project, and many more.

Saturday, April 12th 7:00am

Amy Rigby in Concert

+ Eric Goulden (bass/guitar) + Sam Shepard (drums). $10-20 Suggested Donation.

Amy Rigby has established herself one of America’s enduring underground/cult/indie artists, combining the insight and humor of country and folk songwriting with classic rock craftsmanship and punk DIY spirit. Raised in Pittsburgh, schooled in late 70s lower Manhattan, she formed pre-Americana country band Last Roundup and Richard Hell’s favorite girl group the Shams in NYC’s East Village before launching a solo career with 90s classic album Diary Of A Mod Housewife.

Amy’s honest, kinetic songwriting has earned her praise from critics (“pithy wisdom, acerbic pen and sterling American guitar classicism” MOJO) and other artists: “Think Randy Newman and Loudon Wainwright, at their best,” says Steve Earle. Her songs have been covered by Laura Cantrell, Ronnie Spector and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. Her 2019 memoir Girl To City was called “an instant classic” by The Big Takeover. “You can smell the damp, see the clothes, hear the guitars!” says Goldmine.

New album Hang In There With Me (Tapete) is eleven up to the minute songs written by Amy and recorded by husband Wreckless Eric. Hang In There With Me is a bracing look at life inside the vortex of the last few years. Mortality, aging and youthful missteps refracted through Amy’s insightful lyricism emerge not wistful but resolute —even triumphant.

Amy and husband Wreckless Eric moved to the UK last summer, she’s so looking forward to coming back to the Spotty Dog April 12th with Eric on bass/guitar and their old Catskill neighbor Sam Shepherd on drums.

Praise for Hang In There With Me:

“…a triumph of wit, guts and perseverance over the forces of death, chaos, passing time and worldly misfortune.” —Shindig

“…still one of the true masters of her craft.” —No Depression

“Nearly 30 years after the landmark Diary Of A Mod Housewife, Rigby’s ingenuity, pensiveness, and drollery are as intact as ever.” —ArtsFuse

“Hang In There With Me is an absolute masterpiece, a career best, a stand-out within and outside its genre.” —Louder Than War

Saturday, April 26th 7:00pm

That Time of Year

A quarterly-ish reading series around a theme. Tonight's theme: Wildcards! Free.

GIDEON JACOBS
writes fiction and nonfiction, contributing to The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, BOMB Magazine, The LA Review of Books, and others. He is currently working on a novel about images. He has lectured at the Institute of Fine Arts, Jeu de Paume, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, the School of Visual Arts, the New School, and elsewhere. Other projects include: Murder Suey, a novella co-written exquisite-corpse-style with Brad Phillips for Autre Magazine; Landing Pages, a literary installation with Lexie Smith at LaGuardia Airport commissioned by the NY/NJ Port Authority; Confession, a telephone hotline designed with Gregor Hochmuth that allowed strangers to anonymously unburden themselves, exhibited at Deli Gallery; Etsy DeVos, custom throw pillows made with Chloe Wise featuring erotic poems about Donald Trump’s cabinet members. He lives and works in Queens, NY.

RACHEL LYON
is the author of Self-Portrait with Boy, a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s 2018 First Novel Prize, and Fruit of the Dead, an Oprah Magazine best book of 2024 which the NY Times called “superb” and “refreshing.” Rachel’s short stories have appeared in One Story, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, and other publications; she has taught creative writing most recently at Bennington College and the American University of Paris, where she was the 2024 Paris Writer in Residence. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, she lives with her family in Western Massachusetts.

LYNNE TILLMAN’s
latest novel is Men and Apparitions. Her most recent book, MOTHERCARE, is an autobiographical essay on caregiving. Her essays and stories appear in Aperture, Bookforum, Frieze, N+1, Granta, Tank, and in art catalogs, artist books, and other magazines. Tillman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Andy Warhol Foundation arts Writers Grant, and The Academy of Arts and Letters Katherine Anne Porter Prize for contributions to literature. She lives in New York with the bassist David Hofstra. Her new collection, Thrilled to Death, published this spring.

Books are available for purchase and signing.

Created and Hosted by Andrea Kleine.

This event is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.