* Customer Appreciation Sale
Multnomah County Library's great lil' used book, record, DVD, and other stuff store wants to reward you for being such a great consumer. Today receive 15 to 75 percent off on all merchandise, and the chance to win gift certificates from cool local businesses. Title Wave, 216 NE Knott, 10 am-4 pm
Of Praise participants
Six students from Paulann Petersen's workshop, Wellspring of Praise will be reading new material this Sunday night. Mountain Writers Center, 3624 SE Milwaukie, 236-4854, 7 pm, $3
Anson Wright
Poets with a unifying vision can make the process of reading poetry feel less chaotic. Anson Wright is a jazz artist-turned-novelist-turned-poet obsessed with Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, a major center of Puebloan culture from 850 to 1250 AD. Every year since 1989 he has returned to that spot, and his work is "an attempt to be true to that world." Annie Bloom's Books, 7834 SW Capitol Hwy, 246-0053, Tues 7:30 pm
Jeffery Brown
Here's what we said in a recent review of Brown's new graphic novel Bighead: A fictitious, satirical riff on classic serial comic books, Bighead features an insecure superhero who battles equally insecure villains like "Crabby" and "Heartbroke." It's a decent enough idea--giving a sensitive wuss superheroic abilities--but Brown's intentionally ugly artwork is grating, and his attempts at humor involve scenarios like Bighead's dismantling of Crabby by presenting him with a kitten, thereby melting his evil heart. Such stupidity wouldn't be so frustrating if I weren't convinced that Brown is actually fairly intelligent, and that he's reveling in dumb jokes and terrible drawings because he thinks it's somehow cute, or ironically funny. It's not, and what's more, when compared to graphic novels that actually have good stories to tell and skillful artistry to strut, it's downright boring. JWS CounterMedia, 927 SW Oak St, 226-8141, 6:30 pm
* William T. Vollman
Vollman, one of the country's best-known but under-read authors comes to town to promote Rising Up & Rising Down, a 3,500-page, seven-volume meditation on violence, informed by the author's extensive travels to some of the seediest corners of the planet. During his explorations into violence, he devised a moral calculator to help determine when violence might be justified. Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651, 7:30
