Zine and Heard

Two of Miami’s finest prodigal zine auteurs return for a joint reading of their respective new books, both published by Soft Skull Press. In the Nineties, Erick Lyle, then known as Iggy Scam, lived an enviable punk-ethics-fueled life around South Florida that is near impossible to imagine today. He ran a warehouse venue, the Junkyard, at the bottom of South Beach, and at one point squatted an entire floor of the crumbling former cocaine palace that was the Mutiny Hotel, in Coconut Grove. And he chronicled it all in Scam, which he published nearly for free by using the old zinester’s trick of, uh, scamming photocopies from big-box office supply stores. After a move to San Francisco a few years ago, Lyle continued his involvement in squatting and community activism, chronicling it all through more zines and street newspapers. It’s from these that he has gleaned the moving essays, oral histories, and urban sociological narratives of his nonfiction tome, On the Lower Frequencies: a Secret History of the City.

Cristy Road, née Carrera, cut her teeth on Miami’s subsequent, late-Nineties generation of punk. As a rad teenager with a taste for thrift store chic, Road began writing, illustrating, and publishing her Green Zine at first out of a love for (pre-Dookie!) Green Day. Now based in Brooklyn (but not in Williamsburg), Road is an accomplished and acclaimed artist, illustrator, and writer; her latest work, Bad Habits: A Love Story, isn’t her first novel, but it is her most word-rich one to date. “For a while, due to my lifestyle, I felt like my Latina heritage was slipping away, because I was so set on dismantling the ideas I was taught from my culture,” Road says. “Bad Habits specifically notes this difficulty — how does the main character, Carmencita, exist as a proud Latina in a [mostly Anglo] radical subculture, while still addressing the disillusionment she experienced in her cultural community?” Meet and greet both Lyle and Road when they read at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Firefly. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.
Thu., Dec. 18, 2008