alt.lib

Up Up Up Crane Truck Circus
2021-07-28 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Vancouver)
We’re very excited to be hosting the first Bellingham performance from the UpUpUpInc Crane Truck Circus show!
The show was created while in residence at @lookoutartsquarry utilizing an old flatbed truck and manual-crank crane mounted to the bed for levitating pianos, aerial apparatuses, and humans! The show has been traveling the northwest with a 7-person cast of aerialists, musicians, acrobats, clowns and illusionists!
AltLib is always ALL AGES!
Donations will support the AltLib and the artists ~ NOTAFLOF!

Fleegix Film Screening // Spine Readers
2021-07-23 19:00 - 22:00
Friday, July 23rd; 7:00pm
Come through the backyard this week to catch a screening of Matt Thurber’s feature-length film, Fleegix, projected on 16mm with live narration performed by the director!
Bring a dish (or not) and join us for a potluck dinner at 7:00pm, then witness a sunset performance from the Spine Readers, one of Bellingham’s most audacious rock bands, performing a unique set as their first public re-emergence from quarantine!

Writer's Communion
2021-07-18 11:11 - 13:00, 2021-06-20 11:11 - 13:00
com·mun·ion
kəˈmyo͞onyən
noun
1. the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

Lost Sock // John Saint Pelvyn & Cauda Decurvata // Tim Root
2021-07-16 19:00 - 21:00
Lost Sock is a collaboration of percussionist Melanie Sehman and multi-instrumentalist Cullen Beckhorn. Their work is based in live improvisation that transcends genre, combining elements recognizable as jazz, ambient, electronic, experimental, metal, and other sounds!
John Saint Pelvin is a vocalist and guitarist who plays with uncommon resonances and has previously opened up performances for Paul Metzger. For this performance he will be collaborating in song with Cauda Decurvata
Local poet, filmmaker and artist Tim Root will also be sharing something with us.

Intro to Self-Publishing
2021-07-15 17:00 - 19:00
Intro to Self-Publishing is our monthly workshop on the basics of self-publishing, with a focus on zine-making!
This is a two-hour instructional that will cover the basic processes of creating a zine using a laser printer, long-arm stapler and paper guillotine! It is recommended (but not required) that you come with ready material to include in your zine ~
$25/person covers initial print studio orientation/training as well as ongoing access to the equipment covered in this class for the month’s open studio hours!
Attendance will be strictly limited, due to the size of our space. To confirm your attendance for this class, please e-mail: info@AltLib.org

Letters To Prisoners
2021-07-08 18:00 - 19:30
We will gather in the backyard for a kind of info session about prisoner solidarity in the US and then break out to write letters to incarcerated people.
We have assembled some information and correspondence with specific prisoners, and we will provide pens, paper, and envelopes!
As Biden/Harris crack down even harder on anyone fighting for any semblance of justice with their new “anti-terrorism” law, we’re stepping our game up and learning to better support and include our captured comrades in the ongoing struggle (as more comrades may end up captured)…
See our Prisoner Solidarity page for more info~

We’re All We’ve Got, We’re All We Need
2021-07-04 13:00 - 19:00
Mutual Aid Pop-Up
July 4th; 1-7pm; Public Library Lawn
Come bring supplies for unhoused neighbors, listen to local artists perform, and find ways to get involved with local mutual aid groups.

The First Pride Was a Riot
2021-07-03 18:00 - 23:00
THE FIRST PRIDE WAS A RIOT!
July 3rd; 6:00pm; Meet at the Bellingham City Hall Lawn; All Queers Welcome! *cops stay home*
Join us during the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots for an evening of radical queer joy and solidarity to honor the radical queers, queens, amd other assorted troublemakers who came before us!
This will be a radical, anti-capitalist, abolitionist, queer street event on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots against police oppression! Expect part rave, part drag show, and part absurdist street theater!
Drag show hosted by @mx.combobulated with performances from @rikkisinsation @glamazonbananazon @alecialily @desmondpounder and more!
DJ sets and performances from @reverenddollars , DJ Parts Per Million, DJ Samadhi Flow, and more!
We will be in attendance with our mobile literature table and a fresh swath of radical queer zines available by donation 🖤

Palm Sunday // Sun Professor // Laith
2021-07-02 19:00 - 21:00
This week’s backyard concert features the inimitable Sun Professor performing live alongside traveling artists Palm Sunday and Laith, visiting from Portland!
$8 supports the artists and the AltLib!
AltLib is always ALL AGES
NOTAFLOF

Inside Joe Listening Party
2021-06-27 13:00 - 16:00
Swing through the backyard for a listening party and hang with the curators of the newly released Inside Joe Mixtape Vol. 1

Backyard Concert for People's First Initiatives
2021-06-18 19:00 - 21:00
Our backyard concert series continues with a party to support the People’s First Initiatives 1-4 being added to the next ballot. Petitions will be available to sign if you haven’t and you can learn about how you can volunteer to help in the final push! Performances through the evening from:
• Old Town Scouts
• Felix the Hammer
• Brendan Francis
• Cincinnati Millistubs

Pearls Have Eyes / Ruth & Steven / Tarsier Eyes
2021-06-11 19:00 - 22:00
This Friday (June 11th) Tarsier Eyes will be headed up from Seattle to perform a set of improvised electronic music in the backyard: https://tarsiereyes.bandcamp.com
Joining him will be locals Pearls Have Eyes performing ambient music for acoustic guitars: https://pearlsthatwerehiseyes.bandcamp.com/album/on-we
Ruth & Steven will be gracing us a duet of improvised music for Cello and Upright Bass.
$8 Suggested Donation NOTAFLOF

Letters to Prisoners
2021-06-04 17:30 - 19:30
No backyard concert this week, but we hope you’ll join us for a prisoner solidarity event! We will gather in the backyard for a kind of info session about political prisoners in the US and then break out to write letters to incarcerated people.
We have assembled some information and correspondence with specific prisoners, and we will provide pens, paper, and envelopes! We will also have a limited number of stamps on hand 😉
The following writing is taken from June11.org :::
Against another year of state encroachment, against the restriction of free movement under the auspices of “safety,” against the continued brutalization of our friends in prison, we embrace solidarity on June 11, 2021: International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. Through our letters, demonstrations and solidarity attacks we keep the beacon lit for those who have given years of their lives for their conviction that the State is a horror against which we must wager our lives.
The architects of prison society would have prison function as a memory hole, casting our dear rebels into the void and producing in free souls a stifling amnesia. They want us to forget those who took action against the state and economy and those who continue their rebellion behind bars. Our work of solidarity with imprisoned anarchists is a hammer blow against forgetting: against the prison walls and the narcotizing technological society that shatters all meaning.
Prison administrations around the world have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing lockdowns and banning in-person visits, building upon prior movement to replace face-to-face visits with video chat. Physical mail is also threatened, with the United States federal prison system initiating a program to scan letters and make them only accessible on expensive tablets provided by a contracted company, Smart Communications. It’s likely that this trend will continue in prisons around the world. With the pandemic as an alibi, prison administrations and profiteering companies have accelerated the abolition of direct human connection.
This year, we seek to deepen the connection between different aspects of anti-repression, to bring the names and the wisdom of our long-term prisoners into current struggles – whether that’s in the streets against the police, in the forest against pipelines, or in the night against monuments of power – and strengthen networks and practices to support more comrades going to prison.

Swan Dadd // Roland Olayvar // Tessa O'Connell
2021-05-28 19:00 - 21:00
This week on the Alt Lib Radio Hour, we’re stoked to host Chicago-based experimental singer-songwriter Tessa O’Connell, whose lilting vocal arrangements explore longing, leaving, and “that fuzzy space in-between.” We’re also joined by Bellingham pop artist (and stalwart of the arts scene) Roland Olayvar and Seattle-based musician/ projectionist Swan Dadd, whose playful, ironic tunes explore the intersections of punk, synthetic drums and country twang. You know the drill — come masked and ready to party.

[Hyphen] // Worldwide Levitation
2021-05-21 19:00 - 21:00
This Friday continues our recent weekly tradition of hosting live backyard performances! This week the flavor is experimental rock music, with two as-yet unheard acts, including [hyphen] who describes himself as a one-man lo-fi electro-math-surf-wave project, combining gameboy and drum machines with live guitar and keyboards to form a multimedia mindmeld. This will also be the debut performance of Worldwide Levitation, formed during quarantines and performing a kind of bluntforce birdsong. DJ Leroy Sorry will be bringing out a box of records for the purposes of socialliy maligned mood music. Come for the noise and stay for the obtuse temporal shapes that excite your multiple lobes.
Poster designed by Riley R.

Mercury Retrograde Avante-Garde Variety Show
2021-05-14 19:00 - 21:00
Mercury Retrograde Variety Show featuring:::
• Spaghetti Feedbag Product Demonstration
• Appliance Arkestra
• Gump Worsley B-day Altar
• Freddy Mercury Retrograde Lip-Synch
• and many more surprises!
Come dressed as your favorite celestial body, and bring a prepared performative offering if you feel inspired to do so ~ there will be room for some spontaneous performances!
$8.43 exact change requested, NOTAFLOF! AltLib is always ALL AGES!
Do to the sheer experimental audacity of this show, there is no guarantee that we will livestream the performances ~
Poster designed by Jabez Richard

AltLib Radio Hour: ini // Little Obsidian // Yin
2021-05-07 19:00 - 21:00
The AltLib Radio Hour continues this week with a set of performances in the backyard and livestreaming on instagram: @bhamaltlib
This week features songs, mantras, and incantations from three of Bellingham’s witch squad!
$8-10 sliding-scale donations support the performers and the AltLib! NOTAFLOF

AltLib Radio Hour: Emma Et Cetera // Glitchlette // DJ Parts Per Million
2021-04-30 19:00 - 22:00
Our LAST show in April boasts a *killer* lineup, including high-energy electronic artist Emma Et Cetera, brooding synthpop producer Glitchlette, soulful singer-songwriter glass egg, and the eclectic, quirky DJ Parts Per Million. To RSVP, please email info@altlib.org with your name and the number of tickets you would like to reserve.
Suggested donation is $10.

AltLib Radio Hour - CHRVNS // Guayaba
2021-04-16 19:00 - 21:00
E-Mail to RSVP: booking@AltLib.org
$8 suggested donation for the artists and the AltLib
ALL AGES / NOTAFLOF

AltLib Radio Hour - Cheer // Limanjaya // Ashtray Runo
2021-04-09 19:00 - 21:00
THIS WEEK we’re back to live programming, bringing you ethereal ambient pop, modular synths, improv club music and psychedelic, abstract projections. Rain or shine, we’ll be partying, masked and distanced, on Billy Frank this April 9th at 7 PM. Swipe for booking info and covid safety, and read about our artists below.
Limanjaya is the lo-fi, experimental/ambient project of Joshua Limanjaya Lim, played on modular synths. Cheer, aka the side project of Ian MacPhee, joins us from Seattle with ambient bedroom pop tunes. Digital artist Ashtray Runo will project synthetic color spaces with a dash of fabrication.
E-Mail to RSVP: booking@AltLib.org
$8 suggested donation for the artists and the AltLib
ALL AGES / NOTAFLOF

Alt Lib Radio Hour - Silencio Epi Satellite Show
2021-04-02 20:00 - 22:00
This week the ALRH hosts its first satellite show, all the way from Mexico City 😈 We’re excited to feature guest curator @silencio.epi, an experimental label specializing in drones, power electronics, noise and distortion. The artists featured in this week’s lineup include: textural club music from ESE ES ESE, dystopic and pulsating analog loops from multidisciplinary artist Puzz Amatista, and spiritual, earthy soundscapes from Alina Sánchez. Luzefimero will provide visuals. You won’t want to miss this one!!! 8 PM on @bhamaltlib , bring your friends 🙂

Body Conference // Arrington de Dionyso // K. Kunkel
2021-03-26 18:00 - 20:00
Three artists join us this March 26th for a night of ‘sound, song and elegiac trance’, centered thematically around loss, elegy, release and letting go. Eclectic artist K. Kunkel offers us the vocal channeling of grief and surreal, unedited prose with sparse musical accompaniment. Body Conference, the project of writer, artist and theologian Ashley Chambers, will present a live sonographic iteration of her new book The Exquisite Buoyancies — described as an elegy for a departed spirit. Lastly, we are joined by experimental musician Arrington de Dionyso, who uses the voice and bass clarinet to pulverize your atoms with a 3million gigabyte download from the cosmic serpent.
This intense show wraps up the first month of the Alt Lib Radio Hour and marks the second in-person installment of the series. RAIN OR SHINE. To RSVP for space in our backyard, email: booking@altlib.org
$8 NOTAFLOF
Alt Lib Radio Hour is a new livestream performance initiative broadcast every Friday out of the Alternative Library. ALRH understands live-streaming as not merely a response to COVID-19 but a site of indeterminate possibility: where the internet is available, so too is an entire world of art and culture.
While intended to transition into (coterminous) live programming as weather permits, Alt Lib Radio Hour commits to exploring the emancipatory potential of live-streaming technology, which enables and engenders DIY relationships across borders and encourages collective innovation in an otherwise stratified reality.
We’ll be hosting new music and art each week, accessible to all via Instagram Live. Expect satellite shows in remote cities, audio-visual installations from artists across the globe, new and exciting local music — all rendered audio-visually with utmost care.
This event will be livestreamed on our Instagram, so please tune in at https://instagram.com/bhamaltlib

Alt Lib Radio Hour
2021-03-05 20:00 - 20:20
Alt Lib Radio Hour is a new livestream performance initiative broadcast every Friday out of the Alternative Library. ALRH understands live-streaming as not merely a response to COVID-19 but a site of indeterminate possibility: where the internet is available, so too is an entire world of art and culture.
While intended to transition into (coterminous) live programming as weather permits, Alt Lib Radio Hour commits to exploring the emancipatory potential of live-streaming technology, which enables and engenders DIY relationships across borders and encourages collective innovation in an otherwise stratified reality.
We’ll be hosting new music and art each week, accessible to all via Instagram Live. Expect satellite shows in remote cities, audio-visual installations from artists across the globe, new and exciting local music — all rendered audio-visually with utmost care.
This event will be livestreamed on our Instagram, so please tune in at https://instagram.com/bhamaltlib

Other Music Documentary - Virtual Screening
2020-05-15 15:00 - 2020-05-24 22:00
Independent bookstores and record stores are more vulnerable in today’s media landscape than they’ve ever been, and the onset of the Covid-19 global pandemic, further harshens the conditions.
This is why the producers of the new documentary on NYC record store Other Music have decided to release their film online through a network of independent shops and theaters, who will be supported by rental of this film!
The film can be rented and screened at home, with a portion of proceeds supporting the Alternative Library, using this link:
https://othermusic.vhx.tv/checkout/alternative-library-presents-other-music/purchase
—
Other Music was an influential and uncompromising New York City record store that was vital to the city’s early 2000s indie music scene. But when the store is forced to close its doors due to rent increases, the homogenization of urban culture, and the shift from CDs to downloadable and streaming music, a cultural landmark is lost. Through vibrant storytelling, the documentary captures the record store’s vital role in the musical and cultural life of the city, and highlights the artists whose careers it helped launch including Vampire Weekend, Animal Collective, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, William Basinski, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sharon Van
Etten, Yo La Tengo and TV On The Radio.
Other Music was more than just a store that sold CDs, records, tapes and magazines. It was a place where bands were formed, record labels were born and careers were launched. And it was THE place where a generation of New Yorkers at the dawn of the Internet age went to discover groundbreaking music by artists who would go on to become household names and underground icons.
Over the years the store established itself as a destination for music lovers from around the world. Its philosophy of hiring only the most passionate and knowledgable music lovers made Other Music a place where customers could come hang out and talk about music, art or life in general. It became a hub for creative people of all kinds; a place for musicians, painters, filmmakers, actors, etc. to meet and find out what was new, and what was happening in the city. It was a community that supported and promoted creative ventures of all forms.
With more and more record stores closing everywhere, the communities that have built up around shops like Other Music are slowly dissipating and migrating to online forums. Nowadays most people are streaming music online rather than purchasing it digitally to download, much less going to a store to buy physical media. As the music industry continues to move in that direction and community hubs like Other Music struggle to remain in existence, the documentary celebrates what spaces like these have meant to people in the past—and how their spirit can live on in an increasingly digital world.
—
Directed by Puloma Basu & Rob Hatch-Miller
USA, 2019, 83 minutes
Thanks for supporting independent arts!

Bill Horist (Experimental Guitar) / Lost Sock
2020-04-04 19:00 - 22:00
Advance tickets are available for $15 via WithFriends: https://withfriends.co/event/4456125/
Doors at 7:00pm; Music at 7:30pm
Seattle guitarist, Bill Horist is an improviser/composer/performer in a wide array of genres including rock, jazz, contemporary chamber, avant garde, folk, new music and several subgenres within each. He has appeared on over 80 recordings and has performed well over 1000 concerts throughout North and Central America, Europe, and Japan. Over the past two decades, Bill has collaborated with a long list of notable musicians from around the world including John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Stuart Dempster, KK Null, Matt Chamberlain, Chris Cutler, Damo Suzuki(Can), Vidushi Sumitra Guha, Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple), Julie Slick, William Hooker, Secret Chiefs 3, Eugene Chadbourne, Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins), Shazaad Ismaily, Six Organs of Admittance, Joe Morris, Climax Golden Twins, Haco, Illusion of Safety, Jamie Saft, Amy Denio, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Steve Fisk, Marron, Reggie Watts, Anla Courtis (Reynols), Eyvind Kang, Paul Rucker, Wally Shoup, and Jessica Lurie as well as members of King Crimson, Pearl Jam, Earth, The Boredoms, Sunn0))).
He has toured and recorded with a number of bands including Master Musicians of Bukkake, Kinski, Nobodaddy, Phineas Gage, Axolotl, UnFolkUs, Zahir, Tablet, Nervewheel, Ghidra, Rollerball and the Paul Rucker Ensemble in addition to extensive solo activity.
billhorist.net
Lost Sock is a duo collaboration between Cullen Beckhorn (AKA Future Man) and Melanie Sehman (MANtrio, Whatcom Symphony Orchestra, Hooves & Beak, Cat Valley)
RSVP and more info!

Poetrynight
2020-03-30 19:00 - 21:00
The second longest running Bellingham poetry group – Poetrynight.
All people are invited to join the group any Monday night at 7pm. You don’t have to be a writer to participate as readers of all ages are always invited to sign up to read between 7-7:30. Not all works must be originals.
Poetrynight got its start in Stuart’s Coffeehouse in 1995, when a group of poets gathered around a table to share their current work. It has grown over the years as it moved to different locations.
Poetrynight is a program under the Whatcom poetry series, and besides the weekly open mic/feature, can provide creative writing workshops for schools.

Clothing Swap
2020-03-28 14:00 - 19:00
All day, all styles, all bodies, all ages~
Bring your used/unwanted/ill-fitting clothes (washed and/or smell-free!) and search a sea of garbled garments to find a fresh fit!
Please no single socks~
All clothes remaining at the end will be donated to Wise Buys to help raise funds for Lydia Place!

Alternative Thanksgiving: An Experimental Dinner Party
2020-03-27 19:00 - 23:00
$15 supports the artists and the Alt Lib
Advanced tickets are available via WithFriends:
https://withfriends.co/event/4460637/
Doors at 7:00pm; Performances at 7:30pm
An uncanny evening of food oriented art, film, and dining set to music and performances from:
– Guillotine Eyes
– BF Knowhere
– Tim & His Winter Campers
Art and film by Tim Root
Plush sculpture installation by Suzie Marco
Culinary creations curated by Marissa Wall
Immersive sound installations
…and other surprises.
Formal dining attire encouraged.
~~~
AltLib is always ALL AGES!

Volunteers' Meetin'
2020-03-25 19:00 - 20:00
Every Wednesday is our weekly volunteer meeting, where we discuss the goings on and future of the AltLib!
