If you find yourself invited to a rooftop lounge party celebrating a new brand of booze, you should always accept. When the invite boasts of the launch Patron’s new vodka, Ultimat, and the celebrity DJ talent is none other than Peter Hook, legendary rocker and bassist for both Joy Division and  New Order, you should feel especially inclined. Thus I found myself donning my favorite white sport coat—the party’s suggested attire was summer whites—and heading up to the Peninsula Chicago’s rooftop garden and ballroom for a night of a few too many free cocktails, scantily-clad go-go dancers and loosely transitioned musical selections from a rock icon.

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Like every other writer, I’ve got my share of hard-luck anecdotes tucked in my back pocket for late-night barroom bull sessions. One of those sad-but-true tales recently led me to publish a 99-cent Kindle edition of my novel Finding Juliet, which for quick-pitch purposes I describe as a modern-day Shakespeare in Love. If you enjoyed that film, I contend you will love my book. If you hated that film, but have a Kindle and/or iPhone, I say, hey, what’s 99 cents among friends?

Before briefly essaying the events that led me to independently publish, I’ll share a bit of even-further-backstory. About ten years ago I was a contributing editor of a magazine called Fiction Writer. At that time, I had a couple of crime novels in my desk drawer that I’d written for my creative writing MFA thesis. I was intrigued by an early online DIY publishing site, and so wrote a story for the magazine about my ill-fated efforts to sell one of the novels through the service. The site was poorly conceived (and even more poorly named–Fatbrain, it was called), and it died during the Web 1.0 purges. But happily, an honest-to-God, advance-paying publisher brought out hardcover editions of both novels a few years later. I had, in an extremely modest way, arrived as a published novelist.

Novel number three was a true labor of love. Even as I worked in journalism and wrote nonfiction books, I kept coming back to what was then called Letters to Juliet, the story of a graduate lit student in the U.S. who falls in love with a member of Juliet’s Club, the group in Verona, Italy, that answers letters that come to the city addressed to Shakespeare’s famous doomed lover in much the same way that postal workers here answer letters to Santa Claus. When I finally finished the book a few years back, after actually traveling to Verona for research purposes, I started pitching agents, convinced I had a winner on my hands.

Unfortunately, the morning the agents were getting my letter, the New York Times website ran a front-page story and slide show announcing the sale of a nonfiction history of Juliet’s Club. The book’s name? Letters to Juliet. Great idea, but have you read the Times today? That was the gist of one agent’s reaction. Another one, though, bless her heart, guided me through a rewrite and had me write up a treatment for a potential film in the meantime. She shared the treatment with a producer she knew, and he didn’t see any film potential. Cut to, Variety announcing that the nonfiction authors had made a big flim sale! The agent and I smacked our foreheads. But then we realized the report mentioned the producers lacked only… a writer and a story! So she called the production company the next day only to be told, “Stop right there. We just hired a writer.”

D’oh. And that was pretty much the end of it. Oh, we did talk about recasting Juliet as a YA novel (good idea: a YA novel about summer exchange students in Verona, called The Juliet Club, was published last year). But then I decided to move on. Until I saw how easy it was to create a Kindle edition of a book and at least get some readers for a novel I’m still proud of, despite its star-crossed fate.

So on May 29, I stayed up late and posted the now-renamed Finding Juliet for sale. I put the word out via Facebook and Twitter, and on message boards frequented by Kindle enthusiasts. And the book started selling a bit–nothing spectacular, but enough so that on one recent day Finding Juliet was the only work in the Top 10 of the Kindle Store’s Shakespearean category that wasn’t actually written by the man himself. Not too shabby. Then the editor of Booklist Online gave the novel a four-star review on the Kindle page. Sure, he’s a friend of mine, but he actually read the book and liked it. Finally, I got a wonderful five-star review from someone I’ve never met, and I thought, hey, I might be making 35 cents a copy on this thing, but actual people I don’t know are reading it and enjoying it. And that’s the real reason to write fiction, right?

Of course, exactly a week after I published my modest Kindle edition, the announcement came that the film version of that other Letters to Juliet is going into production with a May 2010 release date. It started shooting in Italy last week, and I hope it’s a great success. Maybe someone’ll give me a contract for my book the week the movie comes out…

Temps will be back in the 80s this weekend–woo-hoo! If your family’s weekend isn’t already packed with picnics and fireworks-watching plans, we’ve got some ideas.

Squealing tweeny-bopper types will want to head to the Disney Store (717 N Michigan Ave) on Friday 3 to get a glimpse of Hannah Montana star Mitchel Musso. He’s signing copies of his debut CD starting at 6pm. It’s first-come, first-served; fans can start lining up as early as 4pm. No pouty fits if your little fan misses the mayhem: Musso’s also headlining the free Family Day concert at Taste of Chicago Sunday 5 at 2:30pm.

Play tourist without leaving town by taking Chicago Trolley & Double Decker Company’s Hop On/Hop Off Signature Tour. Riders get a t-shirt, a sample of Garrett Popcorn’s Chicago mix and a Hershey bar, plus the ability to get on and off the trolley at 18 spots including Millennium Park, Navy Pier and Union Station. Tickets are $29 each, but if you buy online at chicagotrolley.com you save $3.

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Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico “Femme Fatale” from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

I’m a big fan of Beck, but I just learned this week the dude’s real name is Bek David Campbell. Keep that in mind when you see the prolific Silverlake studio rat sign off blog posts at Beck.com with “Bek.” He’s not being cute. And his website has been a busy place of late. With his new “Record Club,” Beck plans to cover classic albums through impromptu improvisational jam sessions with buddies in the studio. Radiohead (and Beck, natch) producer Nigel Godrich helps out, as well as Devendra Banhart and other SoCal denizens.

Each week, the still-boyish veteran post a new video, slowly working through the track listing. Right now, he’s three songs deep into The Velvet Underground & Nico. “Sunday Morning” stuck to the pretty, sad vibes of the original, but “I’m Waiting for the Man” became a insanely detuned krautrock trance. It’s cool as hell. Today, a take on “Femme Fatale” raises the bar. Check it out above. Stuttering drum thwumps and toy xylophone palpitate behind BDC’s mournful croon. It’s proof that even tracks on seminal records are ripe for reassessment.

I’m also pleased to report that Beck has finally cut off his long hair. As a friend pointed out, nobody wants him to look like a walking omen from a David Lynch movie.

Also check out Beck’s inaugural edition of a weekly DJ mix, Planned Obsolescence. It’s like a scatterbrained game of Name That Tune for hipsters, with Paul Barman, Michael Jackson demos, Kraftwerk, Ian Svenonius, Talking Heads, etc.

Angus Deluxe, Photo: Martha Williams

Americans are bigger than most people on the planet, mainly because we eat too much. We like things large like the Big Mac and our children, by and large, are getting bigger—health conscious media reminds us of these observations again and again. Fast food and convenience stores have tried the healthier options route in recent years, but it turns out, as McDonald’s market research shows, that we actually want an even bigger slightly better burger. Entering locations today, the Angus Deluxe, McDonald’s “third pounder” has a stamp with a big ‘A’ and “100% Angus” printed on the box along with a graphic of two cheery lads playing football.

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Last week in New York, a Princeton economics senior delivered a report on her thesis project. Normally, that’s not the sort of event that attracts attendance by more than 150 strangers and coverage in the national press. But Emily Glassberg Sands is perhaps not your average econ major—her study was endorsed by the likes of a White House economics adviser and the author of Freakonomics. Of course, the topic of Sands’s research comes with a built-in interested audience: she had studied gender bias against female playwrights, an area of great debate in the theater community for the last several years. The Times reports that Sands’s work was at the behest of playwright Julia Jordan, who’s been a leading voice in that discussion (read my interview with Jordan on the topic last January, and my concurrent report on a Chicago Dramatists panel discussion).

To almost no one’s surprise, Sands found evidence of discrimination. What’s perhaps surprising is from whence it came: She found that while men in power at theaters treated identical writing samples the same regardless of the purported playwright’s gender, women rated the same samples lower if they had a woman’s name on them. Other unexpected findings: The hoary old cliché about women submitting fewer plays appears to be true, and proportionate to the ratio of submissions, women are produced at the same rate as men. (There’s more on Sands’s findings at the Times, New York magazine and Salon; download her full study in PDF form here.) I asked some of Chicago’s female artistic directors and literary managers (and one particularly sympathetic male) to share their thoughts. You’ll find ‘em after the jump.

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If you don’t have the time, inclination or transportation to get to one of the Chicago area’s few far-flung drive-ins this holiday weekend, there are plenty of open-air film screenings at parks around the city, and we’ve got the full schedule for the week ahead here. But for you popcorn-munching road warriors, here’s what’s playing at suburban ozoners this weekend:

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A few years back I picked up a used novel by Ray Manzarek, the organ noodler from the Doors. The protagonist in The Poet in Exile was a keyboardist from some “unnamed” hippie group that healed the world until its singer passed away from drugs and booze. OR DID HE? Mysterious postcards from a Jim-Morrison-type “poet” show up on the writer’s doorstep, postmarked from some tropical island in the Indian Ocean. The organ dude jets over and discovers his old bandmate fat, tan and living with a horde of his brood. He faked his death to get away from the spotlight. In the end they jam or something. It’s pretty unintentionally hilarious.

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SHOPPING & STYLE - Agent Provocateur sale
Our need for the sexy U.K.-based lingerie label’s underthings is year-round, but Agent Provocateur’s One and Only Annual Sale lasts just a month. Feed your frisky desires and stock up on past-season items like bras, briefs and bodysuits marked up to 50% off. Agent Provocateur, 47 E Oak St (312-335-0229). El: Red to Chicago. Bus: 22, 36, 29, 66, 151. 10am–7pm.

NIGHTLIFE - Platinum Pied Pipers
Kicking your Fourth of July weekend off right, the Shrine offers up yet another intimate performance from one of the best nu-soul groups currently in the biz. Since opening at the beginning of June the south side hotspot has boasted performances from Rakim, Fertile Ground and more. Tonight, Waajeed and his Platinum Pied Pipers project drop some soulful hip-hop styled freshness off a new album for Ubiquity alongside up and coming soulstress Muhsinah. The Shrine. 9pm. $15.

THEATER/GAY & LESBIAN - Out: A Rainbow Icon Celebration
Cabaret diva Melissa Young’s new show commemorates the 40th anniversary of Stonewall by matching signature songs from gay icons like Judy, Dolly, Bette and Madonna to significant moments in the gay rights timeline. Davenport’s, 8pm, $15 plus two-drink minimum.

MUSIC - Music Without Borders: Oumou Sangaré
A superstar on the global circuit, Sangaré uses that platform to denounce polygamy and arranged marriage—cushioning her critique in a funk-flavored fusion of West African polyrhythms. Appearing in her first local concert in nearly a decade, Mali’s “songbird” presents a rare opportunity for Chicagoans to see a real diva at work. Pritzker Pavilion, 8pm, FREE!

AROUND TOWN/DANCE - SummerDance
The city’s series of dance parties in the park continues with electronic tango outfit Otros Aires. The band comes on at 7:30pm, but if you need a little time to practice your moves, arrive early for a dance lesson. Grant Park, Spirit of Music Garden. 6pm, FREE!

On a regular basis, the Time Out Chicago music staff sits down with one of our fair city’s fine local musicians for a chat and a recording session. We keep each episode of The Infinite Loop short enough to listen to on an El ride downtown, and direct enough so you can plan your weekend quickly and easily. Each podcast contains a little backstory, a little sense of the artist’s personality and, of course, selections from an exclusive live performance for the Infinite Loop at our State and Jackson studios.

This week we sit down with scene veterans Janet Bean and Jim Elkington of the Horse’s Ha, who recently released a stunning debut, Of the Cathmawr Yards. Familiar to many Chicagoans for her work with indie mainstays Freakwater and Eleventh Dream Day, Bean’s been on the local circuit since the mid-’80s, and Elkington’s track record isn’t too shabby either—fronting the Zincs and more recently working solo. Though the two initially rallied around the idea of playing cover tunes at swanky local wine bars, those profitable aspirations have since fallen by the wayside as they’ve assembled a gorgeous repertoire of elegant chamber-folk. Bean and Elkington were kind enough to squeeze into our cozy confines for an exclusive interview and recording, where we learned why a future Genesis tribute isn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility.

The Horse’s Ha plays Schubas Friday 3. Read more about the band in this week’s Music section.

To listen to this week’s podcast, click the player below.

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Infinite Loop image: Nadine Nakanishi