zine, [zeen] noun. 1. abbr. of fanzine; 2. any amateurly-published periodical. Oxford Reference

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Monday, August 31, 2009

Plume Zine Issue 3, "Criminality"

 
 

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via MAXED by molly on 8/31/09

Dear Writers and Artists, Thank you for all your submissions.The editing process for Plume Zine Issue 3, "Criminality" is finished, and production has now begun. You may expect a release date of late September. We will let you know where and how you may get a copy of the zine, once it is ready for reading.Dear Readers, Here follows, a teaser:image by Christine Scheer"That there is such a

 
 

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Blaming the Wrong Decade?

 
 

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via 3:AM Magazine by karl whitney on 8/31/09

By Karl Whitney

jenni-diski

Jenny Diski, The Sixties, Profile Books, 2009

Here Diski, an experienced hand at non-fiction narrative, investigates her own experience of the much-vaunted nineteen-sixties; a decade that, if we are to believe many commentators, changed the world. Some writers on the subject believe that although there were dramatic societal changes during the period, they were less driven by countercultural activity than powered by a combination of political progressiveness and post-war economic boom (of which counterculture was a byproduct). And Diski's book fits into this narrative: central to the book is the possibility that her efforts, and those of others like her, didn't change things for the better, and, in fact, hastened an individualist outlook that led to Thatcherism. In the sixties, Diski seems to say, history was made, but it soon repeated as tragedy  – as an inversion of everything she had believed in.

In this, Diski is partaking in a fine tradition of upbraiding the sixties for its failures; however – crucially – she doesn't reject its legacy. While skilfully acknowledging the historical background, Diski focuses on personal experience of not just the decade but its immediate legacy: she brings the reader from the transformative potential that the consumer society seemed to promise in the early years of the decade, through her own drug use, which she delineates from the figure of the bored housewife, addicted to prescription-medication, 'who colluded with stasis [and] brought about their own doom'. Instead, she asserts 'we were doing something with drugs, they were just surviving the intolerable world that they had either created or acquiesced in.' Diski assumes a clear connection between the drug experiments of the sixties and later mass consumption of hard drugs, writing later that 'we bequeathed heroin and cocaine to the miserable masses, not any kind of psychedelic solution to poverty and injustice.' This reprimands the decade as responsible for ills it never anticipated, and fits Diski's view of the sixties as a period that unleashed a strand of libertarianism on which Thatcher later capitalised. While not completely rejecting the sixties as a failure, and in attempting to keep any nostalgia at bay, Diski, at times, views the decade a little too sternly.

But, ultimately, what Diski and her friends were doing remains something of a mystery to even the writer, who periodically attempts to place the sixties as an adolescent rebellion tolerated, and at times encouraged, by older generations. She paints the sixties as a kind of playground, a celebration gone sour, where 'the party has turned spectacularly nasty and pointless'.

The sexual politics of the sixties are explored in one chapter, where she writes of her time in a commune where there was a continual rotation of sexual partners in the name of 'free love'. Here Diski indicates how the unceasing quest for liberation had become its own constraint, and she views these rules as 'a set of orders for disobeying our elders'. The systematic nature of the rules around sex took little account of the complexity of emotional relations or attachments, Diski notes. Ultimately attempts at experimentation were hampered by what the writer sees as 'our lack of experience in living in any way at all.' Attempts at a collective project were limited by the fact that 'however connected we might have felt sitting in the same room, the search we were on was for the singular, individual experience.'

Clearly, a deep seam of pessimism runs deep through Diski's narrative. In contextualising the sixties in terms of the transition to Thatcherite politics, Diski presents aspirations towards a radically different society based on collective endeavour as an apparently benevolent mask hiding the primal urge towards individual desire. This desire was satisfied in the nineteen-eighties, with catastrophic results for British society. Diski's pessimism is most clearly expressed in one startling phrase: 'Acceptance of one's lot, maintaining a silence about what can't be said, lowering your expectations for your own life and for others, and understanding that nothing about the way the world works will ever change, is the very marrow of maturity.' This is countered, Diski says, by the pure bright vision of youth, but nevertheless the obvious implication is, in P.J. O'Rourke's words, that 'age and guile beat youth, innocence and a bad haircut.'

So far, so depressing, for those of us who look to the sixties for a mass realisation, while imperfect and transitory, of radical philosophies which had developed in 19th century socialism and were passed on via the 20th century avant-garde – philosophies that found themselves materialising on the streets of European and American cities in the late nineteen-sixties. Lionel Trilling called it 'Modernism in the Streets' and that phrase captures the tantalising interplay between culture, society and urban space during that period.

This is not to say that Diski avoids politics: she vividly describes the experience of being present at the Vietnam War protest march on the American embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1968. She notes that the march radicalised others present, a tendency that, in lieu of a Revolution that never came, would later be channelled into theory. She, on the other hand, withdrew from political activity.

And yet, a chapter on her attempts to set up a free school in Camden in the early nineteen-seventies indicates the radical reverberations of the decade in the area of education. Yet this new approach to education, with its real potential for tangible social change soon proved problematic for Diski, and, as far as I can tell, the educational experiment soon fizzled out (Diski is not specific about when or why). Ultimately, the failure of the free school is seen by her as a failure to acknowledge different levels of learning aside from the lowest common denominator. Returning to her central theme, Diski re-reads Deschooling Society, by educational theorist Ivan Illich, which she had previously interpreted, erroneously she now believes, as an argument for liberalising education, when, in fact, it now seems to her an argument for a dramatic libertarianism, one that, somewhat inevitably, prefigures severe Thatcherite public-service reforms. Diski admits that, at the end of the sixties, she felt that 'there was nothing more important and to get right than the education of children', although now her 'belief in the possibility of its achievement is close to zero.'

I would have liked more from Diski about the specific failures of the free school – a project encouraged by the local council via a sizeable grant. So too would I have welcomed a chapter about the decade and its conflicting attitudes towards mental health: when writing about her own treatment for depression in the sixties, she mentions the radical treatments of R.D. Laing (when asked by Diski to refer her to Laing, her doctor threatens instead to have her committed), but also the severe electroshock treatment that patients underwent, often of their own free will.

Diski's book is a highly readable and informative memoir of a time of intense possibilities, few of which were realised for very long. Severe in her judgement of what she sees as the decade's failures, she closes off some of these possibilities and, I believe, unfairly holds the decade responsible for problems yet to come. As her efforts to run a free school indicate, the problem was not necessarily the decade itself; it was, instead, how one could implement and prolong its possibilities. The willingness to do this eventually escaped Diski, and escaped many others too.

vilin-photo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karl Whitney is a journalist, researcher and 3:AM editor based in Dublin, Ireland. He has written for the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph.


 
 

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Pat “Patty” Mehbrei

 
 

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via GraphicHug™ by Chris Ro on 8/31/09

pm1

Another nice fellow who I had the pleasure of meeting was a Mr. Pat Mehbrei. Otherwise known as Patty. And an abundant number of other nicknames follow as well. He has been doing some pretty amazing typographic constructions and has a fantastic portfolio to boot. Check it out as time permits!

type2

returnofthe

type6-3

pm2

type6

wedding2

type5


 
 

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Sunday, August 30, 2009

New zines in the Click Clack Distro catalog.

via Everyone's Blog Posts - We Make Zines by NicoleIntrovert on 8/29/09
Some of the recent updates to the Click Clack Distro catalog!

Allergies: How To Deal - A well put together zine by Ali of Best Available Productions documenting alternative methods of dealing with allergy problems. She first explains what it may be like during a trip to an allergist if you have the means to visit one. Also included is a list of drugs she has tried and what effects they have had (or not had). There is also a large list of vitamins and herbs that are helpful to those with allergies. Advice on dealing with food allergies, eczema, pet allergies, and dust mites also grace the pages of this comprehensive zine. My favorite section is that which suggests info on home remedies to cure a sinus infection.


Cometbus #52 - This 52nd issue of Cometbus is subtitled The Spirit of St. Louis -or- How to Break Your Own Heart, a tragedy in 24 parts. I'd go with more the Spirit of STL title myself, as this zine takes us through living in a punk house in St. Louis with a group of punks referred to as The Rats. Like always Aaron makes you wish you were there living through the passing roommates and now-defunct house bands, even the rise and fall of a cafe/community space which starts in the house as a protest to the one across the street. You can really get lost in the lives of all the vibrant characters through their love, heartbreak, and accidents. This issue is a real throwback to the Cometbus days of the 90s, and exactly what I have been waiting for from him for the past few years.

Indestructible - Following her zine, Green Zine, Cristy Road packs a punch with the beauty of being a young, queer, female, Cuban punk living in Miami in the 90s in her book, Indestructible. The details of the discovery of life and meaning are what is found in the pages of this beautiful novel graced with the beautiful illustrations she creates. Relationships with men, women, music, body and creation are all examined in this tale of growing up and learning to accept yourself and assert yourself in the world.
 
 

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5 Most Embarrassing Moments

via Everyone's Blog Posts - We Make Zines by Rachel Lee Carman on 8/28/09
This week I worked on the Nicole J Georges swap-zine with the topic "5 Most Embarrassing Moments," and I learned how to spell the word EMBARRASS, a word seldom used. Very excited about the swap... she did one last Spring which got my fired from my job so I am hoping this year will have more promising results.
If you would like one I will accept trade or $1.


 
 

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3 New Zines

 
 

via Everyone's Blog Posts - We Make Zines by incurable hippie on 8/29/09
I have three new zines ready!

You can see details and / or buy with paypal at rebelgrrlzine.co.uk or contact me on here if you are interested in trading, or just send trades (for similar) to me at
Pippa
PO Box 4663
Sheffield
S1 9FN
United Kingdom.

Basically, the three zines are:
Rebel Grrl Zine: The Survive Issue
This is a feminist zine aimed at survivors of sexual abuse and sexual violence. It is mainly aimed at women and girls, and is a 24 page A5 size zine, photocopied.

How to Write a Zine or THE ART OF PROCRASTINATION
This is ostensibly about the process of creating a zine, but is really all about procrastination - its joys and frustrations, and contains various procrastination tools and ideas within :)
This was written for the 24 hour zine project. It is a 24 page A6 zine, photocopied.

50:50 Zine #1
Double sided A4 page, 50 things I love on one side, 50 things I hate on the other. Simple as!

Photos to follow when I find my USB cable.

 
 

QZAP:meta #2 is Finished!

 
 

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QZAP:meta #2 is Finished!!!

It's done! It's out! And You want a copy!!! A queer zine about queer zines. This issue is great... just read an excerpt:
Whew!!! That's a lot, and it's only the middle of August. Onto the issue! We got a bunch of great submissions for this issue. Teknad has written a sweet little introduction to French and Francophone queer zines, Chris has a piece about queer zines from Minnesota, Sam Stoker writes about their first queer zine experience in Brisbane, and Josh Burford talks about teaching queer zines in the American South. All in all, it's a fairly geographically diverse issue, and we're quite proud of it.


3 ways to get one:


* Go to http://www.qzap.org and hit the donation button. It's a default $5 donation, but that'll cover postage, and allow us to send copies to some folks who wouldn't get it otherwise

* Send $3 USD + 3 44¢ Stamps to:
QZAP
2935 N. Fratney St.
Milwaukee, WI, 53212
USA

* Send or donate queer zines to QZAP at the address above


Yay!!!!

 
 

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Elodi Magazine Issue 2: Open For Submissions

 
 

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via Bird in the Hand Zine Shop by abirdinthehand on 8/24/09


I just got word from my pals at Elodi that they're psyching up for Issue 2. Elodi is an aesthetic delight, showcasing, with sophistication and quirk, illustration, fashion and romance. They're searching for content and want to embrace the wider creative world for this. They're looking specifically for photographers, artists, illustrators, writers, creators, people to interview or be interviewed (collectives, gallery owners, fashion designers, shop owners, bloggers, etc). Do you have an idea or seriously just wanna get involved? Get in touch with Elodi and see your stuff in glorious print!

Send all words & article ideas to:
steph[at]elodimagazine.com

Send all art, photography & fashion etc to:
(<1mb image size please)
hilary[at]elodimagazine.com

For more info on advertising etc:
info@elodimagazine.com


 
 

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Nowra Zine Fair

 
 

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via Bird in the Hand Zine Shop by abirdinthehand on 8/23/09


Just got word of an upcoming zine fair in Nowra.  I went to the last one and it was a great time hanging out with good friends.. The Nowra Tea Club is a delightful location too.  To book a table, call Lissa on 0424 750 891.

Nowra - 19.06.09 Mad Hatters Zine Fair Flyer

Details: Saturday – 19 September 2009
Time: 10 – 3pm
Location: Nowra Tea Club, 46 Berry St Nowra
Facebook Event: (link)


 
 

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In Zines

 
 

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via ( o ) ---- ( o ) by luke@islandsfold.com (( o )) on 8/25/09


Here's a couple images from zines I'm in. The first is from "Chinese Wax Job", a zine from Hawaii that also includes submissions from Travis Millard, Ben Jones and other radness. The second is in the "From Dust" zine made by Errol Richardson, which includes Jon Boam and other good folk.

 
 

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Good Vs Evil Magazine 3

 
 

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via ( o ) ---- ( o ) by luke@islandsfold.com (( o )) on 8/27/09


Here's my pages for this issue about Man Vs Mescaline. It has allot of artists I enjoy, like Jon Boam and Shobohobo. Check it out and get a copy while it's still in print: www.goodvsevilmagazine.com

 
 

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To Share Realities

 
 

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via TABlog EN by Naoki Matsuyama on 8/25/09

To "publish". Multi-disciplinary artist Megumi Matsubara has designated this as the act of simply picking up an object for our enjoyment and then presenting it somewhere else. What has been published in this exhibition is a collection of 1000 objects, pressed flat and collected during a month-long trip in Europe, and displayed in a time-sequential grid that covers all the walls of the intimate space of Art Center Ongoing. The neatly aligned exhibits give at first the impression of a methodical scientific research, of an assemblage of specimens. The package of bowling socks, a flight ticket, remnants of a game played with friends and other traces of everyday life amongst the myriad of flower petals and other pressed leaves: the viewer promptly discovers that each object is labeled with the time and place in which it was collected, and is a record of a lived moment to which the viewer is invited to participate.

Archaeologist Michael Shanks states that the construction of archaeological knowledge must by its nature be a creative and poetic event because "it is all about absences, about writing around what is obstinately not there". Archaeology should therefore "entertain no final account of the past as it was, but instead foster multivocal and multiple accounts".1 Similarly, the exhibition entirely depends on the active involvement by, in other words the performance of, the viewers. Viewers are tacitly requested to generate in their minds situations and narratives through each of the objects. The lack of more information, information that the artist could have easily added, such as brief diary-like texts, attests to this understanding. This undulating space and time that is generated between the object and the viewer, this is where the exhibition resides.
Objects found by Megumi Matsubara on a trip to Europe.
Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins claims that reality is a fiction in that all living organisms perceive reality in ways that facilitate their own survival. Thus human beings operate in a "middle world" where, for example, we perceive objects as solid even though they are mostly composed of emptiness at the molecular level.2 We therefore unconsciously select information that makes our daily lives possible. This is apparent even without having to go into significantly different scales of dimensions or time. Even in our daily lives we spontaneously select information to be recognized while discarding a multitude of others, just like our eyes focus only on certain things. Reality as we perceive it is a construction, or more precisely a constant production.

Matsubara sought to float this ongoing unconscious process up to the level in which it may be consciously recognized. She sought to record it, to "record the flow of her own consciousness" to use her own words, the fluctuating state of herself in the particular surroundings with its objects of that moment. It was interesting to see her photographs from the trip during the talk that she gave at the gallery. Her trip immediately became banal and the conversation that was established between her trip and us viewers through her objects turned into a monologue, as she pointed out herself. This is why Matsubara attempted a different modality of recording, one that allowed her to open up her own experience, her own reality, to the dynamic intervention and re-articulation by others.

Why 1000 objects?

This is even more apparent as we understand the reason behind the limit for the total number of objects to be collected. The number 1000 was defined by a project the artist was offered to join about the same time she set out on the trip, namely the participation in the small scale Swedish art publication Museum Paper.

Museum Paper only releases 1000 copies of each edition. Unlike other artists who chose to present their works in a conventional publishing format, Matsubara decided to include one actual object from her trip in each copy of the publication. The objects will therefore travel to Sweden first to be bound and then to readers who will happen to pick up a copy of the publication. The exhibition will never be complete; it will continue to exist as an ongoing process wherever and whenever a reader opens the page. "I rely on viewers", said the artist towards the end of her talk, summarizing the co-operative/co-performative nature of this project.
Each object is labeled with the time and place in which it was collected.
Sharing realities online

This process of editing and collecting information, and subsequently publishing it to be shared by a wide audience is reminiscent of a social and technological phenomenon that seems to be at the tip of everyone's tongue recently: Twitter. Leaving aside the differences in terms of scale, speed and modality, as well as the inherent complexities and problems involved which go completely beyond the scope of this review (and which this writer still fails to grasp fully), it is worth pointing out the similarities between the artist's project and the internet service.

The explosion of the usage of Twitter can be understood as our willingness to do just what Matsubara has done in her project, to employ a more acute awareness of the situation surrounding her, to select objects (information) that she would like to use to simultaneously record her reactions and thoughts while also "publishing" them to be shared. It is the recording and sharing of the process involved in the ceaseless production of realities.

Actually picking up objects and pressing them in a large phone book that the artist carried around wherever she went, not to say "publishing" them in an exhibition and then in a Swedish publication, is undeniably a process that necessitates an incomparable amount of effort, willingness, and, I'm tempted to say, care, in comparison to writing 140 words that can instantly be published with a click. "Poetry makes language care because it renders everything intimate…There is often nothing more substantial to place against the cruelty and indifference of the world than this caring."3 Matsubara's exhibition envelops us and confronts us with this kind of poetic "labor of bringing into intimacy" that John Berger writes about, inviting us to travel with her while reconsidering the very essence of the way we do and can relate to each other.


1Pearson, M & Shanks, M (2001) Theatre/Archaeology, Routledge, London
2Dawkins, R (Jul 2005) Queerer than we can suppose
3Dyer, G (Eds) (2001) John Berger: Selected Essays, Bloomsbuy Publishing, London


 
 

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Strike, Riot and Fire Among the Garment Workers - a working class revolt in ...

 
 

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Mass working class revolt has been raging in Bangladesh for several months: garment workers fighting for improved wages and conditions... Farmers fighting destruction of their livelihoods by open cast mining... Mass insurrection against power cuts...  read more »


 
 

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Keeping Busy on the Homefront!

 
 

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via Bird in the Hand Zine Shop by abirdinthehand on 8/26/09


Bird in the Hand's retail space (100a King Street, Newcastle) will be closed until Thursday 10 September when it will re-open at 11am.

Before my overseas jaunt I've been busily filling the online zine store with loads of new stuff….have a little looksie!

Mixtape - Issue 10

Free Grub

Free Grub

Photocopied Map - Issue 1

Photocopied Map - Issue 1

Plastic Knife - Issue 1

Plastic Knife - Issue 1

Plastic Knife - Issue 2

Plastic Knife - Issue 2

Cyclic Defrost - Issue 23

Cyclic Defrost - Issue 23


 
 

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Newman, Al “Owl”

 
 

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via Optical Sloth by admin on 8/30/09

Website

PDF file of this comic

abstract1

The Abstract Artist

Well, this has to be the first posthumous review of a comic on this website.  That's awkwardly worded, as it's the creator that died a few years back, but I think you get the idea.  Still, Squidworks put together a collection of his minis and you can still see this whole comic online (and in color) for free, so why not add it?  This is the story of a dissatisfied artist who wonders why nobody ever buys his abstract art.  At the end of his rope he muses that he'd sell his soul if only he could get his paintings to sell, and that usually (in comic books and movies) brings the devil around.  Sure enough, he pops up, but is instantly rejected by the artist, who isn't satisfied with the offer.  He eventually talks Satan into giving him three wishes, to be granted every six months.  Things don't work out in the end, as Satan generally manages to find a loophole, but it's a funny ride to get there.  The sheer self-absorption of this artist is breathtaking, and he goes from being at least a mildly sympathetic character to somebody who you can't wait to see taken down a peg.  The art is fairly simple (the first page is one of the few where you'll see backgrounds), but as it's a story about abstract art, it doesn't need a lot of additional work.  This is worth a look, which you can do for free at that .pdf file I linked above, and now, of course, I'm curious about what else this man has done.  Luckily there are a few free comics at the link posted above, so it'll be easy to catch up on his work in mini comics.

abstract2


 
 

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