Foxes in the supermarket and Complaint letters

Having a good whinge!

from The eloquent page by Caitlin Prescott

One of the things I love about zines is that they are a perfect platform to get those irritations of modern life off your chest! This also means they deal with subjects rarely documented anywhere else and give a voice to people who would otherwise remain totally unrepresented in the published record of Australian life. Two examples of this have been on my desk recently; Foxes in the supermarket and Complaint letters

Complaint letters and Foxes in the supermarket

Foxes in the supermarket actually contains two works by different authors published back to back on inverted pages. Written by Aaron Matthews and Beck Vinci the works are anecdotal descriptions of the frustrations and annoyances suffered by people working in Supermarkets. I was really drawn to this zine as my sister works in a supermarket and based on her stories and those in the zine it is obvious that the experience of dealing with the public, while sometimes a delight, has some universal pitfalls!
Complaint letters, written by Smells Like Zines Distro is a collection of letters of complaint  and the responses generated by the letters. It demonstrates how difficult it is to get a genuine personal response or resoulution to a problem you have with a large company and how the official line for dealing with complaints when applied to all situations can result in the ridiculous.
These zines inspire me to think about writing my own zine about things that annoy me. For instance, I have long felt that it is a low act to have only 11 Tim Tams per packet. You either have to have exactly 11 people to share the packet or there will be fights! Is this a cunning ploy to get us to buy two packets?

Dylan Williams

http://thirteenminutes.blogspot.com/

9.11.2011

I'll Miss You, Dylan

I feel absolutely crushed by this news.

I can only imagine what his family and close friends may be going though, but my thoughts are with them. For now, all I can seem to dwell on is the initial bout of panic I felt when I heard the news. It’s like one of those tragic events that occurs in which you’ll always remember where you were. I was standing in a crowded room full of 300 people who were laughing and drinking and having a great time. It was one of those moments of intense focus, where I blocked everything else out. The room went quiet around me. I don’t know what they were saying. I only remember staring blankly at the text message on my phone. I felt like I was going into shock. My chest tightened. I got tunnel vision. Time slowed and I ran that damned gamut of emotions. Disbelief, because I didn’t want to accept it as truth. Anger, because I was mad this could happen, it seemed so unfair. Sorrow, because I selfishly thought about how I’d never see him again. Fear, because it seemed so sudden, because he’s only two years older than me and it made me think about my own mortality. Guilty, because I thought about what would happen to the company, to the creators he provided an outlet for, about how I’d need to do this post for my own catharsis, all that instead of first thinking about the personal loss. Confusion, because I didn’t know what would happen next…

Personally, Dylan was merely a friend of a friend to me. I only got the chance to hang out with him a couple of times, every second of which is now etched into my memory. We were much closer professionally, emailing often, as I reviewed dozens of Sparkplug Comic Books over the years. Dylan was gracious enough to put me on the comp list at Sparkplug. I remember the first time I met him. I remember talking comics with him. I remember handing him a copy of my first mini-comic, and the warmth and elation he showed. That genuine interest is something I bet a lot of creators felt so encouraged by…

Dylan created a publishing company out of thin air. He did what all parents tell their kids to do, even if they couldn’t attempt it themselves for more pragmatic reasons. He followed his passion. He contributed something so unique to the industry. He tried to create an audience for the types of books that he wanted to read. There was something so admirable and selfless about that to me. To stake your reputation, your financial means, all on that singular belief. That’s what people mean when they talk about having vision. It felt like Sparkplug was just finally hitting its stride, with so much momentum having reached a crescendo, that maybe the best was yet to come. Sparkplug Comic Books were often, regularly, consistently, on my best of the year lists, and one need only look at the recent round of awards nominations to see the type of brand recognition he’d built. This is a loss that feels immensely consequential. There is a gaping hole in my heart because I’ll miss the guy. There is a gaping hole in my brain where I will miss the intellectual artistry he was responsible for guiding into the world…

Timing is a weird thing in life. It’s a little tangential, but I’ve worked in security and emergency management before and after 9/11. I worked for a company that was directly impacted by 9/11. I thought I’d be spending the 10th anniversary remembering that day, and those immediately following it. Retracing my steps, replaying the events of the day, reliving the decisions I had to make, and wondering about how the events of that day changed my world. It seems that now this horrible date will be colored by another tragic event. In addition to everything else, every 9/11 from this point forward, my thoughts will now wrestle with the loss of Dylan Williams.

Again, timing is a weird thing in life. I keep thinking about DC Comics and their New 52 for some dumb reason. That’s not really what will fix the industry. I always had the feeling that if there were a hundred guys like Dylan doing what he did, following their creative vision, with a transformative agenda, operating with style and influence, that the industry could probably be “fixed” in short order. We didn’t have a hundred guys. We only had one. We had Dylan. The world is better for it.

I’ll miss you, Dylan.

The Dewey Decimal System is decadent and depraved.

In Defence of Dewey … well sort of!

from The eloquent page from the National Library of Australia by Caitlin Prescott

While on a buying trip for the collection, one of our staff bought an American zine for herself titled, “The Dewey Decimal System is decadent and depraved.” She didn’t buy it for the collection as the National Library generally only collects zines by Australians. She, like every other librarian who has seen it on her desk, was drawn to it a) because librarians are tickled to see that someone is noticing what we do even if they don’t like it and b) because most librarians actually have quite a lot of sympathy for the author’s point of view. The Dewey Decimal System frustrates librarians sometimes too! In the zine, the author, who works shelving books, discovers that although there is an excellent comic/graphic novel section some seminal works are missing from it. He finds Maus : a survivor’s tale by Art Spiegelman in the 940s and The New Yorker cartoon collection in the 320s. He speculates that a move away from the 740s indicates some kind of value judgement of the books’ worth. Do only the good comics get moved?

Unfortunately the author doesn’t find anyone who is able to explain why all the comics/graphic novels are not grouped together at the same Dewey number. Hopefully my explanation will make it seem less arbitrary and remove any hint of an insult to creators of graphic works. Basically all of Dewey is devoted to non-fiction with the exceptions of the 800s for literature and the comic/graphic novels numbers 741.5 and 741.56. In the past 741.5 and 741.56 were exclusively for fictional works. As most comics/graphic novels were fictional they were placed under these numbers. 741.5 is for comic books, graphic novels, fotonovelas such as Astérix, Fantastic Four, Tintin and Wonder Woman. 741.56 is for cartoons, caricatures and comic strips such as Andy Capp, The Far Side, Garfield and Peanuts. These numbers are in the 740s because they come under Graphic Arts so having graphic novels/comics at these numbers acknowledges the importance of the artwork in them. Other literature is also separated by form into poetry, fiction, drama etc., which is located in the 800s, so the emphasis on form is not only applied to graphic novels.

The graphic novels that ended up at other Dewey numbers were either non-fiction or walked a fine line between fiction and non-fiction. Maus is a description of Art Spiegelman’s father’s life in Poland before and during the Second World War and his later life in New York City. Since it documents the real life experiences of a Holocaust survivor it is placed at a Dewey number for history. Of course there is still the pesky problem of the characters being mice, which really does make it fiction and in some libraries you’ll find it at 741.5. Dewey has recently released its latest edition (23) in which both non-fiction and fiction graphic novels and cartoons can be placed at 741.5 and 741.56. However cartoons created principally to convey a message or persuade an audience with regard to a particular topic will still be placed with that topic so this means The New Yorker cartoon collection would still end up in the 320s.

By the end of the zine, the author concludes that comics/graphic novels should be scattered throughout the collection instead of being contained at one Dewey number which doesn’t reflect their subject matter. I don’t feel frustrated by the limited choice of numbers available for graphic novels/comics since I think most people who are interested in them will appreciate finding them in the same spot in their local library. It would also be quite hard to accurately apply a Dewey number for one subject to a piece of fiction which may explore many subjects in the course of a whole book. Part of the Dewey number for a collection of works of fiction, where the subject matter is more obvious, does include the subject. A book titled, “Australian tales of horror” would have the Dewey A823.08738 with the numbers after the decimal point indicating that the works are short horror stories. Collections of graphic novels/comics can have the same subject additions if they deal very obviously with one genre.

What I do find frustrating about Dewey is the world perspective that permeates it. It is hardly surprising that a classification system designed by a 19^th century white American man reflects a male white American 19^th century world view but this can be a source of some difficulties when assigning numbers to modern books. This is why when I tried to catalogue a collection of stories and poems about erotic love I was given the choice between a number for “Love and marriage” or a number for “Sex.” Apparently sex in marriage was unheard of in the 19^th century! Another example of the skewed world of Dewey is found in the number for religion. Dewey numbers for Christianity (including many different denominations) span from 230 to 280 with all “Other religions” lumped under 290. However for all its faults Dewey has been a remarkably successful tool for organising library books to allow readers to browse by subject which is no mean feat!

Lil bit of spice

Lil bit of spice

from The eloquent page by Jo-Anne Groom Via The National Library of Australia

Lil bit of spice is a zine brought to us by Leslie Abelard, a Texan who lives in France. She describes the purpose of her zine as being to develop herself as an artist and to entertain – two pretty worthwhile reasons to create a zine I think.

Lil bit of spice

The zine is a mix of things including music and zine reviews, descriptions of places she’s been, poetic interludes through to general musings/rants. It even includes a mini-zine called Delicious in which she prints a favourite recipe. Also it’s a nice touch that rather than just print coloured pictures in her zine, she has chosen to ‘stick in’ actual photographs. Makes an interesting change in texture from plain paper to glossy pic .

Lil bit of spice zine

I found this a fun zine due to the whimsical nature created by Leslie through a mix of child-like elements such as extras like a handmade card for Valentines’ Day in the first issue and Mother’s Day post-it-notes in issue two.  Both issues also have a Fortune fairy and a mysterious sealed envelope on the final page titled Goodies which is most intriguing.  I would love to open these two sealed items but it seems almost sacrilegious to spoil the zine by doing so! View the catalogue record I created for it

Lil bit of spice

Lil bit of spice

from The eloquent page by Jo-Anne Groom

 

Lil bit of spice is a zine brought to us by Leslie Abelard, a Texan who lives in France. She describes the purpose of her zine as being to develop herself as an artist and to entertain – two pretty worthwhile reasons to create a zine I think.

Lil bit of spice

The zine is a mix of things including music and zine reviews, descriptions of places she’s been, poetic interludes through to general musings/rants. It even includes a mini-zine called Delicious in which she prints a favourite recipe. Also it’s a nice touch that rather than just print coloured pictures in her zine, she has chosen to ‘stick in’ actual photographs. Makes an interesting change in texture from plain paper to glossy pic .

Lil bit of spice zine

I found this a fun zine due to the whimsical nature created by Leslie through a mix of child-like elements such as extras like a handmade card for Valentines’ Day in the first issue and Mother’s Day post-it-notes in issue two.  Both issues also have a Fortune fairy and a mysterious sealed envelope on the final page titled Goodies which is most intriguing.  I would love to open these two sealed items but it seems almost sacrilegious to spoil the zine by doing so! View the catalogue record I created for it

Upcoming Encyclopedia of Doris readings

Upcoming Encyclopedia of Doris readings

from doris zine blog by noreply@blogger.com (doris zine blog. for website go to dorisdorisdoris.com)

My book is coming out next week!
Upcoming Reading Tours:
August 11: Asheville NC, Malaprops Bookstore 7:00
September 23: Baltimore MD, Anarchist book fair; 6:00
September 24: Philadelpia PA, Wooden Shoe Bookstore; 7:00
September 25: NYC, Bluestockings Bookstore
September 26: Brooklyn, Bookthug Nation
September 27: North Hampton, MA, Food For Thought
September 28: may be somewhere in Vermont
September 29-30: Montreal
October 1-2:
October 3: Toronto
October 4: Pittsburgh

From Davida at Xerography Debt

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, It Is Being Published

by davida@leekinginc.com (Leeking Inc.)

This column appears in the forthcoming issue of Xerography Debt (#29). Order now!

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,
It Is Being Published

by Davida Gypsy Breier

What is a zine? No, seriously. I’m not trying to sound like an MTV reporter in 1996 trying to hype a “youth fad,” I’m genuinely questioning how the combined loss of generational history and the massive rise in independent publishing over the last five years has blurred lines and broken down walls. When I got into zines it was a culture of barter, freedom of expression, and rebellion against established media. We published zines because we wanted to communicate and because what we had to say and how we wanted to say it was of no interest to commercial publishers. That was fine, they had their world and we had ours. Zines that got big enough to carry ISSNs or barcodes of any kind were scorned. And anything with an ISBN might as well have carried the mark of the beast. We were in a culture war of sorts, defying the commodification of art and ideas. Many of the people I knew and traded with at that time were in their teens and twenties. We were figuring ourselves out and zines were how we did it.

In many cases zines actually lead (or even helped) us into careers as librarians or in publishing. I fall into the latter camp. I started out working for a non-profit that supported itself through publishing. From there I went to work for a distributor that specialized in small presses. In some cases, the small book publishers I worked with were like zine publishers – only they were older and had the capital to fund their projects. They had something to say, wanted to connect with readers, and commercial publishers weren’t interested. It has often been said that zines are defined by a lack of financial gain. Well, if that is the case, most book publishers I know are actually zine publishers.

I watched the struggles these small publishers were experiencing and they mirrored some of what we faced in zineland. Up until 1998 we had Factsheet 5 to help readers and publishers find each other. Small book publishers had no such vehicle. Other zine review zines sprang up, but none of us ever had the distribution into the retail market that F5 had. Speaking of distribution, it is very hard for small presses to get distributed and when they do it can be expensive. Again, this is a similar barrier in zines. How many of us remember zines that just disappeared – how many of you realize that some disappeared because their distributor (anyone remember Desert Moon? Fine Print?) went under owing them money, which meant that print and postage bills went unpaid and the publication was compromised or ultimately folded. How many of us had to scale back after Tower went under?

I was working with these small presses as POD (print-on-demand) technologies started really developing. At that time stores didn’t want to touch anything they thought was POD because they felt the supply was limited and the quality was poor – sound familiar zine people?

Let’s flash forward a few years. In 1995, 113,589 ISBN’s were registered with Bowker; in 2010 there were 316,480. What happened? Fucking independent publishers happened! We all talk about the death of print (both zines and books), but look at those numbers. More books are being published than ever before. We act like blogs are killing zines. What if books are killing zines? What if the people, faced with all the barriers we faced in 1995, wanted to publish and couldn’t. Chances are some of them would be making zines. Instead, in 2011 the barriers between the worlds of book publishing and zine publishing are disintegrating. If I wanted to create a book today there are companies that will help me do everything from registering an ISBN (I don’t have to buy an expensive block of 10 or 100 now), do the layout in an automated template, and set my file up with a POD printer. Imagine something like that existing in 1995! Is what you have created a zine? A chapbook? A book? What the hell is it? And does that matter?

Within the book publishing world there is a lot of identity crisis going on right now. Digitization and the easy access to the industry have broken down so many walls that used to exist. I mean, even the term book is being challenged by the larger notion of content. Here’s a question to exemplify how things are changing: What is your favorite recording artist or song? Did you hear the music or picture a band or person? Or did you picture a CD, LP, or MP3 file? If you pictured the recording artist you are interested in the content. If you pictured the CD you are interested in the format or media. The term book or zine defines how you will read, not what you will read. It is the media, not the content. What matters more to you?

These days I wear several hats in the land of publishing (and a few in zineland) and some of my focus is digital content. I have read on an e-reader and on a laptop, and I can see the potential value of this media, but as you can see by this zine in your hands I have not given up traditionally printed zines or books. One thing I see ebooks doing is something we all were doing in 1995 – independently produced ebooks are challenging the establishment. They are providing readers with alternatives. They are often cheaply produced or free and filled with typos and poorly rendered design. But are they zines? No, of course not. But they sound a hell of a lot like a zine, don’t they?

So this brings me back to my original question? What is a zine? Is a definition created to try and explain the “fad” to the uninitiated in 1995 still accurate? I don’t think so. I think that zines, like publishing, have undergone a few changes and that we should keep our community open instead of trying to hold onto established labels because we are fearful of change. Does that mean I think a blog is a zine? No, I don’t. But maybe you do. Does that mean I think a paper zine created by cutting and pasting directly from a blog is a zine? Well, yes, technically, but I also think it is hella lazy.

If we are going to have the label talk, let’s step back in time a moment and discuss how we got here. Current nomenclature stems from the term “fanzine.” When I was a wee geek I actually subscribed to a few SF fanzines, but didn’t really think about their relationship to zines until I was firmly entrenched in zine culture. “Fan magazines” are another thing entirely. An example would be Sports Illustrated – this is created as a for-profit venture and caters to the interest of fans. So back to fanzines – these were everything from DIY to semi-professional publications that originated in science fiction circles. In many cases they were modeled after existing professional publications. These were generally genre specific to a largely homogenized audience. Existing publications provided a blueprint. Not a lot of boundaries being pushed here.

People like to write about their obsessions, so early SF fanzine culture lent itself to other fan-based genres, such as horror, music, and sports (note that these were traditionally “male fan” genres – we’ll get back to that in a minute). Music will become an important one as independent music gains a foothold, but commercial music magazines and radio stations refuse to cover and play these underground bands. Sub-cultures form around these marginalized arts.

For early fanzines, there was an attempt at aesthetic – again emulating professional magazines. Remember, we are talking about the ’30s-’50s here, so these were being printed on mimeographs and ditto machines. These took time to set up and were labor intensive. So what happens to bring modern zines to the fore? Two things: 1) technology – photocopies become cheap and accessible and 2) the cultural revolution of the ’60s leaves people realizing that mainstream media is not addressing their interests or culture. That thread of individuality flourishes in the ‘70s and people start documenting their own lives and cultures. This is passed onto the next generation and participation in zine culture peaks in the mid-‘90s. So to get back to the idea of fanzines covering “male dominated” genres – the rise of the women’s movement allowed for societal changes to begin in the ‘70s and one interpretation of those changes led to the rise in Riot Grrrl zines in the ‘90s. Unlike with fanzines, zines as we know them today were very inclusive of people and sub-cultures that had little power in mainstream society. If you were LGBTQ, dealing with mental health issues, or just the class weirdo, zines were a relatively safe place to call home.

Zines were filled with raw emotions and gritty personalities. Again, a huge difference from fanzines. People were learning to talk and write and it felt anonymous because often the only interaction writers had occurred months after they finished a zine and dropped it in the mail. People talked about obsessions, traveling, bands they liked, abuse, politics, and their personal experiences. Aesthetics were often not a high priority and legibility seldom taken into consideration (margins, what are margins?). Cut & paste was done because it was all we had in the old days. And it can be done in a way that is legible. Sloppy is just sloppy.

When I got into zines there were a few basic criteria used to define what a zine was (and none of them really worked). 1) it was created without intent of monetary gain and was bartered for other zines; 2) fewer than 500 (or 5000 – depends on who you ask) copies were printed; 3) zines allowed voices who had no other outlet to be heard; 4) no ISSN or ISBN (ironically, this means that zinedom’s sacred cow, Factsheet 5, was, in fact, not a zine). So did zines that started out small and grew get grandfathered in? For some people, yes. For others, ridiculous indy creed was more important. And truthfully, a lot of us were just in it for mail and could care less about debating Bust’s standing as a zine.

The boom period in the ‘90s saw a lot of zines born and die. Much like the early ‘00s saw a ton of blogs born and die. Many of the same reasons that drove people to create zines drove them to create blogs, only blogs were faster, easier, cheaper, and allowed for immediate gratification. Now, headed into the 10’s, some of us see where a blog can in fact be useful and compliment a paper zine without cannibalizing it. Technology has, in many respects, helped push forward the agenda of book and zine publishers and to not use tools that are within our reach to help us complete our ultimate missions seems self-defeating. How many people reading this learned about the Revenge of Print project online?

So how do the early definitions of “zine” and “fanzine” hold up in 2011? Well, email has pretty much killed my neurotic compulsion to stop by the PO Box regularly. Instead, I neurotically check my email. The Internet now allows for a din of individual voices to be heard and finding likeminded souls is not the same weird crap shoot of putting your zine in an envelope and sending it off to a PO Box wondering if you are about to meet someone who will become a part of your life. (A brief tangent – remember how it used to be weird when people said they met online? Now try explaining to people that you met your best friend through the mail and you have never actually met in person. )

I think the original ideas behind the labels “fanzine” and “zine” are dated. I think fanzines could learn from zines by opening up to more diverse, personal, and critical content. Similarly, I think that zines could learn from fanzines and start making publications that are easier to read and dare I say it – actually interesting to look at. Do we hold to the old definitions and try and work within those boxes? Do we create new terms to explain what is going on now? I don’t have any answers. Here is a good example why – someone uses a library computer to create a publication. She cannot afford a computer, internet access, or copies, so she creates a PDF and emails that to people or posts it to a site like Scribd. She is giving it away and soliciting people to send her their zines (via email or mail). Her motivation and content are very much in line with old-school zine ethos, but her method of delivery is new-school. Has she created a zine?

Personally, I would love to read more international zines, but postage is often a barrier. Is a PDF of a zine created and printed in New Zealand, but emailed to the rest of the world any less of a zine? These are the questions I am asking myself as a zine writer, zine editor, zine reviewer, book publisher, and book distributor as I continue to move forward as a creator and merchant of words and content.

As I see it, what matters is intent. The how and the why are more important to me than the what. I view myself as an independent publisher, who enjoys zines as a culture and medium. I edit and manage Xerography Debt for the community and co-edit Rigor Mortis to fulfill my creative needs. My monetary goal is sustainability, which pretty much means attempting to break even based on content. I don’t sell ad space, nor do I sell my mailing list (again, F5 is held aloft, but there were a lot of rumors about Seth Friedman bartering and selling the F5 mailing list. Our culture wasn’t what held value, but what we could be sold.). I define XD and RM as zines to those who understand the term and to those who don’t they are “small press publications.” Many reviews have defined RM as a fanzine (which makes my co-editor apoplectic). None of these labels change the content.

So these are my truths. Your truths may vary or settle during shipping. And the truths of today may not be the truths of yesterday or tomorrow. If you must have a label and can’t find one that suits you, make one up. The important thing is that we each examine the what, how, and why and make sure they are in line with our intent.

In the words of The Dude, “Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man,” so I say to you, dear readers, what is your truth? What is your opinion on the state of zines? Why do you or did you publish? Do you publish looking forward or backward? Is it about revolution or nostalgia? Or both? Please send me your thoughts – roughly 250-500 words – with a deadline of October 15, 2011. This will become a new series called, “The Voices of Zinedom.” In this instance, I embrace modern technology as a time-saver and would prefer to receive responses by email (Davida@leekinginc.com).

Just keep reading – no matter what, no matter how.

Art Visionary Box Set

Art Visionary Box Set

I received my copy of the Art Visionary Box Set in the mail a little while ago. It's a gorgeous collection of limited edition prints, art booklets and original art put together by Damian Michaels, who also contributes some amazing work to the set. Other contributors include Alex Grey, Ben Tolman, Wolfgang Grasse, and Tom Mckee.
My own contribution is a signed, limited edition version of my long out of print art zine, Thought Cloud Shrines. I'll be doing more work for Art Visionary magazine soon! www.artvisionary.com

new zines in the distro! and music!

from doris zine blog by noreply@blogger.com (doris zine blog. for website go to dorisdorisdoris.com)

at my distro click here for distro

the ovens. CDR
Featured band of the season! The Ovens! Two peice feminist band from Chicago! Check it out by clicking here!listen to This Disaster Was Brought To You By Heterosexuality

Keep Track: Pocket Calender
This is my little calender and pocket organizer! Cute drawings! Fits in your pocket! There are two pages for each month, with four blank pages with little drawings for taking notes and making lists.
The calender part has blank spots for you to fill in the dates, so that you can start at any time, but if you want me to fill it in, I will.

When the Crash Meets Something Solid Issue #002: Hewers of Water
stories, essays, and poetry about drug addiction; sex work - which she did at first by choice, and then how it got twisted; abuse, and survival
powerful and good

The Worst: A Compilation Zine on Grief and Loss: Issue 2
A new issue of this beautiful zine, thick and full of stories and articles about grief and dealing with death.
I read it a month ago, and I can't remember for sure, but it seemed like this one had more stories from people who were a little older and had more time/distance from the deaths they were writing about, where as the first issue seemed more immediate. Both are so useful! Both have a wide variety of stories.

Truckface #14
Excellent zine! about her second year of teaching high-school. very funny, extremely tragic, inspiring, depressing, politics, comics, everything you could ask for. I love this zine!
It also has stories about life outside of school - starting a feminist band (the Ovens), bad roommates, and more!
Every new teacher and everyone thinking of becoming a teacher should read this, plus everyone else should too!

Truckface #13
Thick little zine about LB's first (hellish) year of teaching highschool. In which she gets named "The Nose" by her students. Deals with a class of 8 bad apples - and how to teach, how to stay sane. Almost decided to not continue teaching. Deals with the religious right protesting at the school (for having a Gay-Straight Alliance), this zine is great and has a million funny/sad stories.
I wish all my friends who were going into their first year of teaching could read this zine! and everyone else too!

Truckface #12
"How do you become an authority figure when you yourself are anti-authoritarian? Questions that should have been asked prior to enrolling in teaching school."

student teaching in Chicago - dealing with bitter, assimilationist teachers; desperation and violence among students (24 students murdered this school year... and school authorities decided that tucking in shirts is the solution); dancing in class with the students, students talking about racism and discrimination, immigration, bravery.

When Lanugage Runs Dry #3:A Zine for People with Chronic Pain and Their Allies
another issue of this great zine. Issue #3 has a beautifully written peice about brain injury; an article about parenting with chronic pain; a comic/theory about Fibromyalgia and invisible illness; a conversation/interview between a step-mother and daughtor about what it was like to have a step-mother who was experiencing chronic pain; and an article about the workbook Living Beyond Your Pain: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Ease Chronic Pain

No One Rules Ok! #2

Zine Review | No One Rules Ok! #2

£1.00 for 40 A5 printed pages

I’m blogging this fanzine review because I’ve just put out a new issue of my own zine Beat Motel and gawd knows how long it’s going to be before the next issue comes out (if ever).

I’ve never heard of ‘No One Rules Ok!’ before and in what has become a very small and cliquey zine world that’s reassuring in its own right, what’s more reassuring is the fact that this zine is well-written, well thought out, intelligent and full of personality.

The biggest feature in this issue is a very long (but very cool) interview with Steve Ignorant of Crass – I’ve never been a fan of Crass but (as with any well written interview) there’s plenty here to hold my attention. Steve Ignorant comes across as still very much having something to say, and zinester Justin is respectful, keen, but not in any way sycophantic. It’s a tone of interview that works well throughout this issue of ‘No One Rules Ok!’ and makes the whole issue really enjoyable.

This music heavy fanzine (and thank god zines like this still exist) is also peppered with a few thoughtful paragraphs on various topics, all with the anarchic attitude that keeps me interested in punk rock based fanzines (as apposed to arty farty shite zines). Bands featured include Drongos For Europe (surely the most zinester interviewed band ever), The Warriors, The Sex Pistols experience (surprisingly enlightening) and a hilariously excellent mini-history of Fire Exit. Features include bits on Glasgow punk, Ulster punk and a smattering of book reviews.

I’m always a bit disappointed when zines don’t contain reviews of other zines as it seems a little ‘unhelpful’ to the cause, but then if I’m starting to expect anything at all from zines then I’m kinda missing the reason they exist in the first place aren’t I?!?

Grab a copy by emailing musicisloud@hotmail.co.uk or by sending a quid (and fifty pence for postage) to Justin, 30 Humber Ave, Brickhill, Bedford, Beds, MK41 7EL, United Kingdom.

Posted by Andrew Culture

I am disabled – and you’re jealous?

I am disabled – and you’re jealous?

Having a disability and surviving on a disability support pension isn’t something to be envious of. If disabled people could trade their money to have your health, they would probably do it, writes Ciara Xyerra.

13 December 2010

I had a pretty difficult conversation recently in which a good friend told me that she is jealous of the security my disability money provides.

I have been on disability since early 2003. I’m one of those lucky folks who was approved the first time I applied. I get it for both physical disabilities and mental health issues.

My mental health issues are mainly anxiety and depression, both of which I have learned to manage pretty well (especially the depression), but which still affect my life in various ways pretty much every day. I have a much more difficult time managing my physical disabilities.

I have some weird birth defect wherein I was born with an incomplete spine. I am missing a few vertebrae in my lower back. I also have fairly severe scoliosis. This may be related to the missing vertebrae. My spine may have learned how to curve over time in order to support the uneven distribution on weight along my back due to the missing vertebrae.

On top of this, I injured my back really seriously when I was 18, in a workplace mishap. I damaged a lot of nerves in my spine and have some fairly minor (comparatively) partial paralysis in the right side of my body. It mostly affects my right arm and my neck.

I went to physical therapy to recover motion and passably normal function in my leg. I was in physical therapy for months, but 13 years later, I can walk pretty normally.

But on top of all of this, I developed arthritis, which has spread all over my body. Ten years ago, it was pretty centralized in my back, hips and knees, but now it’s in my feet, hands, arms, neck and has recently spread to my shoulders.

The arthritis means I live with major amounts of chronic pain every single day. Some days are worse than others. I’ve had days when I couldn’t walk, move my neck, or lift my arms. Those days are fairly infrequent.

My daily battles involve things that other people don’t think twice about. It’s difficult for me to hold and use utensils, button a jacket, and write things by hand. It’s very painful for me to sweep a floor.

Often, when I wash dishes, my hands sometimes lock into claws and I can’t move them. If I’m sitting on the couch reading a book, it’s difficult for me to hold the book open.

Little things like this cause me significant amounts of pain, which is only becoming more severe and widespread as time goes on.

I’m only 31. There’s no cure for arthritis, so I have to make my peace with the fact that these problems aren’t going away and will in fact only get worse.

When I was initially diagnosed, my orthopaedic specialist said I would probably be in a wheelchair by the time I’m 30. Clearly, he was wrong about that. But we’ll see what the future holds.

I also have to deal with the fact that my arthritic joints are more prone to injury and take longer to heal if they are injured. Seven years ago, I sprained my ankle tripping on a rock in my backyard. I had to wear an ankle brace and walk with a cane for six months. I was only 24 years old! It was no fun to roll into a zine fest leaning on a cane.

Chronic pain is pretty much impossible to describe to someone that has never experienced it. I have had some kind of chronic pain somewhere in my body every single day for the last 13 years.

Sometimes, it’s so bad I cry. There have even been times that I have thought about killing myself just to make it go away. (This was especially a big problem right after I hurt my back, when I couldn’t move my right leg at all and couldn’t get out of bed for months on end.)

I’m a lot more okay with it now, just because I’m used to it and have developed some skills for working around it, but it definitely sucks.

Being on disability has literally saved my life. I can’t imagine what job I would actually be able to hold down when my physical limitations are combined with my mental health issues.

I was approved for disability when I was 22, and the government determined from my application that I became chronically and permanently disabled at age 18. Therefore, when my dad died right after I turned 23 and I got divorced a year later, I became eligible for the disabled adult children of deceased parent benefit program.

This enables me to collect disability insurance as well as my dad’s social security guarantee. The thinking is that a parent would financially support his/her disabled adult child if s/he were alive to do so. In his absence, the government gives the disabled adult child the social security benefits the parent would have collected upon retiring.

Disability insurance alone is a very meagre income. It would be a huge challenge to live independently on it. I did it for six months while I was waiting for my divorce to be finalized: $525 a month, and my rent alone was $400. You do the math.

Adding my dad’s benefits to the mix means I am able to support myself independently – although I have to live a fairly frugal lifestyle. Which I’m okay with, because I am/was (?) a punk and that’s how punks roll.

Of course, this is a fixed income. If I find one day that it’s not enough money to get by, I don’t have any options. I can’t apply for a better-paying job. I can’t further my education in hopes of a professional career and the attendant boost in income. This is it.

There are other caveats as well: if I ever decide to live outside the United States, I lose my disability money altogether. If I ever get legally married, the government will pull the extra money I get from the disabled adult child program and I’m back to just my $525 or so in disability money. I would have to rely on my partner to support me financially, which is a lot to ask of someone, and which is something that makes me very uncomfortable.

I’m not sure what the rules are around having assets (i.e., if I were to sign a mortgage, even if I wasn’t the sole person responsible for paying down the mortgage). I’m not sure how social service programs I may be eligible for if I were to have a child (i.e., WIC) would impact my social security income.

So, you know, it’s not a perfect system. But it works for me for now. Not having to sweat the bills and look for a job definitely goes a long way toward helping me keep my depression and anxiety in check, and being able to be a homebody definitely enables me to take the time and space I need to deal with my chronic pain issues.

For example, I can chill out at home and sleep or take a bath if the pain is really intense, rather than forcing myself out to my job. Toward the end of my life as an employee, I was taking a lot of “sick days” that were really “too much pain to get out of bed” days.

I don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. My schedule is now flexible enough to do self-care things like water aerobics classes, outpatient surgery to cauterize pain-transmitting spinal nerves, etc, without having to take time off.

Okay, back to the situation with my friend. I see very little in my situation to inspire jealousy.

Her main point, repeated over and over, is that it’s a privilege for me to be able to make ends meet without sweating my next pay check (though I’m always cognizant of the fact that the government could pull my benefits any time they want, and I am subject to regular, extremely arduous, review processes).

Is it a privilege for the government to provide a basic income to people who cannot provide an income for themselves? I honestly wouldn’t call that a privilege. I think it’s pretty much the least they could do.

I’m not one of those people who thinks “privilege” is a dirty word and freaks out if someone says I have it in some way…but considering that I get this money because I am disabled, and my disability is a pretty huge detriment to my life, for which I have faced some very clear-cut examples of prejudice and oppression…I definitely think “privilege” is the wrong word to use.

In my years of experience being on disability, I have had several people in my life that seemed jealous or resentful of my guaranteed monthly income. A few people voiced their opinion that I am squandering my money if I buy myself a treat with it (i.e., cute shoes, a decent computer).

I see this as paternalistic nannying bullshit. What, a person can buy whatever the fuck useless or frivolous doodads they want if they go out and earn their money every day at a job, but someone like me should grovel and be grateful for whatever dregs they can get?

These are usually people with a fair chunk of money and financial security, and some unchecked ideas about what poor people deserve. Key word: deserve. These people tend to be very hung up on who deserves what.

The other kind of person in my life has been the person that is struggling to make ends meet themselves, maybe by hustling away at some self-employment, or at a low-paying retail or food service job.

These people are jealous that I make just as much money as them (i.e., not much) without having to leave the house. They seem to think I have a pretty sweet gig going, and sometimes they passive-aggressively congratulate me on “snowing” the government into giving me money.

Believe me when I say I am not snowing anyone. Live a week with the pain I live with every day and see if you think I fooled anyone into declaring me disabled. These people tend to have more jealousy and resentment around my income and financial situation.

They may say something like, “Going to work makes me really anxious, but you don’t see me looking for a hand-out.” and I say, “Why the hell not? If you really think your anxiety constitutes a serious disability that negatively impacts your life on an ongoing basis, apply and see what happens.”

The bottom line is that once these opinions bubble to the surface, the friendship usually doesn’t last too long. I have had really, really bad experiences around this issue, and I think the bottom line is that someone who is jealous of my perceived financial stability due to my disability income is a person who does not take my disability seriously.

It is nothing to be jealous over. If I could wake up every day feeling totally healthy and pain-free and have my dad be alive again, I would gladly work 40 hours a week, even if it were at chipotle or something. But it’s just not an option.

At this point in my life, my pain and my physical limitations are serious enough that I need my friends to take my disability status seriously. It’s a huge part of who I am as a person, and making jokes about it or being jealous basically amount to minimizing a hugely significant and difficult aspect of my existence.

So now I’m dealing with it again and I’m pretty upset. I really thought I’d gotten to the point where I was making good choices about my friends and was only sharing my disability status with people who could be trusted to fully respect that.

I like to think of myself as a good judge of character, but… this happened. I have never ditched a friend solely because they made some fucked-up remark about my disability… but usually the fucked-up remark has been the first indication I’ve had of a toxic stream slowly killing off the friendship.

I am really bummed to think that something like that could be happening again, and I am trying every way I can to try to understand this person’s perspective and give them the benefit of the doubt.

But personal experience has shown me that not taking this remark seriously as a potential cancer in the friendship will only lead to more heartache down the road.

I guess I am writing this for anyone who may be reading who has a friend struggling with a mental or physical disability. I am saying: take that shit seriously. It’s not a fucking joke and it’s nothing to be jealous of.

If your friend’s condition is serious enough that the government has recognized it and is providing for their basic survival, that is a big fucking deal for your friend. They probably have days where they feel unbelievably shitty about the fact that they can’t provide for themselves–even just by washing dishes at noodle and co. plus, they’re dealing with all the restrictions the government places upon them in exchange for their survival money.

There’s a decent chance that that money is the only reason your friend is still alive. Don’t resent them for it; don’t waste your time being jealous of them. Trust me: there’s nothing going on with them that you want for yourself.

If they could trade their money to have your health, they would probably do it. Even if your friend doesn’t often talk about their disability or make their disability-related limitations obvious to you, they still deserve respect as a whole person, and their disability is part of their wholeness. Be cool.

Clara Xyerra has been writing zines for the better part of two decades and ran the - now closed - zine distro ‘learning to leave a paper trail’. Best known for her zines a renegade’s handbook to love and sabotage, up the logic punks! and love letters to monsters she currently blogs at crabigail adams.

FARTS FROM UNDERGROUND by Jim Goad

Duncombe, Stephen. Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. New York: Verso, 1997.

Like me, Stephen Duncombe is an ex-zinester who now writes books. Besides the fact that we also share English as a primary language, all similarities end there. It must be noted that Duncombe makes a few less-than-worshipful comments regarding Yours Truly within his new book on zines. This, naturally, has NOTHING to do with the hurtful venom I express in the following review. I swear. We differ on matters of opinion. Nothing that can be proven.

An example of our differences: While Duncombe believes that "Riot Grrrl breathes new life into feminism," I say it merely gives feminism smaller tits and a backpack. When he claims that "...the outside world [is] the very repository of inauthenticity," I say it's the only world that's for real.

We also differ on the purpose and value of zines. If you don't know what a zine is, consider yourself lucky. The word "zine" is half of the word "'magazine"; a zine, at best, is only half a magazine. Zines are but a tiny fart at the end of a meal which Gutenberg started. Like some things are better left unsaid, most zines are better left unpublished.

Who are the zinesters? Who are these half-people who create half-magazines? They are a bespectacled bundle of contradictions. They are racially hypersensitive, yet there are almost no black zinesters. They are antimaterialistic, yet they are invariably the children of affluence. They are filled with angst because there's no tension or struggle in their lives. They whimper about their limited entertainment choices and act as if walking through the local mall is the ultimate horror ... as if living in the 'burbs is worse than life in the projects. They don't realize that feeling empty is a luxury, not evidence of oppression. The "zine community" is a mail-order support group for emotional cripples. If you need zines to get you through the night, perhaps you don't deserve to see the sun rise.

As one scrawny twig on the Hipster Tree, zinedom is an effete ghetto of exclusion and snobbery. Zines exist for hipsters, and hipsters exist for—I've forgotten why hipsters exist. Oh, right—hipsters exist for the express purpose of wishing that their viewpoints never gain mass acceptance. Hipsters don't want to overthrow the mainstream, they merely want to perpetually coexist with it in a state of adversarial bitchiness. There is no such thing as "alternative culture," only half-assed reasons for wanting to be different. All "alternative movements" devolve into factionalism and backbiting. This is why the mainstream has never lost a battle.

But along comes Stephen Duncombe, much more hopeful than I am...

"In zines I saw the seeds of a different possibility: a novel form of communication and creation that burst with an angry idealism. A medium thot spoke for a marginal, yet vibrant culture, that along with others might invest the tired script of progressive politics with meaning and excitement for a new generation .... As a punk rocker, Left politico, and scholar of culture, I was intrigued by their success."

... Yes, along comes Stephen Duncombe, who [unlike me] is able to grasp the potential laying beneath all the shitty graphics, lousy writing, and clunky sloganeering:

"It may very well be that this sort of individual creation and production, linked through a vast network of individual producers, is a model for a new sort of micro-coalition community and for a politics that allows individual autonomy at the same time as it encourages communal exchange."

There's a gentle picture of Stephen Duncombe on the back flap of his book. He looks like a rebellious son of Jerry Lewis, half-smirking at the photographer for trying to commodify him. His face is half-bathed in light, half in darkness. Half of him, we are to assume, sits in the pure-'n'-dangerous underground, half in the enlightened world of postmodern Marx Brother academia. We are told that Stephen "is active in radical politics" and receives grant money from the Jacob Javits Foundation to help him plumb the sociological trenches. Steve uses the phrase "New Left" and proudly claims to have "been part of the underground cultural scene."

Quite simply, Stephen Duncombe feels the need to rebel. He just won't be happy unless he can channel his dissent through a non-coopted outlet. Against all evidence, he believes in the possibility of positive social change. And he casts it all under the soft spotlight of anti-consumptionist rigamarole. It only takes two pages before capitalism is blamed for everything. I'm only jealous that I didn't think of it first.

Like most college commies, Duncombe insists that his entertainment be more than mere entertainment. In fact, it doesn't even have to entertain as long as it ... um ... radicalizes. To him, zines only seem valuable if they corral the reader into the Left Bank bullpen. The great failure of zines, if I may speak for the author, is that they encourage a sense of personal control which verges on the antisocial. Duncombe seems tweaked that zines haven't yet forged a mass movement of Left politicos who take to the streets in order to throw raw meat and Xeroxed flyers at people.

Begging to differ yet again, I remain untweaked. The great strength of zines, as I see it, is their ability to encourage selfish behavior. Politics and entertainment usually mix as well as pickles and ice cream. The Id is much more entertaining than the Superego; the personal is much more fun than the political. The personal is NOT political. When I dab my armpits with roll-on deodorant, it has nothing to do with the suffering in Rwanda. Zines succeed or fail not on the strength of the zine format itself, nor the veracity of the politicking, but on the power of the zinemaker's personality. Most zines fail because most people fail. The problem with Do It Yourself is the stampeding unoriginality of most of the Yourselves who are Doing It. Zines never provide insight into new political thought, only the occasional window into an amusingly pathological personality. Duncombe, not a fan of personality when it gets in the way of social activism, doesn't mention some of zinedom's more intriguing goofballs, should-be superstars such as Randall Phillip, David Van Hyle, and The JMan.

And it's on the personality tip where Duncombe himself fails, both as a writer and as a person. He seems nice, but dull as cement. The world of alternative culture that he proposes is even blander than the mainstream, for at least the mainstream throws a good party every once in a while. Stupid politics can be forgiven; being boring can't.

So why buy this book? You asked the wrong guy. Writing a book on zines is like making a movie about a sitcom. All books are ultimately useless, yet here's one that doesn't wait so long. Phrases such as "full of shit" or "rank art-faggotry" spring to mind, yet why take the low road? It's hard to get pissed at something so thoroughly blasé. I found myself sighing a lot as I read this book. I also found myself unable to achieve an erection within ten feet of it. Outside of that radius, and I'm OK. The moment I'm out of the underground, the veins start bulging all along my shaft.

Creating a Teen Zine Collection

Creating a Teen Zine Collection December 16, 2010

Posted by heathercolby in Articles.
Tags: Crafts, Magazines, Self-publishing, Zines
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It’s no secret that I love zines (which I often describe as self-published mini magazines). I’ve been reading them since I was in high school, and I’ve made many close friends because of them. So when the possibility of creating a zine collection for teens at my library (the Homer Township Public Library) was brought up, I got REALLY EXCITED. A few months later, we now have a small collection of zines available (which still makes me REALLY EXCITED). So here’s a little bit about the how and the why, in case you want to do something similar.

Why a zine collection for teens? There are several reasons. Many teens have never heard of or seen a zine. As a librarian, I am lucky to have a public space in which to introduce someone to new things. I also think it’s our responsibility to offer collections of all kinds, and while zines will never be as recognized as other forms of media, that doesn’t make them of any less value. Having zines at the library (and offering books, pamphlets, and workshops about zines) shows teens that you don’t have to be a super famous writer in order to have your voice heard. All you need is a story to tell & access to a photocopier.

How did I create this collection? The short version is this: Once I got the okay from my director, I did some research on zine collections in public libraries, and then I headed to Quimby’s. I was able to spend a few hours sitting on their floor, flipping through hundreds of different zines and mini-comics (I wanted to make sure what I was buying was age appropriate, of course). I pulled a few zines from my own collection, had some zines donated by friends, and then I bought Whatcha Mean What’s a Zine? and Stolen Sharpie Revolution. We decided not to catalog the zines, and to keep them as an in-house-only collection (for the meantime, at least). I purchased a small bin to store them, made up a sign, printed off a few copies of Zines 101 (thanks, Zine World!), and started to spread the word. I spent about $100, and now we have a unique collection of awesome zines in my teen space.

Zines are not usually found on the shelves within public libraries (although the number is increasing each year). I’m lucky enough to have a director who is supportive of new ideas and a teen community that is responsive to additions to the YA collection. As a zine enthusiast and a public librarian, it doesn’t get any better than this.

http://yasfnews.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/creating-a-teen-zine-collection/