I’ve sold out

Temporarily, anyway.

I don’t have ANY zines in stock at the moment. I’ll update the individual zine descriptions when I make more photocopies. This could take a couple of weeks at least, because I’m a bum. In the meantime, please refrain from sending me money (difficult, I know). If you’ve sent me money in the last few days don’t worry – your zines are in the mail (well, they will be, tomorrow): this is just a warning for folks who might be about to order stuff.

While I’m here, thanks heaps to everyone who came along to the Digging show. The opening was great and I gave away 60 copies of the zine (see below). Which means even more photcopying. I suppose it’s about time I got used to that, hey?

EDIT, 9/7/09

The zines listed below are available again. I’ll update this list as I make trips to the photocopier.

* Fairytales in the supermarket

* By the time you’re twenty-five

New zines for Digging show

This is the zine for the Digging exhibition (see previous post), to be given away for free. As you can see, the cover comes in three eyecatching colours. If you’d like a copy, you must come to the exhibition.

It accompanies another zine, this one:

which will also be available at the show if  I get a chance to make more copies of it.

Afterwards both these zines should be available to buy/trade from this site.

Exhibition/zine launch at Little Fish opening on 24th of June

I’ve been busy organising a little exhibition of my latest work for Little Fish Gallery, which is a diy space at 22 Enmore Rd (a few minutes walk from Newtown station), sharing premises with Black Rose and the TuTu collective. I’d love it if zine folk and others who read this blog could come along! I’m in the process of putting together a little zine which will be free for everyone who comes to the show, and if all goes to plan I’ll have some more copies of my most recent zine  (I haven’t posted about it yet) which is also sort of related to the work in the exhibition. Also, there will be sangria. And snacks, in all likelihood. So, come! The 24th of June from 7:30pm at Little Fish!

Here are a couple of photos of the work in question, in another setting:

With thanks to Tim for photography

Thanks to everyone who came and said hello or bought/swapped zines with me at the MCA zine fair, by the way. I picked up a lot of great stuff, too, which I’ll hopefully get around to talking about in a later post.

Beard Wars!

Hey Anwyn, if you’re reading this, I’m going to buy you one  of these:

Because, as evidenced in this post,  featuring a book on the topic of pogonology, or the study of beards, no poet worth their salt ever got far without one. Where does your little bald chin rank in ‘poetic gravity’ among the veritable shrubs sported by the likes of Walt Whitman, or Lord Tennyson, or Joaquin Miller (who?)? More importantly, how much wattage is the thing giving off? It’s not good enough to just write stuff, you know. You’ve got to be able to generate power, too.

On the topic of the famously bearded, I’ve often wondered, when I’m drifting into sleep or stuck in a traffic jam at the intersection of Parramatta Rd and Norton St for so long that my brain is overcome with noxious fumes and I begin experiencing visions, who’d win the pogonological show down between these guys:

I bet they had names for them.

I like to think that the beards are detachable and possessed of their own volition.  Or that they generate so much beard power that they are able to be fly great distances. Coming soon: Beard Wars 2.0 – Beards in space!

More zine recommendations

Here are some amazing zines I received from the amazing Lucy Cheung a while ago but have been too lazy and stupid to post.

They’re beautifully crafted and the drawings are amazing (mmm, I seem to be having an adjective crisis today. But they are amazing!), invoking the pagan/ancient/otherworldly weird images she collects on her blog.

The one above is a miniaturised reproduction of a sketchbook full of what look like shy, incomplete monsters or creatures from another world. The world of Lucy’s head, I suppose. Gush. Anyway, like I said, I got these quite a while ago and don’t know if they’re still available, but you should definitely check out Lucy’s blog(s).

It’s been a good week for zine mail. Fergus has completed another Fergus and as usual it’s alphabetisedly great, and available for a small ritual offering: P O Box 132, Bentley WA 6982, Australia.

I must also tell you about this new (well, new to me, but I’m a bit slow) weekly zine from the creator of D90 (see elsewhere on this blog for a picture of that fine zine).  According to the author, dilettantes & heartless manipulators is an “anti-review”: “I listen to music & write about whatever else is going through my head. Wanky, huh?”.  To obtain copies you may send one 55c (Australian) stamp per however many issues you wish to receive to: Spurzine, P O Box 41, Flinders Lane P O, Melbourne, VIC 8009, Australia. (Sydney folk, there were a few copies at Black Rose last time I looked).

And I’d just like to mention that both the author of this zine and myself have touched Michael Gira (consensually, that is, and not at the same time).

Irrefutable evidence found at rural NSW book fair: flying saucers exist!

There was a time when I really did love books – loved the sight and smell and feel of them…Nothing pleased me quite so much as to buy a job lot of them for a shilling at a country auction. There is a peculiar flavour about the battered unexpected books you pick up in that kind of collection…For casual reading – in your bath, for instance, or late at night when you are too tired to go to bed, or in the odd quarter of an hour before lunch – there is nothing to touch a back number of the Girls Own Paper.

George Orwell Bookshop Memories

There were many Girls (and Boys) Own books and the like at this years Taree Rotary Club Easter Book Fair, but I cast them aside in favour of this,

an eerily prescient publication from 1968 which showcases what the discerning and tasteful new home owner might make of one of Melbourne or Sydney’s dilapidated old terraces houses.

Like many of my favourite things it is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, as opposed to this

 which is just hilarious.

While admittedly I haven’t read any of it yet (but I might do in a little while, in the bath), I am particularly intrigued by the heading of this chapter. I can only assume that the author proves once and for all that policemen are from outer-space. Why haven’t we heard about this before? Obviously this book has been suppressed due to the many true things it reveals. Which is why the only place I’ve ever seen it is at the 2009 Taree Rotary Club Easter Book Fair.

And how do I know it tells the truth? Because there’s photographic evidence, dammit.

Irrefutable photographic evidence. Not of outer-space policemen, but of UFOs, at least. And some of the photographs were taken by a man claiming to be a doctor, which of course lends them even greater authenticity.

 

As you’re probably aware, UFOs travel along power lines and interfer with the electrical supply that enters our houses. Principally they do this through the television, kettle and toaster. In this manner they are able to control your mind, your tea and your toast, and through them all other aspects of human society.

They also like landing in fields, in this case in Queensland, though there’s evidence of this happening all around the world. As Bill Bailey has pointed out, one way to solve the mystery of crop circles would be to create wheat that has the properties of Velcro, although that would mean that the spaceships would have to have the corresponding Velcro, which is a bit of a long shot.

The book also contains a helpful identification chart, just in case you spot a flying saucer that is disconcertingly non-saucer shaped: the tricky buggers! As you can see, UFOs come in many varieties and may appear as spades, baseball bats, the sun, the moon, rotary blades, NASA rockets, pills, beanies and a whole array of worryingly familiar shapes!

So be vigilant, stay alert! The truth, or something approximating it, is out there.

Mutiny zine turns three

and celebrates with a birthday party at Black Rose this Friday!

Ziney goodness

I’ve read lots of good zines lately. So, while I listen to the Raincoats through the tiny, tinny speakers of my new portable computer (I feel just like Penny in Inspector Gadget! I’m from the future!) let me show you some of them. I don’t want to write too much, so just believe me when I say that they’re all great and you should write to their creators immediately to obtain copies.

Fergus #15, P O Box 132, Bentley WA 6982. FREE – but send a stamp or something.

Fergus’ alphabetised zine mostly concerns her home suburb of East Victoria Park in Perth. It’s small but wordy and features at least one swear word or reference to teenage recalcitrance per page, which I approve of.

Ampersand after Ampersand, tiny paper hearts

Tiny Paper Hearts are zine making machines and this one by Amanda is very pretty, contains more home town musings and references Curly Wurlys on the first page, which I approve of.

Your Pretty Face is Going Straight to Hell #2, available from Paper Trail Distro

I’ve read three issues of this zine now, but this is still my favourite, about Tukru’s extended job and house search. Also features Moomins, which, you guessed it, I approve of.

D90 #2, email spurzine at gmail dot com for address

Excellent. I got this today, along with issue one. This zine is about mix tapes and has a fluorescent pink cover featuring a photocopy of a tape, which fulfils all of the criteria for an excellent zine, in my opinion. It’s a great read as well.

So, thanks everyone who’s traded zines and stuff with me over the last few weeks. My letter box has been very busy. Please keep sending me stuff and make my walk up the hill to Enmore Rd something other than an excuse to buy coffee.

Fairytales in the Supermarket

That’s the name of my new zine, which is a bit different from my other zines. My usual approach to zine making is to sort of channel whatever I’ve been up to at the time into barely legible typewritten/collaged madness (but really! my zines are good and you should buy them), but this one actually has a point and that point is to bitch about the assorted shitty jobs that I’ve had. I stole the idea from here, with apologies. It was also inspired by Fergus’ alphabetical zines, which I will write about later, when I figure out what I’ve done with the address and so on. As usual you can read further details about Fairytales in the Supermarket somewhere over on the right hand side there. Ta-ra!

EDIT – In case you weren’t entirely convinced that it’s worth getting a copy of this zine, here’s what a reviewer for the Sticky Institute’s Sporadic Monthly Newsletter had to say about it:

Initially I was hesitant about the quality of this zine, given that it has a light pink cover and after reading Vintageland, I was ready to do away with all my pink-coloured possessions. But I was horribly wrong. This zine is amazing. Written after the author has received funding for her masters and thus, does not have to work anymore, she sets about reflecting on her decade spent in the retail industry, alphabetical style. Type written, it goes through the alphabet, from such topics as Annoying Friends, Late For Work and Why Work In A Shop Then, You Ninny? It’s a hilariously honest and at times, sort of depressing reflection on what it is like to work at Woolworths, a sock shop and a card store. Scattered throughout the zine are cut out pictures from catalogues, some with funny captions by the author, but it’s the tone of the writing that makes this zine amazing. For anyone who has any experience working in the retail industry, you have to read this zine.

Mmm. I hadn’t thought that people would be put off by the pink over. Are you? The whole cut up vintage advertisement thing was meant to be a piss take, but I suppose that’s not apparent until you open the cover. That’s why you have to open the cover! And to do that you must write to me and get a copy of the zine! If you still aren’t convinced I might post some of it up here for you to read, but not all of it, because then you’ll just read it here and won’t send me stuff in return for it. AND I WANT YOU TO SEND ME STUFF, DAMMIT. Oh, and incidentally, if you’re concerned about actually having to send money to get a copy of this thing, or any of my other zines, do not despair. I will happily, in fact preferably, trade it for other things, whether zines or something else. I understand that’s there’s been a bit of concern lately regarding the overpricing of zines, so, don’t whinge to me about it, okay? I’ve got it sorted. Look at the How To Order section for more information.

Upcoming zine exhibition in Sydney

Ooo, this looks exciting. How I admire people who are talented and motivated enough to organise things like this. Susy Pow! of Bird in the Hand zine distro is organising an exhibition in an as yet unconfirmed location in Sydney, in March, featuring pages and excerpts from zines by as yet undisclosed zinemakers. You can read the call out on the Bird in the Hand blog and I’m sure Susy’ll post updates there as well.