Zine trade: Blue Floral Gusset and Death of a Scenester 2

I’ve been a little lax with my paper correspondence (amongst other things) but in the last couple of weeks we’ve received some interesting mail that I thought I would share.

First was blue floral gusset by Spurzine, which was written for the TINA 2010 Sticky challenge (I think).

I’ve got to admire such dedication to a deadline, since I on the other hand have absolutely none. And this is a continuation of the themes he raised in his earlier zine Travesty, but without repeating itself – it’s honest and awkward in its intimacy but that’s what I like about personal zines.

The second zine we received was Death of a Scenester Issue 2: Boys.

I have an admission to make – I don’t usually seek out collaborative zines, or zournals as Death of a Scenester prefers. But I was pleasantly surprised by this issue when it popped up in our PO Box, especially the opening article which constituted the most spirited defense of the Pet Shop Boys I have ever read (or possibly the only defense of the Pet Shop Boys I have ever read).

So that’s it. Both zines should be available from Sticky or Take Care, or email us if you’d like their contact details. Keep sending us zines (if you’d like) and I’ll keep writing this zine that has taken me the last 4 months to start, simply so I have something to trade.

x Amanda

Prolonging life

Hello, it’s been a while since I have visited our blog, but Amanda has been doing a fantastic job of keeping it updated. However, she has now departed our land (she is not dead, she is on holiday overseas) and so I feel I should update on some zine news.

This Sunday past (July 18th 2010) there was a wonderful zine show and tell event put on at Urchin Books in Marrickville. I managed to make the end of it and it was a lovely civilised event filled with tea, cake and most importantly lovely people (both zine makers and those who wish to make zines.) I certainly hope another one of these happens again in the future, it was very refreshing.

Well, I haven’t checked the spam trap, but I have moved on to collecting unsuccessful job application in my own personal inbox. Today, however, I was lucky enough to trap a passive-aggressive job e-mail. It annoyed me soooo very much that I had to retaliate (yeah I know, bitch bitch), its the tiny acts of empowerment that keep me going.

Anyway, back to the drawing board.

fetus

The Past

Last night was the opening night of The White Room, or, Astronauts are not excitable. It was really amazing. Emma’s artworks were incredible, her zine was incredible, the food and the sangria was incredible. The space shuttle was also incredible, well built (as strong as an ox!), cosy and inviting for all. I felt instantly safe when I was inside, like I had drawn a giant circle of salt around me and no angry ants could get in an bite me.

When you look up inside the shuttle there are a ring of lights looking back at you, almost like a safety lamp.

By the end of the night a group of us had squished into the shuttle while more people gathered outside of it like we were at a little camp site. I think we did discuss Ice-T and his film and music career. He was once in a heavy metal band and he was in that movie with Wesley Snipes where that chick where’s double underwear, which I think is also known as ‘Mummyism” of undergarments in fashion. My night ended when I spilt sangria everywhere and the shuttle camp dispersed.

Check out the exhibition on the weekend. All the details are in the previous posts.

Spam just hasn’t been doing what it use to do for me, but this lifted my brows and made my lips turn duck shaped.

I don’t really have a point to writing this blog post, I mainly just wanted to clog up cyberspace with jibberjabber just to piss off anyone who is piss-offable. It’s fun to pretend that you’re saying something even though you really aren’t saying a damn thing at all.

Well, – bless.
Fetus

Greetings Earthings!

Tomorrow night is the opening night of The White Room Or Astronauts Are Not Excitable, a beautiful and exciting exhibition by Emma D. I’ve already talked about this a couple of posts ago, so this is a reminder that you should make your way to Chrissie Cotter Gallery at 6pm! There will be beverages and snacks and Emma’s brand new zine which is part of the exhibition and a space shuttle. That’s right, I said SPACE SHUTTLE, not MACE CUDDLES. And yes you must crawl inside of it and have a sit down and gaze at the world outside.

The details:
Chrissie Cotter Gallery
Pidocl St, Camperdown (Behind Camperdown lawn bowls)

Opening night: Thursday 3rd June pm
Exhibition opening times: 2 – 13th June Wed – Sun 11 – 4pm

More info here at Flying Machine

Map

Hope to see you there!!
Fetus

Autumn Ruminations, or We Have New Zines

Salutations,

So the MCA zine fair was yesterday and both the fetus and myself launched new zines. I think it is always a little difficult to put out a new personal zine, and these two were dealing with issues to do with health (mental and physical) and learning new ways of living with (and possibly outside of) medical diagnoses. As proud as I am of my zine, and as happy as I was whenever someone picked it up and bought it, I still felt the almost uncontrollable urge half way through the fair to track down every person who had purchased the issue and snatch it out of their hands. But the moment passed, and at the end of the day both the fetus and I had sold out of almost all of our zines.

She had the foresight to put aside a few for Sticky, so they should be available soon from either the shop or Sticky’s mail order department, but I will have to make another photocopy run sometime this week and send out a whole bunch to the distros (usually Sticky, Format and Take Care) and put them up on our Etsy.

Until then, a little write up on our zines (and in time I will also review some of the excellent trades we received).

Mind Dump by fetus

Dumped from my mind onto some paper. Comic-ish style zine. Made of images from my artwork from Underdiscovered Press Exhibition. 40 pages/ A6 / B&W.

Shy 2: When Shy Got Sick by fetus

Following on from Shy Like a Punched Pie is the next installment of my perzine on being Shy. 40 pages/ A6 /B&W.

Ampersand after Ampersand #3by amanda

This is the third in what has become an almost biannual perzine series. Although it overlaps chronologically with my last zine Sutures, this issue is mainly about being diagnosed with PCOS last December (and other related conditions) and how this is has affected how I think about myself and my health. It’s not meant to be all negative nancy (so I hope it doesn’t come across that way), rather a way for me to talk about the changes that this diagnosis has brought and how confusing it can be to try and deal with body-image and health issues. And, also, how fucking annoying it is to be told that you shouldn’t/can’t eat sugar (For Your Health).

Thank you once again if you talked to me during the day, I had some really lovely conversations about zines and films and surprise mutual friends and it was wonderful to hear back from people who have read my zines before. It can sometimes feel as though zines are a one way form of communication, made in my room and sent out anonymously over the internet, so it is nice when that communication comes the other way as well.

And if you stopped by our table towards the end of the day and it looked like I had been mindwiped, it’s probably because I had been. Til next zine fair,

x Amanda

Spam!

Fantastic influx of spam this week. Now, I’m not sure if this spam is actually that extraordinary, in fact I’m pretty sure I am just looking for something to entertain myself, thus I’m clinging to anything that could be called ‘interesting.’ Madness aside, lets begin!

This guy just wanted to tell us that he completely understands what we are saying, does disagree but couldn’t be f***ed researching the topic himself. I think a lot of people use this method for the foundation of their opinions, so I really shouldn’t judge him. EDIT: And his name is Rickey Zitzloff!

I find this charming because the mans name is Jerold Huggard. Huggard! Anyway, we do post A LOT about dogs, dog food, different breeds of dogs, dog contests/fashion shows, and dog maintenance so I’m glad this guy has been able to find us and now will can finally build our dog empire. When is the baby due? I can’t wait to start the auditions for the prestigious breeds of dogs that will be part of our crew. Plus dogs are great at poker. Thank you Mr. Huggard!

I really should stop posting Jodeci lyrics on our blog so much, but those guys are just so catching and revolting. Anyway, this guy said he is going to come back, which is kind of frightening. What is he is here right now? Can you take out a restraining order on the internet?

I should have mentioned that when I said ‘Fantastic influx of spam’ I really meant quantity, not quality.

Anyway, have a nice weekend

fetus
p.s. why is no one sharing their spam with me? Perhaps I haven’t asked, ok. Any one getting any good spam? Send it to me!

Spam of the week 2

Two important lessons to be learned (learnt?) from my favourite spams this week:

1. There are articles that discuss stuff differently
2. We need to put in more effort
3. Life is confusing

Of course now that I have started on a crusade to celebrate spam our spam box has been pretty empty.

That it,
fetus

Spam of the week

I have a confession, I really enjoy sifting through the spam that is caught by the comment spam catcher on our blog. I feel like the spam makers (whoever those beautiful people are) put a lot of time into their spam. I’m always harassing Amanda to leave the spam for me to read and get really sooky when she deletes it. So I’ve decided I’m going to start a spam of the week type post where I share my favourite spam from the week.

This spam-a-la is from Perfume for Women. I don’t know why I like this spam, ok I do. It’s not screaming (capitalized text) about celebrity sex tapes, and it makes no sense but at the same time it makes perfect sense.

Anyway, just thought I’d share that with you instead of printing it out and sticking it on my wall. Also if you have any good spam can you send it to me?

Fetus

Trades from all around

Well I know we always say we will do a write up about excellent zines we find on our travels but somehow it never happens, kind of like when Tyra said she was going to have a successful singing career but then didn’t. Well we are one up on Tyra now (as if we weren’t already) because this post will be about zine trades.

*round of applause*

Click the link to see them all!

T.I.N.A?

Well the MCA zine fair is done and dusted and I can tell you are all salivating at the thought of the next big zine fair. Well never fear because This Is Not Art Zine Fair for 2009 is on the horizon, the very distant horizon, but the horizon nonetheless (how many more times can I drop the word ‘horizon’?). Held on the Sunday the 5th of October the Zine Fair wraps up the week long festivities of This is Not Art and National Young Writers’ Festival. Its definitely something you should pencil into your diary. This year the zine fair is being organised by the lovely zine making machine Susy Pow from Bird In The Hand zine distro (check out her blog, lots of good stuff happening over there). Bookings for stalls are not open yet, but you can be sure we’ll send word when they do.

So there you have it, something to look forward, events wise – I’m sure there are other things to look forward to, like the sun coming up tomorrow, leaking taps being fixed, unburnt toast, the horizon, such an endless list of things to look forward to, I could go on forever.

That’s all
Fetus

P.s. We will be doing a juicy zine review(?) post soon of all the great zines we’ve collected so far this year, but you’ll just have to wait a little bit longer.