keen for zines

zine sampler : inspired by malinchista

kind of like those fried appetizer samplers but better because it's grease free. i'm a shitty reviewer, anyone who's asked me how i liked a movie/play/whathaveyou can attest to this. at museums, the best compliment i know how to pay a piece of work is "i'd take that home." honestly, i don't think i could encapsulate any of these writers/artists in an evocative yet provocative paragraph. so i'm sampling from them, and hopefully it'll give you enough of a taste to say "hey, i want to take that home." i have a sinking feeling that a sampler violates the fourth law of zines, and if this is the case, offended parties should come kick my ass.

The Whistleworks || $1
Androo Robinson // 2000 NE 42nd Ave., Suite 302 // Portland OR 97213-1305
almost tactile pen-and-ink drawings with a philosophical travelogue
"Success, yes? My work was acclaimed, and I was paid well for it. Living as an artist! For a long time I convinced myself that I could never want more than this, but again I was wrong. I began to see that the public's adoration was a kind of imprisonment. I knew what people wanted, or thought they wanted, and only as long as I gave them this (and nothing else) would they continue to reward me. With their money. With their applause. Taking a lesson from my former wife, I went away."

Random #1 || 50cents
1958 Matador Way #190 // Northridge CA 91330
comics. i happened upon random at comic relief in berkeley, lurking around a book signing.
"I thought about time, and how it outlasts, brings to light, and brutally strips away every illusion as you grow older and become a man. But something strange happened. Against my will and that of my classmates, we started bobbing our heads and tapping our feet as we drew. Maybe it wasn't so bad getting older, becoming a man. Maybe with age came another kind of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. I finished my piece right about the time the fiddler finished his. I looked up at him and our eyes met."

Stories from the Ward || $2
Lark Pien // 535 Central Avenue // San Francisco, CA 94117
gorgeous pen-and-ink line drawings accompanied by odd thoughtful text. lark also draws a fantastico slug and a collapsing building that makes my stomach hurt (then again that could be the caffeine).
"This is Closet Girl. She doesn't say a whole lot, but she and me are pals. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what makes her tick. I'm not sure what it is yet, but my guess is that it has something to do with that broom of hers."

freek-tekneek
email : candyc@umich.edu
this was candy and her bud's zine outta ann arbor. candy and i have both spent time in lima, ohio. candy inspired me bigtime in my frump of a sophomore year. candy and her crazy style oughta walk back into my life. i don't have any more recent issues, this one's from 1997.
"one evening tha Bumble B flew into my crib cradling a brick of blank tapes: "These are blank notebooks- take them and fill them up.". . . and so I did and so she is right: the mix tape is an audio sketchbook that can stand on its own as a work of art . . . even though i've been slanging mix tapes since eighth grade, it is only now that i can appreciate just how much power mixes hold: they control the vibe of the party, the brush of the artist, and the pen of the writer . . .the mix tape is a small plastic god who can give eternal life to a freestyle flow or a summer night spent digging in the crates . . ."

cometbus #44 (st. louis stories) || $2
P.O. box 4279 // Berkeley CA 04704
"music keeps us from feeling alone. that's why nowadays you hear it every single place you go. it blots out those nagging thoughts, it fills in the blank. chasing away that awkward silence, it keeps us from ever really getting used to being alone together. what's that casey? why does playing music in the basement bring us together but blasting it at the cafe, co-op, laundromat and copy shop only serve to keep us in our shells? i don't know. but turn that shit down. then we can sing our own songs."

secret asian man #5 || $2
prince street station // po box 40 // ny, ny 10012
epistolary
"I saw him again last night, that Asian boy who lives across the way from Amanda. He stepped out of Katz's on Houston just in front of me, and I followed him up Ave A to Ink where I watched him through the window. I left for a few minutes to get a cup of coffee and when I returned he was gone. I see him now in his apartment; he's got his dick inside a potted plant. I wonder if he's lonely or just plain weird."

walter zine 2
https://members.tripod.com/~Tara2000/zines.html
"When an older man likes younger girls its a Lolita Complex. But what do you call it when a younger girl likes an older man? I guess you could say I have a Walter Complex. It's no secret that my other recent obsess, Doug, is well into his senior years. I've tried to analize just what it is about these older and distinguished gentlemen that I find so appealing, and I've come up with next to nothing. And I don't even have any father or grandfather complexes. I like Walter's weird passivity and personality quirks, I like Doug's raspy voice and wrinkled chin, and as for celebrity old men, I think Pat Morita (Mr Miyagi) is a hunk. Sure, I like kids my own age, but when it comes to obsessive crushing, I just dig old men."
(check out lycheenaut, we like poo, and other stars!)

the last hug magazine || $?
elbert chang // po box 381525 // cambridge, ma 02238-1525
i think hug#3 was the first zine i ever received. so elbert is, in a way, responsible for the existence of for motion discomfort - but don't go sending him outraged and disappointed letters, he had no idea that his ferocious review-writing skills and scratchy honesty would result in annie whirling a zine.
"scents- Even though I'm now old enough to score booze without legal consequence, it seems like a better idea to fill up on Doritos and Dr. Pepper and pace the house or the neighborhood on a hot summer night, breathe the blowing remains of the neighborhood kids setting off packs of thunderbombs and moon rockets, and mull over how a certain someone, not too long ago, lighting a cigarette smelled just like this."

semibold #4 || $2 ("...wherein I delve into my past via my record collection.")
1573 Milwaukee Ave #403 // Chicago, IL 60622
"The first time I walked into WaxTrax! in 1985, I was terrified. I'd only lived in Chicago for a couple months, and even though I loved the city, I still felt like a hillbilly from the backwoods. I just knew that all those really cool people would instantly peg me for the yokel I was. (Jeez, Kathy, it's just a store!) But WaxTrax! was a store of mythical proportions. So I put on my most blase attitude, "Yeah, been here, done that. Try and scare me." and walked into a store exploding with loud, pounding music, crowded with dyed, pierced and tattooed patrons browsing through the bins of records and piles of free papers and zines stacked underneath the front window."

yello kitty #1 || $1 (i think)
spanky@ella.mills.edu
as-am special sauce! interviews with bamboo girl and adrian tomine! (i told you i can't review worth patootie. not even one line intros)
"(Ab)using Punk-tuation/(Dis)covering Translation: a grammar guide for the utterly confused ... Lesson 2: Don't let respiration get in your way; you can string together random thoughts by using a semicolon. This makes your text interactive because the readers have to do all the work."

Mariposa #1 || $1
Katie Krause // P.O. Box 1231 // Berkeley, CA 94701
bugs bugs bugs
"There are several horrifying aspects to a typical HIV test; the conversation with the receptionist is one, but needlessly so, because on any other day it would just be polite conversation. Then there is the drawing of blood, obviously a moot point for those with an aversion to needles, but having to watch the dark red fluid drain into capsules suspecting that they might be dirty is a mite disturbing. I had the added benefit of dread walking into the basement after talking to the receptionist about my sexual habits. Pipes channeling fluid from one place to the next hung above me, shooting down the passageway and around the corner.˛

too many bisexual rockstars and not enough lesbian hip hop artists || $2
Sarah OšDonnell // PMB 910 // 1122 E. Pike // Seattle, WA 98122
"the connection between sell out raver sluts and diet freaks raver mafias lipstick hippie
chicks organic a new breed of pesticide
corporate toy store neon necklaces too big for kids high on horse tranquilizers, they talk like it's the best pcp theyšve ever had.
white powder up noses is fucked up bravery. drug are a bet with your mind.
eat foodbank rice grow mushrooms
popping toilet bowl cleaner in candy coated pill form only comes in one flavor
30 bucks for a rave is still too much money."

Oriental Whatever #6 || $2
Dan Wu // 520 Frederick St. #24 // San Francisco, CA 94117
orientalwhatever@hotmail.com
supersharp observations. i want the issue with the piece on chinese character tattoos.
"from Dan's interview with Mark Herlihy of Future Primitive
OW: Did you grow up here?
MH: I was here from 6 years old on. I grew up in mostly black neighborhoods. I grew up in the Fillmore when it was something. All my friends were black. You get fucked with but I'd fuck with them right back. So, I never really tripped off off it. You get some racism pointed at you but I think it's all a matter of how you take it. If youšre gonna sit there & be victimized, then you will be the victim. If you fight back, people respect you for it. I think that goes for every race."

the following zines i ordered through
pander zine distro // pob 582142 // minneapolis, mn 55458-2142
http://members.aol.com/GOpanderGO
pander@chickmail.com

the messy eater 5
the left-handed issue (reads from left to right, like the novels my mom used to pick up in K-town)
includes the hetereosexual questionnaire ("with all the societal support marriage receives the divorce rate is spiralling. why are there so few stable relationships among hetereosexuals?")
"3)when it rains it changes the air, and i can feel it in my skin, I've always liked rain but now i hold on to it more because it's the only large mass of water around. in ventura, if you're on a hill or just walking around downtown, you look over and there's a blue line between ground and sky. the ocean makes the atmosphere so different. the day that i moved here, my skin wanted to cry."

the secret files of captain sissy #2
"I was thinking that TV talk shows are like a sad, co-opted cousin of zines. They are full of people who have so much to work through, with no one to talk to, finally offered a voice. They get on that stage, tell their personal stories, and people listen. It is twisted and sadistic, because the audience is there to laugh, and prod those on stage, and some suit is making millions off this modern day "Feeding the downtrodden to the lions" but itšs still a bit of real people in a medium (TV) that is all about characters, and bigger than life bullies called celebrities. And people don't just watch to hurt other people, they also watch because sometimes its real, the probablity that the story is real is at least a bit higher than on the other channels during that time slot, and I think people truly are searching for that connection."

book of stars #8 || $1
"last year the room was smaller and i was not so alone in defining the rhythms. SHE was skinny and sickly but with eyes like the ocean i knew so well, an ocean she had never seen. with this girl, i had a constant feeling of being held firmly in my place, safe but at the same time i was so unhappy. she didn't like to listen to me but there were other means of getting attention."

you might as well live #7 / hope #14 (split) $2
personal and political
"People of color are marginalized enough, and now we're gonna have to sit on the sidelines in an anti-racist struggle so white kids can deal with their own tales of racist victimization because it takes the focus off of the issue, and that is that people of color are oppressed! White people are not being oppressed by their race, but in fact are benefitting from it, therefore they have no business in that type of victimization discussion. Not only that, it begins to remove any responsibility and accountability off of white kids for their own racist shit. If they, too, are victims of racism, they why should they own up to their white privilege? The myth of "reverse racism" nullified the shit that people of color experience every fucking day."

paint me a revolution || $2
comp zine on gender, feminism, you know, life
"It was in this position that Ethel walked in--the kitchen all smoky, mugs filled with stale coffee, and her two boarders with hands and eyes and mouths confused in one indistinguishable bundle. Ethel whimpered a little bit, as images of the apocalypse surely flashed in her head. Audrey and I both looked at Ethel, then at each other, and simultaneously the two of us started laughing, our heads thrown back and our mouths open wide. Like sharks smelling blood we made circles around Ethel and the two of us frantically and frenetically laughed and held hands and danced and kissed while Ethel stared at us in horror."

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