- finished new hisWorld/herWorld
- finished Art School Chronicles: Year 2
- started on Choose Your Own Moral Code! part 2
- gallery show involving visitors making zines
- went to Madison Zine Fest
- kept up with Zine Machine
- presentation on zines/MadZineFest
- Zine Workshop
- now working on zine history presentation
whew. i'm getting burnt out on zine stuff. i'm only 1/4 way through all the great zines i picked up in madison, and those are the little visual ones that don't take much time to read. all of this academic zine activity has taken all the fun out of zines for me. i think when this semster is over, all i want to do is read them and make them...
hey, what about all this academic activity around zines? does having a zine fest on a university campus change the nature of zine culture? do we change the fringe-ness of zine culture when we discuss them in a classroom setting? or are we discussing them in a classroom setting because the fringe-ness has changed?
most of the zines i've seen lately don't fall into the stereotypical perception of rebellious, subversive activity. in fact, they're quite charming. lately, there seems to be an inundation of perzines that tell stories of love and loss, shame, guilt, anger, thrills, personal revelations... sure, they're not the stories that you'd typical find in Cosmo or GQ, but they don't really shock, and most of them aren't going to start any revolutions. then again, maybe these are the zines i notice the most because these are the zines i love the most. the simple stories of everyday things that happen all around us - this is what really tells us what life is all about. we're so bombarded by front-page news of astounding events by powerful people, but these make up such a tiny fraction of what really affects our lives. that's how it goes: "small animals make first paths". i love being a small animal, carving out a small path, and i want to know what all you other small animals are out there doing, too.
