I was asked to go down to Eugene to speak at a class at the University of Oregon about zines and zine culture. The class uses my book Stolen Sharpie Revolution as a text and Doug Blandy, the professor is a patron of zines.
I picked up a zip car and had Doug and Maggie come along with me for the two hour trip south. I didn’t exactly know what to expect but, I knew I could talk about random zine stuff for a long time. When I got to the University I had to find my parking spot for the ZipCar. Somehow I felt like I was a celebrity when I found this:
Allied Arts Department Guest Lecturer Wrekk. Rad!
In the class we talked about zine culture and the importance of zines and zine culture. We talked about zines in archiving and academics and how zine culture has changed. I also found myself talking about things that I didn’t expect like my family and my given name. Overall it was really fun and I’m glad I went.
After class I was interviewed by Jennifer from Siren, the feminist paper on campus. I have to say that I had some of the best questions from any interview I have ever had. It wasn’t the typical “How did you get into zines?” “What’s your favorite zine?” “Why do you make zines?” I got hung up on one question and I have been thinking about it a lot since wondering how I could have answered it better. It was actually the second part to the questions. I was asked if I was a feminist, which the answer is yes. But then I was asked what that means to me. The only way I could answer it was to say that it’s all well and go to say “I support women and think they can do awesome thing.” but I also said that I don’t believe in single issue politics and that oppressions are all tied together. As a feminist I feel it is part of my responsibility to recognize oppression in all forms and support those fighting against them. I said all this in a super vague way because I don’t feel I need to tell you a litany of oppressed people to describe this. I did this in part because I get really annoyed when people get caught up in the rhetoric and language of radical/progressive cultures. It just seems to go in circles and alienates those that don’t fall into that specific subset. I’m fully aware that “oppression” is a work that falls in that category through.
Anway, after that Maggie, Doug, and I went to the Pizza Research Institute for some yummy pizza. After that we went to Sweet Life for vegan cheesecake. When my sister lived in Eugene we used to make a joke about getting to Sweet Life by turning ‘Right At Monroe!” to the tune of “Riot at Monroe” from the Avail song Monroe Park. It was nice to share a punk joke with Doug. It was also nice to share vegan cheesecake.
Someone told me that I have officially 'made it' when someone is willing to tow cars away for me!
Alex Wrekk 
Your own parking spot! Woot!
on occasions when i have to answer questions about being a feminist, i describe myself as an “intersectional feminist.” feminism was my foray into radical politics, & is probably the bedrock of pretty much all my political beliefs/activism, but being passionate about intersectionality means that i recognize that gender oppression isn’t the only thing going on in the world. this is a shitty explanation of what “intersectionality” means to me–i haven’t finished my morning coffee yet. but check it out more if you are interested.