2011 Portland Zine Syposium dates! Chicago Zine Fest! New Tattoo! More! More! More!

First things first:

The Dates for the 2011 Portland Zine Symposium are August 6-7, 2011

I got back from Chicago late Tuesday night and I have been playing catch up ever since packing zine orders and making buttons. What’s with all the international orders this week? Croatia, Finland, Norway, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and Singapopre. My first thought is that the American dollar must have tanked?

Anyway, Derek Neuland and I took the train from Portland to Chicago and recorded an episode of Noby Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast while we were on the train. We discuss our anticipations and excitment with the sound of train and conductor announcements interrupting us. Listen to it here!

Bree Adorn and Rae Logios met us at the train station holding signs that say “nobody cares about your podcast thingie” and “nobody cares that you are from pdx. Put a bird on it!” We all made our way to Ramsey’s house and met up with Amy Leigh from twelveohtwo distro and then went eat at the Handlebar then I got to crash onto on something that wasn’t a train seat.

Friday we gathered everyone up and headed to the first day of zine fest where we had our first Zine Organizers Event (ZOE)! We had about 20 people talking about organizing zine events and sharing stories. Not a lot of new stuff came out of it and it seems that a lot of people struggling with the same things. It was good to be on the same page. We did start a google group to continue sharing.

After that was the Silver Tongue reading in the other room then the Q&A with Al Burian and Aaron Cometbus. It was interesting to hear what they had to say. I sort of wish they had been giving the questions before so that they could have given more thoughtful answers instead of the multiple blank stares and silences. Oh well.  (*edited to say that a Chicago Zine Fest organizer contacted me to say that were informed on the questions ahead of time and that the blank stares and awkward silences were all their own) After that we headed to Earwax for some food then to the big reading. The reading was awesome! It was so diverse in style and I hears a lot people read from their zines that I had never heard before so I was stoked to fine more good zines.  I met up with some more friends and met some new friends. I went and grabbed some beer before heading to Quimby’s for zinester karaoke. Zinester Karaoke turned out not to be zinesters reading from other zines 😉 it was just regular karaoke done by zine folks.

Now, I don’t sing karaoke. I have this thing. I have been in real bands and in real bands everyone has the ability to fuck up. With Karaoke, it’s just you. My brain can’t comprehend that.

Before the karaoke there was the Long Arm Stapler award presented by Quimby’s. I was notified a few weeks before that the award was going to Jerianne from Zine World and Zinewiki. Somehow I had been chooses to accept on her behalf because she wasn’t going to be able to make it. I had spoken with Liz at Quimby’s and to Jerianne and I was under the impression that Jerianne was going to call in on Skype to accept the award so I thought I had wriggled out of it. So, there I sat with Eryca and Megan drinking a beer not really thinking about it. Milo and Chris who had accepted the award last year for their works with QZAP were up with Liz reading the nominees. Well, apparently I was nominated for the award and I had no idea,  it was nice to hear people cheer when my name was said, but I already knew who the winner was. Then they annouced Jerianne and all of a sudden I got called up to accept the award on behalf of Jerianne! I was mortified! I did not expect it at all. I thought we had it squared away. So, I went up there beet red and stumbled through something about how much Jerianne deserved it and what a resource both Zine World and Zinewiki were. Then I disappeared away to my beer and my phone to send Jerianne and e-mail. Other than that the night was rad. I had some great conversations and had a good time but didn’t get to bed until 3 or 4.

Saturday we all dragged ourselves to the college again. The tabling was split between floors and I had heard I was on the 8th was kind of bummed but then the elevator doors opened and I was met with the glorious sight of Lake Michigan from 8 stories up as really great lighting with windows on 3 sides showing skyline. It was nice and the workshops were on that floor so people had to come up for those anyway. The tabling was pretty busy I think I made it down to the 1st floor twice and still didn’t see everything and only saw about half of the tables on the 8th floor. A few things struck me. There was a lot of people with cassette tapes to trade. I had a bunch of Copy Scams tapes and traded for a lot of mix tapes and original tapes too. There was also a lot of dudes with zines. It was really different than a lot of zine fests where there are lots of ladies. I got a lot of good trades and read them on plane ride home.

That night was the Out Of This World zine (in)formal. I brought the dress that packs easiest but since it was freezing I had to cover up in multiple layers to get to the dace. I had a great time dancing with zine friends and having chats. there are lots of ridiculous pictures that bring back fond memories. I also realized there are a lot of ex-Portlanders in Chicago. I can think of 4 people there who were ex zine symposium organizers.

Sunday I got a new tattoo on the back of my right leg.

The rest of the trip was record shopping, dropping off zines and Quimby’s and eating lots of food. Day by day a new person would leave. On the last day it was just Derek and I. We walked to the Flying Saucer diner and the guy behind the counter was super nice. We mentioned that we were from Portland to which he responded with “Put a bird on it!” it was the first time a stranger had ever done that to me. He also gave us a piece of vegan brownie for free. I guess Chicagoians (is that right?) like people from Portland because last time I was there with Paul the bartenders bought us drinks for being from Portland!

I have a new zine! but I only have a few left. Let me know if you would like one and we can arrange something. I wasn’t sure I would have any after the fest but I have some. they are 1/12th legal and it is just one story that happens between the 9 stories between the office of a divorce lawyer and the ground floor. it’s got my usual photocopier art and instrospective snapshot writing. You can send $1 and a stamp to the address on the side of my blog “while supplies last”

All the bits

Let’s see what else? We are still looking for a housemate but I’ve sort of decided not to make a decision while Mercury is retrograde. That sounds woo-woo but whatever. I always have  frustrating experiences when that happens. We just want to wait for the perfect person and I can hold out a bit longer with my bills so why not?

I have a new zine friend coming to town for a visit next week. I feel like I have sort of template of where to take zine friends but maybe I should start making a multiple choice type form to see what they can do depending on how long they are here. I’ll write more about that later. I just wanted to jot down some thoughts about my trip while they were still fresh in my head. Back to work now!

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Chicago bound and zines that are bound as well and being bound for Chicago.

In just about 3 hours Derek and I will be on the Amtrak Empire Builder headed on a two day cross country adventure to Chicago for the Chicago Zine Fest. What will we be doing with our time? Well, I have some books, zines and a pint of whiskey.

So, I started writing that yesterday and then wordpress freaked out on me.

I’m currently on the east bound Empire Builder and just woke up in Whitefish, Montana. Yesterday we recorded a bit for Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast and figured out how to to make our magic spacephons capture the internetz so we can do what we do at home….but on a train.

I have a new zine! It is called Nine Stories… also, Brainscan #26.5. There are only 54 of them…actually, there are 55 but when I packaged them all up and counted them I only saw 54 so I numbered 54. When I cleaned my messy office I found the runaway 55th. I will be giving Derek the unnumbered runaway zine. So, there are only 55. I left 10 at home to send to some friends and there are about 4 of those left. I have 44 to trade at the Chicago Zine Fest. if I have some left over they will go in my Etsy shop, but don’t hold your breath.

Nine Stories is 12th legal sized and tucked into a hand made envelope. Pages contain photocopier art around a story that takes places in the elevator with my ex in the nine stories between the office of our divorce lawyer and the ground floor. it’s another one of my particulars corresponding to universals pieces about how we never think of endings.

This is what this zine looks like:

All the bits

54!

inside!

looking for a new housemate! Violet cookies! My D&D character rulz!

Hey, we are looking for a new housemate. Could it be you? Check out our Craigslist ad.

A few weeks ago I got an idea to make violet syrup. I grabbed about a cup of violets from my yard, cleaned them off and dropped about a cup of hot water on top of them. Once it cooled I put it into a clean jar wit ha lid and let it sit on my counter where I would shake it up a bit. After a day or two I strained out the violets and squeezed half a lemon into it. It made the color more vibrant. Then I put the water into a saucepan and added somewhere between half a cup and a cup of sugar stirring it til it dissolved. The let it cool down and poured it in the cleaned out jar it was in before then I stuck it in the fridge while I figured out what to do with it.

Paul and I had been watching a really cool BBC documentary on spices-their history, where they came from, etc. It was interesting to see and really made me appreciate spices even more. It reminded me of the fistful of vanilla pods I had in the freezer that my friend Sam had brought back from Bali for me. From the documentary I learned that vanilla is originally from Mexico, but it still tastes yummy when you scrape the seeds out and put them in sugar cookies! So, I made some vegan sugar cookies and placed the spent pods in my sugar canister to make vanilla sugar. Then I decided to make some frosting out of the violet syrup. I also went out and grabbed some fresh violets to put the petals in the icing and for garnish.

I love my stick blender!

I only ate one and gave the rest away. I'm not a big sweets person but these were good.

And in Dungeons & Dragons news…I’m stoked to be playing in a group again with what feels like old friends. I mean, we have been playing together on and off for 6 or 7 years. Right now I’m playing a shifter barbarian in the Eberron world. I don’t think I have ever played such a hack and slash friendly character. It is pretty fun. Two of my compatriots went down last night and I finished off about a dozen fighters by myself. No critical hits though. boo.

In Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast news, there have been way more downloads of the 3rd episode in less than two weeks than the whole run on the second episode.  I guess people like controversy since episode 3 is all about that Fanzines book.

Speaking of zines! My co-host, Derek, and I are headed to Chicago on the train next week for the Chicago Zine Fest! I’m looking forward to seeing all my zinefesty friends! I’ve actually arranged to get a tattoo while I am there. I’m finally getting a sharpie tattoo…crossed sharpies…crossed sharpies with a brain! Also, an empty banner so people can fill in the banner with sharpie tattoos. Two tattoos in a month! I had this thing where I thought I should old get one tattoo a year and now I have 3 and I started getting tattoos in 2002 so, I have some catching up to do. Doug and I are talking about getting utah tattoos. The idea we are kicking around is a beehive with the shape of utah as the opening and with bees flying around like atoms. This idea may change but we are thinking of doing the tattoos on pioneer day! Bonus points if we can find a tattoo artist from Utah. I’m also planning a 24th of July party in Portland. Details to come.

Ok, back to button making!

Nobody Cares About You Stupid Zine Podcast #3 is available for download!

The new issue of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast is ready here or through itunesor other podcatchers.

In this Episode of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, Derek Neuland and Alex Wrekk discuss the book Fanzines by Teal Triggs and several issues surrounding it including copyright and etiquette as they interview Ramsey Beyer (illustrator and List zine) Amber Forrester (http://www.hello-amber.com/) and Jerianne Thompson (librarian and editor of Zine World)

 

Fanzines book, nobody cares about your stupid zine podcast #2

I got my “contributor” copy of Fanzines in the mail pretty quickly. I pick it up and look at it and then get angry and have to put it back down. There are numerous errors. Some may seem nit-picky like the version of Stolen Sharpie Revolution she used is from 2002, not 2003 as stated. Some errors are much worse. I also found that there is a screen shot from my housemate Marc’s zine review site Zine Thug. He says that permission was asked, but he stated he would like a contributor copy. He has not received one yet. I was also flipping through the pages when I was on a skype chat with my friend Steve Larder and stumbled across one of his illustrations for the cover of the UK zine yearbook. He had no idea it was there.

In more exciting news! There is a new issue of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast!

In the second installment of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, Alex Wrekk is joined by Derek Neuland. We find out who Derek is, how he got into zines, and much more.  We also find out what Alex has been up to since the first podcast, which included traveling to many countries, touring the United States with 5 folks from the UK, and much more.  They also discuss their experiences organizing the 2010 Portland Zine Symposium, their excitement for the 2011 Chicago Zine Fest, and much more.

You can listen to you it here, or download it into itunes or your favorite podcatcher.

Links for the show:

Chicago Zine Fest
Copy Scams
Overglued
Portland Zine Symposium
Roberts Street Social Centre
Small World Buttons
Zines On Toast

Forgot to post these vegan food stuff from awhile ago, Bad Religion, and cursive typewriters

Vegan pizza: eggplant, peppers, and carmelized balsamic onions. yum!

Stuffed poblanos and green beans with almond slivers

I really need to start taking more photos of my food again. Last week I had what Paul and I were calling “cabbage fest” I had 3 heads of cabbage, two green and one purple. I made a huge cabbage soup with white beans that our whole house snacked on for days. I made two kinds of coleslaw (one creamy and one with a vinegar base). I also made a braised purple cabbage with apples and red wine. I stuffed that mix into perogies and made a mix of perogies some cabbage and others potato/onion with fresh  herbs from my garden.

Jess is coming over tonight, invariably with wine to pair with something that I will cook. I haven’t really accessed my kitchen yet…or cleaned it for that matter but I will make something great. I might take photos with my phone though since I let my housemate Marc borrow my digital camera in trade for his cursive typewriter. I find that a humorous trade.

Monday night I went to see Bad Religion with my sister, Paul and James. I wasn’t expecting too much. Off with their heads was good. The Bouncing Souls were…. the same as ever, playing songs I haven’t heard but they drip with nostalgia nad sound like other songs I know. I had the realization that the first time I saw Bad Religion was in 1993 and they played with Rancid. The first time I saw the Bouncing Souls was in 93 or 94 and they played with Rancid too.

Then Bad Religion played. Wow. I really was not expecting much but holy fuck they played a great show with an amazing set list! It was about 3/4 stuff from 95 and before. It made me super happy. They also played “You” one of my all time favorite songs from my very first favorite punk band. That song is very poignant to some goings on in my life right now so it was great to hear it live and dance like and idiot….and scream until I was hoarse.

Check out this set list!

I was very pleased to see the show and I’m so glad I went. My sister actually wrote me a letter to say that it was the best show she had seen since we saw the Dead Milkmen last year. Last night Webs and I went to see Greg Graffin (Singer for Bad Religion)  speak about his book that I just finished called Anarchy Evolution. He didn’t read anything from the book but he spoke about Punk and Science and his trajectory with the two in the form of a personal narrative. That’s basically what the book is about. It was a good quick read and was good a putting some things together that I already was thinking about.

Also, I did some work on Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast this week. it’s true!

Stumptown Vegans podcast and how I grow hops!

So, a few weeks ago I was a host on the Stumptown Vegans podcast .Well, the show is up in all its sugar crashy-ness. Go here if you want to listen.

And for photos. Here’s the trellis I made for my Cascade Hop plants. The twine is attached to an old box springs I use in my garden one one end and to the upstairs bathroom window. this should give them more lights, make a canope at the back door, and be super easy to harvest by just tossing down the twine!

This was a few weeks ago. I'll post a new photo soon!

looking up the side of my house...noitce the plumbing on the outside of the house.

Paul and I are headed up to the Riverhouse for some time together before I head up there for the weekend with whoever wants to come.

radio, pizza, cats and plants…

Last week I did two podcast recordings and neither of them were for my own Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast, although Marc and I do have plans to record another soon. I was on the Stumptown Vegans podcast with Jess my sister Webly where they stuffed me and a few others with mass quantities of  vegan baked goods until we wanted to brush our teeth and eat a whole field of kale. The show’s not up yet but I’ll let you know when it is. Here’s a picture of my sister trying to figure out what best to attach the mic to in order to pass it around. We eventually settled on a banana, but I like this shot of a mixer:

testing!

Blue and I were also on Nerd Report Radio with Emily and Sabrina talking about the Portland Zine Symposium. It was pretty rad and you can listen to it here. about 10 minutes before we were supposed to be on the air Blue, Emily, and I got stuck in the elevator. It wasn’t so bad that we were stuck on the 9th floor, but the fact that the elevator dropped about 6 inches terrified me! I immediately grabbed Blue’s hand and wondered if I put my bicycle helmet on it would help with the fall. We were stuck for at least 10 minutes and got to push the “HELP” button. I also noticed this:

If you can't see the caption says "when flashing help is on the way" Well, the light flashed and we were saved!

I got a bulb of fennel from my Organics To You box and wasn’t sure what to do with it. So, I sauteed it with onions and garlic and tossed it on top of a pizza with homemade pesto.

As I'm a vegan and Paul is an omni we have real cheese/vegan cheese pizza. This was my first experience with Daiya chesse and I think it's pretyt good. A bit like velveta in a gross way but I miss the stretchy-ness so I enjoyed it.

On to other weird things. So, there are these two cats that live at our house. They aren’t my cats. I’m not a cat person but I adore these cats. Sometimes I think I spent more time hanging out with them than most of my other housemates.  I worry that I’m becoming a crazy cat lady when I catch myself talking to them or letting Jackie sleep on my bed. Well, the other night OJ busted into my rook with his thick skull, jumped on the bed and proceeded to drink out of the pint glass of water by the bed. I had just changed his water the other day but apparently he really wanted to drink of the pint glass and/or disturb me while I was sleeping

he really wanted the water I guess.

cat tongue! OJ would drink drink drink and hyperventilate and shake his head and have to go up for air! Silly cat! Also check out of CCRadio. It even has a shortwave option.

I spent this morning working in my yard. I dug up a bunch of my irises to plant a bunch of native plants that my sister got me for my birthday. Then I dug up even more of the irises and mixed up the roots and replanted them. I’m excited to see what colors got placed where when they come up next year! I’ll post more photos soon of the yard but for now, here’s one of my many foxgloves:

foxgloves make me happy.

Radio live transmission…

Fellow Portland Zine Symposium organizer, Blue, and I are are going to be on PDX.FM‘s Nerd Report today at 3PM! Tune in to hear us talk about the wonders of zines and the organizing of the 10th annual Portland Zine Symposium!

In other not-so-live news, last Sunday I was a guest on the Stumptown Vegans Podcast. Where my sister, Webly, of Fueled by Popcorn and Jess of Get Sconed tortured 3 vegans and a omni by making us eat piles and piles of vegan baked good from local vegan bakeries. I’m not really a sweets person so I guess that is why my sister invited me for my salty/savory perspective. After eating scones, muffins, cookies, cheese cake and chocolate cake I was reeling from a sugar high and promptly crashed. Anyway, the podcast should be up soon.

Also, Zine Thug Marc and I have set a date to records our second Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast. SHUT UP! We refuse to apologize for the lateness! It’s a podcast about zines…what did you expect?

Zine Librarian (un)Conference Day 2

I woke a bit past 9 and brushed my teeth, cleaned my face and stared at a map of Seattle for awhile, charted by route back up Capitol Hill, and chatted with Wrdnrd a bit. She was headed to CORFLU, the other zine thing going on in Seattle. It is a sci-fi/fantasy fanzine convention. It’s like our zines and their zines live in parallel universes… maybe someone should write a story about that?!
I walked my weighed down bike up half of Capitol Hill. I’m getting old and I’m also not as in shape as I used to be but still, Seattle hills suck. I got to the event as they were discussing topics and in the main room and breaking up what workshops would happen. I could spot Jenna from Barnard on stage with Alycia who I had met in Madison, Milo from QZAP, Jerianne from Zine World and Zine Wiki, Clint from Salt lake’s alternative press library, my traveling companions and several other familiar faces from other zine events.

The first session I attended was on Ethics of zine archiving where zine writers and librarians were to discuss ethics. Some topics were what to do if a zine writer requests to have their zine removed, how we feel about digital documentations, and a bunch of other stuff but I don’t have notes for but there should be some up on the site soon. The idea that came out of this session was to draft some sort of document type letter for writers and archivists to agree upon adding zine to libraries, a sort of code of ethics. Towards the end of the session I asked librarians what could zine writers do to  make their job easier.

These are some of the things they mentioned: Put a publication date on your zine, allow subscriptions… even if they won’t see the zine in 5 years it is just easier for the bureaucracy of the library institution to work that way, somehow note if your zine is a serial or one shot, your copyright preferences, and maybe what category you would like your zine in.

During lunch Marc. Lilly and I walked over to a coffee shop to get sandwiches and soups. There were 4 vegan sandwiches. two were circular and two were diamond shaped. We ordered them by shape. They only took cash but let Marc and I eat our food before we went to the ATM… that was strangely located in the lobby of a police station. weird. After that Marc and I sat down with Jerianne and interviewed her about zinewiki, zine world and 90’s zine. There is some seriously hilarious stuff. I edited the interview on the train on the way home and had to to try hard not to laugh out loud. I also interviewed a few ZAPP volunteers as well. They will eventually be in an episode of Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast.

Since there were 3 IPRC folks we worked out ways to have at least one of us at every session. The next session I went to with Marc. It was about sustainability and it turned out to be us, from the IPRC and 5 volunteers from ZAPP. We discussed outreach, bringing people into the centers, fundraising, and to put it nicely: The cultural disconnect between administration and the people who actually do the work. Meaning that working with a Board of Directors that are pretty clueless to what you are doing day to day can be difficult. We also discussed to coming economic situation and how that might effect our organizations.

After that session Marc and I headed out with a a former ZAPP volunteer to hear the dirt on why they closed a few years ago. I’m not going to discuss details here. But, I did learn that they were closed before the flooded basement.

Marc and I headed across town to the U-District for the zine reading. It was sort of weird to me that my name was the only name on the flier. Shane was there with Amy. I have known them since I was 16 and met them at church youth group things. I don’t think they had ever seen me in my zine element but knew me when I started making zines in Utah.

Milo was the Emcee for the event and decided to go with names starting at the beginning of the alphabet and switch to the end and back and forth so I read first. I read the story about Robert and his wife in New York from my newest zine. Funny cause Shane and Amy knew Robert and seemed amused by it. Next was a guy name Zack and I’m kicking myself for not trading zines with him because his writing was fantastic and his delivery was hilarious. He read a story about going to barber school and painted these ridiculously elaborate fantasy images of expecting the school to be like walking into a musical! good times.

After the reading a bunch of folks went to find Kareoke. Wrdnrd and her partner, Shane and Amy and I went to Big times brewery and had some beers and hung out. We talked and had a good time. Shane and Amy had to leave and we soon left to go back to wrdnrd’s and also pick up some beer. We stayed up drinking  and talking about zines and sci-fi until 2am.  The second day of the conference started at 11 so I needed to get to sleep.

For more info go to the site for links to photos and notes from the workshop sessions.