Halifax Photo extravaganza

Sarah and I went on a bike ride on a nice day. This is the view from the edge of Point Pleasant Park. The ocean is off in the distance.

Halifax Zine Fair

More from the Halifax zine fair. There were people serving this super yummy squash and black bean stew. I had two bowls and went out for pizza with Lucas and Caleb afterwards. So much food!

Cap got a car and we went to the ocean with Sky and Caleb on a super beautiful day. Sorry, no dramatic pictures of me at the sea with my hair blowing.

I think it was called Raindown haven. It was a bit of a cove.

I like the ocean

I drew a labyrinth in the sand. I'm kind of obsessed with drawing them on everything.

Cap and Caleb. I joked that Caleb looks like he is about to take a bite out of a sandwich.

 

walking up to the citadel. You can see part of the commons.

more walking up to the citadel and you can see the harbor.

In the citadel a lot of it had sod roofs and you can see chimneys coming ouit... you can also see this silly sign.

The citadel is an 8 pointed star and really big. this is inside.

I should have taken more pictures up top. It was nice and there was a nice view. oh well. I had a good time and have memories.

Sonia came by for coffee the last day I was there. There was a how to use an aeropress demonstration and I took a photos of of Sonia and my aeropress.

the shed I called home for 2 weeks.

peering inside. I drew a labyrinth on the wall.

The bed was 4 feet off the ground and came with bedding.

I should have taken a photo when it was more lived in. It was cozy and I had everything I needed at arm’s length. I slept in my own sleeping bag and put the provided sleeping bag over the window.

View from the bed looking outside. There were nice hooks and shelves on the walls.

Robert's street Social Center as I was leaving. The sky was clear and beautiful. I sort of miss the place arleady.

So, that’s it for my Halifax photos. I had a good time. I hope some of the awesome people I met will come and visit me in Portland.  I’m also trying to figure out the logistics of having a zine residency of some sort at my house. Stayed tuned for more info.

I’m not in Toronto for my next adventure!

 

Greetings from Halifax!

I got into Halifax the night before last. Sarah picked me up at the airport and took me back to her house. In the morning we went by the Anchor Archive and I got acquainted then went back to Sarah’s to grab my stuff to work with and headed back over to wait for someone who had the shed key.

I met some of the the other folks around here including Jake who does the Zine Machine Radio show who asked me to be on the show last night. I settled into the shed with half my stuff and a typewriter and started editing and typing a bit and getting a little work done too. Then I walked back over to Sarah and Al’s to procure a bike from Al for short me and brought a bit more of my stuff back over to the shed at the Anchor Archive.

Jake showed up and we rode to the College and read zines and talked about zines on the Zine Machine show. You can stream it or listen to it here. We were on from 22:00- 00:00 last night (Tuesday night) It was a lot of fun and we went out for a pitcher and good conversation afterwards.

Jake pointed me in a direction to ride and gave me directions. I must have messed them up because I was crazy lost and getting really frustrated. It was late and I text messaged with Paul in Portland who navigated me through the city with google maps. I finally got back here at 4am and talked with Paul on the internets and then crashed out around 5am.

It is now two PM and I am still under the covers in my bed in the shed. I just finished another draft for the Morgenmuffel zine anthology. I hope it works out!  It isn’t raining outside anymore but the wind is blowing and the sun is out. I think it is about time for me to get up and go on an adventure.

My cat friend Cali who keeps coming into the shed and is annoying insistent for attentioThe typewriter and computer

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Symposium, riot fest, ssr, stuff

Things have been busy! The Portland Zine Symposium is this weekend and I feel like I have had a meeting every other day! I missed the 24 hour Zine Challenge last weekend. I hear they had live streaming video and chatted with folks from ZAPP who were also having a zine challenge i nSeattle. That’s pretty rad! I thought that if  Iwent my body wouldn’t be able to recover for this weekend. Last year I was super sick at the symposium so I’m not letting that happen again!

I was interviewed by someone from Reading Local about the Symposium and Stolen Sharpie Revolution here. It was a pretty good interview with some questions I have never been asked before, which is refreshing!

My sister asked me to go to Riot Fest in Chicago with her in October. I bought tickets for Paul and I to go. I figure I’ll jsut stop off there on my way to Halifax for my zine residency at the Anchor Archive. My sister and I are most excited to see The Dead Milkmen! I never got to see them. I was 12 or 13 the last time they played in Utah and my mom wouldn’t let me go to shows then. It will be so awesome to go with my sister and it will be cool to see Screeching Weasel, another band I have never been able to see live. Looking at the line up though it seems like such a dude fest. What really can you expect from that genre of music. I guess it just shows me how far away I have gotten from it but that it still holds a special place in my heart.

Anyway, Today I have to put together the program for the symposium, finish a rush button order and go grocery shopping with Paul. Paul has a house show tonight with his new band the Tagalongs withour housemate Marc. I have been hearing them practice in the basement and I really like them! I just hope that I can get all my work done so that I can go!

Hey, wanna do me a favor? Go to the Amazon page for Stolen Sharpie Revolution and write a nice review of my book, I mean, if you happen to like it. Or walk into any book store and order it with this ISBN 978-0981794105. With and ISBN you can order any book in the world. It is sort of magical, especially because it doesn’t have to be a barcode!

Etsy Storque, Podcast, punk 7″s and our new house band

First things first! The Nobody Cares About Your Stupid Zine Podcast has had over 100 listeners! At the IPRC staff meeting the other day someone asked Marc and I if we were going to put our podcast out on a schedule like monthly. We shrugged, laughed and said that it is a podcast about zines, how could we possibly have a schedule? You can make fun of us if we ever start apologising for our podcast coming out late.

The Brainscan Audio zine that Paul and I put together for the Fall of Autumn Podcast is featured in this Etsy Storque Guest Curator article by the people from Cinders Gallery. That was nice of them! I remember packing orders for them when I used to work at a distro. Maybe I should get in touch with seeing if they will carry my zines. The audio zine is called Pre-existing conditions and has me reading sort pieces from the never ending up coming zine that I have been working on for over 3 years. Paul blended his music in with my reading and i think it sounds great. I plan on actually finishing the zine at the Anchor Archive Zine Residency in October. Paul has already written most of the sound track…. now I need too do my part.

Speaking of music, last night we ended up having a house party with all 5 of our housemates plus Jess, who is sort of an honorary housemate. It all started when Paul played a 7″ by Scared of Chaka and that damn Cerrado song that gets stuck in his head. At that time it was just Paul, Amanda and I. We proceeded to move through our 7″ collection of crappily recorded 90’s punk records. Jess showed up since we were going to go to first Thursday but we decided to finish a bottle of wine instead.

More 90’s punk all on 7″ and we were remarking about how zine like they are, with bad artwork and inside jokes. PUD, F.Y.P., NAR, Crimpshrine, Prapaghandi, The Prima Donnas, Cringer, Monsula, Teen Titans, etc. Such good stuff!  We miss 90’s punk! The we wondered how much it would cost to put out the records now and it turns out to be ridiculously expensive.

Dan showed up with some beer, we opened another bottle of wine and all decided to start a house band. Then while listening to lo-fi pnk recordings we filled a page with bad (and a few good!) song titles. One being “New York Destiny” and anothr being “New York Density” New York Destiny is the term we used to knowing someone or being someone who happens to be in NYC and runs into the most unlikely person. We all know someone that has happened too.

So, ya. Our house band is called “The Mezz” for reasons that escape me. Jess is going to have Paul teach her to play drums and we haven’t got the rest sorted. I think Paul and Marc are gonna play guitar though. Overall it was a productive night and I’m glad I didn’t go to 1st Thursday!

Here’s a picture of me:

hello there!

and here’s a photo of Jackie looking like a stumbling drunk slouched against the wall.

hello mr. slumpy!

Good News!

I just four of that my application for the Anchor Archive Zine Residency for 2009 was acceted! It looks like I’ll be spending two weeks in Halifax, Nova Scotia submersing myself in zine more than usual! I have been accepted for October which I imagine will be chilly in Eastern Canada but it will be awesome!

I have been kicking around the skeletons of the twists and turns of the love story between Paul and I which is also the flipside, of Brainscan 21. I’m hoping that the love story will make the crawling out of an abusive relationship more palletable… or vice versa if you are into that sort of thing. It has been extremely difficult to write because there is so much history, arguably 12-17 years of it. It is hard to write about something and sort out the important bits when there is just so much.

Paul has been working on the original soundtrack for the zine and he is basically done with his part. It loosely tells his story. Some of the music is here if you wanna listen to it and the whole thing ends with a song where I sing back up with a fitting chorus “There’s a lot in life you can’t explain” I’m hoping that a continent’s distance will give me space to write and time to miss him and really reflect and remember what that deep sense of space felt like.

I don’t think they have a photocopier which sort of puts a damper on the layout process. I already have the cover and even the size the zine will be. it will be half legal sized with vellum or transparency covers that have an image of a Brainscan and say: Pre-existing conditions. Strange that in almost 12 years of doing my zine I have never used and MRI on the cover, eh?

On top of all that I am hoping to first hit up the Richmond Zine Fest in Virginia for my second time. I had a lot of fun last time and met some awesome people… and one adorable dog. I’m also excited to try to go to CanZine in Toronto. I have never been to Canzine or Toronto for that matter! Oooo and maybe I can go to West Virginia! I have now been to ever state but West Virginia, I’m going to have to start working on provinces next!

It is looking to be a gloomy day in Portland so I’m going to force myself out of bed to get down to my office for some work and also make some tofu scramble and vegan biscuits and gravy.

Good Riddance to 2008

2008 sucked.

I tried doing that meme about all the stuff I did in the past year several times and I just couldn’t finish it. Thinking about 2008 makes my head hurt. The only thing that wasn’t a complete mess was my love life… which is probably what helped me get through the rest of the horrible-ness.

I also tried writing some comprehensive thing about my 2008 and it just got tedious. 2008 just really really sucked. My house was falling apart causing me to spend my savings for the Stolen Sharpie Revolution reprint twice, my favorite grandmother passed away unexpectedly, our family dog at my parents’ house had to be put to sleep before Paul got to see her again. My abusive ex-husband never quite stops behaving like an entitled asshat. The Portland Zine Symposium had more than half the organizers quit but we still pulled it off.

By the end of the year things started shaping up. I had raised enough money to reprint my book, Paul was happily making music with three bands and playing shows, the activist community came to my aid in dealing with my ex, and opportunities I hadn’t dreamed of starting opening up to me.

Highlights of 2008: My parents taking Webly, Brian, Paul and I on an Alaskan cruise in June, pulling off the Portland Zine Symposium with basically only 4 organizers, our family riverhouse cabin that has been a nice retreat from life, driving my grandmother’s car back from Texas with my sister across the country, attending the very first zine fest in Salt Lake City.

2009 is shaping up to be fantastic though… especially in the zine department. I already have the money for the Stolen Sharpie Revolution printing and most of the layout is done and should be going to the printer in a few weeks.

In March I expect to have a release party for that at the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) There is the Zine Librarian unconference in March. I’m also planning a zine podcast with my housemate Marc called Nobody Cares about Your Stupid Zine Podcast!

In April I have been kicking around the idea of a mini zinefest at the IPRC with tables that are only open to IPRC members and everyone has the exact same amount of space so it is fair to all tablers. At the very end of April I will be flying to London.

In May I will be attending the London Zine Symposium where I hope to do a reading and participate in workshops. After that I’m scheming a mini zine tour of the UK. On the 12th I’m taking a train to Poitiers, France to participate in the zine event at la Fanzinotheque.Then head back to the UK and catch a plane home.

In June I think I’ll take a big deep breath and have my 32nd birthday party at the Riverhouse.

July is International Zine Month! I’m hoping to make a 24 hour zine finally. I also have this great idea to have a zine retreat at the Riverhouse, more on that later. At the end of International zine month is the 9th Portland Zine Symposium!

After that, who knows? I have applied for the zine residency at the Anchor Archive in Nova Scotia for August or September so maybe I’ll get accepted to that. I am hoping it would be in September so I can hand around the east coast for some zine fests, maybe Richmond or even Canzine.

All this time away from Paul and the house sort of makes me sad when I think about it too long but I know that he will take care of things and he wants me to go out and do things I need to do. He needs to do the things he needs to do too and that’s why I’m headed to the Satyricon tonight to see his band I Am My Kat play… after  I finish one more Etsy button order.