Toronto! Canzine! Train Ride! NYC!

Greetings from New York City!

Saturday was Hallowzine! at the Toronto Zine Library: 6 zine kids reading stuff. There were a few that I knew and some that I had only conversed with through the postal system and the internets. The readings were fun and entertaining. Then we went out for food and beer and headed back to Amy’s house amid costumed folks. I had no costume this year. I wish I had one of my cloaks. Instead I was wearing a skirt with my bat leggings that I wear all year round and my big fuzzy hood hat. i kicked up piles of leaves down Dundas as we walked to the beer store down the street. My favorite costume I saw? Tow people dressed as the Yip Yip alien monsters from Seasame Street! Yip Yip Yip Yip Uh hu uh hu! Tel-e-phone!

Kate showed up who I hadn’t seen since 2005 and the per-zine girl party plus Chris was in full effect! Maranda, Amy Leigh, Kate, Amber, Chirs and I sat in Amy’s room and some how we started talking about Lisa Frank and obsessing about the sticker company that we remember as kids. For some reason we wanted to see picture of THE Lisa Frank but could produce none. Instead we waxed poetic about stickers of dancing bears in top hats and unicorns that run down rainbows. I also found some real English cider that sated my desire for more real cider. It was good stuff!

The time changed over night and I got up early to find about 5 tabs in my browser filled with Lisa Frank images! I made coffee for folks scattered around the living room. Talking about Lisa Frank and having a giant zine girl slumber party was pretty rad.

We walked to the Gladstone and go there before 10 but they wouldn’t let us in until 11 so we sat around outside but we were the first people in line and got the seats we wanted when we got in. We had a zine girl bloc and it was great to have good people around me  for great conversations and who could watch each others’ stuff. I sold and traded a lot of zines and met some awesome people but I was super tired by the end of it. It was nice to have a bar right there and I had a beer at one point but then I got a head ache so no more beer for me. The layout was weird to have a bunch of weird rooms in a hotel on different levels. There were the problems that seem to plague all zine fests  these days with overpriced zines and too many things that weren’t zines at all. Too many crafts that had nothing to do with paper. I have other critiques but I’ll keep them to myself.

I got back to Amy’s, packed and crashed out after watching Mad Men. It was weird to watch it on a TV with commercials and not on a computer with no commercials.

I got up early in the morning and made it to the train station for an epic train ride to NYC. It seems like we spent way longer than we should have at the border but we eventually got going. I read a lot of zines including the new Cometbus, Culture Slut, Nothing Rhymes, Riot Wife and a few others and I wrote many letters. One being and epic 16 page tome! Postage to Canadia is going to kill me!

Anyway, I made it to NYC and Jeska met me. We came back to her house and talked until 2am sitting on her stoops and having a good time catching up. I don’t think we have talked too much since I was hear 2 years ago.

Today I’m headed to the post office to mail stiff back to me that is weighing me down. Books and zines are heavy! I have a couple of copies of my zines that I’m going to drop by Bluestockings and see if they want some. I can’t remember what I gave them last. I’m going to leave a few copies of the new Brainscan too. #25 but not #24 because I don’t have any more .Maybe I’ll bring flats to make more zines? Then I’m going to get some food at Kate’s place which I have never been to in my 3 trips to NYC. After that I might just meet up with Jenna Freedman for a beer and reminisce about our trip to France and drinking at an Irish Pub… in France.

Right now I have my own room courtesy of Jeska’s housemate that is away. it’s nice to have a place to put my stuff. I took everything out of my bag to deside what to ship back home today. I fly home a week from today. I’ll have stacks of mail to read and that is exciting. Speaking of mail I’m going to head out to the post office after some coffee.

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Nottingham to Leeds

Currently I am in Leeds. Robb and I made it jsut in time for the reading and the Chemic Pub. We caught two train later than expected from Nottignham but it all worked out in the end thanks to a rail system that actually works and makes sense!

On Friday Lizzy Robb and I went into Nottingham to bust Lizzy’s student bubble and eat at the veggie restaurant, Dotty’s. We also wandered around town where i saw lots of silly Robin Hood souvenirs but not silly enought or neat enough that they had to come home with me. Robb left on what we now refer to as a “robbabout” and said he was going to the show/gig that night and would see us later. We sat in the Market Square and watched a lone duck amongst pigeons and then a sudden downpour as the people scattered for cover.

Steve and his friend showed up further busting Lizzy’s student bubble by showing her and awesome comic shop and another veggie restaurant.  We wandered around a bit, stopped a pub for an ale. Steve and I are of the vertical challenged folk and our other tow companions were tall. We had hi-fives over the awesomeness of being small. then Lizzy had to go back to her hall to get ready for that evening’s festivities. I decided I would go to the metal/power violence/hardcore show instead. it isn’t really my kind of music recorded but can be fun live. Going out to a club where they would be playing contemporary British pop music? um, I’d probably just ruin their fun.  We had a few plans including Lizzy meeting up with me to bring zines to sell at the show and her packing our stuff and bringing it to the train station in the morning as I was going to stay at Steve’s. Robb was still on Robbabout.

When back to Steve’s and made pasta. This is when I realized that Steve was actually playing in one of the bands when he mentioned grabbing his guitar. weird that  I didn’t pick up on that. even after seeing them I still don’t know the name of their band. The show was pretty typical as far a people watching and Robb did show up. It could have been any basement Portland show… except that it was upstairs at a club and not a basement and no one was drinking Pabst! Good Times!

After the show we were getting a ride back to Steve’s but our driver had us stop at a shop to get chips and hummus. It was just chips with a bunch of hummus on top like some sort of weird poutine. not bad. I mean, mixing chickpeas and potatoes makes sense, eh? Back at the house steve and I geeked out about comics and zines and I stole things from his bins to use in zine layout. What? They have different security envelopes here! That sort of sent us on a hunt for other layout things around the flat and we fleetings ideas of making a 24 minute zine. We settled on a project that will not be named nor will it ever see the light of day but makes me giggle to myself.

I was having a lot of fun with one of my new favorite zine people and I didn’t  but I had to crash out because it was after two and we were supposed to catch a train at 9… which got pushed to 10… and eventually we settled on a 10:30 train after headed back to Nottingham University to pack our stuff and then back to town to the train station. I felt so gross I don’t think I had a shower in 3 days and I smelled like a power violence gig. yum, I sure do love that I’e come up a punk rocker and don’t mind so much. I just worry that other people do!

We got into Leeds at 1Pm and Amy greeted up, took us home to drop our bags off and walk to the pub just in time! More later because we are trying to figure out the plans for the day.

nottingham… the ‘h’ isn’t really pronouced…

In Brighton somone asked me if I had been corrected on how to say Nottingham without the hard ‘h’ because I was saying it properly. I thought it was funny. In my head it was just like those cities in the eastern US that have lots of extra words that aren’t pronounced. works for me.

I’m in Nottingham staying with Lizzy from Marching Stars zine distro. Robb and I are sleeping on her dorm room floor. Yesterday we took the train up from Brigton. Lizzy refered to it as a long trip…3 hours is hardly a long trip for me. Three hours gets you from my house to Seattle but only in good traffic!

I was here as part of her plan to stoke the fires of the University women’s network zine and get people excited about writing zines and writing for their magazine. Steve from Rum Lad came too. he’s super taleneted. Robb told him he could be the next Christy |Road… and I don’t think that’s too far off.  I forgot that he lived her and that we are livejournal friends! We all geeked out about zines infront of about 7 or 8 confused but intriqued people, I read some stuff from my zines, sold some stuff, then we went to the pub in the student union.

I missed a Real Ale festival by a day! but there were some interesting brews on tap. Steve and I gave eachother geography lessons of our countires in my notebook and he showed me how to order ale here. It has something to do with cocking your eyebrow and tilting your head to the side to get the attention of the person behind the bar. I have not perfected it yet. One of Lizzy’s friends is an American Studies major… which seems a bit odd to me. She was interested in American things like the theory of the Southern Sweet Tea vs. Northern non sweetened ice tea somehow corresponding to the Mason-Dixon line.

Lizzy and her friends have invited me out clubbling tonight. This normally doesn’t appeal to me but I may go. Robb found out from Steve that Capitalist Casualties are playing here tonight and he is excited to go to that. That’s not really my style of music but would be more of my scene than the dance club. I’m still undecided.

I’m waiting for Lizzy to get back from a lecture and then we are headed to town to some vegetarian restaurant. I have been eating some sort of vegan pate like Tartex out of a tube on crackers, almonds, and raisins  for the past day. real food will be good.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Leeds for a zine reading. I’m not sure what to expect… or even who I am meeting as we haven’t met. Never stopped me before.

I found some flickr images of the awesome folks I have met. This is Wes, he bought me a cider after the zine fair and came from |Glastonbury to Brighton to read with us. This is Edd, half of our fantastic host/ess couple in London and really awesome people who do the bulk of the work for the London Ziune Symposium. I’m headed to France with him on Tuesday. This is Andrew from Corndog distro and Beat motel zine.

Oh, the English kids seem to think American accents sound Irish for some reason. I don’t really get it though. Ok Lizzy is back and we are going to head out soon.

Seattle Zine Librarian (un)Conference part 1

I met Lilly and Marc at the Portland train station with our bikes. We were taking theAmtrak Cascade so that we could just put our bikes on the hangers on the train. We got one of the sets of four seats where they are facing eachother. Amtrak put some random guy in the 4th seat as we yammered on about zines. At one point he asked us what zines were and where we were going.  I pulled a bunch of them out of my bag. He actually read Doris 26 on the ride.

We didn’t really have much of a plan for when we got into Seattle. Lilly’s friend was out of town and she was going to stay with a a friend of a friend… who was in the middle of finals week. I could stay with my friend Shane but he lived like, across some water and on the other side of some mountains and Marc had no idea where he was staying but was going to meet with a friend.

We got into Seattle and decided to at least find the Richard Hugo House where ZAPP is located. Well, it’s on top of Capitol Hill and for some reason my pannier weighed down bike was having issues with skipping gears. annoying and making me lag behind everyone. We got to Hugo House to find that ZAPP was closed so we headed out to get some food and beer. Well, we rode down a huge hill knowing that we were going the wrong direction and had to ride back up the hill.

We parked ourselves at the Red Wood where we bought several pitchers of beer (Hogaarden pitchers for only $13!) because they wouldn’t take food orders because they were busy. I sent a text to Wrdnrd to see if I could stay with her if it was just me and not our wacky bike entourage. She and her partner obliged which was awesome because she is totally someone I have wanted to spend more time with. They showed up during our 3rd pitcher and Marc’s friend showed up. Lilly had to take off to her host’s house. Marc insisted on singing Kareoke so we set our looking for a kareoke bar.

Found the bar and I drank another beer and stood outside with Wrdnrd talking zine geekery… and just regular geekery. Some dudes came up asking us what time it was stalling us just long enough to tell us what American Indian tribe or tribes made up their lineage pulling huge strands of what they called Flax, which I knew wasn’t really American flax. I knew where this was gong. One guy gave Wrdnrd a stylized rose made of of it with a braid and a knot. The proceeded to show us how they are made. The inevitable asking for money came next so I gave them some change.

"Flax Rose"

We took the bus back to Wrdnrd’s and I crashed seeing as I had been up sice 5 and it was past midnight. I had a whole day of zine librarian to deal with the next day.

Zinewiki, wake up time, tickets and lolcats

did you know that ZineWiki is back up? It is true! I spent a little time last night egotistically editing my page. I’m not sure how some of the stuff got there. I always tend to forget some of the things I have done so it is good for other people to fill it out to remind me. So, even if you don’t want to edit zinewiki you should check it out and see what’s there.

Everyday I get up and look at the clock and frequently it is exactly 9:00am. If it is not 9 is is within 10 minutes of 9. It has been happening for months and sort of weirds me out. This morning I bought my train ticket from London to Poirtiers. it sort of makes me fell official about my trip.

Here’s a photo where I made one of Marc’s cats into a lolcat. I couldn’t help it! We were trying to do a crossword puzzle and Jackie kept trying to steal our pen!

Sorry jackie. You asked for it!

I’m not a cat person but I do enjoy these cats. I’ll write more about them sometime but right now I have coffee to roast and orders to pack.