I just finished jazz school for the year ( still can't believe I finished second year, geeeeezzz what a rocky and steep uphill climb) so now I have lots of time to do fun stuff like researching the best places and things for 'TTT' (that's the tahi). To celebrate finishing jazz school, Daniela and I had a snickers milkshake from Midnight Espresso and then went to the Wellington City Library for a WHOLE AFTERNOON. I was as happy as a pig in mud surrounded by piles of crafty books, literary journals, string player magazines and..... zines from Wellington library's zine collection, this weeks tahi!
This is only one quarter of their collection!
For those of you who are currently unaware, zines are self published books / magazines / booklets / other forms of mostly paper media (here's some more info if you need more clarification). Zines are great because you can publish whatever you like without a big publishing company pushing and pulling you and you don't have the fear of rejecting from big publishing dogs. AND, to top it all off, the zine community is a really supportive and cool bunch with a wide rage of talents and interests, so getting involved with zines gives you a whole new community, woo!
Thanks for the info, Miss cliche 1960s semi-sexy librarian!
When I was in early highschool, I started up a zine publisher / distro called 'Little Caravan Publications' and wrote zines on all sorts of things. I made interactive paper doll zines, poetry zines, interview zines and did lots of per-zines (personal zines) which focused on me having yarns about various the weird unfortunate shit that happens in my life (like last week when someone randomly cupped my bum in public and I turned around to a lady telling me my skirt was too short and that she was doing me a favour... ummmm ok? maybe just a shoulder tap and a "your skirt has ridden up" would suffice? But anyway, I digress... ). I was participating in various zine fests around the country and would occasionally receive visits from ambassadors from various NZ libraries who were starting to branch out into collecting this type of media. There were dudes from Auckland city libraries, some from the national library, but most of them were from Wellington City Libraries. Which makes sense because they now have a HUGE collection.
There are zines about everything! No matter HOW fucked up it is!
Having a zine collection is great because the topics are so varied. Yesterday I managed to read a zine with recipes for home cleaning products, a poetry zine by a collection of young queer folk, a vegan 'cookbook' zine, various art zines, a zine on pinup hair and makeup, and some great fiction zines! And they're all quick fun reads, straight from the horses mouth (so to speak). No extreme editing, and writers have the freedom to write about really niche topics as they don't have to worry about not having a wide audience.
The Wellington City Library (which in itself is the freaking best, free movies, heaps of great magazines, A HUGE ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL SECTION, decent cafe, HUGE lot of CDs WITH LISTENING POSTS) has zines in various categories including poetry, art, personal, DIY (my fave) and miscellaneous (aka "lucky dip" zines). They even have these cute little zine bags that you can put your zines in so they don't get bumped around in your backpack!
Ngawwww
They seem to have a big focus on New Zealand based zines which is FANTASTIC because New Zealand zines have a really rich and quirky history. Like Bryce Galloway's 'Incredibly Hot Sex With Hideous People' which is one of the countriest longest running zines. Or the numerous titles from the great David Merrit (you should read about him if you haven't come across him yet) who publishes poems inside the covers of old Reader's Digests.
One of David's early works
One by Bryce Galloway
My best find of the day would have to be this amazing art zine called 'Untotal Eclipse' ( I can't read who it's by as the library has put the bar code over the name... why??????). The zine is comprised of a series of interactive drawings that allow you to mix two things together. Many of the drawings make a comment on something on society, like this one about transgenderism
I also managed to find one of my own zines from yonks ago, which was quite a thrill!
This zine is a really simple little booklet of playlists with illustrations, and it ws made with just one sheet of paper! I thought I'd place a link to a tutorial on how to make a zine like this because it's a great place to start and as I have previously mentioned zines are freaking great. So click here and create cool stuff!
Oh yeah, and I got all my hair cut off
So that's the tahi this week! Tune in next week for another episode! Booya!
Aroha (as always),
Ruby xx
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