treasure: things I got in the mail today

I'm really into zines at the moment. I think it's my friend Bridget who got me thinking about them - she ran a zine festival in Hobart last year that I wish I could have attended... I'm still not sure why they made Hobart so far away from Armidale, but I guess that's out of my hands.

Still, zines. Bridget sent me some way back in 2011 when I lived in Canada, a few that she made and a few others which are super cute. Since then, I have being quietly working on my collection - each time I have visited Melbourne recently I've gone to town at The Sticky Institute on Degraves/Flinders (it's under ground, which only serves to make me love it more). Polyester Books on Brunswick St in Fitzroy also sells zines, although I always forget to visit when I'm there. I am particularly of the feminist zine persuasion, but have come to realise that I'm pretty much down with all the zines, given that zines are really about creating an outlet for your own voice that doesn't have to follow anyone's rules. Also, there's the aesthetics of the thing - Photocopying and cut'n'pasting are what it's all about, and I love it. Christina Lee wrote this article about zines and about Sticky, if you require more information.

Today I got my latest lump of zines from Take Care zine distro who are based in Sydney and list their catalogue online to purchase from. I like to share my money around - so I order stuff online from them. My favourite is that no matter what happens, I always end up with a few extra zines I didn't order (this time it was because one of the zines I selected had run out).

My new favourite zine is now officially this one.

She writes about being on a disability pension because of depression, and has chosen to document as much of this as humanly possible through zines. I think it's such a great outlet that she has provided for herself, a beautiful aesthetic and sense of truth rings through the writing. This is the great thing - because zines can be anything, there's zines like hers with lots of little stories about her life, but other zines are all hand drawn pictures or cartoons, or photographs in a collage. It feels real and authentic to read, and just magical, basically.

This zine from berti evan is only small but manages to communicate such a lot about this person's mother and how big a part of her life cookbooks were... I love it. I love that these ideas can come from people, ideas I never would have had.

In conclusion, yay zines! And also, yay mail! I am going to start sending mail again very soon, to all of the everybody... if you'd like some mail from me, let me know. I'll put ya on my list.