I just want to make a clarification about something I wrote in my letter to Microcosm and the blog about it. In it, I talked about writing a blog awhile ago and then removing it the next day because I didn't know where the information came from. I want to clarify and say that I trusted the person who gave me the information, and I removed the blog because I wanted to do more research on my own so that I would be able to discuss it from a place of personal knowledge rather than second hand. I do believe that second hand information is extremely valid, and not everyone can or should feel like they have to do their own research into a situation to stand up against it. I feel like people feeling like they have to do their own research is part of what perpetuates the whole dynamic where survivors are always having to defend themselves and perpetrators are always getting the benefit of the doubt.
Because I have a place of power within our community, I wanted to make sure I felt well versed in the situation before making a public statement about it.
In my letter to Microcosm, I referred to Ciara's blog as inflamatory, which I really regret. I think inflaming people is essential and brave, and I think I meant it in that framework, but obviously, I should have thought deeper, because most people think of inflamitory as a bad word. Continuing to stand up against abuse when people all around you are ignoring it is frustrating and sickening, and I am very proud of and suppport the work Ciara has done. I apologize for any misunderstanding or backlash my words have caused.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Microcosm
This is about Joe Biel and Microcosm.
A number of years ago I read Alex's zine Brainscan 21. Alex was Joe's long-term partner and wife and worked with Microcosm. It was about how she came to realize, with the help of her therapist, that he was emotionally abusive and manipulative in their relationship and business. It wasn't a big surprise to me, because when I had seen them together, they really reminded me of me and my former emotionally abusive partner. After I read the zine, I wrote to Alex and asked if she thought I should remove my stuff from Microcosm, and she said she didn't really think I should have to do that. In retrospect, I wish I had.
I believed Alex's zine. I wanted to believe that Joe might change, or that his behavior could possibly be situational and not show up as abusive in other relationships. I also said to myself "all publishers and record store guys are scumbags." I saw that Microcosm had more members than in the past, and was being collectively run, and I hoped that this meant Joe was stepping aside and giving up power in order to deal with his control issues. I had heard he was in therapy.
The truth was, I benefited from being published and distributed by Microcosm. I was overwhelmed by dealing with abuse in my immediate community, and didn't want to look too closely at my complacency regarding Microcosm.
Early this year, I got involved in trying to set up an accountabiliy process for Joe. He had said that he had done all that was requested of him and that he didn't know how to stop rumors or how to communicate with Alex that he had changed, since she didn't want contact.
Attached below is the final statement of the attempted accountability process.
I am trying to figure out what to do about Microcosm and distributing my zines with them. Below the statement from the accountability process is a letter I wrote to Microcosm a few weeks ago.
Microcosm is collectively run by like 8 people or something, and Joe does not have final say in things, however, as I say in my letter, I think collectives have to stand up and confront abuse by members within their collectives. Microcosm as a collective, does not do this.
I don't want people within the Microcosm collective who do believe Alex, and who know that Joe does have abusive and manipulative behaviors, to suffer, however, I can no longer support a collective that will not stand up against abuse.
I won't be publishing my next book with Microcosm. I am going to give them until the end of the year to come up with a collective statement confronting/admitting Joe's abuse and manipulation, and/or for Joe to legally remove himself from the collective. If by the end of the year, this isn't done, I will be removing my zines from Microcosm. I will also be reprinting Support and Learning Good Consent on my own.
Statement from the Athens Support Network:
In January, 2010, we convened to help with the accountability process of Joe Biel. We had been given the understanding, from Joe, that he was in therapy, had met Alex's demands, and didn't know how to proceed since she did not want contact. We confirmed that Joe had met most or all of Alex's logistical/legal demands, but in order to confirm whether or not he had identified and changed his behavior, we set about some written excercises. Our process was straightforward and formal, working on identifying behavior and making amends. Joe cooperated with the "identifying behavior" exercises - vacilating between what we perceived as willingness and defensiveness. We did not make it past the "identifying behavior" section of the process, as it became clear that a much deeper conversation/process needed to happen and we were unable to commit to the time and energy it would take. We think that if another process was to take place, it would need to be face to face and would need to have people in his immediate community actively involved. We believe that these people would need to have professional training and experience, and have a large amount of time to commit to the process. We do not believe it is the community's responsibility to sacrifice themselves for this. We do think that it is the responsibility of Joe's friends and other people who benefit from acquaintance with Joe to recognize that the accusations concerning his abusive behavior are valid, that he still has problems with control and manipulation that he is working on, and to point out to him when he is behaving in these manners, even if it is not negatively affecting them. We also belive it is up to Joe to actively encourage and support this type of dialogue with his friends, co-workers and acquaintances.
Joe is in therapy, and we feel that he is making progress through therapy. He has identifed a large number of behavior issues and has done work and continues to do work to change them. He believes that he honors Alex's experience. We, however, feel that he still has extreme problems with control, manipulation, defensiveness, and portraing himself as the victim. We feel that he often minimizes and belittles Alex's experience, and sometimes seeks to redefine it as communication problems rather than emotional abuse (see blog response post, Feb 5). In Brainscan, Alex's counselor identifed Joe as "using classic examples of distraction while arguing like some sort of sleight of hand trick with words". We also noticed this in our working with him.
Joe has a number of counter-charges against Alex. While we were unable to explore all these charges, they are consistent with the actions of someone trying to regain power when their power has been taken away from them due to emotional abuse.
We do believe Joe is working to understand and change his behaviors. We do not believe this gives him a clean slate.
letter I sent to Microcosm before I got the statement from the accountability team
Dear Microcosm,
I'm sorry about the confusing request for Joe to change the legal ownership to the collective. I guess I was just looking for a simple answer to a complicated question.
I believe that Joe was emotionally abusive controling and manipulative to Alex. I also believe that he still has these problems, even if they do not show up in his current intimate relationship. I believe that he is working on these issues in therapy. I also believe that he doesn't take as much responsibility as I think he should.
I beleive that collectives, even when they are just collective businesses, are responsible for confronting issues of patriarchy (and other forms of domination) within their collectives, and working on change and transparency with their members. I believe that Joe's behavior stems from patriarchy, even if he is not really sexist - the communication/manipulation models he uses are, in my view, patriarchtical.
In order to feel comfortable continuing to be published by Microcosm, I would need to know either from each collective member or from the collective as a whole (with a minority disenting opinion) that they don't think Alex was crazy or that the attempts to deal with the situation are a witchhunt. I would need to know from each member, or the collective as a whole (with a minority disenting opinion) that the collective recognizes that Joe still has issues with control and manipulation.
I would need to understand better what the collective structure is - like who has the ability to hire and fire.
I would like it if the collective members got involved in a new accountability process or some kind of process where people who are close to Joe can point out, in a constructive way, where they see these issues arising.
I need to feel like the collective takes this seriously and does not put the burden of instigating change on the survivor/s, or on people negatively affected by Joe's behavior.
For the most part, I enjoyed working with Joe at Microcosm. When Brainscan came out, I wanted to ignore it because I liked working with Microcosm. I know that sometimes a person can be abusive in a relationship, and the same behavior can be ok in another relationship, and I just wanted to hope for the best. However, I did have an incident with Joe, back then, that made me doubt that it was an isolated problem. I can't remember the exact specifics, but I think I had been to Portland and SF and had been around to stores, none of which had Doris stuff, so I sold it to them. I think it was right before the SF zine fest, and when Joe went to the Bay Area and found my zines/books in the stores, he got upset (I'm not sure if that's exactly when it was, that's just my vague memory). I do remember clearly having a tense phone conversation, where I felt like he was extremely defensive, and although he probably wasn't actually raising his voice, it felt like he was yelling at me. We made an agreement about where I could/could not sell books, and I decided to never talk to him on the phone again if I had a potentially conflicting issue.
As I'm sure you all probably know, a number of months ago, I got involved in an accountabiliy process with Joe. I'd like you to know how that came about.
Two people had contacted me, expressing concerns over Joe's past behavior. One of these emails had been from someone who was part of an organizaiton that was about to make a public statement about Joe's behavior. I read a blog by Ciara that was very inflamitory. I wrote a blog about how upset I was that Joe was continuing this behavior, then the next morning removed the blog because I realized I didn't know exactly where Ciara had gotten her info. Joe wrote to me and said he was sad about my blog, he explained that he'd been in therapy, that he took responsibility for his actions, and that he didn't know how to resolve things with Alex since there was no accoutability process that could facilitate closure.
I felt that it was important to get an accountability process going imediately. I tried to find people in Portland to do it, and couldn't. I offered to help head of a new accountability process. We were working on the assumption that the behaviors were in the past and resolution would be basic communicating with all parties involved. I know there were problems with the communication between the accountability people and Microcosm, and I apologize.
Early in the accountability process, I sent Joe a personal statement - it was a very personal account of my own experience with an abusive/controling relationship and how I didn't want my experience to color the accountability process, but would like it if my experience could lend understanding, it ended like this:This statement doesn't need a response (and please don't respond telling me how my experience is different from what you are being held accountable for. I know that), but if you have questions that are in a spirit of deeper understanding, feel free to ask.
Joe didn't notice this part of the statement. He went though my statement, adding in where he felt like it was or wasn't what his experience was, and also talking about his own understanding of abuse, with a link to an article he thought I should read, and he wrote about his own experiences in general.
Another instance of disregarding boundries/not noticing boundries happened when we were discussing the cover for the Doris Anthology - he had forwarded me the internal discussion of what people did/didn't like about the cover. I asked him not to forward the internal discussion, because it sucked to have to read everyone not liking something, and would be nicer if he could just sum it up. He said since everyone thought different things, he didn't have any other way to do it except to forward me the whole dialogue.
It is funny because when someone else in the collective said they heard I was having problems with something about it, I explained it to them, and they said they would never send a whole dialoge like that.
This wasn't the hugest deal in the world at all, but is just a continuation and example of how these ignoring/not seeing personal boundrys are still a problem.
I believe that Joe is capable of addressing these issues and changing his behavior. I believe that it is going to take the work of people around him bringing to attention the small and large examples of these behaviors, as well as Joe's willingness to be open to criticism, constructive or angry.
I don't have any smooth conclusion for this. If the collective could let me know how/if they want to address these issues and who will be the point person for talking with me about it, I would appreciate it.
thanks
cindy
A number of years ago I read Alex's zine Brainscan 21. Alex was Joe's long-term partner and wife and worked with Microcosm. It was about how she came to realize, with the help of her therapist, that he was emotionally abusive and manipulative in their relationship and business. It wasn't a big surprise to me, because when I had seen them together, they really reminded me of me and my former emotionally abusive partner. After I read the zine, I wrote to Alex and asked if she thought I should remove my stuff from Microcosm, and she said she didn't really think I should have to do that. In retrospect, I wish I had.
I believed Alex's zine. I wanted to believe that Joe might change, or that his behavior could possibly be situational and not show up as abusive in other relationships. I also said to myself "all publishers and record store guys are scumbags." I saw that Microcosm had more members than in the past, and was being collectively run, and I hoped that this meant Joe was stepping aside and giving up power in order to deal with his control issues. I had heard he was in therapy.
The truth was, I benefited from being published and distributed by Microcosm. I was overwhelmed by dealing with abuse in my immediate community, and didn't want to look too closely at my complacency regarding Microcosm.
Early this year, I got involved in trying to set up an accountabiliy process for Joe. He had said that he had done all that was requested of him and that he didn't know how to stop rumors or how to communicate with Alex that he had changed, since she didn't want contact.
Attached below is the final statement of the attempted accountability process.
I am trying to figure out what to do about Microcosm and distributing my zines with them. Below the statement from the accountability process is a letter I wrote to Microcosm a few weeks ago.
Microcosm is collectively run by like 8 people or something, and Joe does not have final say in things, however, as I say in my letter, I think collectives have to stand up and confront abuse by members within their collectives. Microcosm as a collective, does not do this.
I don't want people within the Microcosm collective who do believe Alex, and who know that Joe does have abusive and manipulative behaviors, to suffer, however, I can no longer support a collective that will not stand up against abuse.
I won't be publishing my next book with Microcosm. I am going to give them until the end of the year to come up with a collective statement confronting/admitting Joe's abuse and manipulation, and/or for Joe to legally remove himself from the collective. If by the end of the year, this isn't done, I will be removing my zines from Microcosm. I will also be reprinting Support and Learning Good Consent on my own.
Statement from the Athens Support Network:
In January, 2010, we convened to help with the accountability process of Joe Biel. We had been given the understanding, from Joe, that he was in therapy, had met Alex's demands, and didn't know how to proceed since she did not want contact. We confirmed that Joe had met most or all of Alex's logistical/legal demands, but in order to confirm whether or not he had identified and changed his behavior, we set about some written excercises. Our process was straightforward and formal, working on identifying behavior and making amends. Joe cooperated with the "identifying behavior" exercises - vacilating between what we perceived as willingness and defensiveness. We did not make it past the "identifying behavior" section of the process, as it became clear that a much deeper conversation/process needed to happen and we were unable to commit to the time and energy it would take. We think that if another process was to take place, it would need to be face to face and would need to have people in his immediate community actively involved. We believe that these people would need to have professional training and experience, and have a large amount of time to commit to the process. We do not believe it is the community's responsibility to sacrifice themselves for this. We do think that it is the responsibility of Joe's friends and other people who benefit from acquaintance with Joe to recognize that the accusations concerning his abusive behavior are valid, that he still has problems with control and manipulation that he is working on, and to point out to him when he is behaving in these manners, even if it is not negatively affecting them. We also belive it is up to Joe to actively encourage and support this type of dialogue with his friends, co-workers and acquaintances.
Joe is in therapy, and we feel that he is making progress through therapy. He has identifed a large number of behavior issues and has done work and continues to do work to change them. He believes that he honors Alex's experience. We, however, feel that he still has extreme problems with control, manipulation, defensiveness, and portraing himself as the victim. We feel that he often minimizes and belittles Alex's experience, and sometimes seeks to redefine it as communication problems rather than emotional abuse (see blog response post, Feb 5). In Brainscan, Alex's counselor identifed Joe as "using classic examples of distraction while arguing like some sort of sleight of hand trick with words". We also noticed this in our working with him.
Joe has a number of counter-charges against Alex. While we were unable to explore all these charges, they are consistent with the actions of someone trying to regain power when their power has been taken away from them due to emotional abuse.
We do believe Joe is working to understand and change his behaviors. We do not believe this gives him a clean slate.
letter I sent to Microcosm before I got the statement from the accountability team
Dear Microcosm,
I'm sorry about the confusing request for Joe to change the legal ownership to the collective. I guess I was just looking for a simple answer to a complicated question.
I believe that Joe was emotionally abusive controling and manipulative to Alex. I also believe that he still has these problems, even if they do not show up in his current intimate relationship. I believe that he is working on these issues in therapy. I also believe that he doesn't take as much responsibility as I think he should.
I beleive that collectives, even when they are just collective businesses, are responsible for confronting issues of patriarchy (and other forms of domination) within their collectives, and working on change and transparency with their members. I believe that Joe's behavior stems from patriarchy, even if he is not really sexist - the communication/manipulation models he uses are, in my view, patriarchtical.
In order to feel comfortable continuing to be published by Microcosm, I would need to know either from each collective member or from the collective as a whole (with a minority disenting opinion) that they don't think Alex was crazy or that the attempts to deal with the situation are a witchhunt. I would need to know from each member, or the collective as a whole (with a minority disenting opinion) that the collective recognizes that Joe still has issues with control and manipulation.
I would need to understand better what the collective structure is - like who has the ability to hire and fire.
I would like it if the collective members got involved in a new accountability process or some kind of process where people who are close to Joe can point out, in a constructive way, where they see these issues arising.
I need to feel like the collective takes this seriously and does not put the burden of instigating change on the survivor/s, or on people negatively affected by Joe's behavior.
For the most part, I enjoyed working with Joe at Microcosm. When Brainscan came out, I wanted to ignore it because I liked working with Microcosm. I know that sometimes a person can be abusive in a relationship, and the same behavior can be ok in another relationship, and I just wanted to hope for the best. However, I did have an incident with Joe, back then, that made me doubt that it was an isolated problem. I can't remember the exact specifics, but I think I had been to Portland and SF and had been around to stores, none of which had Doris stuff, so I sold it to them. I think it was right before the SF zine fest, and when Joe went to the Bay Area and found my zines/books in the stores, he got upset (I'm not sure if that's exactly when it was, that's just my vague memory). I do remember clearly having a tense phone conversation, where I felt like he was extremely defensive, and although he probably wasn't actually raising his voice, it felt like he was yelling at me. We made an agreement about where I could/could not sell books, and I decided to never talk to him on the phone again if I had a potentially conflicting issue.
As I'm sure you all probably know, a number of months ago, I got involved in an accountabiliy process with Joe. I'd like you to know how that came about.
Two people had contacted me, expressing concerns over Joe's past behavior. One of these emails had been from someone who was part of an organizaiton that was about to make a public statement about Joe's behavior. I read a blog by Ciara that was very inflamitory. I wrote a blog about how upset I was that Joe was continuing this behavior, then the next morning removed the blog because I realized I didn't know exactly where Ciara had gotten her info. Joe wrote to me and said he was sad about my blog, he explained that he'd been in therapy, that he took responsibility for his actions, and that he didn't know how to resolve things with Alex since there was no accoutability process that could facilitate closure.
I felt that it was important to get an accountability process going imediately. I tried to find people in Portland to do it, and couldn't. I offered to help head of a new accountability process. We were working on the assumption that the behaviors were in the past and resolution would be basic communicating with all parties involved. I know there were problems with the communication between the accountability people and Microcosm, and I apologize.
Early in the accountability process, I sent Joe a personal statement - it was a very personal account of my own experience with an abusive/controling relationship and how I didn't want my experience to color the accountability process, but would like it if my experience could lend understanding, it ended like this:This statement doesn't need a response (and please don't respond telling me how my experience is different from what you are being held accountable for. I know that), but if you have questions that are in a spirit of deeper understanding, feel free to ask.
Joe didn't notice this part of the statement. He went though my statement, adding in where he felt like it was or wasn't what his experience was, and also talking about his own understanding of abuse, with a link to an article he thought I should read, and he wrote about his own experiences in general.
Another instance of disregarding boundries/not noticing boundries happened when we were discussing the cover for the Doris Anthology - he had forwarded me the internal discussion of what people did/didn't like about the cover. I asked him not to forward the internal discussion, because it sucked to have to read everyone not liking something, and would be nicer if he could just sum it up. He said since everyone thought different things, he didn't have any other way to do it except to forward me the whole dialogue.
It is funny because when someone else in the collective said they heard I was having problems with something about it, I explained it to them, and they said they would never send a whole dialoge like that.
This wasn't the hugest deal in the world at all, but is just a continuation and example of how these ignoring/not seeing personal boundrys are still a problem.
I believe that Joe is capable of addressing these issues and changing his behavior. I believe that it is going to take the work of people around him bringing to attention the small and large examples of these behaviors, as well as Joe's willingness to be open to criticism, constructive or angry.
I don't have any smooth conclusion for this. If the collective could let me know how/if they want to address these issues and who will be the point person for talking with me about it, I would appreciate it.
thanks
cindy
Friday, June 4, 2010
new zines to distro
ok! New Zines to Riot Grrr Distro!
Vag
I think this zine would have made me less scared to travel, back when I was scared of the unknown. I wish there were more travel zines by girls and queers and trannies. In this one, Biz travels though 40 states. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends or their band. There are small sweet stories of places and people and the things that make life.
2.50 u.s. 3.50 intl
Embarrazine! and When We Were Young
comics by my friends Max Wheeler and Chris Monday. Max's is about his dad's trip to Mexico in 1976, Chris's is about causing harmless trouble and having fun
very sweet comics. Max says "it's people's history!
2.60 u.s. 3.60 intl
Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle
1.50 u.s. 2.50 intl
Negrita #2
My friend Gloria wrote this zine a long time ago and it is still kick-ass. It has stories about hitchiking, about how many dudes interrupt and talk over and ignore women and what you can do to change it, how important it is to acknowledge racism and some fucked up things people have said to her, a story about girl competition, body image, fasting, and more. All very funny and serious.
1.50 u.s. 2.50 intl
Rad Dad 17
3.75 u.s. 4.30 intl
Ker-bloom! 83
Artnoose and 5 friends enroll in a med study for $1,000 they are infected with a cold virus and stay for a week in a hotel where doctors study their reactions.
2.00 u.s., 3.00 intl
Vag
I think this zine would have made me less scared to travel, back when I was scared of the unknown. I wish there were more travel zines by girls and queers and trannies. In this one, Biz travels though 40 states. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends or their band. There are small sweet stories of places and people and the things that make life.
2.50 u.s. 3.50 intl
Embarrazine! and When We Were Young
comics by my friends Max Wheeler and Chris Monday. Max's is about his dad's trip to Mexico in 1976, Chris's is about causing harmless trouble and having fun
very sweet comics. Max says "it's people's history!
2.60 u.s. 3.60 intl
Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle
1.50 u.s. 2.50 intl
Negrita #2
My friend Gloria wrote this zine a long time ago and it is still kick-ass. It has stories about hitchiking, about how many dudes interrupt and talk over and ignore women and what you can do to change it, how important it is to acknowledge racism and some fucked up things people have said to her, a story about girl competition, body image, fasting, and more. All very funny and serious.
1.50 u.s. 2.50 intl
Rad Dad 17
3.75 u.s. 4.30 intl
Ker-bloom! 83
Artnoose and 5 friends enroll in a med study for $1,000 they are infected with a cold virus and stay for a week in a hotel where doctors study their reactions.
2.00 u.s., 3.00 intl
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
new zines for distro
new zines to the distro at riotgrrrdistro
dad.
Timothy wrote this zine four years after his dad died of cancer. He wrote about his dad every day for a month, and this zine is selections from that writing. His dad was from S.Africa and had been a white, anti-apartied activist before moving to the u.s.
So there are parts about that and part about Timothy wondering what it would have been like to come out to his dad as being trans. Wishes and regrets and so much more.
I wish I had read this zine after my mom died, because it would have helped me to understand what it might be like four years later.
2.40 u.s., 3.40 intl
Brainscan 19
from being the girl scribbling in her notebook to the girl runnning around getting stuff done - helping to organize the Portland Zine Symposium, the weird thing about meeting and making friends with people who's zines you've read, and the ways we represent ourselves. Important tips and ideas that came out of a mental helath workshop she went to. Doing a zine workshop for highschoolers and at the Portland Rock and Roll camp for girls, and how great the camp was.
2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl
Brainscan 20
Utah stories: about home can be like memories threatening to consume you. but "I am not afraid of your ghosts. I am not afraid of who I used to be."
Alex has a beautiful way of writing these stories - coffee shop crushes, rediculous drinking games, unrequited love, friendship, friendship break up, optimism and small adventures.
2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl
Brainscan 22: a practical body modification
This issue is all about IUD's. some factual information and then her detailed story about what it was like to get one. I think it would be really useful for anyone considering getting an IUD, and also it's just good to hear about what it is like going to the gynecologist office, because it's something that doesn't get talked about much.
2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl
Iran: 100 Years of Modern Iran (1891-1992)
like all the Simple History zines, this is a great introduction to the history of Iran, and makes further study seem possible.
2.75 u.s. 3.60 intl
Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2:DIY Resource for zines and zine culture
A little book that's about making zines, with tips about writing and editing, layout, copyright, photocopiers, binding, block printing, paper making, mail art and a zillion other things.
7.00 u.s., 10.00 intl
dad.
Timothy wrote this zine four years after his dad died of cancer. He wrote about his dad every day for a month, and this zine is selections from that writing. His dad was from S.Africa and had been a white, anti-apartied activist before moving to the u.s.
So there are parts about that and part about Timothy wondering what it would have been like to come out to his dad as being trans. Wishes and regrets and so much more.
I wish I had read this zine after my mom died, because it would have helped me to understand what it might be like four years later.
2.40 u.s., 3.40 intl
Brainscan 19
from being the girl scribbling in her notebook to the girl runnning around getting stuff done - helping to organize the Portland Zine Symposium, the weird thing about meeting and making friends with people who's zines you've read, and the ways we represent ourselves. Important tips and ideas that came out of a mental helath workshop she went to. Doing a zine workshop for highschoolers and at the Portland Rock and Roll camp for girls, and how great the camp was.
2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl
Brainscan 20
Utah stories: about home can be like memories threatening to consume you. but "I am not afraid of your ghosts. I am not afraid of who I used to be."
Alex has a beautiful way of writing these stories - coffee shop crushes, rediculous drinking games, unrequited love, friendship, friendship break up, optimism and small adventures.
2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl
Brainscan 22: a practical body modification
This issue is all about IUD's. some factual information and then her detailed story about what it was like to get one. I think it would be really useful for anyone considering getting an IUD, and also it's just good to hear about what it is like going to the gynecologist office, because it's something that doesn't get talked about much.
2.75 u.s., 3.60 intl
Iran: 100 Years of Modern Iran (1891-1992)
like all the Simple History zines, this is a great introduction to the history of Iran, and makes further study seem possible.
2.75 u.s. 3.60 intl
Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2:DIY Resource for zines and zine culture
A little book that's about making zines, with tips about writing and editing, layout, copyright, photocopiers, binding, block printing, paper making, mail art and a zillion other things.
7.00 u.s., 10.00 intl
Sunday, February 21, 2010
new zines for distro
New zines to the distro at riot grrrr distro
Toothworm #4: I, Turdshiner
My favorite zine I've seen in awhile. Disturbing and beautiful, small stories about injuries on the inside and out "Band-Aids won't stick to an ugly mouth of exposed tissue. Crisis is a mountain or a pyramid, do what you got to."
abuse and "is coping really a viable option". sex and puking and tour the lies we uphold. priveledge and queerness and what it looks like to watch her father sick from addiction and withdrawing. "Right and wrong, fear and love, beauty and ugly, safety and threat, care and coercion. All the hate that brought me here.
I read this zine and then put it down and then read it again, trying to get all the essence of it.
2.75 us, 3.60 intl
I'm Queer As Fuck and I'm Going to Carve a Space in Your Brain for Trannies
Two articles that are introducing trans issues, and talking about ways to be a trans ally.
One article is about pronouns, and the other is called Respect/Etiquette/Support, and discusses issues like Outing, Self-Education, Passing, Respecting Self-Identification, etc.
I forgot which zines I took this articles from, which is pretty inexcusable, but true.
.90 us and .90 intl if ordered with other zines
Tuff Town #2
pocket sized with pretty printed cover, hand sewn binding and full of care. Sweet stories like trying to take city busses from Goleta to LA and getting stranded we decided this was how we would tell if we could be friends with people or not;
whether or not they thought this was stupid. A small, two girl bike trip along the ocean and it feels like the ocean, windswept with strange characters. She talks about not always talking about real tings because how can you? the horror of screaming alcohoic father and the same man closing his eyes when he plays Neil Young on guitar.
families, skateboarding, music, going to jail for dumpstering, the shitty unrealness of macho whiteboy politics and the realness of what is in our bodies, the realness of actual struggles for liberation.
1.60 or 2.40 intl
Don't Be A Dick
A zine about rape culture, male socialization, a critique of traditional porn, the importance of consent.
It is so important that guys start doing this work, and this is a really good introduction zine about these issues.
excerpt from intro: "This is a zine intended primarily for straight, non-trans men to do something about sexual violence and rape in their own lives. In a way, I'm writing this for my past self - I could have used something like this a couple of years ago..."
1.75 us, 2.60 intl
Toothworm #4: I, Turdshiner
My favorite zine I've seen in awhile. Disturbing and beautiful, small stories about injuries on the inside and out "Band-Aids won't stick to an ugly mouth of exposed tissue. Crisis is a mountain or a pyramid, do what you got to."
abuse and "is coping really a viable option". sex and puking and tour the lies we uphold. priveledge and queerness and what it looks like to watch her father sick from addiction and withdrawing. "Right and wrong, fear and love, beauty and ugly, safety and threat, care and coercion. All the hate that brought me here.
I read this zine and then put it down and then read it again, trying to get all the essence of it.
2.75 us, 3.60 intl
I'm Queer As Fuck and I'm Going to Carve a Space in Your Brain for Trannies
Two articles that are introducing trans issues, and talking about ways to be a trans ally.
One article is about pronouns, and the other is called Respect/Etiquette/Support, and discusses issues like Outing, Self-Education, Passing, Respecting Self-Identification, etc.
I forgot which zines I took this articles from, which is pretty inexcusable, but true.
.90 us and .90 intl if ordered with other zines
Tuff Town #2
pocket sized with pretty printed cover, hand sewn binding and full of care. Sweet stories like trying to take city busses from Goleta to LA and getting stranded we decided this was how we would tell if we could be friends with people or not;
whether or not they thought this was stupid. A small, two girl bike trip along the ocean and it feels like the ocean, windswept with strange characters. She talks about not always talking about real tings because how can you? the horror of screaming alcohoic father and the same man closing his eyes when he plays Neil Young on guitar.
families, skateboarding, music, going to jail for dumpstering, the shitty unrealness of macho whiteboy politics and the realness of what is in our bodies, the realness of actual struggles for liberation.
1.60 or 2.40 intl
Don't Be A Dick
A zine about rape culture, male socialization, a critique of traditional porn, the importance of consent.
It is so important that guys start doing this work, and this is a really good introduction zine about these issues.
excerpt from intro: "This is a zine intended primarily for straight, non-trans men to do something about sexual violence and rape in their own lives. In a way, I'm writing this for my past self - I could have used something like this a couple of years ago..."
1.75 us, 2.60 intl
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Class Study Group
A friend of mine started a study group with some other people in Pittsburgh about class. Here's a link to the readings they are doing so you can start your own study group in your town.
Class Class link
Class Class link
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