JOIN IN - living on the beach after the London Zine Symposium

In 12 hours time I'll be on a train to London for the zine symposium, where i'll give out zines for free and spend probably £100 on other peoples' zines (economics isn't my strong point)

AND THEN! :-

The day after the london zine symposium, I intend to get the bus from newcastle to the beach and sand dune system that runs in an almost continuous line up to scotland. i will camp on the beach, doodle and drink coffee away from the city (unless it rains). This will become my next zine (probably a mini zine), and i would like you to be a part of it by giving me a post address (uk only) that i can send a postcard to.

I will just take a photo of some element of your postcard and include that in the zine so your effort is minimal to say the least!

It might be a doodle of a puffin, or a moan about feeling lonely, but it will be from the dunes, and the sand, and the early morning birdprints and seals in the water.

You HAVE to tell me by sunday 6pm or i will actually be living on the beach and unable to see your address! email = oldglen at gmail.com
(Say hi if you're at the zine symposium too!)

Mind Maps

I've been reading about the 1848 revolutions and trying to decide if I'm going to Siberia or not. I sat at the cafe at Monument and the barista told me there was no charge for the coffee, for no particular reason. So that was nice, and I wrote a thankyou note on the cardboard bit of the cup and left it on the counter when her back was turned. So I can't show you that, but I can show you notes about 1848 and Caracalla the evil emperor, from a talk I went to tonight.

And WILL I go to Siberia? On my own, I don't know, but if I could persuade some friends to be at stops along the way...

It's my life.

Laura at Washington on 10th April,
and a zombie gingerbread man.

This pic is not from making a zine, just my daily scrapbook diary.

I am truly obsessive.

A blackbird fledgling was stuck on the ground in our yard for a day or two. Its mum kept visiting it, and this thoughtless brothersister here kept coming too, showing off how heshe had learnt how to fly and cheeping, thus calling attention for the sake of the local cats. Present locations unknown, but spring is FINE this year.

The paper jam collective are doing a music compilation combined with a comics anthology, in which people (like me, perhaps like you) draw 2 pages inspired by a local band's song. My first attempt was a kind of critical response to the casual terrorist's song "anarchists make better lovers" which is our guilty pleasure but which has some dubious lyrics. However, I have changed my mind about this now, and so this draft comic below is spare, loose, hanging (page 2 of 2):

I posted zines off to the USA today, & made sure the packaging was good-looking.

DIY cubed

A select group of us made postcards out of cut up stuff & chatted. A half dozen things set off thru the post.Mike at the cinema makes guitars out of planks of wood (DIY 1). Roger was asked to take it back to the west end on his bike (DIY 2) but had no bag, so he made this contraption out of bits of cardboard & string from behind the bar (DIY cubed).


When this postcard (below) arrived, however, almost all the text had been somehow rubbed off in the post. Compare what arrived (left) with a copy of what was sent (right).
So the only text remaining was this, on Hadrian's shoulder:
Which is a shame, because the beauty was in the detail, below, all from a free London paper to record a passage through the metropolis's streets and their history:
So think on the ideas that are lost in the post:

Mail Art this Saturday

Here's one of my new york postcards which made it okay thru the post to a friend:

Hi, this Saturday's creative-crafty session will definitely take place at the Star & Shadow (I had to cancel the last one), so if you fancy coming down for a cup of coffee and a play with scissors and glue and pens I will see you there!

The plan this week is to do mail art. This can be as simple as drawing a stick man on the back of an envelope you're going to post, to a full on masterpiece painted around the address label.

You need to bring:

- an address to send your mail art to! (remember that old friend...)
- any tools to help you (paints, stamps, wax, anything I might not have brought)

I will bring:

- postcards & addresses
- crayons, paint, pens etc..
- a few pre-stamped packages I need to send to America, which will be the focus of my decoration

Let me know if you might be there!
Mike