Messages from New York

just 2 pics from the last paper jam meeting

See you after my trip.

Monthly DIY sessions at the Star & Shadow

I've just been to the wonderful weekly meeting at the Star & Shadow & confirmed two ideas.

One is for a Mayday event, more details of which to come.

Two is for a monthly crafty DIY session:

"a series of lo-tech, non-expert skillshares and creative sessions, run by whoever turns up on the 2nd Saturday of the month (which is also volunteer induction day)."

They'll run from noon till about 3pm and I hope to persuade various people to take a lead role in each one, sharing skills like screenprinting or binding or darkroom techniques or who knows what! I hope I'll not be 'running' them as such, but just being one of a few people enthusiastic to turn up and help make them happen - so let me know if you wanna take a turn!

So hopefully a poster/programme will follow, and they will help add a little bit more community feel to the cinema - so much more than just a cinema & gig venue!

Fruit & coffee will be provided, so what else could you need?

New York Poncing & 'Mail Art'

Hi, I'm off to go ponce in New York.

Only one weekend to go and I will no doubt make a zine out of it coz I'm at the stage now where I don't know how not to.


I have no real idea what 'mail art' is so I'll do a search for it after writing this, but I DO intend to post back some pictures/letters via the sky and poorly-paid sorters' grimy fingers. I will then ask the people who get these postcards off me to lend me them back so's I can incorporate them into the zine, whatever the zine turns out to be (presumably a travelogue but hopefully with some pictures).

So here's the invite, available to (friends and) blog-readers only!

Email me your post address, promise to get the postcard/thingummy back to me the week after I return, and then I shall write you something from a cafe / porch step / trainseat in New York (city) New York (state). I had to be told why they named it twice.

ps. Actually, I guess if you have a scanner, I could post the postcard to you anywhere and you can re-image it digitally
(Pete, you see how we live in different worlds, I have no clue how the technological age works).


OOH! MAIL ART'S LOVELY, HERE'S SOME OF IT OFF THE WEBTERNET:

There's a fair & critical review of the bothy zine at the excellent "365 zines a year" blog. It's not the only disordered & scrappy zine I've made, either (sex zine, spring zine, to a lesser degree exam zine & newcastle zine review - actually wor diary sometimes too), but for me it was all about the getting it out and done in time before i started work in september. I will no doubt fail to rewrite and redo more zines cos i always do em fast and scrappy and alive. Random offerings to strangers in the here & now.

But I already had the aim of getting my next zines - the new york and the anarchsit pilgrimage zine travelogue things - more readable and spaced out and ordered so it was good to read a third person saying it would help me communicate!

4 entries for the present for elodie already in, still waiting for the central european languages!

A Present for Elodie

Elodie was a girl who lived in newcastle and made a zine called applejack. I don't think I ever met her, but one thing about the zine that I thought was fantastic was that it was mostly in French, reviewing local bands etc.. in a language that most local people couldn't read. Genius! Plus the zine was very nicely craftily made with flowers and much talk of love.

She's since left town, and I thought it might be a really nice gift out of the blue to post her a zine inspired by applejack, in that everything's written in a different language, so I'm asking everyone to write a v.short piece (50 or 60 words is totally enough) about anything to do with newcastle, local music, the mood you're in today, what you can see out the window - anything! If possible, write it by hand (cos her zine was mostly handwritten, I think), and in lines no longer than you could fit on a postcard. If you don't have a title for your bit, then feel free to write 'a present for Elodie' in your chosen language.

I plan to stick everything onto an A4 sheet that can then fold out. Print 100 copies and leave them around town.

And on the very night I was enthusing about this idea to most of you, I learnt from Luke that the actual real person Elodie is returning on a visit to Newcastle this Thursday. Serendipity in action! So there's your deadline - something about anything written by Thursday, then I'll try collect them off people and photocopy them Saturday morning to distro and give to her on Saturday night.

Languages so far include French, German, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Polish, Greek & Finnish. If you would like to contribute something, email me at the usual - sorry for the tight deadline but there's no point loitering when spring's on it's way.

"A present for Elodie" is out and has found its way into Elodie's hands - she was spotted at the Withered Hand/O'Messy Life gig at the Morden Tower, and so I included pics of that gig in the final mini-zine, which I very happily gave and met her at the Cumberland the next night, for Chronicity/Shin Jin Rui on the 31st Jan.

Yay! Even my girlfriend had a moment of jealousy, and it's the first zine for which I've used space stickers!

I'm still lacking a scanner, but one day, one day ...

2010 begins with zines

The Newcastle Zine Review is trying to be delivered to me - 300 freebies to cast out around toon.
{since arrived, and I've left stacks in travelling man, the head of steam, the star & shadow, the tanners arms, the ship, the cluny, the cumberland, the free trade & the tyne}

There is a Star & Shadow volunteers zine being coordinated by Debbie
{deadline now passed & I was amazed how MUCH stuff was contributed, plus it touched me to read people enthuse about this place that I also love, so much I got a wet eye!}

There is an Arthurs Hill poetry zine being coordinated by Bethan & people.
{I've just written a first attempt at my contribution, about my old beloved house}

Plus I've agreed to do a zine trail as part of the P.R.E.S.S. events at the Washington Arts Centre (and will no doubt haunt the 24hour comic thing at the Tyneside in March).

Also plus I've proposed a regular craftycreative slot at the Star & Shadow once a month
{waiting for responses from other volunteers.}

And here are a few pics from the hybrid zine we already made this year in the star & shadow, in the far corner of the room from where the Wobblies were meeting last saturday.






Here are 4 local zines that have been made already this year, since the zine review went to print.

Turps is great, from N.Shields in a run of 50 & found in the Star & Shadow. A collaborative effort of varying tone & quality, but I really liked some bits. I was also v.happy in my tour of the toon, dropping off zines, to discover the Turps people had got there ahead of me much of the time. Yay, we zinesters are not alone!
Hello my old winter blues is a CJ one, probably from just before crimbo. He's also just done one about the police. He must be after the award for 'most prolific zinester of 2010, after I placed him at a lowly 3rd for 2009, heh heh!
I'm about to read the latest kino bambino on the bus to see the vivian girls at the cluny.
The Hybrid A3 poster/zine effort was done by me, Laura, Mark, Tamzin & Selma, & I think some of us found it quite hard work.