Saturday, February 27, 2010

Feb 18 2010: Part One of Zines about Sickness, Health, Medicalization: An introduction to good work (zines and a graphic novel)

This week's episode features me talking about three great projects: Funny Misshappen body by Jeffrey Brown, About My Disappearance By David Roche, and If I Can't Dance is it Still My Revolution #3 by A.J. Withers.

Funny Misshappen Body by Jeffrey Brown (to be interviewed in more depth in a future show)
is a grahic novel about art school, growing up and Jeffrey's diagnosis and treatment of Crohnes Disease. In particular, in this episode I talked about Semi Colon, the chapter about Jeffrey Brown's experience with Crohnes Disease. Jeffrey's comic drawing style in this chapter is choppy, beautiful and accurate and illustrates the diorientation, busy, scarey, weird, experiences common to hospitalized and diagnosed situations. I highly recommend it. www.jeffreybrowncomics.com

About My Disappearance (#1) by David Roche is a detailed first person account of having chrones diesease. Tells a very personal, specific, first person story of David's first four months living with Crohnes. About My Disappearance talks about David's diagnosis, pain, disorientation, weight loss, interacting with friends his when suddenly feeling very sick, medicalization, being on new drugs. About My Disappearance (#1, and #2) is distroed by microcosm press. Visit: Microcosm Publishing: http://microcosmpublishing.com/

If I Can't Dance is it Still My Revolution? by A.J. Withers is a zine series that is now (also) a website. This episode I talked about issue #3 of If I Can't Dance is it Still My Revolution? I read from a couple of parts of this zine. A.J is a solid writer about radical disability politics. In #3, A.J writes specific letters to different clinics about specific messed up things that A.J has experienced in various clinics. There are also big essays at the beginning of the zine that are fabulous. Visit A.J's website:http://still.my.revolution.tao.ca

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Feb 11 2010: In/visible Unicorn!


This episode of These Things that People Make played little excerpts from In/visible Unicorn. Excerpts that act as tiny windows into this lovely event that took place at Buddies and Bad Times Theatre in Toronto on January 31, 2010 from 2pm to 5pm.

It was good to be at an afternoon show. Walking into a dark theatre in the middle of the day.

The Full line up from In/visible unicorn was Eli Clare, Onyinyechukwu (Onyii) Udegbe, Jorge Vallejos, Kenji Tokawa, Tara Michelle Ziniuk, Big Appetite, Griffin Epstein , GIMP Bootcamp.

The event was organized and hosted by Loree Erikson and Elisha Lim. It Advertised as: "An afternoon of performances exploring and exposing imaginations, bodies and representation."


My friend Lizzy called In/visible Unicorn to it as "a celebration of disability culture". I'm not totally sure what disability culture means to those around me but I am excited to talk about this more.

Featured on these things that people make, were Griffin Epstein Kenji Tokawa, and Eli Claire.Just little excerpts.


I felt like the event was an introduction to a lot of rad people's work. I would love to see it stretched out and filled in as a regular show series.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Jan. 28th 2010: Seth Tobacman Shares his History of Anarchism Comics, and Street Art.



Seth Tobacman is an illustrator, comicbook maker, anarchist and activist based in New York City who came up to Guelph last week to launch some books and to paint a mural with local Guelph students in the University Centre on the University of Guelph of Campus.

We did our interview before Seth arrived in Guelph, over the phone.

Seth talked about his history with Anarchism and comics and communicating through comics. Making comics about things that were going on around him. In 70s Seth was involved in tenants rights activism in the lower eastside of New York City.Seth got involved in Anarchist politics in New York City. "The Anarchist Solution was lets go do something about it right now". Worked with the squatter movement in New York City. He was making comics to promote actions, and comics to document actions that he was personally involved in.

In our interview, Seth talked about starting the magazine World War Three illustrated with Peter Kuper as an attempt at politicized comics at a time when politicized comics were hard to find.

In 1979 there was not very many comics being published. '"The underground comics had fallen apart in the 70s and there was kind of nothing" Says Seth.

He has many books out worth checking out. Disaster and Resistance, You Don't Have to Fuck People Over to Survive, War in the Neigbhourhood. He is working on a new book called "Understanding the Crash" about the recent economic crisis.

I ended by asking Seth to tell me about Drawing and Metaphor. I am glad I asked him that question. Contact me to get a copy of the interview to hear what he says.

Jan. 21, 2010: Your living room is not just your livingroom. Your kitchen is a stage. House Shows. An interview with 4 people!







House Shows! An interview with Four People!

A House show is a concert someone puts on in their home, considering it a venue.

This interview features Liv Carrow from Hudson NY, Griffin Epstein from Toronto ON, Caleb Latreille from Halifax NS, and Aaron Mangle from Halifax NS all talking about house shows. I thought it was a good idea to get a whole bunch of folk's ideas about house shows, and it was good because they don't always agree, and that makes the whole thing more interesting. There is a certain punk, Do-it-yourself, arts school culture surrouding house shows.

I interviewd them each individually. I asked them all the same questions. And then I edited the thing together. The result is a cute, in depth, critique, reflection, and recipe for how to make house shows yourself, and things to think about. This interview reminded me why I go to house shows and organize them.