June 2, 2011: Shameless Mag Turns 7! An interview with Sheila Sampath

Sheila Sampath is the Art Director and Editorial Director of Shameless Magazine. She also plays in Betty Burke, and runs the Social Justice Design Company, The Public.

I met Sheila last Saturday because Betty Burke was playing a show with my band, Sarah Mangle Buys a Bear along with this other badass band called Rackula in Hamilton. It was a Sascha Fundraiser at This Ain't Hollywood. Sheila plays the piano, and the guitar, and if my memory serves me correctly, she also plays the uke (like me).

I first learned about Shameless magazine 8 years ago, before it existed. At the time I was working for POWERCamp National (now known as the Girls Action Network), a young women's feminist organization, and we met up at Pharmacie Esperanza.

Shameless magazine runs on No Budget. They just adopted, a new, more politicized focus. Sheila plays the piano and is an amazing talker and thinker. This interview is very good. You should just listen to it. Enough said.

Sheila is my new friend.

Check out the interview by pasting this link into your brower:
http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-june2thesethings.mp3

And check out Shameless online: http://www.shamelessmag.com/

March 17, 2011: The Manarchist Gets the Megaphone

Kaley are roomates and friends who write zines together under the name Go It Alone Together. They live in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first zine they made together (in 2007) was A How to Guide To Manarchy. This tiny, cute, relieving, hilarious zine highlights obvious problems of macho anarchist dude behavior within so-called punk, anarchist and radical left spaces and communities. The problems of manarchism are often obvious but manarchists are rarely called out, (in my experience)to their faces or in any ongoing way. Its a hard thing to do. This zine uses humor to highlight the problems of manarchism.

This is one of the ways that zines are awesome. I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to sum this up in the right words right now. People can write things that are really true, that we know are true, but rarely say out loud to the people who most need to hear them. Zines can comfort people that need the reassurance that they are not alone in their frustrations. And zines hang out, silently holding people accountable. Showing up in bathrooms and bedrooms and info shops in cafes in bike shops in community centers.

Learn more about Go it Alone together. Visit: (http://goitalonetogether.ca/)

To here the interview with Kaley and Emily about A How to Guide to Manarchy, visit: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-manarchyfinal.mp3

Feb 17 and Feb 24 2011: Allyson Mitchell Part 1 AND 2 !!! Serious Discussions of Unignorable Unappoolgetic Loud Fat Feminist Queer Craft.

To listen to the FIRST PART of the interview, visit: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_February_17_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3

To listen to the SECOND PART: of the interview:
http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_February_24_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3

Allyson Mitchell confronts Fake Rainbow Unity.

Confronting the social lie of (gay, lesbian, queer) acceptance. The liberal desire for us to shut up, and be the quietest smallest gay person possible.

I biked to Allyson Mitchell's house after I applied for a job wearing a grown up coat I borrowed from my roomate. I felt like I was in Adulthood Drag in this coat. I felt uneasy. I wanted my big brownish grey coat my lesbian superstar aunt Elizabeth gave me.

Drinking tea with Allyson Mitchell in her kitchen was the perfect remedy for the uneasy feelings I had previously experienced caused by the boring adult coat.

Acutally, who cares about the coat. I mean,i did feel better about myself and my silly coat after interviewing Allyson Mitchell but the coat: Who Cares? Allyson's work is way more meaningful and haunting and needed than that story about the coat. There is something (or many things) aesthetically comforting and inspiring and bad ass and it reminds you of home an is giving all the harmful things of life the finger at the same time.

Maximalist.

Allyson Mitchell makes craft/art that is impossible to ignore. It is unappologetically loud and bright and comforting and explicit and lesbionic. I love it.

Watch out for her Lesbian Feminist Haunted House that Nuit Blanche Toronto (last year) claimed was TOO BIG to accommodate.

Check out her stuff: http://www.allysonmitchell.com

To listen to the FIRST PART of the interview, visit: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_February_17_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3


To listen to the SECOND PART: of the interview:
http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_February_24_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3

March 25, 2010: Colour your gender yourself: An interview with Jacinta Bunnell

Gender gender gender gender gender .... what do you look like? What colour are you? Jacinta Bunnell makes good colouring books for those of us who love crayons and colouring but don't like Disney, or Warner Brothers, or Hot Wheels, or Pixar... or princess colouring books, or maybe you like those things but you'd prefer something better?

Young brains are like sponges! Children are so influenced by the images around them! We need to be careful about what images kids see the most! We need to make sure they are supportive and really, REALLY reflect the world (and not fucked up fairy tales!)

Jacinta Bunnell , Irit Reinheimer and Julie Novak collaborated on Girls Not Chicks, a feminist colouring book. Its cute, and stylish and punchy. Very girl butch enthusiastic... what a relief. Work like this is easily loved by those of us who are still looking for images of ourselves, or support our gender expression. We're looking and looking... and now here is not only a book of great images, but also you get to colour them! What fun!

In this interview, Jacinta talked about the history of Girls not Chicks Colouring Book, and Girls Will Be Boys will be Girls. She talked about the evolution of Girls Will Be Boys Will be Girls from zine, to published books.

Blowing up images really large, and hanging them, and everyone colouring together is one of Jacinta's favorite thing to do with the colouring book.

If we have kids in our lives, we (as adults) should have images and kids books and colouring books and images and art that we love, that validates our identities and our friend identities.. and this book does that.

It was really exciting to talk to Jacinta. I hope when you hear this interview, you get a copy of her colouring book and/or you and your friends make your own.

visit www.girlsnotchicks.com