May 19, 2011: Do You Read Me?

Do You Read Me? is a collaborative art book zine project done by the Oakville Gallery's Youth Council, Bronte Youth Centre, and The Art Gallery of Ontario's Youth Council, coordinated by Sarah Febbraro, Oakville Gallery's Community Arts Programmer.

Do you Read Me? contains whole zines, artist pages and answers to anonymous question cards. Its a gorgeous really interesting project that ended up being over 200 pages long.

I interviewed Cait Harben, artist educator who worked on the project and a room full of the artists from the Oakville Galleries Youth Council whose work is featured in the book. Listen to the interview to hear about the process of putting the book together, the individual artist's practices and thoughts about the role of politics in art.

Get a copy of the book, and come to the launch at Oakville Galleries: http://www.oakvillegalleries.com/

Listen to the interview by pasting this link into your browser:http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-doyoureadme.mp3

March 31, 2011: What Makes an Object Queer? An interview with Jamie Q

Jamie Q and I lived in Montreal at the same time. Jamie is one of those people who - when we bumped into each other we always had awesome conversations, although we never succeeded in making plans and following through on scheduled hang outs. I remember once we made a plan to climb the mountain, but that never happened, which is also okay.

And then, a year and a half ago, we were both out in Halifax at the same time. I was there attending Camp Out, a rural Queer intergenerational activist history camp at the Mermaid and the Cow Campground in Pictou County, and she was working on an impressive hyper active mutiple colour screen printing book with James Kirkpatrick at the Ink Storm Screenprinting collective at the Roberts Street Social Centre in Halifax.

I walked up the narrow stairs that hide in the kitchen and there she was sitting on the hard green couch. I was delivering my friend Jake a rock I had gotten from the Lawrencetown beach.

Its great to bump into old art friends in familiar places always, but it was especially awesome to bump into Jamie, because she is especially awesome.

And then, you know, thank god for facebook. I don't know that I would know about Jamie Q's latest projects it it wasn't for facebook. But please oh please, please please please please check out Jamie's amazing website and look at all the Gorgeous things she has made!

Her website address is: http://jamieq.net

and THEN, while you're looking at all that amazing shit,

copy this address into your web browser:

http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_Pe.mp3

and LISTEN TO OUR INTERVIEW.

and THEN: MAKE YOUR OWN ZINES!!!






Metaphors for how we talk about the body. Making abstract objects. The language we use.
The beauty of the book.

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

March 10: The Awkward Sex Zine

Natalie and Kim are the editors of The Awkward Zine project. They are great. All the people who wrote in this zine are also great. The Awkward Zine Project is a great idea.

listen to the interview about the zine project by copying this address into your browser: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_March_10_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3

Learn more about the Awkward Sex Zine Project by visiting their website: http://awkwardsexzine.wordpress.com/

March 3 2011: Amy Leigh's Twelveohtwo

All of a sudden time just passes. All of a sudden its not 2004 anymore, its not 2002 anymore and we have all this stuff to reflect on because things actually have changed. When I moved to Toronto I decided to finally go through these cardboard boxes of paper that i had been moving from house to house to house over the last 4 years, that I hadn't opened, I had just kept moving these closed boxes of paper from house to house. As I side note: I've kept every journal I've ever written in, based on advice from the best drawing teacher I've ever had, Adrian Norvid. I keep all those Journals in my closet.

So when I moved into my current home in Toronto last September, I sat on the floor and I listened to the radio and I opened all the cardboard boxes of paper. Among lots of scratchy drawings, embarrassing poems, receipts and letters from friends, I found these gorgeous screen printed posters for events that happened in 2002 and 2003 in Montreal, at a time when extravagant screen printed posters for events were the norm. Posters for art shows, for music shows and zine fairs. I put the posters on my wall in my new bedroom in Toronto. I realized that at that time, in 2002, I took that time of phenomenal art for granted. I thought that I would walk down all the streets of the world, and always be able to be surrounded by amazing and inspiring posters. And now I know better.

Amy Leigh has had her zine distro, TwelveOhTwo, for the past seven years. We're in a different time for zines now, then when she started the distro. Its a new era. Zines are not dead. Far from it. And theres something extremely cool, and valuable about doing the thing you do, through trends, and through changes in technology, and different political times.

It was lovely to have Amy Leigh over to my house and ask her questions about her distro, about the priorities for her distro, projects that inspire her from elsewhere, and Amy's reflections about building community, and organizing and also hear Amy Leigh's thoughts/critiques on Canzine and Broken Pencil. She's a lovely, hard working smart person.

to listen to this interview, paste this address in your browser: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-thesethingsamyleigh.mp3

Feb 10, 2011: The Arrow Archive, and Erin's Top 11 Zines

Listen to the interview here:http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_February_10_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3

The Arrow Archive Zine Library has recently moved from the Sky Dragon Centre in Hamilton to the Guelph Centre for Gender Empowerment and Diversity, room 107 in the University Centre on the University of Guelph Campus.

The Arrow Archive's Founder, Erin hung out with me in my office at CFRU and told me the history of the archive, and reccomended her top 11 zines. (I asked for her top 10, and she brought 11! I love that shit).

Here are her reccomendations:

1. Cooking With Surplus -n- Excess: by Sy Loady

2. Coloring Book for the Broken hearted by Sy Loady

3.If Death Comes by Todi

4. Infiltration

5. Xerography Debt

6. Ring of Fire

7. One a Day

8. The Fence

9. The Worst

10. S/He's got Labe

11. Invisible Invaders #4

Listen to the radio show to hear Erin's descriptions of the zines, and why she loves them.

Erin also discussed the rad zines she makes My Life in Clip Art, Evidence: Mixtape in Paper, and Fag Punk, and what it takes to make a good quality zine.

Also, check out: zinelibrary.info

For more about the Arrow Archive visit: arrowarchive.blogspot.com and/or email: thearrowarchive@gmail.com

Send the archive mail! Thats the Best!

arrow archive
box 183
Guelph, Ontario
N1H 6J6

For more information about the Guelph Resource Centre on Gender Empowerment and Diversity visit:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~wrc/

July 29, 2010: The Public Exposure Collective: Issue no. 1: For Your Safety

The Public Exposure Collective is a newish illustration art collective based in Toronto. They've recently launched a collaborative zine project under the same name. I interviewed Dmitry Bondarenko and Kassem Ahmed two of the members of the Public Exposure Collective. I find the use of police imagery just after the G20 particularly interesting.

Its mostly a zine without words, not necessarily planned to be narrative, but there is definitely at least one narrative implied. This may be because the members of the collective all graduated from OCAD in the same year, and know each other's work intimately. You can really feel the relationship of the images, even though a lot of different styles are used, which is not easy to do.

They put together this whole pretty zine in just one month. Quite Impressive

April 22, 2010: An interview with Nadine "Blades" Rainville: the top ten reasons Nadine loves Zines

Nadine is so rad. She co-organized the Kazoofest zine fair this spring.

Nadine came on These Things that People Make and did a live interview in the studio with me. We talked about Brantford, the Ford Plant, and Nadine's introduction to zine culture. We talked about Rob Michaelchuck - punk archivist. Nadine played the typewriter in his in his band for a while.

Nadine is the co-conspirator of the zines 1 kind quarterly zine, and the Blandford Explosivator. In this interview she read me excerpts from both. (the listeners are so lucky) The reading of the Brantford Explosivator included a huge list of what Laura and Nadine love about Brantford found on the back cover of the zine.

The zine fair was a huge hit! Check out the Kazoo for info on upcoming Kazoo things:http://www.kazookazoo.ca/

March 18, 2010: Part 5: Zines about Medicalization, Sickness and Health: About Dave's Disappearance: An interview with Dave Roche.

My friend Sonia Edworthy gave me a copy of About My Disappearance #1 two years ago when I had just moved into a lovely apartment on Creighton St. in Halifax with my friend Mynah. I displayed it on a little shelf on the brick wall in the kitchen. I tried to read it, but I had just started dating someone who had colitis, and it was just too close. I wasn't ready for it. About My Disappearance is about Dave's body, and diagnosis, having Crohnes. He wrote it for his friends, to explain why he disappeared, and didn't return calls. You couldn't find him at shows, because he had Crohns and his body was doing scarey things like loosing tons of weight, not digesting food, and lots and lots of diarreha and pain.

I picked up the zine again this February (2010), and devoured it quickly. I read it a second time, and emailed Dave to see if I could do an interview with him. And he said yes. And now I get to share this interview with you.

About My Disappearance now has three issues. They're all fantastic. Dave started this interview off by reading a short excerpt from About My Disappearance #3. Dave read about Sickness and Shit and Confusion. I asked Dave to talk about the relationship of depression and sickness. Dave also talked about what it means to finally have an accurate diagnosis. Dave talked about writing about things we don't think people (especially our friends) won't want to hear, because actually how important it is to write about this stuff. Dave talked about what it meant for him to revisit stories after his body was feeling better, and the importance to write about with the most honesty, without asking for pity, and just offering explaination, and advice for how to offer support that is really helpful.

Dave says " Writing helped me realize that sickness is not something you must do battle with. Its something that is a part of me. Its not that if I don't beat it, it doesn't mean I'm not strong enough,"

We ended with some very appropriate critiques of the medical industry... Listen to this interview, and email Dave Roche for a copy of his zine: poodrow@hotmail.com.

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