That Pause I talk about in Person

Hi There,

Thanks so much for visiting the blog for These Things that People Make. I'm taking a break from the show to work on a documentary radio and video project about the lives of my Lesbian Homesteading Aunts who live in the Adirondack Mountains. I'll post more about it here in the near future.

In the meantime, feel free to check out past shows, and don't hesitate to be in touch.

sar

June 16, 2011: Coco Riot!! So Good!

Coco Riot is a tough, smart, and charming organizer and artist who is currently based in Montreal. Coco's work often deals with issues related to gender, and migration, racism, and queerness (and lots of other stuff). Coco started making comics when they had read all the comics they could find.

Coco and I have met, as friendly acquaintances through all sorts of mutual friends and community events in Montreal, Halifax and Toronto, but rarely have Coco had the opportunity to have good in-depth conversations.

This is a great conversation I am so excited to share with you. We talked mostly about two of Coco's newest projects, Llueven Queers and This is About Having an Accent.

To hear the interview, post this address in your browser: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-cocoriotcomplete.mp3

Check out Coco's work, at http://cocoriot.com/

June 9, 2011: Wise Daughters Craft Market, a brief History

My good friend Tara Michelle Ziniuk introduced me to Wise Daughters, and Mary Breen who started and runs the shop back in the fall of 2010. Its the best craft shop I've been in Toronto so far. Believe me, she has really great stuff!

I had the fantastic opportunity to interview Mary about how Wise Daughters got started. To my surprise me and Mary have more in common than I realized. She's worked for many non profits and she has an interest in activist archiving. How cool is that?

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

Check out Wise Daughters' website at:
http://www.wisedaughters.com/

Oh! and PS: the knitted felt in the photo above is Mary's work! so dreamy.

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/

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

April 14th: Breaking Knitting Rules with Lori Guest and Erin Crickett.

Dear Lori and Erin,

Thanks so much for clammoring into the on air studio at CFRU last Thursday. I love that you stop doing knitting projects that you don't want to keep doing. I love that you knit in bars, and spin on your front step saying hey to your neighbors . I love that you spin garbage. I love that you knit projects that are hard, that you break the rules, or sometimes don't even know what the rules are. I love that you are so enthusiastic about what you do. Its contagious. I love that you are committed to talking about important issues, even when they're not at all popular conversations.

I love the idea that we knit and look at our hands, and don't have to look at each other, and that sometimes makes it easier to talk the hard topics.

Keep up the good work.

Fierce, tough, loud, dirty love,
sar
PS: to listen to this interview, get yourself to this website: http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-toughknitters.mp3

April 7, 2011: Emotions, Feminism and Hair with Teresa Cheng!

Teresa and I really met when we were crammed inside somebody's parent's SUV, driving on icy roads to a Queering Social Work Conference at Wilfred Laurier University. As a side note: Social Work school is often terribly homophobic and filled with gross outdated, fucked up mythologies about queer people. Its gross!

Teresa and I met before that car ride. At parties a few times, but this car ride at 6:45am was when we really talked, and sat very close to each other, because we were squished in a car. I chattered on in my early morning hyper way, and everyone else in the car tolerated me, while they woke up in the navy blue early morning sunrise on the highway.

We wandered around Kitchener before the conference started, or while it was going on, to find coffee and food and figure out what to say on the panels we were invited to speak on. And then we all drove back home. Somewhere in there, Teresa offhandedly said she made zines. She had a new one coming out. Honestly, I hadn't met anyone -like, a new person - a friendly stranger who made zines in a while. I was surprised and excited and I said I wanted to see them. Teresa said she'd be selling them at an event that I was actually performing at. It was an anti valentines day event that Elisha Lim had organized at the Transac.

So, I waited for that event so excited to see Teresa's zines. And then she had a photocopying or layout mishap, which is sooooo normal for zine makers, and often so fruterating.... and THEN, one day, in the morning, in my bedroom, on facebook I saw that Teresa had posted this cute photo of herself holding three copies of her newest zine. and we met up at a cafe on College Street, and I bought two copies of Feeling Words (the newest zine that Teresa has made).

I get the sense that Teresa makes zines because there are these conversations we need to have. About how we police ourselves with feminist rhetoric, and become less accepting of ourselves, and honest with eachother as a result. Conversations about racism in the Queer community that shows up in Acceptable Queer Hair Stylings, and conversations about how we FEEL. And lots more conversations inside those conversations. Is urgency the right word? Teresa's zines have a timely resonance and relevance that is really cool, and useful.

Check out our interview! Teresa will read to you and tell the stories of her three zines: Dykes and their Hair, Upskirt: Dirty (Un)Feminist Secrets, and Feeling Words: A Pocket Zine of Emotions.

I hope Teresa makes zines for a million more years. And I hope I get to see All of them.

To listen to the interview, paste this address in your browser:
http://www.radio4all.net/files/sarah.mangle@gmail.com/4332-1-These_Things_That_People_Make_-_April_07_2011_at_10_00_-_CFRU_93.3.mp3

Download Upskirt from the Queer Zine Archive Project:
http://www.qzap.org/v6/index.php?option=com_g2bridge&view=gallery&Itemid=41&g2_itemId=1179


Download Dykes and Their Hair from the Queer Zine Archive Project:
http://www.qzap.org/v6/index.php?option=com_g2bridge&view=gallery&Itemid=41&g2_itemId=795

Get a copy of Feeling Words: A Pocket Zine of Emotions by emailing Teresa: poopytoothpaste@gmail.com