Monthly Archives: January 2011

2010 Financial Statement

Dino finances

For the sake of transparency and to operate under the same requirements of a 501c3, we will continue to publish our financial reports.

2010 Income $383,024.12 (increased $70,000 from last year) 

Expenses

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Total staff wages (divided between Nate, Jessie, Rio, Adam, Joe, Matt, Rio, Sparky, Steven, Dylan, and Chris) $47,298.74. (Paying an average annual wage of $4,729.87) (50% decrease!, 12% of budget))

Printing Bills $57,587.66 (a 26% decrease, 14.8% of budget)

Shipping $69,352.77 (73% increase!, 17.9% of budget)

Publishers and distributors $129,365.09 (339% increase, 33.5% of budget)

Zines bought from makers $24,315.73 (35% decrease, 6.2% of budget) 

Rent $14,480 (3.6% of budget)

Utilities, insurance, phone, office supplies, etc $6,682.77 (1.7% of budget)

Royalties to authors $20,256 (47% increase!, 5.2% of budget))

Travel $4,881 (1.2% of budget)

Catalog Printing $3,658.93 (.9% of budget)

Donations $4,975 

Staff Healthcare $3,576 (.9% of budget)

Advertising $4,410.52 (1% of budget)

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Zines about zines Total Expenses $385,865.21

Total $-7,815.47 (loss) 

We’ve made two significant changes to our operation—we will no longer be publishing as many books and we will have stronger requirements for the zines that we distribute. The former change was decided at our annual meeting in May of 2010, but due to the weight of our existing release schedule, it took some time to reach that point. 

In the future we will focus primarily on publishing instructional DIY books and distributing DIY themed, politically powerful, and popular zines. 

Distributed zines will be required to sell at least 40 copies per issue per year in order to remain in the catalog. Because we have such an extensive zine catalog and pay zinemakers before the zines have sold, we end up buying a lot of zines that sadly live their lives in the packing room, not being read.

We think that with these changes we should be back on our feet by the end of the year and able to pay the zinemakers, ourselves, and our bills. 

In the short term, our finances are in dire straits. We are working hard to pay off bills from December. If you are able to donate, it would be an excellent time. We’ve recently took on a lot of new items in the catalog and published the new How and Why and Edible Secrets books. After hopes that our holiday sales would cover

more of these expenses, it seems we’ve bit off a bit more than we can chew. The writing has always been on the wall that there isn’t much money in this kind of work. 

We have decided to operate as not-for-profit without being a 501c3, because, to an extent, it allows us to put our mission ahead of our finances without being managed by an outside board of directors. Being a collectively-run publisher and distributor of zines and related work is important to us, and as always, Microcosm strives to add credibility to zine writers and their ethics, teach self empowerment, show hidden history, and nurture people’s creative side! 

We are currently accepting donations:

You can send paypal donations to 

Alt text orders@microcosmpublishing.com You could call with a credit card donation. (503) 232-3666. Checks can go to Microcosm 636 SE 11th Ave. Portland, OR 97214. Please specify it’s a donation with your check so we don’t think we need to mail you something beyond our eternal gratitude.

But here’s to many more years of successful support of zine makers, distribution of radical literature, and giving people access to information—in print—that they is difficult to come by. 

All orders are also extra appreciated right now.

Thanks for all of the years of support!

-Microcosm

(Illustration by Rio Safari)

PHOTO UPDATE: MICROCOSM EXCHANGING REAL BOOKS FOR UNWANTED KINDLES

We have a quick update on our ongoing campaign wherein folks trade in Kindles for their price in books. Here’s the bounty scored by a zine lover in NYC when she traded her Kindle in!

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ABOUT THE KINDLE EXCHANGE: Do you love print? Do you still read books? Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Do you want to trade in your soulless faux-literary technology for its worth in good old fashioned books? Well, friends, Microcosm Publishing’s got your back! Beginning RIGHT NOW you can bring in your Christmas Kindle to the Microcosm store in Portland (636 SE 11th) and trade it in for its worth in new or used books and zines! That’s right! Why let fad technology kill print when you can take a stand and fill up your shelves in the process. (Don’t worry, we won’t tell your parents.) And make sure to bring a friend to help you carry all your loot; most of the store’s books are priced in the $2-$6 range so a $139-$189 trade-in (note: going retail for the Kindle at Amazon’s site) you might be carrying your books out in a fleet of wheelbarrows!

On Amazon’s Kindle page you’ll be able to read glowing endorsements like the following, “”My first impression of Kindle’s screen was: ‘That’s a screen?! It doesn’t look like a screen.’… It looks like a book page, only perfect. No grain or pulp.”—Jeremy.”

Well, you know what, Jeremy? We love the and grain and pulp. Long live the grain and pulp! Long live the PAGE.

Thanks for helping to keep print alive!

Microcosm Publishing book and zine store
636 SE 11th
Portland, Or 97214
11am-7pm, Seven days a week
503-232-3666
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Microcosm-hQ-Store/131220623559507

Rad Dad #19

OUT NOW! As Rad Dad editor Tomas Moniz says in issue 19’s first essay, “Parenting has taught me a lot about dealing with things I’d rather not deal with.” This is the Rad Dad “heavy topics” issue; its pages are concerned with talking to your kids about topics you might shy away from—important issues like racism, sexism, death, domestic violence, police brutality, and environmental crisis. Rad Dad is, as always, about communication, about not shutting off when your kids need help making sense of the things happening around them. And sometimes that’s the hardest part—when you yourself are fighting to make sense of a changing terrain. Says Tomas in the zine’s intro, “For my family, there was violence in our neighborhood as a number of young men were killed, friends of ours were assaulted in their homes, domestic violence happened in a family we were close to. Suddenly, it seemed I was just trying to keep up with things?let alone talk about them with my kids. But they were listening; they were witnesses to it all and witnesses to how we, the adults in their lives, reacted.” The psychic landscape this issue navigates can be harrowing but Rad Dad retains the loving, constructive light of positivity and forward motion it has cultivated since issue 1. This is important reading—vital stuff for parents and nonparents alike.

Microcosm Zine Store in Portland Will Exchange Real Books For Unwanted Kindles!

Alt text

(illustration by Rio Safari) 

Do you love print? Do you still read books? Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Do you want to trade in your soulless faux-literary technology for its worth in good old fashioned books? Well, friends, Microcosm Publishing’s got your back! Beginning RIGHT NOW you can bring in your Christmas Kindle to the Microcosm store in Portland (636 SE 11th) and trade it in for its worth in new or used books and zines! That’s right! Why let fad technology kill print when you can take a stand and fill up your shelves in the process. (Don’t worry, we won’t tell your parents.) And make sure to bring a friend to help you carry all your loot; most of the store’s books are priced in the $2-$6 range so a $139-$189 trade-in (note: going retail for the Kindle at Amazon’s site) you might be carrying your books out in a fleet of wheelbarrows!

On Amazon’s Kindle page you’ll be able to read glowing endorsements like the following, “”My first impression of Kindle’s screen was: ‘That’s a screen?! It doesn’t look like a screen.’… It looks like a book page, only perfect. No grain or pulp.”—Jeremy.”

Well, you know what, Jeremy? We love the and grain and pulp. Long live the grain and pulp! Long live the PAGE.

Thanks for helping to keep print alive!

Microcosm Publishing book and zine store
2752 N Williams Ave
Portland, Or 97227
11am-7pm, Seven days a week
503-232-3666
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Microcosm-hQ-Store/131220623559507

Since opening doors in August 2008, the Microcosm zine and book store has moved twice to larger locations. In an age when out-of-touch doomsayers are hoping to drive the final nail in the print media coffin, Microcosm continues to prove that people still buy books and zines and that running a DIY bookstore (and publishing books) in this day and age isn’t a damned proposition. The new store location is in the massive 636 SE 11th building shared with likeminded folks Eberhardt Press and Printed Matter (and a skateramp.) The store is open seven days a week and features a full scale reading area and coffee counter. Check with http://www.micrcosmpublishing.com for regular author signings, readings, and potlucks!

The Microcosm Interview with Edible Secrets’ Michael Hoerger and Mia Partlow!

What do top-secret CIA assassination plots, Black Panther arrests, and Reaganomics have in common? Food, of course! Michael Hoerger and Mia Partlow collect, contextualize and graphically narrate declassified government documents with food as a theme! Over 500,000 declassified memos, debriefings and transcripts were combed to uncover some of the most important and iconic people and narratives from US history. Providing a voyeuristic insight into the US government, these documents are like reality TV for politicos and foodies: Assassinations by milkshake, subliminal popcorn cravings, Reagan’s love of hydroponics, and what could be Fred Hampton’s most radical action—giving ice cream to small children. Illustrated throughout by Nate Powell.

Keep tabs on the regularly updated Edible Secrets blog right here. And get a copy of the book here!

Q: For anyone who hasn’t gotten a chance to read the book give us a little overview. What can people expect?
MH: An entertaining introduction to government secrecy and radical US history…starring food. Assassination by milkshake, a communist Jell-O box, subliminal popcorn cravings. It’s political voyeurism for foodies! Through food and declassified documents we’ve graphically narrated histories of the Black Panther Party, the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Fidel Castro and Cuba, US government experiments on humans, globalization, and more.

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MP: We tried very hard to make the book accessible and interesting to people of all ilks. There are graphics with information like “Top Five CIA Pranks on Fidel Castro,” which gives a little overview of the five most ridiculous assassination attempts/attempts to annoy Castro, or a graphic depicting all of the interactions the Black Panthers had with the police from 1968-1969 (hint: there were a lot). And there are also essays for people who want to delve a little deeper, which give a history of the documents and a little background that explains how that document came to be–for example, why did the US government fund a study on subliminal messaging, or how did Reagan come to be sitting in a room talking about hydroponic lettuce? Those questions get us into discussions of experiments with mind control and the US legacy of creating better torturers, and discussions of food subsidies and how the world food supply is propped up in order to keep capitalism legitimate. Like I said, something for everybody!

Q: How did you guys get a hold of the documents you used? How long did it take you to collect them all?
MH: The documents were casually collected over many years.  The first document I found by mistake.  Late one night I was searching a computer database of declassified CIA documents and, in a moment of boredom, decided to search for Jello Biafra of the punk band the Dead Kennedys.  No results came up for Biafra (though I’m sure he has quite the FBI file out there somewhere), but the document featured in the book about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the notorious Jell-O box popped up.

The documents were collected over a period of 5 years from library collections and online databases. If you’re interested in declassified documents, you should start by asking your local librarian for help finding them. And in the book we include a sample Freedom of Information Act Request.  Before becoming a book, Edible Secrets was a portable art installation of the documents (enlarged and screen-printed), historical artifacts, dioramas, art, and even featured an audio tour at one point.

Q: The super awesome Nate Powell does the illustrations for this one. How was it working with him?
MH: Nate Powell and I were roommates for many years, including when Edible Secrets was conceived of.  So it was great to work with Nate, as he was the primary sounding board for all things Edible Secrets.  And Nate is an illustrating genius, and produced perfect illustrations for each chapter and a beautiful cover.  There were a couple that didn’t make it into the book; maybe we’ll put those up someday.

MP: Nate is amazing! Besides being an awesome illustrator with the power to tell an entire story in a single pen-stroke, he is a super nice person with a wonderful creative energy.

Q: What do you think of this whole WikiLeaks thing?
MP: One of the more interesting things happening right now connected to WikiLeaks is the dialogue occurring around the issue of Julian Assange (the face of WikiLeaks) and sexual assault. There have been some good discussions in the media about it. As writers we feel it is important to confront these issues head on. When sexual assault victims are used as pawns, all victims and survivors ultimately lose, because the rhetoric around assault is clouded with other objectives. 

MH: As for the (most recent) leaks themselves, they are intriguing.  The most recent WikiLeak, dubbed Cablegate, is a data dump of 200,000+ state department cables; essentially internal memos from US embassies abroad.  The documents released so far (only 1% of the documents are available to the public) do not provide any earth-shattering revelations, but are interesting for the level of candor in the narrative voices.  They read more like emails between friends -kinda evil, profit-hungry friends- than official US documents or declarations.

PS, be on the lookout for our Gastronomical Guide to Cablegate, as we could not resist the temptation of using the food filter on Wikileaks: socialist sandwiches, Chinese licorice machine parts, and more government favors for Coca-Cola.

Q: What’s next for you guys? You have an event coming up soon. Tell us a little about that…
MH: Right now we are just trying to get the book out there.  On January 15th we’ll be doing a presentation on the book at Bluestockings in New York City.  After that we hope to do some events in the Midwest and maybe attend some book fairs.

As for next projects, we are tossing some ideas around: a history of plane hijackings before 9/11, a resource guide for prison abolition, and potentially a memoir/cultural history of asthma if Mia ever finishes that quilt she’s been working on.

Q: Finally, give us your top five favorite foods…
MH: beets, pizza, cupcakes, brussels sprouts, ice cream
MP: lentils, soup of almost any kind, sourpatch kids (corporate vegan deliciousness), vegan wings with homemade buffalo sauce and vegan ranch dressing, and ice cream.