Our brand-new New York City DIY travel guide Zinester’s Guide to NYC is out now and we’re helping throw a release party at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in SoHo on November 11th. We talked to Ayun about that, her zine The East Village Inky, and much much more!

Q: Why do you live in New York? Why not Alaska? Tokyo? Omaha? Indonesia?

A: I have a strong cardiac preference for New York. I have wanted to live here since I was a little girl in Indiana, where I was once overheard informing a playmate that I was a city dude. For my money, what little I have of it, there is no better city on earth in which to be that dude.

If Sam Shepard’s 1978 play Curse of the Starving Class is to believed, Alaska is “all frozen and full of rapers.” A hypothesis not borne out by the month I spent in Juneau, but still, one of the greatest lines in American theater history.

Tokyo I will visit any time you pay me! But I have never been to a Tokyo neighborhood that did not feel like Japan, whereas there are many neighborhoods in NYC that give me the impression I am no longer in the United States. I would miss that if I were to live in Tokyo. (I do wish our department stores had their wonderful food selections…)

Omaha I cannot say anything good or bad about, having never visited there, but I will say that my friend Jeff is not only redesigning my website, he is a son of Omaha. He recently passed through it on a road trip with our mutual friend Kathryn, and when asked what his favorite stop of the whole tour was, he picked Omaha, because no one ever visits Omaha, and it was so thrilling to be able to show someone else around.

Indonesia, again, I will visit any time you pay me! I had fantasies of maybe moving to Bali one day, plying my trade as a massage therapist, but… when it comes to relaxation, I’m rather dependent on knowing I have a hundred options at any given time. Movie theaters, bookstores, cultural events, museums, hole in the wall restaurants from every conceivable culture, eccentrics of every age, race, and creed riding with me on the subway… I would like to have an Indonesian style bathroom though, with a squat toilet, and a big jar of water with a dipper for throwing it over your head.

Q: My 6th grade English teacher just asked me to ask you to give us one sentence about each book you’ve written since birth…

A: The Big Rumpus is about a period in my life when I was totally immersed in motherhood, running around New York City with two little kids in tow.

No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late is a semi-scatological, low budget travel memoir, as well as a knee jerk response to Seal Press’ suggestion that I should write a sequel to the Big Rumpus.

Job Hopper revisits some of the crappy day jobs I had when I was an actor.

Dirty Sugar Cookies is a bildungsroman with recipes and the greatest index in the world, though Joe Biel’s index for the Zinester’s Guide to NYC is a close second.

Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo is 32 pages long, was illustrated by Dan Santat and is best read aloud to a bossa nova beat.

The Zinester’s Guide to NYC is a dream come true, and I will spend the rest of my life mentally adding to it.

Peanut is a graphic novel about a girl who fakes a peanut allergy, with illustrations by Paul Hoppe, who would no doubt join me in encouraging you to buy many copies of it when it is published in July 2011.

There are also two unsold picture books and a novel that could use another go in the rock tumbler. Interested publishers should present themselves forsooth. I mean forthwith.

Q: My 6th grade English teacher (who is turning into a total pest) asked me to ask you to sum up your zine, TheEast Village Inky, in less than 50 words, using the words “cantaloupe,” “Mr. T.,” and “rabbit fur.”

A: What is this, Twitter? The East Village Inky is a handwritten, quarterly chronicle of my life in NYC, as well as a time lapse portrait of my children, when viewed as a hold. No cantaloupe, Mr. T., or rabbit fur, but these topics may well be covered in upcoming issues.

Q: What are your five favorite pieces of NY-related art?

A: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side by Magnetic Fields

Next Stop, Greenwich Village

New York City by Cub, and the cover by They Might Be Giants

An essay about the General Slocum memorial David Rakoff read aloud on episode 194 of This American Life, shortly after September 11, 2001

Q: If you were taking my 6th grade English teacher on a one day tour of New York where would you take her?

A: Oh lord, not her again. How about a downtown literary whirlwind? The Strand, Idlewild, Bluestockings, Housing Works Bookstore Café, St. Mark’s Books, and Unopressive, Non-Imperialist Bargain Books… we could have a browse every time we run across a street seller. I’d tell her to add the 2000 documentary Bookwars to her Netflix queue. Then because she is a closet Flight of the Conchords fan, I would take her past Bret and Jemaine’s apartment on Henry Street, which puts us in spittin’ distance of Bar 169, (also a location on the series). How convenient. I could no doubt use a drink. Though I could also get my drink at KGB or Happy Ending, both of which have excellent and frequent readings. If Teacher’s not turned off by Happy Ending’s former incarnation as a Chinatown massage parlor, I’ll send her to Babeland or Burlesque at the Beach. She can make her own way home to the Gershwin Hotel, conveniently located by Wholesale Copies and the Museum of Sex. I would also send your English teacher to the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, a front for drop in tutoring and amazing free writing workshops for kids and teens. She could buy some anti-matter…it goes to a good cause.

Q: If you were taking your first boyfriend on a one day tour of New York where would you take him?

A: Depends on how you define boyfriend, son. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, I’d tell him to hold his fire ’til April, so we can spend the whole weekend at the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art Fest. We could spend the whole weekend there. If he gets hungry, he can find an Indian restaurant in Curry Hill, and bring me back something, since I’m thinking of ante-ing up for a booth.

Q: If you were taking the President of the United States on a one day tour of New York where would you take him?

A: I’m going to assume that for him, it would be a relief to be treated like a regular civilian, so we’d start with breakfast at Panya (I recommend the curry pan, fatten him up a bit), then make our way down to the Wall Street Baths (so he’d have to bring his bathing suit). Lunch at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House, followed by a self-guided walking tour of Chinatown with stops for coconut buns and souvenirs for his daughters from BJ99. If he wants some exercise, we can do the Monkey Bars in Columbus Park. Then like most visitors to NYC, unaccustomed to so much walking, he’d probably be pooped, so we could recharge our batteries by seeing a movie at the Sunshine. Then we could go book shopping, or alternatively thrift shopping (if it was Wednesday, I would insist we go to Salvation Army since it’s family day and everything’s half off.) If he’s really into thrifting, we’d go to the Thing in Greenpoint. Eventually, we’d make our way back to Otto’s Shrunken Head for cheap drinks and a spin in the photobooth. We’d get some tacos at the Zaragoza Grocery on Avenue A, and finish the evening at Decibel Sake Bar, where I would not be above using the President’s VIP status to jump to the head of the line. If he’s really into burning the midnight oil, maybe I could be talked into accompanying him to Mehanata, the Bulgarian bar.

Q: If you had one hour to live and you had to spend it doing something amazing in NY where would you go?

A: Maybe to the top of the Empire State Building—I’ve never been there before. I’d have to be allowed to go to the front of the line, though. Otherwise, I’d probably just go embrace an arch of the Brooklyn Bridge and sing “New York, New York,” and think about how I’ll soon be flung off it, in ash form.

Q: Finally, Tell us about the 11/11 book release party…

A: Oh, it’s going to be so awesome. A half dozen or so musicians from the Bushwick Book Club will be playing original songs inspired by the guidebook. Many contributors will be on hand for the mini-zine fair. If you’re the sporting type, you may wind up vying for exciting prizes in the live ZG2NYC $2 Pyramid onstage game show. It’s my Hoosier homeboy Kurt Vonnegut’s birthday, so there will be a short reading in his honor. We’ll also be reading a few of our favorite listings. And it’s the Day that Most Resembles Corduroy, so please dress appropriately. Full disclosure: food and drinks aren’t free, but they are cheap, and all purchases will help Housing Works Bookstore Café in their fight to end homelessness and AIDS. Speaking of money, bring some, so you can guidebook up—make things easy on yourself by securing a copy for everyone on your holiday shopping/obligation list!

EVENT INFO
The Zinester’s Guide to NYC Book Release Celebration, Zine Fair, and Reading
Thursday, November 11, 2010, 7–8:30 pm
Housing Works Bookstore Café
126 Crosby St (btwn Houston & Prince) NYC, 212-334-3324
FREE to the public!
Food and drink available for purchase
The book: https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/3038/
The author: http://ayunhalliday.com/

Calling all filmmakers, animators, and folks with a penchant for screwing around in iMovie: We invite you to celebrate the publication of our low budget, highly participatory, illustrated, anecdotal guidebook, The Zinester’s Guide to NYC, by creating an original online book trailer. The winner will be showered with analog prizes courtesy of Microcosm Publishing and Ayun Halliday, the ZG2NYC‘s primary contributor. Your video will also be given a permanent place of honor on Microcosm & Ayun’s websites.

The ZG2NYC is for folks who crave participation, the offbeat, and a dirt cheap deal! They’re creative, just like you! They ride bikes, love a parade, and dress funny on purpose.

You have until December 15 to upload your video to Vimeo and send the link to ayun@ayunhalliday.com (please cc joe@microcosmpublishing.com). Live action, animation, puppets, a slideshow – anything goes. NYC’s awesome and beloved Hungry March Band has graciously given us permission to offer their song, “Jupanese JuJu” as a soundtrack – or write your own.

You can order a copy of the book here, or from any number of online vendors, or ask your favorite indie bookseller to lay one in for you – they will be available November 15.

A few parameters
The following phrases need to be prominently displayed. The timing is up to you, unless otherwise noted:
The Zinester’s Guide to NYC by Ayun Halliday
The last wholly analog guidebook to NYC

“If I could still walk the streets of New York among my People, I would use this truly funny and truly affordable guidebook. It kicks ass.” – Stephen Colbert

Support indie booksellers by ordering the ZG2NYC from them!
Final page should be a card that says:
© 2010
www.MicrocosmPublishing.com
www.AyunHalliday.com

for those using “Jupanese JuJu”:
“Jupanese Ju Ju” by Yokoyama, Candler & Fairey
Performed by Hungry March Band
www.hungrymarchband.com

You must have the rights to all photos and video clips used in your video. If you’re not NYC based, try searching photo sites for NYC-specific photos with a Creative Commons license.

There’s more info about the book:
https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/3038/
& here:
http://ayunhalliday.com/

You can download the book cover, and a few illustrations here (scroll down):
https://microcosmpublishing.com/press

We can fix you up with more if you want -email your request to ayun@ayunhalliday.com
Download an mp3 of Jupanese JuJu here:
www.microcosmpublishing.com/uploads/jupanesejuju.mp3

Please help us spread the word by forwarding this to your friends, posting it to your blogs, and just generally smearing it all over the Internet.
ZG2NYC4-evah!

We recently talked with Tomas Moniz from Rad Dad about zines, zines, and zines! Tomas’ super awesome new issue is now out and you can wrangle that here. This is what he told us.

Q: If you were asked to define Rad Dad in less than 100 words what
would you say?

A: It’s a zine about how we all can parent in conscientious ways, how whether we are parents or  not we can foster communities that are multigenerational and supportive of children.  It’s also a zine that strives to challenge the mainstream representation of fathers and parenting in general   parenting does not equal mothering.  And simple being a father doesn’t mean you are rad.  Parenting is also not a white middle class, hetero experience.  Rad Dad works hard to present the diversity of parenting from young parents, to parents of color, to anarchist parents.

Q: Tell us about the new issue; what can people expect?

A: The new issue was a lot of fun…many of the issues often deal with specific difficult situations in relation to parenting children.  For number 18, I wanted to explore how our relationships with other adults impact our parenting; I wanted to remind us all that there are numerous kinds of families besides the hetero-normative monogamous partnered couple.  Oh and I get to share my story of discovering my daughter making out with “hot boys.”

Q: What do your kids think of Rad Dad?

A: They actually read every issue before I print it, threaten to write their own version of the zine “Bad Dad,” and when they come to readings they generally heckle me non-stop.  But they are totally supportive.

Q: If the President of the United States asked you to sum up Rad Dad in less than 10 words what would you say?

A: I’d scold him: white parents need to take responsibility for racism, unlike his admonishment of black parents in his famous speech on race.

Q: If your first grade teacher asked you to sum up Rad Dad in less than 10 words what would you say?

A: I wish my daughter’s first grade teacher read it…

Q: If Osama Bin Laden asked you to sum up Rad Dad in less than 10 words what would you say?

A: It’s not about what we are, but what we aspire to be…or I’d ask how he
got a copy of it?

Q: Who are your three favorite zines and why?

A: Artnoose’s Kerbloom and, of course, Doris; they’re like the godmothers of zine culture and what they write about and share is so specific to their experience but in sharing their struggles and thoughts I discover such connections and inspiration…and as for a new zine I’ve been really enjoying photography zines…I think I wanna try and make one myself…

Q: What’s next for Rad Dad?

A: An anthology of the best of Rad Dad will be out in fall 2011; the zine I hope will continue and someday I look forward to passing it on to other rad dads and mamas to continue.  I’m always looking for coeditors so if you interested, let me know…

Hello friends of Microcosm!

We’re reaching out to you because you’ve all been very supportive of us over the last fifteen years.

Thanks again for helping make so many things happen. These projects mean a lot to us, and it’s always heartening to hear they mean something to other people, too. It’s been extremely cool to connect with so many rad people in recent years. Thanks for being out there and doing what you do!

The motivating force behind this message is to let you know our new DIY book How and Why is being designed and is nearly ready to go. We’ve put a few years into making it as awesome as it can be and the only thing remaining to get it out there is to raise the money for printing. If you’d like a copy (or five) of How and Why, or need to replace some of our other books that you loaned to a friend, or need some presents for special people in your life, or just want to continue supporting our independent publishing:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/897079804/print-matte-resists-new-book-how-and-why

If you’re into what we’re doing, it would help a lot if you could spread the word via email, facebook, twitter, yelling on street corners, or whatever comes naturally to you.

Thanks a lot! And do stay in touch.

-Microcosm

P.S. We don’t plan on using Kickstarter for every new book that we release. We really try to only use it when we have to but it’s been a rough year, so of course we respond by trying to do a lot of stuff that we think is awesome!

In Shut Up and Love the Rain, Oakland-based zinester Robnoxious takes along his path from early sexual exploration to his current sex-positive, constantly-deprogramming, über-healthy queerness! Rob’s writing and comics show us that experimentation should start early, that guilty pleasures needn’t be guilty, and that talking it over and being honest with each other will lead to nothin’ but good. Over the course of 64 pages you get personal history and sex/queer-related reviews. There’s hilarious, illuminating essays, intimate accounts of relationships outside the margins, and a touching, inspiring interview with Rob’s parents after his father came out as transgendered. Subheadlined “To Queer Anarchist Happiness Thru Good Living,” Rob’s brand-new comix and writing zine is just that—happy, living well, queer and anarchist and damn proud!               

You can order Shut Up and Love the Rain right here.

Q: Let’s talk Shut Up and Love the Rain. What was the genesis for this one? When did you get started on it and what made you want to do it?

A: I wanted to do a zine like one I did years ago called Girl-Boy, but I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to do it with me. I just started writing about sexuality, queerness, gender, and personal experiences based on those things. Then I took those stories and made them into comics! A lot of the zine is sequential art, also known as comics. I decided it was time to get back into drawing, so I took a figure drawing and portraiture class at Laney College in Oakland. The classes were awesome, and after that my neglected drawing skills were re-activated. When I was growing up in high school I would receive and assignment and just flip it over to the blank side of the paper and draw whatever I wanted.  That’s really where it all started, with me saying, “This is bullshit. Let’s flip it over and try something different.”

Q: I thought the section on your dad was really brave. What’s your parents’ response been to that part? Seems like their attitude is super healthy in regards to her change.

A: My parents were really happy with the interview focusing on my dad coming out as a transgendered woman. I think it meant a lot to my parents to have their son think that what they were doing was important enuf to put down in writing and share with the world. My parents seem much healthier now than they ever have been. It’s really great to see them happy. Sometimes I think my mom falls into the shadow a little bit, which is typical, because transitioning is such a big thing, a huge event in people’s life, so that the partner of the person transitioning is like, “Can we talk about something else for a minute?” Ha! They’re working it out.

Q: It seems to me that zines have been kind of sexless for years. You read these personal zines about love relationships and the characters never talk about sex, never have sex, never think about sex, anything like that. Which is unrealistic. Lately though I’ve seen a lot more zines with sexual content coming out. Have you noticed any change in that respect? Do you think zinesters are afraid of talking about sex?

A: I think that fear of sex is inherent in our whole culture, and that translates down to our alternative world too. I became more aware of our sexually repressed culture while living in Europe for three months and seeing the open attitude to sexuality and naked bodies. I saw huge posters on streets in Vienna with full nudes; if someone did this in the States they would probably be arrested! So even tho zines are underground and alternative, the mainstream mentality is still there inside our minds. A lot of people are repulsed by depictions of sexuality. It’s something you do only in the dark and you don’t talk about it and you can’t let anyone else know or hear you while you’re doing it; it has to be secret! Every year I go to this queer music festival in Tennessee and it’s great because there are these meadows with wall-to-wall tents, and at all times of the day you can hear people getting it on, fucking in their tents or out in the woods, and they hear you laughing, and then they laugh, and they keep going. It’s like the way things are in tribal situations, where people don’t have rooms to hide in, and where sex is seen and heard happening among various generations, and it’s just part of life, there’s nothing shameful about it.

Q: Who are your favorite zine-makers right now?

A: Craven Rock: he is writing about what he does to survive, working, and it’s interesting. Cindy Crabb: one of the first zines I read that was not superficial but was trying to get to the bottom of things, and still going! Full Metal Faggot: a sex positive queer porn zine with explicit photos of punks being sexual in seasonal labor jobs. Very unique. John Isaacson: comics about traveling around and having fun with the other people in the world. Max Clotfelter: comics about rough people, people that we know, people that we are, people that we could be.

Q: Give us your top six zines…

A: Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf (comic zine open to contributions), Eaves of Ass by Craven Rock, Full Metal Faggot, Doris, Loitering Is Good, The Roaming Heart by Gina Sicilliano.

Q: Are zines important in 2010?

A: Oh yeah, people are still getting a lot out of printed zines. They still read a zine, and if they think it’s good, they hand it off to someone else. Blogs are great to spread things around the world for cheap and easy, but not everyone has internet or a computer, and giving someone the address to your website and expecting them to stare at a screen connected to the grid is such a different experience than handing them a real physical zine to carry with them wherever they may go. All they need is for the sun to be up, and that I think zines are much more empowering in that way.

Team Colors is an awesome activist collective with members stretching across the US. Their latest venture is in publishing. Winds from Below: Radical Community Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible (Eberhardt Press) and Uses of a Whirlwind (AK Press) are out now and available here and here, respectively.

Q: Tell us a little about Team Colors…

Currently the collective is made up of Conor Cash (Tucson, AZ), Craig Hughes (Queens, NY by the time you read this), Stevie Peace (Minneapolis, soon to be Chapel Hill, NC), and Kevin Van Meter (Portland, OR), though we often work with other friends and organizations. As a collective our purpose is to examine current struggles, organizing, and movements, and to share findings that in turn better radical practice and build radical movements. Though each of us has had or is in the midst of academic training (i.e. grad school), we pull predominantly from our own experiences as organizers and active participants in revolutionary struggles.

Team Colors initially arose out of a decade-long organizing project in suburban Long Island, New York, that involved three of the collective’s current members. In organizing among DIY punk folks, hardcore kids, and related communities on Long Island–and in successful ways–we felt that we had developed a framework and set of experiences for examining how other organizations and projects functioned. This paired with an interest in militant and co-research–that is, research on militant activities and research produced in the encounter between the research team and those looking to produce knowledge about their communities and struggles. This focus brought us to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, where we met our fourth collective member.

The collective sees its role as examining struggles and circulating them, but not in a way that is removed or above or in ideological conflict with them or aspects of them. As organizers ourselves, we feel that it’s important to describe and share how an organization or campaign actually functions. Too often, organizers and activists give the “press release” version of their work: you read a short article on Indymedia or in the radical press that lists what’s great, what’s succeeding, including “orgasmic moments” of resonating power and potential, but what you miss is an in-depth description and analysis of how a particular organizing project works. We certainly need press releases and positive outlooks on our work, but we also need documents and media that reflect the complexity of organizing and struggling in the United States today.  

Additionally, we feel it is important to ground our politics and practices in our own life experiences, and we all have different interests that come through in our collective publications, including issues of class struggle, care work, and struggles around care. Each of us, and us as a collective body, have gone through some pretty traumatic experiences: state repression; a violent racially motivated attack; watching a friend and partner pass away; dealing with mental health and post traumatic stress disorder. We believe that unless movements address in real ways the mental and physical health issues, chronic pain, trauma, grief, and related experiences and realities of its members and surrounding communities, then they aren’t grasping the substance of life and the purposes of our struggles. Similarly, we are deeply frustrated by very problematic and lacking discourses on class and class dynamics around the Left. In our view, it is class struggle (in its multitudinous forms) that drives our history and present, and it is in the working class’s ability to recompose and renew itself and build power that we will get beyond the exploitation and domination of capital and state.

Q: You have two new publications coming out. Tell us a little about them.

A: Our first new publication concludes a two-year research project into radical movements in the United States. This began with an on-line journal called “In the Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement, and Movements,” and has developed into a collection just out through AK Press, called Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States (Whirlwinds).

The book collects over thirty voices from farms, forests, bookstores, streets and street corners, homes, and corporate chains (among many other spaces) so that they resonate with each other and share their stories. It is our intent that readers find this collection as simply one step forward in their organizing work, to encourage reflections about the complexities and cycles of struggle and examinations of their organizing.

As we wrote the introduction to Whirlwinds to help set up the context of the collection, we found we had a lot we wanted to bring forward but no space to do so. We wanted to examine the past thirty years of struggle–of this cycle of struggle, of capital’s response to it and the state violence used against it, and how this has developed into the current situation radical movements and communities face. So instead of straining to fit such a large amount of material into an already ambitious collection, we decided to place it in a separate pamphlet, called Wind(s) from Below: Radical Community Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible.

Both of these projects are interventions. We are intervening into the current state of radical organizing and revolutionary struggle, and pointing toward exciting developments as well as the impasses that are limiting these potential struggles. One thing we want to stress, and we hope it comes off in our work, is that radicals need humility. We don’t have all the answers, we cannot understand all the complexities of life and the conditions of peoples’ lives through ideological lenses, we cannot presume that we are correct and that those who don’t agree with our politics are somehow immoral, ignorant, or corrupt. But we can walk together, ask questions, and create new ways of moving and living.

Q: The pamphlet’s being printed over at Eberhardt Press, who we love and support with all our heart. How’d you guys get hooked up with Charles at Eberhardt.

Since Kevin moved to Portland, OR two years ago, all of us have become fast friends with Charles and Eberhardt Press. But actually this is not how we encountered him and his unique and incredible printing work. Three years ago, we were looking to print a small run of about 350 cookbooks as a memorial and tribute to a friend who had recently passed away, and current “Green Scare” political prisoner Daniel McGowan pointed us in Eberhardt Press’s direction. (On that note, Team Colors would like to strongly suggest that those reading this take a moment to write a postcard, short letter or send zines to Daniel (www.supportdaniel.org) or another imprisoned activist (www.prisonactivist.org). It is these notes and printed materials that allow their lives to continuously flow into ours, and is among the best ways to show support for someone behind bars.)

Q: Tell us a little about what happened at the US Social Forum that took place between June 23-27th in Detroit?

Team Colors organized two workshops, a panel discussions, and a collaborative book party during the USSF (www.ussf2010.org) in Detroit at the end of June. We hosted a panel on radical research (with Chris Dixon, Harmony Goldberg, and Michal Osterweil of the Turbulence Collective), a workshop on research for radical movements (with Midnight Notes Collective, Institute of Anarchist Studies, Radical Reference, Frank Edwards and Robin Hewlett of AREA Chicago, Julie Perini, Chris Carlsson), a workshop on care (with SICK: A Collaborative Zine on Physical Illness editor Benjamin Holtzman, Philly Stands Up, Domestic Workers United, and Rockdove Collective), and finally, an amazing collaborative book release party with eight other authors (including Ben of SICK and Justseeds’ Firebrands, both Microcosm titles), co-organized by AK Press, Autonomedia, Black & Red, Fifth Estate, the Institute of Anarchist Studies, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Microcosm Publishing, PM Press, Turbulence Collective, and author Jordan Flaherty.  New York based artist Seth Tobocman concluded the party with a slide show of recent work.   

All of this was part of a radical track of workshops and events called “A New World from Below” and we will be uploading audio from many of these events on our website as well.  Additionally, Whirlwinds was officially released during the Forum and we were super excited about the positive responses we received from new and old friends alike.  

Q: Do you have any other book events people can come meet you at?

Team Colors will be doing a national tour for most of the summer and into the fall. Immediately following the USSF we visited, and then Chicago, Madison, and Minneapolis. In July we will be doing events in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Asheville, Nashville, Gainesville, Lake Worth, Hollywood (Florida), Miami, and other areas of the Northeast and South. We are excited to do August events in Portland, the AK Press warehouse in Oakland, and San Francisco, as well as events in the rest of the Northwest later that month. Many of our events will include contributors to the book and other friends. It is the discussions that arise during these events, and from the book, that we hope to learn from and continue to circulate. Our USSF events and tour dates can be found at: http://warmachines.info/?page_id=241

Q: What’s next for Team Colors?

Aside from the book tour, each member of Team Colors has their own interests that they are excited to explore as the intensity of this project slows down in late fall 2010. Stevie will be going to graduate school and pursuing research on radical Asian America. Craig will continue his research on suburban social struggles. Kevin will focus in on issues of care, death, and mourning, and will look to produce a pamphlet and other pieces of writing on these subjects. As for the collective itself, we are always looking at new ways to connect with projects that we love and respect, and share how they function in order to improve radical practice and movements.  

Q: Where can people find more info on you guys?

The collective’s website, which includes numerous articles we have published as well as excerpts from both of the books, is at www.warmachines.info. For the website for the Whirlwinds collection, you can go directly to www.whirlwinds.info.  

Ain’t nothin’ like a good, hard-working intern. For this episode of Meet Microcosm we introduce you to the super awesome Robin Yourgrave, who interns down at the ‘Cosm store in SE Portland.

Q: Hey Robin! Tell us how you got the intern position…

A: I got the intern “volunteering” position at Microcosm pretty much by making cold calls to businesses around Portland. I just moved here about a month and a half ago and the job search was getting quite frustrating. The initial intention of my phone call was to get a paid position, however I have been aware of Microcosm for a while and really support what they do so I was more than willing to take up a volunteer position there. A few days after I called, Joe and I met to discuss the position and I started that very day.

Q: What kinds of zines are you into?

A: As far as zines go, I’m a huge proponent of personal zines (e.g. Cometbus). I like the personal stories that I can draw from and relate to my own life and maybe get a different input of how to handle certain situations or, if the situations are not to be handled, make the best of them. I make a zine entitled Bird Shit which is pretty much a Cometbus approach to zine writing. I self-published my first issue back in April and a re-print is coming along with self-publication of my second issue. I am also working on a zine with my boyfriend entitled Coffeedrunk which is essentially about our traveling endeavors pursued together.

Q: What do you do outside of your interning position?

A: Until recently, I didn’t really do much outside of my intern position other than writing and reading on my own time. Until last week, I was still unemployed. Now, though, I struggle for free time. I work at Whole Foods Market and continue to strenuously work on the assembly of my upcoming zines.

Q: Give us your five favorite and five least favorite things about Portland…
As I am new to the area, it’s difficult to define what my favorite things about Portland are and what my um… un-favorite things entail. But, I will construct the best list that I’m able.

Favorites
1) MICROBREWS!!!–I live right down the street from John’s Marketplace and, needless to say, they consistently have my business.
2) Public transportation–I have had quite the string of bad luck when it comes to vehicles because I had to rely on one in my hometown (Fort Wayne, IN) and, of course, I was always broke and could never REALLY afford upkeep. Here, it is not necessary to own a vehicle at all. I really appreciate that about this city.
3) The Cheerful Tortoise–Thursday nights… dollar beers and thirty cent wings. Enough said.
4) Ground Kontrol–Classic videogames and cheap beer.
5) Untouched nature–I love that this city is a perfectly blended landscape of concrete jungle and naturally wooded areas.

Least Favorite
1) ALLERGIES–Apparently the Willamette Valley has the highest allergen count of anywhere on the planet. Didn’t receive a warning on THAT one.
2) Hippies. I work at Whole Foods. Need I say more?
3) Road Construction.
4) Bad drivers.
5) Raised bridges.

Q: Finally, what do you do at the Microcosm store?

A: While at the store, it’s a variety of things that I do that range anywhere from making buttons, cutting patches, straightening up shelves, or painting things. It really just depends on what needs to be done for that particular day.

Hi, this is Steven from Microcosm. 

Also from Boxcar Books- volunteer powered, collectively run bookstore and community space in Bloomington IN.

For those that may want to know, I’m leaving Microcosm and Boxcar and moving away from Bloomington.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone I’ve worked with over the years and all the friends I’ve made along the way.  On tour, tabling, at conferences, and via the internerd.  Everyone doing anything to support independent and radical projects deserves a big old pat on the back. 

But a nod and a wink sometimes aren’t enough in these fucked up and troubled times.  It’s like how frustrated I get when the punk kid won’t pay the $5 for the show but have cash for beers all night long.  Fuck that kid.

I was talking about this with Bill Daniel, author of Microcosm’s title Mostly True, on his recent film tour stop in Bloomington.  Things are so fucked and getting way worse.  I’m talking about collapse.  I’m talking about the Gulf Oil Disaster as a clear wake up call and chance to embrace a completely different paradigm.  But we don’t grasp it, signs and warnings will continue to fall through our fingers.

Are we going to dig our feet in and fight it out?  Or are we going to pull up shop and relocate to New Zealand or someplace, any place that doesn’t seem as fucked?

In a way, that’s one of the reasons why I’m moving to Knoxville TN to get a masters in social work. C’mon….there could be way more radical and anarchist professionals, right?  Lawyers, doctors, social workers, psychologists, instructors, scientists, maybe even anti-capitalist dentists?  Ha!  Whatever we can do to support our local communities and enrich our lives with good, local, meaningful work.  I’m trying to use my privilege and my roots in punk and DIY to try and dig deep and create better organization, adequate funding, and sustainability for radical projects.  Or just attempt to do more.  As my co-worker Chris says..”Something, anything.” 

I don’t want to lose touch with people doing good work, contacts and friends I’ve made along the way.

So please stay in touch, let me know what you think, and keep on keepin’ on.

steven@boxcarbooks.org

I’m now on facebook, no matter how long I tried to avoid it: http://www.facebook.com/stevenstothard

Please support Boxcar Books and other radical bookstores and spaces like it — they are too few and far between.   http://www.boxcarbooks.org/

Love always and every time, Steven

Hi ! I’m Giz, the new intern here at Microcosm Publishing in Bloomington, IN.
I came all the way from france to stuff packages and stick pages but Bloomington is a really nice place for this kind of work. I find out about Microcosm about two years ago when I read Alex Wrekk’s Stolen Sharpie Revolution and I kept ordering things from them since they were the distro with the cheapest international postage out there. Besides that economic interest, my relationship to the zine medium itself is mostly based on trades and I’m even planning to do a research about it as a master degree thesis at the University of Nice.

As the subject exist mostly within postals system, I’m looking to connect with some zinesters who trade zines, some who don’t, non-zinesters with interest on zine making and trades (like if they trade zines for something else), and any people with an interest in collecting zines. here’s a few questions for which you can send me back the responses :

1- do you trade zines ? for how long ?

2- did you ever get non-fair trades ? did you sent yours anyway ?

3- did you ever refuse a trade ?

4- do you keep your zines as a collection ?

5- is trading a good way to expand your collection, compared to donations (for the zine libraries) or sales ?

6- except money and another zine, did you ever get something else for a zine ?

7- then some presentation : name, age, gender and the city/country you’re coming from.

contact : xtramedium@laposte.net

Ain’t no party like a zinester party! The Portland Microcosm Publishing zine store has moved to a bigger location yet again! After leaving the super rad ActivSpace building in SE, the zine store is now settling into its new digs down on 636 SE 11th .

To celebrate, the zine store folks are throwing a big ol’ zine fiesta grand opening on July 1st. Says party organizer/store employee Rio Safari, “After several moves and spaces with less than adequate dimensions, the Microcosm Store has finally found a spacious home in inner SE! Not only does it have room for awesome literature and the resident zine trike, we can finally host the grand opening party that we’ve always wanted.”

The party starts at 6pm and will feature zine readings by Sarah Royal and DIY Guide to Screenprinting’s John Isaacson along with a super sweet and super free vegan barbecue in the parking lot. Says Rio, “Microcosm Store finally has a parking lot, and we intend to fill it up with good people and grilled veggies!”

(Photo by Elly Blue)