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LAS - Season 2, Episode 3: Ziba of Zebra Radar Zine

maira [00:00:09]  Hi, welcome to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines, I am Maira, your host, and today I am joined by Ziba who is a zine librarian and zinester and all around great person.

ziba [00:00:34] Hi. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thank you for the intro.

maira [00:00:39] No problem. So I have a few questions about zine librarianship and a few questions about how you got into zines. So let's, uh, let's jump in. Yes. So how did you get into making zines? How long have you been making zines?

ziba [00:01:00] I found out about zines in the nineties. In high school, I went to Long Beach Poly High School, home of the Jackrabbits. I'm class of 2000. So over two decades ago now, I graduated. My friend Rena made zines as a hobby. She had an older sister that was into Riot Girl and made mix tapes with Bratmobile and Bikini Kill. And I think that influenced my friend to also listen to those bands and make zines. So she had a zine called Luna and Tuna and asked her friends to contribute by doing a little drawing or making a movie review or a Joke or any little thing. She's like, just give me something and I'll put it in my zine and distribute to everyone for free, for fun. So I never made my own zines until 2012. The first LA Zine fest at the last bookstore in downtown L.A. they had a call for zinesters. The first ever LA Zine Fest, get a table and I knew it would be really cool to bring it back from the nineties for Rina for her birthday was also December. I think that's when the tables were due. So I bought a table and I was like, "This is your birthday present, make a zine again." And then I said, "Well, now I'll make a zine too," for the first time. Now that it's a thing right now, let me get back into it or start it in 2012 on my own. So I made a zine for the first time then and tabled and the rest is history. So...

maira [00:02:35] that's awesome that you were able to kind of bring it back and like get back into it, especially for such a a big zine fest. I know it was the first one, but LA Zine Fest is like one of the heavy hitters on the West Coast for sure.

ziba [00:02:55] Yeah, I was surprised that I got in. It was three of us for a table half table. So I made up a Distribution label, I called ourselves Three Amigos Press because we were three friends from Long Beach Poly High School in the 90s, so it was my friend Simon, my friend Rena and I. And we each had our own zines at the half table. And I had little buttons that said Three Amigos press that my friend designed there, like the TV, the movie Three Amigos.

maira [00:03:24] Nice. Do you remember what your first zine was about?

ziba [00:03:26] Yeah, I just used what I had. I had a scrapbook for three years. I was collecting eight and a half by eleven big scrapbook. I was just on my own taking music posters from my dorm room and college that I just moved out of and graduated from. And I wanted to cut it up and put it in a scrapbook, so from 2006. The scrapbook had a lot of band posters and then anything else I liked, so I just had, like photos from the photo booth and stickers and stamps and some doodles, but it was mostly cut and paste, especially Zebras. I really like Zebras, so I had that in there. So it was like a journal of my life, a visual journal of my life for three years. And then I said, this will work for 2012 Zine Fest since I had this scrap book from 2006 to 2009. So I photocopied it in color and in black and white and I shrunk it so it was smaller like half of an eight and a half by eleven and then made it into a booklet and stapled it. And I just used my favorite pages because it was a large scrapbook. So I sent all these will be the best of the best. And I called it Zebra Radar Zine, but I did have so many that I broke it up into volume one and volume two. And that was my first zines.

maira [00:04:54] That's awesome. And Zebra Radar is you're still using that name, correct?

ziba [00:05:01] Yes. It was on hiatus when I had a partner project and then I went back to it after I stopped my partner project. So my Instagram is ZebraRadarZine and I think there's still three amigos Press Tumblr.com as a zine page on Tumblr, where it started from 2012 and is still on. So then also Facebook ZebraRadarZine and you could just use the hashtag on Twitter. So I think you'll find it everywhere. I even made a video. I digitized my zine into an animation for a grad school program for a visual video, and that's on YouTube and Vimeo as well, as a zebra radar zine digital story.

maira [00:05:49] That's so cool. So you are a librarian and you started the zine Library at the Baldwin Hills Library in L.A..

ziba [00:06:03] Yes, in 2017. Yeah. But when I started that job for the system, I had just come from Long Beach Public Library where I helped start a zine library there and I didn't want to stop working with zines, so I asked if I could circulate them at that branch. And then a year later, other librarians joined in their branch. So now we have seven branches. At Los Angeles Public Library circulating zines, and they are cataloged, so there's over a thousand zines in the catalog and the website is lapl.org/zines, where you can find blogs about zinesters that a coworker does, a lot of, and I'm hoping to do one with you for the next few months.

maira [00:06:54] Yeah. Hell Yeah. So I know a lot of libraries are closed right now or are doing like curbside pickup only, are zines able to be checked out right now?

ziba [00:07:10] Yes, I even saw one a few weeks ago. The blogs really helped because then it brings the spotlight on the materials that, "Oh this is part of a library. I can check them out," so you can place a hold through the catalog and it'll go to the nearest curbside pickup location. 26 of 73 are open for curbside pickup and you can get that zine sent over, it'll take a few days and you'll pick it up in a bag. It'll already be checked out to you, and it'll be in front of the library at the time you schedule your pick up appointment, checked out to you for free.

maira [00:07:51] Oh cool so you can get it from any library's zine Library.

ziba [00:07:53] Mm hmm. Yeah. If they're active, most libraries' Staff are working from home, so they don't go in a lot, so depending how active that zine library staff is, they can pull the zine and send it over, hopefully within a week.

maira [00:08:11] That's so cool. I don't think my library has a zine library, but I should petition because I think that'd be really cool. I Think Berkeley Public Library has a zine library, but I'm honestly not too plugged in to the like the Bay Area's zine library scene, and I should change that.

ziba [00:08:37] Yeah, I know it's big in Oakland Public Library. You can check it out with your library card. And I know San Francisco Public Library has a really cool zine collection that's in house only, not for checking out, so but still worth going in person and asking. Well, I guess if they're not open to the public, they'd be hard to do.

maira [00:08:58] Something to look forward to, I guess, once things are open and safe.

ziba [00:09:06] And even now with everything closed, a lot of libraries do zine workshops, through zoom and Google, so a video chat. And so I've helped host a few of those and helped post a couple this coming March as well.

maira [00:09:23] Oh, cool. Through your library?

ziba [00:09:25] Through our system. I think it's advertised for teens. This is a quaran-zine Teen Workshop on March 30th at 4:00 p.m..

maira [00:09:37] Awesome. I will get that information from you and post it in the show notes as well.

ziba [00:09:42] Oh, cool.

maira [00:09:44] So how did you get into library science, I guess?

ziba [00:09:48] Oh, yeah. That was something I fell into. I was doing pre-med bio-sci at UC Irvine straight out of high school and then joined the public radio station on my campus, KUCI, so got more involved with music and didn't really focus on getting into medical school. So I didn't end up using that degree and my job as a student was working at the library. So I said, well, might as well continue this profession since I'm here. So then I needed to get a master's degree to even apply to be a librarian. So I worked on getting into grad school, which I needed a second degree to bring my GPA up. So I got a Bachelors of Art in film and media studies at UC Irvine while working full time staff as a library assistant at the UC Irvine Libraries after graduation. And so, I stayed on that campus 13 years at UC Irvine and got two degrees as well as a online and in person masters degree from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in the Midwest. So that's the first time I've ever been to Chicago was going to library school those two years, which was 2010 to 2012. And then I was applying at least to 18 different positions once I got my degree and I got one offer to work in Orange County at the Orange County Public Libraries in the Costa Mesa branch. That was my first librarian position as a public librarian because I had always been in academic librarianship just because that's where I got my degree. So I thought I would stay in academic librarianship and I think that was harder to get into. So I just used what I could get and had a full time job at Orange County, then Long Beach and now Los Angeles.

maira [00:11:35] Cool.

ziba [00:11:36] That's why I guess since I fell into it, I kind of just what I like, I try to put into it. So I like film, I like music, I like zines. And that's fun for me too, to stay happy at my job.

maira [00:11:48] Yeah, that's awesome that you're able to bring in these aspects that you really love and kind of make it work for you while you're working.

ziba [00:11:57] Yes, I love reading as well. Of course, that's just part of the job.

maira [00:12:03] So you also used to be an organizer for Long Beach scene first. How was that experience?

ziba [00:12:09] It was really cool tabling the first year in 2015. I heard it was harder to get into than Los Angeles because it was a smaller space. So I was surprised I got into the first one there and then I was asked to help organize in 2016 when I was at the Orange County Public Library and then had moved to Long Beach Public Library and started the Long Beach, helped start the Long Beach zine Library. Then it was more of a fit that, "Oh let's have you help organize as a librarian from Long Beach Public Library and a zinester that has tabled here." So this when people left, they needed someone. So I was lucky to work with that group and learn about organizing in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. I think I did it four years. And then of course we were on hiatus 2020 and it seems like we're in hiatus 2021. But hopefully we get back into it because I love supporting zines at my hometown because I'm born and raised Long Beach, California where I grew up and learned about zines at high school. So it really helps me to stay connected to my community. And now that I even started a Long Beach public radio show once a week since September of last year, it's even more like a tie into Long Beach, even though I don't work at the public library anymore.

maira [00:13:35] Yeah, you're really bringing it.

ziba [00:13:36] But I mean, to get more to your question, organizing it is a it's a thankless job. We don't get paid. We're volunteers. But it's very fulfilling because it's my hometown and because it's such a big event that everyone brings something as an organizer. Everyone brings something unique to the team. We have one person focusing on live bands, booking them for the zine fest. And another person focusing on music, food carts, bringing them, food carts, bringing them to the zine fest. Another one was more like community organizations tabling nonprofits and then the zinester organizers, the organizer organizers. So altogether, we just, it works out and hopefully it comes back. It's a lot of fun. So...

maira [00:14:22] it's cool that you're able to bring it full circle for Long Beach. And so it's like where you got into zines and you're also able to bring zines to the community there again.

ziba [00:14:33] Yeah, I love that. And I hope the Long Beach zine library is growing and living because I think it really takes the community wanting zines and also at least one dedicated full time librarian that is going to watch The zines and love the zines and grow the zine library.

maira [00:14:52] And I love Long Beach zine Fest. It's been one of my favorite fests since it started. I think that was my first, like out of town zine fest that I ever went to. And I remember driving down well, the first one that I ever participated in, out of town. And it was really fun driving down and just hanging out with my friends and meeting all new people, because at that point I had only ever tabled in the Bay Area. And a lot of bay area zine events are the same people, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of the people are amazing and really great and really creative. But it was cool getting out of town. And I remember I tabled the first year and I was like, "wow, this is so cool, it's so well organized." And then I think I've tabled every year since then. I think I maybe missed 2018 because I was working weekends at the time, but really great fest, really great organizers, just well put together in every sense I think.

ziba [00:16:04] Oh thank you. Yeah. I owe it all to the teammates so I hope everyone's still on board because you know, people change jobs and grow families and change some interests. So who knows if it's coming back. I hope so.

maira [00:16:19] We're not starting yet. But for east bay zine fest, I don't know, like who's going to be on board this year because it's it's hard to plan an online fest. We did ours online last year and I don't think things will be like open and safe by December of this year, unfortunately. So hoping everyone comes back. But I also understand that it's like really hard to juggle regular organizing on top of life. But then when you make everything digital and you're just plugged in all the time, it's very draining. So I get it.

ziba [00:17:02] It is. That's why I'm guessing more hiatus until we're all safer outside instead of safer at home.

maira [00:17:11] would love to be safe outside right now.

ziba [00:17:12] Oh yeah, I did. I did table San Francisco zine fest once. So that was nice being in that outdoor area, community room and also, like you said, seeing people that I don't normally see because L.A., Long Beach and Orange County is all kind of the same people. Because it's all like Southern California, so it's nice driving up and seeing a different scene, like, I don't know these people.

maira [00:17:43] Yeah, it's like opposites. So there's like a zine librarian. I'm trying to think of the right word. Well, there's the zine librarian unconference. Can you talk about that a little bit?

ziba [00:17:55] Oh, yes. We had ours just this past Halloween weekend to overlap with the day of the dead. So it was a three day international online zine library worker unconference, since we're not necessarily all librarians, but we love zines and zine libraries and the zine community. So it was great to see everybody from all over in all time zones doing live presentations for the first time, because in the past they were in person conferences and I helped host the first one I ever went to, Long Beach Public Library, which was 2017. So when I started at L.A., but I had already set it to be in Long Beach because they switch every year where it's going to be. So I never had been in the past because it was always somewhere you had to fly out to and I didn't have the money necessarily or time off to go. So it was great. They came to Long Beach and I could see how great the event was. So I kept going after that when I could. So I went to the Minneapolis, Minnesota one was the last one I went to in person and that was really cool to be at a college dorm and hang out with zine librarians and talk about zines. And a lot of them are academic librarians. So they make things so different, like educational primary sources, like so special and unique. And they have to be in an archive or don't take them home. And I don't know, it's just a whole different experience to talk about zines with all different people from all over and that those are mostly from the United States. So this one online was even more mind blowing because we had presentations from Athens, Greece, and I think Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong and then the U.K. and Scotland and Edinburgh, like everywhere. I was like, wow, zines are really everywhere and every language and all over the world is this is crazy seeing that they gave us video tours of their libraries and their community, a lot were community libraries, not necessarily public libraries or even academic libraries or like pop up like this is our zine fest, this is our zine Library, this is our zine workshops. And we had a presentation from India and I was like, wow. And they were just talking about rich kids making zines in India versus poor kids making zines in India. And they're saying, oh, don't call these things zines if you're rich because those aren't zines, zines are for us. And it's just very interesting hearing a whole different world wide perspective. And those I think are online. If you go to the website, you can watch the presentation they recorded. So that's at zinelibraries.info.

maira [00:20:48] That's really cool. I feel like that conversation, specifically the one that the zine librarians from India were having that kind of lines up with the like, art book versus zine debate that I see a lot, especially the the bigger zine fests. So it's it's interesting that that is happening kind of all over the place. It's like a global zine thing.

ziba [00:21:17] Definitely. and I'm interested in international zines because when it was safe to travel, I like to travel to different countries and I always want to know where the zines? because I know there are zines all over the world that I was like, I don't it's not on the tourist map. I can't just go find the zines like I've never lived here. So I'm like, "where are the zines? Where are the zines?" and when I ask other people, they say, "oh, just look for the punks and when you find the punks, you'll find the zines," I was like, oh, okay. So I have to ask a different question, not where are the zines but where are the punks?

maira [00:21:49] Good advice.

ziba [00:21:51] So I asking the wrong question. Yeah.

maira [00:21:54] What other kinds of presentations are there at the Unconference?

ziba [00:21:59] So many because it's since it's not a formal conference they let you decide what you want to hear. So when it starts as the unconference, says first is OK, what do you what are you all that are here want to learn and take away so they'll make that a session and whoever wants to go goes. So it's up to whoever shows up to the conference and conference to make up the topic. So it was everything I could think of, like teaching with zines, cataloging zines How to get your institution to buy in to having zines, like how to advocate for zines, and then also it was interesting to me talking about zinesters wanting their zines removed from the library or edited in the catalog. So deciding like, OK, it's not the library's material because it's a zine, it's the zinester's material. So respect the zinester. Unlike books, we wouldn't do that with books we would leave it in because it's libraries, because the authors went through a publisher and we purchased it, it's the library's. But zines are different even though we purchased it. We have to respect the zinester and we have to give them the power to edit their catalog record if they change their name or didn't want their identity on there or anything. zines are a different type of material, so that's very interesting to hear a discussion about. It's just I feel like it would be hard to maybe explain that to other non-zine librarians.

maira [00:23:38] That concept, though, is I think it's why a lot of people prefer zine making to traditional publishing is you have more control over the content and kind of the distribution.

ziba [00:23:53] Yeah, I think so. That's why. Because zines, it's a do it yourself. You put it in whatever you want. But then it's up to you to promote it as much as you can and sell it as much as you want to sell it. That's why for me personally, it's not a business. It's a hobby. And I know I'll lose money doing it, but it's just fun to be part of it.

maira [00:24:15] Agreed. Let's see, do you have any projects you're working on now that you want to highlight?

ziba [00:24:22] Yeah, the zine workshops, we do a continuous one with the Los Angeles Public Library, which is the second Wednesday of every month on Zoom at 6 p.m. and that's all ages and all us zine librarians take turns hosting them on zoom. So we had one pair hosted in January and February and another is hosting it March, April. And I'm either doing May, June or July, August. I forget which one, but come to all of them. And that's the second Wednesday at 6 pm. Through the... and you can find it on the LAPL.org, especially if you go to LAPL.org/zines. Because it has all the zine events, the zine blogs, the zine list. And so that's, I guess, plugging zines in the LA system.

maira [00:25:17] Are those workshops themed or is it just kind of like a free for all, making zines?

ziba [00:25:23] Yeah, they generally it depends on the host. So the last two are free for all. I think this March is Women's History Month as a theme and then I think Pride Month will be the pride theme. And July, international zine month will be focused on, I think, more international zines maybe or something.

maira [00:25:49] Cool. That's in July, right?

ziba [00:25:52] Yes. Uh huh.

maira [00:25:52] International Zine Month.

ziba [00:25:54] And I'm pretty sure that's when I'm hosting. So I think I was going to have a guest and talk about zine librarian unconference a little bit because that was so international. I want to introduce whoever shows up to all the zine libraries around the world that I learned about last year.

maira [00:26:11] That's so cool.

ziba [00:26:12] Mark your calendars. Second Wednesday of July.

maira [00:26:15] Yes, second Wednesday of July. I'm I'm putting it on my calendar right now.

ziba [00:26:20] Thank you.

maira [00:26:21] I will after this, but I will do it. Do you still do collage zines, kind of like when you started?

ziba [00:26:29] Yes, for the most part, I like to cut out images from discarded books and magazines. So like decoupage. It's harder to find Zebras, though, so I'll have to draw my own zebras in sometimes. But this whole pandemic has been more of quaran-zine theme with different types of prompts from the online zine workshops I've been to hosted elsewhere and they, the themes are more like what are you looking forward to when the pandemic's over? So I have some that have answers to some questions, like my answer is live shows. I want to be in the pit again, front row at a big, huge concert that I'm... Actually I was supposed to go to May 2020, I have a sold out ticket for system of a down, front front row. And then that got pushed to May 2021 and now it's officially on for October of this year. Which I'm not sure if that's really happening, but hopefully because I will be front row, but I know it'll be different, I wonder how they're going to limit the pit. If it's sold out, they're going to make it can't be front row or I don't know how they're going to do it. I don't know if we still have to wear masks in the pit and who knows.

maira [00:27:54] Yeah, things are going to be very different in a lot of ways that I don't really know how to imagine, I think.

ziba [00:28:03] Yes, like at the library, they're installing like Plexiglas for our circulation desk and reference desk. So I never would have imagined working at the public library with the plastic divider in front of my face, I think of that more like the bank when they don't want to get robbed, that it's just like, OK, well, we don't want you to breathe on us. So here's the plastic screen. The was like, OK, this will be different.

maira [00:28:34] Yeah, I feel like the way people are going to interact with each other in public is definitely going to. I wonder if it's going to change forever or if there's going to be like a point where we can be like, OK, no more Plexiglas barriers.

ziba [00:28:51] Yeah, I think little by little it will dissolve back to normal, but not any time soon. And some people may never revert back to the way it was pre pandemic because of their own anxiety. I see people at the market with that are like next to me and they tell me, oh, you're too close when I'm just like walking by. So I'm not even, like, right behind them. So I waslike OK, lady, stuff like that.

maira [00:29:21] I think it's hard because the aisles in a grocery store aren't even six feet wide.

ziba [00:29:26] Yeah. So they're trying to get here and some markets still are crowded. They're not really enforcing the limit of how many people can be in the line and in the grocery store at once. So it depends where you go. I guess how they enforce.

maira [00:29:41] And the grocery store is pretty much the only place that I have been semi regularly in the last year. And we're only going like once every two weeks. But it's that's just life now is like we go at 7 AM on a weekday, get our groceries for two weeks and then go home and then stay home.

ziba [00:30:04] That's good. Yeah. So that's really good. Yeah. At the library I'm one of the curbside pick up locations is where I'm staffed at is Palms Rancho Park Branch, and we're not, so I do go in three times a week, working indoors with coworkers. So that's different, but we've been doing that since July of last year. I think, or June. I've been in the live, with people eight hours a day, but we don't really stay close to each other physically, and we've spread out our breaks so we're not in the same place, eating or drinking or breathing, hopefully things stay safe and get safer with more interaction.

maira [00:30:53] Yeah, I miss in person zine fests a lot. And just being able to be in the same room as a community that I identify with and being able to talk to people face to face and trade. And I don't know it, it feels so far away in both directions. Like I feel like the last fest I went to in person was, it was almost exactly a year ago. It was February 2020 dear Diary zine fest, and who knows when the next fest I'll get to go to will be in person. So just I don't know, I really miss that like in person connection to other people.

ziba [00:31:39] Yeah. Maybe they could do Joshua Tree Zine Fest because that one was always outdoors. Or at least it was the last time I went to it. It was in the desert, like pop up tables. So the desert was so big and free they could really space everyone out. They could probably do that.

maira [00:31:55] Start a petition. That's one that I always wanted to go to, was Joshua Tree Zine Fest. I've never been to Joshua Tree, but it's it's on my list of places to go someday, it seems. It's just very beautiful. From all the photos I've seen,.

ziba [00:32:14] Yeah I like it, I should go back soon.

maira [00:32:16] More easily accessible for you, I think.

ziba [00:32:18] Three day weekend. Yeah. I think it's two hours. That's not bad. But I do want to go to up north as well. Northern California. I know that's like eight hours though. If I drive safely. That's longer, but I'm reading a book now that makes me want to go. But it was San Francisco of 1978. And it's really cool.

maira [00:32:41] So you need a car and a time machine.

ziba [00:32:43] Yeah. Although I guess now I wouldn't want to go and say, well yeah, they would talk a lot about live shows in this book and the punk scene and they were like, oh let's go see a show the Dead Kennedys are playing. And I was like, oh, that would be cool to see in 1978 in San Francisco.

maira [00:33:04] What book is it?

ziba [00:33:05] It's Called music from Another World. Oh, look it's right here!

maira [00:33:11] Music from another world.

ziba [00:33:13] Yeah. And the back says gay rights are human rights. So it has a lot of, it's historical fiction. Change the rules, not yourself. That's the slogan. It's really cool because they're pen pals once in Orange County, one's in San Francisco and both of their families are conservative, or at least their parents are. so they're like and they're seventeen years old and so they're hiding their identity from their parents. And so it's really cool to read. I'm almost done with it. But yeah, it starts in the summer of '77 and I highly recommend it because it's good book about California. It just was published last year in 2020.

maira [00:33:55] Cool.

ziba [00:33:56] So I'm doing the audio book so you can listen to it. I like to listen so that I'm multitasking, walk and listen and driving, wash dishes and listen.

maira [00:34:09] That sounds really cool. I'll have to check it out.

ziba [00:34:12] It's by Robin Talley, T-a-l-l-e-y.

maira [00:34:17] Oh that's all the questions I have. Do you have anything else that you want to talk about?

ziba [00:34:24] Just thank you for having me. I know you've been doing this for a while, so I'm glad I get to be on it and I hope people find it interesting. But I have to share and if you want to learn more, check out my music show. That's every week it's on the Mixcloud.com/DJZibaZ.

maira [00:34:48] Cool I'll include that in the show notes as well.

ziba [00:34:50] Thank you. It's not a podcast but I do back announce every four songs. So within the hour I give some updates about things happening around town and me.

maira [00:35:03] Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for doing this. It was great catching up. I haven't seen you in a while and yeah it was really fun talking to you about zines.

ziba [00:35:11] Thank you. You too. And then we'll hear from you on the LAPL zine blog. I'll get to you about that.

maira [00:35:18] Cool. All right. Well, thank you, Ziba, for joining us on Long Arm Stapler. I'm Maira and I'm available at LongArmStapler.com. You can also find me on Instagram, long arm stapler with no vowels, and on Twitter @longarmstapler. Thanks for listening!

[long-arm-stapler]

S2 EP1: Miquela Davis

Maira (00:00):

Hello! Uh, welcome to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines, back with season two, after a long hiatus. Today, I am joined by Miquela Davis and I will let you introduce yourself.

Miquela (00:33):

Hi, I'm Miquela Davis and I'm super excited to be on this podcast with you today.

Maira (00:40):

Awesome. I'm really looking forward to starting to record again. Um, like I mentioned, I took a 16 month break from recording just because the world was a lot and uh, yeah, February 2021 back in action. Yeah. So I have with me, um, two of, one of your, your book, pup provisions, a copy of Miq's mix volume two a music themed zine. Do you want to talk about either of those or anything you've been working on lately.

Miquela (01:21):

Um, I actually liked those choices that you already have, um, because those are actually my favorite things that I've done. Um, the, the favorite things that I've published at least, um, which is funny, cause I also make a comic called cool dog that some people may have picked up, at like zine fests, but I really loved the Miq's mix. Uh, I made two of them, but the second one is my favorite because it features a bunch of like music themed comics and illustrations, and just has the loose theme of music. And then put provisions is the most recent thing that I made and that's like an actual book. Um, and it has illustrations of different dog breeds, um, in alphabetical order, along with snacks that start with the same letter as the dog breed, if that makes sense. Yeah. So that one took me. How long did it take me to draw? I think I did like a drawing every day for that. And it started as a drawing, um, exercise for me. And then I decided to compile it into a book because people wanted it. And then, um, I wanted to kind of get back into zine making, but it ended up being more of a like actual published. It's more nice looking.

Maira (02:34):

You have like a hard cover.

Miquela (02:37):

Yeah. I just, I just went on like Shutterfly and got it published that way. Oh, so it's still DIY, but it's it's way nicer quality than my like Xerox stuff.

Maira (02:47):

Yeah. I have not ventured into the world of anything but Xerox, but it's exciting. Yeah. What do you, I remember seeing your daily drawing challenges and I was like, Oh, this is really cool. I love dogs. I love snacks. Um, and then you were like, I'm going to make a book. I was like, all right, I'm going to get a copy. Um, I think my favorite is D for docs and I'm a little biased because I have a dachshund.

Miquela (03:17):

Yes. And your dachshund is adorable.

Maira (03:20):

and she's very much like your dog. Yeah.

Miquela (03:23):

Yeah. I feel like our dogs are such kindred spirits and like they've never met, but I feel like they have a connection it's like weird.

Maira (03:32):

Yeah. They would probably hang out in the dog park. Yeah. So, so far I've only ever interviewed people in the Bay, in my living room. Um, so this is exciting because obviously we're not in the same place right now. Um, you are based in Southern California yes. And pre COVID. Or can you talk about like the zine scene pre COVID?

Miquela (04:00):

Yeah, definitely. I could talk about the zine scene pre zine scene here. Really? How far back do you want me to go? I'm sure. I remember growing up and like I heard about zines through a book from my uncle when I was like 16 and he went to school with Mark Todd, um, who wrote, co-wrote a book called what you mean? What's a zine? Um, so they were like college buds and Mark Todd is I think still based in LA and he's an artist there with his partner, Esther Pearl Watson. And so they're both zine makers. They decided to make this book about how to make scenes. And so, because I heard about it that way, there was like nothing in orange County that was Xen based. As far as I saw at the time I had to go to like LA I saw some zines in like some record stores every so often, but it wasn't really a thing here.

Miquela (04:58):

And I gravitated towards Portland, Oregon because of that, I was like, Oh, I'm going to get out of orange County. I'm going to get out of Southern California and head towards where I saw zines being made at the time. And this was like early two thousands. Um, so then when I came back from living in Portland, that was around 2014, 2015, and I don't know how the orange County zine Fest came to be, but it popped up, I believe in 2014, I wasn't at the very first one and the very first zine Fest. I don't even remember where that was held, but then I found them and I applied to the second one, I believe in 2015. And I've been involved with the OC zine fest ever since. Um, I participated in it that one, uh, and the long beach one. And I sort of just found that there were a bunch of zine Fests popping up and I was able to find them through social media. Uh, social media was like a huge player in me getting involved in it. I don't think I would have been able to find it otherwise.

Maira (06:04):

Yeah. I have a similar experience with social media. I got into zines through tumblr and I really wasn't able to find zine fests nearby until, I mean, obviously I started looking for them and we have a few in the Bay area, but like Instagram and back when I used Facebook were very helpful in like finding zines.

Miquela (06:31):

Yeah. And the Bay area too was like one of those places when I was like a teenager or a young adult, like now I'm 30. So like I'm talking like, you know, 10 years ago, I feel like 10 years ago the Bay area had more, but you probably would know that more than me, but I, I feel like, you know, 10 years ago there was at least that community there.

Maira (06:53):

Yeah. I mean EBABZ, um, the East Bay alternative Book and zine Fest that I helped organize. This was our 11th year. And so, and I didn't even start getting involved in that until 2014, I believe. Um, that was the first time I ever tabled. Was at EBABZ 201- It doesn't sound, it doesn't sound right. But I think it's true. Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm learning more about the Bay areas and seeing more and more like every, not every day, but every time I go looking for stuff and it's really cool that there are so many zine fests everywhere. Um, and a lot of them have been able to pivot to online, which I think is really cool over the last year.

Miquela (07:42):

Yeah. That's been really cool to see and you're right about like these zine scenes that have been around, but then you just find out more about them. Like I found that too. It's like, Oh, you really stayed underground. Like, I'm only hearing about like these scenes that have been in existence for a long period of time, but it's like, we're only really hearing about them through like the internet and then word of mouth. Once you get involved, you're like, Oh, there's been like a zine Fest in the inland empire for years. I had no idea. It's cool. I like it.

Maira (08:15):

Yeah. zines, I think has always been very word of mouth for me. Um, and I liked that about them. Just, they're not super commercial. I mean, I, I feel like nobody's really in zines to make money.

Miquela (08:31):

No, it's for the love of them for sure.

Maira (08:33):

Yeah. And so I like the they're still predominantly, I don't know if they're still predominantly underground events because you know, they do get publicity, but I like, I love actually just how DIY things have stayed.

Maira (08:54):

Yeah. Even in the internet age with social media and then also like even programs where you can make, zines more digital. I love seeing artists make zines, still this kind of like old school Xerox machine, um, the risograph, like that's become super popular. I've seen with zines and that's kind of like an older art form, but it's become new again.

Maira (09:20):

Yeah. There's a lot of, um, riso like presses in the Bay area and it all looks so cool. I don't make art zines, so I guess, or at least make zines aren't predominantly like featuring art. And so I haven't kind of dipped my toes into that yet, but it seems like a really cool process. Just you have to like separate the images by color, I guess.

Miquela (09:50):

I'm not that familiar with it either. So I think you're right. Yeah. You have to separate it and you have to have them like, it's, it's kind of like, screen printing from my understanding and I, I don't even understand screen printing. I'm like very basic.

Maira (10:04):

Yeah, same. I don't, I feel like I don't put enough thought, like, I don't think ahead enough when I'm drawing to separate things by color. It's just like

Miquela (10:15):

Same.

Maira (10:17):

Let me take a Sharpie to a piece of paper. Yeah.

Miquela (10:20):

Yeah. I'm like, I just got a pen and a paper and that's usually how I make all of my zines. I just like sit down and I, I just draw and then I will compile it together later on. Um, you know, maybe I'll cut out like a page or two, if I'm like, nah, this doesn't really work, but it's just like pen paper. Don't really put much thought into it. And then bam just release it.

Maira (10:41):

Yeah. Sometimes it's best to like, not put that much thought into it in my own experience.

Miquela (10:47):

It's raw!

Maira (10:47):

Yeah. It's, I mean, I've definitely made zines where it's very, like, I don't know. I made a zine once that was writing. I did for a creative writing class. And so that was more polished, I guess, than anything else I've done. But it's usually just me kind of sitting at my computer, treating it like a live journal entry and just printing it out, stapling it together and letting people read it.

Miquela (11:17):

That's so cool too. Like just letting it be this like free flowing thought process. And like, I've always admired like the way that you make your zines because like, they're just so personal too.

Maira (11:31):

Yeah. I, I got started with perzines and I didn't really venture into like fanzines or anything with like drawings of my own until the last few years. But perzines are really like where I got my start, I guess.

Miquela (11:49):

Yeah. And I think that's how we met too, was like, I was drawn to your more personal zines and I was like, that's really cool. That's cool of you to like put yourself out there, like that.

Maira (12:00):

Yeah, I love to overshare on the internet, so why not do it with paper and some staples?

Miquela (12:06):

Exactly.

Maira (12:07):

Yeah. Because we met at a zine Fest. I think. I don't remember which one

Miquela (12:12):

I don't remember either. I was like sitting here and trying to think I'm like, I know it was at a zine fest. Like that's how we know each other. That's how we ended up here. But it's been, it's been a while and it's like one of those things where like, I've seen you now at so many, I feel where I can't remember like the first one either.

Maira (12:29):

And I remember the last long beach zine Fest that was held in person. We, it was like a power block of my table, my friend Andi and then you. And that was fun.

Miquela (12:42):

That was so much fun.

Maira (12:45):

And then my car broke down. So it was like fun up until heading home. Um, it was a disaster and I was like, wow, I wish I could just stay in Long Beach Zine Fest for a little while longer and not be living a nightmare. But

Miquela (13:00):

Yeah, I remember that too. I remember like seeing your Instagram posts and I was like, no, we were having so much fun.

Maira (13:10):

Yeah. Um, but you know, shit happens. Um, my car works again, so it's all good. Yeah. What else you've got, you've got an art show coming up that you're curating.

Miquela (13:24):

I Do. Yeah. Speaking of like zine fests and stuff. Like I miss them so much, but yeah. I curate an art show every year now since 2018. Um, I used to have a space that I could do it out of that my friend ran called riff mountain. And, um, I would curate art shows there every so often, but this crushes one is the one that I've done every Valentine's day for the past, like four years now. And the one coming up is the first virtual one, just because I was like, you know what? I've been wanting to get an art show together somehow during this whole COVID time period. But this one is special just because I was like, I can't not have crushes happen just because like, it means so much to me personally, the first year I did it, I co curated with a fellow artist. Uh, Meg Gonzalez, who is a local, you know, Southern California artists. And I think they've reached, you know, further than just Southern California. Like they're, I don't know. Like they just seem like a really, uh, poppin' artist, like more and more people are finding them. And I, I love that for them.

Maira (14:34):

Bug Club Supreme. Yes.

Miquela (14:37):

Yeah. They're, they're super cool. And so we co curated the first crushes show together. And then the second one I did myself last year I did with another artist, uh, Chantal Elise, who's just under like Chantal Elise art on, uh, Instagram. And then this year I'm just doing it myself and I'm doing it virtually. So like, it's going to be interesting. I'm super excited to see what happens, but we're basically going to do kind of like a live stream. I asked other artists to make like short videos of themselves and talk about themselves in their work. I only got one so far, so I might not be like super prevalent throughout the show, but my whole idea is that because we're going virtual, I would like to showcase artists more than you can do at a traditional art show. Like usually you're there and you're looking at their work, but you don't really get to know the artists behind it and like the story behind the work or the deeper meaning of it, like, you're just getting your own interpretation. So I was like, what can we do differently? Because it's going digital this time. And that's why I tried to include that in the like submission form.

Maira (15:50):

Yeah. It seems like it's going to be really cool. Um, what are you like hosting it on a specific platform or

Miquela (15:59):

I think we're going with youtube. I say we, because my roommate is helping me out with it. Um, we've been testing out different forms of software and I think YouTube might be where we end up. I initially was thinking like just a zoom call and I would like put together some sort of like, um, a slideshow or something, but that's, I don't know if that's really gonna work out. Um, so I actually don't know yet. We're still working out like, which one's going to be the best one for the whole show and for people to participate in, but also kind of be like an audience because the whole idea is like, we want it to be participatory, but also like where you're kind of watching a show happen, but have it partially recorded and partially in real time.

Maira (16:49):

Okay, that kind of Makes sense To me.

Miquela (16:51):

Yeah. I'm like, it's, it's a lot, like, it makes sense in my mind, like the recorded part would be, we have images of people's artwork and we would be, you know, showing that for like a few minutes at a time. And then maybe between each piece, like visual piece, we would have a recording of an artist talking about themselves and their work, kind of like an introduction to their work before we show it. Um, I know we have a couple live readers of poetry. We don't have a confirmed DJ set yet, but we have some recorded music that we can play. And if anybody during the show would like to, you know, maybe do any sort of live reading or live music or something, we're open to that as well. So that's the mix between like the recorded and then the live stuff.

Maira (17:38):

Oh, cool. Um, and so that's gonna be on Valentine's day, correct?

Miquela (17:42):

Yes. On Valentine's day still don't have a time sorted either. Like a lot of this happened now looking back and like, Oh, I kind of did this last minute. I wasn't really thinking of like a lot of the work that's going to go into making it digital because I'm so used to like doing it in person and kind of like winging it, you know, like day of it's like, all right, well, I know that I have all these artists signed up and I've done it for a few years now and everything's kind of just worked out, but now with the digital aspect to it, like I'm not super technologically, like I'm proficient, but I feel like a lot of these programs that I'm looking at, I'm like, I don't understand like this whole like live feed and putting in microphones and all this stuff like having, um, you know, the screen switch between one from another, like, it's, it's a lot, it's pretty daunting. So we also have a lot of artists tuning in, or like submitting stuff from other parts of the world.

Maira (18:39):

Oh wow.

Miquela (18:39):

Like that part has been really interesting to me this year. I think, because it's been opened up to being like, Oh, this is online. I don't have to like ship anything. I just have to send an email with some photos of my work. If I want to, I've gotten people from like the Netherlands. I've gotten people from the UK submitting work. So that's been really, really cool. And I want to make sure that they're included too, as part of like the little live stream that we do. So I'm trying to figure out like a good time for that and see if we can like record something for people to view later on if they can't make it

Maira (19:14):

Cool. And people still have time to submit, um, To that, correct?

Miquela (19:21):

Yeah. As of recording this right now? Um, yes. So the deadline is February 10th.

Maira (19:28):

Okay. Yeah, I can include, um, cause it was like a Google submission form. Yeah?

Miquela (19:35):

Pretty much. So the way that the submission process is working right now, like that's basically how I get people's names and then information. And I make like a spreadsheet of what they tell me that they're going to submit. So then that way I can keep track of it. But then to actually submit after that, they still have to send me like photo either photos of their visual work, or if they want to take a video, maybe you made a sculpture or something and you want to show it off. Like you can just take your phone out and like walk around the sculpture and get all these cool angles on it. And just like send me a video clip. Um, I'm really open to like any medium. Cause it seems like any one is possible. So yeah, people can just still submit that then to my email. And then my email, I don't mind giving it out. It's just MIQ U I D e e@gmail.com.

Maira (20:24):

Cool. And yeah, I will post that in the show notes as well. Um, so if people are interested in submitting, they can, I am excited about it because I have, I've made a sculpture sort of thing, which I haven't really done before. Um, but I submitted it and it's really cute and I'm excited for other people to see it.

Miquela (20:48):

Yeah. I'm very excited for it too.

Maira (20:52):

Yeah. I just haven't like made, I haven't really done any art stuff in the last year, so I've, that's, I mean, that's not true, but it feels true. Like, I haven't, I don't feel like I have much art to show for the last year, but it was really cool, like working with my hands again and just gluing all of those tiny hearts. I was going to sew them, but I was like, that's so much work.

Miquela (21:20):

That's so much more work. Wow. Yeah.

Maira (21:23):

And I have a crush on hot glue. So I was like, okay,

Miquela (21:27):

There you go. It's perfect.

Maira (21:29):

Yeah. It's a good tie in, um, for those of you wondering, I made a Crunchwrap Supreme filled with hearts.

Miquela (21:35):

It's incredible.

Maira (21:37):

Yeah. I'm really excited. I submitted something to the show last year too. And it was one of the first times I've ever like submitted my art anywhere.

Miquela (21:48):

Really? I didn't even know that. Yeah. You've submitted last year and I was like super excited about it. Cause you like mailed me your work.

Maira (21:54):

Yeah, that was, I think aside from the long arm stapler show that we did in September of 2019, that was like maybe the second or third time I'd ever shown my work in like a show setting. And so that was really exciting. And I remember you posted like videos of the show in person and photos. And I was just like, I think it was, it was on Valentine's day again. And I was just on my phone, like kind of ignoring my boyfriend. And I was like, look at my work, look at my work. I was really excited about it.

Miquela (22:31):

I love that! Oh my God. That is so cool. Yeah. I was super happy to have you participate, but I had no idea. And I had also seen that show that you did up there. Um, the long-arm stapler one that looked super cool too.

Maira (22:45):

Yeah, that was my first, uh, time running a show and also being in a show, I guess, we recorded, the last time we recorded this podcast actually was like at the close of that show. So it's been an interesting time to like think back on it and really reflect on how cool it was. And like we had, it was mostly people from the Bay. Um, we had someone from, I can't remember where they live, but they're on the East coast. They submitted work two people from Southern California submitted work. And one of them was actually came up with their kids to see the show opening night. So that was really exciting too.

Miquela (23:30):

That's so cool.

Maira (23:31):

Yeah. And like I had just recently started at my current job and some of my coworkers came out and my like family came and it was, it was really cool.

Miquela (23:42):

That's awesome.

Maira (23:44):

I can't wait to be able do that again.

Miquela (23:47):

Yeah. That's been a major thing and like, yeah, once you do that, like, cause you said that it was your first time, like being in a show and then making a show, like putting on a show. That's why we started even doing crushes like that. I think that was my first time to like showing my work in a sort of like not gallery setting. Cause like I wouldn't call it necessarily gallery. It's like a DIY space, but having like an art show sort of feel where it's like, all right, I'm putting a bunch of things on the wall and showing off people's work and it's hard to get into like galleries or I don't know, just like art shows in general. I feel like don't really happen much. How is it up there? Like, are there more art shows that happen kind of similar to the one that you put on?

Maira (24:32):

Honestly, I don't know. Just cause I'm not like super tuned into the art world, I guess. Um, just cause I mostly like my, my medium is predominantly zines. Um, so that was another cool thing about the show was it was all zine themed. Um, but my friends are opening a gallery in Oakland actually, um, called crisis club and they're going to do shows there once it's safe. And I'm really excited about that because I feel like in the last few years, the amount of DIY spaces in the Bay has kind of dwindled. Um, it's exciting to like see that revival happening, even if it's slow going. And even if we can't have access to these spaces for awhile.

Miquela (25:30):

Yeah. Like I'm hoping after this is all over, we see kind of like a Renaissance in a way of like artistic expression, you know, having these sort of DIY spaces and um, cause yeah, there's at least down here they're really non-existent. Um, but I know like in the Bay area, like I would hear about them either growing up or like even recently, like I saw your friend's space, um, just through your Instagram and I was like, Oh, that looks cool. So yeah. I'm just hoping that we see more once this is all over.

Maira (26:06):

Yeah. And I think especially because people would just been sitting at home making art or at least I hope they've been sitting at home making art.

Miquela (26:14):

Yeah. The sitting at home, especially.

Maira (26:16):

Yeah. If you're making art good for you, but like please sit at home. Um, but yeah, I'm really excited to kind of see what art, like physical art spaces are like in a post COVID society.

Miquela (26:33):

And I think too, we're going to be starved for socialization. So it would be interesting to see like art shows become more of an inclusive thing.

Maira (26:42):

I agree. What else? Uh, are you working on anything else right now?

Miquela (26:47):

I have a lot of ideas floating right now. I know that's like, that could mean anything. Um, I do want to make more cool dog, but I'm just kind of like, he's an interesting character for me. I sometimes will get ideas for cool dog and then sometimes there'll be like, I want nothing to do with cool dog. I want to like work on other stuff, but I know that he's what the people want. Um, but I find it hard, harder and harder now just because I'm like, what is cool? Like, he's kind of like a weird problematic character because like a lot of times like his coolness is, is like something that I don't necessarily agree with. Um, like he, I dunno like the fact that he like smokes cigarettes and like seemingly doesn't like care about other people. Like he just cares about the sake of being cool. Like that's not actually cool. So there's like lots of questions like surrounding it. Like it's very like philosophical for me now. Whereas like it just started as like, this is a stupid comic thing that I'm just going to do for the hell of it. And then it like turned into like this character that I have to actually think about. And that's what makes me be like, I don't even want to think about it. I don't even want to make it, but I can't let him go either. So that's a long way of me just saying like, yeah, there may be more cool dog in the future. I definitely want to work more on zines but yeah, quarantine, you know, I'm just kind of taking a break, especially after making pup provisions that took a lot of energy, but I also would really like to make a memoir like graphic novel about the early two thousands and like my first year of high school. So that's been something that I've been working on slowly.

Maira (28:31):

Oh cool. We're the same age. So that was probably what like 20, 2004.

Miquela (28:35):

Yes, exactly. It was. So I'm thinking like, yeah, like 2000. Yeah, actually it would take place in 2004 because I was going to say the end of eighth grade, beginning of high school. So yeah, 2004.

Maira (28:49):

What a time to be alive.

Miquela (28:49):

Yes. And especially now, like I think like I've revisited that time period a lot and I'm like, man, what a great time. And I'm thinking of actually ending it when I discover zines, which was when I was like 16, like 15, 16. So I think it would be cool to make like a zine about my life, like discovering zines.

Maira (29:10):

Oh yeah. That sounds really cool.

Miquela (29:13):

Yeah. Like I would want it to eventually be compiled in a graphic novel, but I'm thinking, yeah. I might just start out doing like short snippets of stories in zine form, but then they could be, uh, combined together into like, I don't know what it's called. Just like a graphic- Yeah. Yeah. Like an anthology of like all these collected stories that take place during that period of time.

Maira (29:36):

Awesome. Uh, you have a Patreon.

Miquela (29:39):

Yes.

Maira (29:40):

You do like monthly stuff with.

Miquela (29:43):

I do. Yeah. So that's another thing that I've been consistently working on. I started it, I want to say in the beginning of 2020, I can't even remember now. Um, but then it's kind of evolved into now. I've gotten into a groove of like I send out monthly, um, things through the mail depending on like what tier people are on. Um, so I send out like pictures of my dog. Um, all the tiers are like named after her. Uh, so she's got like pegs pen pals. I send out clay pins that I make, I have yet to send out any zines, but that's just because I'm like, uh, what kind of zine should I make and send out? I don't know. I find that I like hold myself back from like making zines a lot because I'm a little bit of a, like a perfectionist when it comes to them, but I just need to do it. I just need to like make a little like one page zine or one piece of paper. So it'd be like six pages and like mail it out. But yeah, people get stuff in the mail if they want or they get access to like exclusive sketches and drawings and like random things that I'm doing. Kind of like, uh, a little bit of a journal. And then now I have a podcast where I talk about music and that's like exclusive to my Patreon for now.

Maira (30:54):

That's exciting.

Miquela (30:56):

Yeah. Thanks.

Maira (30:57):

I started a Patreon. Apparently I tried to make one in June of last year, but did nothing with it. Um, so in preparation for, cause I, I really want to just dive back into this podcast and kind of do more with it than I was before. Cause I think it was like one, every couple of months when I felt like it, I would just have people come over to my apartment and shoot the shit Essentially. I started listening to old episodes and transcribing them cause I wanted to make them more accessible and.

Miquela (31:34):

Oh that's cool.

Maira (31:34):

That was a very time-consuming process. Um, but I am still working on, uh, months later. Yeah. I remembered just really enjoying like the, the word that's coming up for me is prescribed hanging out time.

Miquela (31:51):

Oh yeah.

Maira (31:53):

Like it's a good way to like ease back into socializing because the only person I've really seen in the last however many months is my boyfriend. Um, because we live together and so it's like talking to people is hard?

Miquela (32:09):

Yeah. Talking, talking to people is hard. And I think too, like podcasting it's like, you kind of have a theme, like you have something to already talk about, so you're not sitting there like, well, how's it going with you? It's like, I don't know. I've been stuck in my house for 10 months. How's it going?

Maira (32:25):

To be fair I've done that also this episode.

Miquela (32:27):

Yeah.

Maira (32:30):

But it's fun. And I forgot how fun it was. And so I made a Patreon. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet. Cause I've already, you know, I've got an Etsy where I sell my zines and stuff and I've got like a Ko-Fi, um, that I.

Miquela (32:44):

I haven't heard of that one. What is that one?

Maira (32:47):

It's just like a, it's a cute little site where you can buy someone a coffee, um, and just send them like three bucks and.

Miquela (32:56):

That's cool.

Maira (32:56):

Yeah, it's, it's cute. I was using it a lot at the beginning of last year because I was, I kind of realized that like I was putting in a lot of time to like zine stuff and it was kind of becoming a full time job, just, you know, organizing fests and organizing the art show and doing the podcast. I was already working a full-time job. And so it was just kind of draining and I was like, you know, it'd be really cool if people wanted to buy me a coffee for this. And so I found this website and it was cool. It's a nice way to like, I think it's kind of like Patreon and you can connect with other creators and uh, do like tiered stuff. It's I think it's basically the same. Yeah. You can do like one-off payments instead of like monthly.

Miquela (33:52):

That's cool. Yeah. That's like the one thing about Patreon where I'm Like I don't, I don't know, like I don't expect people to like want a monthly subscription unless it's for like, you know, the monthly mail outs. Like that's really the only one where I'm like, yeah, if you want something mailed to you every month, that's cool. But it would be cool if Patreon could also have like a one-time payment, which I guess you can do it just feels weird, you know?

Maira (34:19):

Yeah. I, at this time don't feel like I do anything monthly enough to warrant a Patreon, but that's also me kind of trying to kick my own ass into doing something monthly, I guess. I don't even know.

Miquela (34:38):

It's a lot.

Maira (34:38):

Yeah. I, I mean, cause you make all these things out of clay and take photos of peg and send them out.

Miquela (34:46):

Yeah. And I make, uh, usually I've been making, um, what is it called? Oh my God. I'm totally blanking on it. Block printing.

Maira (34:54):

Oh cool.

Miquela (34:55):

So I usually do like a, uh, at least original piece of art included too. And then if I include zines in the future, like yeah. Like I try to have like a few pieces of art within each package and it takes like days for me to do, like, it does become like a job. So I get totally get what you're saying. Whereas like, if you're doing these things, just for the love of it at the same time, you're like, Oh, I'm using my time to devote to this thing where like, it's hard because we live under capitalism and we're like, how can I pursue this? And still feel like I'm not, I don't know, like accomplishing something is the wrong word, but like it's hard. It's hard when like it becomes like it when it feels like a job.

Maira (35:36):

Yeah. And unfortunately It's also, like I feel as artists, we feel under capitalism, we feel inclined to like monetize our hobbies in order to get by.

Miquela (35:51):

Oh totally.

Maira (35:52):

It sucks. We want to just make art for fun, but it feels like all my time has to go into like hustling.

Miquela (36:02):

Oh totally. Like that was my whole thing with like even getting into zine making and getting into all of this is I was like, Oh, I already make comics. And this is just a fun way for me to distribute them, to like my friends and like get my work out there and just make people laugh. But then it turned into something as I got older where I was like, but this is all that I love to do and all that I know how to do. And like, guess, I've got to make money off of that somehow. So yeah. It definitely sucks.

Maira (36:32):

Yeah. At this point I'm just trying to pay for paper and ink.

Miquela (36:37):

that's the whole thing is like materials too. It's like, yeah, it would be cool to have like one of those fancy like risographed zines, but it costs money for materials.

Maira (36:46):

Yeah.

Miquela (36:47):

I could totally see you doing like a, I mean you could do like stickers monthly or something like included with like a mini zine that could even be just like a monthly thing for Patreon.

Maira (36:58):

Oh yeah. I love making those one sheet zines. Um, I was looking at- so something I've been doing lately for the past month or so is I've been looking at photos from that specific day in my phone. So from like years prior.

Miquela (37:16):

Oh, that's cool.

Maira (37:16):

And the other day, a few years ago, um, there was a zine library opening at the Oakland LGBTQ community center. And apparently I made a zine of just drawings of animals in cowboy hats, which.

Miquela (37:33):

That's amazing,

Maira (37:35):

Yeah it was super cute. I took pictures of some of them. And I think that zine, I didn't make any copies. So it only lives in that library. Um, if it's even still there, but I love making one-offs and I actually made one during EBABZ. Um, I was feeling really discouraged about selling my art and making art. And so I made one that was like, even if no one buys your art, you're still an artist. Um, and it was, it was nice. It felt good to just get things out onto a little sheet of paper. And I just bought a scanner and color printer for cheap, but now I have my own next to my desk. So.

Miquela (38:19):

that's a life changer.

Maira (38:21):

Yeah. There was a time period where I was like, okay, I can't make anything because I cannot copy it. Um, but now I can.

Maira (38:31):

That's so cool. Yeah. Like, and that alone, I mean, I know we were talking about how like it's hard right now to like create stuff, but like you're at least building up to like having a bunch of things where you're like, all right, well, I'm prepared to create now. Just got to feel like creating and not be crushed by like having to monetize it. And I think like returning to just like creating for the sake of creating is like so hard.

Maira (39:00):

Yeah. I bought a bunch of colored paper. Um, that I'm determined to do something with, but I also don't want to force it because like, like we've been saying it sucks to feel forced into creating art for money.

Maira (39:15):

Yeah, artist problems.

Maira (39:19):

Artist problems, truly, I am taking a block printing class on zoom tomorrow though. Um, which I'm pretty excited about because it's not really something, well, that's not true. My friend Kristen taught me how to carve stamps, um, with like easy cut rubber a few years ago. And I made like a taco bell stamp, which is pretty on brand for me, but I'm taking a class tomorrow and I'm excited to like, have someone show me how to do it. And I got a bunch of speedball ink and yeah, I'm excited to have that space to like make stuff that doesn't feel, it's kind of forced because I signed up for it. But,

Miquela (40:06):

But sometimes like, Oh, sorry,

Maira (40:10):

No go ahead.

Miquela (40:10):

I was going to say like, sometimes like, you know, that sort of force where like it, but it's more community built. It's like, okay, I'm kind of forced to do that just because I signed up for it. But like for some reason, taking a class like feels different than just like, alright, I feel forced to do this because like I have to do it for monetary gain or like, I need to feel like I'm being productive. And it's more of like a societal pressure versus like in a class there's like that community sense of it where you're like, Oh, that's so cool. I get to be like taught this by somebody who knows a lot about it. And that's been one of the like greatest things about this period of time, like during COVID and all the lockdowns and stuff is like being able to take classes online still is, has been like a godsend.

Maira (40:58):

Yeah. Are you still teaching the zine making class?

Miquela (41:02):

Um, I'm teaching, Well, I had a couple of workshops, um, where it was zine making. And then right now it kind of transferred into I'm teaching. I am still teaching, but it's like an afterschool program where we're making these like little animal field guides. So they already had like a pre-made book. Um, and then they fill it out with like animal drawings that we do each week and it's been so much fun. And then I'm taking a class through my work, um, with a different artist who's doing just kind of drawing essentials and just having that like set aside time each week to devote to art is like major

Maira (41:40):

The animal guide sounds cute as hell.

Miquela (41:43):

It's so cute. Yeah. But my students are like a huge thing that's been like keeping me creative. Um, cause we also do, I do a weekly thing called doodle hour and that's actually, uh, open to anyone and it's free. Um, it's all ages, but for the most part I have like kids in the class and I think that like deters adults, like I've had some adults pop in, but like I try to really make it for everyone. And it's just a fun time to be like goofy and imaginative. And I try to come up with like silly prompts and stuff. Like, you can just draw on your sketchbook, um, and be around like a bunch of fun kids that come up with like really silly things. And so like, that's been major too, for me. It was just like, I feed off of their like innate creativity sometimes. Cause I'm like, you haven't been ruined by capitalism yet.

Maira (42:34):

Stay that way, please.

Miquela (42:35):

Yeah. Yeah. That's like one of the hardest things being an art teacher is like seeing these kids and just kind of like realizing like as an adult so much is beaten out of us. Like not to get like super depressing, like as an artist, like looking at them as artists and like remembering back to like when I was their age and I felt like there were so many more possibilities and like I would just make for the sake of making, um, which is something that we've already like kind of talked about, like we're struggling with, but then like these kids, it's like, you give them like one tiny crumb of something and then they just like run with it. And I'm like, how do you do that? Like please, how do I tap into that resource again?

Maira (43:21):

It feels like something that needs to be like relearned.

Miquela (43:25):

Yeah. So like taking a class, that's all going back to like you taking a class. Like I was kind of saying like, that's so cool that you're doing that because like giving yourself that time, like hopefully that will get you into more of that mindset, a little, or like kind of retrain your brain to be in that creative mode

Maira (43:42):

In the same vein. I took like an art 101 class at my local community college last semester. And that was, it was the same thing where it like put me in a mindset of like, yes, it was for a grade, but it felt very like, because it's not, I'm not working towards a degree right now. I'm just kind of taking it for fun. And so it was really cool to just kind of get loose and like make stuff. And so I'm taking another art class through the same community college this semester and it's a site-specific installation,

Miquela (44:17):

Woah

Maira (44:19):

But we don't really have any sites. Uh, cause.

Miquela (44:22):

that's fascinating.

Maira (44:24):

Yeah. I'm really excited to see how it's gonna play out. And like I'm really excited to make Stuff.

Miquela (44:30):

Sounds like that's cool. Like that's totally something you can use too for putting on shows.

Maira (44:35):

Yeah. That's I think what I'm most using it for gain down the road, but definitely just like farming ideas at this point, which I'm really excited about.

Miquela (44:46):

That sounds awesome. And that's just through the local community college there.

Maira (44:50):

Yeah. Uh, shout out to Ohlone College, uh, their art department.

Miquela (44:56):

That's rad.

Maira (44:56):

Yeah. I'm excited. Uh, do you have anything else that you want to plug or talk about?

Miquela (45:05):

Um, no, that's pretty much it. I feel like, yeah. Talked about the art show. I mentioned like the class I'm teaching, but I didn't even mention like where it is, but I guess you can put that in like the description.

Maira (45:17):

Yeah. Thanks so much for doing this. I know it was like really short notice. Um, and technology is weird and kind of hard, but it's been fun.

Miquela (45:29):

No, this was awesome. I loved, uh, you know, catching up with you a little bit and like yeah. Hearing about the things that you're working on too. Like it's nice to just sit and talk like with a fellow artist who just gets it. Like, I I've been very isolated away from like any sense of like an art community. So like this was really cool and I, yeah, I really loved talking with you.

Maira (45:52):

Yeah. And it's, it's also just a very different vibe from like seeing something on Instagram and being like, all right, I like this, but it's cool to like interact on a different plane, I guess.

Miquela (46:05):

Totally.

Maira (46:06):

Yeah. Well again, thank you. Um, this was great and yeah, stay tuned for more long-arm stapler, uh, more often this year and that's all for me.

[long-arm-stapler]

Episode 5: Poliana Irizarry

[0:07]

Maira: Alright, this is, I think this is 5? Episode 5 of Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines. Today we are [clears throat] joined by-

Poliana: Hello, I’m Poliana Irizarry.

Maira: Welcome to my couch.

Poliana: Yes, it’s a lovely couch.

Maira: This is my recording studio. So, do you want to tell everyone a little about your experience with zines? And like because you’ve got a lot.

Poliana: Yeah! So, um, I’m really old, and I’ve been doing zine stuff for a really long time. So back in the riot grrl 90’s I guess, I got into zines as a high school slash college student. I lived within walking distance of the Inwood Theater in Dallas, Texas. The long-standing zine musea was freely available in the lobby because Tom Hendricks, I think his name was Art S. Revolutionary, um, uh, worked there. And would just give away zines for free. Um, I was like, “This is the coolest,” and then I realized that um, the stuff I had seen in like, at shows, those were also zines. I didn’t really make the connection um, about like what zines were until kind of encountering them a couple of times. And I tried to make my own zine, this was back in like 1997, ’98, about the Dallas, Texas late 90’s punk scene. I was very influenced by um, Buzzmonger Fanzine, which is still one of my favorite zines ever, especially about music and interviews and bands and touring and a local scene. Um, and then I realized the zine I wanted to make was Buzzmonger and I kind of got frustrated like, with technical difficulties, like my computer crashing and uh trying to transcribe interviews and stuff that I did. I was like, nineteen, maybe twenty, so fast forward, forward to like, I finally, ten years, I finally finish um, college. And then grad school, and I make my first zine, I’m living in Philadelphia, and there was the Philly Zine Fest at the Rotunda, I want to say this was 2008? 2007? That zine fest has been going on for over a decade, so it was maybe the third or so year. I went and I brought my zines to trade, no wait, the first year I went, I just went and was like, “I have fifty dollars,” and I spent them all very quickly. But I came home with this huge tote bag full of zines, um, well a regular sized tote bag, but it was pretty full. Um, and then the next year, one of the organizers I met at Wooden Shoe Books, Sawyer, was trying to convince me to table. And I was like, “Ummmmmm, no.” So instead, I just walked around trading zines. And I made, I think I want to say like, thirty copies? And everyone I asked to trade, almost everyone traded me. It was amazing, I came home with more zines than the year before, and I didn’t spend any money, because I just thought that was the coolest thing. Um, I’m really into, um, not spending money. Like, defeating capitalism by being a broke-ass. So um, like I was hooked. And that’s kind of been my motivator ever since, um, I tabled the year after and I sat next to Ray Quall Solomon, Sistress the Child Empress, ugh, Lou Gritand, made friends, and we talked zines, and we talked shit on Philly, and um it was great. So, I’ve been, I guess it’s been about ten years since that experience now, um, eleven years, something like that.

Maira: And now you’re doing really big things in the San Jose DIY community.

Poliana: Yeah! I moved to San Jose from Philadelphia about 4 years ago, and I was like, “Okay, where- okay, I’m here now, I want to find out where the punk shows are at, and where the zine people are at.” And-

Maira: You found both.

Poliana: I found both in this wonderful community DIY collective called Think and Die Thinking, um, they were a long-standing group of San Jose locals um, and their friends, and um, comrades, um who organized amazing DIY shows, the Think and Die Thinking Festival, um which-

Maira: Which is where I first encountered zines.

Poliana: Yes, yes!

Maira: In the wild.

Poliana: So many people say that Think and Die Thinking was their first time to see zines and I just think that’s wonderful, because um, first of all, Think and Die Thinking Festival um, was um put together to uplift and highlight and feature the voices of people of color, color especially queer people of color, and the LGBTQ community, so those intersecting identities of people of color and LGBTQ people. Um, especially youth, it was very important for it to be all-ages, for it to be a safe space, um, and feminist, and to be trans-inclusive, and to um, uplift voices of color. Which, all of those things are incredible, and was rare enough to see just 1 aspect of identity focused on in any kind of group, but for this collective to um, just fucking demand all of that, is important. All of these things that we are a part of are important, and we are going to focus on that. So the bands that were there, um, were all part of this mindset. And the zines, there was a zine swap, there was a Summer of Discontent Zine Swap, and like a writing process, where we all met up if you wanted to be part of that. Um, everyone met up a couple of times over the summer, and at the end of the summer we had a swap at um, SV Debug, Silicon Valley Debug. Um, and then um, the 2015 Think and Die Thinking, which ended up being the last festival, but um, I volunteered to help out, and I am so, so grateful, so fortunate that Bean and everybody else from TADT Collective let me help out with the zine stuff. Um, we organized the zine library on the second floor of the Billy DeFrank Center, which is the LGBTQ center in San Jose, and um, we also organized different zine readings. And um, it was a really great idea, um, from years before, that there was always an open mic on the stage so that people could do slam poetry, zine readings, poetry readings, or just speak their mind um, in between acts. And uh, while the bands were setting up. And it was only used a couple of times I think outside of the readings, but I think the year before, it was definitely more part of the festival. So in order to encourage that, we scheduled the zine readings in between the bands, which um, I think also opened up a lot of peoples’ minds um, and eyes and ears, to zines um in the DIY punk community. And then also people who were zinesters, you couldn’t just like, hide upstairs all day if you wanted to see a zine reading, or go look at the zines that were for sale or for trade, in the main festival area. Uh, you needed to watch the bands, too. So I just thought it was a really great idea, it was kind of like taking the riot grrl um, which was very [exhales] exclusive and clique-ish, taking that aspect of zines and flipping it on its head and making it inclusive and accessible, and I just- I love it. It’s um, working with zinesters in San Jose and the entire Bay Area, but San Jose and the South Bay specifically, has just enriched my life.

Maira: And that’s where we actually met, was that Think and Die Thinking, and that’s when I did my first reading, and I couldn’t finish it, and I like, cried and ran off- I wasn’t onstage, I was just like in front of the stage and I just like started crying and ran away.

Poliana: First of all, I don’t remember that was your first reading.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: And I um, I wish there was a camera here you could see my face. That was Maira’s, their first reading!? Second of all, I don’t remember you crying and running away, no not at all. I remember that you spoke very passionately and then it seemed to me like you had finished and exited stage quickly, not as in you know, couldn’t finish. You stopped naturally.

Maira: Okay. I mean I finished what I wanted to read. I was reading a piece from probably my heaviest zine, it was about like, sexual assault and trauma. And being trans. Yeah, and that was, I was really set on reading that piece, and I got really in- really inspired by all the other readers, so I was like, “Yeah, I can do this!” And then I did it.

Poliana: You did it!

Maira: And I’ve cried at most readings since then?

Poliana: Yeah, yeah.

Maira: But, I feel like it’s hard to like, really talk about personal stuff and kind of not- because when you’re doing a reading, it’s not really a dialogue, it’s more, “Here are my feelings, let me throw them at you.”

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: And then you kind of just like, wait. So, it’s hard to be vulnerable in that kind of space without crying, at least for me.

Poliana: Um, I think that everybody who read over that festival, 3 day festival, are some of the most brave, courageous, incredible, powerful people I have ever encountered. I’m an Aquarius, I’m a quadruple Aquarius, so I- I know a lot of people but I don’t have a lot of friends, and the people that I met from that fest, I still keep in touch with, and so hold dearly. And it’s because we got so vulnerable, I cried so often, so much. And there was kind of a joke amongst the organizers, um, that, “You’re not really at Think and Die Thinking unless you’re crying,” and, “How many times have you cried today?” You know. And um because that space was intended to be therapeutic-

Maira: Sad? [laughs]

Poliana: Therapeutic! [laughs] Um, vulnerable, um, emotional, um it was an intentional safe space. Uh, how successful that is for each individual, um depends on the individual. Your mileage may vary. But, the intentionality was that it was created so that we could have this space to process, um with our family, with our community. Um, and I think for me it was very successful in that because yeah I definitely cried. Um, I read as well, I was very hesitant to read, and I waited because as an organizer, I kind of felt like- Okay, also first of all, I’m not from San Jose. San Jose is under rapid gentrification; the entire Bay Area is. Um, there are a lot of people coming into these cities, such as myself, who are not from there and taking leadership roles. I think that the best usage of my talents and time and um, skills and experience is to utilize those to uplift local voices. Period. So, that being said, when somebody was unable to read, when we had someone bow out, I was encouraged to read, and so I did, that’s how I play it. So, I read, I cried afterwards and um, I had several people walk up to me and thank me, and I was like, “The fuck?”

[Maira laughs]

Poliana: Because I don’t, I don’t know, I always think of my zines as kind of like, um, “I wrote this thing so, I created this document, this thing, so that I could trick you into trading me yours.” That’s just like, my mental illness manifesting as like, self-loathing. And I know it’s not true, I mean-

Maira: It’s not.

Poliana: I write a lot, I re-read it, I edit it, I work really hard. They’re not bad, um, I’m proud of most of them. But I don’t, I haven’t, I’ve only read until I got to California. I read one time; the responses are amazing. Yeah, that whole thing of being vulnerable and then sharing your work and then waiting-

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: It’s not a conversation, it’s um, I hesitate to say performance, but it’s kind of how it feels? Like, you have to practice it in order for it to feel right. Um, and then the people who like, “Woah, they’re really good,” kind of have that actor thing going, where they’re like-

Maira: They’re in the zone.

Poliana: Yeah! They’re like, reciting poetry or whatever they’re writing, but uh, it’s like storytelling, the narrative um, is uh, engaging. Um, not like lots of “um,” people practice and say important things. So, uh, yeah! I want to be like that, sure, but then I kind of also don’t want to. [laughs]

Maira: I don’t… A lot of times, if I read, it will be something that I wrote and haven’t gone back to since I like, sent out the zine. And so sometimes, it’s kind of a surprise to me? And I’m just like, “Oh wait yeah, I wrote that. Oh, time to cry.” Um-

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: But yeah like you were saying, it’s weird… it feels weird to me when people come up and thank me. It’s cool because it’s like, I’m being really vulnerable and I’m letting them in, sometimes they’re going through similar shit. And so, I guess they’re thanking me for like, I don’t know, having someone to relate to? But it also is always overwhelming and I’m like, “Thanks for what? I didn’t do anything, I just… cried.” But I do understand the emotional labor that comes with that, and reading, and I feel like when I read, I’m giving a lot. And a lot of people when they read, are giving a lot of themselves to the audience and the listeners, and that’s, that feels really powerful. I always feel really good after I read.

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: But it doesn’t necessarily feel good while I’m doing it if that makes sense.

Poliana: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s not really an enjoyable activity to be on a stage or in front of a microphone, um, reading my work usually. Um, I think for me, um, I oscillate between just kind of neurotic observances, neurotic observations about the minutia in my life, or really heavy, deep, introspective um, like, literally I’m in crisis and writing about it. So, I wonder if maybe I wrote like, powerful, uplifting stuff, maybe I could be one of those motivational speakers. Like in my dreams, I am cooler than DJ Khaled, and I am telling everybody… I’m just like a cheerleader. I’m like a zine cheerleader, but um-

Maira: In real life or in your dreams? Because you’re like that in real life.

Poliana: Okay well, I want to be that but in like a, I don’t know, I guess the kids are calling it a “brand.”

Maira: Okay.

Poliana: Yeah I want that to like, to be my thing. And I do- so, so I do that, kind of, like I’m on my way to being that because um, this is all, it’s all coming together. The way that I look at zine events, and zine readings especially, is that I want to, once again, leverage my experience and my own emotional [giggles] vulnerability, I was going to say illness, but etcetera. I want to create a space, to work on creating a space so my community can also do the same. And, and find that freedom. Um, find that uh, that emotional release, and just fucking get free. So, like there’s the trade-off, the trade-off is I have to do it, too. [laughs] But um, [stuttering] I enjoy the aftereffects as well, yeah. The talking and the, well I really like compliments.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: Compliments are nice, especially a compliment on my writing. Um, that’s the best! Like I don’t necessarily um, love my writing, but I want to. [laughs] I want to love my writing so much that I got a degree in writing. But um-

Maira: Same.

Poliana: [laughs] Right? Yeah.

Maira: I know I can write; I don’t know how-

Poliana: You’re a fantastic writer.

Maira: Look who’s talking.

Poliana: Exactly, thank you.

Maira: But yeah, thank you. I don’t mean to, I feel like whenever somebody compliments me I’m like, “Right back at you!” Like immediately, but it’s not- I do take it in. Thank you. You are also a wonderful writer.

Poliana: Thank you.

Maira: Um, yeah sorry, I totally interrupted you.

Poliana: No! I was winding down I think. [laughs] I don’t know. Okay, this is my first ever podcast-

Maira: [laughs] So after Think and Die Thinking, you got, so you’re like a big-time zine fest organizer now.

Poliana: I am now a, uh, small-time. [laughs] No, you know what? So, what happened was, um, Think and Die Thinking, their collective wrapped up, ceased to exist, they uh, came to a conclusion. The reason being that several of them moved away, there was also some, there’s always interpersonal drama, etcetera. But the zinesters are still there, and many of the people are still there, and um, we wanted a zine fest.

[Maira says something indecipherable]

Poliana: Luckily, in San Jose. In San Jose, luckily, the brilliant genius Ivy Atoms was part of this um, art collective in Downtown San Jose. They um, converted an old department store, an old Ross, into an impromptu art gallery. Uh, we thought it was a community-run space, that turned out to not necessarily be the truthiest truth. In any case, Ivy had access to this huge space, and the desire to have a fest, she called it San Jose Zine Con, because San Jose, this is in fact Fanime weekend. San Jose has lots of conventions of uh, like-minded artists and writers and fans of different fandoms.

Maira: You can say weebs, it’s fine.

Poliana: And weebs. Lots of weebs. I actually learned um, the term weeb from Fanime. Listen, I live my life a quarter mile at a time, I don’t have friends, I have Fanime. Thank you, I’m so glad I got to use that joke. Thank you.

[both laugh]

Poliana: So yeah! Um, so she put out the call, “Uh, hey, who’s going to help me organize this?” And I’m like, “Hey, I can help!” And so we got a whole bunch of people together, Li Patron of Cheers From the Wasteland, and Erick Saenz, who also edits that journal- zine, online zine. And also, regular zine, paper zine. “Dear Hometown,” everyone pick it up, it’s amazing. And Saoirse Allessandro also helped. And Bee. Oh, I’m starting to name people and I’m going to forget everyone and embarrass myself. Crystal Olivas, and Diana Hernandez, and a bunch of us, a bunch of us. There were more, I forgot, I’m sorry. Eli! Eli Wenig, a lot of us helped out and did the first San Jose Zine Con on a shoestring budget, um-

Maira: That was 2017?

Poliana: That was February 2017, it ended up being over a hundred people, a hundred tablers, we had people from all over California come up. We started off huge, because we had access to this huge space, and then it was like, well, we have this huge space that was free, all we have to do is pay for tables and chairs. Well really, if you bring your own table and chair, then it can be free. So, we made it sliding scale, donation-based and ended up raising money because we made a profit that we donated to Trans Legal Center, the Billy DeFrank Center, a couple other places. Um, and it was tight because it was sliding scale, and free for many people. Some zine fests in the Bay Area, actually in California as a whole, I know that some zine fests cost $45 for a half table, some are sliding scale, um donation-based. You know, I just want everything to be free for everyone because money sucks and is difficult. And why just make everything easy and don’t have any money. Um, that’s a dream, but you can make the dream happen if uh, you get lucky and have a lot of people with weird ideas, like that’s my segue into 2018 San Jose Zine Con, which was um, a month ago. And it was free because we had it at the library! Ricardo Padilla from Latino Comics Expo had the 2014 Latino Comics Expo at San Jose Public Library, at King Library, and I just thought that was the coolest event. It was super chill. Okay so, in my day job, I’m a librarian, so I’m predisposed to like libraries and library people, but it was, it was, their library there, King Library, is so big because it’s also part of San Jose State University’s library. So, they had this huge meeting room area, and that’s where they had that event. So, I messaged him and said, “Hey, you know, can you tell me, can you give me a hint on how much your budget was for this? And um, how can we replicate this? Because we want to do this again and um, we didn’t have a venue anymore.” And it turns out it’s um, free for community events. So, that’s buried in the twenty seventh minute of this podcast, is that San Jose Public Library, if you reserve the rooms um, early enough in the year, you can get a Saturday or a Sunday, whatever you want, tables and chairs are free, included. You’ve just got to make sure that you don’t charge for anything. And we didn’t want to charge for anything! So, it’s free. We’re a community event, non-profit organization, open to all, open access to all, and so I encourage somebody else in Zinester Land, or um maybe in Comic Book Land, um, perhaps people that like anything, any kind of alternative press, or small press, to also look into working with the King Library folks. Um, to make your event free and accessible to all.

Maira: And also, if you’re not in the Bay Area, look into your local library.

Poliana: Yeah!

Maira: They will probably do the same thing.

Poliana: Yes, actually, I got this idea from Anaheim Zine Fest, wait no, I’m sorry, it’s called Orange County Zine Fest. And it’s held at the Anaheim Public Library. And same thing, it actually ends up, the library ends up benefitting, for that zine fest the library ends up printing tote bags and t-shirts and stickers and buttons to sell as a fundraiser. And then the zine fest brings in people from the community who wouldn’t normally go to the library, who don’t necessarily know that the library has anything for them. And also the benefit on the zine side, it’s free, it’s accessible, it’s a safe space, it’s a community public space, so it’s you know, all ages, um, welcoming, all that good stuff. Um, yeah! So definitely contact your local library.

Maira: The year I went to OC Zine Fest it was in a parking garage, which was really cool.

Poliana: Ooh, interesting.

Maira: Yeah, that was a rough weekend, because I went down to Tijuana Zine Fest that same weekend.

Poliana: Woah.

Maira: Yeah. It was wild, and I got a foot and a half tall Chewbacca piggy bank out of it, um, which was truly one of my finest purchases to date.

Poliana: [gasps] I love two and a half tall ceramic Chewbacca.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: He sounds nice.

Maira: He sat in my car for a really long time, and then he broke, but you know…

Poliana: It happens.

Maira: Yeah!

Poliana: But you had him for a long time.

Maira: Yeah, but OC Zine Fest was really cool, Tijuana Zine Fest was really cool.

Poliana: That’s on my list, I haven’t been to Tijuana yet. Long Beach Zine Fest is incredible.

Maira: Long Beach, I think I’ve told all of the organizers this, but that’s one of my favorite fests.

Poliana: It’s incredible! You can go there, okay, so it’s in a museum. Okay, so first of all, Santa Cruz Zine Fest is also in a museum, Santa Cruz Museum of Art is small, Long Beach Museum of Art is huge!

Maira: And it’s the Museum of Latin American Art, too.

Poliana: Yes, yes. Exactly, so it’s Latin American history and art, so it is educational and beautiful for the whole family.

Maira: And it’s on Free Day.

Poliana: Yes! Exactly, they make it a community event, the um, Long Beach Zine Fest organizers bring in friends’ bands to play, and serve food and drinks, and they have like a water stand so you can refill your bottle. Um-

Maira: Long Beach Zine Fest fucking rules.

Poliana: It’s tight. Yeah, it’s tight.

Maira: Shout out to uh-

Poliana: Shout out.

Maira: Daniel and Ziba.

Poliana: Ziba is-

Maira: Ziba is amazing.

Poliana: The best. Now, you want to talk about librarians, Ziba rules. Everyone just follow Ziba, Zebra Pizza Zine, and Ziba is a librarian now at um, Los Angeles Public Library. But she was a librarian at Long Beach and started their zine library, now she’s started one in L.A., I think she started one also in Ocean Beach, perhaps? I could be wrong, but I do know that she is um, goals. She’s librarian and zinesters goals for me. I uh, I do declare.

Maira: I actually went to her library when I, I took my sister down to L.A.-

Poliana: Oh, you went to Baldwin Hills! Yes!

Maira: Yeah, and so we went to the Baldwin Hills library and I took my sister to get a library card because she’s trying to get one from like, every library she can so she can get free e-books.

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: But we like, posed… we hard-styled in front of the zine library, naturally. Um-

Poliana: It’s beautiful.

Maira: As I do-

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: And as I make people do with me.

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: [laughs] So, it was, it was really cool to see it in person, and I had never seen zines in a library in person before. Until like, earlier this year, or last year, whenever I went.

Poliana: Mhm, mhm, it’s so cool. I love a good zine library. If we’re going to transition to talking about zine libraries…

Maira: Yeah! I, well-

Poliana: I’d like to plug-

Maira: Do you want to talk about organizing one, or talk about whatever.

Poliana: Oh, yeah. Well, okay, I was just trying to segue into South Bay DIY Zine Collective-

Maira: Hell yeah.

Poliana: A zine library that a few zinesters started, actually rising from the ashes of the Think and Die Thinking zine library. Um, Sherise Gutierrez approached me about taking the zines from TADT, and continuing on the portable zine library that they created, and then I was talking about it excitedly with Diana Hernandez, um, who at the time was working at the LGBTQ Youth Space in San Jose, and um, so she was like, “Well, why don’t you keep the zine library at the space? And then when you want to take it out somewhere, you just come to the space and take it with you.” And so, and so there it was. The collective was born, and the zine library was born, and um, it’s completely donation-based. We got our first round of donations from the first San Jose Zine Con, um, just about everybody who tabled donated a zine to the library. And so, me being a librarian, I have goals for the library, it’s not just like, zines are cool. I wanted to make, I mean, they are, so, but my intention with the South Bay DIY Zine Collective library is that the zines reflect the community who uh uses it. So, I intentionally solicit donations from communities of color, zinesters of color, and LGBTQ-identified zinesters, because that’s like, the best zines. But also, um- [laughs]

Maira: Very true.

Poliana: That’s very true. But also, that’s who uses the Space. So um, it’s gorgeous. It’s such a great library.

Maira: Are you still doing workshops there?

Poliana: Yes, yes! So, every month, mostly every month, um uh, we have workshops, zine making workshops. Maira, part of Queer Anxiety Babiez Zines Distro, Maira and Kristen brought in stamp making and um, collage um, making. So, we basically get zinesters from the community to teach workshops. Once again, I don’t like to do a lot of the teaching myself because I’m not trying to gentrify zines in San Jose. Um, but I want to, um, give zinesters a chance to teach each other. And to encourage that community and that culture to happen, and it’s been really fun. I think the best-attended, the most popular workshops have been poetry-based. Elliott Sky Case did an amazing workshop, Ashley Andrade also did another one. Spoiler alert: both of them have agreed to do workshops again this year, so that’s coming soon.

Maira: Whoo!

Poliana: Um, uh and, one of my goals is to start a Patreon for the zine library, so I can start paying zinesters to come do workshops, like a stipend. I would like to do that because, you know, zinester labor is important and valuable and should be paid. Um, the only time money is good is when you’re giving it to people who need it. So! Um, um, that’s how I feel about that. What about organizing did you want; did you want to-

Maira: I selfishly wanted to segue into Queer Zine Fest.

Poliana: Yes!

Maira: Bay Area Queer Zine Fest-

Poliana: Yes!

Maira: Is back. I think I’ve talked about it every episode so far, but for those of you who don’t know, we both organize Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, it’s happening, this is the second annual one coming up on Sunday, September 9th, at Humanist Hall in Oakland. Yeah, so we’re both organizing it again this year, and I wanted to talk about how San Jose Zine Con was kind of one of the things that I pulled from when I was inspired to start Bay Area Queer Zine Fest.

Poliana: Wow.

Maira: It was, it was definitely inspiration from Ara Jo and EBABZ, EBABZ is like my ultimate zine fest, and now I’m in my third year organizing with them and it feels amazing every time we meet.

Poliana: East Bay Alternative Book and Zine… Fair?

Maira: Fest.

Poliana: Fest. EBABZ.

Maira: But yeah, it was inspiration from Ara, and EBABZ, and San Jose Zine Con.

Poliana: Thank you, that’s really awesome. I have to say all the credit should go to Ivy Atoms.

Maira: Who also organized last year!

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: She did our wonderful flier.

Poliana: Yes! Oh my gosh, yes.

Maira: So, yeah. Let’s talk about Queer Zine Fest this year.

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: If you want to.

Poliana: I would love to. So, there’s a lot of really good organizers, I am one of many helpers, um, but I, as soon as you approached me last year, or put the call out – I don’t know. Um-

Maira: I can’t remember.

Poliana: Yeah, I don’t remember. It’s probably on the internet, that’s okay though. I forgive it.

[both laugh]

Maira: Most things I do are on the internet.

Poliana: Same, same. That’s where I’m a Viking. So, once you approach- once I heard about it, I was enthusiastically in, except that I live in San Jose, which is fifty nine miles away from Oakland. So, I don’t come up here very often, but when I do, it’s awesome. So, I help out with like, behind-the-scenes stuff, but mostly, I think my experience last year was being kind off a cheerleader.

Maira: You were an amazing cheerleader last year. Personally, I was dealing with so many curveballs-

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: Um…

Poliana: I forget, you’re such a fucking warrior that I forget, I forget.

Maira: [laughs] Yeah, I was living in San Francisco when Bay Area Queer Zine Fest was just a twinkle in my eye, and the eyes of so many wonderful people. Yeah, I was going through a lot of personal stuff last year, and you were really amazing with like keeping up morale, and just like-

Poliana: Cool.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: Glad to help.

Maira: And I’m really happy that you’re organizing with us again this year.

Poliana: Yeah, me too! Um, I, uh, am also going through a lot. I’ve got to say, part of my outsider experience here is coming to the Bay and realizing, “Wow, yeah, you’re just going to lose your first three jobs.” And that’s what’s happening. So, I throw myself into uh, organizing stuff and zine stuff because it makes me feel useful, and uh, knowledgeable, and like I know things.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: [laughs] When my daily life is like, [scoffs] “You don’t know shit.” [laughs] “Yes, I do!”

Maira: Exact same hat.

Poliana: Right? Yep, yep. I think that you’re a joy to work with, and um, your tenacity and your work ethic, and your creativity are super fun to watch like, grow and blossom. Blossom is a weird word-

Maira: This is unprompted, and I am not paying.

Poliana: I am not paid!

[both laugh]

Poliana: No, but this is so good! I am excited to help out again this year, in whatever remote um, doing, text message and/or Google chat I can do. [laughs]

Maira: Yeah, no, there was I don’t know, there was something else, but I was just like, “I don’t know if I should…” and you were like, “Just fucking do it.” And I did it.

Poliana: Yeah! So really, I take a lot of that from just watching people in the Philly Zine Fest community, the organizers. I helped out uh, the last couple of years that I was in Philly, I also helped out with the Philly Feminist Zine Fest organizing, and so, my experience was, “Oh, who’s going to lead this?” And, “Wait, it’s DIY, no one leads it, it’s a collective.” Uh, so, in that regards, um, on the one hand no one is in charge, but on the other hand, everyone is in charge.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: You just have to kind of gas each other up and just be like, wait, when you have that self-doubt, find someone else who believes in you [laughs].

Maira: Yeah,

Poliana: And, you know, it works out. So, I guess just saying yes to stuff is um, a really good thing.

Maira: Especially because I feel weird taking charge of things, and it’s like, definitely a community event, but I make executive decisions sometimes.

Poliana: Well-

Maira: And it’s like-

Poliana: This was your idea, it is your vision, you’ve decided to make it a community event. There are people who take a zine fest and are very controlling. And you’re not.

Maira: Thank you!

Poliana: Um, yeah-

Maira: Trying very hard.

Poliana: Well, and thank you, because it feels like a community event, and because of the, same thing with San Jose Zine Con, um, I see that in you because um, I also work on that too. Um, this year the creator of San Jose Zine Con was wrapped up creating her first book, um, Pinky and Pepper, order it, Forever! By Ivy Atoms, you can order it on SilverSprocket.net. It’s amazing, go look it up.

Maira: It’s so good.

Poliana: So good.

Maira: Good job, Ivy!

Poliana: Yeah, so um, so she couldn’t be as organizing as she could have, because of the timing of it, so I didn’t want to take it over, but I also wanted it to happen. So, I kind of had to like, take it over?

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: But then, like, I made sure- I asked as many people as possible to help. And Li Patron especially stepped up, a lot of other people helped on the day of. Kianna Flores, huge help on the day of, Mander Farrell. Which, people were like, “Oh, I don’t want to volunteer, I don’t want to organize,” but then like on the day of, everything, all the tables got labeled, everyone got shown to where they were going to sit. Tori from L.A., by the way, um another great zinesters that um, stepped up and volunteered on the day of. Violet from Santa Cruz, another volunteer. So, like, make sure that you not only seek out community volunteers, but also like, um, just continuing to check in with the group, with your co-organizers, you know, you always send out whatever decision you’re making. There’s always transparency, whatever how much money that you’re dealing with, having to book Humanist Hall and um, these other types of things. Uh, that’s how you make it a truly collective DIY space. And it’s going to be good this year.

Maira: I send out a million emails.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: If you ever work with me, just know that. Because I want to be as transparent as possible all the time, like I don’t want to be like a shadowy figure pulling strings. I don’t know, because it’s not about me, it’s about the community.

Poliana: Specifically, this is an important festival because of this community, the LGBTQ community, um for decades has been instrumental in keeping zines alive. Um, and creating zines in the first place, like all the way back to the days of the mimeograph. If you want to see an incredible zine collection, the um, zines at the San Francisco Public Library, there, there’s a whole archive filled with zines and chapbooks, um and pamphlets, and self-published ephemera. Um, and I believe that there’s a whole separate section of um, LGBTQ community zines. Segue on that, the librarian in charge of that is Penelope Houston from The Avengers, which I think is the coolest, coolest, coolest librarian ever. That’s just really cool. Um, so yeah. To have a fest specifically highlighting the LGBTQ community in the Bay is so important, so yeah, make it happen.

Maira: Yeah, just start your own fest.

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: Just do it.

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: All it takes is hope and friends-

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: And a place to have it.

Poliana: Well, I think also, a place to have it is a great place to start, people who want to work on it with you so friends is very important, um but also having different tasks for people to do that aren’t necessarily zinesters. Like, for example, all the fundraising that you have done already so far with bands, last year there were several shows, uh readings, so to do fundraisers with readings. We did one in San Jose for last year’s Bay Area Queer Zine Festival, it was actually in Santa Clara at Chromatic Coffee, uh chromatic.cafe if you’re online. Um, so if you do a reading, you can raise money that way. Um, but also that gets people involved that maybe aren’t necessarily making their own zines, but are supportive. It gives them an actual demonstrative way to be supportive. And people really like that, like, I came from it kind of thinking, “Oh, I’m going to start asking for handouts,” um, but there were so many people that are really into zines that don’t necessarily see themselves as a writer or illustrator or artist of any type. Even though they all are and can be, but this is a good way to get started and get involved is to, you know, work at a coffee shop that donates coffee to the fest, or etcetera. Good stuff like that.

Maira: Yep. Um, we actually had a reading last night at E.M. Wolfman in Oakland, and that was cool. That was the first pre-fest event, trying to get people pumped up. So, I talked to a couple of people, got them excited, raised like forty bucks, which literally anything helps. So-

Poliana: Totally! You also had a zine event a couple of weeks ago, um, for Zine of the Hill Volume 2.

Maira: Oh, yeah! So, I make a King of the Hill fanzine, called Zine of the Hill.

Poliana: It’s really good.

Maira: Um, Poliana’s in it. And so, I came out with the second issue and I had a party at my friend’s house in Oakland, and we raised money for the fest. We just had a table with donations, I put all the zines out, buttons, we had shirts made, we donated money that we raised to- oh, we like, screened King of the Hill on a wall which was really cool-

Poliana: It was so fun.

Maira: We had speakers, not people speaking but so you could like, listen to King of the Hill.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: People dressed up. We had an empty propane tank that just had “Best Cosplay” written on it in Sharpie, that I was, for whatever reason, very proud of. We raised like $320 total.

Poliana: Tight.

Maira: And we split it between Bay Area Queer Zine Fest and the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center.

Poliana: That’s what’s up!

Maira: Because one of the other organizers, Robbie, does a lot of work with them.

Poliana: Most of the time, it’s like, “Wow! Look at this amazing set of resources and space here for our queer teens.”

Maira: Yeah. We’re trying to do zine workshops at the space.

Poliana: Yes!

Maira: We’re trying to, which was inspired by your zine workshops, um, because we had a lot of, me and Kristen, doing ours. And so, we’re trying to do zine workshops, like once a month leading up to the fest. And hopefully continually after the fest.

Poliana: Yeah!

Maira: I’m going to see if I can do some at work in Alameda, so I’m really excited about that.

Poliana: So cool.

Maira: Trying to get the youths of Alameda into zines.

Poliana: Yeah!

Maira: We’re going to try to do them in Oakland, I don’t really have any connections in San Francisco anymore, so I don’t know if that’s happening, but you can always try!

Poliana: Mhm, mhm.

Maira: Wait actually, no, I’m leading a workshop-

[Poliana laughs]

Maira: In San Francisco, in a couple of weeks.

Poliana: There you go! [laughs]

Maira: I’m leading a workshop in San Francisco in a few weeks, for some youth, and I’m really excited about that. Um, but yeah, we just want to get zines to the people.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: All the time.

Poliana: One of the most rewarding aspects of organizing um, specifically San Jose Zine Con 2018, was the multitude of people who told me that this was their first time tabling, much less their first time at a zine fest at all. Uh, many of them made their very first zine ever for the occasion, and it’s incredible. We had a very large group of folks, I want to say a collective, that formed because of the fest, or like part of it. Um, but they were a group of students from San Jose State University’s Animation Club, the Shrunken Head Man Club. Um, I don’t know what the name means, but that’s the name of their club. A bunch of illustrators, beautiful comics, really just um, poignant stories, um, and it’s so rewarding to have those interactions with people that found, you know, a way to communicate their story, a way to document their what’s happening with them with their own minds. And then inexpensively distribute it themselves. It’s really cool, I’m into that.

Maira: I love zines.

Poliana: Yeah, me too. Me, too. So, I was saying that I like to, as much as possible, get people from the community to lead the zine workshops, but I also give my own workshops. We take the zine library out, it’s still in a popup kind of style, you take it out and bring it to community events. Introducing the concept of a library of zines to people is really fun, and kind of giving access to this um, what is technically outsider art. To find zines outside of a zine event, you have to go looking for them, and especially in the Bay Area, and especially in the year 2018, and this accursed stolen land, um, it’s really hard for small bookstores, independent businesses, to stay open, much less have dedicated square footage to selling zines. So, there are a few of them, you mentioned E.M. Wolfman, in Oakland?

Maira: Mhm.

Poliana: In Oakland. Um, Seeing Things Gallery in San Jose, Needles & Pens in the city, um, there’s several stores still that you can find zines.

Maira: Yeah. There’s, and there’s a bunch of small, independent bookstores like Pegasus, City Lights in San Francisco still does zines.

Poliana: Ooh! Okay, I didn’t know that.

Maira: Yeah, and that’s like a historical spot.

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: Yeah, there’s- it’s really cool, I feel like we live in such a great area for zines.

Poliana: Yes, yeah.

Maira: And for being able to have access to them in person.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: Pretty like easily? Which I think is amazing.

Poliana: Yep, mhm.

Maira: I wish that everyone had this.

Poliana: Well, hopefully, um-

Maira: That’s like, my life goal-

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: Is for every single person in the world-

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: To have access to zines! Maybe, eh, you know-

Poliana: Anyone can make one.

Maira: Anyone can make one.

Poliana: Anyone can make-

Maira: Anyone can read one.

Poliana: Yes. Exactly, anyone can make more than one. And when you have a collection, when you have more than one of something you have a collection. And then when you have a lot of something and you share it, your collection becomes a library, heh heh heh.

Maira: Wooh!

Poliana: Yeah! [laughs]

Maira: Um, we brought the library to-

Poliana: Yes.

Maira: Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, going back to that.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: We tabled at the LGBTQ Non-Profit Expo in San Francisco last year, and we took the South Bay DIY Zine Collective library, and people were like, “What’s this? I don’t understand. Oh, there’s a person sitting behind these like, A-frames.” And I would just pop up and be like, “Hello! Let me tell you about these zines.”

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: And the library is cool because it’s organized by like, personal, um there’s feminist section, there’s uh, do you have the actual list?

Poliana: Uh, I-

Maira: Or do you know it off the top of your head?

Poliana: I actually might know off the top of my head at this point, um, so-

Maira: They’re color-coded.

Poliana: They’re color-coded, uh six colors of the rainbow. You’ve got your perzine which is red, orange is fiction, yellow is poetry, green is comics and art, blue is biography how-to, so it’s like non-fiction. Um, uh and purple is politics/feminism. Yeah!

Maira: Nice!

Poliana: I got it!

Maira: You got it!

Poliana: I got it, yeah.

Maira: Yeah, people were excited about that, I was excited about that, you were excited about that.

Poliana: Yeah, it’s been really fun, um to uh do something that I love and for a purpose that I love. We’ve been able to uh, segue into, I don’t know, once again I feel like I’m tricking people, but I literally went to grad school to do librarianship shit, so I’m not. But um, I’ve taken the zine library uh to college campuses, and they’ve given us money, which we’ve been funneled back into um the South Bay DIY Zine Collective, also the South Bay Foundation for All Ages Music. Uh, which is um raising money to open up a venue of our own, an all ages safe space, um, much in the style of um Holland Project in Reno, or Silent Barn, RIP Silent Barn, in New York. So uh, having the library is great, but also uh having it mobile, so we can take it places is really great. It was really, really satisfying to me to see that um zine fests growing and changing and um-

Maira: Evolving.

Poliana: Evolving, yeah! Exactly. Evolving throughout the years, um this current zeitgeist that we’re in is uh, the coolest one yet I guess. I love it, um, I love that we’re now in an age and in a phase of our culture where we can talk about things like uh, we need to in this huge, fun-filled fest, we need to have a spot where um, people can not be overstimulated and be quiet. So, we’re going to bring the library to the fest. And it’s been, every time I’ve seen it done, like at this year’s um, EBABZ, the library was in the front by the couches, and I was like, “Oh, it looks so- I just want to snuggle up there,” and you can! It’s great. Same thing with the South Bay DIY Zine Collection library, um, at Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, it was like upstairs in a loft, and it was adjacent from the maker’s space where the workshops were happening, but it was like this cozy corner with couches and a reading lamp and just a bunch of zines that you could chill at for a moment.

Maira: Yeah, it was nice because like up in the mezzanine, it was much quieter up there.

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: Which I would think would be the opposite, because-

Poliana: Yeah!

Maira: I feel like sound, like heat, rises. Um, it was very hot.

Poliana: It was hot. But-

Maira: Very hot.

Poliana: It was like, cozy. [laughs]

Maira: It uh, made me sleepy but I was too anxious and caffeinated to sleep.

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: So, I was just running around, sweaty and asking people if they were doing okay. Um, because that’s what organizers should do.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: Always make sure that like- and that’s some of the feedback we took from last year, is like, uh, we’re going to make sure there are snacks for tablers at this year’s zine fest, and we’re going to like take care of lodging for people from out of town, and just like, I don’t know, I feel like organizers should accommodate the zinesters, because it’s an equal, like- zinesters are giving their work and their emotional labor…

Poliana: Yeah, yeah.

Maira: And just kind of putting themselves out there, and organizers are providing the space. So, it’s like-

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: It’s a give and take, but it should be equal.

Poliana: Okay, so I’m really glad you brought this up, this is something I feel really strongly about. Um, I take this from the DIY punk community, but also from growing up in uh, hotels, because my dad worked for hotels when I was a kid. When you’re holding an event, you are the host. When you go to another event, someone else’s town’s zine fest, or someone else’s house party, they’re hosting you. So, when you’re the host, um, you want to make sure that you are doing whatever you can, and all the things that you just mentioned are great examples of being a good host. Um, and so some people look at it and you can definitely look at it, because it is stressful, um, it’s a lot of work, it’s not necessarily going to be a fest where you’re going to make any money personally selling your own zines, but it’s not about that because you did that at the San Francisco fest, or at the L.A. fest. So, now those folks are coming to your town and you want to make it as um, fun, as relaxing, as energetic, as um inspiring, and as lucrative for them as possible. Um, so uh, that’s what a host does. Um, inviting them into your home.

Maira: I was going to say, you know who does a really good job of that is the organizers of Omaha Zine Fest.

Poliana: Aw, yeah.

Maira: Shout out, I love them.

Poliana: Nice. I want to go to that. I’ve never been.

Maira: Yeah! I saw it on Zines a Go Go, the Facebook group, and uh, they were totally, totally sweet and they were like, “Hey, you can come stay at our house.” And I had like, never met these people or talked to them before. And it felt like, there were a bunch of us crashing at one house, there were probably 8 of us, and it felt like zine summer camp, and they were so accommodating and you know, my flight was later in the day like after the weekend, and they took me out for breakfast and drove me around Omaha.

Poliana: Aww.

Maira: And showed me the Chef Boyardee factory.

Poliana: [laughs] That’s wonderful, that’s actually what Ziba did for me at Long Beach Zine Fest.

Maira: Same!

Poliana: Yeah, yeah, she hosted a couple of us.

Maira: We love Ziba!

Poliana: Yes! But also, the other organizers of Long Beach Zine Fest also were hosting folks from out of town, too. But um, I had never been to Long Beach until, until that day. Um, and it was, yeah exactly. So, um, do whatever you can uh because it’s been done for you. But also, um because it’s way more fun um when you’re in a touring band and you’re staying in hotels, they’re really expensive and then you don’t actually, you’re just passing through town. You may as well be on a business trip. But if you’re actually trying to make and create and be a part of culture, like, of course you want to go into someone’s home. That’s what a zine is about, you know, you’re [exhales]-

Maira: When you’re reading zines, you’re like going into someone’s home.

Poliana: Yes, yes, yes.

Maira: Or their brain.

Poliana: There is a level of intimacy there that um can, once again you’re vulnerable, you know, I could’ve been going to this stranger’s house and it could’ve been creepy. But it wasn’t, because that’s um, you know, you have conversations beforehand, and also you trust. You trust, and that’s what zines are about, it’s a community and a culture um, that people are part of because of that feeling.

Maira: That’s why I’m in it.

Poliana: Chosen family.

Maira: That’s why I still do it, that’s why I got into it, that’s, that’s what I love about zines.

Poliana: Mhm.

Maira: The community.

Poliana: Yeah!

Maira: And that’s why me and the Omaha Zine Fest organizers got matching zine tattoos.

[Poliana gasps]

Maira: Uh-

Poliana: Oh wait, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one!

Maira: We went to Phoenix Zine Fest, we were like, we had met earlier that year. We met like 6 months before, and we were like, “Phoenix!” And we got tattoos, and we just like hung out, and Andrea and Daphne and Kaitlin, you’re all wonderful people.

Poliana: Yay!

Maira: Yay! Are you working on anything currently, or like do you have anything coming up besides Bay Area Queer Zine Fest?

Poliana: That’s a good question. So, this weekend was the Los Angeles Zine Festival, and I really wanted to go to L.A. Zine Fest, and I did not. I really wanted to go to Joshua Tree Zine Fest, and I got in. I ended up not being able to afford it – that’s kind of been the theme of 2018 because it’s been a lot of like, “Aw,” disappointment. But that’s okay because 2017 was fucking lit. So, the thing that I do, okay I’ll have to remind me that I am going to um Minneapolis for the Zine Librarian (Un)Conference-

Maira: Hell yeah!

Poliana: Which is going to be amazing. I went last year in Long Beach, um it was planned to be adjacent to the Long Beach Zine Fest, which was overwhelming and amazing, but um, so this year it’s not around a zine fest. It’s just uh, just the event, the conference itself, so um I am going to do that. It ends up being a bunch of librarians that we swap our own zines, and I have, I know at least one new one since last year’s. Yeah, I think only the one new one, but it’s my favorite zine that I’ve done, Identity Crisis. Um-

Maira: It’s really good!

Poliana: Thank you, I really like it and I’m really proud of it, and I want to do several more. Um, I want to do three more, the first one was kind of the theme of um, plants and like lots of greenery. Um, my next one I want to do like water, and then maybe either a fire one or an earth one, and maybe one about air, like clouds or something. I don’t know. That’s like my idea, I’ve never really, this will be, if I do a sequel, it will be my second sequel ever. Also, Gen X Garbage, I’ve got 1 and 2, um and I thought about doing a third one, make a trilogy of it, I’m not sure though. Because I think the third one, so the first two are just screenshots of um really bad dating profiles that I encountered on Tinder, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, and then the first one focuses on, oh god it’s so bad. It’s um, racist Halloween costumes being used as um, dating profile pictures. It’s bad. And then you just swipe through the zine, it’s like when you flip the pages of the zine it’s supposed to remind you of swiping left on Tinder, um and then the second Gen X Garbage is sexually aggressive messages um from men to me on these dating sites. It’s just really bad, it’s garbage. And so, then the third one I want to do maybe write a little bit about my experiences, because the first two I didn’t really write anything, it was kind of presented without comment. Like, let these guy- I did of course comment on the end, because of course I’m going to comment. But um, presented just as they were and then I think the third one I don’t want to have any. But once again, I kind of, I don’t know. I’m kind of in a nebulous, like I’m planning these things out. Uh reader, call in if you’re interested in any of these zines. [laughs] So, oh I also have Team Swami Zine, I was going to try and finish the third one. Team Swami Zine is my first, um I guess submission-based um, editorial zine where I um solicited from the fandom of Swami Records, and Rocket from the Crypt fandoms, um solicited uh words and images, stories about peoples’ fandoms about these bands from Swami Records label out of San Diego, California. Um, I’ve known some of these people for over 20 years on the internet, um the Rocket forum I believe started in 1997, ’98? Something like that. Um, ’98. And uh yeah, it’s been 20 years now, wow. Anyway, I wanted to do the third one in time for the Hot Snakes show that happened last week, but it didn’t happen. So, um that means that I’ve missed that deadline, so I can just do it whenever.

Maira: Nice.

Poliana: Yeah, so I have plans. I just don’t really have any inspiration to like I have to finish this by then right now, which is a change of pace for me. I usually feel like I need to always be working on something. I think it’s because I have so much other shit in my life right now that it’s like, doing shit that I’m kind of uh… What about you, what are you working on?

Maira: Let’s see, I just finished Zine of the Hill 2, which took me almost a year to finish.

Poliana: It’s hard to finish those ones that other people contribute to!

Maira: Yeah. But speaking of contribution zines, um, I’m putting together a series of zines about karaoke, which I’m super pumped for because if you’ve ever met me, I’ve probably talked your ear off about karaoke within like five minutes of meeting you. Um, so I’m taking submissions for Karaoke Zine Volume 1, submissions are due July 8th, I want to have it ready for Portland Zine Symposium at the end of July. I’m working on Queer Zine Fest, that’s pretty much it right now. I like, haven’t really been inspired to write, but I was writing a lot of poetry this last semester because I was in class, so I want to get back into writing poetry. I’m not working on much right now. Everything’s kind of up in the air.

Poliana: Mhm, mhm.

Maira: But that’s life.

Poliana: Yeah. I think sometimes the idea that uh you need to put a zine out for every fest you go to, um you don’t necessarily have to. But for me, I use them as deadlines.

Maira: Yeah, same.

Poliana: Yeah I use them um, I mean ultimately, the only thing that really gets me going is knowing people will trade me their zines for mine. And then I’m like, “Yes, I have to finish. Oh my god, I need to get the new, the new any of them. The new Zine of the Hill.” Yes, so I do that. It’s okay to bring your old zines, it’s fine.

Maira: Yeah.

Poliana: Because there’s always new people that have never read your stuff before.

Maira: I actually brought a bunch of zines out of retirement for Dear Diary Zine Fest, because I haven’t written a solid perzine in a while, maybe a couple months. But I used to exclusively write perzines, um, and so I brought- I used to do this series called Perpetual Nervousness.

Poliana: Yes! I love that series.

Maira: Thank you! Um, I kind of miss it. But I’ve like moved on to other things, I’m a very different person from when I was writing that. So, it was cool to re-read… it was cringey to read things I wrote when I was like, 24 and you know, first kind of starting the gender journey and just kind of trying to figure my shit out. It’s not like I have it figured out now, but I’m in a very different place with all of that. So, it’s like… I don’t know, it’s cool to see how much I’ve grown as a person in the last 4 years, so um… that’s what I’m working on.

Poliana: Well, I can’t wait to read it.

Maira: Do you have anything else?

Poliana: Yes! There is something else I want to talk about, and plug. Cheers from the Wasteland is back! They are doing a call for submissions for the next issue, which is transportation themed. So, if you are in the sound of my voice, if you can hear my voice and you have um, a story about transportation in the city of San Jose or the surrounding region, consider submitting your story or art, and/or art, to cheersfromthewasteland.com. Um-

Maira: I’ll post the link, too.

Poliana: Yeah! Post the link! It is um my favorite um website on the internet besides [laughs] I don’t know what besides. I was trying to make a joke and I just lost the plot there. But um yeah it’s a really good website and a really good zine.

Maira: I’ve got a couple things to plug aside from things I’ve already plugged. It’s not really a plug, it’s more like news. Um, we are now, “we,” Long Arm Stapler is now available on the iTunes store, so that’s cool.

Poliana: You might already be there!

Maira: You might already be on the iTunes store; I don’t know if it’s still called that. It might be like Apple Music, or I don’t know. We’re available outside of just the website that hosts this podcast. So, that’s really cool and exciting. Karaoke Zine, which I already talked about, I’m taking submissions um on a rolling deadline but if you want to be in the first one, you’ve got to submit by July 8th. I think that’s it. I’m really glad that we were finally able to do this, because-

Poliana: Me, too! We’ve been trying or a minute.

Maira: We’ve been trying to since like-

Poliana: You started.

Maira: January.

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: May 26th, finally happened.

Poliana: We did it!

Maira: Yay!

Poliana: I want to, I want to give a shout out to Diana Hernandez, um her first zine ever is called Ugh, Finally.

Maira: It’s great.

Poliana: It’s amazing! It’s one of my favorite things in life, because I’m a librarian, it is um stuff that’s about stuff, it’s called metadata. It’s a zine about making zines! I think that’s so cool. It’s hilarious and really good, and it’s her first ever zine and I’m really proud of her.

Maira: I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I went over to her house.

[Poliana laughs]

Maira: And-

Poliana: I feel like such an asshole, I totally forgot that you helped her!

Maira: Oh, no! I just think it’s funny because like-

Poliana: [laughing] That was awesome, that was the best selfie. It was really cute.

Maira: I went over to Diana’s house and she was going to make a zine for San Jose Zine Con um, and she had never made a zine before and I was just like, yeah. And so we just wor- she made me dinner which was really nice, shout out-

Poliana: Yeah.

Maira: To Diana, um she made me dinner and we worked on a zine which uh she ended up not going with, but uh, because what her finished product was amazing. Aw, when I had hair.

[Poliana laughs]

Maira: Uh so we sent Poliana a selfie because we were so proud and wanted to share it with her.

Poliana: And there, I am showing the screenshot um from that day, because Li and I, Li from Cheers from the Wasteland, and I were working on Zine Con stuff at that same time. So, it was like zine masterminds texting each other, it was nice.

Maira: It was very nice.

Poliana: Yeah, we’ll [laughs]

Maira: Honestly, screenshot that and send it to me and I’ll put it up.

Poliana: Yeah, mhm.

Maira: Um yeah, thank you for listening to this episode of Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, if you want to be on the podcast, shoot me an email at longarmstapler@gmail.com, I’m also on Twitter, @longarmstapler. And yeah, get at me because I would love to talk to you about zines. Alright, bye!

[Airhorn noises]

[long-arm-stapler]

Episode 4: ABO Comix

[0:14]

Maira: Yeah, this is episode 4 of Long Arm Stapler, which is a podcast about zines! And I am joined by the fine folks from ABO Comix. And they can introduce themselves. Yeah! You want to talk about your project?

Io: Yeah, I’m Io, I do comics, and um, but more importantly, I am a member of the ABO Collective. We publish comics by prisoners, um, hoping to just get them some money, because prison is some bullshit. And if we can show some solidarity with them by giving them some Cup of Noodles or whatever they might need in their commissary, then that is a victory for us. And hopefully getting more prison abolition consciousness in the comic book community, how about you?

Casper: Oh, uh, I’m Casper and I’m also part of the ABO Collective. Io did a pretty good job of explaining kind of what that is. I’m a prison abolitionist, I’m involved with um, Black and Pink in the Bay Area, our local chapter is called Flying Over Walls. And we are uh, a prisoner advocacy group. Yeah, so this project is basically just trying to get some funds into uh, queer prisoners’ commissaries. And to raise awareness for prison abolition.

Io: How long have we been doing this?

Casper: Like 7 or 8 months?

Io: Yeah.

Maira: So, you’ve been doing this for 7 or 8 months, but this weekend you’re having a party.

Io: Yeah! Get hyped.

[all laugh]

Io: We’re having a party! It’s a birthday party, it’s your birthday. Happy birthday, darling. We’re very, very, very… you get it. We’re um, yeah we’re throwing a party at Hella Vegan Eats, um in Oakland on Saturday.

Casper: Saturday, March 24th, from 7 to 11.

Io: Yeah, we, I mean the point of this project was like I said, trying to get some money to queer prisoners, and anyone could have submitted a comic to ABO and we wanted to put it in our anthology in a sort of DIY sort of capacity. Yeah we wanted to, like I said, make some money for queer prisoners on the inside, and donate it to their commissary. But we let everybody who was involved know that comics is um, not a money-making industry, which is why I live in my van. And to donate any money to a prisoner’s commissary, you have to go through a service called J-Pay.

Casper: We’re a collective of some people who like comics, and some people who are abolitionists, and um, we just kind of wanted to bridge those two things. And help queer prisoners express themselves through an artistic medium, and also raise money for uh, their commissary accounts, and their families, and um if they’re getting released soon, have them have a little bit of money to get back on their feet.

Io: Yeah! And the comic is done surprisingly well, I was kind of, I’m the token pessimist about things just because nobody likes my comics, but everyone liked this pretty okay. Dividing royalties between all these artists that we had contribute to this thing was slicing a lot of stuff very thin. We wanted to throw a party before the first royalty period so that we could get everyone like, all the more money in their accounts to pay for a Cup of Noodles or whatever they want in their commissary, or like Casper said, just donate it to their family, which is great because we don’t have to pay the fucking prison fees just to send somebody money, which-

Maira: I didn’t know there were fees. I guess it makes sense though because prisons are awful.

Io: Yeah, they’re bad all around.

Casper: Yeah, there are fees to send um, prisoners money for their commissaries. Basically, every state is different, but in a lot of states, prisoners have a trust fund account that you can put money directly into, or you can also buy them items from a commissary list. Um, and in order to do so, you have to go through several middle men websites, some of which are J-Pay, some of which are operated by the prison, um, and each one tends to charge a certain fee, whether that be a percentage of how much you’re paying or a flat rate, usually like 8 to 10 bucks. Um, so, it costs a lot of money just to send somebody money, unfortunately.

Io: Which is, which is a good way of um, kind of seeing how broken reformist bullshit about getting private prisons out of the market goes, because you know, you’re giving $9 to this weird third party called J-Pay or whatever, versus you’re giving $9 just to send somebody $20, which goes directly to the prison. It’s just going to go in the guard’s pocket, and fuck the guards.

[Casper laughs]

Casper: Right. So needless to say, even though abo, I mean ABO Comics has um-

Io: Abo, ABO, no one in Australia knows how this thing is pronounced.

Casper: Has done relatively well, we’ve broken even on our finances and stuff, unfortunately we don’t have a whole lot of money leftover right now to actually send to our contributors, so we are having this party on March 24th. It will be a queer dance party, um, slash fundraiser and um-

Io: [singsong] There’s going to be a kissing booth.

Casper: A kissing booth. And um, a makeup booth.

Io: A makeup booth, they’re the same booth.

[Casper laughs]

Casper: You have to go to the same booth to kiss somebody and get your makeup done.

[all laugh]

Maira: You’ve got to kiss the makeup.

Casper: There will be a raffle, a lot of raffle prizes.

Io: Yeah. We’re giving away baseball bats and pornography and-

[Casper laughs]

Casper: Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit?

Io: We’re giving away a free month to CrashPad, because Jizz Lee is an angel and gave us a free month to CrashPadpresents dot… org?

Casper: I believe so. Google CrashPad and you will find the website…

[Casper laughs]

Io: Yeah. We’re also giving away-

Casper: From Degenderettes.

Io: Oh yeah, the bat is by our buddy Scout in the Degenderettes, um, we’re giving away a skateboard from-

Casper: We will be raffling off a sixty minute intro to pilates session from Alex Richie, who is an Oakland-based, awesome, queer pilates teacher. And we have a bunch of other cool stuff to raffle off. Free coffee from Perch, gift certificates to The New Parkway.

Io: Um, I don’t know, come to the fucking party and see! I’m not your maid, I’m not here to tell you things.

[Casper laughs]

Io: So, let me tell you some more things about the party.

[Casper and Io laugh]

Io: So, we’re going to have a bunch of bands and I don’t know, I feel like the times when I have felt the most supported, sort of queer community in the weird scorched hellscape that is the Bay Area sometimes, is at things that have a specific purpose that kind of bring everyone together, and being… my friend was just yelling about those “Queers Hate Techies” stickers, which I do like, because yes, but also like, queers are techies. None of this goes together. I want to hang out with queers who want all the prisons to be on fire, and I want them all in the same room, and I want to have a big group hug and see what we can do to just try and provide some solidarity to people who are going through the hell that is American or any sort of prison system.

Casper: Correct, hence the title of this ball being the “Queer Prison-Haters Ball,” so.

Io: Mhm, all prison-haters.

Casper: All prison-haters, whether y’all be queer or not.

Io: Come on down!

Casper: Come hang out with us.

Io: It will be a real hoot. That’s all I’ve got about the event.

Maira: If you want to talk about like, the comics themselves?

Io: Yeah!

Casper: Okay, so now ABO Comix has put out a comic anthology with over twenty LGBT and HIV-positive prisoner contributions.

Maira: Are those from all over?

Casper: They are from all over the United States.

Maira: Oh, cool.

Casper: Yeah, um, like I mentioned before, I am a member of the Bay Area chapter of Black and Pink called Flying Over Walls, um, and Black and Pink puts out a monthly or pretty much monthly newspaper that goes to queer prisoners all over the states. Um, so we took out an ad about 8 months ago, a call for submissions ad, and asked folks if they were interested in making a comic for this anthology to write into our PO box. And we got about, I don’t even know, two hundred letters over the course of the next 4 months or so.

Maira: Woah!

Casper: Yeah, and we uh, narrow-

Io: Only a few of those wound up sending us art, we wanted to publish everyone who sent us a thing as long as they did not make a comic that was especially transphobic or racist in a way that wasn’t contextual to the story at all. And uh, there wasn’t that many, there was a few. We got a lot of people really interested in it, but in the end we only got, what was it, twenty maybe twenty six comics.

Casper: Um, it’s less than that, probably twenty four.

Io: And-

Casper: Yeah, we ended up with a lot of letters, a lot of people that we are still in correspondence with, who we’ve started to consider really good friends. Um, and who are sending us art on the regular. Um, so yeah after about 6 months of corresponding regularly with people and helping people refine their comics, we put out an anthology in December of 2017, and it’s real cool.

Maira: Did that premiere at EBABZ? I remember-

Io: That was, yeah that was the first place that-

Casper: We had the comic on the road.

Io: Yeah. We had an opening party for it at 1234 Go! in Oakland that went really well, I wind up at a lot of zine fests and comic fests and I’m really, I’m more proud of this even though it has nothing that I have created in it, than any of my personal comics. And I’m really excited to like, bring something like this to the um, zine fests like SPX, and CAKE and Portland Zine Symposium and so on.

Maira: Bay Area Queer Zine Fest!

Io: Bay Area Queer Zine Fest!

Maira: Happening eventually.

Io: Um, but also to bring this to like, Slam Diego Comic Con and stuff, it will not sell that many, I assume, I hope I’m wrong, but just bringing a prison abolition element into the comics book community, which… the zine community especially has always leaned left. And the comic book community seems to for the most part, but I’m, I don’t want to have a lot of comics solidarity with some liberal bullshit anymore. I want to lay a lot of things out on the table about how I think all the prisons should be turned into a fine paste and how all the prisoners should be freed and stuff. And I think that reminding people that the prison system is designed to disappear people, peoples’ stories, and bringing those stories into the Captain America-loving like, big comics events, is going to be um, something. I was going to say fun, but it’s not going to be. But I’m going to enjoy it. And that’s my story. What were we talking about, dragons?

Maira: Do y’all have any, are there other queer prisoner anthologies like, out there? Are y’all… I just did a cool motion that is… paving the way, that’s the word I was looking for. Yeah.

Io: That was a very good “paving the way.”

Casper: I definitely, I know there are other um, publications that work with queer prisoners, um I know the Austin Anarchist Black Cross, um publishes I believe a monthly um, sort of zine that’s poetry and art, um and Black and Pink also uh, does that as well. They have a publication called “Hot Pink,” which publishes prisoner erotica. By prisoners. So, I know there are publications doing that, I don’t know of any comic book ones.

Io: I, I haven’t seen any either. I’ve definitely seen, um prisoner comic books out in the world that have gotten out, with the help of friends. None of their names come to mind now unfortunately, but I have never seen a prisoners’ comics anthology. Nor a queer prisoners’ anthology. Um, and that’s exciting and I’m really glad that so many people have been stoked about this. And a couple of people have mentioned that they also, you know, “Oh I would have loved to have thought of that idea.” And I hope that they do that, they’re not ripping us off, this isn’t an original idea. Um-

Casper: Yeah, to my knowledge there is not another anthology. I would love for there to be more.

Io: Yeah, I remember my friend Ben Passmore saying, who has a really, really, really great comic everyone should check out called “Your Black Friend,” that’s getting a lot of well-deserved attention right now. Um, Ben was talking about trying to maybe do something like this someday, and I really hope he does, because I am really proud of what we did, and I know that other people can do it just as well if not better. And get more of these stories out there. The stories that we wound up, we didn’t want to limit these to people who had made comics before, and then went to prison and thought that their comics career was effectively over. And we did have a few people who had stories like that, we had some professional comic book artists, used to be newspapers and things before the state tried to disappear them, but we also wanted to bring the sort of DIY zine element into it, and made sure to let people know like, the only thing you actually need is a desire to tell your story. And well, frankly it’s obvious that some people haven’t made comics before, their stories are really dope and stuff that I’m really glad people are hearing.

Maira: I know this is a stupid question, but how does correspondence work? And how are you able, or are they able, like to put everything together and send it to you, I guess is my question?

Casper: Mainly, we’ve just been going through my PO Box, which I had established for my own sort of pen pals I’ve been in correspondence with over the last couple years. Um, and, like I said earlier, we just took out an ad in the Black and Pink newspaper which I think, I could be completely wrong on this number, but I think it’s about 9 thousand currently incarcerated queer prisoners. Um, just asking for submissions and a lot of people wrote in, um, and basically the process has just been uh, scanning in letters and then sitting down and answering them individually. And I think you can imagine, if you’re getting stacks and stacks of mail every week, and you’ve got 3 people in a collective, that kind of starts to take over your entire life.

Io: Yeah! It’s a nightmare.

[Casper laughs]

Casper: But it’s a beautiful nightmare.

Io: Yeah. This is hell, I’m in hell. Oh god.

Casper: But I love being in hell.

Io: I love dying and being dead.

[Casper laughs]

Casper: I mean yeah, it’s tough because you, you have a stack of forty letters in front of you at any one time, um and it’s overwhelming and it’s scary but then you open up those letters and you see sort of like-

Io: It’s a fucking emotional rollercoaster.

Casper: Yeah, raw, emotional, beautiful letters that are being sent to us, where people open up their hearts and are just so, almost brutally honest. And um, you hear about peoples’ experiences on the inside, and peoples’ experiences prior to coming to prison, and you just kind of end up falling in love with like, every single person who writes to you. It gets like, it’s hard and it’s overwhelming and there are times where I’m like, I just don’t want to anymore, like I’m thinking about giving up on doing this project. And then you open up a new letter and um, it’s somebody telling you about how this project has literally saved their life and taken their mind off of the horrible things that are happening in prison. And given them hope and something to do in prison, um which apparently is a big deal. And it’s just very affirming.

Io: Rewarding.

Casper: Very rewarding.

Io: It’s, yeah, for all the things I’ve tried to do to fulfill my activism quota or whatever, sort of goals that I set for myself, this is the first one with a real like, material return is not the right word that I’m looking for, but I can see the difference that it’s making, and-

Maira: It’s like tangible.

Io: It’s yeah, it’s something I can, something that people are not shy about letting us know matters to them and is a just like, our status as people who are not in jail, it’s like able to provide this vehicle for other people to stay connected to the outside world and that is the kind of like, probably the best form of solidarity I’ve been able to find. Um, so far. Yeah, I’m really glad we decided to do this, and with the medium that I love most, which is comic books, because I’m a fucking nerd-ass idiot who also is not a big fan of the state. So, I needed to smash those interests together.

Maira: How did you both get into abolition work?

Io: Um, Casper’s the big, aboli- the bigger big shot of that, so…

[Casper laughs]

Io: Casper has the number of some Texas prison warden to call, so if anyone wants to crank call.

[indecipherable]

Casper: Oh yeah, the Texas speed dial.

Io: Texas governor on speed dial just to yell at his stupid ass.

Casper: Just to yell at him. I got started in prison abolition work um, probably about 5 or 6 years ago. Um, I just started writing to prisoners because I was a uh, sad and lonely queer slash trans kid in San Diego, and I didn’t like to go outside, was introverted, and scared of the world. Um, so writing with pen pals seemed to be like a good way to socialize or whatever. Um, and most of the people who like to kind of write other letters are, you know, in their 70’s, white, straight women, who like to knit and talk about their cats. And we had nothing in common. So, I came across this website to write prisoners, um and, I did a little search and found the one and only queer person on that site, and I started writing to them. Um, and this was 9 years ago, and we’ve developed a very solid, strong friendship, and through writing to this person, I became aware of all of the injustices with the state and the prison industrial complex. And just how, how much it kind of takes away agency from folks, and so this kind of started my path towards being an abolitionist. Just sort of seeing the injustice that was happening to this one person I was writing with. So, I found this affinity group in San Diego, um and I started doing activism work with them, and when I moved up to Oakland, I teamed up with the Black and Pink chapter up here, and we’ve done a lot of solidarity work with Critical Resistance, and the Anarchist Black Cross, and just other abolitionist groups. So that’s kind of my background on it.

Io: [stuttering] I have nowhere near as um, impressive a pedigree as Casper.

[Casper scoffs]

Casper: We all start somewhere.

Io: Yeah. A lot of my activism has taken the form of a lot of people who were, who are assigned male at birth, white people, uh, compulsive anarchy playtime when Nazis show up or something like that. And that sure is fun for me, but not especially useful in the grand scheme. I’ve written with prisoners off and on, and mostly tried to whenever I have the free time, try and provide some sort of material support for people, usually through some sort of music, event-based, or comics medium. Being in a lot of regrettable bands in my life, and sort of, embezzling isn’t the right word, but close enough, the money that came from those things towards more abolitionist or, if not abolitionist, straight up anti-cop causes has been kind of my biggest project in the last um, I don’t know, 7 to 10 years. And, I’ve finally found like, something that feels like it’s consistent and makes more of a difference than just kind of giving to it when I have the time, um, activism that I’ve gotten up to in the past with ABO.

Maira: We’ve been joined by a dog.

Io: Greetings, dog. Oh, you’re so wet, I don’t want to touch you ever again.

Maira: That old shibe.

Io: What a loaf.

Maira: That’s awesome! That’s, I didn’t know much about the project before this, so it’s really cool to like, get all that background.

Io: Yeah, Casper kind of fills the role of like, person who’s affected the most actual material change amongst us, and I kind of like, handled the like, comics-y bullshit end of things. It’s never… since I’ve kind of, since being a lower-class idiot who’s just like, squatting and lived in vans forever and writes comics about that bullshit, and anarchism blue-blah-blah, that’s just kind of me making money off that lifestyle. And it’s good to not have the weird, neurotic, Catholic guilt of, “Oh, I’m making money off of this cause that I care about,” anymore by putting my efforts into something that actually contributes to causes I truly believe in, rather than it being sort of a playtime affair.

Casper: Also, just to clarify, we don’t make any money off these comics.

Io: Oh, yeah.

Casper: One hundred percent of profits go back to abolitionist organizing or the commissaries of prisoners.

Io: I’ve got an idea, let’s cut that last part out.

[all laugh]

Maira: The whole thing?

[indecipherable]

Io: Just cut the whole thing, let’s start over. Hello!

Maira: Let’s talk about The Joker some more.

Io: So, who’s your favorite Joker?

Maira: Oh.

Io: Mine is the comic book.

[Casper laughs]

Maira: I like the one on the playing cards.

Io: Oh…

Maira: I’ve never read a comic in my entire life. Um-

Io: What’s a comic book?

Maira: I don’t know. This dog doesn’t know. Do y’all have anything else you want to plug or talk about? I’m going to post links for like the event page for the party, and I can link any websites or emails or whatever.

Io: Mention that all the profits from the book go to people, if that wasn’t clarified before, what do you think? I think we kind of mentioned that this is a project just trying to get some money for prisoners.

Casper: Yeah.

Io: We got a lot of support when we were making, when we had the idea, and we’re in too deep to quit. Uh, to of making the comic. We got a lot of support from too many people to list. Um, including some people who helped us buy a thermal binder, so that we could make the first round of books ourselves.

Casper: Yes, thank you to Sun Beaver and Alex Richie at Mr. Beaver’s Paws and Claws, which is a local Bay Area vet tech and animal care company.

Io: Yeah, thanks babies.

Casper: Slash also I work for.

Io: Oh, are we doing plugs already?

Casper: I don’t know, I just wanted to credit them.

Io: No, that’s-

Maira: Yeah, plug whatever.

Io: The Powerpuff Girls Movie. Now out on Blu-Ray.

[all laugh]

Io: But yeah, we got a lot of support for it because all of us are poor and without a lot of people we, we have some of our own money into this. But it wouldn’t have been possible without, you know, a lot of people believing in it. Um, and throwing some money down for it. And that’s great because we don’t have to think as hard about the bottom line, or making our money back or anything like, because all the money we want that to just go directly to the prisoners, and if we can avoid even having to you know, spend money on paper, I’ve shoplifted reams and reams-

Casper: Don’t incriminate yourself.

Io: [high-pitched] I didn’t say where I stole it from! [normal pitch] Statute of limitations! Etcetera, look at my suit. Um, shoplifting is cool and will get you into heaven. Do it, all the time.

Casper: Agreed, just don’t say it on a podcast.

[Casper laughs]

Io: Whatever, I’m not fucking afraid of them. Yeah, all the money goes to the prisoners. And done, we did it, high five.

[Casper and Io high five]

Maira: Cool, um-

[all laugh]

Maira: This was episode 4 of Long Arm Stapler, I’m Maira, if you have any questions, longarmstapler@gmail.com, I’m going to post all the links for the ABO stuff, and we will see you at the Queer Prison-Haters’ Ball on Saturday, March 24th. Which is in 4 days, so get your dancing shoes ready. And with that, no more talking from me.

[outro music 30:30]

Io: Farewell!

Maira: Alright, bye!

[long-arm-stapler]

Episode 3: Ali Giordani

00:13 

Maira: Maybe this has something to do with

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Tight, the recording volume was all the way down! And now it's just off the charts.

Alg: Now it's just off the charts.

Maira: I'm probably going to cut all of this out.

Alg: Oh, no.

Maira: Maybe I'll keep it. Okay, who know? Hello, and welcome to the third annual episode of Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines. I'm Maira.

Alg: I'm Ali, or Alg.

Maira: Today, I have Alg with me.

[both laugh]

Maira: Okay, I just worked an 8 hour shift and I'm very delirious, but this should be fun. Um, so we are two thirds of Queer Anxiety Babiez Distro. But Ali also does their own stuff, which we are going to talk about. Um, yeah. So, tell us a little about your experience with zines. And yourself I guess? Whatever you want to talk about.

Alg: Yeah! Um, my name is Ali, or Algae, or Alg, I have a lot of nicknames. I guess I first got into zines, like I remember I went to Portland to visit my cousin, and she took me to a zine library and I was like, "Whoa." 

Maira: Was it at the IPRC?

Alg: Yeah it was at the IPRC.

Maira: Oh! I love the IPRC.

Alg: So it was so good and so exciting, because I was like, "Wait, you can publish things? And you don't have to go through publishing houses?" Because I find that to be very intimidating for no reason.

Maira: Oh no, it's intimidating.

Alg: Yeah, so, I- but I didn't really, I've actually found the first thing I ever got published in a zine, it was in Oatmeal Magazine, which I might read.

Maira: How long- so, you worked on Oatmeal for how long?

Alg: Um.

Maira: Was it you and Claire from the beginning?

Alg: No, Oatmeal was started by Claire Stringer and Trisha, I'm forgetting her last name right now. I think they started it in like 2011 or something. And then Trisha moved to North Carolina to start grad school, and I like timidly asked Claire if I could help edit it in 2015? And then we did it together for two years and it was such a good experience, and I found such a good artistic community through it, and I think during that time, you all had asked me to help run Queer Anxiety Babiez, and it was so kismet and great.

Maira: I really enjoyed your Twitter presence. Because we hadn't met-

Alg: We hadn't met, no.

Maira: You submitted to one of my zines and I think I followed you on the Queer Anxiety Babiez Twitter. and I thought, "They're funny, they should join us."

[Alg laughs]

Alg: I have a good Twitter presence.

Maira: Yeah, for sure. Kristen, the other member of Queer Anxiety Babiez, we were like, going through a mental list of people, because you know, we're so elite.

[both laugh]

Maira: And you know, people are just flocking to join our Distro. 

[Alg laughing]: As they should, though.

Maira: And so it was like, it was a pretty short list, we just said, "Yo, let's get Ali in on this." 

Alg: Yeah I remember I got that text that said, "Can we talk to you about something?" And I was like, "Oh my god, what did I do wrong?"

[Maira laughs]

Alg: Did I somehow just offend these two people, yeah, we didn't, I would say we met a couple of times and then we became friends when we went to Portland together for Portland Zine Fest-

Maira: Yeah, yeah!

Alg: That was like, a very sweaty zine fest. 

Maira: God, it was so hot in there.

Alg: It was so hot, but I still had a good time.

Maira: Yeah, I got my Hunting for Weed hat, that I actually talked about at work today. And showed my coworker a picture from your Instagram.

Alg: Wow.

Maira: But yeah, we drove up to Portland Zine Fest last year?

Alg: Yeah, this past summer.

Maira: And it was a long drive."

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I'm a professional. As we sit on my living room floor, Ali walked into my apartment and I was listening to the Space Jam soundtrack because it was released on VHS on this day-

Alg: Oh.

Maira: In whatever year. 

Alg: So you're celebrating.

Maira: Three eleven. Three eleven was an inside job.

Alg: Oh, three eleven.

Maira: Shout out to Poliana because I totally jacked that.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Zines! 

Alg: Zines, yeah. I guess I could talk more about that, my love of zines. I just did, I guess I can talk about "Advice to Our Younger Selves"-

Maira: Yeah!

Alg: That was a project I started, and I really want to make a second issue of it, so look out for submissions, but uh, I got sort of obsessed with the idea of taking myself out for a pancake breakfast. Like taking all my younger selves out for a pancake breakfast. Because I actually wrote about that in one of my pieces that I submitted to Oatmeal for the first time. And I was like, "That would be so cool, I would love to do that." And then I just created a zine about it. And everyone, like I got so many good submissions. [clears throat] The release night was really special to me, because it was a couple people's first time reading, which I love to facilitate, because everyone- it's really nerve-wracking to read in front of people.

Maira: Yes.

Alg: I remember the first time I did it my voice was just shaking the whole time, and my voice is always shaking, but it was-

Maira: Especially shaking.

Alg: Especially shaking, because it's like I write really personal things on my phone, and then to see them in print and read them out loud to people? It's such a different experience, but it's always very validating to me. My least favorite thing is when I read something about like, suicide or body image, and people come up to me and say, "That was so brave." 

Maira: I, okay-

Alg: That's such a pet peeve of mine. I don't know.

Maira: I- like, it is but it shouldn't be brave. Like, it's like when if I wore a swimsuit people would be like, "Oh my god you're so brave"-

Alg: So body positive.

Maira: And it's like, no I'm just fat and wearing a swimsuit.

Alg: Exactly! No-

Maira: Leave me alone!

Alg: Yeah I mean, I know- now I usually preface things by saying like, "Please don't tell me I'm brave after reading this," because all of my piece are very personal but, I remember that happened a lot the night I read this really personal piece about sexual abuse. And I was like, "I can't handle this anymore. Please stop saying I'm brave." I don't want to be brave.

Maira: Put it on a t-shirt, like "Don't tell me I'm brave." Maybe I'll make buttons! We can sell them at the next zine fest.

Alg: Yes. Oh, I would actually, that's a good idea.

Maira: Yeah, dude, we can make one tonight. I've got my button maker. Let's fucking do it.

Alg: Let's just do it.

Maira: Not right now, because we might get distracted. 

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And the button maker is a little noisy. 

Alg: Oh my god.

Maira: Yeah, let's do it.

Alg: Zines. I love them. I wish I had something more profound to say about them.

Maira: What's your favorite zine? Or like how did you get into zines? Wait, you already told me.

Alg: Yeah, through Oatmeal but I think before that, I was just really into the idea of doing self-published work. And I was very intimidated, I would say, by the zine community, at first. Because I feel like it can be very intimidating when you go to a zine fest, and now that I'm on the other side of it - yeah, sometimes I'll talk to people, I like really try to be outgoing, but you've sort of been sitting there for 4 hours and it's just like, I hope I don't come off as short to people. Because that can be scary.

Maira: It's draining.

Alg: It's scary. It's draining.

Maira: Sitting on the other side of a table?

Alg: Yeah, it's surprisingly draining. So-

Maira: And then when old men just read your-

Alg: Oh my god.

Maira: Really personal work, and then look you in the eye afterward, and then expect you to talk to them about it. And I'm like, "This isn't written for you."

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Shout out to Kristen for doing the bike bros, "No Bike Bros" stuff, because they ahd to deal with all these bike bros coming up to them being like, "What is this about? Is this about me?" And it was like, yeah, it's about you. If you have to ask, it's about you.

[Maira laughs]

Alg: But yeah, I think I really, really got into zines after I went to- the first zine I was in was "Totemeal," which was an issue of Oatmeal, they're really big on the puns. We got big on the-

Maira: Was there a tote bag involved?

Alg: No, there wasn't, but it was like, "Totemeal: The Baggage Issue." 

Maira: Oh, I get it.

Alg: Which I loved, yeah and then I went to that zine release and was like, "Wow there's a whole bunch of people who love writing and sharing," and Oatmeal really became a beautiful experience for me. To get real cornball, but, I think we might try to do another issue, but Claire is very busy with grad school. It's awesome, but I also really miss Oatmeal.

Maira: Yeah, Oatmeal was one of those things that I had always heard of it, and I always thought it was really cool, and then I like, was intimidated by Oatmeal? I'm pretty much intimidated by anyone whose zines are not like-

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I stole printer paper from work and I don't know, zines that look nice.

Alg: Yeah-

Maira: And Oatmeal looks really nice.

Alg: Yeah because Claire does an awesome... shout out to Claire Stringer.

Maira: Shout out to Claire.

Alg: Because she does the most beautiful illustrations for it, and yeah, it always looks very professional.

Maira: I've just got all this fucking handwriting all over mine, "Wah, I'm sad," but in cursive. 

[Alg laughs]

Alg: I know, now that I have the Kinko's code, I'll never be printing at home ever.

Maira: Oh my god, shout out to the Kinko's code. Maybe not a shout out? I don't know. 

Alg: Yeah, if anyone from Kinko's is listening-

[both]: Don't!

Maira: Don't listen to my podcast.

Alg: All the Kinko's people who subscribe to zine podcasts. Folks really have to deal with so many zine people.

Maira: Oh my god, yeah.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: They're always like, I don't know, I went to a, I think it was twenty four hour FedEx when I was in LA when I was down there for some zine fest, with my friends Alan and Ari, and the people who worked there were just glaring at us the entire time. Because I feel like when you go for zine stuff, and I got glared at with um, Niko and Mando when we were prepping for Dear Diary. Um, because when you go for zine shit, you spread out-

Alg: Yeah!

Maira: All over, you take over every single self-service copier, and you put your shit everywhere, and you've probably got snacks.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And you're trying not to make a mess but you might be. And you're stealing their staples-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: To put in your own stapler. Again, if you work at FedEx, don't @ me. 

Alg: Yeah, my thing is I always have to ask them to refill the paper, like-

Maira: Oh.

Alg: Also, zinesters, don't go to the Fedex in downtown Berkeley.

Maira: Oh no, that's the one we went to-

Alg: They're so rude. They're so rude there.

Maira: Yeah! They were- It closes at 8 o clock.

Alg: It closes at 8 o clock now?

Maira: Yeah, because they kicked us out at 7:59. And my friend, Niko, was very like, "No, I'm printing these copies, I paid for them, we're staying til they're done." And they were like, [high voice] "It's 7:59, you need to go." 

Alg: Damn.

Maira: "You damn punks, get out of my store!"

[Alg laughs]

Maira: That's what it felt like. 

Alg: No, totally.

Maira: So we went to the twenty four hour one in San Francisco, and we were there for fucking hours, and they were rude to us there, too. I think just hate zine people.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: It's always old people who just maybe you're just angry?

Alg: I mean, yeah if I had to work at a twenty four Kinko's, I think I'd be a little angry, too.

Maira: Yeah-

Alg: But also-

Maira: We're just trying to get by.

Alg: You're at work right now.

Maira: Yeah, you're at work, just be nice. I work customer service too, damn.

Alg: I know, I know.

Maira: I feel like I'm very polite when I go in, and I'm not like, [monster noise].

[Alg laughs]

Maira: That's actually the noise I make when I leave my house any time I interact with a human. But yeah like, I don't know, I feel like I'm pretty understanding of like, customer service shit because I've been in it for years. And it's just like, be nice.

Alg: Just be nice.

Maira: I'm sorry that people are mean to you all day.

Alg: At least be passive aggressive.

Maira: Yeah, oh my god, I would so much prefer passive aggressive. 

Alg: Right? Like I was such a passive aggressive asshole when I worked service jobs.And then there's the occasion that I have no one to be passive aggressive to. 

Maira: Yeah, you need that outlet. 

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Maybe- are there passive aggressive zines? 

Alg: Oh my god, there should be.

Maira: Just a zine full of passive aggressive notes. 

Alg: Oh my god.

Maira: Like a collection.

Alg: There should be.

Maira: Oh my god, if you have received a passive aggressive note, email it to us.

Alg: Please scan it or take a pic.

Maira: Scan it, and email it to us and we'll make a fucking zine of passive aggressive notes. 

Alg: I think that's actually-

Maira: The light bulb just went off.

Alg: I think that's what I actually really love about zines is you can just think of any random collection of stuff you want to do and be like, "Wait, I'm just going to make a zine of it." 

Maira: Yup.

Alg: That's what I really love about it, because I mean some of them are obviously very nicely printed and very glossy and it'll look like perfectly composed photographs which, mad respect to those people because I am not like that at all. But I also love the ones that are like scribbly and just like, made in a hurry.

Maira: Yeah. 

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Um, are you working on anything right now? 

Alg: Yeah! Um, I am doing a sort of complicated project with my older sister Sonia, it's going to be a "found objects" zine, so essentially what you do- we were originally going to have people mail all the objects to Sonia, but now it's just going to be like, "Give them to me or Sonia." It's like if you have a found object that you love, um, just give it to one of us and then you'll- we're going to do a huge exchange and you'll get a new found object from like an anonymous person, and then you write about it. 

Maira: That's so tight. I feel like that's a lot of orchestration-

Alg: Yeah. It is.

Maira: So kudos to you for putting that on.

Alg: Yeah, we have a spreadsheet going, or we need to make a spreadsheet. 

Maira: Oh cool, okay.

Alg: Yeah, because it's going to be complicated. Obviously, everyone is going to want their found objects back. But-

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: I really want to do that so look out for more Facebook posts about it because like I actually need to get on that.

Maira: Yeah, it will be on the Queer Anxiety Babiez Facebook page.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: And I’ll post about it on Long Arm Stapler, too.

Alg: It’s like it, it’s hard to describe but it’s going to be a really fun project. I think I’m actually going to, because I want to do it in color, because I want to like scan the objects and have them next to other… Like take pictures of them if they’re like larger objects-

Maira: Ooh, yeah.

Alg: Yeah I just need to save up a little money to like, do the mailing costs. But, and then I’m working on another one with Mollie Underwood who um-

Maira: Irrelevant?

Alg: Yeah does Irrelevant Press, yeah and they’re awesome. But yeah we’re doing one that’s… we gave each other ten words slash concepts to write about and we’re just going to write about them and put them in a zine without saying whose is whose. But that means I can’t write anything that like really gives me away-

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Which is hard because [laughs] all my shit is so personal, but-

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Yeah! That’s what I’m working on right now and I’m really excited about both of those things because shit has been hard lately, and creativity can be difficult when you’re depressed. But it’s also-

Maira: Preaching to the fucking choir.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: But it’s also so important too, I don’t know, like I like zines that I’ve made because then I can look at them and be like, “Oh I made something and I did something,” and it’s very comforting.

Maira: It’s kind of like that scene in Parks and Rec where-

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Where Ben-

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Adam… Ben is like, “Could a depressed person make this?” and there’s this perfect little doll that looks like him, and it’s like, yeah that’s basically depression in a nutshell.

Alg: Yeah his requiem for a Tuesday. I actually made a meme about that once and it didn’t get as much attention as I wanted.

Maira: Your memes are good.

Alg: Yeah, it’s like me when I submit my writing [laughs] “Could a depressed person make this?”

Maira: That’s how I-

Alg: That’s what I do all the time.

Maira: I like that zines are tangible, because I can be like, “Damn, I was really depressed but I got twenty-four pages.” Like-

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: And I mean, they’re quarter sized, I’m not prolific…

[Alg laughs]

Alg: You’re pretty prolific.

Maira: Um, [exhales sharply] I just like holding them up and being like, “Yo, I was really depressed, but like, something I guess good came out of it?” You know?

Alg: Yeah! Yeah I really like, is it Manic Summer?

Maira: Manic Spring.

Alg: Manic Spring, I really like that one.

Maira: And then it was Manic Spring 2: This Time It’s Summer.

Alg: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] That was good.

Maira: I need to write more.

Alg: Always. I feel like I can only write when I’m distracted and like, trying to procrastinate on other projects.

Maira: Yeah!

Alg: Or on my smoke breaks. I’m going to try to quit smoking this year, so it will be very interesting.

[both laugh]

Maira: So… writing is… you’ll just have to take writing breaks instead of smoke breaks.

Alg: Yeah, maybe I’ll do… yeah. So that’s how I feel about zines!

Maira: Tight.

Alg: I love them, everyone should make them, and you should reach out to us.

Maira: Queer Anxiety Babiez with a “z!” I don’t know why I said it like that.

Alg: With a “z.”

Maira: With a “z”!

Alg: No, I mean, yeah I really like that when people like, give us their zines or talk about ideas they want to do and… or even just ask for help because it’s like, if you have the knowledge, you should just share it.

Maira: Yeah, we love sharing knowledge. Um, and I feel like we’re… so technically in October of 2017 we said we were going on hiatus, and like-

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I’ll say it, none of us have gotten our shit together-

Alg: No.

Maira: All of us are just dealing with shit so we’re still on hiatus? But, I don’t know. I want to like… I really miss working with y’all and making zines and like-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Crafting.

Alg: I want to have like-

Maira: This is the sappy gay portion of-

Alg: Oh my god yeah, thank you everyone who stuck around for it. The sappy gay-

Maira: The sappy gay portion.

Alg: My corny Italian ass is going to get real right now. No, I mean, yeah I think it’s really easy to self-isolate when you’re depressed and I’ve definitely been doing that because I’ve been massively grieving some losses and I just really want to honor myself and my art and make new things and my birthday is coming up so I really want to have like a Queer Anxiety Babiez reading night, where we just get a ton of people together in my backyard and just read in the afternoon.

Maira: That would be so cool!

Alg: And freak out all my neighbors in Temescal. That’s not until May, so I have a couple of months to figure it out and plan it out.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Yeah, because I love readings.

Maira: Yeah, readings are fun. They’re scary but they’re fun.

Alg: Yeah, I-

Maira: Most of the time when I read I like, cry-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Because it’s so… weird, hearing my own voice is weird.

Alg: Speaking into microphones is really fucking weird.

Maira: This is weird right now.

Alg: Yeah. Yeah I’m just looking at all your tattoos.

Maira: Oh!

Alg: I’m just never going to get bored of them.

Maira: Thank you! I got some new ones. I got the stapler.

Alg: I know, I really want a long arm stapler tattoo now.

Maira: I think everyone should get long arm stapler tattoos.

Alg: Just to prove to everyone that I’m gay.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: I have a Cocteau Twins tattoo now and it’s like, “Are you gay and emo? I am!”

[Maira laughs]

Maira: “You think you’re gay and emo? Because uh, look what I’ve got.”

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Look what I’ve got on me.

Maira: Yeah, I literally have “queer and sad” on me.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: That one’s so good.

Maira: Um, based off a patch that Kristen made! That their partner Geraldine-

Alg: Shout out to Geraldine!

Maira: Shout out to Geraldine!

Alg: Shout out to all our buds.

Maira: Yeah! Hell yeah, friends are great. Um, our friend Geraldine, on her first try, carved this really amazing cursive rubber stamp that says, “queer and sad,” and I was like, “Damn, that’s really good.”

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: And so, I went home sick from work one day at my last job, and I don’t think I was really sick, I just didn’t want to be there.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Capitalism.

Maira: Capitalism. That job fucking sucked.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I was just sitting in bed, and I did cursive upside-down stick and poke…

Alg: Really? It looks so good.

Maira: Yeah, thank you. I’ve got some Queer Anxiety Babiez tattoos. Or, I have one. Of our old logo, but we need a new logo, because now we’ve got Ali.

Alg: Yep! I’m here.

Maira: I mean, we’ve had Ali, for like a while…

[both laugh]

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Our business card is just like, these hedgehog stickers I found, I think?

[Alg laughs]

Alg: I mean, I like how our “official picture” is just the one you photoshopped me onto a hamburger. That’s how I want to be seen, as a cheeseburger all the time.

Maira: And I didn’t have any colored photos of myself that I liked, so it’s like everything’s in color except for me and it’s black and white and I’m just staring thoughtfully into the distance.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Yeah, it’s great. I love it.

Alg: Good times. No, I’m hoping that we’ll all be able to get together soon and get off of our hiatus a little bit, but also the great thing about zines is you can make your own deadlines for them!

Maira: Hell yeah.

Alg: Like, if you have a zine fest coming up, you can be like, “Okay, I’ll get something done by then, but if not, it’s fine.”

Maira: Yeah. I’m… So, I’m going to Grid Zine Fest, I keep forgetting if it’s Grid City Zine Fest or Grid Zine Fest, but I think it’s Grid Zine Fest in Salt Lake City in a couple of weeks.

Alg: Oh yeah, I remember that!

Maira: And I’m like… So, yesterday was the official-official-official deadline for Zine of the Hill 2.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Because I’ve been like, remember I made the call for submissions during Portland Zine Symposium last year?

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: I was like, I was like, “You know I kind of want to do this,” and then I was just like, “Fuck it, I’m doing it.”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And I started drawing Bill Dauterive and-

Alg: In that like 90-degree room.

Maira: Oh my god, it was so sweaty.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I was just like, I just decided that it was going to happen, and so I like, started posting about it on the internet instead of talking to people about buying my work, I was like, “Got to focus.”

Alg: Got to focus.

Maira: Yeah, so this has been a labor of love that I’ve been working on since July of last year.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Um, and I was trying to have it for EBABZ, but you know-

Both: Shit happens.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Um, so I’m going to have it ready, it’s going to premiere at Grid Zine Fest on April 14th, so if you live in Salt Lake City, lucky you! Or, if you live around there, and you’ll be at the fest… you don’t have to live in Salt Lake City.

Alg: Super fun.

Maira: Yeah, I’m so excited! I definitely got tickets either, well, no, my friend bought us plane tickets-

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Just kind of on a whim. Uh, and it was either before I started working weekends or after, and I was like, “Well, you bought a ticket in my name, I guess I’ve got to go!”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Thanks, Niko!

Alg: Oh, also, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest!

Maira: Oh, yeah, hell yeah, let’s talk about that. Um, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest I feel like I’ve mentioned in every episode and I talk about it a lot and I finally put it on my resume-

Alg: It’s your baby, yeah.

Maira: It’s my baby!

Alg: You did so much work for it last year.

Maira: After-

Alg: Brag about it.

Maira: Okay, so I put on a zine fest with a couple of other people, and it was after my house burned down.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Last summer was a lot.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Um, but, Bay Area Queer Zine Fest is coming back this summer and it’s going to be great. I was going to say, “I think,” but no, it’s going to be great.

Alg: It’s going to be great, yeah.

Maira: Um, Alg is going to help organize.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: We’ve got people interested already; we’re looking at venues.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: It’s going to be tight, so look out for that.

Alg: And it’s going to be later in the summer this year than it was last summer.

Maira: Yeah!

Alg: Which is exciting because that means I’ll be able to go to the fest itself, because last year it was during one of the festivals I was working.

Maira: Yeah. I was like, I think I also just like started planning it way later than I did last year.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Because it comes up a lot on my Facebook memories and I’m just like, “Fuck, I was so much better prepared last year.”

Alg: Time is an illusion.

Maira: Time is fake.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: So is gender, everyone just eat trash, I think that’s a meme of a raccoon that I have on my phone somewhere. And so yeah, it’s going to be in August probably, or like late July.

Alg: Yeah, it’ll be good though, I’m excited for it already.

Maira: Yeah, if you’re queer and make zines, hit me up, or it’s at like… just look up Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, I’ve got my hands in so many fucking different pots right now.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: That I’m like, “Just hit me up and I’ll direct it where it needs to go!”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Um…

Alg: Yeah, no it’s going to be super fun.

Maira: I’m so excited, last year was so good.

Alg: I know, I had such… I hate the term “fomo” because, you know, basic.

[Maira laughs]

Alg: For neurotypical people. But, um, I had such bad fomo because I was like, “Damn.”

Maira: We made a moon!

Alg: Yeah. The photobooth…

Maira: The fest itself was really fun and really cool but the thing I was most proud of was we made this fucking 6-foot papier mache moon the night before the fest. And then I stuck a little trans flag in it because like, let’s be real, the moon is trans.

Alg: The moon is definitely trans.

Maira: And-

Alg: So is the ocean.

Maira: Yeah. And then we just like, hung it from the rafters or some shit.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And yeah, we had a really cute photobooth, and I had the whole week before the fest off of work and I just like, holed up in my apartment and made props.

Alg: Y’all did so much great work for it, and I just heard from everyone that it was very special, so I think y’all should be very proud.

Maira: Shout out to everyone else who organized last year!

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And shout out to everyone who tabled. And to everyone who is organizing this year. Even if we don’t have a coherent- we’re working on it.

Alg: We have a doodle.

Maira: I think we have a doodle, yeah.

Alg: I filled out a doodle today.

Maira: We have a doodle, we’re official.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: It’s not times, it’s just days. But, you know, we’re getting there. We’ve got a doodle! So, we’re adults.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: I also included like, people who only vaguely expressed interest, but I sent this really official sounding email from the Queer Zine Fest email and I was like, “Thank you for your interest in um, organizing this fest,” and my friend emailed me back and was like, “Yo, I didn’t sign up for this, but okay!”

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Sounds fake, but okay.

Maira: Yeah, so I texted them and was like, “I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to do it! Ahhh!” And they haven’t texted me back. But I don’t think they’re mad at me.

Alg: No, I don’t think they’re mad at you.

Maira: I hope not.

Alg: That’d be a weird thing to be mad about.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: People have been mad at me about weirder things.

Maira: Yeah, all I did was send an email.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And assume. And you know what happens when you assume. You’re usually wrong.

Alg: Yeah. You make an ass out of you and me.

Maira: Also, that.

Alg: Read that in Gossip Girl when I was like twelve. And I will never forget it.

[Maira laughs]

Maira: That’s my favorite thing to say, but lately I’ve just been being like, fucking with people and just like, “Ya wrong.”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I think mostly just to piss off my coworkers.

Alg: My new thing is saying, “We’re all trying to live out loud.”

Maira: Ooh.

Alg: Because I used to say, “Live, laugh, love,” but I feel like, “Live out loud” is like-

Maira: My neighbors have a “Live, laugh, love” doormat. I’ll show it to you before you leave.

Alg: Oh, god. I’m going to take a picture of it, that’s so embarrassing.

Maira: Yeah, I hope they’re not sitting outside.

[both laugh]

Maira: Because sometimes they do!

Alg: Good for them, getting outside.

Maira: Yeah, it’s nighttime, go inside.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: So, you’re working on something with your sister…

Alg: Yeah! My big sister, uh, Sonia, shout out to Sonia.

Maira: Shout out to Sonia. There’s so many shout outs on this podcast, and that’s what I’m here for.

Alg: Yeah, because like-

Maira: That’s really what this is about, is shouting people out.

Alg: Yeah, again, I’m going to be hell of gay and the best part about zines is community, and feeling, I was going to say like less of a freak, but that there are other people like you is really nice.

Maira: Yeah, everyone can be freaks together.

Alg: Yeah, we’re all freaks together, we all make weird art, and I’m excited for my favorite thing is when older people come to the zine fest.

Maira: Yeah!

Alg: I can’t wait until we’re all older and still running zine fests, it’s going to be so much fun.

Maira: I love just like, the range. I love when kids come to zine fests-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Even though sometimes it stresses me out because little kids stress me out, but I love when kids are like, “Oh, what is this! Oh!” and they’re so excited about it. And I wish that I had learned about zines that young-

Alg: Me too, yeah.

Maira: And I wish that I had known that like, creative output… I don’t know, I got like, discouraged.

Alg: Oh, totally.

Maira: From writing fiction when I was a kid. And it’s like, damn if I had just stuck with it I wouldn’t have had to wait until college to get into zines.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: I wouldn’t have had to find them on the internet.

Alg: Yeah, totally.

Maira: But like, shout out to tumblr for-

Alg: Oh my god.

Maira: I want to say tumblr “back in the day,” but it was really like, 2011 and 2010, I feel like that’s when it was in its prime.

Alg: Definitely in its prime. Um-

Maira: I learned so much about zines and gender and myself and memes-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Which, I feel like those… three of those things really make up myself.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Yeah, no, um, and also I’m a big fan of internet connections and I got into writing because of fanfiction.

Maira: Ooh, like fanfiction.net?

Alg: No, I used Livejournal.

Maira: Oh, Livejournal.

Alg: Cannot remember my password, and it’s a private account and I can’t remember the URL, but it was attached to my old AOL account, which is now deactivated, but I wrote like, so much fanfiction as a youth.

Maira: AOL?

[both laugh]

Alg: Yeah, it was what, like, 2005, 2006? Everyone had AOL, it was cool.

Maira: Oh, okay, I won’t make fun of you then. [Alg laughs] I am currently making fun of someone for using AOL in the year of our lord, 2018.

Alg: Um, my therapist uses Hotmail, which I think is really funny.

Maira: But yeah, Livejournal! Which also comes up every time I open my mouth, basically.

Alg: No, I mean, yeah I’m a big believer in connections through the internet. That’s how I made so many friends and stayed alive, I think.

Maira: Oh, yeah.

Alg: Through many dark ti- I remember I got on tumblr in 2009, 2010, which was like, my senior year of high school and I was going through my first depressive episode. And I wrote so much sad, emo poetry.

Maira: That makes me feel really old.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: You’re like, two years older than me?

Maira: Because I was like, on my way out of college?

Alg: Oh, really?

Maira: Well, 2010 I was in my junior year. I think just the juxtaposition of high school with me thinking yeah, I was living in San Francisco at the time. I don’t know.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Time is fake! We have established this!

Alg: Yeah, the moon is trans.

Maira: If you take anything away from this podcast-

Alg: The moon is trans.

Maira: The moon is trans, and time is fake. And zines are great.

Alg; And I have a great Twitter presence.

Maira: And yeah.

Alg: That’s the only thing you need to know from this podcast.

Maira: Honestly? Um-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Yeah. But yeah so, Livejournal, sorry. Tangent.

Alg: Oh yeah, so that’s when I really got into writing and really started, because I remember I watched, oh my god, how real do I want to get? I watched a lot of porn growing up, and was like, “This is all so violent and scary.” And then like, I found Harry Potter fanfiction, and it was all so tender and sweet, and that’s when I was like, “Oh, okay.” And looking back, that’s probably when I started identifying less as like, a girl, because it was like, “Oh, gender can be weird, fun. And you can explore things.” But yeah, I wrote Hermione/Luna fanfiction.

Maira: Ooh.

Alg: So good, my little closeted self. On my family’s computer in my dad’s room. Ooh, good times.

[both laugh]

Maira: I just think back to being younger and had like, had I known about zines-

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Or like, been exposed to that… Because like, my sister, my younger sister was really into fanfiction, but I never got into it.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: But I was so into Livejournal, and I’m still friends with like a mill- not a million, people from Livejournal, I don’t have that many friends. But like, I’m still really close with a lot of people I met on Livejournal-

Alg: Yeah!

Maira: Um, and I wish that I had I known about zines or like-

[Alg clears their throat]

Maira: Gender variance? That like, would have been so helpful as a kid.

Alg: Yeah, of course.

Maira: So, we carry this zine called “genderqueer” through our distro, um, that was made by someone from Oakland. And honestly? If you want a copy, we’ll hook it up for free. Because like, I don’t know, I think that shit is really helpful for like, kids.

Alg: Yeah, we’ve definitely had teachers come up to our booth and buy it, or people who are like, “I want to give this to my parents.” It’s a very good, like-

Maira: Gender 101 primer.

Alg: Yeah. That’s usually what we say. And I think it’s so true because it’s hard to have those conversations, and like especially with parents. So-

Maira: I literally took one to my parents’ house, like two Christmases ago, left it half-tucked under a pile of whatever the fuck, and didn’t say anything.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And just left their house. And I think I got a text like, two weeks later that was like, “Hey, you left your zine here.” And I was like, “It’s for you.”

Alg: “It’s for you.”

Maira: Um, because yeah those conversations are really hard to have. Like, I don’t know, zines are so informative, and you can learn so much from them. And basically, I just really wish I had zines like, earlier in life.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: For sure.

Alg: Oh, totally. Like, I think it’s just nice to know there are so many paths to creativity. And not everything has to go through these really gross structures of publishing, and you don’t have to be really criticized for your art, that’s what I like about it, is that, because I took like, creative writing classes in college and it was always like, very intimidating and very demoralizing to get all these critiques on my writing. And I make zines now and everyone’s like, “Your writing’s great! You’re doing great,” and it’s lovely.

Maira: Yeah, dude that’s my experience with like, zines now and also my creative writing class that I’m taking. It’s very affirming because like, I don’t know, I like my writing, I feel like it fits a very specific need for me-

Alg: Your writing is great.

Maira: Thanks, but it’s also, I don’t know, I don’t enjoy writing poetry, but we just did a poetry section-

Alg: Hm, interesting.

Maira: In creative writing, and like, I don’t know, I didn’t know about prose poetry-

Alg: Yeah!

Maira: Because that’s what I prefer, I think. And it was really nice to get like, good feedback.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: No one was ever like, “You suck at poetry, this doesn’t rhyme!”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Because poetry doesn’t have to rhyme.

Alg: It doesn’t have to rhyme.

Maira: Apparently. No other English class ever told me that.

Alg: Nope.

Both: Um-

Maira: Except for that fucking William Carlos Williams poem, “This is Just to Say.” I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox, that one.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Oh, that one!

Maira: That one turned into a meme!

Alg: Oh my god, love it.

Maira: There’s a really good one where it’s uh, Lou Bega’s “Mambo Number 5” but it’s that poem.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Ugh, I fucking love memes.

Maira: I think I’ll post it. [indistinguishable] Comcast, it will be the cover image.

Alg: I need to also find because, well, the classic lyric from pop maven Katie Perry, the “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?”

Maira: Uh huh.

Alg: Someone photoshopped that onto a Charles Bukowski book. But also, fuck Charles Bukowski. People reblogged it on tumblr and were like, “Wow, this is so beautiful and meaningful.” And it was from a Katie Perry song, which will forever be my favorite thing on the internet. Except for, “I am a dog, I am a communist, I like knives.”

Maira: Oh yeah! Hell yeah!

[Alg laughs]

Maira: That’s my cover photo right now.

Alg: So good.

[36:09 – 36:11 recording blip]

Maira: I am a dog, [laughs] I am a communist, I love knives.

Alg: Yeah, no, my cover photo is “Are you a boy or a girl,” and it’s a drawing of a skeleton-

Maira: That’s one of my favorite things on the internet.

Alg: Yeah, I’m thinking of getting it as a tattoo. It’s like a skeleton and two kids are asking it, “Are you a boy or a girl?” and the skeleton just replies, “I’m dead!”

Maira: That’s-

[Alg laughs]

Alg: I just really want it as a tattoo because it’s my gender. Like…

Maira: I’m dead!

Alg: I’m dead. We’re all dying.

Maira: We’re all dying. And nobody’s really a boy or girl unless you really… I guess that’s not true.

Alg: Unless you feel passionately about it.

Maira: Yeah. I’ve never felt passionately about being a gender, but if you feel passionate about being a boy or a girl, guess what?

Alg: You got it.

Maira: You got it. That’s you.

Alg: Be who you want to be.

Maira: Live your truth. Just do it.

Alg: Don’t be an asshole.

Maira: Yeah, don’t be an asshole.

Alg: Or if you are an asshole, be-

Maira: Less of an asshole?

Alg: An asshole to people who deserve it.

Maira: Yeah!

Alg: Yeah, I was in a Lyft and it was like, this guy from Boston who kept talking about Trump.

Maira: Ugh.

Alg: Because my Lyft had a pro-Trump sticker and-

Maira: Ugh.

Alg: I gave a bad review, which I never give Lyfts or Ubers bad reviews because like, their jobs are hard, but I was just like, nope, not today. You can’t have that. You can’t… I don’t know, it’s always such an odd experience getting aggressively misgendered on a car ride when you’re like, already in an uncomfortable situation and it’s like, “Oh yeah, she was saying this, and she was saying that.” And I was like, who… Sometimes, I-

Maira: Literally-

Both: Who is she!?

Alg: No literally, yeah. That’s actually [laughs] I’m going to make that into a meme.

Maira: Same!

Alg: No literally, who is she? It’s so true. But anyway, zines, prose, I love prose poetry.

Maira: I have a newfound love for prose poetry.

Alg: That was the first style I ever really wrote in, and it has a very dear place to my heart. Sometimes it can feel kind of alt-lit, which I-

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Don’t really like. Or like, 2012-era like, fucking Spencer Madsen or whatever, whatever his name is.

Maira: Who?

Alg: Um, it’s this guy who was really good friends with Tao Lin, um and he made this thing that was like, he wrote terrible prose poetry, but then he also published an e-mail from his ex-girlfriend who was asking him not to write about her anymore. And then I was like, “I can’t do alt-lit shit anymore.”

Maira: Dude, like, I don’t know. That’s weird! Because I think about all the people that I write about, and they’re all obviously people from my past, but what if they found my stuff and were like, “Stop!”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I don’t think any of them care enough?

Alg: Yeah, he was using, yeah, I just think in that situation, it wasn’t… I usually write about people who, you know, did me wrong-

Maira: Oh, yeah.

Alg: The situation was like she broke up with him because he was a loser. And then like-

Maira: Oh, and he was just salty about it?

Alg: Yeah, he was just salty about it. And like, did the thing that fucking Beat Generation did where they just, “Ugh, I hate my mom, I love sex, I smoked a cigarette, um.”

Maira: I was so into beat poetry in like, my junior year of high school.

Alg: Oh, me too.

Maira: And I feel like that opened a lot of doors for me, but I also regret it deeply.

[Maira laughs]

Alg: Interestingly enough, the only poem I have memorized is a Frank O’Hara poem, and he was kind of Beat Generation-y, but he was like, cute and gay. Shout out to him.

Maira: Yeah, I was just like, I read On the Road and was like, “Oh my god, it’s so romantic. Let me read,” like we had this class project um, in junior year of high school and it was like, read an autobiography or read a biography.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And so, I chose a female beat poet, but it was still, thinking back it’s very upsetting.

Alg: Oh, yeah. Like I think back about all the terrible art that I loved-

Maira: So much internalized misogyny.

Alg: Oh my god, so much internalized misogyny. My favorite book used to be The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

Maira: Uh huh.

Alg: And that one is I’d say even worse than On the Road, and is romanticization slash, romanticization while simultaneously disregarding women. It’s like viewing them as total manic pixie dream girls-

Maira: The original.

Alg: The original, yeah, where those women, those poor women in those books like were probably very interesting, complex people. But-

Maira: But they got boiled down to like-

Alg: “We fucked in the bath, and then she said I was distant,” I don’t know, I can’t even do a good impersonation anymore.

Maira: Because it sucks so bad!

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I want to talk about something I’m working on.

Alg: Yeah!

Maira: I know you’re the guest, but-

Alg: No, I was going to ask, like-

Maira: Okay.

Alg: I know you’ve talked about why you love zines, but I want to know what you’re working on right now.

Maira: Yeah. Um, I… so I’ve been sober for three years now, no drinking, and it’s been really rough, like especially recently. And I’m pretty depressed right now, um, I wouldn’t say I’m like, super depressed, but it’s like, I don’t know, things are on the up-and-up for me.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: And now they’re just kind of like, baseline. So, I feel like, I don’t know, yeah. Things aren’t great, so they feel terrible. Even though like, outwardly I feel like things are still going pretty well for me-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: My stupid brain chemistry is like, “Ha ha! Not today!”

Alg: I just want to feel numb, not depressed, but just sort of numb to everything.

Maira: Yeah! I just don’t really feel anything right now, so last night I started like, crying, and I was like, “I guess I should write about sobriety and depression.” Um, so I started writing a zine last night that I’m going to try to finish in the next few days. Um, yeah.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: And try to have at Grid Zine Fest. And then I’m also working on Zine of the Hill 2, which, I got a lot of really good submissions that I’m very excited about.

Alg: Nice! Y’all should have a release party for that.

Maira: Okay, so, Niko was like, “Have it at my house, and we can…”

Both: Barbeque, yeah.

Maira: But…

Alg: I’m excited to just cosplay as Dale and chain smoke and talk about the government and conspiracies.

Maira: Oh my god. I’m going to do my Bobby costume again probably.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I have green shorts, but the green shorts I was wearing that Halloween had this like, zipper pocket across the butt.

Alg: Sure.

Maira: And they didn’t have any other pockets.

Alg: Makes sense.

Maira: So, like, I’d stick my phone in it, and my best friend would be like, “You look like you took a shit in your pants.”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And I was just really drunk because I drank at the time, and was just like, “I’m Bobby Hill!”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Which, you know, doesn’t justify anything.

Alg: No, but-

Maira: I was just like, look, I found these shorts, they fit me perfectly, they have a butt pocket, like…

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: An amazing butt pocket. I don’t know.

Alg: We’re all living in the darkest timeline right now, is my theory, so those shorts seem to fit well with the darkest timeline, only having a pocket in the back.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Yeah, like that makes no sense.

Maira: They were really stretchy. Like that nice, stretchy denim.

Alg: I love that. I like, ripped my only pair of jeans that aren’t mom jeans. I guess dad jeans. Gender is fake. Um, unless you don’t want it to be. Um, and I’m really disappointed, and now I have to find more work pants [laughs]. And that’s my really dumb, 9-5 work story of the day.

Maira: Oh, man, I’m so happy at my current job, I can wear shorts and tights.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Like it’s 2012 again.

Alg: Ugh, I know, it’s an iconic look.

Maira: It’s just cut up t-shirts, shorts, and tights. And they can be ripped tights.

Alg: Ooh, nice.

Maira: Which like, most of my tights are ripped because I’m clumsy as hell.

Alg: And tights rip so easily.

Maira: Oh, my god! They do!

Alg: Well, I’m glad you brought that up, because I have a pair of ripped tights that I wore last night, and someone commented on them, and it was really strange.

Maira: In like a negative way?

Alg: It was like, “Wow, I haven’t seen anyone wearing ripped tights in a really long time.” What a weird thing to say to somebody!

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Like, I’m also bad at conversations at parties, but like-

Maira: Not that bad! That’s like, another level of bad.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: That’s just like, how to make people uncomfortable at parties. Yeah.

Maira: Which is usually my forte.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: Honestly. Actually, I don’t really even, I don’t go to parties. But if I do go to parties, I don’t talk to anyone.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: I just like, talk to the people I came with. I don’t know-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: I don’t make friends. I write sins, not tragedies, okay.

Alg: Yeah, the only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage.

Maira: I’m shrugging right now.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: I know none of you can see this, but I’m shrugging.

Alg: I’m excited to listen to this.

[Maira laughs]

Alg: It’s very meta to talk about me listening to this but, I love podcasts. So, I’m very excited to be here, and I think it’s a cool project and-

Maira: Thanks!

Alg: Maira is great.

Maira: Thanks! Um-

Alg: Um, I wanted to, is it okay if I read?

Maira: Oh my god, yeah.

Alg: This is like, the first thing I ever had published in a real magazine, it was in the Totemeal issue which I referenced earlier, but I have a terrible short-term memory, and I’m assuming a lot of our listeners do as well. Um, okay, so this is called, “Reminders.” Abandonment is necessary for self-invention. It’s okay to be ugly. Touch a frozen orange to your neck and look at the objects around you. The abuse you have experienced does not negate the harm you have done to others. This isn’t supposed to make you happy; it’s supposed to help you survive. Take note of places that are not sites of violence. The exciting and the terrifying exist in an imperfect dichotomy. Drink water, take your drugs, talk to at least four people each day, stretch, breathe, and check your email. Destroy and rebuild, and destroy and rebuild, and destroy and rebuild, and destroy and rebuild. That’s it.

[snapping sounds]

Maira: This is me snapping.

Alg: That’s me snapping at myself.

Maira: Something you do after poems.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: Um-

Alg: Yeah I remember I was just so scared, and then um, I don’t know. I just really like reading my old writing and being like, “Wow! That was like, three years ago.”

Maira: That was fucking great.

Alg: Thank you.

Maira: Um, I like, getting ready for Dear Diary Zine Fest re-looked at… no-

Alg: Revisited?

Maira: Revisited! Yes!

Alg: We’re writers.

Maira: Academia.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: I can’t even say that right. Uh, yeah I was revisiting a lot of my old work because I feel like, back then I was just like, really raw.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: And I was putting everything I was feeling onto paper-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: And it reminded me of… it was like, 2014.

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: And I was just like, I don’t know, it’s cool to revisit your old stuff and just be like, “Damn.” And we talked about this earlier-

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: It’s just like having something tangible like, “Yes, I was depressed, but look at what I got,” and-

Alg: Oh, yeah.

Maira: It reminded me of the first time I ever read.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Um, so, I have this really, really, really personal zine called “This Goddamn Body,” I haven’t read it in a really long time because whenever I read it, it makes me cry.

Alg: Oh, yeah totally.

Maira: Because it’s about mental illness, trauma, and bodies.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: But at the time, I was like, really, really passionate about it. And I always tell people it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: But I’m afraid to revisit it for that reason.

Alg: Oh, of course, yeah.

Maira: But I was reading a piece, a poem I wrote in that zine and I just like, I couldn’t… I finished it but I just started sobbing halfway through because it’s, it’s about like sexual abuse and being a kid and gender and like-

Alg: Yeah, how scary being a kid is, honestly. It’s a scary time.

Maira: Yeah, just all the fun, fucked up shit that comes with, I don’t know, being a weird kid. Reading is hard [heavily sighs]. Poetry is hard. But it all feels good… most of the time it feels good in the end.

Alg: I think so.

Maira: It feels very like, satisfying.

Alg: I always get an adrenaline rush after I read.

Maira: Yeah!

Alg: People… because I like making things sad and funny, I feel like is my style. Um, because life I think is very sad and also very funny. It’s like a really depressing sitcom, in my opinion, is how I view my life.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Um, and, I always like when people laugh when they’re supposed to laugh. But, and then go like, “Hmm,” when they’re supposed to, it’s just really… I don’t know, I love reading and I love hearing other people read. And I need to organize something soon because I really… it’s one of my favorite things.

Maira: Yeah, that reading at E.M. Wolfman was really fun.

Alg: Yeah! I don’t… I’ll have to send you, I actually posted in like a comment, because that piece was my favorite one I’ve ever written. It was a piece about, it was right after my grandma passed away, and I wrote a whole piece about her and childhood and it was really wonderful to read. And I got a lot of good feedback from it, and… good times.

Maira: I don’t want to read anything this episode. Just because-

Alg: Yeah!

Maira: I think I want to start reading my own work on this podcast.

Alg: You should! I would love that. I would love to hear that.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: Everyone should read all their work always.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: [singsong] Because zines are about sharing.

Maira: Yay, communism.

[Alg laughs]

Maira: That’s where that went because I’m a dog and I love knives.

Alg: I am a dog and I love knives.

Maira: Do you have anything else you want to plug? Or talk about? Or-

Alg: Um, yeah! Just in general, look out for, I mean I think I use Instagram the most out of any social media app, because it’s like, public – I don’t have a private Instagram account for some reason.

Maira: Do you want me to like, link your Instagram?

Alg: Oh my god, that would be cool.

Maira: Okay.

Alg: @velvetdad, very memorable username.

Maira: Quality content.

Alg: Quality content.

Maira: The content that I am personally here for.

Alg: Just memes and videos of me dancing with very personal captions. Even though like, a lot of my coworkers follow me now. But I’m like, whatever!

Maira: Dude, yeah my, so, all of my coworkers- most of my coworkers follow me, and two of my partner’s aunts follow me.

Alg: Oh my god.

Maira: And I’ll post like, like lately I’ve been posting like, “I’m very depressed, please hang out with me,” and like, Ben’s aunts are like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Like it’s so sweet and I’m just like, “ohhh.”

[Alg laughs]

Maira: And then I’m like, why do I post this on the internet?! And then I’m like, wait the internet is weirdly my safe space.

Alg: Oh my god, it totally is.

Maira: Shit-posting my emotions.

Alg: My thing is I can’t be stoned and go on Instagram. I’ll be scrolling through my own account like, “What the fuck am I doing?”

Maira: Oh, I do the opposite.

Alg: Really? [laughs]

Maira: Okay, sometimes, even when I’m not stoned, I’ll like, scroll through my own internet presence, and I’ll just be like, “Damn, I would be friends with me.”

Alg: Yeah.

Maira: “I post some good shit.” And I’ll just look over at my partner and he’ll be like, shaking his head but also like, “Yeah, I mean, okay, we’re dating so I obviously like what you post.”

[Alg laughs]

Alg: Yeah. My thing is I’ll go through and be like, “Why can’t I just date myself?” I mean, you can, whatever, single positivity. But literally, I wish I just had a clone so I could date myself.

Maira: Yeah.

Alg: That’d be so much fun, we’d make such a good pairing, have like, the erotic nightmare of having sex with yourself. I think about that all the time. This is Ali.

[Maira laughs]

Maira: Thanks for listening, everybody! We’re going to end on that note.

[Alg laughs]

Alg: No!

Maira: That’s a strong finish.

Alg: That’s a strong finish. We stuck the landing, we did it.

Maira: Ten! I’m holding up a placard that says 10.

Alg: Um, thanks for listening, thanks for having me.

Maira: Yeah, thanks for coming over.

Alg: This was really fun. And not as scary as I thought.

Maira: Yay!

[both snapping]

Maira: Snaps! Snaps all around. Alright, thank you for listening again to Long Arm Stapler! If you have any questions, shoot me an email: longarmstapler@gmail.com. Hit me up on Facebook, whatever, I’m always on the internet.

Alg: Mhm.

Maira: Um, yeah, bye!

[51:52 outro music begins]

Alg: Bye!

[long-arm-stapler]

Ep 2: Dear Diary Zine Fest Organizers

[0:17]

Maira: Alright, this is the second episode of Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines, and I’m Maira. And today, I am joined [laughs] this feels weird, I am joined by the organizers for Dear Diary Fest, which is coming up, and I’m going to let them introduce themselves.

Alex: I’m Alex.

Enola: Hi, I’m Enola.

Holly: I’m Holly.

Vanessa: I’m Vanessa.

Maira: Cool, um, I have a couple questions for y’all, and the biggest one is, how did you… how did this fest come about? Because this is the first year.

[1:02 indistinguishable]: Do you want to answer that?

Enola: Oh my gosh-

[all laugh]

Enola: Um, well, oooh I feel so nervous being the first one to talk.

Holly: Do you want me to tell your story?

Enola: No, it’s our story.

[all laugh]

Holly: Sorry, the story.

Enola: Well, I don’t know, I was just like, feeling kind of bummed out about zine fests currently and um, also maybe a little bit petty, and I sent a text, a mass text on my flip phone to like five people-

[all laugh]

Enola: And um, one of them was Vanessa who wrote me back, and the text included, “Should we just start our own fest?” And one of the people who wrote me back was Vanessa and she was like, “Yeah, I would do that with you.”

Vanessa: Yeah.

Enola: And then I told Holly and Holly told Alex

Alex: Yay!

Maira: Tight.

[all laugh]

Maira: Um, can anyone tell me, er, everyone… about Dear Diary Fest? 

Vanessa: Well, Dear Diary Zine Fest is um, kind of exclusively perzines, because every time I go to a zine fest, there’s like ten dollar art zines, and like they don’t want to trade with you, and I feel like that was kind of missing in other fests. Um, so, we just wanted to make a fest that includes like, scrappy cut and paste zines, instead of computer-generated stuff.

Maira: Nice! With that Kinko’s code-

Vanessa: Yeah-

Maira: Stapling, yeah the like, art zines are weird. I’m biased, I don’t like them, I’ll be straight up with it. My friends and I mostly do perzines, so we’re all really excited about the fest.

All: Yay!

[3:10-3:15 muffled]

Holly: Yeah, I feel like for all of us, um, what we like about zines is what is in perzines and there’s room for everything obviously, but we write zines mostly I think to connect with other people, other freaks, other disenfranchised people. And so, to go to a fest and it’s all art zines and enamel pins as like, you know, people have been saying and stuff like that. It’s just, it’s not what we’re about or what we’re looking for, and so it’s all about the trade and the connection and sharing like, feelings that maybe you can’t usually and all of that, relating to people and not just shiny pretty things, which seems to be… you know, more of what’s happening these days. 

Maira: I feel that, and I’ve definitely seen that as, like, an organizer. It’s like, I mean that’s part of why I started Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, I was like, we don’t have a designated space and I’m tired of enamel pins. I’m such a hater.

All: We’re all haters.

Alex: That’s how we came together.

Enola: Yeah, I mean, I think some of the best moments of my life have been coming across someone’s zine that I’ve never read and it really sucks me in and I cry a lot about you know, their experience that I’m reading. Sometimes I even learn something about myself, you know, and I just immediately want to contact that person and become friends, you know. And being a hater is really good motivation.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: Yeah, oh totally. I have written zines about being a hater.

[all laugh]

Maira: I don’t necessarily show them to anyone, but like, you’ve got to get those feelings out.

Holly: Yeah.

Maira: Where, it’s at Humanist Hall? In Oakland.

All: Yep, mhm.

Maira: Cool, February 25th? 

Holly: 12 to 5, with a possible after party. We have the Hall all day, Humanist Hall rules, by the way!

Maira: Shout out to Humanist Hall!

Holly: Shout out to Humanist Hall! 

Enola: Great guy.

[5:32 - 5:5:46 indistinguishable]

Holly: I mean, he’s a man, but he doesn’t try to get up in your business, yeah. 

Maira: Nice! Yeah, I’m excited, I requested the day off of work.

All: Wooh!

Maira: I work weekends now, um, and I was like, I told my boss, “Yo, I’ve got to go to a thing.”

[all laugh]

Vanessa: The best thing.

Maira: I’ve got to go to the best thing this month. I actually started talking to some, I’m going to school this semester and started talking to some of my classmates about the fest. And um, because we had, I hate ice breakers, but one of my professors was like, “Okay, it’s February, what are you all excited about?” And I was like, “Zine fest!”

All: Aww!

Maira: So I’ve been hyping it up, I’m really excited. I love perzines, um, but, yeah. I, I’m really glad you all are doing this.

All: Thank you! Yeah!

Maira: Um, do you have any favorite perzines? Like either a single zine or like a series? 

Vanessa: No Gods, No Mattresses.

Enola: Stop it! 

[all laugh]

Maira: Yeah, feel free to just plug your own stuff, that’s basically what this podcast is. So everyone loves No Gods, No Mattresses? 

Vanessa: Yeah.

Holly: It’s No God, No Mattress.

Maira: I’m sorry! 

Vanessa: Mandela Effect.

Enola: Yeah, it’s the Mandela Effect, look it up.

Maira: Like the Barenstein Bear thing?

[all laugh]

Enola: But with my zine title.

[all laugh]

Enola: It happens with so many things. I didn’t say it.

Holly: I said it.

[all laugh]

Vanessa: I love Dreams of Donuts by Heather Wreckage, who also did the poster for us.

Holly: It’s so beautiful! She’s so talented.

Maira: I’m going to post, um, when I put up the podcast I’m going to put up the flier and like, the Facebook event, so people can see it.

Enola: Here, we’re very prepared.

Maira: I’m just going to wallpaper my apartment with fliers, um, we need some new art, it’s fine. Um, cool, Holly and Alex, do you all have favorites?

Holly: So many, all my favorite zines are perzines.

Maira: Tight.

Holly: Um, I, let’s see, what are some good zines, I just blanked out right now, oh my god. 

Enola: There’s too many.

Holly: There’s too many, a lot of the zines I like I don’t think are being made anymore because it was like, in the late 1990’s, early 2000’s. Um, but “Truck Face” is really good, LB is going to be tabling at the fest, which I am super excited about because we were penpals when I was twelve. So it’s like, really cool that they’re going to be there.

Maira: Have you met them before?

Holly: I’ve never met them before. 

Maira: That’s so exciting!

Holly: It’s really exciting, I feel very kind of like, I don’t know, my whole life has been leading up to is this fest or something, like something really cheesy like that. Um, but that’s a really good zine that’s been around for like twenty years, and uh, “Shotgun Seamstress” by Osa, which I guess that zine isn’t getting made anymore, but it’s in circulation, it’s like, really epic. Um, a zine about black music and musicians and it’s really so good.

Enola: I always think about it afterwards, well my favorite long-running zine that changed my life is Cindy Crabb’s “Doris,” um, I really like all of my co-organizers’ zines a lot.

[all laugh]

Enola: Um, everything everyone else mentioned so far, also “Rot” by Arthur, who also contributed some artwork to us and made our buttons, um, because we love their art and we asked them to.

Maira: I got one of the angels they did for EBABZ…

All: Aww!

Maira: Yeah, nobody who’s listening to this can see this, but I have a tattoo on my leg of Arthur’s.

Holly: It looks awesome.

Enola: Very good.

[all laugh]

Maira: There’s so many zines in the world, like, it’s, yeah, I do the same thing where I think about it afterwards and I’m just like, “Aw, I just came up with like an essay or an entire list of zines.”

Holly: It will be in the supplemental materials.

Maira: Yeah, supplement- blah, supplemental material for this episode will just be everyone’s favorite zines.

Enola: That’s a really good idea.

Holly: It will be like a twelve page PDF.

[all laugh]

Alex: I’m really into “Bamboo Girl,” if you all remember that.

Holly: That one sounds really familiar, that one is from the early 2000’s? 

Alex: Yeah-

[10:54 indistinguishable]

Alex: I don’t know if it counts, but there’s this really cool perzine called “The Worst,” it’s about like, grieving in the punk community. 

Maira: Oh that sounds so cool!

Alex: Yeah, and I think you can get it online.

Maira: Oh cool, I’m going to look that up. All: Yeah!

Maira: So do all of you make zines? 

All: Yes.

Holly: We all make perzines.

Vanessa: I’d say we’re seasoned zinesters.

Maira: Okay, cool, um, do any of you want to talk about your seasoning?

[all laugh]

Enola: Can I just add a favorite zine? Since I’ve remembered.

Maira: Yes.

Enola: Anything by Subtle Ceiling.

Maira: Yes, shout out to Subtle Ceiling

Holly: Who also hates enamel pins!

[all laugh]

Holly: Like, I knew that in my heart, but I didn’t realize it until I read their interview in Scream Queens Magazine. And they were like, “Enamel Pizza Pins!” 

All: Yeah, wow!

Enola: Oh yeah, Brain Scan.

Holly: Yeah, Alex Wrekk is going to be there, she made these buttons. Like, Arthur did the art, but she made the buttons themselves. It’s cool just to have a lot of our favorite zinesters at the fest.

Maira: Yeah, people are coming from all over.

Holly: Yeah, all over the continent. We have someone coming from Toronto.

Maira: Oh! So it’s international?

[all laugh]

Maira: Drawing international crowds. That’s really exciting.

Holly: Perzine people love perzines.

[all laugh]

Maira: They’re the best kind of zine people. Like, let’s be real.

Holly: Exactly. I feel like, I don’t know, it takes a certain kind of thing to put your emotions on paper, different than reviewing a band or talking about a political thing, or like you know, yeah, putting a piece of art or whatever. But to like, just state your emotions, and I feel like, yeah, there’s something about that that’s really special about that kind of person. I don’t know. Did that sound mean or something? Like other people aren’t something real? It’s not like that different, different stuff.

Maira: Asswipe?

[Vanessa laughs]

Maira: I was like, “I know this!” 

Vanessa: Yeah, and uh, also sometimes Staycation, sometimes I write about my staycations. 

[all laugh]

Vanessa: There’s a lot to write about.

Maira: What are you most excited about for the fest? 

Enola: Meeting everyone? I don’t know!

Maira: That’s my favorite part of tabling at fests, is like hanging out with all my friends. I was going to say zine friends, but they’re all my actual friends, we’re just connected by zines. But like, that’s what I love about tabling. Just hanging out, everyone in one room, going around like visiting tables and being like, “Ayyy!” I just did finger guns, for everyone listening.

[all laugh]

Maira: You probably could like, hear the finger guns.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: Um, yeah, I, let’s look at the lineup, unless you know it off the top of your head?

[all laugh]

Maira: Not everyone? 

[14:07 - 14:12 indistinguishable]

Maira: Yes, in alphabetical order, um -

[audio cuts]

Vanessa: We also have first time zine people, who are releasing their first zines.

All: Yeah.

Maira: Oh cool! Yeah, first time zines, like, first time zine fests are really fun. Um, do any of you remember your first zine fest and want to talk about it?

Vanessa: I went to LA Zine Fest when I lived down there, and like, it was the first one that they had-

Maira: Oh, cool.

Vanessa: And it was really intense, and like really energetic and I made my zine after that. 

Maira: LA Zine Fest is really cool.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: And I really like how, I like how they change venues every year. It like, keeps it fresh.

Vanessa: Yeah, I agree.

Maira: But it’s also nice to have one that’s like, always… I don’t know. 

Vanessa: Yeah, yeah.

Maira: Shout out to LA Zine Fest.

[all laugh]

Holly: My first zine fest was EBABZ 2012, and it was my first time, well, obviously it was the first time I traded with anyone. That’s how I met Enola-

[all laugh]

Holly: Yeah that was really exciting and cool, and I loved it, and then that same year I went to Portland Zine Symposium, and um, yeah! I was like, I’m going to… yeah, I don’t know. 

Maira: Both excellent zine fests.

Holly: Yeah! 

Maira: And those were my two, like, Portland Zine Symposium was the first one I ever went to as like, a spectator I guess? And then the first time I ever tabled was at EBABZ. So they both have special places in my heart. 

Enola: Yeah. You know, actually now I’m thinking about it and like, this might not even be true but my first zine fest was Portland Zine Symposium, the first one I knew about I think. I started going in 2010, as an exhibitor, um, I don’t know, I don’t think I went to a zine fest before that, like to just go. I think I only started going as a tabler, yeah I’m pretty sure that was my first one.

Alex: My first one was also Portland Zine Symposium, in like 2008, tabling with the IPRC in Portland. 

Maira: Yeah, the IPRC is tight. I haven’t been to their new space-

Alex: Me either.

Maira: But I went there one time to like, get ready for PZS and was just like, “Woah, you all have like, hella staplers, and like paper for days!” I don’t know, it was a really cool space, if you’re ever in Portland, check out the IPRC. 

Holly: What does that stand for?

Maira: Independent Publishing Resource Center?

Holly: Oh, cool.

Maira: Question mark, but I’m pretty sure. 

Alex: Yeah, I think so.

Maira: Yeah, um, did you all live in Portland before? 

Alex: Just for like a summer.

Maira: Oh, okay cool.

Alex: That summer, but it was, I never really, I only had been reading zines up until then, and it was really cool to see the people behind everything. All the trading, and all the zines.

Maira: I remember I picked up um, the first zine I ever read was that “Learning Good Consent” one, but the first zine I ever like, picked up and owned was this Neutral Milk Hotel fanzine I got at Portland Zine Symposium.

[all laugh]

Maira: And I think I still have it somewhere. Um, it’s traveled with me to several apartments. What else do you want to talk about? What other cool zine stuff, do you have upcoming projects that aren’t the fest? 

Vanessa: Well, we actually just got out interview with MRR back, um, we did an interview with Maximum RocknRoll, and they just printed it, and we’re a little unhappy with the layout. 

[all laugh]

Vanessa: We sent them some beautiful pictures of us in the cemetery, and they didn’t include any of them. So…

Holly: So wait for that on our Tumblr.

[all laugh]

Enola: We’re going to put our pics up.

[all laugh]

Holly: Yeah, I think one of the things I’m really excited about this zine fest is um, just in general, like making a fest or creating a thing that is the way you want it to be, because you know it’s easy to complain about other zine fests or to be like, “Oh, our interview in MRR isn’t how we want it to be,” or whatever, but like, it’s cool to feel empowered to make something the way that you want it to be. And like, our application process I feel like was really empowering to be like, you know, we don’t really want people whose zines are more than five dollars, or to be able to reject known abusers in the zine community who applied to our fest. And be like, “Fuck no, you don’t get to come.”

Maira: Yeah!

Holly: And just in general to create a space where like, you know, hopefully it’s like hostile for people who we think are shitty, and who don’t add anything to the community and who benefit from disenfranchised peoples’ work and to make it a welcoming, accessible environment for people who, you know, maybe don’t get as much space and time to do stuff. So, I don’t know, yeah, it’s cool. Feels like a big deal or something. 

Maira: It is a big deal! Yeah, it’s amazing! I-

Holly: I’m sure you know how that goes, too.

Maira: It’s terrifying-

[all laugh]

Maira: But it feels really good when it’s over. 

[all laugh]

Maira: Um, yeah, it’s a big deal to be able to have something that is your own and not in a controlling way? But just in like a, “This is my vision, this is something that hasn’t happened before, this is something that I want to put out into the world that’s like, super beneficial, and people are just going to have a great time at.”

Holly: Right, and it’s something you want to do and it’s also something other people want, it’s not just like, “I want to do this thing.” It’s like, “We all want this thing!” Let’s facilitate it. It’s happening.

Enola: It’s been really cool to get feedback from applicants about how happy they are that we’re doing this, and they want to do perzine fests in other parts of the country, and yeah, I don’t know, I feel really excited and positive about everything. I kind of don’t want it to be over.

All: Yeah!

[all laugh]

Maira: But that just means that like, you’re ready for next year. 

[all laugh]

Maira: Or even like, not even next year, you can do so many fests in one year. 

[all laugh]

Maira: I’m not saying do a fest every month, because that… I feel like you’d burn out really easily.

Holly: Yeah I feel like San Jose Zine Con has events all year round, like there’s ways to keep the party going without it necessarily being like a whole fest, I guess. But there’s going to be a really sick perzine library. We’re going to have workshops, um-

Maira: Can you tell us more about the workshops?

Vanessa: I can look it up on my phone.

Maira: Oh wait, I have Facebook open, um, Angela Roberts of “Super Trooper” zine, and Neely Chestnut of “Mend My Dress Press.” 

Holly: Neely’s is really cool.

Enola: I think it’s called “Mending your dress,” it’s really cute.

[all laugh]

Alex: Oh that’s so cute.

Maira: I think I have an anthology of it somewhere, that I was given at another zine fest. My zine collection has been like a weird roller coaster, because I lost a lot of zines um, last time I had to move. But I like, the one box that didn’t get super damaged was like, all of the first zines I ever got, so that was cool.

Vanessa: Neely’s doing one called “Mending Your Dress: Coping with Trauma Through Writing.”

Maira: Oh, that sounds so sick! 

All: Yeah.

Maira: I feel like I never get to go to workshops when I’m like, tabling, so I am going to make my distro partners watch the table because I want to go to that.

Alex: Yeah, sounds awesome.

Maira: That’s exciting. I love workshops, I feel like, writing workshops at zine fests are really crucial. One of my distro partners does stamp making workshops, shout out to Kristen, but I don’t know! I feel like writing workshops get people excited about making zines while they’re at the fest. And then they can make their own perzine there, and then trade it with people. Yeah.

Holly: And hopefully anyone listening to this that doesn’t already make a zine will make one and then bring it to the fest to trade with people because, unlike other fests you may have been to, everyone here wants to trade with you. Probably, I can’t speak to every person, but with perzines it’s more of a “trading vibe.” 

Maira: I know that my friends in Rad Breath um, we’ve been talking about it a lot and we’re all like, “Shit, pressure is on, we’ve got to finish these perzines.” 

[all laugh]

Maira: So we’re using this fest as an excuse to uh, kick our own asses? And write more.

Holly: Yeah! That was kind of, I think, one of the things was having something to do to look forward to, in February, to get through the winter. Which can be really depressing and hard, so yeah, we’re giving ourselves and hopefully everyone else something to look forward to and work on.

[Holly laughs]

Maira: I need to finish some stuff. I have a bunch of stuff that’s half-finished. I’m taking a creative writing class so I’m just like, “I’m just going to make a zine out of everything I write, it’s all good!” Not like, quality-wise…

[all laugh]

Holly: What were you going to say, Alex?

Alex: Oh, we’re having a “work day” planned, we want people to come work on their zines.

Maira: Oh cool, and you all just had a fundraiser, right? 

Vanessa: Yes.

Maira: It was a bakesale?

Vanessa: Yes.

Maira: How’d it go?

Vanessa: It went great. We had some really cool raffle prizes that we found in the dumpster. 

[all laugh]

Enola: And many places throughout our lives.

[all laugh]

Maira: I had another- oh, sorry, you have another fundraiser coming up.

Holly: And a reading, the Saturday before at E.M. Wolfman, Saturday night from 7 to 9.

Maira: The downtown one? 

Holly: Yes.

Maira: Okay, I forget there’s two now.

Vanessa: I know. 

Maira: Even though I just refer to it as “the one downtown,” it’s just, that’s it.

Vanessa: I don’t go to the new one. I don’t like those pods.

[Holly and Enola talking at the same time]: Obnoxious

Alex: What pods?

Vanessa: There are like these shipping containers…

Maira: Like where Unity Mart was? 

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: Oh-kay. 

Holly: Yeah, those are weird. Sorry, it’s not your fault, it’s the fucking real estate developers. 

All: Yeah.

Vanessa: It’s Libby Schaaf’s fault.

Holly: Who are trying to make it the next-

Vanessa: Valencia Street.

Holly: Yeah! They’re going to take those pods away and build condos there after they get enough rich people to move into that neighborhood, you know it’s true.

Maira: Negative shout out-

[all laugh]

Maira: To the real estate market. Um, that makes me think of, how do you feel… do you feel like zines in the Bay have changed with all of the things happening in the Bay? Like the Bay Area Zine Scene I guess. How do you feel it’s changed in the last couple of years? And even in the last ten to fifteen years?

Holly: Yeah, I mean Alex and Vanessa are from here, so probably a lot, right?

Vanessa: Yeah, it’s very glossy. That’s how I feel. But one cool thing I feel like it’s a little more queer, so that’s cool. But, I don't know, it’s definitely changed. 

Maira: Much like Valencia Street.

Vanessa: Yes.

[Holly laughs]

Vanessa: There’s also like, Navalone, which isn’t around anymore, but people used to hang out there and work on their zines, and now there’s not a lot of cool places to do that.

Maira: I want to get like, at my new job my boss was like, “Yeah, we have, we can do readings and art shows,” and I really want to do zine readings at work. But I have to get people to come to Alameda.

Holly: Alameda is cool!

All: Yeah! 

Maira: Alameda is really cool, but… there’s a lot of really cute dogs-

[27:50 - 27:57 indistinguishable]

Maira: I haven’t been there, I just see them walk past like, “Hello! Let me take your photo! What’s your email?”

[all laugh]

Enola: Something I wish there was more… Yeah, kind of like how Navalone is gone, I miss having like, better, or not better but like, more distro spots that I actually feel connected to, you know? I wish there was a cafe that I liked that had a little zine rack or something.

Holly: Yeah I think at Navalone they didn’t take any commission out of selling your zines. Or anything. I mean that’s probably why they went out of business. Because they were terrible at business, but it was good while it lasted.

Maira: Are there, I know that there are spots that carry zines like bookstores and stuff, but I’m really bad at like, taking my zines to other places? Are there more punk spots to distro in the Bay anymore?

Enola and Vanessa: Not really.

[all laugh]

Holly: I mean, not that we know of, we’re not that punk, they might be like, “really punk.”

Maira: I guess I mean DIY, like, weirdo spaces.

Holly: Totally… Not really. It’s kind of a desert out there. We all know that there are exceptions to this, but there isn’t a lot of DIY anything in general right now. You know? Like show spaces-

Maira: It’s getting pretty dry out there, in terms of DIY stuff, I’ve noticed.

Holly: But obviously we know that there’s other stuff popping up, and there’s always a process, but yeah it feels less like that now than it used to be. 

Maira: I am just… bookstores intimidate me in terms of putting my zines there.

Holly: Uh huh.

Maira: So i’m just like, “Ahh!” and I feel like that’s mostly what there is right now. I just feel like, my zines don’t belong with actual books. I printed this at work and stapled it together and it looks like crap, but I love it. And that’s a hardbound book, and those don’t go together.

Holly: Yeah, there’s that zine store in San Francisco.

Maira: Needles and Pens?

Enola: I heard they closed?

Maira: They’re still open, my friend works there.

Holly: Yeah but there are like, fancy-ass zines and succulent plants. 

All: Yeah.

Maira: Yeah that’s an interesting store, but I do like that they sell zines even if they’re fancy ones.

Enola: Yeah, I sold my zine there for a little while from 2009 to 2011 or something, you know, living in the East Bay it’s hard to get to the city and they have a policy that’s like, “If you don’t come here to get your money within 2 days, we just keep it.” 

[all laugh]

Enola: I never went there to get my zines. Well, they don’t tell you if anything’s sold. I guess I could have called.

Maira: Are you supposed to just like, call every day like, “Hey, did my stuff sell?” 

Enola: Also, maybe that’s not even their policy, it was a long time ago. 

Holly: I think Pegasus has-

Enola: Yeah.

Holly: The best percentage. The best consignment percentage. It’s like, you know, sixty/forty.

Maira: Oh, cool. 

Enola: Yeah, well that’s like basic consignment. It should always be sixty-

Holly: Issues is fifty. 

Enola: That’s like more when, that’s like you buy it outright you should pay fifty percent.

Holly: Not on Piedmont!

[all laugh]

Holly: You’re lucky that you don’t have to pay them.

Maira: Please carry my zines, here’s money.

Holly: “Here, that will be twenty dollars!”

Vanessa: I like Dog Eared Books on Valencia because they pay you outright but they only take-

Holly: Oh!

Vanessa: Like, two. 

Holly: Good tip, good tip. I mean, these are all still bookstores. But, if you can get over the bookstore hump.

Maira: I feel like most other places have like, infoshops and we don’t really have that here? At least not that I know of.

[32:14 - 32:21 indistinguishable]

Maira: I’m really out of touch with most things, I feel.

Holly: You don’t need to be in touch with this infoshop. 

[all laugh]

Maira: Okay.

Enola: Well there is an infoshop in Berkeley that I was involved with for like eight years.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Enola: And it’s been there a long time.

Holly: It’s been there a long time, but it’s not-

Enola: I don’t have my zine there anymore. 

Maira: Is this the bad one?

Holly: Yeah.

Maira: Okay. 

Enola: Yeah, a lot of people think it’s bad, I don’t go there anymore, but I’m not trying to-

Holly: I mean, it’s fine but I don’t want to like, shout it out.

Maira: Oh yeah, for sure. 

Holly: Not like we’re like, “Ssh, ssh, burn it down.”

Enola: Some people are like that.

Holly: We’re not protesting, we’re just not going to advertise them.

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Holly: I’m sure you can figure it out really easily. There’s a search engine for that. 

[all laugh]

Holly: Only one.

[33:09 - 33:20 indistinguishable]

Enola: That was good, I love Jeeves. It’s so helpful.

Maira: I really loved AJ Kids when I was like, it was just a kids’ search engine for Ask Jeeves. 

All: Oh!

Maira: It had like, homework help and cute, I don’t know, being young on the internet was weird. 

All: Yeah.

Maira: Ooh, let’s talk about the internet. Because I feel like that ties into perzines. I don’t know, did any of you have like, an online journal? Livejournal specifically?

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Enola: I had Deadjournal when I was a teen. And then I didn’t get a Livejournal until I was like twenty two.

Holly: Enola was just born when they were twenty two, before that they were undead.

Enola: Now I’m just dead.

[all laugh]

Vanessa: It’s where I discovered my voice. Like, “I want to be a writer.”

All: Aww!

Vanessa: Was on Livejournal.

Holly: That’s amazing. So heartwarming. I came to Livejournal after… Livejournal was a newer thing for me when I was on the internet.

Maira: Did you come before the Russian bots took over? Or like-

Holly: No, I would say probably 2002.

Maira: Okay.

Holly: When I was on the internet, I thought that it was a private place, because no one that I knew used the internet. And so I would just make public entries, about just anything with my full legal name attached to it. And it was too much work to go back and make it private, so I just purged it, so no. 

Maira: It’s like, yeah, the internet does feel private sometimes, even though it’s a public space, and I feel like zines are a lot like that.

All: Yeah.

Maira: Except my parents don’t find my zines and find out that I’m like, super gay, like they found on the internet. Um, yeah, zines…

Holly: Did they just like, google your name or something?

Maira: I don’t even know, my mom just found my Tumblr where I was like, “I think I’m trans,” and she was like, “We need to talk.” Like ahhh.

Holly: Like, comment on my Tumblr post or this isn’t happening.

[all laugh]

Maira: At least like it. Wait no, Tumblr is the hearts.

Holly: Reblog it.

Maira: Please reblog this post so I know it’s real.

[Holly laughs]

Enola: I’m really happy my parents don’t know how to use the internet. 

Maira: I wish-

[all laugh]

Maira: That was the case for me. Um, zines and the internet. Do you know any zines about the internet? Any good ones out there?

Holly: There’s a zine by Miranda who does the zine “Telegram” about how to get off the internet. 

Maira: Oh!

Holly: It’s cool, it’s a good one, because yeah, I think we’re all more addicted to the internet than we want to be, even though it can be a place of connection, which is definitely how it was for me when I was young. Um, I met a lot of people and learned a lot of stuff from the internet, but now I think we’re all kind of dependent on it, and so it’s just different ideas of things you can do. It’s somewhere in my collection, I forget what they are.

Maira: I should pick that up. I’m on the internet too much. 

Holly: And you can buy that zine on the internet. 

[all laugh]

Maira: So meta.

[all laugh]

Maira: Um, yeah, like, when I started getting more into zines, I went to the zine library at this fest in San Jose. But I was at the zine library and I remember finding all these zines and like, writing down the email addresses of the people who wrote them, and I was just, “Hey, I want a copy of this, but I can’t find it on the internet!” And they were like, “I got you.” So yeah, zines and the internet are great ways to find community.

Holly: They’re really intertwined for me, I mean I guess zines started before there even was an internet, but I feel like I would not have found out about zines if it weren’t for the internet, because I lived in a place that wasn’t a zine place, really. Although… I don’t know, it’s a little different. So yeah, I feel like that is what connected me, especially with feminist zines and queer zines and not just zines about music.

Enola: I guess like, I feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff. I’m pretty like, I use the internet more than I would like people to believe right now, but I feel happy that I’m kind of hard to find, or something. I don’t know, maybe I have always been like that, because I didn’t find out about zines until I was in my twenties, and I had the internet since I was like, sixteen or something. So I, yeah I don’t know. I like to see them as separate, and I refuse to put my email address in my zine, and I want everyone to send me mail in real life. 

Vanessa: One thing with this fest that I’ve found is I’m online a lot. Like, communicating with everyone through email. And so my anxiety is definitely a little higher since I’m on the internet a lot. And it’s kind of hard to promote when you don’t have the internet, but that’s how everyone sees stuff, so.

Maira: I feel that, I want to delete Facebook all the time, but I’m also like, “Wait, I also want people to know about all these projects I’m working on,” so I just made a fake name.

Enola: Yeah, that sounds cool. I really just want to do everything with paper fliers and I make a lot, but then I’m like, “Oh wait, I’m kind of old and tired and don’t go out anymore.” I guess right now I’m depending on everyone else to promote online.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: I’m bad at promoting online, um, I like to think that I’m good at it, but I’m really not. And I don’t use hashtags correctly, because I think they’re silly but that’s really how you’ve got to do it. I’ve got to get better at this. 

Vanessa: I love hashtags. It’s like one of my favorite things about the internet.

Enola: Did you hashtag in a text today?

Vanessa: Yes.

[all laugh]

Enola: Did you-

Vanessa: I may have accidentally done it. 

Enola: I think you accidentally did too, you were just so overcome with emotion.

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Alex: What was it?

Vanessa: I think I was ranting about the MRR interview. Yeah. 

[all laugh]

Maira: I mean, my coworkers and I will say, “Hashtag, like, coffee problems.”

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: We’ll say it outloud, but when it comes to using them on the internet… But I also feel that all my stuff, at least I think all my stuff is on private. So what’s the point? And then I always forget hashtags and I go back and am like, “Oh, I could have done this better.” But I don’t know if it does the same amount of promotion if you like, edit posts? 

Vanessa: Yeah.

Maira: Maybe I should learn how to use Instagram.

[Vanessa laughs]

Maira: That’s my goal for 2018.

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Maira: I’ll learn how to use the internet properly. Instead of just yelling into the void. But that’s what it’s for.

Alex: They’re both good.

Maira: Yeah, both good! I can do both, they’re not mutually exclusive. Do you have anything else you want to plug or talk about? 

Holly: [to Alex] Do you want to talk about anything?

Alex: No, do you have something in mind?

[all laugh]

Holly: Just want to make sure you feel represented. Totally, totally, not trying to put you on the spot, just in case. 

Alex: Yeah.

Maira: Oh! I thought of some questions, um, so… did you all know each other before like, organizing? 

Vanessa: I knew Enola through a collective organization-

[Enola laughs]

Enola: Scratch Paper?

Vanessa: Yeah, we worked on that paper together. And we just knew each other through shows and stuff. 

Maira: Cool.

Enola: And zines!

Vanessa: And zines. Yeah.

Holly: Yeah, Enola and I were friends before, and then me and Alex have been friends for a long time, and then, um-

Holly/Vanessa: [both] I knew you.

Holly: Yeah, but we didn’t really hang out or anything. 

Alex: I read all of you all’s zines.

Vanessa: Gel zine, shout out. It’s been fun meeting. We have meetings every week-

Maira: Every week? That’s awesome.

Enola: It’s been so nice. 

Maira: How long have you been planning this for? 

Holly: Since November.

Maira: Oh, okay. Cool. That was really hard for Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, getting people to meet.

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Maira: And having it be more than just like me and maybe two other people. Because we’re all spread out, but it was like, “Okay, who can meet at this time?” And it was like, me and one other person. So I went to all the meetings, but…

Vanessa: How many people were organizing that? 

Maira: I think there were like six of us? It was also hard because people just kind of came in and out. But are you all like, the four core?

Holly: Yeah, definitely.

Vanessa: We have Angela, who does social media.

Enola: She’s our Facebook PR, and she made really good treats for our bake sale.

Holly: She’s like the, yeah, she’s like auxiliary. I don’t know, she’s important but she doesn’t come to meetings. She has a night job.

Maira: Shout out to Angela. 

All: Yeah!

Vanessa: And Angela will be tabling, for “Super Trooper” zine. It’s my favorite.

Maira: Oh! And that’s one of the workshops.

Holly: But yeah, it’s just the four of us, so I feel like it hasn’t been that hard, we’ve only skipped a couple of weeks, and there have been times where not every single person is there, but we’ll still meet and it’s usually at least three of us. But I feel like it’s kind of been our, I don’t know, like, we really want to go to meetings.

Enola: It’s how we get through the week.

All: Yeah!

Vanessa: It’s kind of like being in a band. 

All: Yeah!

Vanessa: Hanging out.

Enola: But it feels easier to me.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Enola: Yeah, I guess I have a spot that I’m not sure where to place it, but since you asked if there’s anything we want to-

Maira: Yeah, throw it out.

Enola: It’s kind of related to what we were just saying, but um, I guess people talk about the “zine community,” and I remember hearing that years ago and being like, “Oh, I’m not sure that’s a real thing.” I think a lot of the time I can be very critical of the idea of community and not think it’s a real thing and feel really isolated and everything is fake or whatever, but lately, you know, because we’ve been planning this fest, I’ve been thinking about the “zine community” a lot and have been like, “Oh, I do actually have friends I’ve met through zines,” and made a lot of connections, so I’m feeling now like that’s a real thing.

Holly: Oh, and speaking of the zine community, one of the people who was supposed to table at our fest isn’t coming because their house in New Orleans burned down. And if you want to donate to them, at all, obviously no pressure, you can get in touch with us.

Maira: I’ll post the link, too if you-

Holly: Yeah. 

Maira: Because I lost my house in a fire last year, so yeah, shit is rough. 

All: Yeah.

Maira: So once I get paid, I would love to donate. 

Holly: Cool, yeah, definitely. 

Enola: Yeah, they were super looking forward to coming.

Vanessa: They were going to read at one of our events about the fest, so we’re sad.

Holly: Yeah, we hope they’re okay, so yeah, we will get people.

Maira: What have you learned from the organizing that you either wish you knew earlier, or what wisdom can you impart on like, people who either want to start their own fest or want to get into organizing?  

Vanessa: That’s a really good question.

[all laugh]

Vanessa: Finding a venue is really hard, at least here in the Bay Area. I think it’s good to find a place that has tables and chairs already. Because I’ve seen other zine fests and tables and chairs are a hassle to rent and-

Maira: You’ve got to set them up…

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Maira: It’s the worst. It’s not THE worst, but like, it sucks.

Holly: I feel like what I learned most of all is that you can just do it. There’s not like, a type of person that can organize stuff. I’m not super young, but I’ve gone this long without organizing anything because I felt like other people do that. And so, it’s like anyone can. You just can. And you should. Unless you’re just some shitty man, and then you shouldn’t do anything ever.

[Vanessa laughs]

Enola: Very true.

Maira: Probably just go hide in a cave. 

[all laugh]

Holly: Don’t organize shit except your own self.

Alex: Your life.

[all laugh]

Holly: Please. But yeah, anyone who’s nervous or shy or scared, it’s like, you just should. And it’s probably going to be great. Or, I don’t know, not to say. Whatever, yeah.

Maira: It’s going to be great.

[all laugh]

Maira: Just follow your heart. 

Alex: Yeah, I feel like I just agree with Holly, I feel like I haven’t left my house in years but like, having a meeting every week has been really nice. 

Enola: I think for me, I used to organize a lot of stuff and have just kind of been doing my own thing for like, it seems like a very long time, so there are some things I’ve relearned when we started planning the fest, and one of them is, it takes a little bit longer to figure things out when it’s not just you making a decision on your own. And um, I think I’ve really benefited from that, and have a lot of really nice experiences with everyone like, figuring out how to do something that’s not just my idea that’s imperfect.

Maira: Yeah, that’s a very good lesson. That’s how I felt with Queer Zine Fest too, I was just like, oh, wait, collaborating is awesome.

All: Yeah.

Maira: And just getting input from other people, and like, I don’t know, my vision isn’t always the best possible outcome, you know? Like, it’s cool to get feedback and stuff from other people. Sharing ideas. 

Holly: It’s really rewarding, too, to share the excitement or disappointment with someone else, or three other people. It’s really fun when the box of buttons comes, like [screams] “It’s perfect!”

[all laugh]

Holly: And just feeling really pumped on group successes and also being able to be like, things suck and you get to complain to each other. 

[all laugh]

Enola: I feel like we do that a lot.

Maira: It’s like a built-in support group, kind of. 

All: Yeah!

Maira: Cool, do you all have anything else?

Vanessa: We want a lot of people to come to this fest. 

Maira: Oh yeah, let’s go through the logistics of this fest. 

Vanessa: It’s going to be the best one.

Enola: Best fest!

Maira: Can guarantee, best fest. Okay, so, the fest is going to be on Sunday, February 25th, from 12 to 5, Humanist Hall in Oakland, 390 27th St is the address on that one.

Holly: There’s a wheelchair ramp in the back-

Maira: Oh cool!

Holly: And the bathrooms are accessible and they’re neutral, and there’s going to be free parking because it’s Sunday!

Maira: Wooh!

Holly: And it’s between MacArthur and 19th St BART.

Vanessa: It’s close to 19th.

Holly: It’s close to 19th St, yeah.

Vanessa: And it’s by Whole Foods, so get some snacks. 

Enola: We’ll also have some snacks there.

All: Yeah.

Maira: Bring water, stay hydrated.

Vanessa: Yeah. 

Holly: Bring small bills.

Maira: Go to the bank on Saturday.

Holly: Bring your ones and your zines to trade.

Maira: Yeah, I’m so excited to trade with people, my friend Poliana who does bibliophiliac-

All: Yay!

Maira: Super all about trading, I love that, she gets me pumped up about trading, because I am sometimes like, I don’t know, sometimes you want to break even or like, have to pay for shit. I was lucky enough to have kind of an office job, and I would just sneak a bunch of copies. I don’t know, I’m getting excited about training again. I want to rebuild my collection.

Holly: I think it depends, I always buy a lot of zines and kind of like, it’s obviously not the same thing as getting paid, but I would buy a lot of zines anyway.

Maira: Yeah, capitalism sucks anyway! 

All: True.

Maira: Negative shout out to capitalism.

[all laugh]

Maira: Um, cool.

Vanessa: The fest is sponsored by water. 

Enola: Wa-wa.

Holly: It’s sponsored by water, we couldn’t have done it without you.

All: Thank you so much, water.

Maira: Cool, this has been another episode of Long Arm Stapler, um, oh shit, actually, while you all are here, I got this email-

Holly: That’s what I wanted to say, I wanted to say our email and our Tumblr! 

Maira: Yeah! Do it!

Holly: That was the thing.

Maira: Just say it.

Holly: If you have any questions about anything, email us at deardiaryzinefest@gmail.com and check out our Tumblr for cool tabler spotlights and other pertinent info at deardiaryzinefest.tumblr.com.

Maira: And I’ll post the links for those-

Holly: Okay, cool.

Maira: But I wanted to respond to Bianca from LA Zine Fest who emailed me and I just suck at responding, because you emailed me in December. Um, and yes, Ara was from LA and stuff, and you very well may have run into her. I was trying to figure out the right order of those words. Um, yeah! Thanks for listening.

Vanessa: I know Bianca.

Maira: Oh, you know Bianca? 

Vanessa: She’s really cool.

Maira: Cool. Shout out to Bianca. All about the shout outs. Um, if you have questions, shoot me a message on Facebook or via email, and go to Dear Diary Zine Fest on February 25th! 

@deardiaryzinefest

[long-arm-stapler]

EP 1: Sayuri

[00:14]

Maira: Hi! Um my name is Maira and this is the very first episode of Long Arm Stapler, which is a podcast about zines. And this is my guest, you can introduce yourself.

Sayuri: Hi, my name is Sayuri. I am a zinester who works in Oakland and I’m really glad to be here and talking about zines, and Ara today. Um, so yeah I guess, you know.

Maira: Yeah, um, so today is December 2nd, which is a very somber day in the Bay Area. Um, a year ago we lost 36 artists, creative people, weirdos, um, and one of the people we lost was Ara Jo. Who was basically the patron saint of zines in the Bay Area and probably other places too. Her reach was just super, super everywhere. Um, and we are gonna honor her with this episode.

Sayuri: Yeah

Maira: So, a little bit about how I got into zines. So, back tracking to zines in general. I got into zines through my friend Kristen, we run Queer Anxiety Babiez Distro with our friend Ali. We’re based out of the East Bay, um, we focus on gender, mental health, and queerness. And we publish zines by other people, we publish zines by ourselves, we travel around, we get the word out, and make friends along the way.

Maira: And how did you get into zines?

Sayuri: I formally got into zines when I moved to the Bay. But before that I was always making little books and little magazines without knowing there was an entire like, scene that did that. So when I came to the Bay it was really awesome because I was like “Oh my god, other people are doing this weird thing that I thought only I was doing, publishing little books, or making little fake tabloid magazines, that’s what I always did as a kid-

Maira: Yeah!

Sayuri: And then when I moved up here, my roommate Anjelica, she runs Lemon Drop Press, which is a small risograph printing press out of our garage. So we just, I sort of just got into the zine scene because of her. Yeah.

Maira: That’s awesome. Where are you from?

Sayuri: I’m from LA-

Maira: Okay

Sayuri: So there’s a pretty strong zine scene there too, which is awesome.

Maira: There is, I have witnessed it firsthand.

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: Yeah, uh, it’s really cool. I’m from the Bay Area originally, but it’s really cool to talk to people from outside of the Bay who have like moved here about just how different the scenes are, but at the same time they’re both very communal and welcoming and warm. That’s what I like about the Southern California zine scene is, like, I’ve made friends with the organizers of Long Beach Zine Fest, they’re amazing. Shout out to all of them! Um, the LA Zine Fest people are really nice. My friend Alan runs a queer zine fest down there called Zine Queens. There’ just so much going on and everyone is so excited to see you. And that’s why zine fests down there, even if I’m not from down there, it feels like “coming home.” It feels very nice.

Sayuri: Yeah, LA’s pretty interesting because, growing up there, I just felt like there’s so much, it’s so huge. LA’s a huge place, so it does take some work to find like, your people. Or your community. But I feel like the LA zine scene is really strong and you know when I found it, I was like “this is awesome, how come I didn’t know about it?” And it’s because LA is so huge so I’m really glad that there are these pockets of people just making books and it’s really important.

Maira: Yeah, that’s kind of how I felt in the Bay too. Because like, so I’m from the East Bay, I moved to San Francisco for 7 years, and now I’m back in the East Bay, and when I was growing up it was kind of a similar situation where I would just make stuff all the time and I didn’t really know what to do with it, or like know other people who made stuff. Um, so I just had a bunch of like, weird little pocket books, full of stuff. And I would collect like, the Pocket Guide to the Spice Girls, and all those little like, mini zines basically. Um, and I would write all the time, but I didn’t really have a community around it, and then when I moved to San Francisco, I met Kristen, who actually lived in the East Bay, we met through tumblr, and … tea break…

Maira: They got me into zines, and they were like, yeah it’s this really cool thing where you basically have total control over like, what you’re putting out. And I was like “woah, that’s awesome! Um, yeah. And it’s been a wild, amazing ride ever since.

Sayuri: Yeah, zines are really important. I think, like, a lot of modern day like society especially in America is very capitalist, so this is a way for artists and creative people to get around that and make stories and share stories that are really, um, not about, you know, making money or the bottom line. And it’s kind of very far removed from the whole, you know, publishing world, which is-

Maira: I feel like publishing is like, I don’t know, I’m kind of trying to get into publishing. But I feel like independent publishing is what you’re saying, is very removed but it’s got some of the same aspects, but like, I don’t know I find it way more accessible.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah, I think accessibility is like a huge part, and like never before has everyone’s stories in the world been so accessible. I mean here we are, just chatting zines and sharing with the world, so it’s like we’re living in a really critical time where we can share stories in a powerful way, so it feels really good to be here.

Maira: Yeah! Um, so, how did you meet Ara?

Sayuri: How did I, well, ok-

Maira: That wasn’t a smooth transition at all

[both laugh]

Sayuri: How did I meet Ara? I met Ara, the first time I met Ara was at 2015 EBABZ, so the East Bay zine fest

Maira: If you’re watching, you can see my shirt, but if you’re not watching you can’t see my shirt.

Sayuri: Shout out to EBABZ.

Sayuri: Yeah, so, the first time I met her I was helping my roommate set up her booth, she had the flu that day so I was like “dude I’ll help you,” uh we were setting up our table and I think we were on the second floor and Ara was on the third floor and we just hear this voice like [shouting] HEY EVERYONE!

Sayuri: And I was like “woah, what’s that?” It was Ara just telling everyone like, what to do and how we’re going to have a great time and like, thanking everyone for supporting. And at that moment I was just like “wow, this is a really powerful person.” So that’s how I met Ara, was through a zine event, and it was just really, you know, magical seeing her doing her thing and this project she had been working on for so long come to fruition. Through EBABZ, that’s kind of indirectly how we met?

Maira: Yeah

Sayuri: Because if I didn’t know, so, after the-

Maira: Six degrees of separation

Sayuri: After the Ghost Ship fire, it happened about a week before EBABZ

Maira: Literally a week before, and I’ll get into that later. That was a wild, rough week.

Sayuri: Yeah that was a really crazy week, and the fire happened and I was thinking “oh my god, what’s gonna happen with EBABZ?” And there were a bunch of volunteers that met up at Sgraffito, where Ara lived and was a gallery manager, so I went there, there was a very last minute – of course, because that was the best we could do – and everyone sort of got together “ok well we have a bunch of construction paper, let’s make signs, and do whatever we can,” I met my friend Lani there, who was one the volunteers, and Lani knows Maira, so [laughing] that’s how we got here today.

Maira: Yeah, um, we met at, we had a picnic for EBABZ this year as a lead up event. EBABZ is next week, December 9th, by the way, shout out. Um, and we were like “we both like making buttons, we both like making zines, we both love Ara, let’s do this.” I met Ara in a very similar way, actually, at 2014 EBABZ, which was my very first tabling event ever. I had just started making zines, and my friend Kristen, who I mentioned earlier, invited me to table with them and I said okay, and I saw this, this person, this like force of a person. And it was Ara. And I remember just beaming the entire time I was at the fest because it was so exciting and such a wonderful way to get myself out there and meet people and share ideas. And I went up to buy a t-shirt at the merch table, which is the t-shirt I am wearing right now, and I was like “Hey! This is amazing!” And I was just talking to her and Tricia, one of the other organizers that year, and telling them how included I felt, for someone who was coming in from the outside. Ara was very excited about that, and this was the very last bright orange t-shirt and I felt really special that I got it. And I just kept telling Ara that I felt amazing being there, and she was really stoked on that. I didn’t really interact with her again until 2015 EBABZ, so like, um, initially our friendship was really just in passing at zine stuff, but one memory that I have of meeting her outside of a zine event was I saw her on BART. I was going to Oakland and I was just like “shit, that person looks so cool.” Ara dressed so cool, she had the best clothes, like, and the best style. I just remember being on BART with her and looking over at her and being like “she looks so cool. Oh, that’s one of the EBABZ organizers, okay!” So later I was riding my bike and we like crossed paths way later down the street. And she was like, “Hey! You’re in Queer Anxiety Babiez!” I had an “Oh my god, you know who I am?” moment

[both laughing]

Sayuri: Celebrity crush.

Maira: Celebrity crush, oh yeah. For sure. So I had that moment with her, and I was like, “Yeah, I’m about to go to a reading,” and she was like, “cool!” We chatted for a little bit, and that’s when I was like, “I really want to be friends with Ara Jo.” She had that kind of magnetic personality that really made you feel loved and included and welcome even if you had known each other for 5 seconds.

Sayuri: Yeah, I felt like she really embodied the zine spirit, of you know, how- why zines are there.

Maira: Community. Like, Ara Jo was zine community.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah yeah. After the fire, I just, because of her, I met so many other people. Even like after she left this world she’s still making connections between people. I feel like she’s still here. So, doing this for you Ara baby.

Maira: Um

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: I just want to talk about Ara! Like, she was just, last night I was on BART and I was getting really sad because of this weekend, and I was coming home and just like, crying, but not necessarily sad, just “I can’t believe I got to exist at the same time as her?” And like I can’t believe, I mean I can believe, because it happened, but it’s just amazing that I got to meet her, and be friends with her, and spend time with her, because she was just such a powerful, booming, bright force of energy.

Sayuri: Yep

Maira: I’m going to cry on this podcast!

[both laugh]

[both]: But in a good way.

Maira: Yeah, like, organizing EBABZ, so last year was my first organizing EBABZ – the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest – because I had been, honestly I signed up to organize so I could hang out with Ara. Like that was my-

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: I love zines, but I also really want to befriend this person. So last year I started organizing, and the week leading up to the fest was one of the most intense weeks of my life. Because you know, we had a group chat on Facebook with all the organizers, and I remember waking up on the 3rd, so last year’s Saturday, today last year.

Sayuri: That was a very confusing time.

Maira: Yeah I remember waking up to a message from Tricia that was just saying “Hey Ara, please just let us know you’re okay.” Um, and I was really confused. And then I looked up what was happening and was like “woah,” the group chat got very somber very fast, with all of us just trying to find Ara. We were calling Ara, um, she had been in the hospital for like a, she had a really bad cold a few weeks before, so we had already lost contact with her for like a week, so we were like “oh, is this the same thing?” So we just couldn’t get ahold of her, um, and then when we found out that she was gone, we scrambled. Um, we found out that the venue we thought we put a deposit on, we hadn’t put a deposit on. We found out we didn’t really have anything aside from like, a hundred tablers, we had no space anymore. And so, that week really brought the community together, to just, make EBABZ happen. And last year was one of my favorites, no, it was my favorite, zine fests of all time. And I’ve been to a lot of zine fests, and I love EBABZ with all my heart, but last year was magical.

[both] Yeah

Sayuri: I remember that whole week, from the fire til EBABZ was just, so confusing. I mean, I just felt so, I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know what I was seeing, I didn’t, I just felt so disconnected. And then I remember at EBABZ, it was the first time everything felt okay, or there was a moment of calm. I just remember everyone there, not just me, it was just the first moment that it felt okay. Things were alright for just a second, was at that zine fest.

Maira: There were like three thousand people there.

Sayuri: Yeah it was crazy packed, too.

Maira: We had to turn people away.

Sayuri: Oh really? That’s pretty awesome.

Maira: Because of the space constraints of the venue, not because we didn’t want people. We, yeah, it was the first time a lot of us had been in the same room together in general, but also a lot of us as friends and community members since the fire, and it felt very… warm. And it was a very cold, rainy day, um, and it felt very safe. I was running around crying the entire fest. Like, I was like, asking people if they needed anything, breaks, and yeah I was just sobbing the entire fest. When I was at my table, [fake crying] “Here you go.” Just hanging people zines and I was running around with my organizer hat crying and people were telling me how great the fest was going and I was just kind of like, collapsing and saying “Thank you.” Like, I think last year we just all really wanted to make Ara proud. Of like, the fest. And I mean this year, obviously, we want to make Ara proud every fest from last year on. That’s my goal with EBABZ, as an organizer.

Sayuri: Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of just like, reflection on Ara’s legacy, I guess I knew her in the context of zines, I guess our relationship was more formal. We were just like, you know, hang out and do zine stuff together. I was just thinking about her legacy, and I think it’s really important that artists just continue making stuff, and just sort of like, plow through the sadness that we get a lot. Our community isn’t supported by mainstream people, governmental institutions, so we really have to be there for each other. You know, for ourselves and I’ve just been thinking a lot about like, self-love and loving your friends and showing up for your friends and um, making projects happen. And not being afraid of a failure. Or thinking that your work is not good enough or that someone is cooler than you. I always thought Ara was super cool, like way cooler than me, and like the first time we hung out she was cutting my hair and she was like “We’re going to make you look like Kristi Yamaguchi!” And I was like damn, you’re so cool. Like ohm y god and you’re cutting my hair?

Maira: That was such a good Ara impression.

[both laugh]

Sayuri: She was like, “We’re going to cut your bangs like this,” you know, and like in that moment, I was like she’s really awesome, and she barely knew me. You know, I think that same warmth is really important, um, and that’s why I love the zine community, there is always that warmth, and it never feels cold or unpopulated, so that’s why I’m in it.

Maira: That’s also why I’m in it! Um, it’s been a really good way to make friends, and meet people, and share ideas. Um, I, and it’s cool because I see the same warmth and welcoming in other zine communities too. Like, for example, I went to Omaha Zine Fest, not the middle of nowhere, but like, Nebraska. And I live in California, so that’s like, quite a ways away. I had never been there before, and I went to the very first one and the organizers were like, “Yeah, come stay at our house! We’ll take you out to breakfast and show you all the sights of Omaha,” which was really just like, every location every mentioned in a Bright Eyes or Desaparecidos song.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: Um, that’s really what it was. The tour of Saddle Creek. And, I feel that spirit in every single zine community I’ve ever witnessed. You know, I’ve been up and down the West Coast to fests, I’ve been to Chicago Zine Fest, Omaha Zine Fest, and I feel like I’m just name dropping at this point, but, I just want to shout out everyone who has ever put on a zine fest or has like, welcomed strangers into their home for a zine fest, because that’s really cool.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah. Kudos to you. I mean I could not organize a zine fest, that is insane.

Maira: It’s-

[Sayuri laughs]

Sayuri: I make the zines.

Maira: Yeah, the zines! I was so inspired by EBABZ 2016, last year, that I founded my own zine fest. The Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, which was on June 17th. It was amazing, and it was a labor of love. And it was for Ara, like that’s what it was. You know, it was an idea that we had talked about, just as a very far out “Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we had a queer zine fest?” And then I made it happen with the help of a lot of other people. And it felt really good, and I felt like she would have been proud of that too. Um, as far as your zines go…

Sayuri: Okay-

Maira: We’re going to talk about you a little bit.

Sayuri: Yeah let’s uh, okay, well, I brought a few zines that I’ve made in the past. I don’t know, I think I want to start with the one that is not finished yet. But it will be or EBABZ which is next weekend on-

[both exclaim]: December 9th!

Maira: At the Omni Commons, I don’t have the address, but-

Sayuri: You should put the info up.

Maira: I’ll link it.

Sayuri: Um, so, every year I make an end of the year zine, so it’s pretty much in a comic book format and I look at the year’s, the past year. I wasn’t able to find my 2016 one, but I found my 2015 abridged tale, so this is kind of what I make every year. So even if I make one zine, it will be this.

Maira: If you’re just listening, this zine looks amazing. It looks very detailed and very professional.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: And I’m a little intimidated.

Sayuri: Don’t be! This year I was kind of crazy, like, I’ve got to make it look so professional. The ones now are like, less manicured than this, but I was pretty proud of this one. So I just like, review my year in a positive way, and it’s just, I feel like it’s really good for me to get out of my head, and be like, “Okay, well what good happened this year?” And I think like a lot of artists, I get depressed, and I get sad, and it’s hard for me to see the positive.

Maira: [sarcastically] What’s that? What’s depression? And artists?

Sayuri: I get sad sometimes, and I forget how amazing my friends and family are. I’ve been making these for the past five years, so I’m making my 2017 one, so hopefully that will be at EBABZ. Um, another project that I’m also trying to get done for EBABZ is this book, it’s not done yet, but I printed out the cover. Yeah, so this is the cover, it’s called “Ritual.”

Maira: That looks amazing.

Sayuri: It’s going to be great. So, this zine has been in the works for about a year. And so, this is just the cover art, and it features nine artists, healers in the Bay who submitted their rituals. There’s a banish the patriarchy ritual, there is a safe space ritual, I contributed, uh, I actually contributed a ritual that I did for Ara. After the fire happened, so this was a ritual that I organized with some friends and um, we, it was pretty much to help Ara’s spirit move, um, to the next wherever she is now. But this was really good for the participants because it helped us cope with our grieving in a communal way, um, but yeah. So my upcoming zine is going to be a magic zine, so it is about magical rituals and how to heal ourselves and our friends in dark times. And I’m really excited to finally have it done because I feel like, I mean I’m sure you get this too, where it’s like, “It’s not done yet! It’s not done yet!” Or like, “I started that how many months ago?”

Maira: Forever ago!

Sayuri: What’s going on with that? So, this is a zine that I’ve been sitting on for a while. But I actually don’t feel too bad about it now.

Maira: Nice! I hope that… I’m kind of doing that, I’m working on a King of the Hill zine right now, a follow up Zine of the Hill 2, this time it’s about feelings is the subtitle. I’ve been working on it for a while, and I don’t think it’s going to be done for EBABZ, but if it is, it will be a miracle and I’ll feel so good.

Sayuri: But if not that’s fine too.

Maira: But if not it’s fine too! I’ll release it first thing next year, and, because I don’t want to, I don’t know, with zines, sometimes I want to just like, get the product out if I’m feeling rushed before a zine fest and that’s usually if it’s a really personal one. And I’ll just have this like, creative flash and I’ll just only work on that for a week straight and I’ll just put it out there. But then, with other zines, you’ve got to sit with them, you’ve just got to let it happen naturally and organically.

Sayuri: Yeah, I like that, that resonates a lot with me. I think a lot of the time, I’m pretty like, I don’t like to categorize people but I’m Type A for sure, and so I’m always like, rushing to finish things, “How am I going to get this done if I’m not moving? I’m not doing anything!” So it’s, I’m actually coming to terms with like, the zine I am making might take a year, but maybe because of that it will be better because I didn’t-

Both: Rush it.

Sayuri: Yeah, so, don’t rush it.

Maira: I like to think of zines as, I reference this a lot but I took a history of rock and roll class in community college, and we had a week on Prince and a week on Michael Jackson.

Sayuri: Wait, what?

Maira: It was history of rock and roll since the 70’s, we went over like every genre of music, but where I’m going with this was, Prince was very “I’m going to make a million things and just put them out there, whether or not they’re polished.” And Michael Jackson was very, “I’m going to release a few things and they’re going to be super, super polished.” And yeah, super polished. And it’s not in a rivalry way, but in a like, production way if that makes sense.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah. Creative process.

Maira: Yeah, creative process way. So, I think about that a lot when I’m making zines.

Sayuri: Yeah, I like that analogy, I’ve never thought about Prince and Michael Jackson like that. But now I am!

Maira: Shout out to that professor I had!

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: Don’t remember your name, sorry! Your class was great.

Sayuri: I actually brought a Prince button.

Maira: I just got a Prince tattoo, too.

Sayuri: It’s funny because, I was, so Maira has a button maker. I make buttons. So I hung out with you, was it last week?

Maira: A couple days ago.

Sayuri: It was really recent, and they were like, “What’s up with that podcast?”

[Sayuri laughs]

Both: So here we are!

Sayuri: This is great.

Maira: So, I had just gotten my Prince tattoo, and Sayuri came over and was like, “Yeah I’m making Prince buttons!” And I was just like, I lifted up my sleeve, because I got Prince’s eyes.

Sayuri: His beautiful eyes.

Maira: And my hair is purple, and everything felt very… puzzle pieces.

Both: Yeah, yeah.

Maira: And so here we are, in this podcast.

Sayuri: Yeah, I think magic is definitely in the air, and we’ve got to pay attention to the weird things that the universe is telling us, if it’s, you know, a Prince tattoo and a Prince button and your hair is purple, that makes sense!

Maira: Like, we’ve both got orange on today, which we did not talk about.

Sayuri: Yeah, we didn’t plan the orange, orange, and then orange up here.

Maira: No. Oh, yeah, Sayuri made this “What Would Ara Do?” by the way. Do you want to, I know if you’re listening to this you can’t see it, but I’ll probably, I’ll link a photo of it-

Sayuri: Okay.

Maira: When I post the podcast. But do you want to talk about the art?

Sayuri: Yeah, should I grab it? It’s, there’s a lot of symbolism in it. So, this is the poster I made of Ara, it says, “What Would Ara Do?” um, and she is standing between two pillars. So, when I made this illustration, I was working on a tarot project, so I was thinking about the High Priestess a lot, and the High Priestess in the Rider-Wait deck, the classic Rider-Wait deck, has the High Priestess standing between two pillars of light and dark, and I thought a lot about Ara as the High Priestess. And I put her on Lady Guadalupe’s body. Um, I think Ara was from LA, too-

Maira: Yeah.

Sayuri: Yeah, Ara was from LA, because her grave is in San Dimas, which is where I used to work.

Maira: Oh really?

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: I’m going down for New Years and I’m going to try to visit it.

Sayuri: Yeah, I mean her metal plaque-

Maira: It’s got a photo of her.

Sayuri: Yeah and my roommate actually made the artwork that is now on her plaque on her grave.

Maira: Oh yeah, because it’s that poster, I have that in my room.

Sayuri: Yeah, so my roommate and I both make Ara posters. Um, but yeah so, she is embodied as the Lady Guadalupe, whom I love, and she’s standing behind a crescent moon. And um, the moon in a lot of cultures has to deal with death, and in a lot of cultures they believe when you die you go, you return to the moon. We’re from the moon, we’re like, weird space creatures. I kind of like that idea. And then, at the bottom, there’s a little baby kewpie, I love kewpie and-

Maira: Ara fucking loved kewpies.

Sayuri: She loved kewpies, kewpie’s here, you know, with its wings, supporting everyone, and then there’s little rainbows and clouds. Ara was a huge supporter of the queer community, and that was, I think, really amazing. Um, and this is my interpretation… And actually, if you look closely, there are 36 stars, for the 36 people who died in that fire. So, there’s lots of little tricks in there. But yeah so, this I will have at EBABZ. So, I’ll have this at EBABZ, and you can get one for free, or you can donate, get one for a donation, and I’ll give all the money, 100% of the proceeds to EBABZ. So that they can get their space for next year. So, you know, if you like art, if you like EBABZ, um, pick up a poster, throw a few bucks my way, and um yeah, get some cool art. And support the zine community.

Maira: Yeah, um.

[36:35, indistinguishable]

Sayuri: I got it, I got it.

Maira: It’s just been moving up and down all day and I’m totally okay with it.

Sayuri: It’s okay.

Maira: I, so we’re currently sitting at my kitchen table, which is a 6 by 3 folding table, commonly used at zine fests, um, because I moved and we didn’t have a lot of money for a new table, but I was like, “Multi-purpose! Let’s get a zine table!” So this is where I do most of my crafting, and I have this poster that I just have above my craft table that um, because I like to think of, “What Would Ara Do?” when I’m making stuff. Um, I made a zine about her, um, Sgraffito opened the Ara Jo Zine Library a few months ago, um, and they were like, “If you have zines about Ara, if you have zines for Ara, bring them to this space.” And it was really cool, and…

Sayuri: Lani is here!

Maira: Lani? Hey, Lani.

Sayuri: Hi Lani!

Maira: Hey, everybody.

Sayuri: Oh, hey everyone, hey Gabby.

Maira: For everybody watching, Meredith and Jackie and Charissa.

Sayuri: Hi everyone, thanks for joining us.

Maira: Um, and we went and I made a zine about Ara, and one of the things I wrote about… So I wrote the zine using this pen that Ara gave me for my birthday. Hey, Poliana! And, it’s one of those pens where you can change the ink color, and when my own house burned down earlier this year, two of the things that I made sure I grabbed when we were allowed back in the house after everything was soaked were my pin, my Ara pin that I made for the memorial, um, right after the fire, and then pen that she gave me. And I do most of my special zine projects with that pen, and I hold it very, very close to my heart. Um, yeah she gave me a pen for my birthday and she made the next EBABZ planning meeting like an unofficial birthday party for me and we had ice cream for breakfast and she was all, “I’ve always wanted to have a party with ice cream for breakfast!” Yeah, she was very stoked.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: And she just pumped me full of ice cream at like, ten AM. Um, because that’s just who Ara was… amazing, that’s who Ara was, just amazing.

Sayuri: Mhm

[Maira sighs]

Maira: So if you’re not doing anything today, and even if you are, think about your friends, and think about how much you love them, and tell them you love them, and hold them close. And think about all the amazing things that you can create together. Um, yeah.

Sayuri: Yeah, yeah that’s great.

[Sayuri laughs]

Maira: Those are my words of wisdom. Um, yeah, I’m probably, I actually live near Ghost Ship now, where Ghost Ship was, and I’m probably going to go by today. I’ve never been but I’ve looked for it, obviously not very hard because I didn’t find it, but I think I’m ready today to go, and I’m just going to pay my respects. We lost 36 really amazing, amazing creative people in that fire, and while, you know, we focused on one of them today, there’s thirty five other beautiful, beautiful, creative – I keep saying that – but you know it was freaks and weirdos in the best possible way.

Sayuri: It was, yeah, it was.

Maira: Um, do you have anything that you’d like to plug?

Sayuri: Um, no. Well, EBABZ. Everyone should come to EBABZ, I know there’s a lot of stuff going on that weekend, there is Magic Makers happening, which is the queer healing fest, which is happening at the Humanist Hall-

Maira: December 9th and 10th, so Saturday and Sunday.

Sayuri: There’s EBAB happening on the 9th.

Maira: On the 9th.

Sayuri: And there’s also-

Maira: Max’s Garage Print Sale?

Sayuri: Yeah, there’s also… Ok Gabby, I’ll plug my zine too. Um, there’s also Max’s Garage Print Sale happening in Berkeley on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I think it’s the first time they’re doing all three days, so it’s a really great… I’ll have some of my prints there too, but it’s a really great place to pick up really affordable, great art, by artists living in the Bay. So go support your community, get your friends some art this year. One last plug, you should check out Ritual once it’s done at EBABZ. I’m also going to try to do some relatials with my friend Gabby Lala, and she’s giving me a lot of good feedback right now, thanks Gabby. Gabby and I are going to team up, she’s probably going to play some sitar… Gabby? Maybe some sitar? Yes?

Maira: I see some hearts.

Sayuri: So, there’s going to be some sitar music, I might lead a little ritual, and I’ll be selling these zines. So, come support your local artists, and um, the zine community. And I guess, I hope that everyone can be really kind and loving and compassionate today, well every day, but especially today.

Maira: Especially today and the next few days.

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: One last memory I have of last year is um, the big memorial at Lake Merritt.

Sayuri: Mhm, yep.

Maira: One thing that really stuck out… I pass Lake Merritt a lot because I live in Oakland. But every time I pass by, I don’t know what that area is called, with the pillars and stuff.

Sayuri: I don’t know what it’s called, but I know what it is, with the pillars.

Maira: Yeah, the pillared area at Lake Merritt, if you’re familiar, they had a bunch of glow sticks in the trees. And every time I see a glow stick now, I think of Ara and I think of that night and everyone just kind of like, coming together and crying together and hoping that this never happens again. And you know, like, I don’t know, people coming together. I’m starting to cry. Community is so important to zines and friendship and art, and I really want to stress that focus on these things, find these things, find your community, find your freaks and weirdos, and stick by them, and tell them you love them, a lot, all the time, because you never know what’s going to happen.

Sayuri: We love you everyone who joined us.

Maira: So we recorded this live on Facebook, and-

Sayuri: Why don’t you tell people where they can find the podcast.

Maira: Yeah, so podcast is going to be up on Libsyn, and I think it’s going to go up on Spotify and iTunes, I’m going to post a bunch of links, Gabby Lala you are totally correct, we should not wait for bad stuff to happen to come together.

Sayuri: Yeah.

Maira: And I think people take that for granted, until bad stuff happens, and then we come together and we’re like, “Ah, never again!” So hopefully this time it sticks. East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest, next Saturday, um, I’ll actually be recording the podcast live, probably not broadcasting live, but recording the podcast at the fest, and releasing it a couple days later. So look out for the next episode of Long Arm Stapler.

Sayuri: Yay!

Both: Signing off.

Maira: Bye everybody!

Sayuri: Bye!