May 2012
3 posts
POP FEMINIST PERBLOG: Contribute to my New Queer... →
catladysoul:
So there are several feminist publications out there right now — I even contribute to some of them! But none of them are very specifically queer and feminist and talk about fashion, specifically, and not in that ‘groundbreaking’ way that discusses how fashion can be feminist….
Exercise
Rebecca of Rebucket and I decided to try and help each other out in terms of productivity with a simple little exercise: I write, blog it; she sees it, draws an accompaniment. So here goes. (Thanks to Simon for helping me think this should be written down and illustrated!)
I’m teaching Dorian Gray (an abridged version) to my High Intermediate ESL students. We just read a chapter where...
April 2012
6 posts
JUST IN: Smugglers Way FlexiZine! Out April 21st-...
WANT
smugglersway:
Hit The Bottom And Escape: If you live in Los... →
The Last Bookstore is basically giving away free books if you donate to their IndieGoGo campaign. I donated $20 and got $30 store credit. It’s only good for four more days!!
violent-buddhist:
They’re going to expand into the top floor and house about 100,000 dollar books for sale
You can donate some money and you get gift certificates
http://www.indiegogo.com/lastbookstore
I’m going to...
Things I've done
Gotten a rad part-time job at a bookstore I love
Defeated the pile of clothes, papers, and magazines in my room that had grown to such a size that I’d taken to calling it The Pile and hallucinating that it was making demands of me like “Don’t fold that shirt; throw it on me. I hunger….”
Gotten out of bed today when I really just wanted to pull the covers over my...
March 2012
15 posts
Doing A D’Agata
lareviewofbooks:
LEE GUTKIND on John D’Agata and Jim Fingal’s The Lifespan of a Fact. Blackboard courtesy of Nieman Journalism Lab A project of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard
John D’Agata and Jim Fingal The Lifespan of a Fact W.W. Norton & Company, February 2012. 128 pp. A writer colleague, referring to a document she had written, confessed: “I totally D’Agata’d this.” I couldn’t help...
Los Angeles Review of Books Radio
lareviewofbooks:
Our inaugural broadcast on KCRW.
Click here or on the image above to go to KCRW and listen or download.
Wanna be a part of Riverside DIY Print Fest 2012? →
lazinefest:
This looks like it’s gonna be awesome!
4 tags
Why not, she said.: I wanted to write a little... →
whynotshesaid:
I wanted to write a little more about the Chicago Zine Fest, which ended up being a very powerful, special experience for me. For the days leading up to CZF, I was actually kind of anxious about the whole thing. I was going to meet a bunch of people for the first time after communicating with them…
“Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal...”
– Timothy Ferriss (via drummingdifferently)
RISD President John Maeda on artists as leaders
2011/07 John Maeda from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.
I really enjoyed this lecture on how artists and non-artists alike can adopt an artistic approach to leadership and produce excellent results. I especially liked seeing that I’m not the only one who writes crap on napkins and paper scraps that are next-to-impossible not to lose.
“One of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it...”
– Philosopher Alain de Botton on finding purpose and success (via explore-blog)
5 tags
Hey buddy!
Here are some rad things I found today:
- a hip hop family tree in comic book form that is both educational and beautiful
- Floating World Comics’ book on DIY Magic with amazing illustrations, like this one by Tommi Masturi.
This video by Teeth & Tongue, a band that is playing at Home Room this Saturday.
-a great quotation from Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About...
3 tags
Problem? Solution!
I’ve been working on a new zine—my first since the ones I put out over two years ago for the San Francisco Zine Fest. I really like the idea of a theme zine, so this one’s theme is “Problem? Solution!” where I share the ways I overcame some of the biggest obstacles in my life, like having an unscrupulous bank or not having any cookies at home.
An excerpt:
...
February 2012
4 posts
Watchthestateimin:
LA Zine Fest Promo Video!!!! It’s actually amazing. I’m not just saying that because I am one of the organizers. I DID NOT MAKE THIS VIDEO! But it is totally freaking amazing and I am SO PROUD of Andrew and Jane who created this out of nothing and everyone else who worked on it and put so much time and energy and love into. watch, reblog, share it with your friends and come to LA...
January 2012
1 post
3 tags
November 2011
1 post
On Break
It’s safe to say that this blog is not going to be updated until post-L.A. Zine Fest. It’s not the way I want it, but it’s the way it’s got to be. I’m going 100% insane not writing for myself; the most I can do is write ten sentences every day. They are not exciting. Usually they are about groceries and the extreme decline in attention to personal hygiene...
October 2011
1 post
Apply to the L.A. Zine Fest!
APPLICATIONS ARE UP AND WE WANT YOUR ZINES!!!
The L.A. Zine Fest is happening Sunday, February 19, 2012 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. That’s President’s Day Weekend—a three-day weekend!—so you have plenty of time to get to recover from your bacon-wrapped hot dog coma and get to work looking like a productive member of society.
September 2011
2 posts
I am not even halfway through this month’s issue of the Scientific American and it’s already making me want to buy a totally anachronistic mail subscription (12 issues for $25; probably delivered by pigeon post).
This issue seems to sync up serendipitously with my hold at the library on Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline, a book wherein he argues for everyone moving to...
I was at FYF yesterday. I had sworn that I would never go to a music festival outdoors but then I did and it was excellent. EXCELLENT. The Weakerthans and YACHT alone were worth the ticket price. Coming from me, that’s a lot, because I am cheap. As for the second most-important facet of a music festival’s success, the food was not overpriced. This is L.A.; I’ve paid $8 for a...
August 2011
7 posts
Please vote for the L.A. Zine Fest!
As an organizer of the Los Angeles Zine Fest, I ask you to vote for us in GOOD Magazine’s contest for $2500. This money, if we win it, would help us get a venue, pay for costs of security, insurance, and maybe even cover a little of the cost of advertising the thing.
It only takes about three minutes (four if you are a slow typist) to vote on the site and it would really help us out....
So, at the Renegade Craft Fair a while back, the truck next to the Urban Craft Center’s was this motorhome-ish thing called the Type Truck. It was closed for lunch at the time, but there were adorable cards for sale outside the truck and I peeked my head inside and saw a what I later learned were a sign press and a platen press. I remember wondering how much work it must have taken to...
Early L.A. Zines, part 1
A long time ago, in what is now the middle of this street, there was a crash pad for the coolest nerds ever. This is a class of nerd we don’t see anymore—mimeograph-using, rumpled-collared-shirt-wearing, totally broke sci-fi nerds. I wish I had a time machine.
__________________
Way back in the 30s, a bunch of sci-fi fen (plural of fans in fanspeak, which there is luckily an...
As a child, my mom took me to the market with her and my job was to go through her cute coupon folder with the yellow flowers on it while we shopped and to alert her to possible savings opportunities. I was pretty good at it. Now that I’m an adult who is cheap, I appreciate those days in the market and the value of coupon cutting being instilled upon me. That said, coupons have started...
If it’s 78 degrees and sunny outside, that means it’s 89 degrees and wretched in my second-story apartment. Something about the design of the apartment quashes any semblance of a breeze. I always said that the architect who drew the plans for the building were still alive, I’d kill him.
This means terrible things for my campaign to start drinking red wine. Who wants a warm...
Today, exhausted on the way home from work, I had a revelation. It occurred to me that maybe the reason I am so angry on the way to work and on the way home from it is that I burning out on my job. This job was never supposed to be a long-term thing, yet here I am, four years later, still working there. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d applied to a job. I recognized...
July 2011
1 post
I am dreaming of a 9:30 bedtime.
June 2011
5 posts
Iss kuul
The Japanese Popstars Feat. Green Velvet - Let Go from David Wilson Creative on Vimeo.
On Monday at 9:40 p.m., I was careening down Allen Avenue past houses that I could not afford even if I went in with like four people, and I was on a 1970s gas-crisis bike whistling two bars of the three Hall & Oates songs I’m familiar with (not as familiar as I thought I was before that ride). I was whistling because I was happy, and I was happy because I got to do some after-hours...
This tall drink of water is sometimes all the company I need. They’re like a hug under your pants.
Listening to the Mavis Staples live sesh from NPR, enjoying a Wallace—cheap white wine with an ice cube. Pairing: Australian licorice bits.
I’ve been enjoying a lot more NPR now that the NYT introduced their subscription rules. Sorry I made you second fiddle for so long, Public Radio!
Other Things I Like:
-Pretty nature photos at Grassdoe
-Patt Morrison’s show on KPCC on...
Machine Project's Dog Opera
Tragedy on the Sea Nymph from machine project on Vimeo.
First of all, let me just say that I am a total dog pervert. I know dogs are very “now,” but I think what really pushes me over the edge and throws me into the category of full-on pervert is that I don’t have a dog. Much like a creepy man who stands under the shade of trees at parks and watches your kids play from a...
May 2011
1 post
Egads! Does anyone else see those ghostly apparitions next to the Japanese vending machine?
As a ghost rises from the grave to ooooo and woooo, so to have I risen from the tomb of self-pity to blog again!
April 2011
1 post
I have been as busy as the spider that spun that gigantic web in Texas. She or he did it in only about two weeks, so we’re working at basically the same pace.
Some highlights of the last two weeks:
-Saw KIT/Pink Dollaz/Andrew W.K at Dem Passwords
-Got tickets to the Magic Castle (which you can only get if you know a magician or are the friend of a magician’s friend) and now do...
March 2011
12 posts
I’ve been cloistered away in my apartment, on the sofa, drinking stein after stein of mint tea, working on a story for a friend’s book. I’m so excited about the project, but so terrified of fucking up. How could I fuck up? The details aren’t very clear, but it is a fear nevertheless.
The story takes place in the jungle and involves hot girls, blood, and animals....
I initially went to the Science floor of the library because I mistakenly thought there would be a lot less people there and a lot more room for me to sprawl. Once I got down there, I realized that my thought process had been the same as that of every homeless consumptive and flatulent narcoleptic in the metro area. Every seat was occupied in the militaristic sense of the word: people had...