Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Email from Jeff Potter:

OK, I'll check out this weblog stuff some more. I'm starting to get the
drift, but some descriptions posted don't seem to be helping the blog
cause.

I'm still reading that the blog scene is bloggers linking to other
bloggers. So it's still hard to see where the content fits in.

How is a blog different from a bookmarks list? It sounds like a bookmarks
list links you to content but a blog links you to blogs.

Then there's the mentioned blog "buzz" angle, that's faster than the WELL,
Newsweek, etc. Does content have a buzz? OK, maybe a little. Zinesters
were pretty proud of being the first to tell people about HK
movies...about UFC fight tapes...of making porn cool. Ha...funny stuff to
be proud of. How about getting the word out about anarchy? But all that
stuff wasn't buzz, it was longterm encroachment of something truly new. It
was cool, too. But not that fast. Maybe that's a cyber difference.
"Cyber"...ha...there's a rusty old term.

So, my own links-list hooks up to a couple dozen high-end info sources for
freaky modern folkculture stuff. http://www.outyourbackdoor.com/links.htm
If you have a question about bikes, there are a hundred bike sites, but I
link to a few best personality-driven ones to save you time. Just like you
guys say: it's a filter. OK, I admit that my list is lame, specialized,
wandering. OK, I do see how if I worked on it more that it could be WAY
more useful, and maybe it would start taking on a life of its own. BUT I
still don't see that I'd be linking to different KINDS of sites. I'd just
have tastier sites covering a more useful range. I still don't think it
would be a blog or that it would link to blogs or that blogs would pay me
the time of day. What am I missing? ...Obviously: experience with blogs.
Ha ha.

It just seems like me and blogs woulda run into each other already. What a
whiner.

It *IS* weird to think that "pure info" can be part of fashion. But when
you talk about "buzz" and when Mr. Blogger Inventor says that blogging is
about "Frequency, Brevity, and Personality" and that damning "lightweight
content" and how he saw that blogging was about "format not content" it
seems like fluffy fashion is a big part of blogging.

Me 'n' fashion go WAY back. The neighborhood teens always scowl at me when
I tell em: "Ya know, the secret is that uncool is the coolest. When you
make your own scene, you step right to the front of the line. Chicks dig
it. Go on, try it, start with something easy, like a different hat." You
should see the gears grind in their head, the pain. They laugh at me, but
I'm laughing, too. And I'm the only grownup hanging with them, talking to
them, and they know I'm "in" at a lot of places, that I keep having fun.
It makes them very nervous.

Well, enough hassling...let me see if I can learn something firsthand
about this blogging. --JP

Jeff Potter
  ****
  

    
Re #73 - Jim Leftwich has joined our panel!
  

    
 I think that many blogs aren't about linking to other people who have blogs
at all.  For example, at rc3.org, I almost never link to another blog,
but I exchange email with a few people who maintain other blogs fairly
frequently.

 My content is pretty eclectic.  I have a lot of techie stuff, because
I'm a techie.  I have a lot of political stuff, because I'm interested
in politics.  Outside of that, it's mostly things that give me a laugh.
  

    
Email from Jeff Potter:

Affinity and identity groups. Slang for "hobbies and cliques."

In zining's heyday these things were busted up, hooked into each other so
that they tended to disappear into everyday life. It was this way in the
early Net, too.

Before I knew about zining, I knew that in real life most people weren't
specialized, they did a bunch of things that kinda covered all the bases
of life, they were generalists. People who used bikes weren't "cyclists"
they were people who used bikes. And their essential interests weren't
different from people who didn't use bikes. A regular person riding a bike
was keeping nobody down anywhere else. He was NOT getting ahead at anyone
else's expense. A person walking was as much his friend as anyone else.
They didn't have "issues."

I thought that existing media worked to keep people apart and promote the
silly lie that people were labels. Obviously, the media only did this to
sell stuff and make people easy to manipulate. But lots of people refuse
to play this game. They squeeze out between the cracks and join up
elsewhere, like mercury, like water.

I made my zine and website to reflect all this stuff and basically for no
other reason.

Via Mike Gunderloy's F5 we all found out about each other. All the
different freaks. You know, who lived and thought really differently from
each other, but who were civil to each other as we checked out all our
scenes. I had my redneck huntin'n'bikin thing going on. The city slickers
hooked right into me and I into them. We expanded. I met my first
Southerners and Punks and they were swell folks. There was no end to it.
It was open-ended. Come one come all.

Is this how zining and webbing still is?

Jeff Potter
  

    
Email from Jeff Potter:

Speaking of content...here's some zines I like... Have you heard of them?

*"Oop" by Joey Harrison. http://members.accesstoledo.com/joey/jhwq_TOC.htm
Keeps getting bad reviews in ARG. Includes quite a few stories of his
childhood with great B&W photos of little him with his buckteeth and
hornrim glasses and his glamorous 50's mom going off on field trips
together. They look like publicity still, they are so cool. There's very
stylish photographer genes in that family. They visited MAD magazine HQ.
They went to a black Chicago nightclub where he got to listen to his
favorite drummer. He got to be the annoying brat tagging along with his
cousin to a Stones concert where she screams "Paint it black, you devils!"
which gets on the classic live album. He reprints one of his mom's diary
entries, in her Palmer hand, about the cute things little Joey is up to.
These should be made into a book. Kicks David Sidaris's ass.

*"Inspector 18" by Michael Jackman. Clean, wry tales
of...bootcamp...building a squat in NYC. MJ is a nerd but he has stuck is
neck out and writes about it as elegantly as you can possibly find.

*"Axian Kix" by Steve Kostecke. Perfect reports on life in SE Asia. He's
been there a few years. Describes the dating rituals of Koreans in full.
"66 Slices of Seoul" is over the top. Takes the cake for travel writing.
Oh, and half of it is about the sex trade. He's part of it, but not so
much as a tourist. Just living in Seoul, doing what the guys do, and what
that's like. The $5 girls. It's not no-holds-barred, no there's a huge
culture and etiquette built up around all this stuff. You get it all here.
Plus all the varients in the neighboring countries. Ambivalent, yes, to
say the least. Not always such cozy writing, let's say.

*"New Philistine," "Zine Beat," and "Pop Lit", all by Karl Wenclas.
Criticism of lit and movies. Lots of news, info and behind the scenes
stuff on the literary world. Lots of hardcore constructive suggestions.
Karl is a waterfront import/export broker. You know, "I coulda been a
contenda." He gives a very practical, no fussy-stuff, totally intelligent
spot-on look at culture.

*Freak out at the old farts. http://thedailybugle.com and
http://texasgang.com. The one is old fart Jack Saunder's site (author of
many zines and 185 suppressed books on our culture, his life and how the
two get along so well). The other is old fart Wild Bill Blackolive's gang
site. You know, a real gang, with outlaws, dealers, bikers, ex-con's,
vets, lawyers, and dead guys. They're old now and, you know, some dead,
but they are the real deal. It takes Texas outlaws to hang it out in
public like this. Texas is scary but now I see better how it works. Wild
Bill wrote one of the most violent books ever, set in the Wild West, but
based on his life and friends, of course. It was very weird to read about
the outlaw Bix Bayless then get an EMAIL from him. Textfiles there for the
novel. If you liked "Blood Meridian" you'll just pop a gasket.
http://www.jagular.com/crad/ for Crad Kilodney's "Dead Man Talking."
Another old fart who's been living the homeless way by selling his
writings on the streets of Toronto for years. Books with titles like
"Putrid Scum" and "Foul Pus of Dead Dogs."

Jeff Potter
  

    
 I like to think so.
  

    
 Slip.
  

    
Again, the thing to do is to actually go and read some blogs (of course I
recommend the ones I like, above, but there are plenty of others to choose
from).  Actual experience, as you say, is worth a thousand conjectures...

Blogging is not just about linking to other blogs; in fact, most of my links
(and most of the links on any blogs) are to content; I thought that was fairly
clear from the descriptions already posted, but I'll repeat that again just
for the sake of repetition.  (Buckminster Fuller once said this in praise of
repetition: http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/intro/note.html)...
The point about linking to other blogs *as well* as content (and blogs
often contain content as well as links, I should also repeat) is that
this enables self-organization (for an online introduction to this meme,
check out: http://platon.ee.duth.gr/~soeist7t/Lessons/lesson0.htm).

So, right now, before we go on, please follow the links to some of the blogs
mentioned above, so we have something in common to talk about.  I will repeat
some from my lists again: http://www.lemonyellow.com, http://www.alamut.com,
http://www.nqpaofu.com, http://www.geegaw.com, http://www.caterina.net,
http://www.syntheticzero.com/deeper.html.

...

Okay.  As you can see, we've got content, links to content, commentary on
content, and the occasional link to another blog.  What's the point?  Instead
of CBS and NBC and Time-Warner telling us what's going on, we can give
our attention to alternative sources of information.  Every weblog is a
filter, among other things, of the vast quantity of information out there.
In this respect there is a strong similarity to zines: a desire to
bypass the major media.

How is this different from a bookmark list, or using a search engine?  The
thing about search engines is that you're just going to look for things
you already intended to find in the first place.  For example, Jeff, you
mentioned that you haven't run into weblogs before --- why not?  Is it
possible that this is because you're just looking for things you already
knew about?  I found out about weblogs from an email from a friend.
Somebody has to tell you about something: it's either going to be a friend,
a friend of a friend, a major media outlet, or something else.

The point, for me, of reading a weblog that I enjoy, is finding things that
I wouldn't have expected to find, a new thought, a new website, a new
set of articles, new content.  When weblogs link to each other, this gives
me a greater horizon than I would have had if I had just been looking in
the same ways I'd been looking before.

The question is not whether you're going to be selective or not.  It sounds
good to say that you're open to everybody, but the reality is we all only
have 24 hours in each day.  You can't fill that up with everything, so we
select.  It's the problem of attention: we all have limited attention.
So the question is, do we devote this attention to the things the major
media tell us to pay attention to?  Do we devote it to just the things we
already know about, or only the things we go out and search for (which are
going to be related to the things we already know about)?  Or do we let
our network of possible sources of information grow beyond the boundaries of
the things we already know?
  

    
Jorn Barger's Weblog FAQ: http://www.robotwisdom.com/weblogs/index.html

an oldie, but goodie.

I second the recommendation for 
http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Weblog Madness is also a fine place to read about weblogs and find
weblogs: http://www.larkfarm.com/weblog_madness.htm
  

    
I confess. I've let e-lists and newsgroups replace zining in my life.

I have a seasonal cycle of newsgroups and lists that I contribute to. I
keep up on all kinds of news this way, too. I know that this would tend to
be promoting affinity groups. But don't worry, I do my best to keep them
all cross-polinated.

I've declared on alt.zines that my posting there is my zining. I put up
content, reviews, provocations. It's zining. It's cheap, quick and it
works. Well, a bit.

I post off-topic to beat the band. But that's part of my cross-training
campaign. I explain each time how the off-topic post really isn't. I show
how some general thing relates to the charter. So I bring up race and
zining, gardening and zining. In the bike racing newsgroup, I remind them
that modern sports is a part of worker celebration. That the bike racer
represents the pride of the bike commuter going off to his factory job. I
remind them that a sports addiction isn't any better than any other kind.
It's not trolling, it's promoting modern folkways, which is my OYB theme.

As in my paper zine, I work in the newsgroups and lists to show how their
specialized charters are actually related to everything else in real life.

Man, you should see the feathers fly when I get going in the fly-fishing
newsgroup about sustenance fishing. Ha...I just got done with some yeasty
foment in the bike.tech group about how to improve manual push reel
lawnmowers. People started writing in about how doing yardwork by hand
helped their bike riding. Yer darn tootin, I said, c'mon, let's hear it!
It was totally off topic, but I harnessed the bike spirit and showed how
it applied to the rest of life.

So that's how my paper zining has fallen off. But I'm still zining! Well,
also, my last paper issue was huge. And I have done all those books. So
I'm still paper scening. But I've been doing more weaving in the public
Net. It's as good a place as any. ...Except it does seem to too narrow.
And there's the clique, geek and flamer factors to consider. Ever more so,
it seems like newsgroups/lists are a pack of SIX pals and enemies who
aren't even into their topic. They flat out don't like to see anyone
posting but them. Not the greatest audience. But that fast/quick tasty
thing about posting is hard for me to resist. As you might notice. --JP

Jeff Potter
  

    
Email from Jeff Potter:

And for another thing....  : )  (Man, I just don't know when to.)

Another way I've evolved in my paper zining is that I'm doing zinebooks. I
got a bit tired of the mag lite format. A dabble here and there. A
whimsical mix. I decided to kick out the whole jams. Find things no one
else is covering, no one else is being honest about, and publish books on
it. It's been a blast. 23 books! Yeah! Zinebooks fit fine in with zines.
Zines are a good way to promote zinebooks, for starters.

This "next step" thinking fits in with what was posted about zinesters
going into the maintream. But zining is about informality, the real world
sure ain't. I think there's sell-out there. I've worked for a bunch of
mags. You have to lie. You can't say what you know. How can ex-zinesters
help the mainstream when it's all about posing and lying? Books are the
same way. The mainstream books on zines and by zinesters that came out
sure weren't what I call zinebooks! They were polished products sold to
quirky affinity group niches (punk music! kooky sex! tattoos!). A real
zinebook tears down walls, crosses over niches, bangs em up, ties em
together, creates new channels and new modes in book publishing. Sez me.
Mine do.

Man, zinebooks feel like real meat'n'taters, real cultural contribution.
If you check out the blurbs on mine at
http://outyourbackdoor.com/OYBPress.htm maybe you can sense the far out
fun and heavy lifting going on.

But aren't books even further from blogs? (Ouch. Sorry to keep picking on
those sweet lil blogs!) Who'd read a WHOLE BOOK? Not very many, I've
found. My zine has been lots more popular than my books so far. (Altho
I've had a couple hotsellers.) Even my friends make the sign of the cross
at the mention of a book. It has to be on NPR before they'll read it. And
they lament about no good books. But they'll read a zine. They just don't
get it. School gives books a bad rep, I guess. Or maybe it's just the pain
of thinking. Thinking of blog frequency, I'm going to be keeping these
exact same books in print the rest of my life. They'll never be out of
date. Pushing the brain is no steenking fad buzz. I'll just keep adding
titles as needed, when they are ready. I'm building something, permanent
like. Has heft to it. I'm going to start printing them myself, too. Make
some neat art editions. Show my kids how to do it. Computers make me
appreciate craftsmanship that much more. What a funny direction for a
computer geek zinester.

OK, enough harping. Yeah, zinester vibe COULD help mags and books. I'll
try not to be an idiot. Never say never. (Dang, it got long again! I hate
that! Where are my pithy one-liners??) --JP

Jeff Potter
  

    
e-mail from Jeff Potter:

Heck, I even consider posting reviews to Amazon.com to be zining. I love
doing that. I like seeing how many people were helped by my review. Then
folks can go to the homepage I made. I think they can even get to my
website (used to anyway). I like the arguing that goes on in that customer
review stuff. I like helping sell stuff I like and discouraging trash. It's
power to the people. It's zining. It's my shortest post. --JP

Jeff Potter
  ****
*Great Lakes Press * http://www.glpbooks.com
   (#1 publisher of engineering license reviews & discounts on techbooks)
*Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com
   (friendly zine of modern folkways and cultural rescue...with bikes)
  

    <scribbled by silly Mon 9 Jul 12 15:48>
  

    
So. I'm in Philadelphia, and I've been doing my FC-endorsed community
organizing work, meeting with about 25 readers of the mag at the Dock Street
Brew Pub to complain about bad bosses, discuss the dotcom "correction," and
philosophize on what history doesn't teach us. Clue: Read "The Crossing," a
novel-like take on Washington's battle against the Hessians. I never knew
the Brits hired German mercenaries to fight the patriots during the
Revolutionary War -- why don't they teach us that in grade school?

Lots to reply to as I wait for my room-service grilled cheese. (Room service
isn't zine-like, but grilled cheese is, no?) I'm going slightly schizo
balancing the posts here about blogging vs. zining. IMO, blogs are not
zines, are not electronic versions of zines, are basically digital parallels
to the old-school Utne Reader. Not that they don't have their parallels:
peer-to-peer interaction, connections between members of disparate
communities of interest, the referential -- and occasionally self-
perpetuating self-referential -- nature of reviews and cultural pointers.

I might share my screed on how they differ -- and how they're awkward
partners in this dance of an extended Inkwell conference -- but for now,
some detached responses.

Re: content as buzz. Yes. It is so. Content breeds memes. For a take on Seth
Godin's recent FC work on "idea viruses" -- conscious meme seeding -- check
out http://www.fastcompany.com/feature/meme.html .

Re: P2P content-developing as a replacement for zining. Art Kleiner wrote an
OK look at leaving writing (zining) behind for participating in online
communities -- http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.10/newmedia.html?pg=5 .
Among the dangers: The not getting paid or rewqrded for your
contributions... the distributed (not collected) results, which make for
harder finding and digesting... and so on so on so on.

Re: zinebooks. (Am I only replying to Jeff? Sheesh, maybe I ought to go back
to alt.zines or that sustenance fishing conference he mentions. ^_^) I'm all
for self-publishing books. And I continue to think that until everyone
everywhere is online, books will remain the way that big ideas get shared
widely. Oh, sure, they'll be shared importantly online -- and the economics
and politics of book publishing are fucked up -- but I continue to trust the
multiple-leveled vetting process that goes into publishing books (despite
nonfiction's lack of fact checking and the marketing dynamic that guarantees
that few truly great books reach the mainstream, much less the libraries) as
a filter for my reading.

Let's introduce e-books into this conversation. Not e-books in terms of the
artist formerly known as the Rocket E-Book, but online self-publishing. I
just got a copy of Richard DeGrandpre's "Digitopia" --
http://www.randomhouse.com/atrandom/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0679647074 .
Reads -- and reeks -- of "Being Digital" and neo-Luddite cautionary tales
about how the Net is bad for paper, etc. And one would think that this book
would be welcomed (by me) and potentially interesting. But, really, it feels
like someone found another backwoods philosopher (Burlington, Vermont, and a
psychologist, really) to warn us on information overload. And I'm wondering
whether March 2001 wasn't too late, too late for this book to list. Whether
the essays should have stayed standing as standalones. And whether the book
was published merely because Random House could come out with a bust-
relevant book in paper and "e" formats. If the media is the message, I need
a massage.
  

    
Here's one big architectural feature of weblogs that deserves mention at
this juncture: referrer logs.  You can see who has referenced you, who has
linked to you.  An excellent way to find people who might not be willing to
actually write or email you, but who are interested enough in what you have
to say to refer to you on their own sites.
  

    
Heath, I accept that zines and blogs are not the same, exactly, but I
think they're descended from the same self-publishing impulse. There's
probably a missing link back there somewhere, a tie that binds the two
modes of expression...
  

    
Email from Jeff Potter:

I hear ya about "warnings of info overload." Talk about an old record.
Somehow I think "they" are using that as some way to get their own agendas
advanced. My take of course is the opposite. I think it defuses their
scare and points the whole question in a better direction. My take is that
there's no good info. There's never enough. Info overload is a herring. As
if anyone can really stand to watch much tv or read much of that slick
magazining or booking. There's not "so many books." There's hardly any new
books. They're book-shaped objects. That sort of thing. My take is that
the problem isn't what they say it is. Never is. The problems are always
counterintuitive and WORSE than they say. And the finger always points
back. Maybe that's where we get this compulsion to
publish/write/contribute even when it only puts us further behind. We have
to say what needs saying. Damn the torpedos. --JP

Jeff Potter
  ****
  

    

<mitsu> brings up an interesting feature of the blog world - the referral
logs.

Many sites have links or icons to their referral logs and sometimes I'll go
see who's visiting or referring people to particular blogs.  It's
interesting to follow these back, sometimes uncovering a chain of referrals
or who's visiting or referring to what blogs or items.

And because the internet shrinks the planet, it's fascinating to see people
from Dubai and Malaysia visiting along with people from a Swedish university
and a company outside of Boise.  Blogs, and the growing infrastructure of
blog-related services, facilitate a speeded up feedback loop and awareness
of "the territory."  Comparitively, when a 'zine publisher distributes a run
of 15,000 copies, other than the mail that comes back (or electronic
contact), it's not nearly as easy to see where they're going, or where
they're having effects on other publications.  With blogs, this ability more
or less "comes with the package."

I think it's nigh on impossible to say "blogs are this" or "blogs are not
this" when there's clearly a completely open and wide range of them out
there.  Many have lateral links off to exteneded essays or articles in
addition to a central scrolling log.  I see no particular reason why blogs
couldn't have the types of interviews or comics or photo-essays that many of
the 'zines I enjoyed had.

Another thing that's valuable about blogs, especially those like Mike
Gunderloy's Lark Farm, is that the web has grown so large and full of
amazingly interesting subjects, that having individually-filtered links to
fresh tidbits and gems is a valuable resource.
  

    
I think that weblogs are the next step in the evolution of personal
homepages. As Web users we created our personal pages, but it was
unsatisfying to have a static page without feeling like you 

were *connecting* to someone or at least offering them something. (The
proliferation of public comment functions on blogs has to do with this
need for connection, but i won't get into that here..)

As I look back now, I see my first forays online as dipping my big toe
into the ocean of blogging/OJs. Back then it was posting animated GIFs
to cool sites in a big group at the bottom of my page and a bio page
that was never quite finished. Today it's more organized, 

less garish (IMHO) and the links are text with commentary instead of
spinning images. But I'm doing the same thing; filtering content
through my unique perspective, unearthing Good Sites for those who stop
by, and finding a way to connect with other people.

Jeff - re: books and blogs. I don't think the point is brevity (no
matter what Mr. Blogger Inventor says) but filtering. You can't read
every book in the bookstore, so where do you start? This question is
even more complicated online. At least in a bookstore the titles 

are arranged neatly for browsing on shelves. On the Web, you can't get
an overview of what's available very easily - there's just too much.
Find someone who's tastes pique your interest can at least give you a
foothold when climbing into this tangled Web.

A comment way back about Boy Scouts prompts this question: What
qualifies as a zine? For example, is the newsletter published by a
quilter's guild a zine?
  

    
Email from Tiffany:

on the subject of weblogs, at the risk of alienating everyone...

i've dipped around in them before, and spent more time today and yesterday
reading some. i looked at some of the FAQs and histories.

so far, no blog has made me want to return frequently. the style of
writing, the apparent personalities of the bloggers, and the subjects
matter were all similar to small mailing list posts, Well topics, Usenet
exchanges.

but mailing lists, Well topics, and Usenet are inherently interactive.
it's okay that we're all writing off-the-cuff and perhaps we're not really
that interesting as personalities -- it's like real life. The point isn't
that one person in the pile is desperately intelligent or witty; the point
is to create a conversation.

weblogs seem like conversations, only without those pesky Other People...
one person standing on the sofa at a cocktail party, talking to the
ceiling fan.
  

    

To continue the bizarre hybrid of 'zines and 'blogs - 'blogs are like
the Big Mail of the current decade.  Granted, the so-called viral
marketting is more like Big Mail, but 'blogs are pretty damned close.

Now you attach a 'blog to a webpage and you've got something like a
'zine with a review section attached.  Only better, faster, stronger
and cheaper.

They have their place, but not as any form of replacement of 'zines. 
Unless you're replacing 90% of the Riot Grrrl 'zines which were little
more than networking with other Riot Grrrl 'zines.  I'm sure that few
publishers of such would appreciate the irony of their being precursors
to various porn sites that have very little individual content but
buttloads of links to other porn sites with very little individual
content but buttloads of links to other porn sites with very little
individual content but buttloads of links to other porn sites with very
little individual content but buttloads of links to other porn sites
with very little individual content but buttloads of links to other
porn sites with very little individual content but buttloads of links
to other porn sites with very little individual content but buttloads
of links to other porn sites with very little individual content but
buttloads of links to other porn sites with very little individual
content but buttloads of links to other porn sites with...
  

    

And I'm still trying to wrap my head around Jeff's concept of
life-as-zining.  Unless one is writing the sort of perzine that goes
into Proustian details of one's life.  Actually, there's a better
example, but I'd have to dig up the old News Of The Weird that mentions
the name of the guy who recorded in diaries that took up a warehouse
every single detail, down the the number of squares of toilet tissue
used and how long each dump took.
  

    
I've been a little surprised at the emphasis on blogs in the first days of
our discussion here ... I expected more about zines and webzines with a
bit about blogs insofar as they represent the same urge, self-publishing
as a means of expression, an art form. And I think there's more to blogs
than link lists, but we've covered all that...

I was at Kinko's yesterday doing a minor copy-shop chore, and my head
drifted back to the FringeWare daze and the many trips Monte McCarter and
I made to a different, much older Kinko's, copying and cutting like
madmen. The feel of the paper is erotic. There's nothing quite like
it. I'm about ready to make another zine.

One of the biggest disappointments of my adult life was hearing that we
couldn't get enough $$ together for another issue of Unshaved Truths... I
built the last and best issue using WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS 'cause Steve
Brown was cooking SF Eye that way... I had to paste the illos onto the
boards. No greater thrill than completing a board after working blind, and
finding that everything fits....
  

    

When I was the editor of the Rhode Island Jewish Herald, they used to do
paste-ups the old fashioned way. They'd typeset the stories, and then we'd
cut them up, and run them through the wax machines, and lay them out on
story board paper. Lines were adjusted with xacto knives, and holes were
filled by ad council ads that were lined up on the side.

I used to call it the Nursury school time, but it was very relaxing.
  

    
Email from magtiff!

a question for Cory: i notice a number of your links come from Well
people, and then you say "thanks <login>" next to them... are these folks
sending you URLs or are you harvesting them from conferences?  just
curious.