Friday, August 29, 2008

New Online Zine Community - We Make Zines

Behold! I have created a new online zine community. It shall be called We Make Zines.

I was thinking earlier this week that we need something like my space, but where they focus is really just on zines and our zineography. A place where you could find zinesters, leave comments about zines, write about your favorites. Some place that doesn't get overwhelmed with every person you ever new like myspace or too personal like blogs.

We spend so much time making the zines and working on them. I wanted a place that showcases the zines and the people who write them and read them.

So, I did a little search in ye olde google and found an awesome site that lets you make your own social networking site in a jiffy.

Since launching 2 days ago, We Make Zines has reached 65 members and is growing fast!

I think it will be good. it is very exciting to see it fill up. It is a great place to leave a comment about a zine your read, contact zinesters, find some zines or post a zine event. Check it out, won't you?

Sunday, August 24, 2008

FIGURE 8 #5 - in the shop now!


Figure 8 #5 is a little different. It is a Rainy Day Activity Book!

Yep, coloring pages, puzzles, connect-the-dots. It is lots of fun. This issue focuses on self-love. Give your self some love and fun and get a copy.

portland zine symposium

Well, the zine symposium is over for another year. It was good. It was great to see some people and I got to table next to some Portland folks I like a lot, so that was great. I wish I knew how to make it not so exhausting, though. Everyone is just so worn out. You wouldn't think sitting and wandering around a room for two days would be so hard on you, but it is. Even the young early-twenty-something kids I was hanging out with felt the same way.




















It is a great, though, to be in a room filled with people who just spent a long time working so hard and passionately on some little copied paper book that they made, just like you did. Many people are not that interested in these things you slave over. Even a lot of my family and friends seem uninterested in mine. But, once a year you are in a room with a bunch of people who value them and understand your devotion and love of zines. It is pretty great. I have already read a few great zines. Here is my table.

Friday, August 22, 2008

getting ready

Today has been all about getting ready for the zine symposium. I picked up some zines from the printers and have been making signs, stapling zines and gathering everything pretty much all day.

I have a couple new things I am excited about. I will be selling Figure 8 zine packs at the symposium for the first time. I made labels and everything. I love doing crap like that. I am really pleased at how good it looks together. These of course include the new issue of Figure 8 which I will post later. I will get these in the shop early next week.

















I also got a chance last night to make something I have been wanting to make for about a year. A while ago when I was making some copies of Imaginary Life #3 and I was thinking about how pretty it was in color and it was ashame people couldn't see it that way. I have always liked the flow of the words in that zine and have thought them to be pretty universal. So, I decided to make a zine broadsheet. A broadsheet is a word used for many different kind of printed papers, but I am thinking mainly of the poetry broadsheets made most often in the 60's and 80's. These were posters with poems on them, often illustrated.

So, this is a zine broadsheet. This is something that is meant to be hung on the wall or tacked up on a corkboard. I am really happy with how they turned out. Here are a couple pics. It was hard to get a good image without natural light, but you get the idea. These will be added to the shop soon too.

Should I mat them? Do you think people would want them already matted or is plain good?

I really wish the synchronized swimming or ribbon gymnastics were on the Olympics tonight. I saw a couple of the ribbon ladies today and they were awesome!

Okay, well off to do more work. Hope you have a good weekend. Come by if you are in Portland.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

the zines are upon us

I have finished Figure 8 #5 and will be picking it up from the printers tomorrow. I will then be folding and stapling for a good long time. I hope you can come by the zine symposium this weekend and say hi. Lots of great zines and comics and workshops.


Tuesday, August 19, 2008

news from the fat front - 2 good articles


Go Your Own Way by wyanne on Etsy











I am finishing up Figure 8 #5. I will post here when it is done and ready to be ordered on Etsy. This issue of Figure 8 is a little different and it doesn't have the usual articles and new reports.

So with that in mind, I thought I would point out a couple news articles that are a pretty big deal. It feels like for just a minute the media is starting to take notice of the points that the fat activists have been making for over 30 years.

On MSNB (from Self Magazine) - The Miracle Weight Loss that Isn't - risks of bypass surgery are often underplayed, say experts.

......“I feel like I’m dying,” she told Ron. Months of doctors’ visits revealed that Wells had beriberi, a disorder caused by extreme thiamine deficiency. Rarely seen outside 19th-century Asia, it’s present enough among those in the weight loss–surgery world that doctors call it bariatric beriberi.........“Do I regret having gastric-bypass surgery? Yes, I regret it,” Wells admits......“I thought I was doing something to change my life for the better. But it made me feel a hundred times worse.”

Lots of good information in the article, including how the way bariatric centers and surgoens go out of their way to drum up business. Even though it is clear that "the experts admit [that the effects of gastric bypass surgery are] poorly understood. Few randomized, controlled studies (the gold standard of research) have been performed comparing gastric bypass with nonsurgical weight loss therapy".

...“Because it’s risky, it’s only appropriate for a tiny fraction of people with obesity — the sickest 1 to 2 percent,” Dr. Kaplan says. “The idea that all obese people should get surgery is insane.” Yet that’s the way weight loss surgery is being peddled to the public.

Also on MSNBC from the Associated Press. This was on the front page of The Oregonian-
Being Skinny is no Guarantee of a Healthy Heart - serious health risks are found equally in fat and thin folks, study shows

.....A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity....

I haven't written much about fat issues in this blog. I considered having a seperate Figure 8 blog, but I have decided not to. I am all these things together - fat person, crafty person, zine maker, homebody, etsy shoopper, goofball - why not have it all together in this blog.

So, I will hopefully be posting more fat issued topics here from time to time. They will tagged so you can find them all. And make sure to check out the links on the sidebars. I am always updating them. Chub love!

Friday, August 15, 2008

the deadline is looming


Superity Duperity hot here in Portland, Oregon. It has been over 100 the last two days and will continue through the weekend.

I am still in zine lock-down mode. I can make no more social plans and need to spend most of the weekend at home working on the zine. Thankfully, I have some air conditioners in the house!

So, I expect to use a lot of electricity and ice cubes and water this weekend. I am hoping by Monday I will be pretty much done. I need to get it printed early next week. Man, I am really cutting it close this year. Portland Zine Symposium is next weekend!

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Monday, August 11, 2008

good mail



Niku is a zinester, mail artist and craftster. She created a mail club called Lovely Letterbox. She offered a limited amount of subscriptions and every couple of months you get some lovely handmade items in your mailbox. I got my first package a while ago. She included a zine of her own, some extra zines, some handmade paper things and a rubber stamp made from her of Oregon with a little envelope inside! I am very fond of it. I enjoy Niku's long-standing love of zines and mail art. It is a beautiful thing. Visit her shop here.

Speaking of mail love and zine art, today I got a nice letter filled with fun stuff from Sugene. She has a shop full of wonderful things, including some beautiful zines. You can find it here.

Her new issue of All This is Mine has a article on mail subscription clubs with a list of all the great ones you can sign up for. Ask her about it. It isn't listed yet. It is issue number 14.

I have had an idea for a mail subscription for quite a while, but haven't been able to take the plunge. It will be a lot of work and planning.

Right now I booked up on that. Back to working on Figure 8. Good night.

Friday, August 8, 2008

number 8


I usually don't get too excited about these kinds of things, but I just now decided it was necessary to stop and note that today is August 8 2008. 8-8-08.

I think I first became partial to the number 8 from the classic and melancholy song Figure 8 from Multiplication Rock (sung by Blossom Dearie). It was my favorite as a kid. I loved it because it was so thoughtful and solitary and because she was ice-skating outside in winter, which was like some fantasy to a kid growing up in Southern California.

Later when I considered a name for my zine, I thought about how my large hourglass figure was like an 8 and I liked that that brought up images of the ice-skating song. In that song she mentions how a figure 8 on it's side is the sign for infinity, which made me like it for the name of the zine even more. Also, I liked how it made me think of the word configurate.

Also, note-worthy on this 8th day of the 8th month in the 8th year is that yesterday was my 8th year anniversary at my job. This summer marks 8 years since I moved to the Portland area. I was worried moving here. I left a pretty nice life in the Bay Area, but I just felt like I needed to and I am so glad I did. I feel like I found my real self here. And I fell in deep love with a great guy.

So, here is to the number 8! Thanks for the nice things with 8's on them. Thanks for being "a circle that turns round upon itself."


Thursday, August 7, 2008

island wind farm


I really like the artwork of roadside. This piece especially is asking me to buy it. To me it is reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables and it also reminds me of this neat place we went to last month when we were on Whidbey Island. It was called the Lavender Wind Farm.

It was so beautiful there. We got there about a half an hour before they were scheduled to close. I would have liked to have spent more time there. The air smelled like lavender. We looked at the flowers and the view and bought some lavender ice cream (mine was blackberry lavender) and some other lavendery items.


Here are a couple pics from that day. This first one looks just like the picture!




















island girl

I am still missing the island I was at last month. A week of a beautiful view, family, clean air and that nice constant breeze while sitting in a gorgeous big house has been hard to get over. It was so great being able to hang out with the family but also having enough space to have some alone time too. And my allergies were not bad there at all. Portland seems to be filled with unfriendly allergens for me lately.

Anyway, yeah, I miss the island and I am sure this isn't the last time you will hear of it. Meanwhile, I have noticed my Etsy favorites seem to reflect this. Here are some current faves:
















Sea glass from the shores of Scotland! rubycquins collects them for you at a beach near Edinburg. Some of the glass and pottery form that beach date back to 1700! She has beach pottery, too!

On the island there were swallows all over the place. They move so fast and are so pretty to watch. I really enoyed them.

























These swallow decals are for your wall. You can get them from subhuti

I have always liked maps like these. paintandink has lots of fun maps of imaginary lands

























My zine making mojo is still with me and I think I will have the new Figure 8 ready for the zineposium! Fingers crossed.

Monday, August 4, 2008

will you be the 300th sale?


I am close to 300 sales on my PonyBoy Press shop on Etsy. In celebration of this milestone, whoever hits that number 300 will get a special gift in their order.

So, you know, have at it!

Saturday, August 2, 2008

zine month


Yesterday I turned over the calender to August and looked at the days. Many of them are already marked off with plans, including the weekend of the 23rd when the zine symposium takes place. I looked at the little boxes and suddenly got very revved up to do a new issue of Figure 8 and get all my zines reprinted that need reprinting. We will see how much I get done, but I am glad the motivation kicked in. I was wondering where it was.

So far today I made a lot more gocco covers for Current Resident #2. That is what the picture above is of. I made them with my gocco printer and I sure love using it. I forget how gratifying it is.

Today I also added a three pack of Current Resident zines to the shop.

Well, better get back to work. I claimed this weekend my zine work weekend. I will see Steve, of course, and go to the Chunky Dunk, but other than that I will be working on the zines! Yay!

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