Little Beats Zine Distro

yay, it's all happening!

littlebeatszines.blogspot.com


if you want to stock with us, our contact deetz are: littlebeatszines@gmail.com


AND, you should come along to our launch party at iskip itrip on October 30.


more info soon, friends.

zine distros and other things

hey friends,

here's some news: i'm setting up another zine distro with my friend and housemate Katy. we're pretty darn excited about it.

loyal fans would remember that i recently got involved in another one called Long Arm Zine Distro, which is still on the go but having a little break at the moment due to general busyness. it will be back soon though. i promise.

my new one is called Little Beat Zine Distro. it's gonna be super fun. stay tuned to find out more as it all happens!



also, i just rediscovered my dirty crush on Sean Morris. he's an australian artist and zinester from Perth, and makes the most beautiful things.
this one's called 'webbed'. mmmmm.

you can check out his stuff at www.illsean.com and papershields.blogspot.com.


much love. x

updates

oh hi,
it's been a while. a lot of sheet has been going down, including:
- moving house
- uni uni uni
- student elections
- personal life business.


also, i got back about a month ago from my overseas adventure! i went to the states and travelled around with a couple of my besties for all of july. it was incredibly excellent, and already feels like a bizarre dream i had a long time ago or something.

here's what i wrote for the Sticky Institute newsletter for September about some of the highlights:

Bam-a-lam! I’m back from the States, and ready to rock n’ report on
what happened in the land of big lakes, big burritos and big fun. Short answer:
heaps.

Pick of the bunch was definitely Portland, Oregon, which I’m sure you all will have heard of considering it’s the home of the amazing Portland Zine Symposium. Which I didn’t make it to, despite being SO CLOSE to Portland at the time. It killed me.

I did, however, make it down to the Independent Publishing Resource Centre (IPRC), and the beautiful bookstore underneath called Reading Frenzy. This is what I will talk about today.

So, just to get this out of the way: the IPRC is a zinester’s effing wet dream. My two friends and I rocked up there and took the tour of the centre, which is on the second story of a building downtown, across from the famous Powell’s bookstore (the largest independent bookstore in the world, I believe). Every room of the IPRC is full of treasure. The front office is also a library of over 6000 zines, which you can go and read there or borrow out. There is also a workshop room, a computer room with the latest design software for all your zine layout needs, and finally the INCREDIBLE old printing press room, complete with a new bookbinder. The deal is that you pay for a years’ membership and get free reign over all the equipment there.

How did this blessed miracle come to be? The IPRC was founded in 1998 by Chloe and Rebecca,
whose idea was to facilitate creative expression by providing a space and tools for self-publishing. What initially began as an experiment has now blossomed into a unique and exciting little project that is the only one of its kind in the world. Comprised of a staff of approximately 40 volunteers, the IPRC supports the local scene, Portland itself having always been a strong zine and self-publishing city, as well as doing school visits and workshops. The thing that Director, Justin Hocking, was excited to tell me about is the IPRC’s new year-long certificate in independent publishing. You choose whether you want to focus on creative writing or comics/graphic novels, and then spend two semesters creating and publishing your work. How effing great!

And Reading Frenzy was a whole other bunch of happiness. It’s Portland’s Sticky, and is amazing. I was thrilled to find two anthologies of one of my favourite zinesters
here – Portland’s Nicole J. Georges, as well as some awesome D.I.Y. guide books and art. So fantastique!

Go to http://www.iprc.org/ and http://www.readingfrenzy.com/ for more info. It’s so exciting to think about all the great things that are yet to be set-up in Australia. Hop to it, friends!

takemehome issue #2: cast of strangers

so the second issue of takemehome, called 'cast of strangers', has just been made, photocopied and enveloped. i'll take 'em out of my room and into coffee shops and record stores sometime this week. it has been a nice outlet for my compulsive desires of letter-writing of late.

second on the agenda is to tell you all to visit http://www.dreamdamage.com/. it's an online music distribution run by these two guys at the ANU, who set it up to support and encourage local music. there are some really great bands on there - my picks are Jonny Telafone, Golden Buoy and The Fighting League. they're all about DIY ethic and stuff. i think i love it.

ah, other news?


here's a picture of a Chinese space baby.






it's one of my all-time favourite images, from this website: http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/csp.html which has all these amazing propaganda posters of the Chinese Space Program. they're so creepily beautiful.

screaming genie

i went on an op-shop hunt a few weeks ago, and stumbled across this board game.

Screaming Genie: The frantic 3-D race game with the SCREAMING SOUND.

is it just me, or does this game market itself as evoking emotions opposite to those you want to experience in your leisure time. that, and the graphics look completely horrifying. i think maybe this game provided a source of those terrifying childhood memories for some poor kid. everyone seems to have at least one weird childhood memory where maybe they were just too young to process what was going on. one of the most vivid of these for me was watching a video of some cartoons that someone taped for us. my brother and i used to watch this cartoon all the time about some poor Russian boy called Julio who lost his father, and goes searching for him in a snow storm for Christmas. that shit stays with you.

takemehome, issue #1: MODERATION

hey there,
so i just made a little zine which will be hitting the streets tomorrow. they come in the form of a letter, inside horrible Black and Gold envelopes that i bought for cheap and hate because they're crap. this is the age-old problem for me. i'm attracted to cheap. my friend recently gave me the advice that i should always opt for the second-cheapest product. guaranteed success.

i'm trying to bring letters back. i bought stamps and (nice) envelopes the other week, and have so far only sent two. i remain optimistic.


good day, sir/madam.

mel stringer

is the greatest.

http://melstringer.livejournal.com/

wow.

so ms stringer and i used to write for the same youth newspaper in Darwin. we go way back. i like to check up on her sometimes, and see what she's working on.

i received a beautiful parcel in the post from her today:

full of glorious treats:

i think everyone should love her.

sticky happiness

things i love at the moment:



- Blu Tack. fuck it's good. i cheaped out and bought some dodgy, sleazy white tac and REGRETTED EVERY MINUTE. this cheap imitation had a tendency to make posters/calendars/photos slide down the wall. main features include: bubble-gum consistency and lack of stickiness. i went and bought the real deal the other day. life has vastly improved.



- Grandma's biscuits. i arrived back in Canberra from home last night, with my bags full of 'em. they cheer me up and gain me weight. fantastico!



- Killing the spider hiding behind my novelty record this morning. i had a minor victory at approximately 9.30 this morning, when i found the (what appears to be) red back spider that has been sharing my room and haunting my dreams for the past few weeks. it had made a cosy little web-home behind my Richard Clayderman record, and i GOT IT GOOD. armed with only a CD case, i striked once, damaging the legs and rendering poor Spidey legally paralysed. i then proceeded to mercilessly damage Spidey's abdomen. brutal. why anyone would want to live behind Clayderman, i don't think i'll ever know.



- Receiving my parcel from Sticky full of zines. har har har. i sent $50 to sticky via PayPal about a week ago, and today picked up my very own parcel fullllllll of happiness!

this is sticky: http://www.stickyinstitute.com/

they are australia's greatest zine store, in melbourne. if you want to experience the joy that i did at approximately 9.50 this morning, you should get in contact.

also, if you're a zinester and haven't heard about these guys, get in contact and stock your stuff there. YEAH!!









this, my friends, is Richard Clayderman. it's not the exact record that i have but you get the idea. even though he makes the world want to puke, i guess he made a nice home for poor Spidey.

poetry slam!

in other news,

you should definitely make it down to the next poetry slam at the front. they are most excellent, and it will also be the second gig of my new band 'ah, pandita!'.

details:
Friday April 24
7.30-11.30pm
The Front Gallery and Cafe, Wattle St, Lyneham


more generally, you should also have a little look-see at http://www.traversepoetry.org/





segue: i've always said that a good dose of poetry is as therapeutic as a sensual back massage. speaking of which, here's a tasty treat i found on the internet. i am particularly fond of Moustache's netted shirt, and his "mate"'s wild orange mane.







sweet dreams.

Long Arm Zine Distro

UPDATEZ.

so, this is happening! my friends - Julian Fleetwood and Andrew Darragh - and i have started up Canberra's own zine distribution. we're running it out of Smith's Alternative Bookstore at Alinga St, Civic. we're in the process of making signage, flyers, and finding funds for a PO box, but it'll all be up and running very soon.

check out our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=74706786544&ref=ts

or send us emails at longarmzines@hotmail.com
we're all pretty excited. get on board.

workshop with Vanessa Berry

yesterday was so lovely. the ACT Writers Centre and Traverse Poetry put on a workshop for Canberran zinesters with our new friend Vanessa Berry (of 'I Am A Camera' zine). we were all put to work in making our own one-page zines in around 2 hours. the room was full of happy chatter, scissor cuts, chomps into Bonnie's Grandma's tasty biscuits, and the sound of keys on the typewriter. beautiful!

i want to upload some pictures of the zines, but things are broken here at the moment. will do as soon as it's all fixed!

hi friends

i have a few things to say to you now:
1. there will be a few new coathanger zines coming in the next month. i will post some pretty photos.
2. a couple of pals and i are starting up a Canberra zine store/library/distro called Long Arm Zine Distro. please be our friend! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2857132&id=892925514#/group.php?gid=74706786544&ref=ts
3. feel free to get in contact with me! i'd love to meet some more like-minded, zine/music/book-loving people.

thanking you.