Suburbophobia #2

Let me tell you about my day. I spent the morning writing something in a hurry and answering all sorts of work emails in a small office cubicle, and worrying about how to interpret some obscure German poetry from the twenties. In this buzzy present moment, that is one of my jobs. At times it gets tiring, and today I was tired. There was a special meeting in the quad at university at lunchtime, where students were to decide whether the current student magazine editor should lose his job or not, for the simple crime of editing as if his readership were intelligent (and, admittedly, thick-skinned - in his responses to letters he can be a bit of a jerk.) Many speeches were given and many of these were stupid. I sat there with a few of my best friends and we took it all in, then there was a vote, and it went the right way.

That was good. I felt this quiet sense of relief - and total wonderment as to how it could ever have gone otherwise. I was stoked my friends were there with me. Sat around under the oak trees in Albert Park for a while afterwards, rearranging twigs on the ground, shooting the shit, letting time feel slow. That was a relief, too.

The afternoon, more frantic things in an office, ho hum. Got home in the very dark, wondering if I'd perhaps do some more writing this evening. Nah. Sometimes I don't check my letterbox: it's stuck behind a big metal gate and you've got to snake your arm through its bars and feel about for mail. Then all you get is a yellowed, week-old Central Leader and a flyer about dog grooming.

But this time around I felt about in the dark and there was something thick and heavy, and it was a package from Chris full of copies of the second issue of Suburbophobia.

I read it and couldn't fucking stop smiling. It's a bit more pensive than the first one. But I love it. Come and get one soon. They're free.

NO SLEEP

This is Riki's zine. He lives in Masterton. NO SLEEP is so rad I'm kinda daunted to describe it - when did you last read a zine that opens with a list of reasons, of demands, a manifesto you could say, and they're all real, they're all little shards of crystal clarity that really do match up with yr world and how you feel about it? well, that's how i felt reading NO SLEEP this morning, after an alright sleep - - and i quote - -

NO SLEEP because punk is resistance in ALL (!) its glorys and forms... NO SLEEP is an indulgement in nostalgia but believes in TODAY... NO SLEEP til there's a new record shop...

- - you can read the rest for yrself! within the pages you'll find interviews with Stefan Neville and Beth Duckling, both interviews do a great job of indulging in nostalgia and believing in today, and telling us all sorts of interesting shit about people and places and purposes. Reviews of some new/ish records and some not so new/ish ones too. Come and find it at the shop and say hi.

Journal of Symonds Street Studies

This is my zine. First one I've made in 4 years or so, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's big. First half is a whole lot of drawings I did when I was 12 and wanted to devote my life to satirical cartoons about pop culture, or something. I was 12 in 1997 so this means a whole bunch of drawings of Hanson as goths and the Spice Girls as murderous psychopaths.

Second half is a few drawings I felt like resurrecting from small-run comics I did a few years back: pictures about living in Samoa, pictures about a tree being cut down in Sandringham. Also some very new ones about fatness, about the secret corners of my thesis, etc etc.

In between those halves there's an essay about why I liked Belle and Sebastian so much as a teenager, and what that had to do with boners. Lots of people seem to like this essay! Here is what Chris of Suburbophobia had to say: "I particularly liked the Belle & Sebastian essay, even though I don't like them." That is my aspiration as a writer.

$3, in store now, almost run out.

Seeing with Closed Eyes

Liam Bowen does really cool drawings, and they just get better over time. His stuff's been a highlight of Auckland zinefests in recent years for me. You might've seen some of it - 'Walter's Cruddy Comix', 'Just Liam', 'Not Just Liam' (think I was in that one too!). Somehow I feel driven here to talk about his work like the creative writing teacher I am one day a week: it hovers really nicely, almost unbelievably, between a surreal and lost feeling (we're in dreams! we're not exactly in stories!) and still feeling we're right there following something along, something real and familiar (the faces, the voices, they're vivid and... buzzy). There's room here for one more glowing accolade: these are the only dream comics I've ever liked, except for the ones by Gabrielle Bell.*

Anyway, enough from me, it's a Sunday morning and I'd bet five bucks this blog post hardly makes sense. Liam's new comic, 'Seeing with Closed Eyes', is in at the shop now. Three bucks, and it's good.

*I have probably forgotten something. General disclaimer.