2003-07-26 - 5:07 p.m.
I just re-read my last entry, to find out where I left off in my electronic presence. And I realized I still feel mostly the same as when I wrote it. Days seem to continue lazily, yet then too fast. It's getting to be crunch time before the zine symposium, which starts next friday, and yet I still spend most of my time "just hanging out" so it feels.
I've been doing so much thinking about the community that I have immersed myself in- mostly other zine readers and writers, people who have at one time considered themselves part of a "punk" or "indie" scene. Maybe because I've really thrown myself into creating things for and within this community this summer- a zine symposium, teaching a zine workshop for teenage girls, bookbinding workshops here and there, I am feeling really sick of zines. I've been doing a lot of processing around this, thanks to the sympathetic ears of Joe and Jonny and Pablo especially, but I do wonder what direction I am headed in. I've been involved in this kind of "community" since I was 16 years old, and so now that I am feeling like maybe I need a break, I am unsure where to turn.
It's a strange feeling.
I still love the process of making zines, I like critical thinking and I am excited about all the people I have met through them, but I really wonder how much farther they can take me, I guess.
I am thinking about the symposium, thinking about people coming from all over for it, and how it is really only about 7 to 10 (with a core group of about 5) people doing the work, making it happen. And how most of us are not part of a wider zine community- what I mean, is it seems we don't post on message boards or whatnot, I feel like we are annonymous kids behind this event that has become bigger than any of us. Which it should be. And it's not about each of us getting crowns of laurels because we are such great organizers, but it feels weird when you've worked so hard on something and most of the people who come don't even recognize who the organizers are. It's important everyone makes these events their own, but it's just a staggering feeling, I keep waiting for someone to call our bluff, "Who are you guys and what are you doing anyway?"
But then maybe they could realize they too coule make an event like this happen and need to, cuz I know a lot of us are feeling pretty tired. Tired but excited, because I also think it's a really unique cultural moment, not an institution that will automatically continue indeffinetly.
And if you have no idea what I am talking about, please check out http://www.pdxzines.com
I've joined the friendster frenzy, which is pretty silly, but if you think you are my "friend" perhaps you want to add me and then we'll be "friends".
