Little Bits Of Paper

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I saved a couple year's worth of greeting cards from when I was a kid, I think for no other reason than it felt disrespectful at the time to throw them away, and once there was a pile going, I wanted to add to the pile. Looking at them now though, I gotta say they're mostly garbage / not compelling. Here's the B-side of one of them-- it's from my Aunt Maggie and Uncle Charlie. The front shows Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and then I guess it came with a sticker of the Wicked Queen that you could apply if you think the recipient would appreciate it??? Kudos to Maggie and Charlie for hoping that I would appreciate it, I did then and I do now.

The best of the cards were the Valentines. I hated Valentines day, so stressful. As a kid it didn't seem right to give a card to every kid in my class. Nor did it seem right not to. Buying them was an act that seemed to be against the spirit but making them, that was way too much effort, that was like, really saying "I Love You". And sometimes my relatives would send valentines?? Even as a kid I thought that was depressing. And the cards themselves... more often then not the feeling was like "I have chosen to give you this card on the day it is expected of me to give cards of this style". The meaninglessness, the pure surface with no depth, combined with the obligation... this is like wearing a necktie to me, it stresses me out. Valentines day was one of many moments in my young life where I wanted to expend the coiled tension in my body in an explosive rotation that whips outward and strikes an enourmous gong, and ask What Are We Doing And Why. Instead I just did "do we really have to do this?" (yes) "why?" (I don't know). Maybe that's why the worst of the cards have such a psycho energy. Incidentally the first mass-produced Valentine's Day cards were made in Worcester MA. Here's 2 from relatives and 2 from schoolmates, these aren't the worst, these are nice, though only the bottom right one is like "truly nice"--

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Purtle did a comics class when he was living at Stone Soup, it was for kids but I sat in. The only part I can really remember is that he photocopied some comics and whited out the dialogue, for us to write new dialogue, a classic riff known as detournment, and credited to the Situationists. The comics he used were just Family Circus, Hi and Lois, and Dave Berg's "Lighter Side Of...", which is perverse. Fucking with Family Circus is kind of too easy, so I didn't really try. Anyway I found these in the pile--

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I got lots of stickers when I was in Japan, there's a whole class of tiny sticker that's made to go in your calendar book, to denote both events of the day and feelings of the day. I kept this backing board, which is a partial map to feelings and events.

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Pearl Pony's autograph, from when her and Jaan visited me at the record store. Don't worry, I got a frame for this.

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Finally here's some postcards that Dan Wars gave me, that him and Hennion made. If I remember correctly they used to sell these in Dan's dad's comic book store?? I didn't know Dan in this era but I would love to go back in time and stick my head in the door. My favorite story about the store is that someone who wrote the additional stories in Spider-Ham (possibly the guy who wrote "Goose Rider") tried to shoplift a Betty and Veronica comic, and Dan's dad kicked him out of the store and gave him an old-fashioned small-town shaming.

You can tell they're postcards not art prints because of the line and the stamp. lots of people might skip details like that, but I think it's make-or-break.

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OK actually finally here it is- my first zine:

:)

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I'm still going through piles of paper, if anyone has any special requests, or categories of items they'd like to see, I'd love to hear it! Send me an email or leave me a message on the contact page: [link]. I promise to not do "tumblr mode" every week.

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links / misc

• FANG community bail fund, to help people fighting injustice in RI and MA [gofundme]
• "Get Mitch Or Die Trying" - this is a fundraiser that splits your donation among the states with close Senate races, with the goal of flipping the senate to Dems and getting legendary heartless shitface Mitch McConnell out. [link]
• this is a google doc with underfunded fundraisers from people in Southern Oregon struggling with losses from the wildfire. Just choose a few at random. [googledoc]
• Dan Wars runs an instagram page where he shows and writes about pins, and whatever the topic is, it's really really really fun to read what he has to say about it. He's a good and casual writer and a lot of the posts are like "I can't believe how much I read about ALF just to write about this stupid pin" and a few are like "wow I'm really drunk and/or high". That's what I want from a writer! [instagram]

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:)