Xerography Debt Issue #2
Part Two

Rational:
Your Attention, Please! #1
1040 N Cordova St.
Burbank, CA 91505
yetilvft@earthlink.net
($2.00)
"Contemporary folk art environments are handmade, personal places containing large-scale sculptural and/or architectural structures built by self-taught artists, primarily during their later years." This is the first sentence of YAPzine's first issue, dated Summer 1999. Normally, any sentence containing the construction "and/or" causes the little man inside my head to turn out the lights and take a nap. Whether he'd pounded a couple cups of coffee or some cosmic formation realigned in the heavens above me, I stayed awake for all of YAPzine and read it from cover to cover. I'm glad I did.

One of the main reasons that I can't handle this kind of "thinking" is that I can't visualize all these abstract concepts at one time. You know, the kind of writing that your middle-aged poly sci teacher just adored, with "cultural transparencies" and "sexual agencies of the object" and such. Thankfully, Suzanne F. Hackett takes pity on people with this ailment and presents concrete examples which you can subsequently look up in the Brittanica, as well as gloriously reproduced greyscale images of her own.

What is this about? It is about "an individual's ability to accomplish something tangible and monumental in a complicated society where it seems harder and harder to sort things out." Suzanne takes some of those tangible, monumental things (Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts, Salvation Mountain) and extrapolates upon the idea of a self-taught visionary building an art that goes beyond the pretty boundaries of the canvas and spills out into the rest of the world. Heady stuff, no? Sometimes it gets a little too cite-happy, but it's an occupational hazard. All in all, YAPzine is something that there's just not enough of in zinedom: people so literate, they're frightening.

Non-Iberian:
Traveling Shoes #3
PO Box 206653
New Haven, CT 06520-6653
($2.00)
If I could have had a choice about which tribe I was born into, I'd like to have been a Spaniard. If I could rectify that with good intentions, then I'd like to write about them. Failing that, as I have, I'd like to mingle among them. H.D. Miller continues his yearly installment of Traveling Shoes by doing the last two, delivering 48 pages of gorgeous zinemeat.

If you're not familiar with Traveling Shoes by now (previous issues covered Las Vegas and Morocco), here's the genre: it's one part travelogue, one part history. And for his part, H.D. Miller reminds me of a kind of traveling historian. He guides us from disembarkation to departure, with fascinating trivia and short scenes in the midst of the larger text. For instance, in the midst of a discussion of King Pedro, the Black Death and anti-Jewish pogroms, we join Miller on a Labour of the Damned: to find a genuine "una hamburguesa americana". Traveling Shoes is also quite funny. While taking Spanish immersion courses in Seville, he has a run-in with a pair of middle-aged Danish civil servants. With a few words of description, you can paint a vivid picture of two dry, cold Danes wearing tube socks and going on endlessly about the evils of America -- in this conversation, about America's Cuba policy. Miller writes, "Although I wouldn't be unhappy if Castro were Mussolini-ed... I'm not a big fan of America's Cuba policy. Yet I found myself blindly defending that policy to these Danish bureaucrats. For a moment, I was on the verge of validating every stereotype of the violent American -- raised up on a steady diet of Clint Eastwood movies and televised pro-football -- by breaking his nose."

This is probably the definitive Seville, or at least as definitive as any topic of a 48 page zine can get. It's a great feeling to read someone's zine and know instantly that you'll come across their name again -- either an announcement in the paper of their upcoming speaking engagement, or in a bookstore when you come across their name on half a dozen spines. H.D. Miller never lets historical facts become mere recitations, which points to his strength as a writer. He also has an exceptional eye for detail (which is invaluable when describing what could be any of hundreds of identical cathedrals, towers or mosques). Enjoy this one before you've got to start paying through the nose to get a sample.

Out of Touch with Nature:
Leeking Ink #21
PO Box 963
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
leekinginc@hotmail.com
($2.00)
I know, I know, I'm sucking up. The cynical among you can think that if you want. However, if you care to look back at my own zines, you'll find Davida Gypsy Breier exalted to royalty well over a year before Xerography Debt existed. That was from my first taste of the World According to Gypsy, as ready by a gypsy, and the excitement over getting a new copy of The Zine Formerly Known as Slow Leek has only grown more hysterical over time.

For whatever reason, I start to feel far too uncomfortable with my attitude towards nature whenever I read a Leeking Ink. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the only trees I ever see grow out of the cement in the permanent shadow of city streets. Perhaps it's that Davida has a schedule that makes my life look like a cakewalk, and yet still gets time to commute out into the small patches of nature left in America to explore, observe, and occasionally liberate the odd gilled creature. Leeking Ink #21 seems more focused on nature in general than before, though, featuring two trips into places where trees grow out of this grainy substance called dirt.

The high point of #21 for me was the brief story of hiking in Shenandoah National Park. Davida has an accident, gets caught in the rain (these nature people... she seems to like it), runs into a local yokel at the bookstore, and learns to play Scrabble for the first time to end the night. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the language Davida uses is so stripped of ornaments, it's almost like an extended conversation. With some perzines I get the uncomfortable feeling that the writer is simply being an exhibitionist. With Leeking Ink, I get the not-necessarily-uncomfortable feeling that the reader (ie, me) is simply being a voyeur. It's all too rare, particularly in zines, and particularly in writing about real-life experiences.

The journal entries only encourage this feeling. I'm not sure if they're edited or not (I've never asked. Well, editor, you're reading this -- are they?) [ed- sort of, but not really], but the collision between thoughts on consecutive days often bears hilarious results. The recurring theme for the time period covered in LI#21 (June through November) seems to be an awareness of getting older, or maybe of just changing. I still don't know how someone can write a journal, knowing it will be published, and not have that impact the manner in which they write; maybe I just need to do a perzine and lay all of my own worries and minor annoyances out for the world to see to experience it for myself. [Ed- I would love to read this. It would probably be the first perzine with footnotes and a bibliography.]

Serious:
YIP #31
958 Rambleberry Ave
Pickering, ON
L1V 5Y5 Canada
($1.00)
This is the "Depression and Boats" issue, and the first copy of YIP I've seen. I swear to God that it won't be the last.

YIP is, without a doubt, the funniest zine I've ever read. The editor, Milky, writes almost like an 8 year old with manic mood swings, or a guy in his twenties who has bouts of extended adolescence. I don't know which one is true, and it frightens me that I'm even trying to pick out some kind of far-reaching philosophy behind the fabulous monstrosity that is YIP. The content is like a special issue of Highlights for Children edited by Antonin Artaud. On page three, you're assaulted with a drawing of a boat in a storm (with the crew singing "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily..." as they sink to their death); an advertisement for women's curling on CBC Sports (captioned with: "Curling on CBC: Because you've got to find some way to kill the time until you die."); a discussion of Black Humour which emphasizes that the pinnacle of the deadpan genre was achieved in the film *Doctor Whacked love, or, How I Got Learned ta Stop Worrying and Hunt for Boo-tay*); and, finally, a cute bunny with the caption: "Pat the Bunny... if you can somehow rouse yourself to do so in this hollow, godless universe..."

A few more tidbits? Well, there's an article on "Writing an Effective Suicide Note" ("Avoid Smileys: These cheerful little fellows can totally 'kill the mood' of an otherwise somber note."). There's "Depressing Stories from the Sea" which involves inter-species rape and a nightclub drama that not even VH-1 can top. Intentionally bad poetry, short columns and more sight-gags than is wholesome in any moral universe round out issue #31. This is a kind of terrorism; and if Milky & Co. had half as much fun writing it as I did reading it, it's no wonder they've cranked out so many issues to date. Do yourself a favour and order at least two copies of each issue; #31 lasted in my house for all of two weeks before being snatched by a friend.

Jason Adams

[ed- I have many nice things to say about Jason's zine on page 26. Jason Adams, 390 Roxboro Pl., Florence, SC 29505, Jason_a@earthlink.net]

What Is Success?
(Or, Five Zines That Do Their Jobs)
Before burnout and hysteria over nonexistent wine zines took their toll, before Factsheet Five was lured like a lame horse to the glue truck behind the woodshed, before there was an urgent need for a zine like this one. That's when Factsheet Five ran "success stories" from a few different zine publishers (I believe Jen Angel, Jim Goad, Paul Lukas, Pagan Kennedy, and Al Hoff, among others, contributed, but I'm not sure). Few of them are even currently publishing zines, and none fit any conventional definition of success (except Kennedy, who briefly slummed in early nineties zine culture to flesh out her hipster rQsumQ). So is it money, mainstream publicity, true originality, progress, finding a mate, the possession of punk show reviews from thousands of miles away, scaring the mailman, remaining sane, getting a good review, earning enough spare dollars to live off ramen noodles, alienation, popularity, holding a piece of oneself in front of one's face, a wealth of loose stamps, or something else that signifies success? Should we even throw words like success around when we talk about zines, vanity publications that are the literary equivalent of a car bra?

Teenage Death Songs
"Maybe Tara puts it best. 'Kim, you're like the moment just before the big thing when the big thing never comes.'" Well, yeah, Tara was right. There's a morbid anticipatory vibe throughout the whole zine. You expect to see a piano suspended by a string of dental floss over Kim's head as she smells the posies, a target painted on her ass. In case you can't tell yet, this is a rave review. I feel so lucky to have gotten this zine in the early months of this year, especially since Kim hasn't sent anything since. Few zines, on a good day, are better than this. Hell, the poetry is even good. In what seem to be personal reflections that are organized like short stories, Kim seems to be most interested in making you feel what she feels. Every paragraph evokes subtly, carefully, emotions you may have forgotten you had. Like fragments that hit you one day like sun in your eyes, or naked Twister covered with baby oil. Never missing a step, doing exactly what it's supposed to do, I call this zine a success. I'd feel like a success, too if Kim would write me back, or maybe just lucky. "After all, how many chances at hope do we get", she wrote.
Current Issue #11
Kim
PMB #5664
Richmond, VA 23220

Leeking Ink Conflict of interest? Why, what on Earth is that? Half a dozen zine publishers I know of (all but one of whom are women) do the spinning plate routine like expert coke-addled carnies, keeping two or three zines going at the same time while producing a pile of one shots to boot. Struggling as I do to complete my only zine with any regularity, I can't help but shiver with furious envy (or envious fury - I can't decide.) How do these people manage to eat, sleep and work in addition to finishing a zine every month? Conspiracy. Has to be a big, huge conspiracy. Davida Gypsy Breier, of the Leeking Ink / Glovebox Chronicles / Xerography Debt/ Signs You're Doing A Zine / probably-ten-more-I-haven't-even-heard-of media empire, continues to make her flagship zine a wonderful little object. The layouts are always interesting and original while being clean and simple, just like the journal entries that always seem to describe that one small moment that defines the day. Actually, Davida's zine contrasts nicely with Teenage Death Songs. While Kim writes about her life from the distance of time in a style that feels like fiction, Davida gives you a piece of cold reality as it happens. No regrets or obsessive rumination, just something that seemed important on that day, as clear and simple as an obituary. In addition to the journal entries, there are longer pieces that read much the same way, and at the end Davida discusses her vegetarianism without sounding self-righteous or didactic, for which she deserves praise from those who share her views and thanks from those who don't.
Current Issue #21
Davida Gypsy Breier
PMB #963
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
leekinginc@hotmail.com Degenerate
You need to get things like this in the mail every couple months. Zines like Degenerate are frightfully effective cures for the

common zinester (which my spell check suggests I replace with "sinister") ego trip. There I was, pretty satisfied with myself after having gotten a few enthusiastic letters and good reviews on my latest issue, and I trudge in what passes in the South for the cold to my mailbox, and what do I see? Cali has a delightful, subtly witty style in what apparently is his second language. His extensively researched articles of the relatively obscure assholes of history are funny, fascinating bathroom reading (Degenerate spent a week on top of my toilet, making it difficult for me not to spend most of an hour on the porcelain throne), and on top of that he knows a thing or five about layout. Herein we have four big pieces. The first is about Gabrielle D'annunzio, Fascist hack poet that took over the city of Fiume and ran it like a bad opera, and was there-fore a big influence on Mussolini. Next was a fascinating summary of Enver Hoxha's reign of terror over Albania, in which the battered citizens of an entire nation suffer at the whims of a petty, paranoid man who lied about his quite bourgeois background. And how, exactly, did such a cruel and perverted man as the Marquis de Sade become who he was, and how did a dynasty that ruled Florence for centuries degenerate into easily overtaken fools? Eh? Guess you'll just have to get the zine, won't you?
Current Issue #1
Cali Ruchala
100 E Walton #31H
Chicago, IL 60611
CMacvayia@aol.com

Thrift Score
As sure as work can never be fun; book deals seem to kill zines. Of course, Al never says Thrift Score The Book is what made her decide to give up Thrift Score the zine. Regardless of mainstream exposure, eventually all topical zines will totally exhaust their subjects. Rather than becoming repetitive and dull, one clear Pittsburgh day Thrift Score committed suicide, and that was brave. Issue fourteen tapes up the boxes, locks up, says goodbye and drives away nicely, leaving us with a couple excellent pieces (one about a style of shoe peculiar to Pittsburgh, the other about a thrift-related car crash). Like the previous issues (all highly recommended), it made me want to jump in the car and hit the thrift stores. Get it while you can.
Current Issue #14
Al Hoff, Girl Reporter
PO Box 90282
Pittsburgh, PA 15224
al@girlreporter.com
http://www.girlreporter.com

Farm Pulp
By the time y'all read this all of that apocalyptic hysteria will be finished, so the Millennial Dinner Music issue of Farm Pulp may have a completely different meaning to you than it did when I reread it today, on New Year's Eve. I pulled out my Prince tape too, I listened to "1999" and was reminded that everybody's got a bomb, that the only logical reaction to the absence of logic is to par-tay. Greg writes, in his vivid, sensual and surreal that I can only hope to half-imitate, nine different end-of-the-world scenarios that range from horrific (knowing that the you'll be humming the last song you hear for all eternity, and unable to escape an ice cream truck as the world ends) to sublime (the end-of-the-world bake sale, the mot amiable and warm apocalypse imaginable). Like every issue, the one's a beautiful object, and it's no big surprise that Greg's a graphic designer in "real life". Various sizes of paper are folded into flaps and the interplay between the images is always a surprise (I know that really doesn't explain it. You'll have to see it.) The fascinating thing is that early issues were just clippings from other sources, laid out in Greg's amazing style, and over the majority of this decade (and thirty-seven issues), he grew into writing his own pieces. As things stand now, very few people have a comparable record of making consistently great zines. Farm Pulp is the only zine that, with the demise of Thrift Score, I still pay for. And it's worth it, friends.
Current Issue #37
Gregory Hischak
PMB #2151
Seattle, WA 98111-2151
Greg.Hischak@THINKinc.com

Scout Finnegan

Zines That I Quoted to Other People

Vacant Lot Barrie Lynn never ceases to amaze me. I first read her 52 Hours With 52 Strangers months ago. She recently sent me a copy of Vacant Lot hot off the presses and it was delicious. Her writing and drawings are always so personal, touching, sad, and funny.

Vacant Lot is a collection of odds and ends from Barrie's past and present. The story that touched me the most was the one in which she describes how she was insulted by one of her college professors and left school because of it. She didn't touch a pencil for five years afterwards. I was floored when I read this: "That is dumb. I don't know why you're wasting your time here. You're wasting everybody's time working on crap like that. Work like this is NOT going to get your scholarship renewed for next year."

I just can't believe that people can be that cruel and get paid for it. I guess people like that are the reason so many of us still don't have college degrees. Anyway, the story has a happy ending, and Vacant Lot overall is very upbeat and amusing.

Barrie doesn't seem to have decided if this is issue # 1 or merely a one shot deal, and the issue is still brand new so hopefully she will (for the sake of her readers) continue with a second issue.
$2.00/ 8.5" x 5.5"/ 40 pages
Barrie Lynn
Buttwig Productions
P.O. Box 297
Reno NV 89504
Buttwig1@aol.com

Mystery Date Mystery Date is a fun collection of stories about historical girl issues. I was really disturbed by what I read in Lynn's story about feminine hygiene products: "That's rights, Lysol the same foul smelling liquid, originally developed as a substitute for carbolic acid, used to scrub bathroom floors was for years promoted for use as a douche." I was horrified to read that "Lysol was implicated in the deaths of at least six women," and immediately told every girl I know this horrifying story. I hope that women today know that they are not rotten cesspools teeming with germs and odor.

Also in this issue is a history of the bra, tips on bra shopping, and reviews of celebrity advice books for teens. Lynn clearly does her research and knows what she's talking about. It's so nice to read a zine that is both outraged and intelligent at the same time.
current issue: # 6
$2.00/ 8.5" x 5.5"/ 28 pages
Lynn Peril
P.O. Box 641592
San Francisco CA 94164
peril@sirius.com
http://members.tripod.com/~Mystery_Date

Ten Foot Rule
TFR #3 is a collection of various artist's comix put together by Shawn Granton. Shawn's comix are great. His art is beautiful and his subject matter is always right on the money. I loved his piece "Jake the Disgruntled Retail Flunkie: Hippie-Dippie-Do!!" He says: "The 'hippie' thing is old and overdone, okay? Sure, it had validity and cultural impactin the 60's when it was new and fresh, not in the 90's! You're just going round in circles, the blind leading the BLAND!" Although the story does have a surprising ending, I liked the ideas expressed there.

I also loved the picture on the back cover, "Sometimes I wish I could turn off my brain...then I'll be happy." How true.
Current issue: #4
$1.00/ 8.5" x 5.5"/ 16 pages
Shawn Granton
170 Beaver St.
Ansonia CT 06401

Cometbus Cometbus makes me feel very old and very young all at the same time. I found myself jotting down several quotes from this fantastic zine. Aaron's writing is some of the best in the zine world. His text-only zine is the only one that I know of that could contain no art or fancy layout and still be an easy read. Reading Cometbus is like diving into Aaron's brain and not coming up for air for hours.

My favorite part: "I hate them for trying so hard, I hate their dishonesty in trying to change and be accepted instead of just accepting themselves and waiting for everyone else to catch on or fuck off."
$2.50/8.5" x 5.5"/ 64 pages
current issue: #45
Aaron Cometbus
PO Box 4279
Berkeley CA 94704

The East Village Inky
Since I recently vacationed in New York City, I was dying to get my hands on some NY zines. I was thrilled to get my copy of EVI. This zine is thoroughly charming. Included in this issue are Ayun's thoughts on motherhood, as well as zine reviews, book reviews, and recipes. The funniest part is her story about her tiny New York apartment: "I just can't hack living in this dirty, mouse-besieged, overpriced footlocker any longer...even if it does make for amusing reading."
$2.00/4.25" x 5.5"/ 40 pages
current issue: #5
Ayun Halliday
122 Dean St #3
Brooklyn NY 11201
Inky@erols.com
www.neofuturists.org/ny/ah/ah.htm

Davida Gypsy Breier

To make things as easy as possible, I mainly reviewed zines I received between the last issue and January 1, 2000. If I received it after the 1st, it might appear in #3. ***This symbol indicates a favorite.
My picks for this issue:
1000 Interlocking Pieces
Burn Collector
Delusions of Grandeur
Haircuts Abroad
Miranda
Thoughts on Technology
Vacant Lot

[Note: many of these zines will trade, but don't be cheap, support other writers with a few bucks or stamps, it won't kill you.]

ZINES TO READ WHEN YOU'RE SICK IN BED

There was a review of Slow Leek a few years ago where the reviewer mentioned she liked to read my zines when she was sick in bed. I didn't realize what a compliment that was until this week. As I languished in bed with the flu, I started hoping certain zines would appear in my po box.

***Burn Collector
I enjoyed the first issue I read so much that I ordered all of the back issues. Each issue was rather different, so as you read on you'll see this zine listed in a few other places. Al's writing is so adept, that I thought it alone should be enough to get you to send for his zines. I would recommend getting several, as each offers a different literary experience.

"Now, they have the exact chemicals you need to filter out all your bummer thoughts worked out to a T...I find the 'jiffy lube' approach to human happiness and well-being very disturbing, but then again, I'm the kind of unamerican communist nutcase who gripes about them building malls and parking decks, too." (issue #7)

"The question of the artist versus the ambulance driver, I've come to realize, isn't a simple question of how to live. It's a question, too, of how to promote living, how to stave off dying. The ambulance driver does it by simply entering the fray, plucking the wounded off the pavement and trying to sew them up. This is a noble thing. It's this nobility which makes the artist look bad, because how do you pluck the wounded off the pavement? How do you pluck yourself off the pavement?" (issue # 9)

"There is, someone pointed out to me, no German for nerd. This is because the term would be so non-specific and all-encomp-assing when applied to an event such as this as to be rendered meaningless." (issue #5)
Current issue #10
(#'s1-7 .50/#8 $2/#'s9-10 $1/8.5x5.5/ page counts vary from 12 to 108 pgs)
Al Burian
307 Blueridge Road
Carrboro, NC 27510

***Vacant Lot Damn this is good! It is a departure from Barrie's other zines and just goes to show that her talents as a writer and artist are nicely matched. From the introduction:

"A Vacant Lot is usually a space between buildings with no building on it. It usually has the characteristics of the original terrain; desert or grass or whatever was there before the buildings. It is a reminder of what is hidden beneath the surface of the city, Sometimes a vacant lot used to have a building on it and sometimes there never was a building. A vacant lot is a peaceful void in the chaos of the city. I was nearly tipped over by the relevant symbolism of the vacant lot to my creative rut. The vacant lot WAS my creative rut on a street lined with build-ings that were my accomplishments. Rather than quickly trying to build something on it, I decided to stroll out into the middle of it and have a picnic; see what was there; inspect the shrubs and lizards that were living contentedly on it before I bulldozed them."

If that isn't enough to motivate you, she also has the most amazing visual surprise near the end of the zine.
(December 99)
($2/8.5x5.5/40 pgs)
Barrie Lynn
PO Box 297
Reno, NV 89504
Buttwig1@aol.com

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