Sans Mag-

Etymologies are really useful things. Of course they have their limits of what they can tell you. They certainly don't give you everything, but they can return a lost sense of history to a word. So that can be a mini idea within the larger lesson for today: Use etymologies to understand words better.

Storehouse, to store, store up. God that's good. Sorry...I forgot that you weren't in on it yet. That's got to be really disjointing, seeing my positive reaction to a sentence without understanding why and thinking maybe he won't ever explain. But I will dear reader, I will.

Zine. There yet? Kazana. That's the word that magazine comes from. It meant things about storing material. But we're at zine now. I promise this isn't just another "create physical objects" idea, except that it is.

I have always had a fascination with Zines. They have always had the connotation of punk, DIY activism to me. It is like by calling it a zine is saying you don't even want the glossy, temporary beauty of the magazine world and gives you free license to put together as incoherent and ramshackle a piece of art as you can possibly imagine. Staples, glue, crumpled paper, whatever. I mean, it is liberating to feel like you can produce whatever, because there is no real set standard for the genre, except perhaps that it not be polished and super nice.

I do think successful use of the genre features at least one thing tho', and that is a coherent theme that the selection of pieces--art, opinion, stories, whatever--can revolve around. Because it is a disparate genre it has to have something that says: here is the cypher, here is how you read this, it is not just up from the void.

Let me discuss why I think this is a good idea for a moment. Zine's, at least for me, were the stuff of high school art dreams. It was the practical reality of what you could do for yourself and by yourself (read: with your friends) to be an artist, to be productive. It is self-reliant and it doesn't even desire much more than its own small audience.

Now, however, we live in an age of self-production, where one can easily make a high-gloss pdf and have it sent away for immediate printing and perfection. We--I--are also at an age where people are actually producing things that get into the "real" media, the official magazines. That is possible.

But the Zine is still out there (note: I have no regulated the capitalization of that word, nor do I intend to). It is out there saying: I am becoming, go get some talent and some staples and we're on.

This has been one of the more rambly ideas, but that is just because it is one of the most full for me. Full of potential. Zines are about community, because they are made for micro-communities and by micro-communities. They can not be properly created by individuals. They are essential collective. And because they are rude (read: rough) the bells and whistles aren't there to distract you from what is essential: bare bones art, community oriented art, art of passion and attempts.

Zines are a storehouse of attempts. A storehouse of your trying.