Reflections of a Zinester

October 11, 2008. I'll begin with a date because it's easily recognizable and therefore easily digestible. Look at a calendar and you'll immediately place me in a time now past. It was a Saturday in Richmond, VA. Now you have a place, too. Locations establish context and this event requires plenty of context.

Registration at 10 a.m. but by the time my family and I loaded my wares into our sandy Suburban and arrived at the Gay Community Center, it was nearly 10:30 a.m. We were running habitually late. Thankfully it was a casual event but I was understandably excited and wanted to set up as soon as possible. After all it was my first ever 'zine fest. Isn't the first time always the dearest? The air was warm, the sky was sunny, and yet I couldn't be happier about spending the rest of the morning and afternoon indoors, imprisoned by concrete and linoleum.

As soon as my mother reached Sherwood Avenue--a postcard for dilapidated industrial storage, it seemed--my heart nearly broke free from my chest and sprinted to the community center for me. I perked up and figeted like a kid on her way to her first circus. This wasn't my first circus but, as I soon discovered, it was a circus. A circus brandishing photocopies, staples, and glue instead of lions and tigers but a circus nonetheless.

Tattoos, bleached dreds, ripped shirts, tattered jeans and other features generally associated with carnies greeted me when I ran into the center to sign in and claim a table. The "alternative" clothes and accessories didn't really surprise me but they certainly intrigued me. Not everyone in the center dressed like that but enough to make me feel like a baby-doll in my sweet cardigan and pure white camisole. You look cute, I reassured myself, It's a 'zine booth, not a kissing booth--now get to work and have fun. I chose one of the few empty tables left but it definitely didn't stay empty for long.

I ran back to the bursting car, piling my arms with old canvases, large and small prints, bookmarks, other miscellaneous arts & crafts, and, of course 'zines. My parents hovered around the open tailgate and asked if they could help. Proudly, I thanked them and said no. I wanted to do everything myself in true D.I.Y. fashion. My father, being a good father, ignored the request and carried in some of the heavier things for me. I didn't complain.

Originally I had only reserved half of a table yet that quickly changed when I realized just how many boxes of stuff I had. A minute or two later, permission granted from the community center staff, I had a full table. Now I had to arrange this and that. It didn't take long before I acknowledged that I had so many things that I HAD to dump some of them at the two 'freebie' tables near the entrance of the center. After shuffling through my papers, I selected a bunch of small 'zines, posters, flyers, and business cards. Of course I wasn't organized to deliver all of those in one drop-off so I kept darting back and forth between my table and the freebie tables as I unearthed more and more stuff to give away. I was not only a kid at the circus but a blossoming archeologist.

Once I arranged everything on the table, I tried to sit down but became too restless. Despite my shyness, I was eager to speak to people and, luckily for me, they seemed to want to speak to me. I even met a few people who recognized my work from online and vice-a-versa. The rest of the afternoon evolved into a frenzy of selling off my work, trading 'zines for 'zines, and chatting with strangers. Since most of the items I sold cost $1 or less a piece, I didn't walk away with huge spending power but I did walk away with something more important. At the end of the day, I walked away with the wealth of feeling that I had participated in something truly special--a dying breed of event organized by a dying breed of people.

I reflected upon how few people really read anything beyond emails and text messages these days. I thought about how the Internet has endagered the printed word. Scores of 'zines, for example, have moved online as e-zines simply because of practical reasons. It's much cheaper to post something online than it is to type it up, print it out, cut, paste, and staple it together. It's also more economical to distribute. While photocopying's time consuming and somewhat expensive, it doesn't matter whether one person or one million people view your website; the cost to you remains the same. As a frequent online content producer, I'm well aware of that.

And yet despite how often I put work up online, I'm still nostalgic. Sometimes I wish for the days before the Internet (even though I never knew that time) if only it meant that more people would read more passionately. Ten, twenty, and even fifty years from now, I hope that 'zines exist. Ten, twenty, and even fifty years from now, I hope to still be a part of the 'zine scene.