Issue #3 of This is Water, my a 7 day personal zine about trying to pay attention is just back from the printers this morning- it always makes me giddy to get a box of zines through the post.
I started doing This Is Water in 2010 - an idea inspired by and which steals it's name from a speech by the late great writer David Foster Wallace - who is my favourite writer and one of my heroes.
In the speech, given to a group of college students, Foster Wallace discusses the importance of awareness, the difficulty of transcending our 'natural, hard-wired default setting' of being 'deeply and literally self-centred' and the importance of trying to live 'consciously, adultly, day in and day out.
Not being a very attentive person , I started 'This is Water' as my own modest attempt to dedicate some time to noticing the 'stuff' of daily life for a week - things I see, find, overhear, read, say.
By Issue 3 I should have gotten better at the whole awareness thing, but if I said that it would be a lie. I'm still just as distracted as ever.
But here's another attempt - this issue was made on holiday in Robin Hood's Bay over New Year. Issue 3 is a hand-made A5 20 page zine and is printed in full colour.
It contains sea buffalos, a found inscription scratched on a bench, overheard conversations about boiled eggs, sightings of Elton John and Ozzy Osbourne in The Laurel, things I've picked up off the beach, Hogmannay angst, musings about David Foster Wallace and a bit from Thomas Pynchon's 'The Crying of Lot 49'.
You can buy it here
Hope you enjoy it!
