This is Water #3

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!

The Mark E Smith Pocket Zine of Wisdom

My book of the year is Mark E Smith's 'Renegade'. I found it both totally inspiring and utterly hilarious in equal measure. I recently re-read it and afterwards wanted to find a way to remember some of the things he says, such as

'In my book, the more you want to make of your life, then the more you fucking do. I wonder sometimes when I look at bands what their brains must be like. Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish writer said, 'Produce, produce - it's the only thing you're there for'.

I love Mark E Smith's uncompromising attitude to his work, his utter disregard for anyone else's opinion and his drive. He is the main man.

So I made this zine about him. Printed in full colour, 10.5cm x 7.5cm this mini zine
is packed with pearls of insight from the sagacious MES, comes in its own resealable bag, and will not fail to raise a smile.
You can buy it here for only £1 plus postage

Mad as a Bad Tornado

Mad as Bad Tornado is a contributions-based zine dedicated to visionary artist Henry Darger, which I recently curated.

Henry Joseph Darger (1892 - 1973) was a reclusive American writer and artist. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called 'The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused ...by the Child Slave Rebellion', along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger is regarded as one of the most significant self-taught artists of the 20th century.

Featuring photography, drawing, collage, sound, poetry, and fiction and letter writing from a range of UK and international artists and writers, Mad as a Bad Tornado a 28 page full colour hand-made zine, printed in a limited edition of 50 only,
containing an eclectic range of responses to the life and work of this complex and enigmatic artist.

To find out more about the zine and the contributing artists, visit the zine blog at
http://madasabadtornado.wordpress.com

To buy the zine, visit here