Mr. Mcginnis and I took a stroll through this year's NY Art Book Fair on Sunday (I just went back to read last year's coverage and noted that my first sentence here is the same as last year's. heh!) It was fun and overwhelming and a million degrees inside Philips de Pury, the auction house who hosted the event. I miss the big open space of last year's venue. Sadly, since we went on the last day of the fair, we missed seeing the whole queer zines exhibition. It'd been partially dismantled to make room for an auction. I'm looking forward to spending some time with their book so more on that later. Thank you everyone for talking to us and giving us such cool stuff! I took a few photos before experiencing camera issues...

Booklyn joined forces with Evil Twin and set up in this nice corner.

The RAM Publications table.

Jonathan Monk's The Reason Why I am Here is Why I am Here at the Presentation House Gallery table. You know I took this just because it features a Morrissey Record!

Continue Reading NY Art Book Fair

Review of Fantastic Man: Compared to Fantastic Man, all other magazines are coarse and common. That is all.

Please feel free to spend your money. But here are some cute, stylish options for those who like to make their own zines and therefore may be crafty.

Wire Hanger Rack at lifehacker

Pegboard Wall Unit at Design*Sponge

Marimba Magazine Rack made from drumsticks at Replayground

Thursday October 23: There are two art book fairs this weekend, Printed Matter's New York Art Book Fair and the Arlis/NY Contemporary Artists' Books Conference. Today, I'm heading up to MoMA for a talk at the latter. The talk is Multiple Ideas: Artists' Periodicals as Site for Collaboration and Distribution of Ideas and includes artist/North Drive Press creator Matt Keegan and Emily Roydson from LTTR. See their full schedule here. Both book fairs go all weekend so look at their sites and go to stuff. We'll be wandering around taking pictures and wanting to buy everything.

Also tonight is the NY Art Book Fair preview gala and their after party doubles as a Butt Magazine event at my old neighborhood bar, The Boiler Room. First 50 guests get the new Butt for free. Yay!

Saturday October 25: Release party for Habitus: A Diaspora Journal's New Orleans issue at Gowanus Studio Space. 119 8th Street, Brooklyn, 8pm-12am.

Sunday October 26: Magazine-we-love Girls Like Us is having a party for their new issue at Trophy Bar in Williamsburg. 351 Broadway. 5pm-10pm.

Likes/Dislikes
by Lacey Prpic-Hedtke
25 pages, 2.25 x 11", b/w photocopy inside, notebook cover
$2

I love making lists. On this laptop I have lists of novel titles, places I've lived, teen movie plot ideas, items that I've gotten in my eye and many many more. It's calming and entertaining to organize information in this fashion. In the same vein, I think, list zines are immensely satisfying. You can sort of read between the lines of words, the bits of information and put together a picture of a whole person. I picked up Likes/Dislikes at Printed Matter and sat down with a friend to read it. We didn't flip to the back for a bio until we'd had a chance to get to know our mystery list-maker. We hypothesize that Lacey Prpic-Hedtke, the writer, is fun (Likes: Laughing Uncontrollably; Riding my bike and singing), romantic (Likes: Those always ready for adventure; Patsy Cline; Men who write love letters), sexy, a good dancer, crafty, a reader, an artist, a teenager (dislikes: When people stare at me for no reason; When people tell me I'm not what I say I am), a punk, a cook, and so on. This zine is lively and entertaining and gives you the sort of thrill you might get from looking through someone else's notebook.

Both Likes/Dislikes and Likes/Dislikes 2 are available at Printed Matter or you can check Lacey's myspace page for a list of distros. She also has an etsy store.

Kenn Duncan, the principal photographer at one of our favorite magazines, After Dark, is having a retrospective of his celebrity and performance photography at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through October 25th.

Flickr Finds: Jovike's awesome record cover collection.

Showpaper is having open submissions for its huge covers which usually features bold, colorful illustrations. The deadline is this Sunday (sorry for the lateness), but they'll be doing this at least 4 times a year. The paper is free in the New York area, so this is a great oppurtunity to get your stuff seen.

For some ridiculous reason, Ms.Keough and I kept missing the Kate Moss covered relaunch of Interview. All the hype seemed to cause the magazine to disappear from every magazine stand we frequent in Manhattan and Brooklyn. I was feeling anxiety over not finding it because for the last summer the takeover of Baron and O'Brien had made me feel hope. Hope that the very first magazine I ever became obsessed with would return to greatness, hope that a commercially viable American magazine could actually be interesting.

Ms. Pace, my 9th grade English teacher, looked like a 1950's pin-up. She had big red hair, bright red lipstick and usually wore a sleeveless breast popping blouse, over sized fake pearls, skin tight capri pants and 4 or perhaps 10 inch heels. I remember her rushing into class late, wearing horn-rimmed sunglasses and maybe dropping her papers, bending down to gather them while asking the class if we remembered to write in our journals the night before. Ms. Pace was the kind of teacher who wanted her students to figure out things for themselves. She always asked questions and never gave any facts. In the back of the classroom was a box filled with years and years of Interview. "You should totally read that, it's Andy Warhol's magazine."

Continue Reading Where has all the fierceness gone?

Thursday, September 25th: The Diner Journal is celebrating their fall issue and two years of food and print love this evening at McNally Jackson (née Robinson) Booksellers on Prince St. starting at 7pm. Readings will be paired accordingly with cheese and booze. McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St. @ Mulberry.

(photography by Amelia Bauer)

Friday, September 26th: Magazine-we-love Capricious is having an opening at their office/gallery for a show called ENVIRONS which is comprised of "quietly exquisite drawings, photos and sculpture by artist Amelia Bauer." I'm looking forward to this and whatever else they have coming up in their fall program. Capricious Space, 103 Broadway, 6-9pm.

Saturday, September 27th: WFMU presents Lights at the Issue Project Room and while this is a music show and not exactly Print Fetish material... I wanted to mention it anyway because I'll be helping out with the visuals by putting together a little slide show. We here at PF also have many issues and projects, so that helps too. Issue Project Room, 232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, 8pm.

Sunday, September 28th: Housing Works Bookstore is having their great 4th annual open air book sale. They'll take over Crosby St and sell us cheap books, records, dvds, etc and feed us and supply us with beers. Yay! Housing Works Books, 126 Crosby St @ Prince, All day. --OH! this just in... Housing Works Thrift will also be selling clothes in $20 all-you-can-stuff bags. Cool!

Cometbus #51
The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah
by Aaron Elliott
96 pages, 1/2 size
$3

It's been two years since the last proper issue of Cometbus and let me tell you #51 is worth the wait. Cometbus #51 is a well-researched and reported history of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California, the city of Aaron Elliott's and my birth. It begins in 1963 at Rambam, a short-lived bookstore run by two cranky, stubborn gentlemen: Moe Moskowitz and Bill Cartwright. Moe went on to open Moe's Books and Cartwright to start Shakespeare and Co.

The story of Telegraph Avenue continues and included are histories of underground comics, used booksellers, new age publishing, Lhasa Karnac, the battle of People's Park, North Berkeley yuppies, the SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army), the great Amoeba records, creepy Ken the owner of Rasputin Records and Blondie's Pizza, poster art, and a slew of other Berkeley characters. I've heard parts of these stories from my mom, though Elliott's starting point is a few years before her time as a student at Cal. I also spent plenty of my own time hanging around on Telegraph, getting coffee at the Med, buying records and trading books. Peppered throughout the story are certain Berkeley feelings, including a distaste for 4th Street, strong opinions on the changes in North Berkeley, and an incredulity as to why on earth anyone would move to Boulder, Colorado.

As a bay area kid, I am so happy to read more complete versions of stories I've been hearing for years. And anyone who knows what it's like to have a complicated relationship to a place will appreciate and understand this great issue. After I finished reading it, I sent my copy along to my mom who, hilariously, has moved to Boulder. Also inside are wonderful stencil art portraits of the major players in the story by Caroline Paquita.

Cometbus #51 is available for $3 from Microcosm or at your local cool bookshop.

Funky and colorful, this wood mag rack is wrapped in a patchwork of misprinted metal cans that would've otherwise been discarded. Each rack is unique and would be perfect for a kitchen - maybe EVEN a bathroom. Go wild.

The Misprint Magazine rack is available at Viva Terra for $89