A Honda Civic Powered by Zines?

Hi there,

This is a short note, mostly a plug to let readers here know that I have 15 copies left of my new zine about Hastings! As I’d hoped, it received a hearty reception at Spokane Zine Fest (somehow an entire month ago), featuring a lot of people simply pointing and yelling “Hastings!”

If you never got to experience Hastings, I hope that you had a similar site of youthful identity formation during the brick and mortar era of retail chain stores. If you did have a Hastings of your own, I think you’ll enjoy the specific ruminations unearthed in my “partially accurate and most certainly incomplete oral history,” available (for now) exclusively in print, by mail.

To order a copy, please email me at taylor [at] roseweeds.com. Copies are $15, shipping dependent on destination. Discount available for paid subscribers. :)

Available while supplies last, orders must be made by Saturday, July 4th! A day with no particular significance!

I’ve already waxed poetic about zines here before, but, yeah, Zine Fest always feels good—especially so in contrast to what feels like an increasingly anemic internet. I got to see old friends and cool art. A woman nearly cried because I told her that yes, I was tabling with my girlfriend, and yes, we both make our own zines and table together, and yes, that is a beautiful thing. Happy Pride to that person, in particular, I hope you are doing well! Nearly every local I spoke to while passing out improvised Support Spokane 3 fliers already knew about the case and expressed overwhelming support for their just-convicted neighbors. Those visiting from out of town jumped right on board, taking fliers and promising their support.

Being around creative and like-minded people that day helped to lift the cloud I’d been under since hearing about the convictions, a closer-to-home example of the escalation of state oppression under the current, openly fascistic administration. The cloud is back with the Prairieland convictions this week, and I can only hope that the absurdity of the sentencing, meant to send a message to the rest of us, will only stoke the desire to share information offline, sparking printer purchases and boosting (non-HP) toner sales all around this majestic nation.

I know I’ve been scant here the past year, and I want to thank those of you who continue to open my emails when they do get sent, who write back and start longer conversations when the mood strikes. Working full time in person has been a huge adjustment for me after many years of patchwork freelancing, school, and part time gigs. That’s where I’ve been, working a mundane, yet fascinating Joe Job that I’ll write about a lot one day when I no longer work there.

Soon, very soon, I have a reprieve from my drudgery and will be attending a five-week writing residency, the kind I spent many, many hours applying for over the course of two years. I’m excited and nervous and hopeful. I’ll be driving most of the way across the country to get there, hence the deadline for you to buy a zine—and the motivation. Even though “we” “lost” the war (yay? God, what a stupid time to be alive), gas is still quite pricey and I long-ago made the decision to road trip across America 250 to get there. So, if you miss Hastings and you want to buy a girl a few gallons, you know what to do.

I’m also accepting conceptual pitches for what type of road trip to take, which attractions to focus on, a mission, etc. Do your worst.

In closing, another excerpt from my Hastings project and one of my favorite primary sources from the research.

Thanks for joining me to remember Hastings, and for buying a piece of analog media. It’s not a coincidence that Spokane Zine Fest, the event where I’ll debut this zine and connect with a bunch of people who will probably be really amped about Hastings, is taking place at a public library. Support your local library with all your heart. Use Libby, and Kanopy, and check things out and ask the librarians for help with research. They won’t hallucinate and they won’t plagiarize. Libraries are our best rebuttal to the vapid, dark vision of an AI future—we must never let them slip away.

The spirit of Hastings lives on in the independent bookstore, the art house theater, the record store, the community art festival, and the home VHS collection, to name a few. While it was nice to live in the era of the friendly-faced corporate one-stop for a while, the practice of making and sharing art pre-dates strip malls and capitalism, and it will outlive them both. Won’t it be fun to remember new ways to do that together?

Finally, shoutout to Gene, a real prophet of our times. Every couple days I find myself saying “stream, stream, stream” under my breath now.

Until next time,

TRW