Milo was in a funk, so ze made an abecedary zine about why ze loves zines and zine culture. I love it so much I'd make one myself, but that would be redundant and inferior because I'd pick most of the same things to go with each letter, and my graphics wouldn't be a thousandth as cute or a millionth as well laid-out.
Albert, in medical school while she was doing her ethnographic research with licensed prostitutes in Nevada, presents a good balance of nonfictiony background, history and data and the more interesting stuff--the women’s work and how they came to it.
Instead of lacking family values, as moralists contended, most of the women I came to know there possessed a profound sense of personal responsibility and an unwavering commitment to their families that ultimately drove them to do this “immoral” work.
After a little more inquiry, though, I found that sexual arousal occurred more frequently than not. In fact, over three-quarters of the women confessed to me in private that they had experienced sexual excitement with clients, and a full 70 percent admitted to having had an orgasm with a customer. Ten percent of the women confided that they orgasmed more often with clients than they did with lovers, and 8 percent said they did just as frequently.
Male owners were supposed to stay behind the scenes, leaving day-to-day operations to the female staff. Today, men are permitted to work more visibly--as cooks, bartenders, cashiers, and maintenance people--but wome still hold all the managerial and floor maid positions.
I’m a contributor to this book, and so am not my usual cool and neutral self when it comes to reviewing it. (Who wants an impartial review anyway?) However, the truth is I didn’t love the book. Favorite contributions include Jessamyn West’s and Melissa Morrone's. And also mine, “Pinko Vs. Punk: a Generational Comparison of Alternative Press Publications and Zines.” After it was peer skewered by one of the editors, I felt pretty insecure about it, but reading it again, I’m pretty happy with it, even if it is a little intellectually lazy and probably too casual in tone.
The classic 16-year-old cut-and-paste zine has been best-ofed, featuring 14 issues assembled by artists. It’s a super cool concept, and I love that even as the zine got fancy, Hughes continued to distribute it for a dollar.
I reviewed this book for the final issue of Counterpoise, Summer 2010. Vol. 14, Iss. 3/4.
If you’re wondering what in the world prompted me to read this book, it’s because I have a newly single friend who hasn’t dated in a really long time and who can be a little...impulsive, and I wanted to get her to read it with me. I actually don’t have a huge problem with the book or its premise. If what you want is to get married, then this book might really help. Is it the height of feminist (not to mention queer or polyamorous) enlightenment to put so much importance on getting hitched? Not necessarily, but I do understand the desire to have a partner and be in a committed relationship. I’ll freely admit that that desire is strong in me.
I can’t remember how I found this book--review in Bust? It seems like a Bust type of book--but I know I was interested because the author was a zinester in the 90s. (Mystery date : one gal's guide to good stuff Zines P4755m) It reads like a long magazine article on the history of women’s office support work: typing, stenography, secretaryship, written in a personal tone, through a feminist lens, and with enough endnotes to convince you of its authority. It is accompanied by lots of sidebars and historical photos and ads and a lengthy index (♥).
re: 19th century typewriter, “There was also a question of etiquette, which deemed handwriting more polite than mechanical type. ‘I do not think it necessary . . . to have your letters to me taken to the printers’ and set up like a handbill. I will be able to read your handwriting, and I am deeply chagrined to think you thought such a course necessary,’ read the handwritten reply to a typed missive sent by an early adopter in the insurance industry.” p.17-18
re: feminism and working class, “In fact, what the Miss America protestors should have thrown into the Freedom Trash Can was a coffee pot, because when it came to gender politics in the office, the battle was fought over coffee--and who should make it.” p.200 (citing a Fortune article “Beyond the Liberated Secretary.”
Comprised of Skurnick and a few other writers’ Fine Lines columns from Jezebel, Shelf Discovery really brings a book-junkie adult back to her book-junkie youth.
At 17, I was learning that fiction was the primary way I’d understand and find meaning in life, that there were feelings I’d felt and experiences I’d had that I couldn’t comprehend until I read about them in books. That some kinds of love have many meanings, and the meanings change over time, the way a book changes each time you reread it. p.328 TRUE THAT.
re: mother’s library school project
Using knitting needles and index cards, she and a classmate created what can only be described as a non-computerized search engine. They notched the cards with a series of holes, some open at the top. The open holes corresponded to key search criteria--author, reading level, subject matter. With the help of a numeric code, you inserted the needles into the cards and lifted; the cards that fell out were the ones that matched your criteria. p. 352 For the love of dog, READERS ADVISORY BY KNITTING NEEDLE. I don’t know what could be more 21st century cool for teen librarians than that unless you could auto-tweet the results to a cross-stitch design generator.
I went to this camp for two summers, so I’m not an unbiased reviewer. Rapkin has a big old crush on Stagedoor Manor, which I think is a little excessive. Theater Geek is a quick and enjoyable enough read, but I think even if I hadn’t gone to Stagedoor myself, I would have pegged the author as overly effusive. But maybe that’s just sour grapes because I wasn’t a camp star like the book’s three profilees were.
I only got halfway through this book, but I spent so much time reading it, I wanted credit. I bet the beginning, Richard Stallman creating GNU and Linus Torvalds and the internet developing Linux are the best parts anyway. This is an informative read, and sometimes compelling, evidence that I eventually put it down to the contrary.
“I certainly never looked at the source code of Unix,” Stallman says. “Never. I once accidentally saw a file, and when I realized it was part of Unix source code, I stopped looking at it.” The reason was simple: The source code “was a trade secret, and I didn’t want to be accused of stealing that trade secret,” he says. “I condemn trade secrecy, I think it’s an immoral practice, but for the project to succeed, I had to work within the immoral laws that existed.”
[Stallman] has no car. “I live in a city where you don’t need to have a car.” He rents a room: “I don’t want to own a house, I don’t want to spend a lot of money. If you spend a lot of money then you’re the slave of having to make more money. The money then jerks you around, controls you life.” Stallman has never married or had children. “That takes a lot of money. There’s only one way I could have made that money, and that is by doing what I’d be ashamed of”--writing nonfree software. “If I had been developing proprietary software, I would have been spending my life building walls to imprison people,” he believes.
“So in my case, Linus improved the kernel in a way that made more work for himself and for me in the short term, but made the kernel clearer, cleaner, and more maintainable in the long run. This lesson by example of taking the high road and doing things right, instead of taking the path of least resistance, made a very big impression on me at the time and became an essential part of my programming philosophy.” Rich Sladkey