Category: ultrahistorical

Another Call to Arms, of a Sort

Subject: Neither Quark nor PageMaker is the answer
Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 23:39:42 -0400
From: Daniel Rhatigan <Sparky@inch.com>
Newsgroups: alt.zines

Frequently, discussions in this group turn toward the practical discussions of zine-making: printing, computer programs, layout problems, etc. Everybody’s always got a lot of good ideas about how to fix technical problems, but how about some of the design problems that a lot of the questions bring up? Pagemaker or Quark won’t give you a good-looking zine, only good choices will. I’m still a fan of people doing it the old-school way with typewriters or even decent handwriting, but for everyone who’s moved onto writing and publishing in the digital age along with me, let me rant a little of my design philosophy.

At work, in my zines, in everyday life, I’m always grappling with the relationship between typography and technology. As the fields grow more interrelated each day, each demands a greater understanding of its influence on the other, and those of us who dabble in one cannot help but learn more of both. Consideration of the two can allow us to profit from their relationship rather than be thwarted by it.

I have a true love and respect for type, and I know I’m a geek about it. I think the abstract beauty of a single letterform can be breathtaking on its own, but more importantly I think typography is our means of conveying language, integral to how we read and how we communicate. If typography suffers then communication suffers with it, robbed of its full potential. I value the role that typography plays in language, and I feel a responsibility to allow it to play its role as perfectly as possible. Type should help us understand words, and its complexity should never be underestimated.

Perhaps the easiest way to ignore the complexity of typography is to become distracted by the complexity of the technology we use to set type. Though we are now expected to develop expertise with computers, we are not freed from our responsibility to think critically about typography. Computers are powerful tools that have offered us many new opportunities, but they do not offer us solutions to the problems of working with type.

It is easier now than ever before for anyone to put type on a page and have it look pretty clean, but it is also too easy for the finer elements of effective typography to be ignored. This can be the result of too little technical proficiency, too little visual sophistication, or even too little patience to make the adjustments needed to perfect computer-generated type. All designers now working as typesetters also have the responsibility to master the technology that creates their type. Just as we should not allow ourselves to forget the many responsibilities involved in designing with type, we should also not underestimate the complexity of our common tool — the computer.

Computer operating systems and software packages are complex tools that allow us to achieve far more than we may have once thought possible. Conversely, their complexity may limit our abilities if we are not able to work within the parameters of their logic. As with any tool or any printing process, we must be sensitive to the way computers work so that we can make the greatest possible use of them. Once we understand the working of these systems, then we often find that we were limited not by the tool, but by our ability to use it.

My years in school and my subsequent years working for myself and for other people have taught me the importance of design and typography. I have come to believe that they present us not only with opportunities, but with problems that we must solve to aid communication and also to improve our visual culture. I say we should seek the best solutions to these problems, while trying to be clear, inventive, expressive, and efficient. This requires sensitivity to subject, concept, medium, and tool alike.

Don’t fall into the trap and just play dress-up with visual style. If you’re doing your zine out of love, show it all the love you can. Make it as effective and as right-on-the-money as possible. Don’t cheapen your writing or the writing of your contributors by making things look “cool” with funky fonts and clip art that aren’t really supporting the writing or the tone of the zine. Don’t make it too busy just because you can. Don’t think that because your program will let you do something that means it’s a good thing to do. Make good choices, pay attention how truly readable and how true to itself your zine is. I don’t even mean making your zine look slick — if your zine is raw, then use your tools to make it raw. If it’s thoughtful, use your tools to show that.

And keep on keeping on.

The Minefield of Aggressive Language (Part 3)

Subject: Re: What’s considered RACIST in the Zine World
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:21:09 -0400
From: Daniel Rhatigan <Sparky@inch.com>
Newsgroups: alt.zines

D. Halligan wrote:

> one also needs to keep in mind that this is a newsgroup revolving around writing, self-publishing, and free speech. I think if it’s important to you to point out words and ideas that offend you, then by all means do. [snip] But realize the free speech that protects your right to voice your opinion is the same free speech that allows someone to say something that may be offensive to you.

Really beautifully stated. And probably a good concept for participants in the newsgroup to keep in mind. I would even go so far as to say that if we’re committed to being writers and self-publishers, it’s our responsibility
to exercise that free speech to its fullest — we’re less bound by the forces
that might keep it at bay. Sure, it would be fantastic if everyone in the newsgroup — and in the world at large — were considerate, rational, and
committed to an open dialogue of ideas. Truth is, that’s not necessarily
the case, and I’d rather argure someone down to the mat or make a personal
choice to ignore them rather than let their unpopular ideas fester behind
censorship until they explode without warning.

The Minefield of Aggressive Language (Part 2)

Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 15:35:00 -0400
From: Daniel Rhatigan <Sparky@inch.com>
Newsgroups: alt.zines

Dolya wrote:

> How can you complain about someone using a word if you use that word yourself?

Easily. The complaint is about use of the use (or misuse) or words, the intent of words, the implications of words. Personally, I don’t think words themselves should be damned, but I can object to the ways they’re wielded. Like I don’t object to baseball bats unless they’re being used to smack someone in the head.

We’re zine publishers, right? Presumably that also means we’re writers — words are our tools and part of the substance of our work. Even if my subjective point of view — I don’t like feeling maligned by strangers — is irrelevant, my objective point of view is still valid. Words have meanings, often multiple meanings, and usually defined by the intent of the writer or speaker. If you are going to communicate with words, use them well. Know what you are trying to say. If you don’t want to offend, see that you don’t. If you want to offend? Whatever — go for the jugular, but know that you are doing it. And be ready to take the inevitable criticism. That’s all.

The Minefield of Aggressive Language (Part 1)

Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 09:44:32 -0400
From: Daniel Rhatigan <Sparky@inch.com>
Newsgroups: alt.zines

Shantia wrote:

> and faggy is not an insult.

Uh-oh, we’re digging deeper into that thorny “use of language” issue
again.

I find it pretty hard not to find “faggy” an insult here. (“…quoting faggy bands like the Flaming Lips.”) The defamatory sense of the word is pretty clear. And the defamatory point of the word is to malign someone or something by implying it has the quality of what is perceived as standard gay characteristics.

That’s not an insult? If the point is to say that the Flaming Lips are admitted homosexuals and no one cares about it anyway, it’s still a callous way to put it, considering that all the taunting that’s made use “fag” and its derivatives over the years. If the point really is to say that the Flaming Lips aren’t that good, then the insult to us fags seems pretty clear. The intent behind the word always means something. And that’s why people need to be responsible for their use of language.

And I don’t mean “responsible” to be steering clear of offensive or impolite words. “Responsible” means use your language carefully, and say what you really mean. Or people might think you mean what you are only saying. Swear like a sailor! Push people’s buttons! But make sure you know what you’re doing, and do it for a reason.

There are a couple of zines out there like “Teen Fag” and “Single Faggot” that are using the words with great care. They’re trying to push some buttons, and throw the word back at the public that might otherwise use it as an insult. that’s pushing some artistic boundaries. Just tossing the word “fag” around liberally by somebody who’s not thinking about the implications isn’t breaking any new ground, it’s just crossing over the same tired ground.

Same deal with this ongoing debate about rascism. Careless use of the word “nigger” isn’t automatically pushing artistic boundaries just because someone has the right to use it. Sure someone has the right use it, but also the responsibility to face criticism for it. I don’t think the post that started all this hoopla used it any way that was going to make people question their own position on rascism. Not do I think it was meant to spark a healthy debate on the subject. It was just thoughtless. And hence insulting to anyone who ever got called a nigger and had a reason to get pissed off about it.

Just like “faggy” is an insult to anyone who ever got called a fag and knew that it wasn’t meant as a compliment.

So even if I am a man-lovin’, limp-wristed, lisping, cocksucking, buttfucking, gerbil-chasing, popper-snorting, disco-dancing, pink-wearing nancyboy, but — and I quote Joe Jackson — “don’t call me a faggot, not unless you are a friend.”

Dan

Plan Nine from Chelsea

Gay Black

To the best of my knowledge, this book was not really written by Ed Wood the filmmaker, nor is the gentleman featured on the cover a gay black. My guess is that “Ed Wood” was chosen at the time as a nom-de-plume by the author back in the days when Ed Wood was still something of a cultural obscurity. But I could be wrong. I do know for a fact, though, that the photograph on the cover is not supposed to represent Charlene, the hero/heroine of the book who escapes a tortured youth as a sharecropper to go an become a cross-dressing bitch for a series of con men and thieves.

This little example of vintage “erotica” turned up in a yard sale in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, one day. I really got a kick out of seeing how dirty stories were written back in the good ol’ days of the year I was born. I almost feel a pang of regret that contemporary smut has lost that sense of the hero being really deviant and indiscrete: it seems a lot more thrilling than than the explicit, happy rainbow crap that gets churned out these days.

Macho Men

We all remember the Village People and their unique portrayal of a number of standard sterotypes and fantasy characters from the swinging gay New York City of the ’70s. My question is: Why should we let them remain the end-all and be-all of kooky stock character types? Why, when there are so many other pigeonholes waiting to be filled and acknowledged!

Here is your chance to “show your Underalls” by identifying your six Personalized Village People for these swinging fin-de-siecle times. What sorts of guys do you usually go all ga-ga over? What does it take to tickle even the mildest and most innocuous fetish you have, or at the very least, what do seem to fall for over and over again, good judgement be damned?

For example, my Personal Village People would have to include:

  • The Architect: Always so fashionably but simply dressed, with a very precise haircut. A workaholic like me, and able to discuss design theory. Has great modernist furniture.
  • The Rudeboy: Such a fun-loving imp, channelling all that physical aggression into jumping around and skanking. Wears cheap suits, but knows how to work ’em with just the right hat and shoes. Appreciates bad band name puns.
  • The Funky Geek: Understands dorky computer junk, but more importantly wears cool glasses and knows where all the good local thrift stores are. Appreciates my finely-tuned pop culture sensibility and is insecure enough to really appreciate a good thing when he finds it.
  • The Hipster Leatherboy: Scruffy or skinhead, often with goatee. Thinks of himself as thoroughly modern and liberal, if not downright revolutionary. Has artistic ambitions, and oozes sexual potency. Could also be identified as the Gen-Y rebel. (Johnathon Schaech in “The Doom Generation” is a good example.)
  • The Inaccessible Foreigner: Smart, creative, and devilishly good-looking, with sharp verbal wit and a creative profession. Seems perfect except for those visa problems and steep airfares. Has accent that could charm a rabid doberman.
  • The Bike Messenger: Maybe he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but with those legs and that ass who cares? And funky tattoos. Stamina is also a plus, and he probably follows a lot of hip local bands and reads zines.

Other classic archetypes that one might consider:

The Randy Farmhand

The Randy Farmhand

 The Mighty Gladiator

The Mighty Gladiator

 The Old-Skool Leather Daddy

The Old-Skool Leather Daddy
The Curious Sailor

The Curious Sailor

 The Skinny Hipster

The Skinny Hipster

 The Deap-Sea Diver

The Deap-Sea Diver

Every Life Should Have a Soundtrack

That’s the reason I can usually be found walking around with a Walkman on. I am so consumed by my love of music that I want it to surround me as often as possible. When I walk around, listening to music keeps my imagination engaged, and prevents me from becoming a walking vegetable as I commute.

I find it difficult to restrict my listening habits to just one or two genres. Every nuance of my moods can have a different sort of music that suits it best. If you just look at the list on the right, you’ll see that the evidence speaks for itself.

Unfortunately, as I’ve become an overworked old fart, my concert attendance has dropped off considerably. For one thing, I’ve lost my patience for seeing bands in any kind of stadium or other large venue. They lack any kind of intimacy that allows me to feel really involved in the show. At the same time, I have fallen into a vicious cycle where I stopped seeing shows as often because I wasn’t too thrilled with the indie music scene in Boston my last couple of years there, and now I’ve gotten so out of touch with local music both there and here in New York, that I never know what will be a good show to see, so I don’t go.

To top it off, New York seems to have an inexplicably crappy radio market, so I don’t hear much that way. Thes days I depend on recommendations from friends and what exposure I get through TV and my frequent forays to sample the listening booths at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. (Sending me into Virgin is like waving an open bottle of gin in front of an alcoholic — so dangerous.)

The Good vs. The Bad and the Ugly

Good Lo-Tech

Bad Hi-Tech
Datebooks, Address Books, etc.
Immediate access as long as you have the presence of mind to keep them with you		 Databases and Electronic Calendars
Vulnerable to power outages and and disk crashes; it takes a long time for your computer to start up just to get a friend’s
number for a thirty-second call to an answering machine
Nice, Solid Wood Furniture
Easily repaired and looks better with age		 Any Furniture from Ikea
Sure it looks sleek, but it’s often wobbly after a while, and that formica-covered pressed wood is awful to the touch
Stationery and a Nice Pen
Nothing says “I care” like a handwritten letter		 Word Processors
A note to a friend should never look like a memo from the boss
A Screwdriver, a Pair of Pliers, and Gaffer’s Tape
Can be used to fix almost anything with a little imagination		 Telephone Tech Support
Punching buttons to get through a complex maze only to wait and then have someone condescend to second-guess everything you’ve already tried
Incandescent Lamps and Candles
Warm and soothing		 Flourescent Light Fixtures
“My, what an attractive complexion you have;” Flickers just enough to be annoying
SLR Cameras
The crappiest 35mm camera from the Salvation Army can still produce a picture with rich color and good detail as long as you hold it pretty steady		 Any Affordable Digital Camera
One-tenth the quality at four times the price. Don’t even get me started
Leather, Silk, Cotton Naugahyde, Acetate, Nylon
Goosedown Fiber-Fill
Reality
Touch it, smell it, taste it, do it now		 Virtual reality
Wait for it, pay for it

I’m a Bad Geek

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a big nerd. I was a little slow to give myself over to the world of electronics — I never played video games very much, and I never used a word processor until I was a sophomore in college — but I sure as hell made up for lost time. At this point I can work a computer like it’s an extension of my hands. Technical glitches are generally little more than a series of logically connected hurdles to me, and I’ve got good intuition for technical matters that helps me make a few bold leaps along the way. Software makes sense to me, and I love the speedy efficiency of digital technology. I have no fear of it.

This level of comfort with modern technology extends far beyond the workaday world of computers. Let’s be realistic: even though I may take to computers more easily than others, if I didn’t have some degree of comfort with them I wouldn’t really be able to hold down a job at this point, would I? No, I really like almost all things electronic. I like having an alarm clock that I can set by pushing a couple of buttons while I’m half asleep. I like having voice-mail and managing it without the use of clunky machines and crappy Radio Shack tapes. My six-disk CD player is like having a shrine to music inside my apartment. I pride myself on having not spoken to a bank teller in six years except to open an account or purchase foreign currency. And don’t even get me started on how much e-mail has kept my family and friends together as we’ve scattered across the globe.

A friend once told me that he thought I’d be happiest if I could manage my life while strapped to my computer all day being fed Skittles through a pneumatic tube. This is not true, and not just because the Skittles would send my blood sugar level soaring out of control.

I’m very critical of the media trend —spearheaded by technology pundits,
the advertising efforts of hi-tech companies, and everyone connected to
Wired magazine —that would have us believe that a better world awaits us in which we can fuse the Internet to our television programming, solve problems at work from the beach, and satisfy all our consumer needs without ever leaving home. I like leaving home and think people should get out more often. You don’t have to live in a cramped New York studio to know that there’s plenty more going on in the outside world to amuse people.

I worry about the death of printed matter that techno-doomsayers keep threatening. I worry about becoming more isolated from people on a daily basis than I already am. I worry about homogenization of the things I touch and the things I see and the things I read. While I support technology and the convenience, efficiency, and new opportunities it can offer our culture, I worry about what it’s doing to our critical standards and our self-reliance.

I’m a bad geek, because I also believe in lo-tech.

Continue reading “I’m a Bad Geek”