Some years ago, I had an idea, which had lied dormant until recently sparking another idea in my mouldering brain wires.
Those Little Free Libraries were popping up in the neighborhood back then. There was something so moving about them and novel. I had never seen such a beautiful public invitation: “ Please open this door and enjoy something to hold in your hands, something which may change your perspective on life, or, at the very least, entertain you. FOR FREE!”
Whether anyone ever really took them up on the offer didn’t matter to me. What did matter was that someone had built this little library, stocked it with books and waited to see what would happen. That they looked like little shrines didn’t hurt either.
Right after these Little Free Libraries popped up, I had an idea to do something similar. What I wanted to do was to build an information board, one with a little roof like you see at state parks. On it would be works of art or poetry or whatever that people wanted to create and share with others. I would take a picture of everything that went up, catalog it and put it on the blog. Not long after, I started my weekly broadcasts of Haiku Friday. So, this idea was mothballed.
OK here is my mundane proposal…
What if I put together a zine that came out once a month? It would feature all that month’s poems that were submitted to me for Haiku Friday. Also people could send in their artwork, musings, whatever and I would print those in this zine. I would put copies by our block wall. Maybe I could have a dropbox for those who wanted to leave their creations right there too. I could share the zine in a digital form on the blog. The physical dispenser of the zine may be a Little Free Zine single-wide?
I wouldn’t want it to make any money. None of my ideas do. The zine would be free. Maybe if people wanted a hard copy mailed to them they could pay for postage. So many pedestrians pass by our house, I think they would get distributed quickly.
When I started this blog so long ago, my main focus was on visiting people in Spokane who I liked, and have them tell their stories either via audio, video or written copy. I got lazy and dropped the ball. Shifting the focus to creative works and giving neighbors a way to have something tangible to show them the wonderful spirits who live around them would be a worthwhile thing to do.
I will probably be retiring sometime this year, or early next year. I would have the time to do this right.
This book is what made me think about doing this:
Would this be a worthwhile thing? Are zines dead? Should I censor language or anything else that may be too PG-13? Let me know what you think, please!
2 comments:
When you ask if it would be a worthwhile thing, worthwhile to whom? Does it matter as long as it's worthwhile to you?
To some point I agree, Hank. I guess it's a time issue. I have a lot of creative work going on which I really enjoy. Painting, poetry, writing, gardening, etc. I am learning the guitar and going to try my hand at sculpting and maybe some acting... This zine idea, would be enjoyable, but I think I would only want to do it, if others wanted to read it and if I had a cadre of folks willing to contribute. I have so many solitary outlets, It would be fun to have one in which there is some collaboration. Thanks!!!!
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