Have I mentioned how much I love Cat and Girl? Oh yes, I believe I have. The webcomic by Dorothy Gambrell never ceases to be a balm for my overcaffeinated, neurotically self-analytic, black-humoured, Babysitters-Club-loving soul.

Whoa, it’s a countercultural comic about counterculture that I’m using to advertise counterculture. The mind boggleth.

Okay, but the real point of this post is to let you know that YOUR SOUL TOO can be soothed by such products of minds depraved and genius, in material form no less! Montreal’s annual zine fair, Expozine, is happening this weekend, for two whole days of photocopied, silkscreened, stapled, hand-bound, sketched out and jittery madness. 200+ tables of independent bookworks, comics, art, crafts, posters, clothes, buttons, and snacks. Plus I’ll be there tabling with Invisible Publishing, where I’ll be flogging my book, along with books by such Shameless luminaries as Stacey May Fowles and Thea Lim.

Crucial deets:

Saturday and Sunday November 29th and 30th, 12 - 6
5035 St. Dominique between St. Joseph and Laurier (Metro Laurier)
FREE ADMISSION (take that, Toronto!)

Gender-based jokes that poke “fun” at domestic chores run rampant in the dominant culture. And somehow men are always the butt of the joke. But the “modern woman” is still stuck doing the laundry because the jokes just allow us as a society to shrug off their “inability” as part of their domestic failure as men, and not as part of the actual divisions in the home when it comes to domestic chores.

When it comes to chores I prefer the barter system. It’s what you would do with a roommate, or a sibling, and does not have to be any different when you’re in a relationship that highlights socially defined gender roles. At the end of the day I hate doing the cat litter and any living partner or roommate that is willing to take the cat litter on without complaint is my hero.

Luckily for them I’m always willing to do the laundry in exchange. It also means that I can use soap I’m not allergic to, can use/make less harmful detergents, and can use alternatives to the dryer in the summer (like the laundry line).

With that in mind, I thought I would compile a list of my favourite DIY projects for the laundry so that if you got the sweet deal of laundry over litter, you can have some DIY fun too.

(more inside…)

Way back in the day, before the internet came to dominate my life, I was into zines. Even now, after years of blogging, I still miss the time when a page layout was completed using scissors and a glue stick, and when the chick who could beg, borrow or steal the most alone time with a photocopy machine was the most popular girl in the room. I was excited to learn that Barnard University in New York City has been collecting zines and has been organizing them into a unique circulating collection.

The shelves of the Barnard Zine Collection (Barnard Library)

According to their website:

Barnard’s zines are primarily in the area of women’s studies, featuring personal and political publications on activism, anarchism, body image, feminism, gender, parenting, queer community, riot grrrl, sexual assault, and other topics. They are created by women of color from NYC and other urban areas. The term “woman” applies to anyone who self-identifies as such

For those of us not in New York, the Barnard zine librarian has been kind enough to provide links to all sorts of cool stuff, including artists’ websites, web comics, and downloadable pdfs of old issues. Already I’ve spent an afternoon reading Dropping Out, DIY guides to everything from squatting to silk screening, and I Like Girls, a funny and sweet web comic about a young queer girl coming out.

Did you spend considerable amounts of time composing fangirl love notes to your favorite riot grrrls using a busted typewriter with no Q key? The library is accepting donations. Who knows? Maybe one day your zine will be featured in a book or exhibit, or sitting on the shelves of a library for future scholars to peruse.

Also, if you’re a student working on a degree in library science, the collection is also looking for an intern to help with the collection. If you live outside New York, but have a passion for zines and feminism, contact the collection librarian about a possible one to two week full-time internship.

The folks behind The Book of Zines have published a handy directory of other zine libraries around North America. Canadian collections include the Toronto Zine Library and the Edmonton Small Press Association. And this coming week, Toronto will be hosting Canzine 2008, Canada’s Largest Zine Fair and Festival of Alternative Culture.

When I moved to Prince George to go to grad school I didn’t realize that within months I’d be taken under the wings of the coolest women in town. The women work in a variety of capacities and express themselves and their lives in our community in dynamic ways, to be near them is an utter honour.

Our friend Bryndis, the owner of Meow Records (which won best record store in Canada this past summer) has been putting out a DIY calendar, made by the calendar girls themselves, and this is the second year.

This year our theme was classic horror and it was so empowering to be charged with the responsibility of working within your theme (ie. I was given zombie) and having full control of every aspect of both your photo and your calendar grid. And the ways that the women in the calendar worked with their month definitely reflected their pluralities.

Calendars, if done on the cheap in a true DIY manner (you learn photoshop and get your fellow calendar girls to do your hair and take your photo), are a cheap product to make and a great fundraiser. Especially for a small up and coming business who needs a little help from her friends to get her feet on the ground.

If you’d like to get your hands on a calendar you can check a bit out on the Meow website (www.meowrecords.ca) and order one from the store to see the real deal.

Cat Toys on Craftster (bumfuzzlerumdum)

I’m a fan of the absurdity of feminist and queer stereotypes. I mean, who thinks of this stuff and why do we let it get us down? Obviously someone is crazy in this situation and it’s not me! I believe that flaunting these stereotypes in an equally absurd and questioning way can be the answer to the self-doubt, insecurity, and anger that may plague you when you find out that “the man” has finally fit you into one of his little boxes.

So while I’m on the road to filling in the identity check boxes they manufacture out of their hearts of coal, the crazy cat lady in me will be making my cats these toys designed (with a tutorial) by Craftster’s bumfuzzlerumdum.

Riding the bus down to work this morning I was humming away on my anthropologie-inspired caplet when a rider gets on and sits across from me and he says, “Are you knitting me socks?” My response to this question is usually snarky, but all I could muster up today was a murmur and groan, hopefully hiding the boil in my blood system.

I am the kind of knitter that knits wherever I go. This means that whenever I am knitting in public space someone feels entitled to comment. Often it’s from flight attendants, old men who wanna talk to a sweet young lady, and middle-aged women who think that younger women aren’t domestic anymore. I find it annoying and invasive for a few reasons:

First, I started out as a knitter who knit for others but that’s over now. I knit for myself and love it! I feel a sense in pride in letting down my “must do whatever I’m good at for other people” guard and making self-crafting my personal mantra. Why stop now?

Second, it’s not okay for men to think that the knitting they see me do in public is for them, even if it’s a way to talk to me. Way to start off on a bad foot! Women and knitters are not here to serve strangers with our crafts.

Third, the women who ask me what I’m knitting or when I started knitting don’t bother me as much, but I get irked when they say they used to knit but got too busy being a mom and working to knit and never picked it up again, as if I’m young and I can knit whenever I want without life repercussions. Also, I’m not fond of the refrain, “You don’t see many women doing that these days”. Because we are.

Now that my rant is over (phew!) I’m going to go back to knitting in public and maybe, just maybe, I’ll not be so tired next time and let it out.

Drupal Chart in a Sock Heel (emmajane.net)

I’ve been building this site for the upcoming Pan-Canadian Young Feminist Gathering, Waves of Resistance/Toujours Rebelles, using “brand new to me” Drupal. In less techie terms, Drupal is an open source content management system (CMS), with the benefit being that non-professionals can learn to use this tool to build dynamic websites that they have full control over and can allow others to access the process with them.

It has definitely been a steep learning curve for all those involved (even me who has been working on-and-off in the internet world for a number of years), but working with an open-source project has been most rewarding. And now my love of Drupal has turned into a need to show my Drupal pride, especially since only 7% of Drupal users are women (we have our own support group over at Drupal Groups). So as soon as I can breathe a sigh of relief that the Rebelles2008 website is fully functioning I will cast these on: Drupal Socks and a Drupal .ico hat. Maybe soon I can too call myself a Drupal Ninja!

Angela Davis T. (KM Stitchery)

The clothing industry can often be an unethical place. Unfriendly manufacturing, sizing that doesn’t reflect actual markets or bodies, and emotionally damaging advertising campaigns create a culture of feminist disenchantment with what we wear and where we buy it. Even American Apparel, a cultural icon positively known for its lack of sweatshop labour, has a CEO who has been known to perpetuate a sexual environment within the company, including having sex with his staff and creating borderline pornographic shoots for advertising (see “Living On The Edge At American Apparel” ).

Needless to say, it’s refreshing to see cool, eco-friendly, feminist clothing like KMStitchery’s, the feminist stenciling of herstory! The premise of her clothing is that it’s ethical clothing for feministing in.

“I think it’s important to remember the womyn who paved the way for us. I am excited to get womyn excited about feminism! Or just to get them excited about political fems! I am disgruntled with how you see mostly male revolutionaries on t-shirts but not fems…I am here to focus on the great womyn of our past.”

Every month KMStitchery cuts a new feminist stencil and to date they range from Angela Davis (above) to bell hooks, Emma Goldman, and Gloria Steinem. All of the stencils are printed on recycled or reclaimed clothes and a variety of articles and styles are present, from t-shirts to skirts to hoodies. In the words of KMStitchery, “Represent! With these powerful ladies!”

Modofly is an artists’ collaborative run by “jack of all trade artists/designers” Jordan and Kevin. They make these hip-looking notebooks and are currently seeking submissions for new artwork for their next run of notebooks. And this time they’re requesting art within two themes, “Girly” and “Femme”.

We are looking for work that women and girls alike will gush over. We have been accused by some of the female folk of being weak on the feminine front with our books, so we want you to help us solve this (Okay, we get it! Kez and I are boy nerds full of tech lust, and you need to show us the way). So send us work that your girlfriend will gush over, your mom will kiss you for, your wife will give you some marital points, or a new mom will get down to filling with all the details of life.

My response is as follows:

First, recognizing you have a “gap” might be the first step, but asking for “girly” art does not necessarily make you any more inclusive.

Second, not all women and girls in the art and craft world are the same. It might not happen that “women and girls alike will gush over” the work.

Third, I’m kind of happy you’ve been accused of being too masculine in your work and art. I just wish you had chosen a word other than “accused”, which makes it sound like you’re the victim.

Fourth, it’s not our job to “show you the way”.

Fifth, your final sentence makes it sound like you want boys to send you work that the women and girls in their lives will buy. That’s so progressive guys!