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Life Writing in Zines: Memory, Public Spaces and Intimacy
Anna Poletti
The School of Language and Media University of Newcastle
Presented as part of Critical Animals, October 2003
Most academic interest in zines has been from a sociological, cultural and youth studies perspective. These studies have focussed on exploring zine culture as a subcultural movement, encompassing particular styles of media consumption, relationships with mainstream culture and so on. Stephen Duncombe's book Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture, is an example of this type of work from America. In the local context, Anita Harris and Catherine Driscoll have both done work on Riot Grrrl, which has included a consideration of zines and their importance in the sharing of information and positioning young women's experience within that subculture.
While often including quotations from zines, these kinds of studies do not engage in what could be classified as a more traditional (from the perspective of the discipline of English) close reading of the writing in zines. In this paper I'd like to illustrate a text-centred reading of zines, focussing on memory, public places and self-understanding. I'll also discuss the use of memory in the construction of a relationship with the reader, and suggest how the DIY ethic informs life writing in zines and individual zinester's structuring of memory. I will begin by contextualising zines within some contemporary theories of memory and autobiography, and then move on to perform a close reading of excerpts from three zines.
In the introduction to her book Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination, in which Annette Kuhn recalls memory and narrates the story suggested in old family photography, Kuhn observes:
In working these case histories, I have made a number of discoveries. I have seen how memory shapes not just our inner worlds but also the outer worlds of public expression and circulation of memory-stories. I find, too, that 'memory texts' 'cultural productions across a range of media which like the fruits of my own memory work, are in effect secondary revisions of the source materials of memory' appear to be a cultural phenomenon, a genre even, in their own right. Memory, it turns out, has its own modes of expression: these are characterized by the fragmentary, non-linear quality of moments recalled out of time. Visual flashes, vignettes, a certain anecdotal quality, mark memory texts as diverse as oral history accounts, unrevised written memories, scholarly writings'. (4-5)
This description of memory's own modes of expression is strikingly reminiscent of zine layout and style; 'fragmentary' and 'non-linear' are common characteristics of the life writing in zines, with stories and moments often remembered in an anecdotal style. Kuhn's suggestion of a genre of memory work offers a compelling context in which the memories presented in zines can be read, and many zines offer resounding support to her view that memories themselves shape their representation. Kuhn goes on to suggest that:
'in all memory texts, personal and collective remembering emerge again and again as continuous with one another. If these discoveries call to the mind the liberationist and feminist slogan 'the personal is political', they offer a far more profound understanding of that term than any sloganizing would grant. Clearly, if in a way my memories belong to me, I am certainly not their sole owner. All memory texts'constantly call to mind the collective nature of the activity of remembering. (5)
This emphasis on the collectivity and intersubjectivity of remembering presents another angle from which to approach published rememberings in the subcultural context. The sale and trade of personal zines is a vivid metaphor of intersubjective remembering, as people trade memory texts outside the capitalist system of exchange, a community of rememberers is established. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson contextualise acts of remembering as collective acts in the following way:
The collective nature of acts of remembering extends beyond the acknowledgment of social sites of memory, historical documents, and oral traditions. It extends to motives for remembering and the question of those on whose behalf one remembers. Precisely because acts of remembering are implicated in their versions of the past, memory is an inescapably intersubjective act, as W.J.T Mitchell insightfully suggests: 'memory is an intersubjective phenomenon, a practice not only of recollection of a past by a subject, but of a recollection for another subject' (193 n.17). Memory is a means of 'passing on', of sharing a social past that may have been obscured, in order to activate its potential for reshaping a future of and for other subjects. Thus, acts of personal remembering are fundamentally social and collective. (20-21)
By exploring for whom memories are retold in zines, examining the construction of the reader as well as the influence of the subcultural context, the complexities of shifting tone and addressee in zine writing can be understood as reflective of both the collective process of remembering and embodying many of the anxieties involved in the intimacy of remembering. In many zines, zinesters attempt to negotiate a relationship with their memories which recognises remembering as a collective and public activity, as well as one focussed on self-understanding. Vanessa Berry outlines this in her introduction to issue #7 of I am a Camera:
Zines capture moments in the lives of their creators. Each zine I have made has been distilled from my life at that time, the things I have found important which occupied my thoughts. Each issue updates and consolidates the image I hold of myself; I have been making them for so long that they are a necessary part of my life. Without writing my obsessions and ideas would remain undefined, and I don't think I could explain anything properly. So this issue is about places, and memories of places, and in this is me, at the end of 2002. (unpag.)
Unlike traditional constructions of the autobiographical 'I', the selves created in zines are not laid out chronologically, and are a compilation of seemingly random moments, like the 'memory-stories' described by Annette Kuhn. The detailing of personal history is a function of intimacy, which contributes to the construction of the zine as a personal space, as well as the instigation of a relationship with the reader.
Many zines involve reflections and retelling of past experiences that are not structured in the traditional linear narrative, but are placed alongside writings of the present. The zinester writes the moment, rather than giving an exposition of what led them to this place (the place of writing the zine) in their life. While exploring the ontological foundations of autobiography, in 'The Ontology of Autobiography', James Olney redefines "life" as it operates in the construction of life narrative:
I suggest that one could understand the life around which autobiography forms itself in a number of ways besides the perfectly legitimate one of "individual history and narrative" : we can understand it as the vital impulse - the impulse of life - that is transformed by being lived through the unique medium of the individual and individual's special, peculiar psychic configuration; ... Life in all these later senses does not stretch back across time but extends down to the roots of individual being; it is atemporal, committed to a vertical thrust from consciousness down into unconsciousness rather than a horizontal thrust from present into past.(239)
This re-imaging of "life" is a useful contextualisation, as zines themselves can be understood as "thrusts" - short, sharp, concentrated bursts of life writing which, unlike longer more traditional modes of autobiography, do not adhere to a horizontal (chronological) mode of organisation, and instead form brief explosions of narrative/s which contain multiple styles, modes of narrative and representation in one package. Olney's definition of "life" is also in sympathy with DIY publishing impulses which place value in the individual's potential for unique cultural production and contribution, regardless of their position on a (horizontal) time line of expertise, experience or privilege. The act of DIY publishing, while an individual pursuit, is a collective and public act where individuals place their resistance to cultural elitism, the commericalisation of experience, and limited representations within commercial media, together to form a movement. Olney's emphasis on 'life' as atemporal resonates with Kuhn's analysis of memory work which highlights the anecdotal, non-linear forms in which memory is narrated.
The narration of memory in the construction and maintenance of an intimate text brings with it an anxiety and the possibility of embarrassment. All acts of intimacy, whether personal, physical or representational carry with them an element of risk, and in exploring some stories of memory and space now, I would also like to suggest how the anxiety of intimacy is present in zines.
In Issue two of her personal zine I think so', Melbourne-based Esther reflects on the role of history in her life writing, and attempts to connect her present moment of writing and reflecting with a notion of the Past:
History is a longing. And the stuff I did at uni with books and words is the same as the getting sad about them knocking down the gas and fuel buildings. is the same as buying weird 60s books and plates and op-shop trash that i know most people took to the tip 40 years ago and it's the same as hanging on to every scrap of paper, photo, t-shirt and letter i ever attached meaning to.
I think it's the same longing that made me really sad on all my birthdays in primary school when I knew i was getting older and that one day i'd have to move out and grow up and change and i wouldn't be able to go back. (unpag.)
Recontextualising the life narratives in zines as vertical rather than horizontal in orientation, following Olney, requires an alteration to our understanding of the functions of memory and history. History is no longer an explanation or template, placed on a horizontal continuum, but often a pause or layer in a structure. As Esther's piece demonstrates, the Historical is not, in some pseudo psychoanalytic way, the gateway to explaining the present but another modality of intimacy and exposure used to create one's own autobiographical space.
In Esther's writing we see History cast as the dull ache of longing. She describes her defences against the longing of History in the creation of barriers of objects resonating their own history. Second-hand objects, photographs, and meaningful objects from her own and others' lives go some way to occupying the chasmatic arena of history, filling a corner with the intimate and the personal triggers of memory. While Esther is unable to stop all machinations of History (the tearing down of the once iconic Gas and Fuel buildings on Flinders Street in Melbourne to build the decidedly futuristic and history-resistant Federation Square), she goes about inhabiting her own corner, filled with resonant objects and the issues of her zine. In many ways, Melbourne's destruction of the dated twin buildings on Flinders Street, with their decidedly unchic brown bricks and small windows, and the construction of the expansive glass and metal Federation Square (an overall much more "impressive" construction) illustrates the city's own desire to hide its past and takes its place in a new, globalised History. Not only were the Gas and Fuel buildings a remnant of state owned utilities in Victoria (which were sold off in the 1980s and 1990s) they were a marker of a less "dynamic" and "worldly" city. In the destruction of these buildings Melbourne attempts to erase its past, dispose of its old t-shirts and objects, and become a "contemporary" city.
The expansiveness of History, as it resonates through public spaces and objects, is also addressed by Marisa in issue two of her zine My Life as a Megarich Bombshell, where she details the experience of walking through her old high school in February 1997;
As I walked down the street toward it my heart started beating so fast and I felt like I was feeling nervous, though I didn't know what there was to feel nervous about. It was just an empty school, right? Just a building.
As I got in line with the school and turned to approach the glass front door I could see the Grade 11 & 12 classrooms to the left of me and I suddenly had a picture of myself back in those days, standing on the inside looking out, closing the windows in form class at the end of the day.
At the same time I could see myself as I am now reflected in the glass front door. At one and the same time I could see the teenage me and the mid 20s me ' one certainly knew more than the other, but both were essentially clueless about what lay in front of them ' what the future held and both were vulnerable because who did know what was going to happen to them. (unpag.)
The buildings of her school echo strongly for Marisa, who in the end does not walk through the campus but goes back the way she came, as she finds herself, like Esther, unnerved by the power of inanimate objects to conjure powerful memories and past selves. While Esther collects objects that provide memory triggers of comfort, Marisa walks away from her old high school troubled by the power it still exerts and the history of her self she sees in its windows.
I never actually made it to the part where I cut through the school. I stared in through the glass door for awhile and then retraced my steps up the street back the way I had come. I was too scared to cut through. I didn't know what other old ghosts of myself I would meet and I didn't think I could handle too many more at once. (unpag.)
The flow of the narrative constructs an intimacy with the reader based in the exposure of small and powerful moments; moments of uncertainty about the meanings of history. For Moira, in issue one of Child That Mind, public spaces and buildings signify a strong bond and sense of place and home.
this issue is about my hometown, but it's not a tour guide and it's not a hundredth of everything i could write about this place. it's about what i've discovered in between the cracks in the concrete, it's pictures of auckland framed by my eyes, defined by my subjectivity. these are stories of me inhabiting a space. (unpag.)
Moira details the significance of spaces and objects in Auckland, and narrates them by exploring their connection to her passage through the city, the history of Auckland tied up with the Moira's life.
In the sparse placement of ruminations and specific rememberings zinesters seek a connectedness with the reader through memory and intimacy just as Esther seeks to ease the longing of History with the minutiae of day-to-day life. This relationship, based on the narration of memory and the retelling of intimate moments and thoughts, is reflected in the jumbled and idiosyncratic layout of zines, as the text skips from moment to moment, resisting the possibility of lingering too long on any one moment of exposure. This strategy partly stems from the uneasiness of trusting and yet not knowing the reader as the recipient of intimacy, and the ever present possibility of misunderstanding, judgement and miscommunication. Many zinesters confront their anxiety about intimacy upfront, in introductions and direct address pieces throughout the zine. In the following story from Nice #3, which is both an introduction and a narration of memory, Holly confronts the anxiety of intimacy whilst creating an intimate moment:
When I was younger, I wanted to be a horse. I used to gallop around the schoolyard, neighing and prancing and rearing (aka waving my arms up and down while standing on tiptoes). My best friend, Susan Kits, pretended to be a horse too. She used to stand with the heel of one foot raised the way a horse does. We made a bridle from skipping rope and one of us would wear it while the other one ran behind, pretending to use to the 'reins'. Everyone else in the school hated us. When I got into my teens and thought about the way I had acted in primary school, I would almost vomit from shame. But while I was doing it I was pretty clueless about how stupid I looked. Although I remember, once while I was being a horse, my grade four teacher was on yard duty and she watched me gallop up a hilly part of the playground and rear and sniff the air, ostensibly searching for traces of Susan's scent. I can still picture my teacher's face as she watched. Clearly she was appalled at my freakish nerd behaviour. I admit I felt a bit stupid that day. But I kept doing it anyway, right up until Susan moved away.
When she was gone, I still jumped my backyard set of jumps (made from tomato stakes) at home, but at school I read in the library or played Gang Tiggy. I was good at Gang Tiggy. I couldn't be caught. All that galloping had to be good for something, I guess. At home, while I jumped my jumps, I wore my pony club uniform, including my riding boots and helmet. And I carried my riding crop. One of my neighbours, Jim Kalisperis, watched me doing it. But he still fucked me when I was eighteen, although from memory he came kinda quickly. Must have wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. Unless he had some weird animal sex fantasies he was fulfilling through his memories of my equine persona and was so worked up he exploded on impact. That would have been kinda cool, actually.
I don't know why my parents didn't try and stop me and my horsey antics, but I figure that, them being hippyish-walk-around-in-front-of-the-kids-nude kind of parents, they let me do any dumb fuck thing I wanted to. I guess as long as I wasn't messing with their lives, it was cool.
So, anyway, welcome to the third issue of NICE. Hope you enjoy it very much. (unpag.)
This telling of a tale from her childhood, connected to a story of sexual exploration, allows Holly to comment on and create a specific type of intimacy. It is a multi-vocal piece, with Holly shifting the perspective from which she comments on and invests meaning in the story. The world created with Susan Kits involved a trust and commitment which is perhaps unique to the imaginations of children; through the description of the game (the actions of rearing, the construction and use of reins and so on) Holly captures both the level of immersion she and Susan had in their game, and the resonance that has for the narrating (adult) Holly. Through the figure of the teacher, Holly expresses her and the reader's projected dismay and shame at the game she played with Susan, reinforcing the teenage Holly's desire to vomit at the thought of her "horsey antics". Yet the narrating Holly remains defiantly detailed in her explanation of it, almost ritualising the exposure in the telling. In juxtaposing the consuming and supported intimacy she shared with Susan, with the brief and decidedly alienated sexual moment with Jim Kalisperis, Holly illustrates a disconcerting transition from the relationships of childhood to young adulthood, foregrounding the role of imagination in each; the child Holly imagines herself as a horse, intimately connected to Susan, following her by her smell, while the narrating Holly remembers an early sexual encounter and imagines that the speed with which Jim Kaliperis climaxed was somehow linked to his fantasy about having sex with the eighteen year old horse Holly, possibly the same girl who wished to vomit at the remembrance of the game.
These ruminations on intimacy produce their own intimate effect, on the opening page of Holly's zine one is taken immediately into her closest confidence. The confession that the teenage Holly "would almost vomit from shame" remembering the "horsey antics" she performed in primary school gives importance to the retelling of this memory. This is not a story that Holly would have told then, and through the imagined eyes of the teacher and the humiliated teenage Holly, the Holly of Nice #3 negates the reader's imagined scornful response to her story. Through the ritualised exposure in the story, Holly dares the reader to judge her, but knows that like Jim Kalisperis, Holly's shame might just be what attracts us to her and her zine. And she is right. The reader's first encounter with this story is often a mixture of shock and desire. (The majority of people whom I have shown this story have responded with a request to see the entire zine, and often more issues). Holly's introduction is an almost perfect textual teaser, playing on and exploiting the voyeuristic impulses of consuming autobiography and creating a charismatic mode of intimacy which not only promises more, but immediately welcomes the reader into her confidence. This confidence is not unconditional however, as Holly reserves the (authorial) right to anticipate reader response and beat them to the post of undermining that intimacy which her text creates. The narrating Holly pulls no punches in judging herself or her actions when she suspects that the reader may respond negatively to her story. Thus the strength of language and images utilised in the horse story - shame, hate, and freakishness.
While the story Holly tells might be unique, the strategies she uses to defuse and exert control over the intimate moment of remembering is a common element of life writing in zines. By mixing perspectives which simultaneously value what is being told and anticipate negative reactions, zines capture the anxiety of intimacy and reflect the different ways memories become text. Works Cited
Berry, Vanessa. I Am a Camera 7. Sydney, 2002.
Duncombe, Stephen. Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. London and New York: Verso, 1997.
Clunie, Moira. CHILD THAT MIND 1. Auckland, undated.
Driscoll, Catherine. 'Girl Culture, Revenge and Global Capitalism: Cybergirls, Riot Grrl, Spice Girls' in Australian Feminist Studies. v14 n29: 1999 p.179-180.
Esther. I think so' 2. Melbourne, undated.
Harris, Anita 'Is DIY DOA? Zines and the revolution grrrl style.' in White, Rob (ed.). Australian Youth Subcultures: On the margins and in the mainstream, Australian Tasmania: Clearinghouse for Youth Studies, 1999. pp 84-93.
Kuhn, Annette. Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. New York & London: VERSO, 1995. Marissa. My Life As A Mega-rich Bombshell 2. Brisbane, 1997.
Olney, James. 'The Ontology of Autobiography' in Olney, James (ed). Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton N.J: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Shorland, Holly. NICE 3. Melbourne, 2000.
Smith, Sidonie & Watson, Julia. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
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