Tag Archives: Sticky Institute

distinctly not sunshine & lollipops atm

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zine: Chips III: A Tale of Lust (creator not specified) $3 AUD from Sticky Institute

drink: Sunshine & Rainbows Tahitian Lime (3.8%, 375mL can) by Boatrocker Brewing Co. (Braeside, VIC)

music: The Prepared Piano by Hauschka (it’ll become obvious why I chose this…)

This might be the first time I’ve posted since the new year, which is BAD. I’ve deliberately set myself the goal of only doing these once a fortnight, but I got a lot of work over the 2018-9 festive season, and moved house, and seem to constantly be plagued by panic attacks…it’s been happening for the last month or so. When driving, when practising piano, when waking up, when showering. There doesn’t seem to be much behind why. I got desperate enough that not only have I been on my psych’s waiting list for a month (earliest appointment was early March), I actually called my parents to ask for their advice (which didn’t really help, sigh).

But focus on today, the now. It was the first time in a while where I cooked (had a panic attack while doing it), read heaps (forced my brain to comprehend words), tried to work on a bunch of overdue reviews (that hasn’t been happening thanks to the awful stuff in the media at the moment in which we learn that Catholicism is indeed evil, no surprise there). And yes, I’ve cheated for this and am reviewing a super-short zine.

Chips III: A Tale of Lust is most definitely not safe for work, but it is hilarious (coincidentally, at work this week, I set a writing exercise where we wrote about birds arguing over a chip in the park! It sounds like something they’d do!). Two bird-men sit on a couch and eat chips and lust after pictures of women or something (token ‘straight people are weird’ comment: here). I think if I were a bird, I’d be most likely lusting after chips? They’re pretty bloody delicious.

If you’re reading this on Patreon, then you should be viewing a photo of my beer notes in a Field Notes notebook, with a handmade beer reviewing stamp (decorated with a Pilot Frixion beer stein one!) right about now.

So…the beer, it is like drinking fizzy, wonderfully flavoured water. I picked this one to drink tonight purely on its cheer-up can graphics. The lime is really lovely; it really does smell like the kind of lime note you’d expect in a bespoke or niche fragrance – super-floral for lime or citrus, rather than zesty or tart as the can notes say.

The piano belongs to the old housemate whose room I took, and I’ve been practising on it while waiting for tea to brew or for the kettle to boil! It’s kind of hilarious when you’re playing beautiful Bach chord progressions on a horrendously out-of-tune piano, but beggars…choosers etc.

black and white and burnt around the edges

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zine: Lin-Manuel Miranda Eldritch Erotica by Black Book Shoppe

drink: T2 crème brûlée black tea (with milk, and sweetened with maple syrup)

At the beginning of the year, there was a zine fair in one of the rooms at the State Library, and I bought a bunch of zines which I then packed goodness-knows-where but have recently unearthed as my unpacking and organising has gradually occurred over the months between bouts of transferring what has been read to shelves, and so on.

The ‘Eldritch Erotica’ zine series is one of a few available from Black Book Shoppe (though their online shop is closed at present). If you’re a Melburnian, I’m pretty sure you can find it at Sticky Institute, if you ask the folks there nicely!

So…you’re on a choose-your-own-adventure date with Lin-Manuel Miranda. You choose to explore an abandoned theatre. Being the orchestra nerd that I am, I can’t pass up the temptation to explore the orchestra pit in said theatre. There’s broken music stands around, and a very out-of-tune piano which we start to play together. It’s a pretty eerie, spooky setting, but definitely a memorable date! You slip into the wings ahead of Lin, and play hide-and-seek for a bit before kissing. We find a trapdoor, which he opens and we go down a ladder into a basement. He is humming loudly, and you join in, and he then seduces you. You try to ask about scars on his face, but you’re breathless.

You can’t seem to recover your breath post-passionate dalliance, and he comes close to you again, and you die swiftly.

***

I let my T2 tea brew for far longer than the 3-5 minutes suggested because I love ridiculously strong tea, but somehow have still managed to add too much milk! I used maple syrup instead of sugar because I didn’t want to wrestle with the honey dispenser, and the whole combo ended up smelling and tasting pretty damn delish. I would get tea flavour again! It’s good that they also seem compostible – sometimes, teabags have a staple or aren’t fully biodegradable. One mug feels like a damn tease, which incidentally fits the zine’s theme above pretty well!

analogue Feltron report?

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I’m sure all you hip cats are familiar with the Feltron reports, these amazing records of beauty that makes Percy Grainger look sane. Grainger was an obsessive saver and chronicler of his life (it’s myth but the rumour that his cancerous balls preserved in formalin exist somewhere in the Grainger Museum on the Parkville Campus of Melbourne University – dream large guys!). As part of one compulsory musicology subject I took, it required working at the Grainger Museum and doing some Grainger-related research.

One afternoon, I was present when a fifty-year old archive box was emptied out. A small object was wrapped in tissue paper and very carefully unwrapped.

It turned out be a fifty-year-old piece of chocolate bitten into by Grainger’s mother. You could see her teethmarks. Macabre and yet fascinating.

So Feltron ain’t got nothing on him, though we all too can keep similar such statistics by using Daytum. I use Daytum like a mofo but only have displays of things like what I read for public show.

The following zinester, Deth P. Sun of Berkeley, CA has made a zine that to me was what I imagine an analogue Feltron report to look like – it is an obsessive document from September 2009 to February 2010 chronicling what the author has eaten in illustrated form. Both obsessive, a little unsettling and inspiring an odd sort of protectiveness for someone I don’t know and will never ever meet.

In some sort of solidarity, I thought it’d be fun to post partial contents of the pantry of the place I currently call home. Getting a glimpse into a bad cookie-foodie’s pantry is a bit…confessional. Try not to judge me…too harshly.

The Various Things I Eat zine

So is the zine any good? Yes! The illustrations while candid are adorable and carefully drawn and it’s pretty text-sparse given it’s a visual record. See below for an example of a page that typically outlines the author’s consumption which begs some assumptions and questions – he does not really eat that much, or dine out a lot. It makes me wonder just how much this reveals about the author – is he not affluent or struggles financially? Is he not fond of dining out? Does he (and this is uttered in genuine concern) have issues with eating and perhaps not eat as much as he should?

The Various Things I Eat zine, detail

It’s a bit of a different story when he’s on what looks to be holidays and I confess I am relieved to see a lot more entries for the days on the following page.

The Various Things I Eat zine, detail

An utterly charming zine, purchased at zine Mecca Sticky Institute in the Degraves St subway (conveniently located across from Cup of Truth, mmm…). I did buy it a while back for $4 so it might not be around anymore but I highly recommend it if you can find it.

The Various Things I Eat zine, back

It’s a really meticulous, intimate snapshot into an artist’s life and particularly commendable is the zinester really putting themselves out there for intense scrutiny. That often makes for the best art, would you not agree?