The collecting continues...

Hey you ragged rascals, you!

While you`re all no doubt sweating profusely, shirts and dresses sticking to your backs in our summer heat, sitting impatiently waiting for some news, here I sit, cold as ice in Ireland, with the juice at my fingertips.

Today, or tomorrow, or even the day after that... I will be meeting up with the ladies of BabyBEEFheart, here in Dublin, to swap zines and have a look at what`s coming out on this side of the world. AND I`ve saved some room in my gigantic pack to bring them home for our relaunch party, set to happen early next year.

Maybe I`ll even stick up some pics for you all to salivate over. Further updates soon! If you know of any zines or have one youd like to contribute, as always, email littlebeatszines@gmail.com.

BLOCK LAUNCH

Everybody's favourite Canberran literary anthology is launching its ninth edition this month!

WHEN: 6pm, Thursday 19 November.
WHERE: Smith's Alternative Bookshop, 76 Alinga St, Canberra City.

I'm told there will be wine, cheese, music, and Susan Hampton. Oh Em Gee.

Today is the day you become a man/woman/fully fledged zine distro

it's unlikely there'll be any capitals in this post. not because i think i'm e.e cummings but i'm so darned tired. until the late hours of last night I was lucky enough to:

hang a giant, gold guilded frame and watch ladies walk out of it

raise a checkerboard catwalk for aforementioned ladies to walk on

hang some fairy lights

price and tag some truly beautiful artwork

watch my old pal hubbo fall into a women's rack of clothing

AND

(see i put in effort there.) check, recheck, fold, stack, lie down, prop up, arrange, rearrange and finally repack all the delightful zines we will have for tonight. yep, they're tucked up tight in boxes all numbered and waiting for you to get your hands onto them. so do just that, tonight at:

itrip iskip, Lonsdale Street, Braddon. 6pm onwards.

National Poetry Slam

WORD UP:

"The National Library of Australia is calling all poets, hip-hop artists and outspoken wordsmiths to polish their rhymes and lyrics for the Australian Poetry Slam ‘09, an annual slam contest offering over $20 000 in cash and prizes. Speak, scream, howl, whisper or sing your original poem at the Australian Poetry Slam ‘09 ACT heats, an electric live event where the audience is judge!

The ACT winner and runner-up will take home $500 and $100 respectively and compete for the Australian Poetry Slam ’09 national title in Sydney on 3 December. The national winner will receive $5 000 and a gig at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali in 2010.

*Please be prepared to perform two poems in the event of a tied result.

Friday 6 November, 6 pm

Foyer National Library of Australia

Free

Entrants must register by calling (02) 6262 1271.

For more information go to:

www.australianpoetryslam.org"




Do it. We all want Canberra to win again, thanks.

Spring fling and random acts of kindness

Ahh spring time. It's suddenly warm, girls stop wearing stockings, men shape their beards into moustaches, more and more bicycles can be seen, and the air is filled with a million varieties of blossom and other seeds to make you sneeze your brains out into a tissue. Perfect time to launch Little Beats? I like to think so.

Yesterday, while delightfully springlike, was possitively shit. Lately I've been receiving a lot of parcels (having five days of the flu and no parcels last week has been a bit of a downer) and with the Little Beats launch being next Friday, or as I like to think about it, really fucking soon, I've been more stressed than a high flying economist called Chuck working on Wall Street. So many zines to wait on, so little time, etc etc. These first world problems dragged my spring spirit to the gutter yesterday.

When I arrived to my local cafe last night and realised they had no tea I wanted (seriously what tea house is out of five varieties!?) I was so angry. God I was angry. I just wanted to push over a table and scream obscenities right then and there. And I would have, had Gemma not arrived in time. Thankfully she was prompt and laden with parcels. MORE Dilettantes; a delightfully packed parcel all the way from Dublin and the ladies of BabyBEEFheart and the Nicholas Chalmers pack...

It was incredibly well wrapped, almost too well wrapped, but thanks to this creative gent I spent the next hour of tea popping bubble wrap under the table while thoughtfully saying "yeah, of course... oh totally... I understand.. You can't sweat it Gem" and other phrases of deep meaning. Our poster also got some prime real estate at afore mentioned cafe, which is someone to smile about. (It's at Essen... infront of all the empty jars of tea.)

After passing on my internet pearls of procrastination wisdom to Gemma I got home only to find one giant box filling up my entryway, all the way from New York and stuffed full of Wooooo mags. They cost me a fair bit, let's say at least three gallery visits on a pending trip to Europe; and they have finally arrived. The highlight and initial reason for writing this rambling post is to say thanks Wooooo friends for not only packing it so nicely, but also for including one of your t-shirts. On my looming European cold-as-hell nights, I hope it will keep me warm. God know's Keifer's nut sack won't.

What will Little Beats give you for free? A nice paper bag for your purchases. Gemma might offer you a hug but I probably won't. Do I look like one of those putzes in the street wearing a sign saying "free hugs"? Don't answer that if you were going to say "yes". We'll also give you some of our free zines. Sure we'd like you to buy some, but if you don't we'll just remember you as stooges and point you out viciously on the street and push you off your bike; because we're those kind of people.

CIT Zine Exhibition

Hey guys,

I recently received an email from Bernie, a teacher at CIT, telling me about an upcoming exhibition involving zines, art and creative writing. Students have made zines in response to work from creative writing students. In turn, the writing students have responded to paintings made by the art students.

The exhibition is on Wednesday Oct 28, 6pm, in L Block (near the side carpark) of Reid Campus CIT. All work will be on show, and students will be selling their zines to raise money for their end of year exhibition. All are welcome to come for celebratory drinks with the artists.

Sounds like a bit of fun!

Be there or be square

Another exciting installment... our launch poster. Thanks x100 million to George for making this marvellous spectacle.

The stunning picture up the top is by Benzen, who we blogged about earlier. I hope you're jittering!

Mm-hmm! Gimme some o' dat shoo-gar!

... or something.


CALLING ALL CANBERRAN ZINESTERS:
You should stock your tidy little zines with us, thanks. We will put them on a nice table, in a nice place, all to ensure that only nice people may touch them.

Contact us at: littlebeatszines@gmail.com and we'll start talks.

Yes please, spread the word.

Zine freaks, music geeks and fashion treats

Pretty little pictures and other things to bust your head open

A lot has happened in the past week to make Gemma and I very excited. One thing that always gets me excited is top fives. Generally my top fives can be about anything and always relate back to High Fidelity (fuelling my love of Nick Hornby and John Cusack) but a top five of Little Beats updates is certain to get my heart palpitating way more than a morning coffee ever could*. So here we go...
1. We have a launch party and a wild old party to partake in. Little Beats is coming into the world as part of Grass Stains 2 at itrip iskip on Friday 30 October. Keep your eyes peeled for more deets.

2. I met with two lovely artists last week that are donating their time and talent to Little Beats:
George Edwards is a local lady, who if you don't know, you should try to. She draws magical animals, amongst other things and is seriously lovely. George is making the posters you'll be seeing around town real soon.
Ben Wright is from Melbourne and draws pictures that could make you jitter until the cows come home. As it happens I don't have any cows, but I jitter away nonetheless. Ben is illustrating our business cards (aren't we the young professionals!) and website images. When they're up, I hope you jitter along too.

3. The amazing letterbox at my new abode is so well designed that when it rains and hails like it did earlier in the week, your future zines are not damaged. Whoever designed it is a construction genius.

4. About 90% of the zines have arrived. I keep getting them out and spreading them around on my floor each night, a mechanism for harnessing my excitement.

5. To get you in on the hype, I've taken some pictures for you to have a look at...

I'm not sure what it is I like about Dilettantes and the Heartless Manipulator the most; it could be it's pocket size, or the unforgettable mouthful of a name it carries, maybe the musical odysseys each issue takes you on, but I think I love it most because it's totally free. Spurzine also makes D90; a zine totally dedicated to the world of cassettes.

This assortment comes from Sydney's tinypaperhearts and are all rather addictive. So far Newdel and Rose (middle, top row) takes my prize for favourite, but I need to give the others a read.

Of course we're not going to show you what's in the flaming red envelopes**, but I've had a sneak and can confirm Dollzine's excellence.


These zines hold a special place for Little Beats, as they were the first we ever received. Ex.a.sketch is a bunch of Adelaide's creatives who get together every now and then, scribble their hearts out for an evening and create this zine.

This novel sized number is one to really get excited about. All the way from NYC, comes Wooooo Mag (that's five o's). Learn all about Keifer Sutherland's testicular heroin addiction, everything that rhymes with Jerry Hsu, and put it down only when you're completely broken from laughing or crying. Both are totally acceptable.

*The top five has not been ranked from most exciting to least exciting or vice verca. It's all pretty exciting.

** Could be a howler from Mrs Weasley.

*** I promise to find a word to replace my overuse of 'exciting/excited/excitement etc etc. I'll also stop making starred footnotes.

Okay, well, it's time to accept defeat and do some work for the day. More tasty morsels to come***. Have a lovely weekend friends x

Second post

And so, I am feeling the need to join my faithful companion in the excitement that is Little Beats.

If you know of any zines you like or even if you have any, send them on through to us and we'll see what magic can be created. 

Photos of our ever expanding collection will be up shortly so hold tight. 

xx night zinesters 

first post

Har har, here it is.

Number one. Expect others.


Little Beats is Katy and Gemma. We live in Canberra. We collect zines. We know other people like us in Canberra who collect zines. We even know people who secretly make them. Let's bring this all together. Let's get everyone to be friends and make and swap and collect zines. Okay? Cool.


I'll write more when I'm more lucid. I think the bright fluorescent lights at work are numbing the brain. My brain, that is.


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