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Sunday 23 March 2014

Zine Fair

The venue, Gorman House, Canberra City
The first load of typewriters
For me, a highlight of the day was being able to catch up again with Eloise Peace, who as co-ordinator of the Sticky Institute in Melbourne was the organiser of the unforgettable, magnificent "I Am Typewriter" Festival in February 2011. I hadn't seen Eloise since then, as because of the ludicrous short-sightedness of Victorian authorities, funding was withdrawn and Eloise now works elsewhere.
Eloise gave me her latest zine (about her visit to Canberra), and, as a reward for Charlie the Typewriter Guard Cat's patience and dedication to his duties in my absences during this Zine Fair weekend, a zine about a cat which went into space.
The Sticky Institute representatives, meanwhile, gave me a zine about an Olivetti and Canberra Zine Emporium Collective organiser Natalie a zine about her feelings on living in Canberra:
I, of course, had struck yet another T-shirt for the occasion.
Richard Polt observed in a comment on the Zine Fair Pecha Kucha post last night that the Australian zine culture appeared to be alive and well. That was very evident today. The large crowds arrived early and the numbers didn't start to thin out until the fair ended some six hours later.
The Corona 3 had been bought from me right at the start of the fair and was very promptly put back on display at another stall.
At my table, the Underwood USB portable was a constant source of interest, but no buyers! This young man tried it out, looked closely at how it was done, photographed how it was done, looked up USB typewriters on the Internet on his iPhone, and was photographed photographing it!
I did make some sales, however, and as typewriters went, other typewriters were moved in:
On ya bike, fella, with nine typewriters still to sell!

6 comments:

Nat said...

Looked like heaps of fun Robert! I wish there were more arty festivals here, but I'll just swim in utter jealously for now :p

Miguel Chávez said...

I spy a certain "Irish" Remington on the table. Great machines!

Ted said...

Selling at a zine fair, awesome idea! Hope you got enough sales to make it worth your while (:

Bill M said...

Looks like a much more active Zine community than here. Then there is not much of anything here. I hope you had a great time and sold your typewriters.

Don Lampert said...

Looks like a lovely setting for it! Re-introducing the world - one typewriter at a time. What fun!

Marilyn said...

Hi Robert, looked like a great day. Did you catch that young fellow's lovely photos on Facebook? Adam Thomas is his name and he is an excellent photographer. If you haven't seen the photos of yourself and your typewriters, then go look here:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=384021428406691&set=pcb.384021518406682&type=1&theater

Cheers, Marilyn J.