A love letter to movie theater concession stands, Happy Meal toys, the meats of Memory Lane, the Girl Scout cookies of 1981. Cul-De-Sac #9 is all about the joys and pains, hilarity and heartache of loving food.
44 pages, half-letter size.
A levitation act. From Max Ernst's 1934 collage classic, A Week of Kindness or The Seven Deadly Elements.
Offset print, chipboard covers. 5" x 7.5", 50 pages.
In this issue of our favorite photography journal: so many wonderful photography series, one right after the other. This time, with several brief introductions from the photographers—a Cuban homeland diary, an abandoned Dead Sea-adjacent water park, the diverse narratives of Muslim women across Canada, a Medellín neighborhood, a tiny Rust Belt community, so much more.
With work from: Michelle Asci, Vivie Behrens, Frances Bukovsky, Frijke Coumans, John Darwell, Atefeh Farajolahzadeh, Jamil Fatti, Johnny Galvan, Kirra Kimbrell, Sebastián Castaño, Ospina Sergio Leyva Seiglie, Dana Stirling, Shelli Weiler, and Alia Youssef. Introductory essay by Andy Pham.
76 pages, full color. 6.5" x 8". First pressing of only 100. Buy Incandescent as a pack to save money and support the photo journal.
A pandemic short story about a lonely science teacher adopting stray animals, having distanced hook-ups, drinking beers in the park, watching planets align. As always with Tomas Moniz, it's a pleasure to read and finds a sweet, unexpected depth.
32 pages, half-letter size.
Rachel Lee-Carman's zines are, to me, the perfect manifestation of the potential inherent in zines. What can zines do that a mass-published book can't? Well, they can (like in this issue of The Thread) have pages you take out and fold to create mini zines within the larger zine. They can have a sheet of velum paper for you to write on and send to her to be part of a different zine. They can be full of sketchbook drawings and scrapbook photos, can break up stories in odd in interesting ways, have detailed (almost circular) instructions for making twine out of stinging nettles in the middle of the some really heartfelt writing. They can be wilder and freer and full of a raw life that gets edited out of 99% of books.
This issue of The Thread is an anniversary, of sorts. The 17th issue of a zine series Rachel Lee-Carman started 17 years ago when she was 17. It has meditations on keeping a journal, romantic friendships, the beauty and danger of rivers over the course of a lifetime, an imagined art show, three years of grieving a parent in a personal and atypical way, Pagan customs, food and poem pairings with Anis Mojgani, so much more.
40 pages, half-letter size.
Out this week! The third full-length from Pittsburgh songwriter Sara Renberg, Butch Spring is an album about being humbled by a mid-30s identity crisis, and the confusion and joy that results. These are songs about gender, queerness, and relationships that are both playful and analytical, full of both depth and absurdity.
The follow-up to her critically-adored 2018 release Night Sands, Butch Spring continues her reign of lyrically clever, emotionally resonant, scrappy indie rock songs that have earned her regular comparisons to Frankie Cosmos, Silver Jews, and The Mountain Goats. But the album also pushes her sound into new territory, with drop-tuned guitars, woodwinds, and surprise horn sections.
First printing on white cassettes with denim text and J-card art by Zoe Wodarz. Listen on Bandcamp.
Lewiston by the Sea is the fifth solo album from cultish noise-folk and post-rock weirdo Tucker Theodore. Originating from skeleton recordings made at the start of the pandemic—holed up in an apartment above a bottle exchange center, with just a cheap synth and a guitar—the album evolved through long-distance collaborations over the past year into a sprawling epic.
With vocal contributions from Madeline Johnston of Midwife, Colleen Johnson of Flying Circles, and Jeff Shannon of If It Ain't Breakfast Don't Fix It, among others, the album's 14 songs push and pull between narrators and tones, lyric-driven pieces and instrumentals, each song different than the last. Tracked and mixed between long days working his family farm, this is Tucker Theodore's biggest, wildest, and most multi-layered effort yet.
The first printing on white cassettes, with 5-panel J-Cards designed by photographer Anthony Rigano. Listen on Bandcamp.
Songwriter and poet Sara Renberg begins her zine series looking at the often-maligned solo career of former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus. Focusing on his 2001 solo debut (before officially becoming Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks), she takes us on a joyous song-by-song investigation of why people hate it and how much there is to love. It's a fun read, even if you don't know the album. Along the way, there's the end of Pavement, the making of Silver Jews' American Water, and life in Portland, Oregon.
The zine is also a personal journey of a rural kid in the big city, discovering indie music, coming out, and dating girls for the first time (all to the soundtrack of this album).
32 pages, half-letter size.
Created by Charles at Eberhardt Press as a way to keep track of and look for patterns within his own seizures, the My Seizure Diary notebook is a great tool for anyone suffering from seizures. With a beautiful design and a simple layout, the notebook is an easy way to jot down notes and observe potential triggers.
75 pages, 8.5" × 5.5". Offset-printed using reused and recycled materials.
Feeling it.
10.75" x 3", waterproof vinyl sticker.