cut, copy, paste, fold, staple (The Zine)

The Zine is dead. You know that. Blogs are dead (or dying). You might also know that. I know this because everything dies. I'm also in a strange mood because I've been reading Al Burian the past few days. 

But, alas, the zine is dead and that saddens me. I wonder if that's attributed to our ever - shortening attention span. (Thank you Internet.) Why take the time to cut, copy, paste, fold, staple when I can post to to Tumblr? And in color! 

I can relate to the notion that a piece digitized writing reduces the carbon foot print made on Earth; but, as most readers might agree, there is something different about reading from ink and paper as opposed to pixels. Some might even say that it changes their perception of what they are reading! Personally, upon rereading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, my perceptions of Verne changed. Whether the cause was rereading it electronically or rereading it with six more years of life experience, I still managed to take something out of it. 

Regardless, I wish there was something I could do. Maybe it's time I cut, copy, paste, fold, staple something together. I have some card stock lying around. My long reach stapler hasn't seen the light of day in over three years. 

When I was in college, I used to travel to different Barnes and Noble and/or Borders book stores and stick copies of drive and Bonfire Establishment in between softcover copies of Slaughterhouse Five or Hairstyles of the Damned, among other literary greats. That was before people stopped going to the bookstore to buy books (thank you Amazon). I always wondered how long it took employees to find and discard my zines.

Now, I barely have time to write things - let alone publish them. Being a teacher and a coach takes a lot of time. Your thoughts are spewed unto the universe and then erased forever. You spend hours grading papers and writing lesson plans and planning practices and driving to various large buildings. You don't have time to cut, copy, paste, fold, and staple; irregardless of however badly you want to. Your words are electronic. The air is thick. And the zine is dead.

Screw that, I'm going to put out a zine in the spring - 2015. And it'll be called "cut, copy, paste, fold, staple."