“Don’t you hate it when you have this zine crush, and they’re dating someone who doesn’t even make zines. Like, long-term dating. It’s so perplexing. You want to appeal to their sense of reason: Think of all the creative things we could be sharing. Writing letters to faraway friends, as we sit across from one another at the coffee shop. Or taking turns flipping over the record, as we create a cut n’ paste mess in the dining room. We could be so right together. Why are you with someone who owns an Xbox?”— “For K.” (from Zine Crush) oh. ow. none of the people I’ve ever long-term dated have been zinesters, & it has sometimes made me sad. and my current long-term honey doesn’t own an Xbox, but he sure does watch a lot of TV.
Strongly disagree! This excerpt is cute & all, and I get it — it reminds me a lot of bemoaning the punk boys’ penchant for dating “preppy girls” when I was in high school, and how that used to be so sad and confusing to me.
But in my own experience, I completely treasure and require the solitude of writing, whether it’s zines, letters, or otherwise — it’s something that is truly mine, and even within a mostly happy, functional, monogamous commitment, there are still important things I gotta keep for myself, navigating interpersonal boundaries & stuff… Plus I like that my significant-dude doesn’t do zines or blogs because rather than having a potential co-author, I have a round-the-clock editor who can look at my material with somewhat fresh eyes — at least, fresh in the sense of not knowing ‘bout zine and blog “styles” and tropes, so in that sense his input is more valuable to me for the content and writing itself. Even when I co-wrote zines with some of my best ladyfriends, the actual writing we did separately, privately, and then came together to collaborate on furious and brutally honest editing, layout, and collating sessions.
I’ve mostly dated artistic types and I like that while our creative interests sometimes intersect (writing and printmaking, music and photography) and overlap (in varying degrees of skill), we’re not always just doing the same thing… so there’s this “creative activity” part of the relationship where we can go and make some things individually and then discuss/edit together (“wanna see this thing I did?”) and then sometimes collaborate based on what we’re better at (can you draw some pictures for my zine? can you take some photos for my album liner notes? etc.) and I like those times a lot because of the interplay of experience & inexperience. Having a non-writer critique my stuff is important because I’m not just writing for other writers… so it’s important for me to get an idea about whether or not I’m communicating effectively before I go out and make a hundred copies. And with me being a not-so-serious musician (but a great music-appreciator) I can offer enough knowledgeable input on my dude’s recordings to talk about whether it’s good or needs work. Sometimes it’s like the level of trust we have personally and the levels of inexperience we have with each other’s creative specialties, make for a relatively safe zone for non-hurtful but honest feedback.
& as for the TV/xBox thing, it’s funny, ‘cause my dude spends a lot of time watching TV (or youtubes/netflix) & rarely, like, reads books… which was at first shocking to me BUT later I decided I was being an arrogant smartypants jerk. He doesn’t enjoy reading very often (which, okay, is still shocking to me), but he watches things — whether it’s historical documentaries or the weather channel or Judge Judy or failblog — in a very active, thoughtful, criticizing manner, and learns a lot and bring a lot to the conversational table, from this medium that I’m just not that into. & it ends up being way cool and thought-provoking to me that we can have a discussion about seemingly trite shows like Cheaters and To Catch a Predator and end up relating it to ideas about entrapment, voyeurism, privacy, some academic/philosophical essays on morality and lying that I’ve read, relationships, etc.
I mean I’m not personally partial to TV/screen media for reasons (see obviously, Marshall McLuhan, Gerry Mander, & um, Adbusters, CrimethInc., et al) but it is nonetheless a method of transmitting information. I don’t think it always by default makes or requires the viewer/consumer to be dumb and passive — it’s what you do with it. I mean watching The X-Files together during rainy days sometimes was admittedly a fun bonding moment. Shit, watching Married with Children like, helps improve our relationship, to a certain, humorously sarcastic extent.
PS - Jess, btw, I’m not tryna argue with your own comment/sentiment, just felt compelled to Have an Opinion about the quote since it gave me a good excuse to blag about this stuff. I love writing about ~the creative process~ and also media consumption, but I always feel like a big-headed jerk when I get on a soapbox without the excuse of a relevant prompt. :P So thanks for the post!
