Feminist Wife

I just read an article posted by Bust Magazine called “15 Ways to Have a Feminist Wedding”. Some of the points the author made did not pertain to me because the traditional wedding ritual in Israel is very different from the one in the States or other countries. The rest of the points I found to be complete and utter bullshit. So here is my response to all points:

Proposing is an equal opportunity event
My husband didn’t propose to me and I didn’t propose to him. One day we talked about it over dinner and just decided that this is what we’re gonna do.

An engagement ring for all or no one
I wanted a ring and he didn’t. Where is the problem?

Pass on the bride’s parents permission
If my husband had asked my dad if he could marry me, we would have had a good laugh. We’re not orthodox and we’re not in the 1950s. Nowadays, I doubt anybody does it in Israel.

Everyone pays for the wedding
Nope. My parents paid for the Hinna. My husband’s parents paid for the wedding.

It’s the groom’s day too
It’s also the day of the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom. We all planned the wedding together.

Invite men to the wedding shower
Showers are not a thing in Israel. Wedding showers or baby showers. So irrelevant.

Have diverse wedding parties
Not sure what she means by that… we had a surprise engagement party at Blaze and a Hinna. Neither of us had bachelor or bachelorette parties.

Drop the terms bridesmaid or maid of honor
Again, no such thing in Israel. My “maid of honor” was my dog.

Don’t let your father give you away
I wanted both my parents to walk me down the aisle. So that’s how it was. My parents walked me, and my husband’s parents walked him.

Ditch the garter and bouquet toss
Yet another tradition that is not practiced in Israel.

Cut a rug with any parent
Whatever you say dude. I’ll dance with anybody I want.

Name-change is a two-way street
That was the point that pissed me off the most. Name-change is anybody’s choice. I wasn’t going to make my husband change his name. And the reason I wanted to change mine was so that I could have the same family name as my fucking family! My husband and my kids will be Bar Lev. I want to be that too. What’s so wrong with that?

Ditch the term Mrs.
I’m not Mrs. or Ms. I’m giveret. So fuck you.

Replace the terms “husband” and “wife”
Yet another pisser-offer. I LOVE it when my husband calls me his wife (or rather isha) and I love referring to my husband as my husband (or rather baal). There is nothing that keeps my husband from using “isha” and “feministit” in the same sentence. Nothing wrong with it either.

Don’t let him carry you over the threshold
Not usually done in Israel. In fact, I don’t understand how anybody can do that. This is supposed to happen AFTER the wedding, right? When both of you are shitfaced and sore all over from dancing like maniacs. So how exactly can your husband carry you anywhere when he can hardly hold himself up? Ridiculous.

One of the comments on this article was “How to have a feminist wedding: Be a feminist. Have a wedding.”

Seriously. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Peace, love and next stupid article from Bust: “How to be a feminist mother”

 

 

I Kill With My Heart

Yes. I saw the Dark Tower movie yesterday. My husband and I bought the tickets for a ridiculous 62 NIS a piece, but the 4DX experience was worth it! It almost reminded me of the rides at Universal Studios.

Anyway, I went into it knowing pretty much what to expect. I knew the movie will reflect the book only by the title. I also knew that compressing seven longass volumes into a 90-minute feature is impossible which means that the story will be completely different. I mentally prepared myself by telling myself that I am going to watch a movie, not a Stephen King adaptation. And as a result, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Even more with the sensory experience provided by the moving platforms. There were also flickering lights whenever there was an explosion, plus winds from all directions whenever there was a shooting match. I felt as if the bullets were flying right by my head.

The story differs from the book mainly due to the reduced ka-tet. Roland was joined only by the boy Jake Chambers, and not by Eddie or Odetta/Detta/Susannah. It also differs in the sense that Roland’s quest was not to reach the tower and save it, but rather to kill the man in black.

The similarities include the gunslinger’s mantra repeated several times, the famous opening line of the book, the unfound doors (known in the movie as portals), todash darkness (in the movie, eternal darkness), all hail the Crimson King, long days and pleasant nights, the wizards crystals, all possessed by the man in black, and some other more minimal things. I also liked the overlaps with other SK books – a distinct SK trademark. Jake, for example, was a Dark Tower version of Danny Torrence, with a powerful shine. Also, there was a portal with the number 1408 written on top.

I found it amusing that while the book has Eddie describing Roland as “old, tall and ugly”, the movie has the man in black referring to him as “black, tall and handsome”.

With the bullets buzzing by my ears, this virtual rollercoaster ride quite literally blew me away. Stephen King fans should definitely check it out, but keep in mind that this is NOT the Dark Tower you know and love.

Peace, love and up next, IT!

Amon Amazing

Well, WordPress sucks dick. I just wrote a whole review of the show and it didn’t save my draft. So here it is again.

Aside from having a blast with IZM, I was set to have another blast with the Amon Amarth show in Israel.

On July 27, my husband removed the baby car seat from the back of the car, we picked up three of our Jerusalem metalhead friends, and dived into the so-humid-it’s-virtually-a-pool weather of Tel Aviv. The venue was small for the likes of Amon Amarth, but was bigger than I expected. The size of the stage and the way the crowd piled up all the way to the edge of it indicated that there would likely be no pyro-techs.

In a previous post, I wrote that there is no way that the band could reproduce the awesomemess of their Wacken performance, and I was right. But I also wrote that they would still deliver a kickass show, and I was right about that too.

The two performances cannot be compared – we’re talking about a gigantic stage in the open air with tens of thousands of German metalheads thrashing around, versus a small scale show, a small stage in a closed venue, with around 1100 people crammed inside, drenched in sweat.

But it’s Amon Amarth we’re talking about and they deliver. Johan’s vocals are second to none, the guitars and the melodies reproduced EXACTLY as they are in the records, with no stupid alterations of the solos as many artists tend to do in their live shows, no useless longass speeches between songs – only blasts of song after song after song, that kept me headbanging till my neck went limp, and screaming till my throat became all bloody.

I was delirious with joy. Every once in a while, when a song ended or began, I found myself laughing hysterically out of sheer pleasure. I was screaming, pumping fists, throwing up metal horns, and headbanging myself silly. I noticed a girl standing in front of me, looking back at me every once in a while with an expression that said “what the fuck are you doing?”

Well, to answer your question, I AM HEADBANGING MY BRAINS OUT, BITACH! How is it that you’re NOT?! Are you hearing this?!

So yes, Amon Amarth has that effect on me. And no lack of fireworks, or presence of a roof, or so much sweat on my face that my hair stuck to it, could ever change that.

The best thing about it, as my husband said, was the fact that after such a long time of being out of the metal scene, we were finally back in. With my pregnancy and the birth of our daughter, we couldn’t afford to have a night of good old sweaty screamy thrashy metal show like we’re used to. We attempted to go to metal shows and metal nights when I was pregnant, but I kept being paranoid about the cigarette smoke and the loud music that could harm my baby. And we simply could not enjoy the show. And now we’re back, and we went back into it with a live version Pursuit of the Vikings. Fucking A!

Peace, love and metalheads forever!

IZM 2017 Recap

This year’s International Zine Month almost didn’t happen. For the better part of the month, I was changing diapers and missing out on sleep while lamenting my lack of time to do any decent zine production. For the rest of the month, I was changing diapers and missing out on sleep, while trying my best to engage in zine-related activities and missing out on even more sleep.

Obviously, as I mentioned in a previous post, I couldn’t do all the activities listed for IZM, and unfortunately, I was also unable to do the 24-Hour Zine Thing. So instead I made a short list of activities I could probably do. Here’s what I managed to do with this year’s IZM:

Create a profile on the new We Make Zines website:
To be perfectly honest, I don’t like the new website. It doesn’t have as many options to edit the profile as the Ning one did. But I still created what minimal profile was allowed on the website, joined a few groups and added a few friends.

Read some of my unread zines that I got in trades:
I had a pile of them on my desk for further reading. Some of them were pretty good. But there were some that put me to sleep and gave me a headache. I struggled to keep reading them hoping that I might actually find something of interest in them, but I couldn’t do it. At some point, I just told myself, fuck it. If the zine doesn’t draw me in, I’ll just drop it and find something better to do with my time. I’m trying to find some place/zine library/people to send these zines to. I don’t generally like to throw zines away.

Send a few more zines to Quimby’s Bookstore:
They actually manage to sell some of my zines! And I recently asked my friend from Boston to send back to me all the leftover zines I sent there for the zine fest of 2015. So now that I had a bunch of extra copies, I decided to send some of them to Quimby’s. They were happy to restock them.

Revamp my Etsy shop:
There were a few edits I had to make for the items I posted, and add a new item (the full postcard collection of Alternative Jerusalem). I also edited some of the prices, amount of items in stock, and categories.

Set up an inventory system for all my zines:
I spent a whole day counting the copies of all my zines and postcards. I wrote it all by hand in a notebook but that proved to be a mistake whenever I reprinted an issue or sold some and the numbers had to be changed. So I took my notebook to work and set up a chart on Excel.

Send trading requests and trade:
I once traded with Katherine Montalto. She sent me some pretty cool zines plus a few small drawings she made. I loved her drawings so much that I decided to frame them and hang them in my daughter’s bedroom. I contacted her again this year and we agreed to trade again. I can’t wait to see what she sends me this time! I also contacted Xyendra Fragola and just recently sent them a couple of my zines. Xyendra and I have been in touch since 2004 through the defunct MSN Spaces (before it was taken over by Windows Live before it was taken over again by WordPress. This blog started off as an MSN Space). I followed Xyendra’s progress with IZM activities on Facebook and I’m excited to see what they’ll send me!

Make an attempt to write a full-length zine:
I actually got all the written part down for this zine. Unfortunately, I wrote it all on computer instead of by hand or typewriter as this would have taken me way too fucking long. Also, the subject matter of the zine is of a sensitive nature so it will not be published here or posted for sale on Etsy. I will share it with a few select people (you know who you are) once it’s laid out.

Design a catalog for my Etsy shop:
It took me much longer than I expected but I got it done! I’m very pleased with it. I will send it out along with zines sold or traded.

What I planned to do but didn’t manage was: Make a mini-zine, respond to penpal letters, and make a new logo/flyer for my Etsy shop. On the very last days of the month, I even came up with an idea for a stencil for a new patch. I drew the image with a sharpie, hoping to make it as thick as possible. My husband printed it on a transparency, and today I attempted to transfer it onto the exposure sheet. But it didn’t work. It could be that the artwork wasn’t dark enough or maybe the exposure sheet was too old. I ordered it sometime around summer of 2015. Just like camera film tends to expire, maybe the exposure sheet does too. So when I noticed it didn’t work, I made the drawing a little darker and thicker and ordered a refill of exposure sheets. I hope to be able to do the rest of the activities as well as try the stencils again during August or something.

Lack of sleep notwithstanding, I had a good time on IZM anyway. I loved having the chance to deal with zines, talk about zines, read zines, being somewhat artsy after a longass time of being completely out of the scene.

Peace, love and hoping for more extensive and intensive IZMs in future years.

Messy Catalog

One of the activities I had lined up for International Zine Month was to design a catalog for my Etsy shop, PMS Mess.

I compiled all the photos of my zines and descriptions and tried to figure out how to organize it all by hand. I wanted the catalog to be all cut and paste and look pretty much like my perzine does. But every time I tried to see how to make the modules fit, my mind kept coming up with ideas that would only work with Adobe InDesign.

The descriptions are all computerized. If I want it manual, I would have to copy it all by hand or typewriter. Imagine how wonderfully bruised up my hands would be if I had to copy the descriptions for 16 issues of Fallopian Falafel, 13 issues of PMS, 8 postcards, plus several care packages. Imagine how long it would take me. I much rather use that time to make an actual zine.

That’s besides the fact that I would have to organize it in a way that would incorporate photos and backgrounds. Huge headache.

So InDesign it is. I used that program to lay out my first zine, Fallopian Falafel, and I was very happy with the result every time a new issue came out. I remember compiling all the submissions and laying them out one by one, playing around with the formatting and fonts, having an awesome time. The sense of accomplishment and elation was immediate and I would lose track of time every time I laid out a new issue.

This time was no different. After my husband took the baby to daycare, I spent the rest of my morning working on the catalog. I didn’t get very far because I spent quite a bit of time figuring out what I wanted to have on the cover and went back and forth between Photoshop and InDesign, setting the background, choosing the right font, changing it around until I was happy with it.

Again, just like it was with Fallopian Falafel, I had a blast and lost track of time.

“It’s already 11:00!” I exclaimed. “Fuck you clock!”

I only got to the 9th issue of FF, but since I have the margins down, it’s all Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V from now on.

Peace, love and InDizzy

ZZZZZines

It doesn’t matter how tired I am, if I’m busy enough at work, I don’t feel it until I leave the office. So I don’t know what happened yesterday because I was rather busy at the office but kept falling asleep. I fell asleep while writing an email, dreamt that I am still writing the email and then woke up to find the email empty. I fell asleep while updating a document. I would open the documents folder, fall asleep, then wake up, try to figure out what it was that I wanted to do, then fall asleep again.

I’m sorry if you’re falling asleep reading this post but here is where it gets exciting.

This morning I said “FUCK THIS TIRED SHIT! I slept just fine last night. So, dear bed, you’re not winning this round. No naps for this badass today.” And I proceeded to do an IZM activity!

I spent a hearty two hours organizing my entire zine inventory, including all my Fallopian Falafel issues, all my PMS issues, all random mini zines and post-its zines, all my fliers, postcards, patches, pins and assorted DIY junk. My fingers got all dusty and I felt so accomplished after that and I didn’t even feel a hint of fatigue. I hope that as the month progresses, this new order that I now have on my zine shelf will inspire me to design a catalog and maybe even write a new zine.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love sleeping. LOVE IT! But not as much as I love IZM!

Peace, love and zine is for zombies.

Mini IZM 2017

Seeing as I have to share my identity as a zinester with my identity as a mother, I am unable to do all the activities of International Zine Month as I have in previous years. And I am certainly not able to do the 24-hour zine thing because that would involve missing out on even more hours of sleep than I already am. So that kinda sucks.

But since I do have some free mornings to engage in a few zinester activities, I decided to go IZM Lite. Here are a few things I have done and will do this month:

1. Create a profile on the new We Make Zines website.
2. Read some of the unread zines I keep in a pile on my desk.
3. Send a few more copies of my zines to Quimby’s Bookstore.
4. Revamp my Etsy shop
5. Make a minizine or two
6. Make an attempt to write a full-length zine
7. Respond to penpal letters I also keep in a pile on my desk
8. Set up an inventory system for all my zines and maybe make a catalog
9. Make a new logo/flyer for my Etsy shop
10. Send trading requests

Aside from that, I also made my first minizine last week! I was so happy to be zinestering again that it didn’t matter that the zine is small, contains little text and took only a couple of days to make. I was just happy to finally do something crafty with my hands. And of course, I had to make it about what has been going on in my life, so I made it about pregnancy.

I hope that in the future, once my daughter learns how to hold a crayon, we can make some zines together!

Peace, love and zine magic