BACKBONE Issue #1, 2021 The Uncelebrated Stories of Asian American Mothers & Daughters

Pary Chuong, Editor. Published by the Backbone Project, [Oakland, CA], 2021, first edition, first issue. Illustrated wraps, staple bound, 8.5" x 5.5", 63 pages, illustrated throughout with color drawings, collages, and photographs. NEAR FINE Condition: slight front edge creep (front page edges not flush) otherwise, tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Uncommon, none in OCLC collections worldwide.

"Backbone was inspired by a vision that calls on recognizing the complexities in the relationship between mothers and daughters, from 1st generation to 6th generation Asian American women. This zine shines light on the importance of speaking our truth by honoring our mothers to heal and move forward with love, forgiveness and compassion. With that vision, we sparked a collective of women who come from all walks of life. The uniquely written pieces, enchanting photographs and amazingly crafted artwork that are showcased in this zine, invite us to explore and to be curious about the diverse relationships we have with our care-takers, whether it be our mothers or grandmothers or sisters or friends." Pary Chuong

FALSE POSITIVE Donna Kossy, [Editor]. Published by Out-of-Kontrol Data Korporation, San Francisco and Massachusetts, 1984-1988.

Four original issues, of the eleven print run, of this elusive 1980s fringe culture underground zine by Discordian satirist Donna Kossy:

#1 Technology Issue, 1984; #5 Food and Drugs Issue, 1986; #7 Generic Issue, 1987; #11 The Last Issue [Art & Ladies], 1988. Vintage first editions, side staple bound, 8.5" x 11" xeroxed sheets, each cover is an original color xerox collage by Kossy, illustrated throughout. Contributors include: Tuli Kupferberg, Hakim Bey [Peter Lamborn Wilson], Bob Black, Ace Backwords, and Pagan Kennedy. Four issues in VERY GOOD Condition: staples oxidizing but holding, issue #1 with two light horizontal creases from folding, overall bright, clean and unmarked.

In 1984 Donna Kossy launched False Positive (1984-1988) a self published zine that delved into obscure and unconventional ideas, establishing her interest in documenting societal outliers. She released a total of 11 issues between 1984 and 1988, each spanning 20-32 pages, blending visual experimentation with textual excerpts from unconventional sources. An archive of fringe culture filled with eccentric personalities and belief systems documenting fringe thinkers, cultural oddities, Discordian ideologies, pseudoscience, conspiracy theorists and profiling "Kooks" who espoused extreme, aberrant and discredited viewpoints. The zine employed xeroxed and stapled production methods, emphasizing the punk counterculture DIY aesthetics typical of 1980s underground publishing.

Donna Kossy (b.1957) is an American writer, zine publisher, and independent researcher specializing in fringe science, pseudohistory, and extreme ideas dismissed by mainstream academia.

Italian punk emerged in 1980, a raw, anti establishment movement deeply tied to music and zines. The Parma punk movement was defined by no future nihilism, political rage, and anti fascist tension.

PUSHE 27. PUSHER ART IMAGE. Anno 1 Numero 1. Self published in Parma, Italy, [1981]. First issue of this pioneering Italian Punk Zine from Parma. Illustrated covers, side staple bound, 13" x 9.25", 32 pages, illustrated throughout with black & white comix, photos, and existential graphics, includes articles on the local underground music scene, David Bowie, Lindsay Kemp, DADA, New Atomic Generation, and Peter Gabriel. Text in Italian. Only four issues were published between 1981 and 1984. VERY GOOD Condition: some wear/creasing to the spine margins, lightly bumped corners, light foxing to rear cover, internally, light signs of age/use overall tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Scarce.

Lindsay Kemp was a legendary British dancer, choreographer, and mime artist who served as a mentor, muse, and lover to a young David Bowie. He fundamentally shaped Bowie's theatricality, stagecraft, and the creation of his iconic Ziggy Stardust persona.

Here is a translation of the opening poem, I think Wednesday Addams would approve:

"cursed children, prisoners of the city, in search of an impossible and disturbing panism like askaris reflecting on the desert sand cursed children groping in a poem of alien images listening to the wind on an Irish cliff crazy stories of a life that has nothing congenial about it except exasperation and the languid memory of belle époques that perhaps never existed light ghosts that torment your being proud victors of their own battles... or eternal losers! splendid corpses that levitate in their violet dimension, in their tormented underground anguished figures in constant search of the transcendental being...... Pushers live in a violet circus"

SHRED OF DIGNITY SKATERS' UNION RAGAZINE #< Tom Jennings, Editor. Published by Shred of Dignity, San Francisco, 1988. First edition. Tabloid, 17" x 11", 20 pages, illustrated in b&w throughout. VERY GOOD Condition: folded as issued, light age toning, small chip at top of spine fold, the folding is a bit off and the pages are not quite flush, otherwise, bright, clean, and unmarked. Scarce.

Shred of Dignity Skaters' Union Ragazine was a San Francisco skateboarding queer punk zine. This jumbo issue was published in the fall of 1988 after over a year of preparation.

The Shred of Dignity Skaters' Union was a radical pioneering San Francisco skater rights group formed in the mid 1980s to combat citywide bans on skateboarding. Arising from the skater punk and queer punk scene they united skateboarding, punk rock, DIY and social resistance. It was formed by Tom Jennings, Duke Crestfield, and Shawn Ford after City supervisors banned skateboarding on the streets of San Francisco. They overturned the bans by organizing a loose network of skaters, punks, and anarchists to defend their interests and engage in political street activism. Functioning as both a skater's rights group and a creative collective, the Shred of Dignity Skaters' Union rented a warehouse on Shipley Street in 1988, creating a "warehousehold" which served as a counterculture living, working, making and organizing space for queer punks and activists. The collective was involved in many local underground experimental scenes including 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley. Two seminal underground queer punk zines emerged from the Shred of Dignity collective, Shred of Dignity Skaters' Union Ragazine and HOMOCORE.

LIFE IS FREE, Volume 0, Number 0, Winter 1988

A unique zine detailing the Philadelphia Squatter Scene. Published by [Karen Eliot] c/o The Wooden Shoe, Philadelphia 1988. Karen Eliot, Editor. Underground Anarcho-Squatters' Newsrag, softcover tabloid, printed on newsprint, 17" x 11.5", 8 pages, illustrated throughout with b&w drawings and collages, includes illustrated instructions for building a stove for your squat. VERY GOOD CONDITION: solid, bright, clean, and unmarked. Scarce, only four copies located in OCLC collections worldwide.

An underground zine made by and for anarchist squatters, filled with guidance on how to squat, where to squat, the steps needed to equip the squat, squatter support, and prescient revolutionary political commentary on gentrification. I found one source that stated Karen Eliot created this zine and paid for the 500 copies she had printed from the money she earned as a sex worker. Sounds completely plausible to me, there are no records of Karen Eliot and her cohort of fellow squatters except in the pages of this compelling zine.

INNERVIEWS Vol. 4 Issue 1 / LOVE and MONEY Women's Two Dilemmas / February 1980

Jo Bookkeeper, Editor. Published by the Alice Walker sub-task force of the Margaret Bourke-White Task Force of Aradia, Inc. Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1980. First edition. Illustrated pink wrappers, 8.5" x 7", staple bound, 24 pages printed on pink and blue paper, illustrated with b&w drawings throughout. VERY GOOD Condition: fore edge stapled for mailing leaving tiny staple punctures, small handwritten mailing label on rear cover, light sunning to the spine margins and a touch of light wear, overall tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Scarce, just 3 holdings in OCLC collections worldwide.

Aradia, Inc. was a radical lesbian feminist separatist collective based in conservative West Michigan from 1978 to 1989. Innerviews served as a critical print forum, literary zine, calendar, and network for the regional lesbian and feminist community during an era of radical LGBTQ+ social movements. Known for their feminist activism, Aradians organized gatherings and counterculture milestones such as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, and published newsletters including Otherviews and W.E.B. Wimmin of the Earth Bonding.

A secret woman built community of strong, creative, women embedded in Grand Rapids and invisible to everyone but other Aradians and those close to them. A lesbian utopia literally existing unseen within the patriarchy, a supportive community they created as an alternative to mainstream culture, one that celebrated women loving women. Aradians called their hidden world Aradia, after the goddess Diana's daughter.