Obsessed With Zines:

For many years, I've been exploring my obsessions and interests by publishing two zines. The more general and personal Sidney Suppey's Quarterly and Confused Pet Monthly is my "whatever I feel like" zine, a mix of mutant trash culture, thought-provoking juxtapositions, bemused natterings and street-level anthropology. In the more narrowly focused It's A Wonderful Lifestyle: An Encyclopedic Compendium Of All Things Seventies, I look at all aspects of American popular culture in the Avocado Decade - the 1970s! Both are published whenever I get around to it, so I don't offer advance subscriptions, but I do keep plenty of back issues in print. Think of it as a reverse subscription. SSQ&CPM issues are $2 each; the longer IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFESTYLE issues are $4 each. When ordering, send cash, stamps, or check made out to CANDI STRECKER.

Unsolicited Raving Testimony:

"You'll be hearing this a lot, but: It's wonderful to see that irregular comet, SSQ, sweeping through our system again. Reading it is one of the rare unalloyed pleasures left for me in the zine world."
- - Simon Agree

“Candi did it first & she did it best, unearthing and examining the odd cultural nooks and crannies.”
- - John Marr of Murder Can Be Fun, in Zine Guide #2

NEW! NEW! NEW! NEW!

Volume 6 No. 2, "Special City Vs Country Ambivalence Issue," 11/97 (24 pp.)
There are so many things I love about the rural midwest where I was born and raised, but in the end I have to face the fact that I simply can not live there. Luckily, I CAN vacation there every year - - and take notes. Topics include:

• *General Ohio Strangeness
• *The Farm&Fleet Lifestyle
• *Lawn Goose Dressing
• *Yard Shadows
• *AOL Found Poetry
• *Aunt Names

Volume 6 No. 1, "Highlights for Lowlifes," 3/96 (20 pp.)
(Best bits from the first 16 out-of-print issues of the SSQ&CPM, 1979 - 1983)

Volume 5 No. 6, "Clip and Save!" 3/95 (20 pp.)
(The Repo Man Generation, my Martha Stewart obsession, Moderan)

Volume 5 No. 5, "Virtual Potatohead," 8/91 (16 pp.)
(Virtual Reality debunked, MST3K, Thrift Shop Confidential Pt. 2)

Volume 5 No. 4, "While You Were Out," 7/89 (14 pp.)
(Dish collecting, Thrift Shop Confidential, Ennio Morricone, Phil Harris)

Volume 5 No. 3, "Watchtower/Watchman," 4/87 (18 pp.)
(Irreverent reference books, exotica music, DINKs, Galaxy Rangers)

Volume 5 No. 2, "Heroes of the Garage," 4/86 (20 pp.)
(Exotica music, Lowlife Scum, Three Stooges books, Brazilian cult)

Volume 5 No. 1, "God Don't Like It Too," 11/84 (14 pp.)
(Ranters Gene Scott, Wally George, Joe Bob Briggs; Dr. Peculiar comics)

All available from this address:

Links to sites starring my friends' zines
and related stuff

Thrift Score

Who doesn't know about Al's zine about the joy of thrift shopping? Great concept, fun execution, this zine is so totally on my wavelength that it's scary.

Mystery Date

Wry and thoughtful looks at gal (not grrl) issues. Don't miss the gallery of home ec textbooks.

The Chip Electric

The electronic version of Chip Rowe's Chip's Closet Cleaner, with a focus on "pop culture, sex, trivia, pranks, fun."

Oh, Beautiful Optigan

This has nothing to do with zines, but it's a cool site about a fascinating bit of lost technology - - a 1960s musical instrument called the Optigan. I've got one in the basement that we found in a pile of trash that we're working on restoring ...

Cafe Compendium

Kathy Biehl is a keen observer of the absurdity of human life, both here and in her paper zine, The Ladies' Fetish & Taboo Society Compendium of Urban Anthropology.

X/Dryer/Cardhouse

The front door to a series of projects by Jeff Hansen, a very funny guy with very good taste (that is, the same tastes that I have) in music, art, humor, and detourned corporate logos. He used to publish a semi-professional zine called X, later re-named Dryer and even later re-named Cardhouse; lately, he does emailed "Missives" instead, which can be read here. There's also a Sean Tejaratchi font catalog and Jeffy's graphic design biz profile. Also lurking under Jeff's umbrella site is...

Godfrey Daniels' stuff

Godfrey is a multi-tentacled prankster/artist/webdude whose hobbies include pushing copyright boundaries and covering his art car "Whip It" with copies of the album jacket for the most ubiquitous of thrift-store records, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' Whipped Cream and Other Delights. Full of photos, making the pages slow to load, but worth the wait-time.

Negativworldwidewebland

Inside poop from my favorite brainy band, Negativland

WFMU

I'm a huge fan of WFMU, the quintessential college radio station, despite the fact that I've never heard its signal. They do a cool magazine called LCD that I've written for.

Comic Book Heaven

Cartoonist Scott Saavedra has a soft spot for the comic-book equivalent of the B-Movie: the "wonderfully wigged-out four-color fun" of the 12-cent comic book era. He lovingly tabulates and skewers these comics' hyper-dialogue, their preposterous plotlines, their general giddiness. I love his deadpan story synopses ("The old martian criminal switching bodies with an innocent earthman to evade capture by martian police plot.") If you get all tingly at the very thought of "Jimmy Olsen, The Bizarro Boy," you'll eat this up. Fannishness at its very best. Nicely packaged as an elegant little digest-size zine.

Robot Wisdom WebLog

Maybe you've heard how in the future we'll have something called "software agents" that will scan the web and hunt down all the latest articles on the subjects we're most interested in? I feel like I've got a live agent who does exactly that - - ever since I became a daily reader of Jorn Barger's WebLog. Somehow he finds time to browse and read all the sites I never get around to, and summarizes their latest high points. His interests aren't exactly the same as mine, but I'm amazed at the way he hits on stuff I'm interested in about 90% of the time.

Links to zine books