Friday Night in West Ealing #76
K?
fridaynightinwestealing@gmail.com
This is one of those zines that I know I’ve had for a while, but I can’t really recall where or when I picked it up. Though I do strongly suspect Sticky Institute.
Friday Night in West Ealing #76 is a strong representation for how a zine can work in true simplicity. The entire zine is a double-sided piece of A4 paper that’s folded, type on the inside and handwritten on the front/back. It’s purely words – written or typed – with no illustrations but for a few hand-drawn hearts on the inside. The experience of it is somewhat like a newspaper – opening it up to read one bit and then unfolding the rest to get the whole story.
The “only words” approach in the zine world doesn’t seem like it should be that different, but it is enough for me to write this sentence saying it is.
Sometimes I wonder about my luck with things – especially zine things – because other people might not be interested in slice of life type of reading that concerns moving from an old wallet into a new wallet with all the things that get lost and forgotten in old wallets. But for me? I love finding out what people have in their purses, wallets, bags, etc.
What I love even more though? Fluid story writing. Writing that carries you along gently without you even being aware that you’re going somewhere. Writing that starts with a 22 pound umbrella and ends with putting the past away in favour of letting a new collection of wallet artifacts creep into your wallet over the years. There is something beautiful and wonderful about the small moments of a life, and I think that’s why this zine is on #76 and is still going.
The yellow of the paper is actually a lot more pleasant than what is displayed in the photo above. I love my camera, but combinations of sucktastic lighting and my limited knowledge of whether it’s best to up the brightness or exposure (or something else?!) make for some poor visual translations.
There’s certainly a mystery to this zine with only an email address on the back. It’s usually a bug bear of mine to have to go hunting for more details, but… I think it kind of works for this zine.
Don’t point back to this post when I grumble about it on other zines, though, okay?