Month: February 2022

basic paper airplane: The Cassette Tape Issue
Joshua James Amberson
56 pages
https://antiquatedfuture.com
https://zinewiki.com/wiki/Basic_Paper_Airplane

basic paper airplane: The Cassette Tape Issue is a US-sized, half-fold black and white zine for the love of (and sometimes frustration with and doubts about) the humble cassette tape.

Sometimes you need to go with the beautiful description on the zine itself:

“Twenty writers, musicians, DJs, label owners, publishers, and comic artists tell stories of how cassette tapes have affected their lives, for better or for worse. Within: the art of the mixtape, the importance of the boombox, the intimacy of the Walkman. Plus tales of recording with cassettes, performing with cassettes, releasing cassettes, falling in love with cassettes. Nostalgia, subversion, frustration, possibility.”

Now this is the sort of nostalgia I am all about. I remember holding my little boom box up to the TV in an effort to record the music that played during THAT infamous Final Fantasy VII scene while my heart was breaking. But this isn’t about my memories. Let’s dig in.

basic paper airplane: The Cassette Tape Issue opens with a Track List (table of contents) split into the A side and B side, which I love as a little detail. From there we get a personal introductions to Josh’s life with cassettes and the nagging worry of whether one’s passion equates to a life well spent. Josh goes on to write a little something that I’m encountering within my writerly self more and more:

“But, as a writer, I’m never content with unexplored joy. I want to pick it apart and understand it, open up its contradictions and absurdities.”

Ah, I know that feeling all too well.

We then read a brief timeline of the life of cassettes as well as a brief primer about how cassettes work and have worked through time. From there we get to the shared experiences of first cassette tapes, the freedom of easily transported music on the Sony Walkman, the trials and tribulations of trying to respool that precious musical tape back onto the wheels. Everything is in black type on white paper with a clear tape-insert background for the title. (I love it when zines add in little details to fit a theme.) Some are accompanied by anything from cassette diagrams to actual mixtape lists.

This is the kind of zine that makes me want to share my cassette tape stories. I read the stories written by these contributors and want to tell them how I remember this or had a similar experience with that. Oh, and do you remember…

I could go on and on. I had so much fun reading this zine and think anyone who grew up with cassette tapes, grew to love them, still love them, and even perhaps even still love being able to hold that Walkman close and play those cassettes just for your eager ears will love this zine.

6 Things I Don’t Like About Depression
Elisa
4 pages (one-page mini)
https://www.instagram.com/elisaszines/

6 Things I Don’t Like About Depression is a black and white, one page mini zine about six effects of depression Elisa doesn’t like.

Sometimes I will read a zine because I’m really ‘feeling’ it, and today this mini really spoke to me.

6 Things I Don’t Like About Depression opens right up into the six things, with each depressive symptom getting its own page for the symptom title and a few thoughts from Elisa about the symptom. Each page has nicely sized big type so it’s easy to read even in low light.

I must admit I thought a mental ‘Yes!’ when I saw the first thing mentioned: Fatigue. People experience depression in different ways and at different times, of course, but fatigue has been at the top of my list lately, so this felt like a meant to be read. While I didn’t feel each symptom in quite the ways Elisa did, I have and do experience all of those symptoms. That just goes to show that even if we both call a symptom something, that doesn’t mean we all experience and interpret it in exactly the same way.

One thing I wanted to note is how, with the way Elisa writes, it was easy for me to make connections between symptoms. Fatigue can make you feel sad because you don’t have the energy to do things. Sadness can make personal hygiene difficult. So on and so forth, around and around.

I’d love to see a sequel to this along the lines of ‘6 Ways I Deal With Depression’ because I’m me and those are the sort of things that make my heart happy. That said, this is a lovely little zine reminder that you aren’t alone and could make for a good introduction to depression for someone who isn’t familiar with it.