Monday, June 14, 2010

Pelancaran Nota Gerila the report









gambar dari sessi zine reading di Kuala Lumpur Alternative Book Fest

Zul of Oxygen Media/Frinjan fame told me about the slot he got for zines launching at the Kuala Lumpur Alternative Book Festival 2010. I came up with the name of the slot because of zines are always like a guerilla activity here in Malaysia, not many people know about what zines are, the zine scene and movement. Zul even asked me to be the host for the event, because I know a lot about zines. After second thought, I agreed.


I had bad news just before the event day; I had to work on that event day! But I figured out that I could escape from work for this event. I had to go to Bukit Jalil for some event. When I arrived, I was surprised because it is an event for the ruling party’s youth! How come they forced people to participate in this kind of event? There were a lot of monkeys (read: teenager boys) who would made a lot of noise whenever a couple of girls walked in front of them, as if they never seen a female species human before. So pathetic! This is worse than when I was in secondary school in Terengganu, where this kind of stupidity is a common sight. After hanging out a bit, had a chat with my boss, she bought us drinks. Then it was photo session for attendance, cool. Then I escaped, and took the train home and read Doris Anthology 1991-2001 book.


I love traveling by train. When I was still living in Terengganu where there is no train service, whenever I came to KL I always travel by trains. It gives me the feeling of being a KL-lite. The feeling I won’t get if I travel by any other means of transportation. Nowadays I seldom take the train, so whenever there is a chance I will get excited.


I rushed home, took a bath, took the zines at the copy center and sped to the venue, Annexe Gallery. As I arrive, there was not much space at the zines table. With a bit of arranging, I put the zines that I brought with me; Mosh zine, DRSA, Semenanjung Regiser and Scenery Is Free.

Our slot began at 5.30 pm. At the very last minute, Alina from Oxygen Media told me that she can be the MC. The event began with me explaining what are fanzines and a brief history of fanzines, globally and locally. It was supposed to be a PowerPoint presentation but somehow the laptop did not work with the projector, so I just read it from the screen. Next was zine reading from ten zines that participated; Burgermpark, Sisa Se Saat, Conscious, Innerview, Pari-pari Kertas, Sampah Karat, Asid, Frinzine, Jargon, Letters to Doris and I read my writing from Mosh zine #13. Oh, it's actually eleven!


I thought it would be cool to do zine reading because as far as I know, it has never been done here in Malaysia. I planned to do it when I launched my 13th issue at a gig a month before that, but there was not enough time. So, it would be cool to do a ten zines reading because the zinesters wouldn’t feel too shy or nervous because they are not doing it alone.


There was supposed to be a sort of forum about zines after that, but we ran out of time. We proceed with chatting, selling and trading zines at the tables.


1 comment:

innerview zine said...

can't wait for the zine fest pulak lepas ni.