This is where I'll write updates and my thoughts and whatnot. I'll make posts about new zines and prints when I add them to the other web pages.

Future directory: right now my plan is to have links on this home page to year, month (like most old-school blogs). I'm also planning on making a whole directory page that will organize blog posts based on subject. Both would be updated on a monthly basis, so won't make their debut until November, at least.

RSS Feed

Jordan McMahon has a decent introduction to RSS feeds, if you're not familiar with them.

You can also get RSS feed updates as an email via Blogtrottr.

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I have been less industrious at my bug drawings for the past couple weeks, due to various factors — some out of town adventures, and I am currently working on a larger project that I've been planning for some time and is using up a lot of the time I have available for art. But! I've made some cool stuff.

First, a repeating pattern, which I made by hand but then cleaned up on the computer.

Next I saw a tutorial for these flippy things, called a "flexagon". I wanted to see if I could reproduce these the way you would a zine, i.e., by printing out a sheet and then putting it together. It took some trial and error, but I started by drawing on this template that I made:

And then with some photo editing software wizardry, I ended up with a printable sheet of paper, which you can download here. After a bunch of cutting, folding, and taping, I ended up with this:

And then of course there's the regular onslaught of all the other bugs I drew.

Anna Tiger Moth

Cicadas

Bed bugs

Harlequin Webworm

Rothschild's Birdwing

Darwin's Beetle

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This past weekend was Zine Machine in Durham, NC. I didn't table but I did visit, and wanted to share some of the zines and other stuff I picked up! I do plan on tabling next year, I really love this event and always have a good time.

These are the mini-zines I picked up! I think I traded for all of them.

Top, from left to right:

• Red illustration zine: Andrew Manning Harrell
• May 2024 Trans Book Reviews: by Charlie Probus, @anticapitalistcrafts
• The Beatles: by Maggie Marshall at What's That Zine
• Weight Lifting Zine: by Tristin Miller at One Rep Weightlifting

Bottom, from left to right:

• A Girl Without Skin: by Meg Lentz (I think this zine is relief printed? and the text is taped on. It's so cool!)
• Flower Symbolism for Budding Witches: Lady Book Witch Press
• A Small Poem by Nora: I'm not sure who made this! There's no other info besides the "by Nora" byline. Maybe also Lady Book Witch? since her name is Nora and she's a poet. But I don't see this zine on her socials! If you know about this zine, drop me a line.

• Moments with Nice Cat by Rebekah Evans — I already have some prints from Rebekah, I think her style is so cute! I couldn't resist a whole zine full of her illustrations.
• Paroxysm Volume IV from MystoPress — I planned on picking up this zine if they were tabling! I bought Paroxysm Volume 3 at Zine Machine a couple years ago and I genuinely think it is one of the best horror anthologies I have ever read. The quality is amazing. I'm so excited for Volume IV!!

• Radical Acceptance Vol. 1 by Tristin Miller — I traded for this one, the artist was so kind and sweet! It is by the same artist as the One Rep Weightlifting zine above, but this time I linked to their artist Tumblr (the mini-zine was mostly advertising their weightlifting coaching).
• Equinox by L.H.A. Ferguson and designed and published by S.A. Yates — I think it was Yates who traded this with me, apparently Ferguson has been writing poetry for a few years and as a wedding gift their friends all made art inspired by his poetry and gifted it to him in this zine! I love the story behind it!

• HTTRNSBTCHCITY by Ria "Air" Garcia (pronounced "Hot Trans Bitch City") — I am so obsessed with this artist's art style, I had to get this huge 8.5x11" comic zine!It's full of reversible illustrations that can be read in any direction, and the purpose is to "showcase the disorientation and confusion that can come with transitioning in a world that does not accommodate for the safety and wellbeing of trans people." Definitely an artist to watch for me!

• I totally messed up and have no idea who the artist for this is! I paid in cash so there's not even a digital receipt to follow up on. I'd really like to figure it out but I can't find any trace of it online, not even on Rhino Market's socials (they have a huge gap between 2019 and 2023, and based on the date I think this event was in 2021). I bought this to give as a gift so if you know the artist please contact me! My search continues…

• T-shirts from Atrox Design — bought these sight unseen out of a mystery t-shirt package and I couldn't be happier! They look so cool.

Without a doubt, artists have the coolest business cards, and they're often a little art piece all their own! I've numbered these to make them easier to reference.

1. Bramble Bug
2. Plastic Flame Press
3. Rebekah Evans
4. Yumeng Fu
5. Julia Gootzeit
6. Kelly Toth
7. Ria "Air" Garcia
8. Ryan Oakley
9. J.B. Shear

I wish I had grabbed more business cards, but oh well. My brain tends to get pretty disorganized in crowds. There was also an artist, Molly, who I had meant to go back and buy a pumpkin print from… And now I don't remember her full name either. Oops. I'm sure there's others I meant to go back to as well and missed. Hopefully next year!

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Had less time for drawing this week, specifically over the weekend, since I had a sword retreat from Friday to Sunday. I have to keep reminding myself that my Bugtober doesn't have the same requirements as Inktober. I don't have to draw every single day, and I don't have to end the month with 31 drawings on the dot. I can draw fewer, I can draw more. So it's okay to have a whole long weekend where I didn't draw at all, and it's okay not to draw more in the week leading up or following.

This week also marks a departure from my two bug books I borrowed from the library as reference materials (which are the Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Southeastern North America by Seabrooke Leckie and David Beadle, and the Smithsonian Handbook of Interesting Insects by Gavin R. Broad, Blanca Huertas, Ashley H. Kirk-Spriggs, and Dmitry Telnov). My spouse requested a jumping spider, so I took to the internet to find a public domain reference.

This does bring up the question of what I consider to be a "bug". Whether or not something is a bug just depends on its vibe. I'm certainly not sticking to "true bugs", hemiptera. I have an expansive definition of "bug", which includes all creepy crawlies and some organisms that might not be traditionally considered bugs but totally have a bug vibe (horseshoe crabs, for example). Anyway, Bugtober isn't supposed to be about limits, so I'm not limiting my bug definition at all.

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Updated the whole site, but not a lot of changes on the front end. Had issues with CSS when I first coded the thing, so this update was mostly adding the stylesheet and updating all the pages to remove their individual styling and link to the stylesheet.

Also updated the zine page to be more like how I want it... now there's little boxes to scroll through.

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Ah, October. The month of drawing challenges. I have never managed to complete Inktober—I am always pumped at the beginning of the month and then fail in the second week or so. I last made an attempt in 2022, and my intention had been to do an ink drawing every day, and then after October was over, go back and see if there were any drawings I'd like to make relief prints out of. I did get a relief print or two out of the endeavor, but I utterly failed at drawing every day.

This year, I've decided to adjust my goal. It's not Inktober, but Bugtober—I'm drawing bugs. Mostly insects, probably, because I got some encyclopedias out of the library and one is of insects and the other is of moths. I do not have a goal to draw every day. Rather, my goal is simply to draw as many or as few bugs as I please, just to focus on drawing bugs this month. Additionally, all the bugs should be drawn on a black background, which is how I like to do my sketches for relief printing, so that—again—after the month is over, I might look back and find some drawings I'd like to turn into prints. Thus, I have already succeeded: I drew some bugs. October could end now and I will have succeeded at Bugtober.

So please enjoy some bugs that I drew in the first week of Bugtober, from October 1-6.

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What I read

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle (completed September 4): Very disappointing. I think this was marketed as an adult book? which is bewildering because it read very YA and very juvenile. Lots of telling over showing. Tingle rushed tons of plot development and everything in the last two-thirds of the book happened at a break-neck pace. Read like a first draft.

Antigone by Jean Anouilh (completed September 5, read in French): A reread for me, I originally read it as a high school assignment. I really enjoy this retelling of Sophocles, and in general I find scripts in French much easier to read than prose. I'm not sure if there's an English translation, or what it's quality may be.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (completed September 24): I hadn't intended to reread this and The Lord of the Rings this year, but I couldn't sleep one night and turned on the Rob Inglis audiobook to help me fall asleep (it worked very well). I didn't get a ton out of this reread, since I only just read The Annotated Hobbit a year or two ago, so there hasn't been enough time for me to forget and read this one with new eyes.

Currently reading: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien; Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell; Ubik by Philip K. Dick; Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.

What I watched

Fruits Basket (completed September 12): A rewatch while I was between One Piece arcs. I first read Fruits Basket when I was in middle school (too young?) and I loved watching it when it was airing. It was wonderful to watch the whole thing back to back.

Currently watching: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End; One Piece (Fishman Island Arc); JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Season 1).

What I listened to

A rarely included category, but I went on a road trip that was about 10 hours total and listened to some music.

Hold the Girl by Rina Sawayama (2022): I love this album, it was my second time listening all the way through. If you're queer and haven't heard it, you should. "Frankenstein" is my favorite but "Send My Love to John" makes me cry.

Act 3: The Dying of Self by Mon Rovia (2024): Good EP, I probably didn't listen to this one closely enough. Generally I like Mon Rovia although I don't listen to him frequently. No one favorite from these five songs.

Unreal Unearth: Unaired by Hozier (2024): Can't have a music marathon without some Hozier. My millionth time listening to this album, probably. Maybe this is my favorite of his three albums, maybe it's recency bias. Impossible to pick a favorite song, or to even whittle a list down to three or four.

AM by the Arctic Monkeys (2013): A nostalgia pick—I've never really liked their other albums, but AM is one of my favorite music albums, period. Favorite is, perhaps, "No. 1 Party Anthem", but I think all the songs are of pretty similar quality.

Revolver by the Beatles (1966): Another nostalgia listen, as it's been a long, long time since the Beatles were my main special interest. This is probably my favorite of their albums, and my favorite song on this listen was "Yellow Submarine".

Parachutes by Coldplay (2000): A few months ago I listened to all of Coldplay's music and liked it, overall. I like their later stuff significantly less than their early stuff, and mostly just listen to a few selects songs. "Yellow" is my favorite.

Multitude by Stromae (2022): Stromae has a habit of dropping top tier albums and then disappearing for years and I truly appreciate him for that. My favorite from this album is "Santé".

Montgomery Ricky by Ricky Montgomery (2016): I feel bad because the artist has said this album isn't really the music he's making now, but after some TikTok famous songs it's what's popular…but I do feel like this is a really good, fun album, and I'm not as big a fan of his newer music. I think the songs on this album are mostly equal quality, but maybe like "Line Without a Hook" the best.

Evolve by Phish (2024): I wouldn't have known about this album except that it ended up on a Spotify Blend playlist because a friend listened to it. It was my first listen, but had a nostalgic feel to it, which is maybe expected. My favorite song was "A Wave of Hope".

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As I'm working to get this website up and going—or, working to get it to the point where I feel like it's "done enough" to use, and leave off additional features for the future—I'm trying to get an RSS feed going for this page. Website builders like Wordpress create automatic RSS feeds, but Neocities (which I'm trying out for the first time) is focused on static websites, so I have to build the RSS feed myself (and make some blog posts to get it running, which is mostly why I'm writing this).

This begs the question, of course: why bother?

On the modern web, as most folks have shied away from following individual blogs and have moved on to social media platforms, the days of RSS feeds is largely forgotten. To tell you the truth, until a few years ago, I didn't know about them at all. I'm a bit too young for them, or just didn't spend time in online spaces where they were relevant before moving to social media. But for some, myself included, they are still useful and used.

A few years ago—I can't remember exactly when—I started using Feedly. It's a little business-bro-y, and a bit too enthusiastic about AI for my liking. There are probably better readers out there, but at the time, I liked it because it had a web app and a phone app. And now I've got a bajillion feeds on there so it'll be a project of itself to switch…a project for the future. I don't pay for it. On occasion I do run into a moment where it'd be nice to have the paid version—which allows you to create RSS feeds from websites, and follow Twitter feeds, amongst other things that I have never wanted to do—but I've never paid for the full version and don't feel like I'm lacking.

And it's been great! I think the hardest thing about stepping away from social media like Instagram, Twitter, etc., is leaving behind my favorite artists and creators that are really thoughtful and I enjoy listening to. Not everybody has a website or an email list, and some, unforunately, are left behind completely. But I've found that switching to RSS feeds gives me a decent enough collection of artists and such to follow. I've also found that while it's not possible to add Instagram or Twitter to (unpaid) Feedly, Tumblr accounts work pretty well (though I have noticed that the feed updates less frequently than others—once a day or every few days, so a bunch of posts land all at once). YouTube works well also.

Now, I try not to follow too many social media accounts. I'm not trying to recreate a social media feed. Just a select few creators I want to keep up with. One of the reasons I wanted to step away from social media was to get out of the algorithm, especially due to the prevalence of rage bait and a lot of negativity online. But also because I wanted chronological posts, and I wanted to be sure to see the posts that didn't have any interaction, because the algorithm left them behind! And RSS feeds have been working really well for that.

Many people have detailed the benefits of moving away from social media, so I'm not going to reiterate them here. Try it, if you haven't. I'd like to instead share some of the RSS feeds I follow that have brought me joy.

• Ask A Manager
• It's Going Down
• NPR Up First Daily Newsletter
• People of Print
• Queer Zine Archive Project
• Nightmare Magazine
• Seize the Press

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