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Ms Valerie Park Distro's Blog (131)

New Zines Up!

A few new ones up...

Loose Lips Sink Ships (Zine) ($2)- In Loose Lips, Ms May delves into the dangerous territory of the make-out zine; a genre that gets a lot of flack, yes, (and usually rightfully so), but this, like all her zines, is done really well and focused in a way that changes it into something else entirely. A short description for each… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on March 29, 2010 at 1:27am — No Comments

Almost Gone!

Just sold out of a couple things and it just made me realize how many things are almost gone! So I made a list. Most of these are down to their last 1 or 2 copies and are going to be out of print when they're gone. The rest I'm just very unsure how long it will take to get them back in. So, it's yr last chance for most of these! We'll be taking them off as they sell out, so if the links don't work, that's why.…

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Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on March 16, 2010 at 2:45pm — No Comments

Etsy Page

So, about a month ago we started an Etsy page and we've been slowly adding more and more to it. While it represents less than half our stock, it does seem a little more focused towards to the interest of our fellow zinesters and has a bettter shipping scale than our website, especially for international orders. We're setting up a new website, which will have a better shopping cart, but until then, I might point you folks who want to… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on March 15, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Newsletter for March

Hello and welcome to yet another month of the year. It's an early spring here in the northwest part of the U.S. and things are plugging away as usual here at Ms Valerie Park, plenty of newness and many exciting things on their way. The spring seems so ripe with projects, tours, and travel, that I doubt I'll get a proper night's sleep until the end of June, but I'd like to think I'm ok with that. Hope all you out there are doing just as fine (but hopefully getting more sleep).… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on March 8, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments

New Blank Books and Zines from Eberhardt Press

Portland's Eberhadt Press is really great; they off-set print everything themselves, use all reused/recycled paper, and keep it real cheap. We're pretty happy to be carrying some of our favorites from them...

Criminal: Writings of Isabelle Eberhardt (Zine) ($3)

Free to Choose: A Woman's Guide to… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on February 26, 2010 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Newsletter for February!

Februrary is pretty epic. This month bring a slew of newness, especially as far as zines are concerned. With subjects ranging from radical parenting to the non-traditional use of classical instruments, I'm always happy to carry more zines that don't have the usual themes. As much as I love a good perzine about riding a bike to get donuts with one's friends, I like ones about revolutionary locksmiths and lifelong non-religious virginity much better. We restocked a ton of stuff, too, and there's… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on February 16, 2010 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

Jesus Christ Superzine & Etsy

Two things.

1. Jesus Christ Superzine #1 has released its second (revised) edition. Now, I know it's not common for zinesters to do (or at least announce) this, but Ariel isn't the most common of zinesters. Don't worry, it hasn't become a slick, glossy thing, just edited, added to, and a touch easier to read. Description: The second edition of Ariel Birks'… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on February 12, 2010 at 4:00pm — No Comments

New!

This month is panning out to be fairly epic; we're adding almost 20 new titles and restocking 15 we've been out of for a while...possibly testing the distro/personal space ratio, we'll see. I am waiting until everything has arrived to send out this month's newsletter, but I thought I'd give a what's new, so far, in the zine department.

After months of being out of stock, we just got more of one of my favorite zines, Funwater Awesome. All our great, #2 is my favorite.…

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Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on February 3, 2010 at 9:41pm — No Comments

Newsletter for January

Hello friends, and welcome to a new year. Hopefully everyone has decompressed from the stress of the holidays and you all have yr resolutions made and whatnot. I've moved into a new space, which is really small compared to my last, so I started the year off by getting rid of a bunch of stuff, which felt really good. I also got a bunch of new stuff for the distro, which felt equally good (honestly, i'd rather have stacks of records and zines than bags of yarn i haven't used in years). Anyway,… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on January 11, 2010 at 10:00am — No Comments

December Distro Update!

Well, as weird as it seems, this is the year anniversary of the Ms Valerie Park Distro! Funny to think that something I started in my pajamas one cold winter morning from a few of my friends' things in a box is now something I "do". Kind of didn't see that coming.

In the last month, it's been wonderfully bitter cold in Olympia and I've been taking it pretty slow. Here at ye ol distro, I lowered some prices on things and got in a bunch of good new stuff. Also, (I know this is dorky, but),… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on December 15, 2009 at 2:16pm — No Comments

Radical Mycology!

Just added a pretty awesome Olympia zine called Radical Mycology, which will teach you a good percentage of things you might want to know about mushrooms. Not one of the classic zine subjects, I know, but that's what makes it so good. Check it out. Totally recommended if it's something you're at all interested in. http://msvaleriepark.blogspot.com/2009/12/radical-mycology-zine.html

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on December 9, 2009 at 11:48pm — No Comments

Holiday...Sale?

Though we tend not to care much about most holidays, we thought we would have a sale anyway. Maybe think of it as an end-of-the-year sale, instead. It's a two parter...

1. We're clearing some space. In the next couple months we're getting a lot of new stuff in and restocking a lot of stuff and we need to make some room. So, with each order in the next month, we're putting in some extras. Zines we only have a copy or two left of and don't list anymore, cd's, tapes, buttons, stickers,… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on November 24, 2009 at 4:59pm — No Comments

Some Newness

It's been a while since we've added any new zines, so many of us working on zines and never finishing them, but yesterday the new issue of Sugar and Heartstrings came out! We also restocked a couple, too. I've been out on tour for the last month, so I just started back to work today on some zines I was working on before I left. I included the rest of this month's update below for… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on November 14, 2009 at 6:17pm — No Comments

September's Newsletter

This month, people gave me a lot of great things to give away with orders (bunches of cd's, zines, buttons, stickers...even shirts and posters), so if you've been thinking of placing an order, just know that'll I can promise to send along a few extra things. Also, on the website, we have a new music player! Which means, you don't have to download 50 some songs individually to check out all the music we have to offer, you can just play it right off the site, super easy. This is what's been going… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on September 14, 2009 at 11:20pm — No Comments

Eaves of Ass!

We are (finally) carrying Craven Rock's long-running Eaves of Ass zine, one of my absolute favorites. We just added:

Eaves of Ass #6- The music issue! Essays from this went on to be included in 2008's Best American Music Writing collection.

Eaves of Ass #7- Brand new! In the vein of new journalism,… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on August 17, 2009 at 3:10am — No Comments

August!

We just sent out this month's email update, so I thought I'd pass it along here, too!

New for August!

Conceptualizing Confluence (Zine)- Karl Blau's audio recording zine! ($2)

Dirty Sweet Experience- ST (CD)- dreamy, slightly fuzzy, goodness. ($5)…

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Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on August 8, 2009 at 7:12pm — No Comments

Radical Education Audio Documentary

While we've added lots of great zines this month, I wanted to mention how great I think our feature of the month is. It's not zine or music, but a double cd audio documentary called I Want To Do This All Day Long, which is about radical education/alternative education programs in the U.S.

Amber and Amina, who made it, traveled across the country and visited 22 different free… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on August 4, 2009 at 5:28pm — No Comments

Portland Zine Symposium starts tomorrow!

Hey, just in case you're in the northwest area and you're not aware, PZS starts tomorrow at 2:30. We're driving down in the morning and will be there all three days. We've managed to gather manymany great things that are not on the distro: new isssues of Funwater Awesome, issues of Mend My Dress, a new Olympia zine about DIY culture and building community, the olympia punk paper Nuts, a bunch of buttons, a zine/paper that's all interviews with Swedish punk/hardcore bands and comes with a cd and… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on July 24, 2009 at 1:02am — No Comments

Karl Blau audio recording zine!

After a weekend up in Anacortes, Wa for What the Heck Fest, we come back bearing gifts. One of them being a really cool zine about the art of home recording from our friend and musical experimenter, Karl Blau. Check it out!
Conceptualizing Confluence: The Absolute Basics of Audio Recording ($2)

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on July 20, 2009 at 1:15pm — 2 Comments

New for July!

This month's distro update is up- with new things, restocks, mp3's, video links and plenty of news. Though, to avoid adding in its many links again, I will just direct you to our myspace, where all links are already properly in place. Check it here!

You could also just join our mailing list and we'd simply send it to you every month. Let us know if that interests you:… Continue

Added by Ms Valerie Park Distro on July 16, 2009 at 2:17am — No Comments