Publications Received

The peculiar parish spans the globe, and is reflected in the works of free-thinkers everywhere. The following are reviews of books and pamphlets published by people who share our dream of a better world.

The contact information listed for these publishers was current at the time of review. We advise that you reach out with a brief email or letter before ordering, to confirm price and availability. "The usual" means the publisher may be open to trades and other equivalent exchanges.

Weird Walk v.1, ns.1 and 2
edited by Owen Tromans, Alex Hornsby, and James Nicholls
Beltane 2019 and Samhain 2019

Some fifteen years ago, in desperate need of a change of scenery, I joined my friend Jeff Hoke on a weeklong journey across the south of England. We travelled from Land’s End to London, hiking around ancient cairns and standing stones every day and crashing in medieval inns each night. Clutching a copy of Julian Cope’s The Modern Antiquarian and an equally indispensable O. S. map, we visited a dozen sites ranging from the humble — Chûn Quoit, Mên-an-Tol — to the humungous — Avebury, Stonehenge — each of them new to me but so steeped in human history that I couldn’t help but feel a connection to the monuments and the hands that had situated them in this bucolic landscape.

But I’m rambling. What I mean to say is that when I received a copy of the marvelous new zine Weird Walk last spring, it took me right back to that expedition and made me long for new adventures. Alex, James, and Owen understand that a walk outdoors is never merely a means of getting from one place to another; mystery and wonder can rise to meet us at every step.

Weird Walk’s first issue acquaints readers with the stone sites at Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall and Avebury farther east, offering waybread for less site-specific journeys in the form of articles on medieval graffiti and rogue Shakespeare alum William Kempe, as well as an interview with Justin Hopper (The Old Weird Albion) on psychogeography, spiritual individualism, and his favored music for a countryside ramble. Weird Walk’s sophomore issue, dated for Samhain of last year, pokes around Stonehenge and Stanton Drew, recounts a 1971 folk horror–inspired episode of Doctor Who, and presents interviews with Benjamin Myers (The Gallows Pole) and the all-female, psyche-tinged folk-dancing troupe Boss Morris.

For those who care to dig deeper, there’s much more to discover in these pages. And that’s what’s best of all about Weird Walk—it opens our eyes to the history and imagination we might tap in any landscape. This magic is always there, just waiting to be discovered. Keep walking weird. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

8vo full-color digital saddlestitched pamphlet, 40 and 46 pp.
£5.50 each from the publisher, $10 each from peculiarparish.com
weirdwalk.co.uk

Death to the World n.26
edited by Father John Valadez
Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2018

As a young man in the early 1990s, Justin Marler was a founding guitarist in the stoner doom band Sleep. Marler disappeared from the music scene after the release of the band’s first album, resurfacing as an Orthodox Christian monk, and now an ordained priest, named John Valadez in the California-based Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood. The physical and philosophical confines of the monastery provided fertile ground for Valadez’s next creative work, the devotional zine series Death to the World. The zine takes its name from a doctrinal phrase, “the world” being the Church’s term for the earthly passions, pleasures akin to the seven deadly sins. Noticing the ascetic and rebellious values shared by punks and early Christians, Valadez channeled the D. I. Y. spirit of his younger days to craft a publication in the style of old-school zines, pasting text blocks over high-contrast black-and-white photos of monks, monasteries, wilderness scenes, and Church iconography. Now on its twenty-sixth issue, the series’ production values have risen, but its aesthetics remain the same, as does its call for readers to renounce riches, possessions, bodily desire, lust for power, vanity, and other such pleasures in favor of Christ’s examples of love and service. This issue includes contemplations on bodily death, the Eucharist, the dangers of occultism, and conversion stories as varied as those of pre-sanctification Cyprian and a green-mohawked anarchist on the run from the law in Athens. Valadez has recently begun offering reprint bundles of earlier issues on his website, alongside t-shirts and tote bags similar to those found on metal-show merch tables. Despite such possible capitalistic dissonance (church gift shops are, after all, nothing new), Death to the World is imbued with a laudable sincerity. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

8vo offset saddlestitched pamphlet, 56 pp.
$9. Earlier issues’ prices and production vary; n. 25 had a screenprinted cover, and earlier issues are photocopied in the punk tradition.
Death to the World; Post Office Box 28021; Santa Ana, Calif. 92799. deathtotheworld.com

The Immaterial Book of St. Cyprian
by Jose Leitao
Revelore Press, 2017

This is the second volume of the Folk Necromancy in Transmission series created and curated by Dr. ­Alexander Cummins and Jesse Hathaway Diaz. For this print edition, thirty-one short tales of necromancy and treasure hunting are compiled from the Archive of Portuguese Legends, an online project of cultural preservation, each presenting lore related to Saint Cyprian and his legendary book of magic. The original Portuguese is preserved as parallel text for each of the stories, and an interesting relationship between Cyprian’s magic, treasure hunting for lost riches, and the local fairies, called Mouras, develops and provides cautionary prudence for cavalier seekers and magicians alike. This paperback is a perfect companion to Leitao’s English translation of The Book of St. Cyprian: The Sorcerer’s Treasure (Hadean Press, 2014). (Samuel McCabe, Fiddler’s Green 7)

12mo offset paperback book, 136 pp.
$19
revelore.press

Peacock Goat Review v. 1, ns. 1–9
edited by Aaron David and Taylor Bell
Peacock Goat Publishing, October 2018 – June 2019

Aaron David, more widely known for his podcast Charm the Water, created the Peacock Goat Review as a companion reader for mystic and magical seekers, particularly those following individualized paths. The series’ articles are confessional and informative, drawn from experience and insight, by a roster of ten regular contributors. Instruction and critical discussion are given concerning magical workings from the Golden Dawn, Buddhist, Jewish, and other traditions, as is much in the way of broader philosophical topics germane to developing a magical life, including intuition, dreams, and discovering one’s life purpose. Each issue closes with a calendar of the coming month, noting significant astrological occurrences and best days for particular workings. PGR was produced monthly, in digital and made-to-order print formats, throughout its nine-issue run, a maddening schedule for any independent magazine, let alone one this reliant on thoughtful, well-researched articles. David announced the series’ hiatus in Peacock Goat Review n. 9, stating an understandable wish to continue his magical growth privately, and that the series may emerge from its philosopher’s cave again in the future. If this comes to pass, I’m sure he and the other Peacock Goat magi will find an eager audience. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

Legal digest inkjet saddlestitched pamphlet, 48–52 pp. each
$15 per copy
Inquire to charmthewater AT gmail DOT com or visit charmthewater.com for current availability.

The Faun’s Bookshelf: C. S. Lewis on Why Myth Matters
by Charlie W. Starr
Black Squirrel Books, 2018

In the second chapter of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, while Mr. Tumnus tends to the teacups, Lucy Pevensie notes the titles of four books on the bachelor faun’s shelf: The Life and Letters of Silenus; Nymphs and Their Ways; Men, Monks, and Gamekeepers: a Study in Popular Legend; and Is Man a Myth? The books reflect the looking-glass reality of Narnia, where the goat-legged Tumnus is the native and Lucy the alien visitor. If they’d had more time to spend together, the two would have inevitably discussed some of the topics in these curious books. Charlie Starr’s delightful and thought-provoking The Faun’s Bookshelf does just that, considering the possible meanings behind each of the four titles in light of Lewis’ deeply held (and occasionally controversial) beliefs on spirituality, religion, gender, and mankind’s relationship with the natural world. “Is man mythic?” This is the question strung, monochord-like, throughout the book. The many lessons gained from considering it enlighten us to our individual roles as the movers of our own lives, as well as to the many ways others attempt to pull our strings through the muddling of myth and fact. This is strong tea. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

8vo offset paperback book, 208 pp.
$16.95
Black Squirrel Books; The Kent State University Press; 1118 Library; Post Office Box 5190; Kent, Ohio 44242. kentstateuniversitypress.com

Hellebore n. 1
edited by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo
Samhain 2019

Bog bodies, standing stones, bloody rituals to appease dark harvest gods . . . these are staple tropes of folk-horror fiction and film, yet each of them may be traced back to actual historical events and places. The editorial contributors to Hellebore walk these coffin lines, dedicated to unearthing the truths and embellishments behind some of folk horror’s most enduring imagery. Carrying the theme of “Sacrifice,” the first issue of this handsome new series bears an emblematic cover photo by Paul Watson. In it, a ritual figure in a wheat mask holds a sheaf in one hand and a sickle in the other, a personification of the themes of the folk tune “John Barleycorn,” the living feeding on those doomed to die. And like a phantasmal reaper, Hellebore bundles together nourishing articles on such topics as sacrificial speculation about Stonehenge and other megalithic sites, M. R. James’ professional interest in ritual cannibalism, and the historical use of animals in magic and folk medicine. An interview with Professor Ronald Hutton illuminates the revival of occult curiosity now underway, acknowledging the complex mixture of revulsion and allure brought about by the idea of witches and their portrayal in popular media. Folk-horror stories often explore the threat of the shadowy other against organized society, and Hellebore addresses this conservative motif a few times in its pages. Maria Cuervo’s ­anti-fascist statement in her opening editorial seems a sad necessity in our modern era, at once enlightened and benighted. David Southwell’s closing remarks treat on the topic, too; in his brief essay, he reminds us of the currents of oppression inherent in each castle ruin and standing stone, and entreats us to counter these malevolent forces with equally timeless works of magic and art. It’s easy (not to mention fun) to get wrapped up in the fantasy of folk horror, yet the genre clearly speaks to a primordial fragment of our psyche, a fear of the dark that begs, if not to be understood, at least to be indulged. A second issue of Hellebore is in production now, on the theme of “Wild Gods.” (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

A5 offset perfectbound pamphlet, 68 pp.
£6.75 from the publisher, $13 from peculiarparish.com
helleborezine.bigcartel.com

Subtle Bodies
by Rik Garrett
2019

This catalog, a companion to the recent exhibition at Mortlake & Company in Seattle, presents twenty-nine images Garrett made using the photographic techniques of historical esoteric seers, as well as some methods of his own invention. Having explored wet-plate colloidal documentation of secretive forest witches in his 2014 book Earth Magic (Fulgur Esoterica), he here employs Kirilian and spirit photography, a self-made Chronovisor (rumored to produce pictures of past and future events), and other obscure technologies to capture visions inaccessible to the naked eye. The catalog closes with half a dozen selections from Garrett’s “Goetiagraphs,” photographic documentation of his contact with individual spirits conjured from the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, light-sensitive paper retrieved from the magician’s triangle of summoning at each ritual’s end. Issued in a numbered edition of 100. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

Short 8vo digital perfectbound full-color pamphlet, 62 pp.
$30
rikgarrett AT gmail DOT com or rikgarrettphotography.com

Other of Beetles: Ossuary Erotica v.1, n.1
by Heatherlie Allison and Patricia Cram
The Altar(ed) Slate and Snakeroot Works, Autumnal Equinox 2019

Cram and Allison dedicate the first issue of this new quarterly series “to those who have been silenced by sexual trauma.” To be sure, many voices are snuffed out over the course of these four stories. Each tale worms its way deep into the psychology of sex and death, leaving behind a trail of bodies and open-ended questions. Ritual flagellation, animal sacrifice, necromancy, erotic death by giant insect, sexual poisoning, zombification, and other forbidden delights are given rich description in narratives of perpetrator and prey. Allison and Cram’s works are visceral tableaux of longing and its fulfillment at any cost, and will be enjoyed by anyone with a taste for disturbing, possibly cathartic, imagery that will linger in the mind for days. (Should you need a mental palate cleanser after reading this excellent but heavy collection, I suggest consulting a copy of Cram’s Miasma Aspexi, a 40-page bibliomancy zine that’s built like a flipbook for quick browsing and is packed with poetic divinatory directives and magical art from traditions around the world.) (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

Short 12mo digital saddlestitched pamphlet with gold ink sigil hand-stamped on the front cover, 32 pp.
$8
snakerootworks.bigcartel.com or thealtaredslate.com

First Protocols of Queer Goetia
Contagion Press, 2018

Establishing common ground for mourning and magic, this little zine was written as a response to the tragic Ghost Ship fire of 2016, which claimed the lives of thirty-six people at an Oakland warehouse concert. Goetia is the ceremonial art of invoking spirits; First Protocols sets forth considerations, reminders, and rules for inviting communion with the ghosts of the queer dead. The underlying instruction will be familiar to anyone who has attempted such necromancy before, whether in high ritual or simple devotional practice. There are calls to divination, the observation of sacred days, the grokking of omens, and the altering of consciousness through dance and drugs. Shot through all these methods is a reckoning of grief, with flashes of its possible transformation into strength among those yet living. Reciting the 101 directives, each just one to three sentences long, is a type of magic in itself, inducing a trancelike state that could be an excellent starting point for the work. A free download, allowing you to print and construct the zine yourself, is also available at contagionpress.com/queergoetiaspreads.pdf. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

Half-digest single-sheet maze-book pamphlet, 8 pp.
$2
Contagion Press; Post Office Box 14212; Seattle, Wash. 98114. contagionpress.com

The Heart of Tracking: Inner and Outer Practices of Nature Awareness
by Richard Vacha, with illustrations by Katya Plescia
Mount Vision Press, 2019

“The very practice of being aware,” Vacha tells us in the introduction to this debut book, “is a process of becoming more alive.” Originally published as a newspaper column in the author’s home territory of West Marin County, The Heart of Tracking’s four-dozen essays reveal subtle truths that may be found through the nearly vanished practice of animal tracking. Following a few essays on looking at tracks themselves, and tuning our attention to how our own feet move, the book sets to work cultivating a state of mind somewhere between analysis, imagination, and intuition. The result is a multi-layered awareness at once finer and more grand than our everyday perception. Each chapter is a single essay and, like a short day hike, instantly turns us away from the chatter of inner monologue to focus on the larger conversation continually unfolding around us. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

8vo offset paperback book, 224 pp.
$16.95
Mount Vision Press; Post Office Box 712; Inverness, Calif. 94937. mountvisionpress.com

Infinite Variety: Writings by Individualist-Anarchist Women
edited by Cora Bell Lee
Enemy Combatant Publications

Inspired by an all-male anthology of individualist writing she swiped from the Little Black Cart table at the San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair, editor Lee presents her riposte in this collection of essays and poems by Sara Bard Field, Adeline Champney, and Fraulein Lepper. Drawn from the early twentieth-century pages of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth News, Benjamin Tucker’s Liberty, and the egoist journal The Eagle and the Serpent, these five works offer fresh critiques of the dominant institutions of the day (Goldman’s journal among them), as well as of the self-sacrifice society expects of women. Unfortunately, most of the arguments are applicable even now. In her prefatory notes, Lee mentions her plans to publish more individualist women’s writings, a move that would certainly add welcome depth and richness to the canon. In another display of how small the anarchist-press world can be, Enemy Combatant recently announced they would be handing print production duties for their works—Infinite Variety among them—to their friends at Little Black Cart. Perhaps you’ll acquire your copy from their book-fair table. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

Digest riso pamphlet, 28 pp.
$4
Little Black Cart, littleblackcart.com (also available at Underworld Amusements, underworldamusements.com)

Romance of the Grail: The Magic and Mystery of Arthurian Myth
by Joseph Campbell, edited by Evans Lansing Smith
New World Library, 2015

This collection of the late mythologist’s essays and lectures opens with a survey of medieval European attitudes, legends, and tribal migrations. Seekers of the Grail—be it Christ’s chalice, lapis exilis, or something else entirely—move against this backdrop, individuals at odds with kings and clergy alike. Romance’s central, and longest, chapter is given over to a study of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, which Campbell considered the greatest literary achievement of the Middle Ages. His breakdown of Wolfram’s use of symbolism—from the etymology of names to the knight’s evolving relationship with the feminine—is a boon to anyone reading this tale of adventure and enlightenment. The book closes with two appendices, the first being Campbell’s master’s thesis on the dolorous stroke of Sir Balin, the second a bibliography of Arthurian works from the mythologist’s own library. Romance of the Grail is one volume in the Joseph Campbell Foundation’s Collected Works series, which compiles Campbell’s published and unpublished writings and lectures on a range of mythological topics. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 7)

8vo offset hardcover book, 282 pp.
$24.95
New World Library; 14 Pamaron Way; Novato, Calif. 94949. newworldlibrary.com

The Greenwood Faun
by Nina Antonia
Egaeus Press, 2017

This dreamlike novel is a follow-on to the life of Lucian Taylor, the ill-starred protagonist of Arthur Machen’s semi-autobiographical “The Hill of Dreams.” The Greenwood Faun traces the trajectory of Taylor’s final, unpublished work of the same name and the decadent erotic doom it visits upon any who read its pages. The manuscript’s list of victims includes impressionable young ­Conrad Hartington Leacock-Jones, whose family worry over his incipient affair with the opium-smoking ghost of Rhymers’ Club alumnus Lionel Johnson. A Janus-faced relative plans to publish his own edition of The Greenwood Faun. In a shrouded grove, the Great God Pan awaits. Antonia’s historical and literary references provide delicious ways to drift deeper down the rabbit hole. As with all Egaeus Press editions this one is lush, with generous gold foil on the cover, nasturtium-vine endpapers, and reproductions of vintage line art within. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

8vo offset hardcover book, 192 pp.
£32, inclusive of postage worldwide
egaeuspress.com

D.I.Y. Witchery (Brainscan n. 33)
by Alex Wrekk
Stolen Sharpie Revolution, 2017

“There are infinite ways to witch,” states longtime zinester Wrekk in this breakdown of agnostic secular witchcraft, a self-directed alternative to established paths. Hers is an iconoclastic witchcraft of observation, practice, and individual freedom, unmoored from gods or fellow practitioners. Through independent scholasticism and creativity, Wrekk uses critical thinking to root out the reasons she finds certain aspects of witchcraft appealing or distasteful. In these pages she retraces the steps that brought her here, beginning with childhood fantasy and teen media, threading through goth, punk, and D.I.Y. learning, and culminating in present-day spellwork, such as shrines to experiences in her own life, which might include ticket stubs and photos of friends alongside the more universally familiar crystals and candles. In agnostic secular witchcraft autonomy reigns; this is reverence without worship. On synchronicities Wrekk notes, “It’s not ‘the universe trying to tell you something,’ but rather you inferring something from the experience that is meaningful to you.” This personal governance over one’s witchcraft is clear, too, in D.I.Y. Witchery’s notes on “spell building,” as opposed to spell casting. All this is done with respect to people and cultures engaged in their own magical and spiritual practices, and the result is a punk witchcraft anyone can create for themselves, given a close enough look at life. Illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings by Steve Larder. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

12mo xer sewn pamphlet, 72 pp.
$5
upthewitchypunx.tumblr.com and alexwrekk.wordpress.com

Wyrdwood: Essays Toward an Understanding of the Folkwitch
by Eldred Hieronymus Wormwood
Alkahest Press, 2018

Wyrdwood offers thirty-five entries on numerous facets of folk witchcraft. The author doesn’t present academic folklore, nor actual spells. These essays instead explore aspects of everyday witchery as observed by a longtime practitioner in a self-possessed, unobtrusive prose style that feels like a quiet conversation in the woods. Themes include principles of folkwitch practice, magical tools, advice for relating with spirits, and most of all, rooting magical practice in an active relationship with nature. And there’s a great bibliography. The book itself beautifully matches the tone of these essays, typeset on heavy paper in a font that resembles old-fashioned letterpress. (Andrew M. Reichart, Fiddler’s Green 6)

A5 perfectbound paperback book, 126 pp.
£20
alkahestpress AT gmail DOT com; alkahest.press

The Old Calendrist
by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Robert Kelly, Rachel Pollack, Charles Stein, and Kim Spurlock
Enemy Combatant Publications, 2015; second printing 2016

The five members of this super-group of self-­described “bitter ­rancorous aging hippies” claim not to subscribe to optimism but to “­anti-pessimism.” We’ll take it. The Old Calendrist is a call to revert our current timekeeping system to that of the Julian calendar, an invention of the last of Rome’s pagan emperors. The Gregorian calendar replaced Julian time in Counter-Reformation Europe in 1582, and was adopted amidst much bloodshed by England and the United States in 1752. The logical argument for the return is that mankind’s holidays and much of what we see in the earth’s seasonal changes—­notably Christmas, New Year’s, and the coming of spring—are better reflected under Julian time’s more accurate and flexible observation of the natural flows of the year, differing by locality and culture. But bitter rancorous aging hippies don’t argue from the standpoint of logic, they just want more days off work. Time need not equal money, and if it must exist at all, then let time be in harmony with nature. Other alternative timekeeping methods put forth to counter capitalist Gregorian tyranny include the Mayan calendar, the birds’ dawn chorus, the transhumance of livestock, and Edmund Spenser’s Shepheardes Calendar. Converting to any of these systems, the Old Calendrists argue, might enable anyone to “escape from schedule and do what you alone are born to do.” (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

Trimmed letter two-color offset saddlestitched pamphlet, 36 pp.
$9, no checks
Contagion Press; Post Office Box 14212; Seattle, Wash. 98114

Pagan Anarchism
by Christopher Scott Thompson
Gods & Radicals Press, 2016

Pagan ­­Anarchism offers a straightforward exploration of these two bodies of tradition, showing how their naturally complementary tendencies inform the thought and practice of modern radical leftist witches. Chapters cover histories of witchcraft and anarchism, exhortations for a new animism, and visions of a world where humans live at odds neither with the biosphere nor with each other. Remember: the Witch Trials were part of the Enclosure of the Commons that helped create capitalism. Recommended for witches, neopagans, and polytheists of all sorts, and for anyone interested in how a nature-based spirituality can express itself in political struggles for liberation. (Andrew M. Reichart, Fiddler’s Green 6)

8vo perfectbound paperback book, 100 pp.
$10
distro AT abeautifulresistance DOT com

Seawitches n. 003
edited by Margaret Seelie
Other Side of Surfing, Winter 2018

This well-crafted zine series celebrates the women who dare to surf the ocean’s waves and venture into its depths, exploring mysteries natural and otherwise. Dedicated to water as muse, this third issue mainly features visual art—photography, paintings, and drawings related to surfing, ocean dwellers, and the ecology of the sea—with two poems from Maureen Murphy and Coco Peezy. Seelie says the series will return to an even mix of visual art and articles, fiction, and poetry beginning with ­Seawitches n. 004. The hand-painted ­cover stock, letterpressed with ink and foil, recalls mottled, wave-smoothed sand. The covers are printed at Open Windows Cooperative in San Francisco and, notably for Fiddler’s Green readers, this is the first issue in the series to have pages produced by Colorprint, the same group that prints and binds our peculiar parish magazine. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

Digest color Indigo digital and letterpress saddlestitched pamphlet, 40 pp.
$10
seawitcheszine.com

The Cunningham Amendment, v. 18, n. 1
edited by Peter Good
R. Supward Press, 18 September 2018

Chock-full of cheery counter-programming, The Cunningham Amendment is the long-running unofficial user’s guide to being a decent human on earth. (For we were once, as stated each issue in the Frampton Obligations, tadpoles on Zylog.) Editor Peter Good compiles pithy contributions from anarcrisps (or “nice anarchists”) from around the world, each of which is a reminder to wake up and reject the stale conformity of modern life, with its industrialized funneling of joy and other good things away from you and me. All of this is composed via handset type and letterpress printed using a rainbow variety of inks. Gorgeous. Smells great. Would love to hear from you. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

Landscape 8vo color letterpress and offset tapebound pamphlet with tip-ins, 26 pp.
The usual
The Cunningham Amendment, Room 6, Tangleford House, The Street, Bawdeswell, Norfolk NR20, 4RT, England

The Badger and the Bag
by Penny Billington
Ashwell Springs Press, 2012

The eight short chapters in this work of detective fiction feature Gwion Dubh, Druid investigator. Trading street smarts for the ways of the wood, the burrow-dwelling Dubh befriends an unlikely pair of Neolithic-era survivors, helping them in recovering their lost home and ancestral relics. Billington writes in the style of gumshoe classics, and with plenty of humor, yet at every turn her story is also informed by the Druidic beliefs she holds in her own life. The Badger and the Bag is part of the “Wheel of the Year” series—this one is for mid-winter, or winter solstice. Illustrated throughout by Arthur Billington’s simple and charming line drawings. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

A5 xer saddlestitched pamphlet, 32 pp.
£3
Ashwell Springs Press, 4 Park View, Silver Street, Wells BA5 1UW, England. pennybillington.com

Witchbody
by Sabrina Scott
Witchbody Studio, 2016

This is a comix-style zine, fittingly weighty and tactile, given its subject matter of full engagement with the earth. The cover and pages are of heavy stock, and the ink has an intriguing chalky feel to it. Witchbody’s content is substantial, too—a running monologue of Scott’s philosophy of magic and how it informs life, love, and our connections to emissaries from the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms. The text could be read on its own yet is greater for its wending among the images, Scott’s inner voice contemplating the place of the witch during solitary wanderings through the world. With an introduction by Timothy Morton and an impressive four-page bibliography spanning disciplines including ecology, occultism, media studies, and philosophy. My copy is from the second edition, third printing; Witchbody is slated for a trade edition from Weiser Books this spring. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

Trimmed letter offset saddlestitched pamphlet, 80 pp.
$25
sabrinamscott.com

Commotion Time
by ­Cardinal Cox
Starburker Publications, 2018

Cox’s latest historical poetry pamphlet is inspired by the events of Robert Kett’s rebellion against the Norfolk enclosures of 1549. “Save for Saffron Grounds,” a poem midway through this collection of five, is innovative in that it alternates clauses from Kett’s petition, written in a diplomatic style, with lines of more derisive rhyme the rebels may very well have muttered under their breath while composing it. I don’t know how many of Cardinal Cox’s poetry pamphlets I have squirreled away around here at this point, but together they constitute the seeds for a people’s history of England and provide much-needed insights into current revolutionary movements. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

A5 xer saddlestitched pamphlet, 12 pp.
The usual
Starburker Publications, 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough PE2 5RB, England

The Winged Psyche
by ­Philip Carr-Gomm
The Oak Tree Press, 2018

Taking its title from a line in Keats’ “Ode to Psyche,” this handsome pamphlet recounts a series of meetings between Carr-Gomm and a benevolent angelic being. The two discuss many of life’s greatest mysteries—purpose, identity, and spiritual existence after death among them. The angel, fleeting in presence but sure in conviction, offers answers simple yet profound. There is no dogma here, only broad direction and an appeal to openness in heart and mind. Through a candid account of personal transcendence, The Winged Psyche gives new life to universal truths. It would make a perfect gift for anyone curious about mysticism or looking for reassurance in life. Originally produced in an edition of 200 with sewn binding and a flapped dust jacket, an unlimited saddlestitched version is now available. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

8vo offset pamphlet, 28 pp.
₤6.50
The Oak Tree Press, Post Office Box 1333, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1DX, England. philipcarr-gomm.com

Chiron the Centaur
by Benjamin de Casseres
Enemy Combatant Publications, 2016

A poetic account, in four scenes, of the elderly Chiron, approaching death after nearly sixty centuries on earth, advising his children on the ways of the good life. This short work of de Casseres, first published in 1937, is replete with lush prose befitting mythology’s randiest thinker. Chiron urges his “earth rascals” toward experience and wisdom in defiance of man, moral, and machine. Life, he holds, is first and foremost to be experienced, and understood only by happenstance. This philosophy is without direction as mankind understands it. It is good to chase a butterfly and not to catch it, for catching the butterfly is death. The centaur way champions vitality and pleasure, chiefly through wine, poetry, music, and nymph-­chasing (and nymph-catching). It is against civilization, war, logic, and knowledge as a means to an end. Why do men build cities only to turn around and destroy them? Why not chase butterflies? (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

Digest offset saddlestitched pamphlet, 16 pp.
$4, no checks
Contagion Press; Post Office Box 14212; Seattle, Wash. 98114

Christian Animism
by Shawn Sanford Beck
Christian Alternative, 2015
In this booklet Beck—an ordained priest in the Anglican Church of Canada as well as a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids—proposes that Christians expand and deepen their view of the inherent spirituality of the world. Upending mankind as the mere stewards of a subservient Creation, Christian Animism encourages a reciprocal relationship between humanity and the rest of nature. Beck turns to the works of fellow spiritual teachers whose theology moves into action, including Starhawk, Walter Wink, and the practitioners of Neo-Paganism, Engaged Buddhism, Cree Traditions, Enochian Apocalypticism, and Celtic Christianity. The appeal is written in a refreshingly open-minded style and with an apt hand-to-forehead disbelief that monotheists, who on paper claim God to be all-pervasive, have effectively banished the divine from practically everywhere. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

8vo offset paperback, 60 pp.
$11.95
Christian Alternative, John Hunt Publishing Ltd, Laurel House, Station Approach, Alresford, Hants SO24 9JH, England. christian-alternative.com

Communicating Vessels n. 29
by Anthony Walent
Summer–Fall 2018

The more things change, the more they stay the same. And if the corruption and cruelty of history insist on revisiting our doorsteps dressed in new guises, at least we have Communicating Vessels. Editor Walent is a broad-ranging scholar and folklorist, issuing commentary as he wanders the wilds of gentrified Tucson and the stone-strewn roads of centuries past. The lowly donkey, trusted mount of Dionysus and Christ and companion to Forty-­Niners and explorers, figures throughout this issue. In addition to the usual letters column and a number of reviews of sympathetic publications, Walent also includes articles on desert stargazing and the “American Rabelais” that was author and poet Jim Harrison. The fine production work on this journal is by Charles Overbeck of Eberhardt Press. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

8vo offset ­saddlestitched pamphlet, 40 pp.
The usual
Communicating Vessels; Post Office Box 2048; Tucson, Ariz. 85702

England’s Dark Dreaming
by Paul Watson
The Lazarus Corporation, 2018

This meditative collection presents twenty-four charcoal drawings on, as put in the book’s full title, “the Subject of the Matter of England and the World Turned Upside Down.” Large-format portraits of figures from folklore—the May Queen, the Green Man, Hekate, male and female ritualists, the dark primordial Spirit of Albion—pass through the pages in eerie procession, as if the reader were witness to an ominous fairy rade. In backgrounds, a crudely hoisted Union Jack and a Brexit edition of the Daily Mail remind us of the phantoms’ eternal relevance. Watson calls his work “Albionic Gothic,” and its half-light commentary moves past revivalist folk-horror to face contemporary perversions of notions of pride, peoplehood, and place. With a foreword by Hookland psychogeographer David Southwell. In addition to England’s Dark Dreaming, Watson’s website carries his other books, prints, and originals. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 6)

A4 xer paperback, 80 pp.
₤14.99 with free shipping in the U.K.
The Lazarus Corporation, Post Office Box 5480, Brighton BN50 8NS, England. lazaruscorporation.co.uk

Everyday Magic ns. 1–5
by Finn Oakes (2012–2017)

This occasional perzine follows Oakes’ emergent magical practice, one rooted in elemental nature and expressed through spells and contemplation, as well as work within spiritual, educational, and political groups. The introductory text in the first issue includes the line, “Since I was a child, I’ve understood the world as alive.” Everyday Magic shows how that understanding can grow into a reverence, and the reverence into a code of ethics, a manner of conduct, a way of being, and a living within nature. Oakes recounts embodying this spirituality through farmwork, homesteading, actions with Occupy Wall Street organizers, and ceremonies with Reclaiming practitioners, along the way wrestling with past traumas and inherent complexities—including magic performed on ground sacred to conquered people, the use of a mix of homegrown and industrially produced spell components, and the calling upon of spirits of ancestors who may have been instrumental in all this desecration and destruction. The work (in every sense) gives rise to a wholeness that is at once confirming and challenging, and Oakes shares the process in short passages of writing—sometimes theoretical, sometimes personal. Issue 3 is a fine example of the blend, a nine-plant herbal written as a series of memories on the topic of intimate connection. Through such candid explorations of ­issue-length themes including presence, liminal space, and commitment, Everyday Magic weaves a rich tapestry of a thoughtful, hard-won practice devoted to life. This is a magic any of us would do well to echo in our own work. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Digest xer pamphlets, 16–24 pp each.
$4.60 each, includes shipping.
Finn Oakes; c/o Root Down Farm; 2601 Cloverdale Road; Pescadero, Calif. 94060.
Zines for purchase and other information about Oakes’ work are online at finnoakes.com.

Seeds n. 1
by Emma Collins (2017)

The succession of art movements that came to be known as Romanticism originally emerged as a response to the god-killing rationalism of the Enlightenment and the dehumanizing mechanization of the Industrial Revolution. The Romantics found divinity, inspiration, and purpose in the natural world, leaving the confines of the cities for a more Arcadian existence in the countryside. Emma Collins sees a new wave of Romanticism today, and in Seeds she writes about how its sentiments are being expressed in haute couture finding a market in ­exurban and rural regions. Strong binaries abound, ripe for dismantling: masculine versus feminine, statement versus practicality, affordable versus sustainable, traditional versus new. Collins considers the whys and hows of this new revolution through photo essays and interviews with designers, retailers, curators, and permaculture farmers in upstate New York’s Hudson Valley. Seeds is a beautiful and idyllic zine, deepened by Collins’ understanding of Punk as an expression of Romanticism’s inherent qualities of dissent and hope. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Digest color xer sewn pamphlet, 32 pp with translucent vellum cover and tip-ins.
Inquire for price and availability.
emma-collins.format.com

The Witching-Other
by Peter Hamilton-Giles
Atramentous Press, 2017

Subtitled “Explorations and Meditations on the Existential Witch,” The Witching-Other is a challenging academic text that engages in the long-neglected field of occult philosophy. It explores the relation between the physical witch and its witching-other, the aesthetic idea on which it seeks to base itself. Hamilton-Giles navigates the multitude of avenues and pitfalls that lie before the seeker as the concept of the other is explored. The book is a literary definition of negative space, painting the sky and underlining the darkness that makes up the silhouette of the elusive truth, that the witching-other is defined not by what it is but by what it is not. The book offers no how-to’s, but instead seeks to arm the reader with a toolkit of understanding and potentialities that will set them adrift in the spaces between accepted knowledge. A highly recommended text for the serious occult student. (Daniel Yates, Fiddler’s Green 5)

8vo offset case, 160 pp.
Available in two editions: standard hardcover with evergreen colourset dustjacket, £45 / $66; deluxe in foil-blocked burgundy book calf, marbled edging and endpapers in foil-blocked solander box £390 / $525.
Atramentous Press, atramentouspress.com or, for U.S. and Canadian orders, threehandspress.com

Venefica Magazine v. 1
edited by Melissa Jayne Madara
Catland Books, 2018

This premier issue, published on the spring equinox and profusely illustrated with photographs, paintings, drawings, and comics, is a bold debut from the New York City shop and community space. Through essays, interviews, poetry, and visual storytelling, Venefica grants physical documentation to expressions of witchcraft and related concerns that many readers may have only ever witnessed online or in their imaginations. Gender, sexuality, ethics, magical practice, and queer and intersectional politics are explored by nearly forty contributing writers and artists. Venefica meets our current era of spiritual transformation and renewal with vitality, frankness, and grit. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Letter color offset paperback, 114 pp.
$25
Catland Books; 987 Flushing Ave.; Brooklyn, N. Y. 11206; ­catlandbooks.com

The Shameless Witch Club ns. 1 & 2
by Anadara Pérez
November 2017

New zinester Pérez offers bite-sized observations and encouragements for those curious about witchcraft and pagan spirituality. Topics in the two mini-zines I received include herbal remedies, alternatives to tampon use, the fashion industry’s use of the iconography of witchcraft, and choosing to revel with the Horned One: “After ages of fear and quiet, shame and ‘purity,’ saving yourself for the one, etc., most teenage girls were allured by the idea of a God who doesn’t punish, but dances with you in the night.” (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

A7 xer single-sheet maze-book pamphlet, 8 pp.
The usual
Anadara Pérez; Berkel 53; 8223 DZ Lelystad; The Netherlands. singingwillow.nl, willowarkta AT gmail DOT com

The German Griddle: An Ajay Curio
by Alan Brignull and Sheldon C. Wesson
The Hedgehog Press, January 2018

Wesson was a hobbyist publisher of amateur journalism—or “ajay”—pamphlets beginning in his teens in the late 1930s. This issue of his series The Griddle was a small-format eight-page zine he produced as an American G. I. in Germany in the weeks following V-E Day, mailing copies home for the amusement (and no doubt relief) of family and friends. Modern-day ajay wizard Alan Brignull here reproduces this impressive wartime relic, along with a clarifying introduction and glossary, in a handsome binding that will send readers looking for more works by Wesson and his prolific cohort, whose proto-perzines had such colorful titles as Spigot, Siamese Standpipe, The Scarlet Cockerel, Weaker Moments, The Unspeakable Thing, and Alf’s Cat. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

12mo letterpress sewn pamphlet, 20 pp + wraparound flap cover
The usual
Alan Brignull; The Hedgehog Press; 33 Heath Road; Wivenhoe; Essex C07 9PU; England

Piney Wood Atlas v. 1: The Northwest
by Carolina Porras and Alicia Toldi, 2017

After meeting at a residency in Colorado, artists Toldi and Porras embarked on a series of road trips to document similar opportunities in the American Northwest. The listings in this volume cover their journey from Oakland, California to Vancouver, British Columbia. Among the residencies profiled are those accepting people working in any medium, from the traditional arts to emerging forms such as virtual reality. Through photographs, interviews, drawings, and side notes, Piney Wood Atlas confirms the positive effects time, space, and encouragement have on artists, who often live in environments at odds with their dreams. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

12mo xer paperback, 116 pp.
$20
contact AT pineywoodatlas DOT com

Basic Paper Airplane n. 10
by Joshua James Amberson
Antiquated Future, October 2015

In this issue, Amberson plumbs the weird depths of the freelance writing world, recalling his years spent piecing together a living through a series of thankless, underpaid jobs. He quickly flees the appalling slave-labor world of lowest-bidder freelancer websites for a string of quasi-sustainable writing and writing-adjacent positions. Along the way he learns (or intuits) unglamorous truths about supposedly hip gigs at Vice, the local weekly, an international online directory for nightclubs (and the pathos of bottle service), and the help desk at a certain secondhand book behemoth in Portland. Heartwarming moments are to be found during his stretch as a creative writing instructor at a community college. By shining such an unflattering light on the miserable reality so many freelancers face, ­Amberson’s recollection stands to encourage anyone who writes their own stories, and for their own reasons and audiences. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Short digest xer saddlestitched pamphlet, 32 pp.
$2
Antiquated Future; Post Office Box 42081; Portland, Oreg. 97242. joshuajamberson AT gmail DOT com

Ravenous Zine v. 1
edited by Mallory Lance
Ravenous Media, December 2017

Eyes open, mind alert, hands dirty: Ravenous serves a wake-up call to women ready to direct their own destinies in the face of consumerism and systemic self-sabotage. Delving into the theme of “craft,” this first issue presents fifteen features on reshaping the world into a more supportive and sustainable place. This may come in the form of a conversation with an elder, as in Claire Everson’s interview with Idaho-based shaman EarthThunder, providing new perspectives on questions of aging and value. It may come through rituals of reflection or expression, alone or in community. It may come by handcrafting medicine, food, or clothing. It may come through simple, yet foundational, shifts in thinking, as illumined in interviews with authors Kristen J. Sollée and Kier-La Janisse. The front cover photograph of Cara Marie Piazza’s dye-stained hands telegraphs the truth, that claiming creative power is a process that can be messy, gorgeous, and deeply personal. Ravenous is a gift that each reader must open themselves, and in their own way. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

8vo offset paperback, 146 pp.
$20 print, $6 digital download
ravenous-media.com

Mineralis
by Patricia Cram
In Solace Publishing / Snakeroot Works, 2017

Through a ceremonial blending of poetry and prose, Cram’s writing bridges seemingly contradictory worlds—the visceral and the transcendent, the debased and the divine. Over the course of five stories, she describes rituals of initiation, discovery, and survival, her characters existing in dream-­realities dripping lapis, peonies, silk, beasts, and blood, horrifying and yet beautiful for the lush description of the scenes and the players’ calculated movements. Each push, crack, and stretch reveals opulence and gore in equal measure. One story is reprinted from the Three Hands Press anthology Penumbrae, and another previews Cram’s novel These Knives Exhale. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Digest xer saddlestitch pamphlet, 52 pp.
$10
snakerootworks.bigcartel.com; information about Cram and her works can be found at patriciacram.com

Pitch=Pitch n. 1
by Archaic Honey
Blood Moon Botanica, January 2018

Pine pitch is a sticky tree secretion known by some for its fragrant and medicinal properties, inflaming wounds and drawing out splinters and other foreign bodies. Its use can speed wound recovery, but not without additional pain. Archaic Honey recounts her experience of healing with pine pitch following a fall onto a spiny devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus) while hiking the length of the Pacific Crest Trail in 2017. The zine also includes spiritual and practical directions for gathering and processing pitch into salves, teas, and cough stimulants. A passage from Michael Moore’s Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West considers the modern aversion to pain and discomfort, which is often the body’s response not to disease or injury but to the healing process itself. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Half-digest saddlestitched pamphlet, 16 pp.
$5
Britton Boyd; 28547 Siesta Lane; Eugene, Oreg. 97402. britton AT archaichoney DOT com

Magic Words
by Jason Rodgers
2017

Magicians, writers, and others have always used language as a tool for crafting and manipulating reality, be it for themselves alone or for the world at large. In this one-shot zine, Rodgers examines the philosophical and philological connections between language and magic, citing a range of authors including communication theorist James W. Carey, anarcho-surrealist Ron Sakolsky, and subversive culture sculptor Genesis P-Orridge. As wary of escapism as he is of propaganda, Rodgers longs for a magic that transforms the self, and in turn reality, deconditioning people from society’s imposed constructs, or as ­Burroughs wrote in The Soft Machine, “Calling partisans of all nation—Cut word lines—Shift linguals—Free doorways—Vibrate ‘tourists’—Word falling—Photo falling—Break through in Grey Room.” (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

Digest xer saddlestitched pamphlet, 12 pp.
The usual; or $1 USA, $2 elsewhere
Jason Rodgers; Post Office Box 10894; Albany, N. Y. 12201

Holloway
by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, and Dan Richards
Faber and Faber, 2013

Also called roundways, bostles, snickets, and shutes, among many other colloquialisms, holloways are ancient tracks worn down by centuries of human use. Running as deep as eighteen feet below the surface of adjoining fields, holloways are regularly overlaced with trees and, with dwindled traffic, choked with brambles. Some date back to the Iron Age and lead to ancient markets, sites of pilgrimage, or the sea. Wyrdsmith Macfarlane trods one such holloway twice in this brief, evocative book, once with author and environmentalist Roger Deakin and again, six years later, with writer Dan Richards and artist Stanley Donwood (who provides cover art and five atmospheric full-page drawings). The journeys bear witness to the holloway’s legendary propensity to bring its walkers in contact with the spirits of the dead, or to cause them to come unstuck in time. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 5)

8vo offset case with dustjacket, 48 pp.
£14.99
Faber and Faber; Bloomsbury House; 74–77 Great Russell Street; London WC1B 3DA; England. faber.co.uk

Wyrd Journal, v. 1
edited by Daniel Schulke, Lee Morgan, and Richard Gavin
Three Hands Press, Vernal Equinox 2017

Subtitled “That Which Becomes,” Wyrd borrows its name from the ancient concept of a subtle network of interconnection underlying all of reality. Those who can work the “web of Wyrd” gain influence over the flows of change and destiny. In its closing editorial, this new bi-annual series claims inspiration from the long-running British witchcraft journal The Cauldron, which folded with the passing of editor Michael Howard in 2015. Through explorations of topics earthy (British poppet dolls; the use of seeds in European folk magic) and intellectual (the nature of consciousness; the paradoxes of practicing traditional witchcraft in a postmodern world), the first issue’s eight essays—most of them written by authors of Three Hands Press books—demonstrate the breadth and depth of current occultism. Wyrd’s compelling mingling of intriguing text and excellent reproductions of historic and contemporary artwork prove that the energies in the venerable web of flux are as potent as ever. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

Large 8vo offset perfectbound pamphlet, 92pp.
$22 + $3 postage (USA) or $6.50 (international)
Wyrd Journal; 1511 Sycamore Ave.; PMB 131; Hercules, Calif. 94547
threehandspress.com/shop/wyrd-journal

The Voluntaryist n. 173
edited by Carl Watner
The Voluntaryists, 2nd Quarter 2017

In print for the past thirty-five years, The Voluntaryist puts forth the theory and practice of voluntaryism, a philosophy which holds that all human association should be done according to one’s own free will, not subject to coercion from other people or the State. Each quarterly issue includes Watner’s views as well as those of contributors and works gathered from the worlds of literature and political commentary. The publication’s website maintains an archive of back issues in PDF form, and articles are easily browsable by topic and can be discussed via online comment. Among other items, this most recent edition examines the history of compulsory juries and the editor’s recent experience of the modern jury system in the United States. The regular “Potpourri” column, as well as the bibliographies closing each article, offer nodes of further exploration for curious freedom seekers. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

Letter xer F&G, 8pp.
Single issues $5; six-issue subscription $25; “gold, silver, and bitcoin readily accepted”
The Voluntaryists; Post Office Box 275; Gramling, S. C. 29348
voluntaryist.com

Inverness Almanac vs. 1–4
edited by Ben Livingston, Katie Eberle, Jordan Atanat, Nina Pick, and Jeremy Harris
Mount Vision Press, 2015–2016

Over the course of two years this paperback journal distilled the foggy essence of West Marin into its printed pages, a twice-annual gift lovingly produced for the region’s residents and visitors and a promissory note to its ecologically fragile future. Inverness Almanac tracks the pulse of the land through essays, photography, poetry, recipes, maps, recollections, and drawings, incorporating musical notation for birdsong and eschewing page numbers in favor of tide charts. As it does it casts a welcome spell, one familiar to anyone who has stood transfixed by a sunrise, the lap of waves on the shore, or the slow unfolding of a flower in the warmth of the day. Now that the editors have completed the Almanac’s planned four-issue run, they are transitioning into a book publishing concern. Should Mount Vision carry on in the same spirit, its books will help honor and steward their little slice of heaven on earth until the next generation can take up the task. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

Large 8vo offset perfectbound pamphlet, 108pp. each
$18 each
Mount Vision Press; Post Office Box 712; Inverness, Calif. 94937
invernessalmanac.com; editors AT mountvisionpress DOT com

Still Walking in the Bones of My Ancestors
edited by Lawrence McWilliams and Anand Vedawala
540 Collab; 2nd edition, October 2016

Essays, anecdotes, and poems from twenty-five contributors comprise a mosaic of modern African-American life. Editors Vedawala and McWilliams issued this well-made pamphlet as a companion piece to their 2015 book, 100 Years From Now Our Bones Will Be Different, which chronicles the lives of members of a fictional family from 1915 to 2015. Still Walking carries the story forward into this world, and has the makings of an excellent series, should the editors wish to continue. Both McWilliams and Vedawala publish extensively, so if you like what they’re up to with Still Walking, check out their other work. I recently picked up Vedawala’s pamphlet Sadhana, which explores topics of immigration, identity, and culture through the lens of his relationship with his mother. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

8vo offset perfectbound pamphlet, 38pp.
$7
anandvedawala.com; Lawrence McWilliams’ art: lawmcwilliams.wixsite.com/portfolio

The Hedge Witch’s Herbal Grimoire (2nd edition)
by Alison Garber, illustrated by Adrienne Rozzi
Poison Apple Printshop / Native Apothecary, 2015

This inspiring collection of wildcrafting lore introduces the curious to nine medicinal herbs found in the northeastern United States. Herbalist and folk healer Garber opens with an invitation to readers to explore and connect with the wild plants in their own region, along with a page on the use of ethics and tools that will keep plant populations healthy. Each herb is granted a two-page spread loaded with practical applications and common nicknames. The whole of this large-format booklet is lushly illuminated by Rozzi, who draws each plant as it is seen up-close as well as from several paces off, adorning the descriptions with magically associated symbols and animals. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

4to xer perfectbound pamphlet, 32pp.
$39 via Poison Apple Printshop
(Rozzi) Poison Apple Printshop; Post Office Box 40323; Pittsburgh, Penn. 15201; poisonappleprintshop.com, or (Garber) Native Apothecary; nativeapothecary.net

Apocalyptic Witchcraft
by Peter Grey
Scarlet Imprint / Bibliothèque Rogue, 2013

In this dynamic, convulsive appeal, Peter Grey calls for the abolition of civilization through witchcraft. With a writing style that veers between psychedelic prose poem and academic essay, Grey argues for the revival of a dangerous, revolutionary witchery—one which cannot peacefully exist as a mere marketing category within the biosphere-destroying “comforts” of industrial mass-production: we must be wild shapeshifters, casting curses on the empire till it crumbles. In chapters dedicated to topics as diverse as the sabbat, the wolf, the magic of menstrual blood, and the poems of Ted Hughes, Grey’s manifesto carries the reader on a wild night ride to the timeless conclave at the heart of witchcraft. (Andrew M. Reichart, Fiddler’s Green 4)

8vo offset paperback book, 200pp. Hardcover cloth and leather-bound editions also available.
£16 + £4 postage
scarletimprint.com

Comestible n. 2
edited by Anna Brones
Summer 2016

Writer, artist, and activist Brones opens this issue of her seasonal journal with an essay about honoring the geographical and cultural origins of what we eat and drink. What follows are recollections and recipes from thirteen contributors, all of them women, involved in sourcing food either for themselves or others. Some stories are adventurous, such as Eileen P. Kenny and Simran Sethi’s respective treks to coffee farms and chocolate forests, while others—Kate Robinson’s account of pêche à pied in her local tidepools is one—offer more meditative reminders that our next meal may be growing in our own backyard. Papercut images from Brones and line drawings from Jessie Kanelos Weiner sprout here and there throughout the text. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

12mo offset pamphlet, 68pp.
$12
comestiblejournal.com

Quest: Journal of the Theosophical Society in America (Spring 2017)
edited by Richard Smoley
Theosophical Society in America

Each issue of this glossy quarterly brings together essays, reviews, and news on a particular topic and from the Theosophical perspective of spiritual inquiry. This edition, on “The Cosmos,” delves into consciousness and mankind’s relationship with the greater world, with features from Gary Lachman, Steve Hagen, Orgyen Chowang, Kurt Leland, and Smoley, past editor of the late, great journal Gnosis and author of many fascinating and accessible books on esotericism and spirituality. While Quest’s ads and event listings are directed toward the Theosophically minded, the magazine’s thoughtful articles will be of interest to all readers. Upcoming themes beginning with this summer’s issue include The Earth, Justice, The Divine Seed, and Magic. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

4to offset pamphlet, 44pp.
Single issues $7.95; four-issue subscription $27.97
Theosophical Society in America; Post Office Box 270; Wheaton, Ill. 60187. theosophical.org

Leaf by Niggle
by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Trinity Forum, 2016

Now here is something special. Tolkien’s short story about the triumphs and trepidations of the artistic life is given a majestic presentation by the Trinity Forum, a Christian professional development organization, as part of its quarterly literature series. Introductory notes by artist Makoto Fujimura and business leader Alonzo L. McDonald offer philosophical bearings, as does a set of group discussion questions at the back of the booklet. Tolkien’s tale offers ready gold to anyone who has ever been daunted by the enormity of their life’s work or irritated by a neighbor’s appeal for aid. My copy arrived as an unexpected gift, and as soon as I finished reading it I ordered another for a friend. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 4)

8vo offset pamphlet, foil-stamped cover, 44pp.
$8
The Trinity Forum; Post Office Box 9464; McLean, Va. 22102-0464. ttf.org

In the first issue of Fiddler’s Green we reported that publisher P. J. M. was considering retiring his excellent pair of pamphlet series, Node Pajomo and Pukka Joint Massif, which reviewed and chronicled worldwide zine and mail-art culture. Happily, he has come to his senses (I’m sure he’d have another way of putting it) and decided to continue his great work, made with the same zealous glee his readers have come to expect and packed to the gills with opinionated and fair-minded information. Inquire about current and upcoming releases, and send him a bit of cash and your own work, if you can: P. J. M.; c/o Node Pajomo; Post Office Box 2632; Bellingham, Wash. 98227

Re-Minders ns. 1–9
by Rani Goel
Rani Goel Art & Design, 2013–2016

Many summers ago, as a recent graduate from journalism school in a small Midwestern town, I made two very important discoveries that would alter the course of my life. The first was Paul Williams’ bestselling paperback Das Energi, a mystical call-to-arms that cut through the cynical chorus of inner voices telling me I would never amount to much as a writer. Its message remained potent despite the text being some two decades old at that time. Through bite-sized observations, few of them longer than half a page, Williams sketched out a way of looking at the self, the universe, and the possibility of an autonomous relationship between them that was infinitely appealing to a reader just getting started with this business of adulthood. My second life-changing discovery that summer was the triple espresso, which helped, each sip a splash of kerosene on the divine spark within me. Together, the book and caffeine induced an unstoppable urge to take on the world, self-doubt be damned, and the rest is history—California, here I come.

Fast forward to today, twenty more years on, with a stack of Rani Goel’s superlative Re-Minders zines in front of me, and I see much of the same spirit and intent that I found in Das Energi, or perhaps Ram Dass’ Be Here Now, although reworked for a world with an increased capacity for weighing each of us down.

The beauty in Re-Minders lies in its presentation of grand ideas through an economic set of symbols. Emblematic snakes, eyes, and geometric shapes, borrowed from visual systems of alchemy and anatomy, are configured in different combinations, repeated and reinforced in a slow-drip presentation of mysticism that, for me at least, no longer requires much coffee to grok. Goel’s handwritten aphorisms, drawings, and collages serve to open our eyes to the ways we engender separation in our lives, be it through materialism, discrimination, self-hate, or a tunnel vision that denies the value of other people’s dreams. Routines of continual vigilance and forgiveness can lead to a self-acceptance which transcends the negative messages of this world. Oneness achieved, the individual may begin to make her distinctive marks on the macrocosm—be it through art or simply through conscious relationship with others—until the resultant separation calls for the cycle to begin afresh.

Goel is channeling a universal message as she creates each issue of Re-Minders, but it’s apparent that this work is also deeply personal to her. Whenever her writing shifts from second-person to first, she reveals parts of her own orphic conversion. We are privileged to watch her story unfold in real time, issue after issue. And of course we can take up this great work ourselves, moving on a path toward healthy senses of unity and individuality in a world that defaults to neither. Highly recommended. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler's Green 3)

Digest xerograph pamphlets, 20–28 pp each
$5 each
ranigoel.com
etsy.com/shop/ranivisioncreations

Redwood Black Dog
by Amber von Nagel
2015

Bay Area poet von Nagel turns the tables on her depression and anxiety over the course of two short prose pieces in this handsome zine. The first, “Black Dog,” details her history with depression, which she likens not to a canine companion but to a bag of bricks, one which weighs her down, constantly reminding her of her shortcomings, and is immune to any external efforts to slough it off. “Redwood” recounts, in crystal clear imagery, a day trip to Jack London State Historic Park with her own flesh-and-bone dog. As the two of them bask in the elements, von Nagel feels the temporary lifting of her burden and a primordial kinship with the forest. All this is accomplished without asking for pity or judgment, merely understanding.

Although she has already established a literary career for herself in other media, von Nagel makes her zine debut with Redwood Black Dog, which she says is also her first bit of writing about depression. Her pamphlet is perfect as a standalone, and would make an excellent first volume of a series, should she choose to continue. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler's Green 3)

Digest xerography pamphlet, 20 pp
$5
amber.vonnagel AT gmail DOT com

Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ’n’ Roll Group
by Ian F. Svenonius
Akashic Books, 2012

Post-punk authority Svenonius applies magical theory to the complexities of a career in rock ’n’ roll in this pocket guide. Unable to secure interviews with living icons of the industry, assumed to be tight-lipped so as to retain their professional secrets, the author goes one further by conversing with the spirits of living and dead musicians via a séance. Mary Wells, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, and others materialize and illuminate rock ’n’ roll’s surprising links to gang life, death cults, and American shame over seceding from Britain. Svenonius’ sardonic techniques—using astrology to people the band, leveraging the squalor of the rehearsal space to attain artistic transcendence, maintaining an offstage image bordering on the shamanistic—ring amusing and true. The code is clearly cracked. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler's Green 3)

16mo offset paperback, 256 pp
$14.95
Akashic Books, Post Office Box 1456, New York, NY 10009
akashicbooks.com

The Ascendant v. 1
edited by Austin Coppock, Jennifer Zahrt, and Nicholas Civitello
The Association for Young Astrologers, 2014

Abundant in powerful imagery and deep wisdom, the ancient practice of astrology appeals to people of all ages and temperaments. Perhaps for these same reasons, it is also easily reduced to facile interpretation, particularly by young or inexperienced seekers. The Ascendant attempts to bridge the divides of age and accessibility, laying the groundwork for a new generation of astrologers. As it so happens, one article which stood out in my reading was written by Gary David Lorentzen, a contributor with a more seasoned outlook. His recollection—following the first Queer Astrology Conference (held in San Francisco in 2013) — of similar, more hushed conversations he was part of in the early 1980s, demonstrates how far culture has come in recent decades. I also enjoyed Andrea L. Gehrz’s “Astrological Remediation” (titled after her 2012 book of the same name), which outlines a method consulting astrologers can use to help clients leaven starry fate with their own free will. As the magazine of an association for, rather than necessarily of, young astrologers, The Ascendant’s strength in the years to come may be found in more such intergenerational dialogue. Strong production values and a carefully curated collection of illustrations (many of them from the 2014 Tacoma group show, Constellation) add visual appeal to a journal already ripe with possibility. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler's Green 3)

Letter color offset paperback, 76 pp.
$25, or $15 for A. Y. A. members.
youngastrologers.org

A Collection of Curious Drawings and Writings, otherwise known as Winged Wonders and Whatnots
by Jani Gillette
2014

Gillette is a dancer as well as a visual artist, and her abstract, rainbow-hued drawings of eleven otherworldly beings — the Whatnots, she calls them—bring a lyrical motion to the pages of this delightful book. Reminiscent of the spirited thought-forms of the Theosophists, Gillette’s characters embody elemental qualities of both the natural world and the subtle realms of intellect and emotion. One by one the Whatnots take their turn in the limelight, each figure cupped by lines of free-verse poetry. By the end of the book they all dance together, inviting the reader to join in the revels. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

Landscape 4to offset paperback, 50 pp.
$32.34
blurb.com

Through the Woods
by Nina Eve Zeininger
Neon Sprinkles Studio, 2015

This handsewn pamphlet prints twenty-five images from Zeininger’s photo series “Into the Woods.” Close-up pictures of roots and branches give way to longer-range vistas of clearings and hillsides, reminiscent of the quiet grandeur a forest ramble can evoke, and helping us to remember and appreciate, as Zeininger says, “the adventures and discovery that can happen in the in-between, on the way from one place to another.” (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

32mo landscape color xer sewn pamphlet, 28 pp.
Inquire for price and availability
neonsprinklesstudio.etsy.com
ninaevezeininger.com

A Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer
by Alley Valkyrie and Rhyd Wildermuth
Gods & Radicals, 2015

This booklet succinctly describes various problems with capitalism and why we should care. Although the authors occasionally appeal to pagan-specific concerns, this introductory critique is clear and cogent, and may interest anyone who questions how our civilization extracts, produces, and distributes resources. It does slip at times into rhetoric, especially around the appeals to co-religionists. It would be interesting to see these angles argued a bit more thoroughly, making the case that capitalism is incompatible with reverence for nature, rather than just asserting it. Perhaps in a second edition? (Andrew Reichart, Fiddler’s Green 3)

8vo inkjet pamphlet, 40 pp.
$6 (U. S. only); free download available
publisher AT godsandradicals DOT org

The Fourth Pyramid
by Jesse Bransford
Galveston Artist Residency, 2013

As an artist and magician, Bransford draws upon mystical and sorcerous traditions from around the world, reproducing geometric forms which embody mankind’s most profound concepts. This concise guide to fifty-four images, created as part of his residency in Galveston, serves as both an exhibit catalog and a passport to the numinous. Such symbols have always been used to invite in the knowing and keep the uninitiated at arm’s length, and the draftsmanlike order Bransford brings to line and curve hides an inner work ferrying him ever closer to the starting point of all things. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

12mo offset paperpack book, 72 pp.
$20
Galveston Artist Residency, 2521 Ships Mechanic Row, Galveston, Texas 77550
info AT galvestonartistresidency DOT org

Ernest n. 3
edited by Jo Keeling et al
Uncharted Press Ltd, 2015

This smart British biannual champions “slow adventure,” which in the parlance of Ernest means exploration of rich geographic and cultural landscapes—mainly those of western Europe—off the beaten tourist track. Ernest n.  3 is the “eccentric invention” issue, and so among the twenty-some features and departments are a tour of Tresco Abbey Garden in the Scilly Isles, a history of the foliage-draped wild men of the world’s ancient cultures, the story behind Fair Isle sweaters, and profiles of modern-day artisans upholding traditional craft. Matte paper, muted photography, and a tight editorial focus give this journal a warm closeness suffused with imagination and intrigue. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

8vo color offset paperback, 160 pp.
£10 direct
ernestjournal.co.uk

Masculinities
by Cindy Crabb
Doris Press, 2015

Crabb is a veteran of the riot-grrrl era of zinedom, one of the cultural manifestations of third-wave feminism. In this collection of introspective interviews, she shifts focus in a search for a more complete picture of what it means to be a man in America, despite class or race. The transcripts of her conversations with seven cis and transgendered men reveal raw truths as each subject traces connections between people and events from the past and the realities of the person they find themselves being today. The most enjoyable moments in the interviews come when new lightbulbs of understanding click on, either for the interview participants or the reader. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

8vo digest offset pamphlet, 32 pp.
$4
Doris Press, Post Office Box 29, Athens, Ohio 45701
dorisdorisdoris.com

The Wonderful House We Live In, and Our Place in the World
by Joshua James Amberson and Alexis Wolf
2014

This cozy perzine collaboration is published jointly as Amberson’s Basic Paper Airplane n. 8 and Wolf’s Ilse Content n. 13. The two writers (who eschew their last names in this publication) trade gentle stories of friendships, inner discoveries, and the complicated pleasures of creating art, alone or with others. The illustrations are clipped from a handful of mid-century children’s books, and the body type is set in charming Olympia Script, lending a personable punkiness to the whole affair. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

8vo xer pamphlet with color xer cover, 32 pp.
$3
Antiquated Future, Post Office Box 42081, Portland, Oreg. 97242
antiquatedfuture.com

Sabat n. 1
edited by Elisabeth Krohn
2016

Popular witchcraft of the late 20th century merged earthy spirituality, social justice issues, style, and commerce for an entire generation of young women and men. Communion with like-minded souls was difficult in those days, a fragile network of bookshops,  postal correspondents, and mail-order connecting homegrown witches struggling to find identity and guidance. The ties of communication have grown stronger in our now hyper-­connected age, and the smartphone is the latest magical object to find its place in the witch’s tool set. An adolescent witch who grew to become a young woman with an editorial career in the fashion industry, Krohn brings her professional experience and discernment to the production of this timely new series. Sabat’s first issue explores the youngest of witchcraft’s triple-faced archetype, the maiden, with mother and crone issues to follow. Brimming with glamour and printed on several stocks of matte-finish paper, the journal brings undeniable form to the teen-inspired witchcraft of today, much of it documented chiefly on Instagram. Some twenty years from now it will be a valuable time capsule for the next generation of witches as they carry out yet another expression of this paradoxical faith, simultaneously ancient and newly emerging. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

A4 offset perfectbound, 168 pp with tip-ins.
£9.50
Sabat Magazine, Penthouse, Guilford Court, 51 Guilford Street, London WC1 N1ES, United Kingdom
sabatmagazine.com

The Wild Unknown Tarot Guidebook
by Kim Krans
The Wild Unknown, 2012

In this hand-lettered manual, pen-and-ink artist Krans steps readers through the use and imagery of her incredibly popular Wild Unknown tarot deck. Her cards employ several appealing innovations, among them the inclusion of wilderness and animal imagery instead of scenes of human life, and the replacement of the royal procession of page, knight, queen, and king with the more familiar daughter, son, mother, and father. In an opening essay, Krans discusses the clarity and assuredness she receives from the act of drawing, wishing these same gifts for anyone who uses her tarot. After synopses of major and minor arcana, the suits, and a few spreads, the book leads us through the deck, each card’s image juxtaposed against a page of interpretive thoughts. The Wild Unknown Tarot encourages a subtle balance of trust between personal intuition and the whims of fate, and the resulting feeling it brings about is at once empowering and humbling. Krans has handwritten the entirety of the text in her book, lending it the authority of an older sister, one who walks the path just a few strides ahead. In the early tarot adventures of my teenage years, my well-thumbed companion was Nancy Shavick’s The Tarot Reader. The Wild Unknown has taken up this mantle for many people in a new generation. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

12mo offset paperback book, 108 pp.
$19.95
thewildunknown.com

The God Zero n. 0
by Joseph Uccello
Viatorium Press, 2015

This immersive meditation on fluidity and form continues Uccello’s fascination with the concept of zero, explored a few years earlier in his book Occlith (Viatorium / Three Hands Press, 2013). “The God Zero” refers to the Mayan entity responsible for, among other things, the continual change present in the natural world. The “Uncertain Arts” are those of divination, mankind’s never-­ending search for patterns within the world’s structured chaos. Uccello documents his far-reaching travels in Asia and elsewhere through photographs of trees, stones, and temples, this “gorgonian enterprise,” as he calls it, fixing moments in time. The images are later manipulated to bring out dense textures before being worked into the pages of this sumptuous magazine. A few photographs from Carlos Melgoza and Demian Johnston complement Uccello’s images, as do asemic writings from William Kiesel. Essays, stories, poems, and myths from Western and Chinese authors are interleaved among the images, offering, in the flow of creation, islands of empathy with fellow mortals hoping to describe the overwhelming dance of order and discord. Uccello used hand-stitching to reinforce the spines on a few copies of The God Zero, offering them for sale at last year’s Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle. Be in touch with him if you are interested in one of these instead of the standard edition. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 3)

Letter offset perfectbound pamphlet, 104 pp.
$30
joseph-uccello.com

Ker-bloom! ns. 108–111
by Artnoose
May–December, 2014

These zines are recent numbers from Karen Switzer’s long-running autobiographical series. This run of issues was published between May and December 2014, printed in hand-set type on speckled paper and bound in a rainbow of colored cardstock (and staples). In them Switzer tells the story of moving back to Berkeley, toddler son at her side, following seven years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prompted by her parents’ declining health back in the Bay Area, Switzer’s return reawakens longstanding connections and she finds herself reflecting on both loss and renewal. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Half-digest letterpress pamphlets, 12pp. each
The usual
Ker-bloom!, 2480 Fifth Street, Berkeley, Calif. 94710
deepinkletterpress AT gmail DOT com
deepinkletterpress.tumblr.com
etsy.com/shop/artnoose
patreon.com/artnoose

The Cauldron n.154
edited by Michael Howard
Autumn 2014

Issued quarterly since 1976, The Cauldron features essays, news, reviews, and resources concerning witchcraft, Paganism, magic, and folklore. The items are written by a host of contributors, and present material on topics as varied as archeological discoveries, art history, magical practices, earth mysteries, historical characters, UFOs, and religion, all in a sympathetic, unsensationalistic manner. The recently renamed Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall earns a few mentions. Feature articles aside, the listings, advertisements, and reviews will light paths for readers hoping to explore similar publications. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

A4 xer pamphlet, 52pp.
Publication of The Cauldron ceased in 2015 with the passing of Michael Howard.
the-cauldron.org.uk

Secret Origins of the Crass Symbol
by David King
& Pens Press in association with MOsT Books, 2013

Dave King is the British artist who in 1977 designed the iconic logo used first on Penny Rimbaud’s manifesto, Christ’s Reality Asylum, and which was soon after picked up by Crass, the anarcho-punk band and collective of which Rimbaud was a member. By combining authoritative symbols of the cross, serpents, and the circle-slash “no” sign, King’s logo was at once potent, mysterious, and ripe for appropriation by fans and rivals, who stenciled it on everything from denim jackets to the walls of banks. Bootleg versions would even show up occasionally in works by commercial designers and fashion houses, leading to bemused head-scratching by those familiar with the logo and its spirit of D.I.Y. Not content to let others have all the fun, King has succumbed to the power of his own creation and in this booklet breaks down the logo’s draftsmanship to show readers how it can be used to spawn an entire vocabulary of symbols, many of which could further Crass’ messages of peace, protest, and responsibility to self and planet. Designed to match the dimensions of a seven-inch record, Secret Origins… could handily be filed with one’s collection of Crass singles. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Wide 12mo offset perfectbound pamphlet, 32pp.
$12
& Pens Press, Post Office Box 39925, Los Angeles, Calif. 90039
AndPens.com

No Means Yes, Right? n.1
edited by Gracie Currier-Tait and Mandy Barriga
2014

Written in response to the continual street harassment experienced by women and other femme-identifying humans, this anthology zine presents first-person accounts, poetry, and visual art from people who refuse to stand by passively. Male readers will gain insight into how certain behaviors may unintentionally contribute to other people’s annoyance, distress, and disgust. The hand-lettered and illustrated “Self-Defense Toolbox” article discusses various methods for subduing physical attackers, from pepper spray and Tasers to large blunt objects, keychain strike-enhancers, and knives. It’s unfortunate that we live in a world where this sort of zine is necessary, but No Means Yes... gives us starting points for improving it. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Digest xer pamphlet, 24pp.
$4
etsy.com/shop/TheHandAndTheArt

The Rambling Urchin ns. 83 – 92
by Alan Brignull
The Hedgehog Press, March 2014–March 2015

Each card in this consistently delightful series is impeccably printed and loaded with gentle wit. The sequence I received recently included poetry, ruminations on writing and the mail, a special flag in recognition of Scotland’s unsuccessful bid for secession, a couple bits of local history, and a list of the various villains one might run afoul of in Jacobean London, including bawdy-baskets, glymmerers, swigmen, roagues, and (the apparently distinct) wild roagues. Brignull keeps up correspondence with a number of postal artists, and in letters I’ve received he often includes printed ephemera from his invented micro-nation of Adanaland (named after the Adana tabletop presses). Do write him. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

A6 letterpress broadsides
The usual
Alan Brignull, The Hedgehog Press, 33 Heath Road, Wivenhoe, Essex C07 9PU, England

Hello: A Greeting from Nowhere
by Anonymous
undated, circa 2013

Written in the unraveling days of the Occupy movement, this poetic and heady meditation on the failure of reform calls for every would-be revolutionary to first undergo profound inner change. The message of Hello argues that even among members of the resistance, thought patterns and methods of organizing are still modeled on those of the dominant culture, and so by design lead to isolation and solitude, even when we gather in a crowd of friends and compatriots. The author gives the example of our everyday use of the word “hello” to show how far we’ve strayed from true connection with others: With the invention of the telephone, the common greetings “good day” and “good evening” were discarded in favor of the more uncertain word “hello,” spoken as “a kind of question-call one might cast into the woods, or…in the direction of a noise in one’s home.” Living in an era supposedly defined by constant communication, the author feels more alone than ever, yet in hopelessness finds an opportunity for transformation and rebirth. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Short 16mo xer perfectbound pamphlet, 56pp.
The usual
hellofriend AT riseup DOT net

Ned Ludd & Queen Mab: Machine-Breaking, Romanticism, and the Several Commons of 1811–12
by Peter Linebaugh
PM Press Retort Pamphlet Series, 2012

Linebaugh traces the history of two mythical figures who in early 19th-century England inspired worker rebellions against the “dark Satanic Mills” described by William Blake. General Ned Ludd was the name of the imagined leader of the very real fight against the specialization of labor, its stultifying effects on culture, and its concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. The Romantics got a dose of realism from the title character of Percy Shelley’s Queen Mab, a fae sovereign introduced by Linebaugh as “associated with the tiny, entomological world of leaves and soil before the earth had become a homogeneous rent-making machine.” Globalization of trade was met with similar calls to arms wherever capital was wrought from the land to supply distant armies and industrialists, and examples are given of uprisings in the Americas, North Africa, Java, and elsewhere. Two centuries hence the machines have grown monstrous, and their effects further-reaching, but Ludd and Mab live on whenever direct action or imaginative upheaval are used to reestablish the bonds between people and the earth. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Digest offset pamphlet, 52pp.
$6.95
PM Press, Post Office Box 23912, Oakland, Calif. 94623
pmpress.org

The Feasts of Tre-mang
by Eli Brown
2014

Situated to the west of São Tomé and Príncipe and valued as a naval outpost by a series of European powers over the span of three centuries, the tiny island of Tre-mang is all but forgotten today. In this cookbook / cultural history, storytelling gourmand Eli Brown (author of the high-seas culinary adventure novel Cinnamon and Gunpowder) whets the world’s appetite for this lost nation’s tales and tastes. Whimsical but deliciously intriguing, The Feasts of Tre-mang draws on the recently rediscovered journals of Theodora Peterson, daughter of noted anthropologist-pugilist Rodney Peterson. Despite her own adventurous spirit, Theodora was compelled by her father to learn traditional Tre-manner cooking. Her recipes and accompanying notes on dishes such as Istan (celeriac rice latkes), Hemmer-­Spru (fennel kumquat salad with sage pralines), and Neffri Tup-Tup (pear juice marinated goat kebabs) bring to light the deep complexities of her adopted country’s gastronomy. Accounts of festive New Year’s Day chair-burnings and Mark Twain’s commentary on the revels of the Bosque Osque, or “bear hunt harvest” are interspersed with more serious accounts of the inventive rebellions hatched by the natives against their colonialist occupiers. The island’s rich history came to an abrupt end on July 31, 1914, when the volcanic Mt. Kerklai erupted to devastating effect. That this happened concurrent with the initial paroxysms of the First World War could have meant Tre-mang was destined for perpetual obscurity. However, thanks to Brown’s exhaustive research and interpretation of artifacts, recipes, photographs, and enough folklore to choke an army of invading Spaniards, the indomitable Tre-mang once again rises from the ashes. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Letter offset perfectbound book, 124pp.
$22
Order through your local bookshop or online at bn.com.

Please Plant This Book
by Richard Brautigan
The Brautigan Book Club, 2012

This self-published collection of poetry was first issued in 1968 in a letterpressed run of 6,000 copies. The small folio containing packets of seeds native to Northern California—four vegetables, four flowers—was handed out for free at the First Day of Spring Celebration in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Each seed packet was printed with a poem relating to the plant it would grow into if buried in the earth, and express permission was granted to reprint the collection as long as future editions were given away as well. Brautigan and friends filled the initial print run with a total of sixteen pounds of seeds, and the Daly City merchant they bought them from is reported to have said, “You must have a lot of ground to cover.” Aside from a reprint two years later by students in Buffalo, N. Y., Please Plant This Book lay dormant for nearly four-and-a-half decades. The 2012 edition of 200 was produced by members of the Brautigan Book Club and printed by Matty Snow for the Dinefwr Literary Festival, with remaining copies distributed in the years since. It faithfully recreates the folio, packets, and poems, complete with seeds, along with a list of sources for more of each seed once you’ve planted your copy. Although the Brautigan Book Club edition is now out-of-print, there is plenty of information about it (as well as the original) online. The nature of Please Plant This Book being what it is, it’s only a matter of time before another group of enlightened gardeners grows a new crop of this nourishing perennial. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Short A5 letterpress and silkscreen folio with A4 broadside and eight seed-packet inserts.
Free

Penumbrae: An Occult Fiction Anthology
edited by Richard Gavin, Patricia Cram, and Daniel A. Schulke
Three Hands Press, 2015

Writing has always been a means of silent communication at a distance and, once the author has passed from this world, bestows upon them a modicum of immortality. Could this make the reader a clairvoyant, or a necromancer? This is the question posed by the collection of thirteen tales in Three Hands Press’ first occult fiction anthology, which attempts to channel power and spirit in the manner of incantations, psalms, and koans, but in the familiar form of the short story. Included are contributions by the trio of editors, seven authors yet living, and three—Andrew Chumbley, Hanns Heinz Ewers, and Kenneth Grant—who have passed beyond the veil. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

8vo offset casebound book, 192pp.
$34.50
Three Hands Press, 1151 Sycamore Avenue, Box 131, Hercules, Calif. 94547
ThreeHandsPress.com

God of My Father
by Frederick Moe
2015

Reminiscent of a memorial program and featuring an image of Pamela Colman Smith’s The Hermit on the cover, God of My Father offers up a brief but intimate history of Moe’s spiritual life. Raised by parents whose religious practices included song, camping, and fellowship with a number of traditional and mystical Christian congregations, Moe was set on the seeker’s path at a young age. Decades later he walks it still, and in these pages comes to some conclusions while acknowledging there is always more to discover about his relationship with the divine. This theme emerges in Moe’s other publications—my copy of God of My Father came with a beautifully letterpressed print of a heartfelt open letter to his own soul, its message at once universal and deeply personal. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 2)

Digest xer pamphlet, 8pp.
The usual
Frederick Moe, 36 West Main Street, Warner, N. H. 03278

D.I.Y. Magic
by Anthony Alvarado
Floating World Comics / Press Gang, 2012
Perigree Trade, 2015

Beginning as a column on the website for the now-defunct alternative culture magazine Arthur, this set of concise how-to essays is a perfect primer for anyone ready to invite more magic into their everyday life. From classic trials of meditation, fasting, and vision quests to updated twists on cultural practices including counting coup and divination using books or birds, Alvarado’s collection promises enough variety to shake up anyone’s reality. A constellation of esoteric luminaries assisted in the creation of the 2012 Floating World edition—Lord Whimsy designing the cover, Aaron Gach penning the introduction, production by the indispensable Eberhardt Press, and a different artist (curated by Floating World’s Jason Leivian) illustrating each of the book’s thirty-two essays. Recently, Alvarado announced a revised and expanded edition, to be published in April 2015 by Perigree Trade (an imprint of Penguin). Anyone who has bought Jeff Hoke’s Museum of Lost Wonder and gained something from trying its exercises will find much gold within these pages. This book contains so many jumping-off points for the magically minded person. Get it. Put it in your glovebox or backpack. Wear it out. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Floating World Comics  /  Press Gang edition: 12mo offset paperback with silver-foil stamped cover, 176pp.
$13.95
FloatingWorldComics.com

Perigree Trade edition: 12mo offset paperback, 288pp.
$15
penguin.com

Artists & Activists n.6: The Center for Tactical Magic
by Aaron Gach
Printed Matter, 2009

Published as a collaboration between the New York City artist’s book shop Printed Matter and The Center for Tactical Magic, this pamphlet presents instructions for carrying out six magical workings which lead to personal empowerment in the face of politically oppressive institutions including corporations, the police, politicians, and even food marketers. This is practical magic anyone can perform, and the relevance to modern ills and social shifts I’ve seen in this and other projects from the C.T.M. gives me great hope that more people will begin integrating age-old occult truths into everyday life. Beautifully printed in silver ink on black paper. According to Gach, readers “can obtain their own copy by bribing the Center for Tactical Magic with ten U.S. bills of their preferred denominations (twenties are appreciated, but ones will suffice), or a suitable trade of material goods, magical services, or activist hijinks. Unfortunately, the Center is rather de-centered and there is not a postal address for receiving correspondence at this time.” (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Half-digest offset pamphlet with insert sticker-spell, 16pp.
invoke AT TacticalMagic DOT org

The Cunningham Amendment v. 15, n. 1
edited by Peter Good
R. Supward Press, 4 September 2014

Year after year, editor (and clinical mirthologist) Peter Good and his merry band of Anarcrisps (defined simply as “nice anarchists”) bring light, hope, and humor to a world run down by needless authority. “The T.C.A.” (as the series redundantly refers to itself) champions the cause of personal responsibility, and each of its bite-sized articles is designed to be an encouraging poke in the ribs at the expense of the State, the Church, monolithic corporations, and any other organizations which exist to deny people their birthright of free thought, feeling, and action. On a personal note, I like that Dr. Good doesn’t dispense completely with magic and supernaturalism in his articles. Anarchism can get a bit too rational for my taste at times, and if the entire point of the philosophy is to shape a mad world to our desires in a thoughtful and caring way, then there’s obviously room for a saucerful of sorcery. That the whole of The Cunningham Amendment is printed in madcap colors and chock full of dingbats and whimsical characters is downright delightful. A philosophical toffee-box sampler meant to explode your reality in the most progressive, loving way. Highest recommendation. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Landscape 8vo letterpress and offset tapebound pamphlet  with tip-ins, 34pp.
The usual
The Cunningham Amendment, Room 6, Tangleford House, The Street, Bawdeswell, Norfolk NR20 4RT, England

The Zine Explorer’s Notebook n.5
by Doug Harrison
Spring 2013

This relatively recent addition to the papernet is part perzine, part anarchist chronicle, and part review mag, the whole of it fitting together quite well and reminiscent of The Free Press Death Ship, a favorite series of mine from a decade ago. With the folding of Zine World in early 2013, Z.E.N. is now one of the few remaining review series, and it does the job with a friendly voice and clean design produced using pre-computer technology. If you are of an ethical anarchist mindset and want to keep up with who’s publishing what, this is one to read. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Letter xer and screenprinted side-stapled pamphlet, 20pp.
The usual
The Zine Explorer’s Notebook, Post Office Box 5291, Richmond, Va. 23220

Earth Magic
by Rik Garrett
Fulgur Esoterica, 2014

Juxtaposing magical sigils with wet plate colloidal photographs of young forest witches, Earth Magic is doubly sexually charged. Garrett’s images are made with haste, but the resulting immediacy imbues them not with a furtive voyeurism so much as with the mystery and strength possessed by his subjects. These are pictures of unknowable rituals frozen in time and carried out by otherworldly earthlings, and the viewer immediately senses two truths: one, that these women don’t give a damn that you’re watching them, and two, that you’re lucky they don’t, because they are much more powerful than you. With a perceptive introduction by the witches’ urban counterpart Pam Grossman. Originally issued in two editions including a solander-boxed deluxe, which is now sold out and fetching high sums on the secondhand market. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Standard edition 4to offset casebound book, 72pp.
£35 (Outside U.S.)
Fulgur Esoterica, BCM Fulgur, London, WC1N 3XX, England
fulgur.co.uk

$69.95 (U.S. buyers)
J.D. Holmes, Post Office Box 2370, Sequim, Wash. 98382
jdholmes.com

Communicating Vessels n. 26
by Anthony Walent
Fall–Winter 2014–2015

This issue, subtitled “An Ode to the Festival of Life,” is full of the elements that always bring a smile to my face when I receive a new issue of Communicating Vessels—medieval woodcut illustrations, historical essays on freedom, a lengthy letters column with replies from Walent, his own musings on both big philosophical questions and moments of quiet wonder, and reviews of books and pamphlets on topics as varied as empire, gardening, reproductive freedom, anarchism, and the subtle politics of printers’ watermarks. Even though Walent is rightfully disgusted by much of modern life, his response is to produce a thing of beauty. This is anarchism for people who believe in the strength of the human spirit. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

8vo offset pamphlet, 48pp.
The usual (checks payable to Anthony Walent)
Communicating Vessels, Post Office Box 2048, Tucson, Ariz. 85702

The Match!, n.113
by Fred Woodworth
Summer 2014

Brimming with news and commentary on the struggle between individuals and institutions, each issue of The Match! chronicles the latter’s steady gains. The military, government agencies, the healthcare industry, and the police are just a few of the groups reported on by Woodworth, and he often ties in personal anecdotes of his run-ins and extrapolates the further consequences of today’s abuses of power. The Match! is unapologetically pessimistic, but is attractively laid out and unfailingly consistent. Recommended, even if you’re unable to handle much in the way of disturbing news. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

8vo offset and letterpress pamphlet, 72pp.
The usual (no checks)
The Match!, Post Office Box 3012, Tucson, Ariz. 85702

36 Faces
by Austin Coppock
Three Hands Press, 2014

This handsomely produced book explores the history and practical use of the decans, thirty-six divisions of the sky that have served as muses, helpers, and oracles to astrologers and magicians since the dawn of recorded time. Like the twelve Zodiac signs and the characters and scenes depicted on Tarot cards, the decans have their own personalities and stories to tell. Following an introduction providing historical context, Coppock uses allegory and dramatic language to detail the significance of each of the decans in relation to the Sun, Moon, and planets, rounding out the work with tables of correspondence and appendices of interest to alchemists and magicians. With emblematic illustrations for all the decans by Bob Eames. In addition to the hardcover edition reviewed here, this book is issued in trade paperback, slipcased deluxe hardcover, and slipcased golden leather. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

8vo offset casebound book with dustjacket, 320pp.
$48.50
Three Hands Press, 1511 Sycamore Avenue, Box 131, Hercules, Calif. 94547
ThreeHandsPress.com

Doris n.30
by Cindy Crabb
Doris Press, 2013

Through helpful articles and personal anecdotes, Crabb explains how it’s possible to use life experiences—be they uplifting or traumatic—to make the world a better place. These writings view activism, romance, friendship, and solitude almost as modes of being, and whether she’s starting a study group, interviewing survivors of abuse, helping a friend relocate a swarm of bees, or reading a book, Crabb listens to her inner voice to remind herself to remain compassionately curious about the people around her. Had I found Doris in the ’90s (the series began in 1991) I would have called it a feminist zine, but reading it today I see that it is simply about being human. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Legal digest xer pamphlet, 32pp.
$2.60
Doris Press, Post Office Box 29, Athens, Ohio 45701
dorisdorisdoris.com

Bulletbelt / Real Punx Don’t Talk to Cops
by Robert I’mhuman
2014

This zine is interesting in its format, having two front covers and no back cover. Its two titles are also the names of songs by the editor’s band, Decide Today, and the lyrics for each are printed inside the covers, effectively making the zine the literary equivalent of a flippable seven-inch record with one song on each side. Essays on the songs’ themes fill the pages and give readers a sense of what it means to apply concepts of punk, D.I.Y., and anarchy to everyday life rather than simply using them as set dressing. The overarching message is one of taking responsibility for yourself without the help of outside authority. Even if punk rock isn’t your cup of tea, there’s much you can learn from these stories of clear-headed action. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Digest xer pamphlet, 24pp.
The usual
realicide.com

The Day the Country Died
by Ian Glasper
PM Press, 2014

Inspired by the more altruistic and political aspects of mid-1970s punk rock, and spurred by the dramatic changes underway in Thatcherite Britain, the bands which came to be grouped under the anarcho-punk banner called for peaceful revolution using aggressive imagery and brutal sound. Author Ian Glasper tracked down and spoke with scores of the era’s surviving musicians, who relate this multifaceted history in their own words. Crass, Poison Girls, Flux of Pink Indians, Conflict, Subhumans, and dozens of other bands are each given their own chapter, complete with discographies and resources for anyone who would like to continue the campaign for a better world, now some thirty years on. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

8vo offset perfectbound book, 496pp.
$24.95
PM Press, Post Office Box 23912, Oakland, Calif. 94623
pmpress.org

Green Coated Poet and “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?”
by Cardinal Cox
Starburker Publications, 2014 and 2015

The poetry of Cardinal Cox has always been closely tied to the idea of place. Some of my earliest encounters with it were his experiments in psychogeography in the manner of Iain Sinclair. As I’ve collected his pamphlets (these are his fiftieth and fifty-first), I’ve gained a deepening appreciation for Cox’s reverence for the roots of his homeland’s stories. With these two booklets, he takes us on spatial journeys but also conveys us back through time. Green Coated Poet commemorates the 150th anniversary of the death of poet John Clare—a native of Cox’s Peterborough—who wrote of the tragic demise of the English countryside in the wake of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions. This pamphlet’s thirteen poems reinterpret moments from Clare’s life including his rambles through English cities and towns. Cox’s more recent publication “Does Magna Carta…” takes its title from dialogue in an episode of the mid-century BBC sitcom Hancock’s Half Hour, and recounts moments in the bloody history of the English charter, mainly from the point of view of people who fought. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

A5 xer pamphlet, 16pp. + A4 broadside advert
The usual
Cardinal Cox, 58 Pennington, Orton Goldhay, Peterborough PE2 5RB, United Kingdom
CardinalCox1 AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

Catherinette
by Red Velvet and Severity Chaste
2012

Subtitled “Reimagining Spinsterhood for the 21st Century: Harlots & Homebodies,” Catherinette takes its name from the term used traditionally to describe the woeful French women who had reached their twenty-fifth birthday but were still unmarried by the Feast of Saint Catherine, on 25 November. Although this distinction is hardly relevant any longer, editors Chaste and Velvet assert that there is still a cultural stigma to choosing a life undefined by one’s romantic relationship to others. Through humor, blunt examination of their own desires and capacities, and accounts of their successes and stumbles along the way, the women offer up this brief handbook for anyone who would like to live life on their own terms while having lots of intriguing fun. Recommended. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Digest xer pamphlet, 20pp.
$2
CatherinetteZine AT gmail DOT com

Node Pajomo n. 17 / Pukka Joint Massif n. 21
edited by P.J.M.
2014

Publisher P.J.M. often comes off more like a good-natured wrestler than an editor in his letters and written asides, as he battles the tides of mail art, zines, and CDs he receives to review, not to mention his grapplings with his conscience over how best to use the internet to document an art scene that has been largely usurped by it. Now his publication itself seems to have the upper hand, with P.J.M. noting in this issue’s opening editorial: “We never intended this to become exclusively a review zine, yet here we are. We have been amused and disgusted by the ability of a publication to take on a life of its own and we fear we may have to kill it lest it grow any stronger. We don’t want to say this is the last issue, but don’t be too surprised if it is.” Node Pajomo and the eponymous Pukka Joint Massif were once separate, the former containing calls-for-entry for mail-art projects and the latter crammed with reviews of finished works. P.J.M. combined the two a few years back and the resulting publication, at least when viewed from my outside perspective, was greater than the sum of its parts. Should this series fold it will be missed, but I have every faith that whatever comes next from P.J.M. will be brilliant as well. P.J.M. offers a free edition of the zine which lists only the names and addresses of that issue’s featured publishers, but no reviews. (Clint Marsh, Fiddler’s Green 1)

Digest xer pamphlet w/ tip-ins, 28pp. + mail-art banknote, xerographied and one-of-a-kind collaged inserts from P.J.M.’s correspondents, and a CD of audio art on the theme of “Indecipherable.”
$3 U. S. A. / $5 elsewhere / the usual
Pukka Joint Massif, Post Office Box 2632, Bellingham, Wash. 98227

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