DIY to the core
I arrived at my desk today to find a big envelope stuffed with books, DVDs, and zines from Portland’s indie publishing house Microcosm. A leading force in the DIY community for 10 years, Microcosm is celebrating its anniversary with the publication of a host of books perfect for hardcore ReadyMakers. I picked up Kyle Bravo’s encyclopediac Making Stuff & Doing Things at San Francisco’s art gallery-cum-retail store Needles and Pens earlier this year, and I regularly consult its pages for inspiration (the book runs the gamut by offering how-tos on everything from patching old shoes to building a woodstove). Another favorite is The Zinester’s Guide to Portland: A Low/No Budget Guide to Visiting and Living in Portland, Oregon, now in an updated fourth edition, and packed with advice from locals on where to drink locally brewed beer and find obscure LPs. Lastly, in a couple weeks, Microcosm will start distributing Homeland Insecurity, an experimental documentary about border politics by San Francisco-based filmmaker Bill Brown. I’ll be watching it tonight.
