no duh.

The other day I found my four issues (there were six published) of the zine No Duh, which was written by Geoff Farina. Back in the way early 90s he was a relatively unknown writer/musician hanging out in Allston, MA. (Now he’s a lot more well-known thanks to his band Karate. Heck, a few years ago he was even on NPR!) Sassy magazine (remember how cool Sassy used to be?) chose No Duh as a zine of the month and shazam! It kind of took off.

I was one of those crazy teenage girls who sent my crisp dollar bill and requested a copy, and I continued to support the zine until Geoff stopped doing it. One of my letters is even published in issue #6, how crazy is that? For those who have never published a zine, trust me — it’s labor and time-intensive and once you have a whole bunch of people who want a copy, it gets really overwhelming.

I wonder if anyone out there has issues #1 and #2? I’d love to see them, if you do.

At any rate, I’m so glad these have followed me around for something like 15 years and also I’m so glad I took good care of them. The final issue looks brand-new. No Duh inspired me to start writing my own zines and I did a few. Mango Soup, was probably the most "popular" one. I wrote it with a friend who lived in VT, and we got a few other friends to contribute as well. A lot of our friends loved it and that was good enough for us. It was awesome to be part of a creative, collaborative venture like that.

Sometimes I miss life before the Internet. I know I’m riding a wave of nostalgia here, but even still… somehow things just seemed to be a lot cooler then.