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Swizzle Kiss (slight return)

@swizzlethis-blog / swizzlethis-blog.tumblr.com

once upon I time I had a zine and it was called Swizzle Kiss. it was a cut-n-paste affair. it got me into trouble with adults. I wrote about crushes & feminism & my queer identity & how parents just don't understand. it lasted from about 1999-2002. here are some pieces of it. my current personal Tumblr is http://feelingofgaze.tumblr.com and I am accessible at lola.leviathan@gmail.com
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My Favorite Fan Letter or, Why When I Was Called onto the Carpet I Couldn't Apologize

one last piece of Swizzle Kiss related ephemera, not written by me. I carried this around in my wallet for a long time.

On Becoming a Disclaimer: To Lola

Maybe all zines are a step toward what I previously referred to as "blatant sexuality." The term wasn't derogative, just descriptive. I think that my writing and thus [redacted zine title] has been more sexually oriented than before. Even if it doesn't seem sexual a lot of times I'm talking about something I perceive as sexual. I think that this is due to personal changes. As the writer changes so does the zine. My zine has certainly followed suit. I think I included the disclaimer of sorts because I was not yet comfortable (and to some extent still am not) with verbal or written references to sexual things. I believe that that stems from my upbringing. My school which taught that all sex outside of straight monogamous marriages for the purpose of procreation was dirty and evil and sinfilled. I didn't buy into this fully as a child. I knew something was wrong with what they had taught us, something nagging in the back of my head or the pit of my stomach. And while I would like to say that I didn't buy into all that crap, when it's all you know, it's all you know. I spent years struggling to forget that view and years to form my own. This, tied into the struggle to see my own sexuality as something other than evil and vile was difficult. I've gotten past much of that but am still coming to terms with the rest. So in the event that I do write something sexually oriented, know that, no matter how crappy it may be, it is a big step for me. And when I read something "blatantly sexual" it is very liberating and helps to enforce my new found beliefs. So thanks for being blatantly sexual. I hope that someday I may be too.

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since then I have also met a fair number of men who attempted/contemplated suicide :-/

also, college is overrated...

but I appreciate the sentiment.

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I've said this before, but Hilary Carlip's Girl Power was my BIBLE in middle school, and really shaped me into the (wonderful, fabulous, amazing, self-actualized, happy, relatively liberated) person I am today. it would definitely top my list of books every teenage girl/teenager should read. this book, Girl Goddess #9, A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World  (edited by Karen Green and Tristan Taormino, with an introduction by Ann Magnuson of, among other things, the band Bongwater) and Pagan Kennedy's Zine are the reasons Swizzle Kiss happened.

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to this day, one of the most disdainful things I can say about someone is that they "hate the body."

I still have shoeboxes full of old magazine ads featuring Kate Moss. what a phenomenon she was.

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for me, this issue is simultaneously the most embarrassing and the most beautiful. I am actually getting sad to be almost done posting it.

I am still this intense, I just hide it better.

"Overlap" was the Our Song of my longest high school romantic relationship. I still think it comes closer than most any song to describing the best of love. oh but on some level we were so hopelessly wrong for each other.

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