sweetheart redux

Nomy Lamm is a legend.  In the 1990’s when I was a fairly successful zine writer, I often became penpals with other zine writers – we seemed approachable to each other, like instant friends, so keeping in touch felt natural.  Not so when I read Nomy’s zine “I’m So Fucking Beautiful,” started in 1993.  I didn’t feel like I could just send her a letter like “so what are you into?”; I felt like she was eons ahead of me in intelligence and experience, and that I’d do better to learn from her than to try being chummy with her.  We were acquaintances when I moved to Olympia in the early 2000’s, and recently she did me the favor of letting me sell some of her zines at a friend’s table at the SF zinefest.  I’m quite happy she is letting me interview her In 2003 you recorded the album Effigy, featuring the accordion.  What led you to shift your focus from writing to music?  Have you played accordion for a long time?  I could be wrong but I...

as with the other treasure boxes I've posted so far, this one holds fun, happy and depressing memories with a couple antiques and sequins thrown in.   it's a neat old battered velvet box that is satin-lined inside: The less personal antiques I've kept in here over the years (I think I started this box during college and continued adding things to it through my early twenties) are two little notebooks; one is a giveaway pocket notebook from union-made Carhartt Master Cloth Overalls, from 1947, and a little blue daily calendar, another free giveaway, from American Surety Company, from 1943.  Someone has written their social security number in that beautiful old-fashioned cursive, but there are no engagements or anything written in the calendar.   Then there are little assorted things like write-ups pertaining to me in some way that I'd ripped out of L.A. Weekly -- these are all from when I was in high school but I think I moved them from an old  tr...

the window on the passenger side of my old car had been thoroughly shattered, but nothing valuable was missing inside, because there was nothing of value in there.  The one strange thing was that whoever it was that did this had taken my favorite compilation CD, one I’d made recently and had left on the passenger seat.  I wasn’t sure if the cops were only called when a car had been stolen or something valuable like a cd player boosted from it but my room mate said an attempted break in was worth their time so I spoke with a team of cops that came by the house and took some photos of the old car.  Later I ripped up a thick green yard waste trash bag and duct taped it to the hole left by the broken window glass.  This made me look poor, but I didn’t mind; I was young and I’d been to college and it felt good to look poor. One day a few months later I was driving down Sunset and there was a fragile, slow-moving blue Hyundai driving in the next lane, which I immediat...

This is an older treasure box, from my younger teens I think.  It's full to the brim so I won't bore you with its entire contents. Pretty handkerchiefs, a change purse made out of a shell, a pretty box from those English Pastilles candies, a glass strawberry, the usual. My favorite object from this panoply of sentimentality is a little notice in the employee's bulletin that Hudson's put out the day I was born.  My grandmother Hope worked there; it was once the largest department store in the world, and was definitely the primary shopping destination in Detroit, from 1911 to 1983.  The bulletin is dated March 17, 1979, and says "Hope Pulve of the YOung Guy Department is a happy new Grandma.  Granddaughter Robin Hope was born March 1st and weighed 8 lbs."  This is a special memento because I only met her once and was always very curious about her. As you can see, this photo focuses on my compass, a wonderful piece in my priced shell collection, an...

Today's excavation into my many treasure boxes I keep hidden away in a nondescript cardboard box is a look into this box here: which my mom made me when I was a teenager.  I'm guessing I used it to keep treasures from the time I was 13 to maybe after college, since there's an old school photo in it of a good college friend.  the rest of this stuff is pure teen Robin though. Here is the interior.  Stuck to the purple felt on the inside lid is 2 Rocky Horror pins and my ticket stub from when I saw Nirvana at the Forum, December 30, 1993. Here is a piece of paper signed by all members of L7, plus Courtney Love.  A friend got it for me.  I don't know why I wasn't at that show.  It was probably on a school night and I was safe at home reading Weetzie Bat or watching The Simpsons. Look at all these precious treasures.  I see:  3 of my public transit bus passes, my school ID, an antique match box full of my punk accessory saf...

I have a few boxes I keep hidden away in the closet even thought they're full of beloved treasures -- this is because, while I love these treasures, I wouldn't have the concentration to think if I lived in a house where all these things were not kept in boxes.  Instead of thinking of them as being hidden away in a closet, I try to think of them as being kept in treasure boxes.  Over the weekend I had to delve into a couple of these boxes while looking for a photo album I really needed, and here, I have selected a few unearthed treasures to share: My grandpa gave this to me and my husband the day before our wedding -- i may be a little confused but i think it's a commemorative George Gershwin envelope that he sent to Gershwin's son to have signed.  These are a couple pages from a full diary my mom bought me at a flea market when i was a teenager.  It is  "Line A Day" diary -- its title page says "copyrighted 1892, by samuel ward company, Boss, MA...