Tonight provides us a glimpse of what the future could be—a world where Goths and non-Goths mingle at death-metal shows and fetish demonstrations.
Here, on a rainy Thursday night at Quimby’s, Goths (and a sprinkle of non-Goths) have gathered to celebrate the birth of Chicago’s newest Goth zine, Kilter. These zine-fiends are inspired and invigorated by the DIY-spirit of zine-making and shove nothing but support in the direction of Kilter creators (and newlyweds) Jennifer Anne Buckley and Peter Propaganda.
“We see Kilter,” explains Buckley, “as a vehicle to expand and promote the Gothic scene at large.”
Kilter’s coming-out party is no creepy séance, but a gathering of friends and like-minded folks who are excited about reaching out to other people with an interest in dark music, dark art and the overall dark aesthetic. And although it’s always rough stuff in the unstable world of the zine, Kilter might be hitting the streets at the perfect time.
“First they said Goth was dead. Ten years later, we are waiting for the next Tim Burton movie to come out and Gothic books are flying off the shelves,” points out Propaganda.
Nyx, a writer of erotica and Kilter contributor, echoes such sentiments. “So many designers are going gothic now,” she explains. “Ed Hardy, for example, is gothic with a twist. You see the stuff everywhere, and we were wearing that stuff years ago.” (Meaghan Strickland)
Saving American Prairies: A Review of "Back from the Collapse" by Curtis H. Freese Ecologist Curtis H. Freese describes the recent destruction of the Great Plains ecosystem due to Euro-American hunting, farming and cattle grazing, and convinces us that every living creature that was once part of the whole is required in the restoration of this biodiverse ecosystem.
The Mystery of a Dark Past: A Review of Victoria Gosling's Before the Ruins In Victoria Gosling’s "Before the Ruins," five teenagers hung around a crumbling, abandoned manor house near Avebury, England, where a less famous stone henge stands. The two girls and three boys half-heartedly searched for a diamond necklace that was lost decades before.
Light in A Dark Age: A Review of "Kells" by Amy Crider This new book by Chicago playwright Crider is the kind that drops you into the Middle Ages like a stone into a lake. But “Kells” is not just about the past. It's about the life-giving power of art, created despite all the world’s dangers.
We Can’t Delay Our Joy: An Interview with Roger Reeves About His New Book, “Dark Days: Fugitive Essays” Reeves has a shelf full of honors, but his new book, “Dark Days,” is not poetry, but essays. In rich and heady prose, Reeves mixes memoir, theory and literary criticism. His subjects range from an opera singer breaking a silence curfew by singing in the streets to the “hush harbors,” where enslaved people would steal away to pray.
The Privilege of Walking and Writing: A Journey Down the Street and Across the World During the past many summers, I’ve explored the relationship between walking and writing. As Kathleen Rooney, our flâneuse laureate of Chicago, wrote “A walk is almost never the fastest way to get somewhere. But both walks and poems can afford a more textured and deep experience of space and time.”
