Infiltration

dangerousgift \|	new zine, submissions? < on 10/17/2007 8:07 AM >

	i'm writing a zine called LOOK UP about climbing rooftops in downtown areas. on the one hand it's a basic "how to" zine (verrrrry basic), on the other hand it's kind of about feminism, kind of a place to tell stories, kind of a lot of things. i want it to be a photography zine, a personal zine and a theory zine all at once. if anyone wants to submit anything, i mean anything at all (pics, stories, thoughts etc) please feel free. i have a very firm anti-copyright policy, so anything you send can be reproduced by anyone, just so you know. here's the intro. email me at dangerousgift@graffiti.net if you're interested. Climbing roof tops is about changing your perspective. It’s about seeing the same thing differently. It’s about having a shared experience with a whole lot of other people. it’s about recognizing the place that you live. maybe thats too much. maybe it’s just about doing something dangerous and sneaky. maybe a lot of things. i started climbing roof tops out of boredom and nervousness. my trips downtown were getting hard. i don’t know why. alienation i guess. quitting smoking made me antsy. i was at a show, doing thing i hate when other people do, hanging out out front and drinking secretly in the back room. i went for a walk in the ally behind le voyeur, i looked at some electrical conduits, tugged on them and just climbed up. it was easy. from a roof, the landscape of a city is very different. i was reminded of one of my favorite gay science lyrics “landscape (duh duh-duh-duh duh) as machine”. the air conditioning vents very vaguely lunar. the roof smelled like french fries. i walked slowly, slipping on the condensation that covered the tar mack. from the ledge i could see all the way down fourth avenue. people were laughing and smoking just a couple feet below. i tried to stay hidden poking my head just above the roof line like an urban gopher. i climbed around for a little while, kicking old beer cans and taking some pictures. the sign from the china clipper looked cool so i tried to get a good angle. this required leaning over the street. i felt really obvious, hanging out, bent at the waste. i snapped a few shots with some different exposers. then i just hung there for a little while. no one saw me. no one looked up. it was a weird phenomenon. it was being invisible. some police dove by. then some more. they didn’t stop. they didn’t even turn their heads. no one looks up. i climbed down, exhilarated. i felt like i had discovered something incredible. i didn’t go back to the show. instead i hopped on my bike and rode through the ally ways. it was as if i seeing an entirely different town. instantly everything was foreign. i almost ate shit on curbs a couple of times, my eyes trained on the tops of buildings instead of the road. i must have climbed eight or nine roofs that night, each one a little more ambitious. fire escapes, water meters, dumpsters, the old scaffolding that used to hold the power transformers. it was all different. new. to climb a roof top is to take a risk. it’s to spectate. when i’m three or four stories above the street, i’m in a different city. it’s impossible not to get introspective about the place that you live from up there. to see the piecemeal streets suddenly become whole makes me look backward. backward from the context of forward. a movement in two directions. thats what i like about it. it’s seeing what was before you and what you have and what you can do. from the top of a building, you see a lot of empty space. it’s a promise from the city itself. sometimes i feel like i can see the future from the top of a building. all i had to do was look up.

Infiltration Forums > Archived US: Pacific Northwest > new zine, submissions? (Viewed 340 times)