DEEP MADDER

Our participation in Canzine was surprisingly successful, despite our preparation the night before* having allowed us less than two hours of sleep. We sold five anthologies of Deep Madder Monthly and 80 individual issues were taken for free. We expected to sell no more than two anthologies. As you can see, we composed a makeshift table arrangement to present our wares, including a new poster logo thing, subscription form, and pricing sheet, including “celebrity” testimony to our credibility (funny quotations of people we admire commenting on our zine). At one point we were visited by someone from Torontoist, who subsequently mentioned us in this article on said web log. We definitely intend to attend Canzine henceforth. Thank you for joining us, everyone (give or take). It was fun.

We have booked a table at this year's Canzine, which means we will be sitting somewhere in the Gladstone Hotel between 1-7 p.m. on 1 November 2009 feeling extremely nervous and unloved. Will you be so kind as to show (fake) your support for your most pitiable editors? Visitors will be rewarded with the opportunity to take a photograph of us feeling alienated in a milieu in which we should reasonably fit with the greatest consonance. Come to get your zines autographed, subscriptions renewed, or anthologies dusted!

We hope to have some sort of rushed, makeshift attempt at a “table display” to compensate for our lack of even the most amateur of marketing skills, as well as the fact that our zine and the entire Deep Madder enterprise are profoundly difficult to explain or justify. We will have the newest issues of Deep Madder Monthly available for free for curious passersby, perhaps sooner than they will reach subscribers, as well as anthologies for sale (so that we can feel sorry for ourselves when they fail to even attract a glance). We will also be offering a few new, made-for-Canzine novelty Deep Madder-themed items such as advertisement cards/pamphlets, (new) business cards, questionnaires, and maybe even posters. Please keep us company.

“The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman 46 years his junior, which were not accepted. For companions he relied instead on a circle of friends and correspondants, and especially, in later life, on his Suliot chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef. Another trusted companion in Sanremo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson. After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888, of the heart disease from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear's physician, not one of Lear's many lifelong friends being able to attend.”

-from the biography of illustrator/writer Edward Lear (1812-1888) in Wikipedia

"He was given to fits of rage, Jewish, liberal paranoia, male chauvinism, self-righteous misanthropy, and nihilistic moods of despair. He had complaints about life, but never solutions. He longed to be an artist, but balked at the necessary sacrifices. In his most private moments, he spoke of his fear of death which he elevated to tragic heights when, in fact, it was mere narcissism."

-written about Woody Allen's character, Issac, by his ex-wife in her book, in Manhattan. Christopher noted that this describes us (and Deep Madder) so well. It is one of my favourite quotations ever. I wish people said this about us.

We have recorded a new episode of Deep Madder Radio. It can be found at this page, or downloaded directly from this link.

We also worked hard over the past weekend to try and get caught up with Deep Madder Monthly, and the June and July issues should be done shortly.

You can keep track of our important Deep Madder updates (such as those listed above) by subscribing to our new twitter account. We're working to integrate the twitter feed into this blog, but it's turning out to be more difficult than anticipated.

“There’s lots of advice for women about how to get over shyness, but shyness can be much harder for men to deal with because it’s seen as a feminine trait. [. . .] The problem is that, according to all social rules, men are supposed to approach women, so love-shy heterosexual men fare badly.”

-Gillian Butler, from this article.*