©MCMXCVII

Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I've always wanted to publish a physical zine, and after years of dragging my feet waiting for the perfect time to start I finally took initiative last December. I rented a PO Box, bought a laser printer and all the toner, colored paper, and envelopes I would need to get the project off the ground.

On the 13th of each month I mail out a four to six page issue consisting of some combination of the following articles:

Originals

This Space for Rent: Astronomical Facts and News (orbital mechanics, Mars exploration, space travel)

25 Degrees North: Maps and Geography (how to find your latitude and longitude anywhere on Earth with only the stars and a clock)

Your Dewey Decimal Number Is: Where to Find Anything in Your Local Library

The Screen Times: Reviews of Film and Television on a 13-Point Scale (1 = unwatchable, 7 = mid/no opinion, 13 = g.o.a.t.)

Cover to Cover: Reviews of Literature (every book I finished in a given month)

Started to Finish: Partial Reviews for DNFs

Conlang 101: Lessons in Havric (my creative process while developing a constructed language for a story I'm writing)

Welcome to My World: Fantasy Worldbuilding (exploring the world of the characters who speak Havric)

Cryptid Column: Creatures of Myth and Folklore (anomalisticc zoology, a rational skeptic's version of cryptozoology, written by resident cryptid Bob Squatch)

More to come

Reader Submissions

Food for Thought: Recipes

Personal Space: Looking for Friends at the End of the World (building a penpal network for readers away from social media)

The Pet Zone: stories and photos of the past month

The Art Block: drawings and writing

Letters to the Editor: general questions and acknowledgements

A couple of readers have expressed interest in submitting their own articles, so please feel free to contact me if you'd like to collab

Subscribing is free, just mail a letter to

The Some Times PO Box 420 Tavernier, FL 33070 United States

or email your name an address to [email protected] (digital subscriptions are available upon request).

As of June 3rd we have subscribers in 37 states, 4 Canadian provinces, and 6 other countries.

Special thanks to Ruth C from Arkansas; Lee W from California; Jess E, Faith K, and Kaye N from Florida; Catherine F from Indiana; Allan B from Iowa; Hannah N from Louisiana; Amy and Chelsea H from Missouri; Kaitie H from Pennsylvania; Joshua H from Tennessee; Bethany from Utah; and Abbey B from Virginia, for contributing to the stamp fund. I don't charge for the zine because it's a labor of love, and you all have helped me keep costs down, reaching more subscribers for longer.

New issues are printed on the 13th of each month and get mailed out to subscribers the following day; they will be posted here on a 1-month delay.

Backlog

Sample Issue 0 (January 2nd)

Issue 1 (January 18th)

Issue 2 (February 13th)

Issue 3 (March 13th)

Issue 4 (April 13th)

Issue 5 (May 13; public release June 13)

[feminist-space]

[johanna-swann]

[sacred-portal]

[flipchild]

puppy cut flan 🍮🔪

[flipchild]

incredible puppy cut the flan technique

[flipchild]

badass flan slice performed by small type dogy

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[feminist-space]

[obsessedbyneon]

Neon never sleeps...

[the-prophesied-disco-gay]

A friend stopped by

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

That's an omen, for sure.

[lesbianshepard]

on my "don't walk to metlife" post I kept seeing people say that drivers would "bergentruck" pedestrians on the turnpike and it turns out that that's a reference to an Undertale meme where a character purposefully runs over people, but the portion of the jersey turnpike that goes to metlife is bergen county, and I had just instantly accepted that there was a term specifically referring to jersey drivers from there. I didn't even question it. Neither would you, if you had ever driven there.

[lesbianshepard]

posters: if you try to walk on the jersey turnpike they will bergentruck you without hesitation.

me, unfamiliar with undertale memes, but familiar with driving through north jersey: fuckin yeah they will.

[abandonedniche]

oh so some people can just listen to a song and understand the lyrics

[abandonedniche]

what if you’re all lying

[abandonedniche]

not even an exaggeration

[what-even-is-thiss]

You’d think that plants would be easy. Sunlight and water, right? But nooo. They have secret other needs and sometimes even when all of those are met they decide to just die anyways.

[shamebats]

"it's just stress" oh thank god, it's just the silent killer that slowly kills you, perfectly harmless, no need to worry

[tar0]

(Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere (Getty Center Exhibitions)から)

[nyantara]

[…] the conversation that many have assumed was transpiring between the barmaid and gentleman is revealed to be an optical trick—the man stands outside the painter’s field of vision, to the left, and looks away from the barmaid, rather than standing right in front of her. The barmaid’s frontality is also deceptive. Rather than standing parallel to the bar and looking straight ahead, she stands slightly askance, facing the offset viewpoint.

Most ironically, the reflected edge of the bar, which in an offset view would tilt more acutely to the right, is revealed to be a visual decoy, leading us to believe that the vanishing point lies directly behind the barmaid. Thus, the paintings most obvious perspectival clue turns out to be its most subversive perspectival violation.

Dr Malcom Park

[unusualshrimp]

science enthusiasts LOOVE making media where a humble academic is abducted by the authorities and forced to go on a cool alien adventure against their will. it's like cnc for them

[morallygrayautisticscientist]

Stratt, on one hour of sleep in the past three days and 37 cups of coffee: Okay thank you, I—one minute—where are we on the research grants?!—ok—you, have you contacted—hold on—no I’m not available right now—NASA where are we with the ship?—good—yes I need all of them here—no, redesign that—I cannot talk to the press right now—hand me those charts—why is the patrova line up 4%?!—and you do not have clearance—no time for that right now—the button is over there—do I look like I have two seconds—one minute everyone I’m getting another effing call—WHAT?!

Grace, on the other line: Carl and I made a baby :D

[rbtlvr]

the whole trip back to erid rocky can hear grace's heartbeat and then suddenly he's required to go down to erid to discuss really important things like the taumoeba and grace biodome which are important and he and grace agree they're important and that he needs to go and they'll both be okay and neither of them will die if the other one can't see/hear them for five seconds

and then the second rocky can't hear grace's heartbeat anymore he has twelve consecutive panic attacks

[cowardsexual]

fun little idea i had for creating "missing scene" type fic scenarios

collect all of rocky's lines in the novel into a single document

pick a word at random and try to imagine how grace and rocky established its meaning and translation between them the first time it was used.

[elpuntthing]

Every Rocky book dialogue line

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

It bugs me that Rocky knows first person genitive pronouns (me/my) but not second person (your/yours). Andy Weir chose that to make Rocky sound like a caveman.

[hallwaysss]

Genuinely I think this might be the most important scene in the book

[hallwaysss]

this is the moment he becomes her second in command by the way. not the coma resistance gene. not some insane feat of scientific discovery above the rest. ryland grace looks the most powerful woman in the world in the eye and demands to take part in the project. because he looked in those children's faces and saw death. just like stratt did. and that's what dooms him. she saw the good man underneath the coward and she will kill the coward to let the good man breathe. phm

@carlyraejepsans how does it feel to be the most correct person ever. You're so right