Hi, I'm an English teacher in Portland, Or. Saw your site: love it. Very well done and professional. I'm using it as an example in my class where my students will create their own pages for the first time. I'd love to talk to you about how your work is accepted up there...how you put it together (i.e. did you do it yourself or were the town 'elders' involved, etc.) Who's doing the art and with what tools? POV-Ray?

Kevin

      Oblivion started as a paper 'zine in December 1995. We tried to give copies out during lunch at our school one day, which the administration didn't take to kindly to. A friend put the first issue online and it received great feedback. After our first issue and our expansion into the ethereal realm of the web, we became less regional and more global. The first issue was the product of a relatively small group of high school kids, and with every issue, we have picked up a few more people.

      We don't have any requirements as far as age, race, sex, etc., and we don't ask, so it's not possible to know exactly who is submitting articles, graphics, or whatever. Jestapher has done most of the graphics for the web version, and the only program used has been Adobe Photoshop. For the paper version, Wennis, a teenage comic book artist type guy from California has done most the covers, and he uses the old fashion paper-and-pencil technique.

Editor

      Very nice zine! But I'm afraid it might become the next target of my high school's firewall. I'm not sure of all that they censor, but I know it includes various search engines such as Webcrawler (Reason: Sex), Deja News (Reason: Sex Lifestyle), and Excite (Reason: Sex), leaving only Yahoo and AltaVista. The firewall also blocks any URL containing ".." (don't try to break in), and all TCP connections other than the ones supported by Netscape (Web browser ONLY). Sometimes, they shut down the proxy server and make all network connections impossible, period.

Antisaedist

      Depending on the extent of your school's blocking, you may be able to get around it. Try this. Find a site that's blocked (Webcrawler you say), then type in this URL:

      http://nanjing.spc.uchicago.edu:8001/http://www.webcrawler.com/

      This is a proxy server set up by Jim Xie in response to the Chinese government's blocking of "sensitive" sites like CNN or any human rights sites.

Editor

      I was going through a superweird phase in 7th grade and one day I decided to wear green lipstick. (I swear I'm the one who created the lipstick fashion trend.) Being the supercool and wonderfully popular person I am, many people (including some guys) hopped on the funky lipstick bandwagon.

      Blue and black showed up all over our school. Funky lipstick reigned full at my school until some wacky supervisor laid down the law, FUNKY LIPSTICK= DETENTION. Here I remind you that I happen to be a supercool and wonderfully popular person. I had killer parties to trash and no time for detention in the name of fashion.

      I decided to be nice about this and wrote a little essay about domestic prejudices. Some other airheads tried to get a petition around that included sagging and chewing gum at our school. Many people signed it, but get real!!! There is no case to support sagging and gum chewing. Had the airheads thought about their pitiful petition attempt, maybe some good would have come of it. But as it was, sorry Charlie, no comparison from the school board.

      I went in a different direction with my essay. I asked teachers why we couldn't wear black lipstick. The general answer was, "It's a distraction. The purpose of school is to learn. You cannot learn with distractions all around you." Well, hehehe, I says... why do girls get to wear pink and red, then? "Those are natural shades." RED--NATURAL? Dream on! "It's traditional for women to wear red and they've been doing it for hundreds of years." People have also had slaves for hundreds of years and that doesn't it make it acceptable in our schools. And for all my efforts what does this supercool person get? A detention, the one thing I was trying to avoid in the first place.

      I was a little discouraged with my essay's progress, but in the name of equality, I decided to go on. I made a list of all the things that distracted me and I realized: LIPSTICK IS THE LEAST OF MY PROBLEMS!!! I have a blind student in my second hour. Her brail writer makes loud, annoying noises. I can't see the chalkboard because of the extremely tall kid that sits in front of me. I can't do my algebra while I talk to Lisa. Does this mean that my rights are violated? Not in the least.

      If I want to wear funky lipstick, I should be able to. It's not a distraction to me or my peers. It's too distracting for teachers. (If they can deal with nose rings, blue hair, and weird clothes, they can deal with lipstick.) It seems the only people who are distracted by lipstick are administrators who don't deal with the kids at all. In all reality, I would say the absence of funky lipstick has caused more of a distraction than allowing funky lipstick. I knew I had a winning case, but the time of funky lipstick had come and gone in my school. I gradually began to forget the whole thing.

Stefanie D.

      Uh, thanks!@#

Editor

      Hi my name is kristi and I've been looking for the Teenage Liberation Handbook and haven't been able to find it and was just wondering if you knew of any book chains who carried the book.

kristi

      Have you looked at your local library? That's where we found it. Libraries usually carry just about everything imaginable.

Editor

      I am writing to you because I think many of your readers would be interested in a new safe natural lotion that really does clear up acne, boils and cold sores, backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee. It's called Complexion Perfection. We invite you and your readers to visit our Internet website for full details.

Signature Omitted

      None of our readers have expressed interest in clearing up their acne. They seem to be comfortable with their appearance. Sorry.

Editor

      hi i sent like a dollar and a little note to you guys asking for a copy of oblivion. how long should i wait til it comes? and when are you guys gonna update the page? um, i guess that's it.

~barbiekiller~

      We've been so lazy, we skipped the Spring issue (we also had a lack of quality submissions, but hey). We will be putting out a Summer issue relatively soon. Stay tuned, and sorry for the delay.

Editor

      I just saw your magazine on-line and have been wondering if it is only an on-line thing or you have a magazine on the newstand. I have never seen it if is on the newstand and am interested in subscribing if so. Thank you.

Unsigned

      There is a paper version, but you probably won't find it on any newstands. As with most 'zines, we are self-published, do-it-yourself people with limited funds. Getting the distribution and circulation needed to be somewhere like Barnes and Noble or the neighborhood newstand is quite a feat.

      We don't do subscriptions yet because we are still small-scale and kind of unpredictable. However, if you'd like the next issue mailed to you, send 3 stamps or $1 to:

Oblivion
120 State Ave. NE #76
Olympia, WA 98501-8212

      Oh, you can subscribe to the Oblivion mailing list and receive the ascii version in your email box whenever it comes out, just send mail to jestapher@oblivion.net.

Editor

      Thank you for finally expressing some of the thoughts and ideas of today's oppressed youth... I, too, am oppressed. I have started a local chapter of the SNC (society of non conformists) and we are accepting new members all the time. Do not let the AOL email address fool you... this is just a hacked account (sorta) but it is not, REPEAT NOT, mine. I wouldn't be caught dead on AOL, except that it's the only internet access I have for now. I am thinking of starting my own school newspaper, any tips or pointers? It will be called, well, I don't know yet, but it will kick ass. I have a copy of my rules of the society of non conformists, I will email you a copy later. In case you are wondering, I made up the SNC, it is my own creation, and (in the infamous words of GOD) it is good. uh, l8r, if the cops don't catch me first!

Unsigned

      Starting your own zine isn't that hard. I think we elaborated on this in an earlier letter, so backtrack. To take a direct quote from Nemomancer, "Cops... heh..."

Editor

      I will try to make the following as short as possible for Oblivion magazine. I picked up your issue at a bookstore in downtown Olympia. The following, I believe, is the only solution to the injustice of mankind:

      There are many injustices in this country and the world cause by the capitalist class. We are very slowly on a course to a dictatorship. Little by little, piece by piece is broken off the monument of freedom.

      Luckily there is a beacon of light in the darkness which is the Socialist Labor Party of America, that follows the teaching of Karl Marx. The former Soviet Union was not Socialist. Anyone advocating socialism and Karl Marx would most likely be arrested as a troublemaker in the former Soviet Union.

      Find out what socialism is from Socialists. Socialist Labor Party, P.O. Box 70617 Sunnyvale California 94086-0517, founded 1891 and The People, organ of S.L.G. email thepeople@igc.apc.org.

Milton A. Poulos

      You're pretty dedicated .

Editor