In Honor of Fan Fixation: Liz Mason Celebrates Caboose #14 My Canadian Boyfriend + Fan Obsession-Themed Open Mic

In Honor of Fan Fixation:
Liz Mason Celebrates
Caboose #14 My Canadian Boyfriend
+
Fan Obsession-Themed Open Mic
Sat, September 9th, 5:30p.m.
at
Lion’s Tooth
2421 South Kinnickinnic Ave, Milwaukee WI 53207

Lion’s Tooth welcomes Chicago-based zinester and Quimby’s Bookstore manager Liz Mason to celebrate the 14th issue of her long-running zine Caboose and hopes you will bring your own stories of fan obsession to share.

This book-length issue, subtitled My Canadian Boyfriend, is an ephemera-filled fanzine, a thoughtful and deeply pleasurable dive into the concept of parasocial relationships and neural nostalgia, through the lens of Mason’s own pre-teen obsession with pop star Corey Hart, who rose to fame in the 1980s as the pop star with the brush-cut bravado who wore his “Sunglasses at Night” and encouraged his audience to “Never Surrender.” Equal parts memoir, journalistic investigation, music criticism and well-researched cultural study, she explores what it means to be a fan, all done with a unique sense of humor. In the pages of Caboose #14, you’ll recognize some of your own urges toward fan obsession.

Event attendees are encouraged to bring ephemera they’ve been holding for years in their closets of past or present celebrity crushes to show and talk about, in an open mic format. Bring your relevant diary entries that you’ve tucked away from the prying eyes of family and friends, that mass of decaying magazine clippings that once plastered your bedroom walls, photos in which you’re dressed up for the concerts, fan club swag like key chains, t-shirts, and most importantly, your stories of being an obsessive fan to share. Mason wants you to talk about it, no matter which era you came of age during and regardless of your age.

Liz Mason has been self-publishing zines for over two decades and is manager of zine mecca Quimby’s Bookstore, in Chicago, home of wild and weird reading material, where she has worked since 2001 in a state of perpetual arrested development. Her zine Caboose was featured in The Zine Yearbook and nominated for Best Zine two years running by The Chicago Reader. Her work has also been published in such publications as The Chicago Tribune, Broken Pencil, Punk Planet, Third Coast Review, Lumpen and more. With a playful writing style that enjoys a highbrow but comedic approach to looking at the lowbrow, she has written about such things as popular culture, music, consumerism, and more. She’s been quoted on Spin.com, Chicago Magazine, and once appeared as a zine expert on a reality show that NBC executives kept calling “pamphlets” as if they were Marxist propaganda. Find her weekly on the New Stuff Saturdays Quimby’s Livestream on Instagram that reaches 19.1K followers at @quimbysbookstore or on her own social media @caboosezine and LizMasonIsAwesome.com. Her membership number to SHADES The Official Corey Hart Fan Club was #13881.

For more info about this event: lionstoothmke.com + @lionstoothmke