Whimsi Radical Fall Equinox Zine

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• Cover2026 SEPT. VOL 1. WHIMSI RADICAL
• WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDSWIN A WORLD THAT FEELS INCREASINGLY LIKE IT’S RUN BY A FEW POWERFUL PEOPLE AND CORPORATE CONGLOMERATES, IT FEELS SO DAMN GOOD TO BE PUNK ROCK. WE’RE NOT SUGGESTING YOU GO GET A MOHAWK (THOUGH THAT WOULD BE RAD). WE DON’T EVEN MEAN YOU HAVE TO BE LOUD. PUNK ROCK MEANS EMBRACING YOUR INDIVIDUALITY TO QUESTION THE MAINSTREAM. IT’S CREATING INDEPENDENT ART. IT’S CONFRONTING COMPLACENCY WITH SMALL ACTS OF RESISTANCE, LIKE HAVING CONVERSATIONS THAT REFLECT ON CONVENTION AND BRING UP NEW IDEAS, OR LIKE, I DUNNO, PUBLISHING A ZINE ( ʖ Y’ALL, WE CAN JUST…MAKE THINGS. AND THEN YEET THEM OUT INTO THE WORLD. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECTLY POLISHED, OR FIT NEATLY INTO A BOX. IT DOESN’T NEED TO LOOK EFFORTLESSLY COOL. HELL NO, THIS TOOK A LOT OF EFFORT. AND THAT’S PUNK ROCK. IT’S CHOOSING NOT TO WORRY ABOUT BEING CRINGEY, OR NOT GOOD ENOUGH. IT’S SHARING OUR OWN INDIVIDUAL THOUGHTS AND MUSINGS. CREATING. DOING. CONTRIBUTING. USING ART TO ACTIVELY BUILD COLLECTIVE IDENTITY, RATHER THAN JUST ACCEPTING WHAT’S DECREED TO US.
• TABLE OF CONTENTS1- TITLE PAGE 2- WORDSWORDS FROM THE CREATORS 3- TABLE OF CONTENTS 4- THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR 5- SIDE QUESTS TO CELEBRATE THE AUTUMN EQUINOX 6- COMMUNITY GARDENING 7- THE HIVE MIND 8- IL BAPTISMO 9- TIME IS LONG WHEN YOU’RE AN INCHWORM 10- WHIMSIRADICAL QUILTS 11- UPDATE FROM JIMOTHY [BY MIYAKO FUQUA] 12- BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR 13- MY KIDS 14- THE BEAUTY OF DINNER GATHERINGS 15–BETTY’S BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP 16- YOU’RE MAKING YOUR MAI TAI WRONG 17- JERRY& MONTEL & RICKI & MAURY 18- TEAM EDWARD OR TEAM JACOB 19- THANKS & BYE FROM BUBBLES
• Page 4how we are making the most of TheTheThe MostMostMost WonderfulWonderfulWonderful TimeTimeTime ofofof thethethe YearYearYear submitted by Leine Darmody
• Page 5In our family, the holiday season kicks off on September 1st, when it finally feels seasonally appropriate to indulge in a Pumpkin Spice Latte. When I reflect on the last few holiday seasons, they seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye. We'll look back at the end of December in disappointment and realize we never decorated for Halloween, baked a pumpkin pie or enjoyed the Christmas lights on Candy Cane Lane. The first eight months of the year have gone by in even more of a blur than past years. Welcoming our first child at the end of 2025 has filled our lives with so much joy, and has also made me realize how essential planning is to maintain my sanity when surviving on broken sleep. I'm taking the lessons I've learned about planning for life with an infant and I've decided to apply them to making this holiday season the most magical yet. This year we are embracing the wise words of artist David Hockney, "You must plan to be spontaneous."
• ASHLEY VASQUEZ5 SIDE QUESTS TO CELEBRATE THE AUTUMN EQUINOX We can get our hands on any food we want all year long, and the weather is wildin’, so it’s easy to skate by the transitional seasonal markers without mentally making the transition.
• Page 7C Savor an apple. Don’t take it for granted. Think about the crunch, the taste, and the color. Reflect on the abundance of fresh fruit we have available to us. Can you dig up any memories of other times you’ve enjoyed an apple? C Color in the life wheel. Start in the center of each individual slice, coloring outward until you reach your current satisfaction level. Which areas of your life are full? Which areas feel unbalanced? What adjustments do you want to make?
• COMMUNITY GARDENINGJOSEPH BAKER When I joined the community garden in my Brooklyn neighborhood 5 years ago, I had only ever begrudgingly watered the flowers my Dad expertly grew each year at our house growing up. It was a chore to me, not something I took pleasure in. So why join a garden now? With COVID just barely behind us, I was looking for a new way to volunteer and get involved in my community. I was also coming off a breakup, and hoping to meet new people in my neighborhood (maybe a lady…or just a new friend?) and wanted some outdoor space (I live in a large studio in a walk-up building with no roof or backyard).
• Page 9Melvin was the longtime president of the garden at the time when I joined and soon became not only my mentor in the garden, but a friend as well. We’d spend time talking in the garden about garden history (he was a member of 20+ years) and life in general, even going out to dinner together in the coming years. Though he was about 30 years my senior, we found a lot in common and I found a new community of friends. There’s Indira, Nicky, Royan and Debbie–all of whom welcomed me, taught me about gardening, and how to be a valued member at the garden. Nearly everyone had been a member for years, if not decades. I felt so honored to be trusted by all of them in this special place, especially upon hearing about how the garden had been around since 1982 and many of them had been part of the fight to keep it alive & preserved. Back in the ‘90s, members of the garden were part of a larger legal fight to preserve community gardens all across NYC, the success of which allowed me to benefit in the present day with this beautiful gift right down the block from my home.
• Page 10Most community gardens in NYC are tiny in comparison to ours, especially in the way of open space. Our garden not only has a koi pond, ~15 garden plots & various flower beds, it also has tons of open space for people to hang out, read, eat generally socialize. During one of our lunches together, I broached the topic with Melvin of helping to lead community outreach/event planning heading into the coming season. I had some ideas already brewing & was eager to see what we could do. He agreed, so I partnered up with Indira to start planning. Now in our third year co-leading things together, we’ve held regular events each garden season–yoga, live music, plays and a drawing class led by my friend Sam (who teaches art at Pratt nearby). We even hosted a weekslong art gallery last Fall that featured live music performances, communal braiding & clothing giveaways. Aside from the relationships I’ve formed, helping bring the community into the garden through these events has been the most rewarding part of my experience.
• Page 11After my first year or so of growing vegetables and learning how to contribute and take care of the grounds, I felt compelled to look for ways to share this space with others. When I talk about the garden to people, they always want to know what I’m growing. I try to experiment each year, testing out new foods, seeing what works, what doesn’t and take everything as an opportunity to learn.
• Introducing: Hive MindNestled on the roof of a luxury apartment complex in Hollywood is I.A.T.S.B.E.E., the home to a union of hardworking honey bees. HOLLYWOOD
• IL BAPTISMOIL BAPTISMOJARED THOMPSON
• Page 14While raised Catholic, it had been a very long time since I had considered any of my actions to be partaking in an intentional symbol of ‘mass’. A stage in the journey of all Catholics, baptism often comes at the hands of our parents and family, to wipe away natural-born-original sin. 2-3 months new to the world, we are welcomed to a faith, a belief, a a ceremony that many of us do not remember, chosen for us by others. DOMINNUS VOBISCUM ACTA NON VERBA
• Page 15Hours ago, it partnered well with thick, dried out bites of roasted tomatoes and pasty hummus to provide the three of us lunch. The salty, turquoise waves of the Adriatic–my first in her waters– have primed us all for a perfect July sunburn. While the sand owes partial blame, it is the indisputable layer of saline that makes a rinse-off feel so essential. This friend who led our weekend escapade was only a stranger when I sat next to her on a trans-Atlantic flight, only 3 months ago. A chance ‘ciao’ led to small talk and suddenly an eight hour flight felt like two. As we went separate ways in the citizens/visitors divide at JFK, she insisted that once I ‘made the move’, I was to take a train, visit her and her fiance, and spend a weekend in her hometown on the remote east coast of Italy.
• Page 16No crowds, no congratulatory cards or family photos. Just a dusty, ageless old fountain next to the landmark sign: Chiesa Santa Maria della Difesa. Past journey, version, ‘sin’, splashed away. A re-baptism, of my own doing. “Pronto?” she asks me, as the guard-towel begins to come down without warning.
• Time is long when you're an inchwormThere it is, almost not there, the inchworm dangling from a fine and spindly thread as it scrunches and squiggles and stretches up toward the impossibly empty ceiling. It curls into a parenthesis, holds my gaze in abbreviation-- Later, I find it on my chest, inching across my heart. A field trip then, I declare to the land of the legless.
• ESSAY SUBMITTED BY MONIKA RATNER ART SUBMITTED BY BABS RATNERI would call my mom a whimsiradical. She grew up in a conservative Irish Catholic family with nine brothers and sisters outside Philadelphia and then one day walked into a Transcendental Meditation center when she was twenty years old to learn how to meditate. I have heard this story more than a handful of times. The first time she realized that constant brain chatter could go quiet. This blew down the doors and opened the windows of her mind. She became a vegetarian, started making her own tofu (which her mom called “toad food”), and moved in with my dad bringing one pair of Frye boots and her needle and thread. My mom’s whimsiradical nature is possibly best understood through her love of fabric. Kaffe Fassett and the quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend were superstars in our house. We honored their genius in the way other homes spoke about famous athletes or musicians. The plight of the domestic arts gaining equal respect (and pay) to other arts was a soapbox any of us could have preached on for an hour. My childhood is filled with memories of coming home from school and seeing my mom stretched out on the floor across a massive quilt, placing and replacing squares of fabric to find the right combination, or handstitching the top layer while the rest of us watched TV. Each quilt can take up to a thousand hours. A fact my mom would sometimes mention when we perused $30 quilts sold at Target.
• Page 19My mom’s quilts are made to be used. For babies to crawl on. For kids to take when they leave home for the first time. For adults to curl up with on a cold night. I have been given four quilts over the years and while I could never choose a favorite, there is one that I have to sit with, when it’s been on the shelf for a while. This quilt is a snapshot in time of our extended family - aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, parents. We each picked a piece of fabric and then traced an outline of our hand with pencil. My mom appliqued every handprint and then embroidered our names with a contrasting color thread. When I’m sitting with this quilt, I can’t help but place my own hand on top of the soft fabric hands one at a time. Laughing at how my hand today is about twice the size of my brother’s then. A brother, who is now over six feet tall. Not everyone from the quilt is still alive, making this connection to them even more precious. Whimsiradicals see the world clearly as a lively basket of contradictions. They refuse to organize life into tidy stories, or mistake certainty for strength. People who find this unsettling might call them impractical or unproductive, but I think we have a lot to learn from whimsiradicals. I sure have from my mom.
• UPDATE FROM ORIGIN STORY /LOVE LETTERThe haunted town of Spooks started as a place for the witches, vampires, ghosts and ghouls who died, were reborn, or remained undead from the very beginning. Their memories breathing life into the abandoned homes passed down to future generations. Until we were invaded by big real estate. They slapped together a quaint little town straight from an assembly line. Cute. Cuddly even. Stuffed with little sweet shops and family fun from the bottom all the way to the top 10 places to visit.
• JIMOTHY/THANK YOU TO FANS So I roamed the great American landscape to make a name for myself. I scurried and tumbled through inner cities. Balanced on fences. Traversed over underpasses, dodging oncoming traffic. In the middle of somewhere. Unassuming. The perfect hiding place. In the nooks. In the crannies. Shedding the pressures to be anything to anyone anywhere. But to just exist.
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• BE A GOOD NEIGHBORSUBMITTED BY PATRICK DARMODY Movies teach us that our own adventures only truly begin once we have made contact with an eccentric neighbor. This lesson is so important it comprises basically the whole first semester in film school (presumably: I've never been). Prior to that fateful collision. life for the most part just unspools around us in routine and predictable patterns: people relatively similar to us doing more or less the same sorts of things on a daily basis. The boundary conditions feel present, well defined, and understood. Life has a slow hum, a customary shape all is ordinary. We share a collective belief that this is the way things are, the way we should be. We are, in this way. the furthest we can be from a child's sense of whimsy. And this life can be nice, but not as fun as it could be.
• MY KIDSBy Roger Suen When I write, Henri listens intently, and sometimes judgmentally. When I write, Ruby seems unimpressed and excuses herself politely.
• Page 25When we backpack, Henri asks, “why are we walking this much?” When we backpack, Ruby asks, “why aren’t we walking more?” When we visit Grandpa, Henri asks, “remember me? No? That’s ok, I remember you.” When we visit Grandpa, Ruby doesn’t say anything and just sits with Grandpa and...sometimes visits the other residents too!
• Page 26The beauty there is a growing craving for In an increasingly individualistic world, of dinner meaningful human interaction. For generations and across cultures, people gatherings have gathered most often around a meal: a table full of loved ones, echoes of laughter, and food at the center Mari G
• YASSA POULETYASSA 2–3 lbs chicken (thighs and drumsticks work great) or fish 4–5 large onions, thinly sliced Juice of 3–4 lemons 2 tbsp Dijon mustard 4 tbsp olive oil 2 bay leaves 1–2 tbsp nokoss (see right) Salt, pepper, and bouillon, to taste Optional: green olives, a few slices of scotch bonnet pepper for heat
• Page 28This recipe is lovingly named for Betty Crocker, whose butternut squash soup recipe inspired this one. I grew up enjoying a version of the included recipe, which my mom made every fall. It was typically a menu staple for her yearly Halloween Party because it can be made in large batches and kept warm in a crock pot on the counter for the duration of the party. I updated this recipe to replace heavy whipping cream with plain yogurt for a slightly deeper flavor and to make it a bit healthier. I hope you enjoy this taste of fall!
• YOU’RE MAKING YOUR MAI TAI WRONGDYLAN ETTINGER, CONTRIBUTING DRINKS EDITOR, FOOD & WINE
• Page 30There are few pleasures in life as satisfying as enjoying a tropical cocktail on a beach or while sitting poolside. A cold drink made with rum, fruit juice, and sugar is a tried-andtrue way to cool off and relax in a warm tropical climate. Among the vast pantheon of tropical and tiki cocktails, few have the recognition of the Mai Tai. The drink’s name is almost synonymous with a beachside vacation. It’s also one of the most altered and bastardized classic cocktail recipes of all time. Yes, there is a right and wrong way to make a Mai Tai.
• Page 31Even the garnish was carefully designed. The fresh mint added a refreshing aroma to the drink, and half of a lime on top added a hint of citrus zest. Together, the garnishes resembled a tropical island with a palm tree. The drink was an immediate hit at Trader Vic’s. As its fame spread, other bars began to put cocktails called the Mai Tai on their menus. The midcentury tropical cocktail scene was notoriously competitive. Recipes for signature cocktails were well-kept secrets. Because of this, any bar trying to copy the drink would have had little idea what was in the original Trader Vic drink.
• Page 32Here’s how you make a Mai Tai my way: The Classic Mai Tai
• jerry & montel & ricki & mauryBy Andrew Beshai
• jerry & montel & ricki & mauryEndless summer days. Stretching out before them.
• DEAREST READER, ,ARE YETEAM EDWARDTEAM EDWARD OR TEAM JACOB?OR TEAM JACOB?
• Page 36thanks bunches for reading our zine in our next issue we’d love to include a Q&A send your Qs to [email protected] and our villagers here at Pewter Farms will write up the As!