#6 - The La-La Theory

Katie Haegle of The La-La Theory and I have done flyer trades a few times in the past couple years, and because of this I’m surprised it’s taken this long for me to read any of them. In the past couple weeks however, she sent me a lovely package of zines for the zine library and I took the opportunity to finally read them. I absolutely love the idea of a zine about etymology and language in general, the different ways we communicate with one another and how language affects our perception of life in general. So, here are the reviews of the three zines I’ve had the pleasure of reading. If interested, you can buy her zines through her etsy shop or contact her for possible trades.

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MAN IS THE HERO OF GEOGRAPHY
by Katie Haegle

This zine contains reproduced pages of a mostly blank geography workbook from 1973 that Katie found at a garage sale. Katie fills in the blanks with madlib-type answers which are mostly irrelevant to the questions, which I found off-putting and confusing, while also intriguing. Some answers are random and left me thinking, “wtf?” while others made me burst out into laughter and made me want to keep reading.

THE LA-LA THEORY #5: BLIZZARDS, BLINDFOLDS, SQUATTERS AND CARTOONISTS (AND OTHER WORDS THAT WERE BORN IN 1880)
by Katie Haegle

The name says it all, really. Each salmon-coloured page gives an etymological explanation of such words as mentioned above, including blazer, outlaw, and narcolepsy. I found the hand-written appearance to be hard on my eyes, and I think it would’ve been better if it had been typed in a legible typeface. Other than that, it was cute, informational and interesting. I also like how every issue of this zine has a little explanation of The La-La Theory, which is based on the thought that language was born of the need to express music, poetry and love. Interesting, indeed!

THE LA-LA THEORY #6: ALWAYS ALREADY
by Katie Haegle

This issue was a bit different than the ones previously mentioned in this post, but it is my favourite! There are things such as a review of the German language and some of the words in it she fancies, an interview with an adapter for Tokyopop, and a poem inspired by foreign words that don’t quite translate in English (I really like “saudade”, which is Portugese for something along the lines of a sense of longing for something that probably can’t be found again. I thoroughly enjoyed every page, although I wish she would’ve printed it in something other than Times New Roman (the world’s most boring and overused typeface there is), but hey, at least it’s not Comic Sans or Arial!