Synopses & Reviews
Kyle Bravo has assembled his HOW2 zines into a comprehensive book along with dozens of other instructional articles that tell you how to do...just about everything. Topics include getting active, direct action, gardening, making a woodstove, solar box cooker, egg replacer, how to make wine, homebrewing, liberated lifestyles, squats, homeschooling, fixing a toilet, audio phone patch, how to make envelopes, shoe repair, silk screening, making rubber stamps, how to juggle, magic tricks, making puppets, how to patch your clothes, putting utensils on your keychain, how to sing, bird feeders, how to play guitar, putting out records, billboard improvement, how to fix your bike, basic car maintenance, building a bike cart, how to take pride in your body, how to sexually stimulate your partner, diy birth control, how to handle an overdose, self defense, knowing your rights, how to live a more fulfilling life, unschooling, starting a fire with friction, making glue from pine sap, making rope, wild food, natural remedies, fire logs from newspapers, rubbing alcohol campstove, composting, diy toothpaste, getting rid of fruit flies, greywater systems, composting toliets, making hanging and floating tents, saving money at the post office, making posters and stencils, packing for tours, places to dumpster dive, making a tape wallet, building a cart-bike, cleaning stamps, blockprinting, fixing a harmonica, diy flowerpots, avoiding dangerous household chemicals, preventing ear infections, how women can pee standing up, menstrual massages, and a few pieces for inspiration. I'm sure you can see by now why this is essential.
Review
"Perhaps the best known, general-purpose, Do-it-Yourself guide around, Bravos comprehensive compilation of his legendary HOW2 zines includes information on projects as prosaic as bike-cart building and homebrewing and as potentially controversial as billboard liberation and birth control. An indispensable resource for the DIY 'lifestyle' no matter what your level of commitment to it might be." —Lime
Review
"Making Stuff & Doing Things, the DIY book compiled by Kyle Bravo fell into my lap last summer. I was enraptured by the book, with its guides to doing just about everything under the sun - from playing guitar to making toothpaste - and by the use of the original layouts. I learnt about Hot Iron Press through the book. Unfortunately Hot Iron Press was in an area of New Orleans badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina - and the collapsing levees - during the Summer of 2005. I emailed Kyle to see if he would be willing to answer some questions about how Katrina had affected them, their reaction to Hot Iron Press being badly damaged and what the future held after the damage."—Last Hours #13 Interview Introduction
Review
"Quite some time ago, Kyle Bravo put together a couple of issues of a zine called How2Zine. These zines were so thick they couldnt even be stapled; I think my copies are bound with rubber bands. They overflowed with DIY tips on many, many different subjects. Now these zines have been compiled into a book representing the collective knowledge of a wide array of clever contributors. Just a sampling of topics: self-education, self-publishing, bookbinding and screenprinting, shoe repair, juggling, stenciling, gardening, insulative cooking, solar box cooking, wine and beer making, sex and health, pet care, creative recycling, home repair, and transportation. Yes, thats a lot, and its only the beginning. This book belongs on the bookshelves of those who dont want to just drive to the nearest box store for what they need. Highly recommended." —Sean Stewart, Newpages
About the Author
Kyle Bravo is a cofounder of the printmaking studio Hot Iron Press, teaches high school visual art, and manages the print shop at Louisiana Artworks, a center for visual art in New Orleans. He is a founding member of the Front, an artist-run exhibition space in New Orleans, and his work has been shown in a multitude of exhibitions both nationally and internationally. He is the former organizer of the NOLA Bookfair, an annual event in celebration of independent publishing and alternative media. He lives in New Orleans.
Kyle Bravo on PowellsBooks.Blog
Making Stuff and Doing Things is a collection of articles culled from zines and the DIY underground, featuring instructions, tips, and advice for making a better world through the actions we take in our day-to-day lives. It started as a zine itself before being published by Microcosm as a book and was probably my biggest undertaking when the first edition came out...
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