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Remember when seeming cool was as easy as dropping the word “zine”? Nothing’s changed. We are a new monthly Dublin based magazine focusing on Music, Art, Photography and Literature... and anything else that is Le Hip or du Hop.

Do they still make wooden Christmas Trees? - Linus Van Pelt

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Rockin Christmas - Jessica Tobin

Bikram Non-Buzz - Niamh Ní Shúilleabháin

Reflections on a Winter Wonderland- Kate Katherina Ferguson

Over Indulgence - Jessica Tobin

From outside - Paul Railton

Project A Apparel - Paul Railton talking to Dualta Jones and Francesca Griffin

Who Are the Blind Elephants - Paula McGloin, Caomhán Mac Con Iomaire & Jessica Tobin

Mad For/ Not Mad For - Jonny Fun drinking with Cian O’Toole, Shona Grimmond, Simon Dowling & Paul Railton

Happy Kiss-mas - Stephen Heaney

Snow! - Ciara Long

Whats in here...

Founder/Editor-in-ChiefPaul Railton

President of OperationsSimon Dowling

Facilitator of FunJonny Fun

Beverage Co-OrdinatorStephen Heaney

DesignPaul Railton

CoverPaul Railton/ Ciara Long

Back PageCiara Long

Thanks to:

Father ChristmasClark GriswoldKevinUncle BuckChris ReaThe Who’s of WhovilleErtha KittCharlie Brown

Thanks to the aimsir, my triocha-lá Bikram buzz was stopped in its tracks. For the past trí seachtaine, I took up a post lánaimseartha with a fash-ion retailer working on their Press Day for Spring/Summer 2011. As well as be-ing in situe from Monday to Friday from 10-6 (agus roimh agus i ndiaidh where necessary), my mode of transport was restricted to Dublin Bus. Coupled with the droch-aimsir and the lack of rothar freedom to be where and when I wanted to, getting to and from Bikram classes was severely impacted. Sound - get over and get on with it! So the key question is; did my sub-quest to stay off alcohol continue, all other fac-tors notwithstanding? Táim bródúil a rá go n’eirigh mé as an ól go dtí an séú lá deag mí Nollag. Mí in iomlán gan ól. I relinquished alcohol control and celebrated it at the Rub-berbandits cósúir Nollag in the Button Factory. Má raibh tú i láthair - you know what an amazing, electrifying gig that was. So carried away with the mothúcáin was I, that at one point, I discreetly wriggled and removed my bra and threw it onstage to see it proudly worn by DJ Willie O’Dea. Scór!!

What wasn’t funny, was the morning after. Íosa Chríost - was I sick as a dog. Not only was I physically sick - that familiar temporary downward mood descended around me. While even only temporary - it begged the question - was it worth it? I mo thuairim - nílim cinnte. Tar éis mí ina chaith mé ceann soléir, ní féidir liom neamhaird a dhéanamh faoi na buntáistí; bhí fuin-nimh agam, bhí smaointe nua agam, bhí dearcadh dearfach ginearálta ionam agus le daoine eile AGUS bhí neart craic agam chomh maith. Ceapaim, b’fhéidir, go bhfuil mé fiú níos mó as mo mheab-hair gan ól? I won’t go into specifics of things I’ve gotten up to on the wagon but measaim de bhárr an atmosféar ag an Rubberbandits gig, I would have done the bra-throwing sober chomh maith. Regardless - all of the previous buntáistí far outweigh booze i m’intinn. Ní dóigh liom go mbeidh mé mar some ‘Straight Edge’ type, but seriously loving this sober craic. So while I won’t win my free Bikram microfibre towel for 30 consecutive days of yoga (but I will take up that baton again), it’s spéisiúl that in my quest, I found another buzz; booze free me! And I likes it!

Bikram Non-Buzz

Words: Niamh Ní Shúilleabháin

Illustration: Jessica Tobin

Winter

Wonderland

Words & Photographs: Kate Katherina Ferguson

trod upon this Winter Wonder-land two nights ago; perhaps you can see my footprints in the snow.

Winter

Wonderland

Already, it has become a beautiful dreamscape and so I have saved its im-age onto my hard drive in case it drifts unbeknownst to me into a somnolent folder marked ‘nostalgia’. This is my mother’s hometown of Regensburg, Bavaria and I am seeing it for the first time in the winter. I know it from the summers of childhood and adolescence as the place where first I splashed my toes into cool drinking-water fountains and then wandered moodily into the branches of H & M and Müller in the hope of diversion from the obligations of ‘extended family’ holidays.

The German side of my family is enor-mous – my mother is the fourth child of nine and at last count my cousins tallied close to thirty. My memories of the summers between about 1995 and 2007 are rooted in a certain self – conscious-ness about the German I spoke, which I perceived as stilted in comparison to the Bavarian twang and slang with which my relatives conversed. Aware and anxious from a young age that I had but a single afternoon to persuade each branch of the German relatives of my lively personality and engaging wit, I presented invariably an image of dullness and excessive politeness which they perceived (with accuracy) as shy-ness and awkward sensitivity. I had an awful lot of fun in Regensburg too though – I was particularly fond of the twisty yellow waterslide at the local pool and the vast availability of playmo-bil and wooden dolls’ house accessories in the toy -shops. When my Grand-mother moved out of the family home and into a flat nearby, she dedicated her biggest free space to a playroom for her grandchildren. There she set up a shop (or ‘Kaufladen’) which she supplied with a wooden till and weighing scales, dried apples from the garden, miniature packets of raisins and cinnamon-topped marzipan balls; all of which could be purchased in tiny cone-shaped paper bags, which she provided for her cus-tomers. It was marvellous.

I

Such feelings return to me as I sit on a Regensburg and Grandmother-bound train with my boyfriend, who is not a part of these memories but who has the most incredible ability to absorb and to understand information and to remain quite silent as he does so; only to amaze me with evidence of his awesome memory at appropriate points in the fu-ture. For instance, he has recited in order the names of my mother’s brothers and sisters without ever having been formally taught, recalled anecdotes about my rela-tives that I don’t even remember fabricat-ing and has learned (albeit not with great accuracy) the lyrics of the family song (yes, there is one) which is performed at the approximately bi-annual family gathering.I would forgive you for accusing me of having notions of one day appearing on one of those ancestry-tracing televi-sion shows like ‘Who do you think you are?’ . To practise for such an occasion, I ask Andrew to take a picture of me on arrival at Regensburg train station. I attempt to look restrained and dignified, humbled and delighted (as those minor celebrities do at important and scripted moments in the discovery of their past) but it is too much for me and I end up pointing with mock excitement at the sign above my head.

The journey begins and we battle through a blizzard along the Danube on the way to my Grandmother’s flat. We are startled by a baby rat as it darts for cover under the inches-deep layers of snow by the riverbank. When we arrive, we are heaped with white powder. I am nervous as I ring the bell – it has been three and a half years since I last saw my Grandmother and at that time I was not romantically attached. She opens the door and pops her head out. She motions us in as if we were meals on wheels. It is wonderfully reassuring. She brews a herbal tea and we sip it as the blizzard outside continues.

She tells me that she misses packing Christmas parcels for her Grandchil-dren; it is beyond her competencies now, she tells me, as the children are looking for gadgets and games she doesn’t under-stand. I tell her how I loved playing shop in the playroom and how I remember her paper bags and dried apples. She smiles and tells me she has found old letters that her children wrote to the Christkind (the German equivalent of Santa Clause). I ask her eagerly if I may see them. I may. She gets up to fetch them, and I whisper a few words to Andrew, who has remained mute at the head of the table (Andrew speaks no German and my Oma no English). I leaf through the letters of my youngest aunts: they have asked for an anorak and an extendable pencil and have promised the Christkind that they have been brave Kinder all year.

After an hour and a quarter, we shake hands goodbye and venture back out. We are station-bound again but have decided to check out the Christmas market by the Castle before we leave. We are ankle deep in glistening snow. Burning torches light our way to the courtyard, where stalls of mulled wine and gingerbread lure us through the cold. Four men play Christmas carols on old-fashioned horns. Beyond the glistening snowflakes and torch flames, the castle gleams. I buy Andrew a baked potato and he buys me a woolly hat. We leave our footprints in the snow. We miss our train and spend all evening in a Winter Wonderland I feel is part my own.

Outside my Oma’s flat

Jessica Tobin

IMPOSSIBLE PX 100 FILM

HOLGA, NEOPAN 400

Photographs: Paul Railton

Photographs: Dualta Jones & Francesca Griffin Words: Paul Railton

Dualta Jones and Francesca Griffin, inspired by there love of t-shirts and street art, started out by designing a small range of t-shirts for them-selves and friends. From this they conceived and launched a t-shirt company called Project A Ap-parel, an Irish streetwear company.Project A Apparel aren’t like your run-of-the-mill t-shirt companies. The t-shirts are bold in colour and have street art feel about them, clearly influ-enced by the environment with which they live in. Each t-shirt is a carefully crafted, hand made limited edition print with only 25 of each design produced.The shirts are all environmentally friendly, printed on EarthPositve® material and come delivered in take-away food style packaging with band influ-enced stickers to promote the brand.Check these guys out on facebook, www.pro-jectaaparel.com at the first opportunity you get and watch this space for a lehipduhop/project A ap-parel t-shirt collaboration.

usic and fashion have long provided people with important means of self-expression..M

- Who are the collective? The Blind Elephants are a group of nine visual artists with different art back-grounds. They are: Kev Bohan, Caomhan Mac Con Iomaire, Sarah Tobin, Jes-sica Tobin, Paula Mac Gloin, Tarsilla Kruse, Killian Dunne, Niall Dooley and Fan Sissoko. Our members include graphic designers, Fine Art Painters, Ceramic artists and a fine art sculptor. After meeting at an illustration class we decided to keep working on set projects so formed a collective. We now produce work on a bi weekly basis and post them on our blog site http://blindelephantillustrationcol-lective.blogspot.com. We also post themed sketch books to each other and produce work in them.

- How long has the collective been together? The collective really came into being when we started posting work on our blog site, this was back in January so we’ve been together almost a year. We currently have over 100 illustrations on our site.

- What is the exhibition about/why should people come? The show in the Bernard Shaw is a celebration of how far we’ve come as a group and hopefully this is the first of many group exhibitions for us. To drum public interest and to make the exhibition more interesting for people intending to come we created a facebook page and asked people to vote for their favourite theme from a list we provided. The people who voted will be able to view the work they wanted us to produce and everyone else can enjoy an exhibition of quality art work.

We wanted to link the subject of our illustrations to the venue and the theme most people voted for was Passion, Poison and Petrifactions, which is the title of a lesser known play by George Bernard Shaw. In addition to these new artworks we will also be showing our favourite illustrations from the past year.

- What is your Artist background ?

I come from a design background and have been working as a graphic designer for a number of years now. Sometimes I get to use my illustration skills in my job, and when that happens it's really enjoyable. But mostly I work on my own illustra-tion projects in my spare time. I am a graduate of the Visual Communications Degree at NCAD which it gave me a good background in illustra-tion. Illustration was always encouraged as part of course work and there was many talented illus-trators among my classmates. When I left college I had imagined I would follow a career in design but gradually illustration became more and more an interesting and exciting prospect to me!

- Where do you get your inspiration from ?

Inspiration comes from many places. I get inspired by the work artists and illustrators but especially like the work of Kate Sutton, Karo-lin Schnoor, Sanna Annukka, Chris Haughton, Benjamin Lacombe and Charley Harper. Nature is a theme that is becoming more frequent in my work, particularly the animal kingdom. There are just so many interesting colours, shapes and patterns in nature to draw inspiration from, you couldn't lose interest! I have currently started a series of artworks based on developing awareness of endangered animals. I suppose there is nothing too dark about my work, I like to keep it positive and fun and hopefully that comes across!

- Do you listen to music whilst working, do you find it has an effect on your work?

I almost always listen to music while working! Sometimes just Phantom FM or some albums on my computer. I find music can help me get out of mind blocks; when ideas are just not coming, background music can help ideas flow. I espe-cially like to listen to electronic and instrumental music like AIR, Bjork or Royksopp, although I'm a fan of rock music it can sometimes become too distracting! I personally think music has an effect on my work. Illustration often involves recreat-ing a mood, an atmosphere or a place and music helps focus your imagination on the effect you want to achieve.

- What tools do you use in the process?

A number of different tools and a number of dif-ferent processes! All my work starts in my sketch book just doodling ideas or starting on drawings for a final piece. At this stage I may decide to scan in a drawing and trace it in Adobe Illustra-tor. In Illustrator I would try to prefect curves and shapes, experiment with colour and composition and then decide on how the final piece would look.

Lately I have started creating some pieces entirely by hand. I like the way hand made im-agery can become unpredictable; mistakes and imperfections can be very interesting! Instead of moving to the computer I would use sketch-ing paper to plan and construct compositions and try to perfect lines. I would then apply a pencil outline onto thick watercolour paper and paint. I generally work with a mixture gouache and watercolour. Sometimes I like to experiment by adding collage elements. I also like to experi-ment with simple print techniques like mono print and linocut.

Paula McGloin

Paula McGloin

Caomhán Mac Con Iomaire

Caomhán Mac Con Iomaire

- What is your Artist background ?

My background is in ceramic art, I studied in NCAD and I have shown my work in a number of high profile exhibitions. I started producing illustration work as a way to keep drawing and to try something different. - Where do you get your inspiration from ?

I was initially inspired to get drawing again when I was lucky enough to meet the re-nowned Australian book illustrator Shawn Tan and viewing his beautiful graphic novel The Arrival. At around the same time National Gallery of Ireland had an exhibition of won-derfully detailed illustrations of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytales by Harry Clarke. I felt a real want to start drawing again after seeing them. For my Blind Elephant work I try to channel inspiration from a variety of sources. It could come from the work of 18th century academic painters or the work of contemporary illustrators. I particularly like the work of M.C. Esher. - Do you listen to music whilst working, do you find it has an effect on your work?

It is not particularly important and it doesn’t dictate the direction of my work. However it is nice to have Lyric FM on in the background.- What tools do you use in the process? Graphite and watercolour pencils, I’ve also used coloured inks, acrylic paints and pens.

Jessica Tobin

- What is your Artist background ?

Ive been drawing since I could hold a pencil, and come from a very creative family which was a huge influence on me. Spent 2 years at BCFE, 5 at NCAD doing a degree in Ceramic design and a Hdip in Community Art educa-tion.

- Where do you get your inspiration from ?

fashion, fashion illustration, magazines, photos, japanesse print work, printed fabric and pattern, modern culture. I love the idea of captuirng the soul in the look in a persons eyes so the veiwer would like to know what is going on behind them.

- Do you listen to music whilst working, do you find it has an effect on your work?

Yes always, sometimes I feel like illustrating songs that I like the lyrics of.

- What tools do you use in the process?

at the moment pencil, black pen, marker, inks, photoshop, magazines, fashion books, the internet and photoshop and of course paper.

Happy fucking

Stephen Heaney

-MAS

From us at Le Hip du Hop