RosettaStone: CRAFT A primary, secondary, and annotated source reader for functional craft. By: Randi O'Brien

This is an annotated evaluation of the following:

Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture. by Kaya Oakes
Kaya Oakes. Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture (New York: Holt Paperbacks 2009)

Reviewed by Randi O’Brien

Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture written by author and lecturer at UC Berkeley Kaya Oakes, investigates the practice of indie culture. Oakes presents a journalistic perspective of indie communities for readers to understand the central tenets of DIY community service and empowerment. Oakes is poetic in her journalistic perspective and observations of DIY culture that includes Early Independent Networks, Punk Roots, Indie Regionalism in Berkeley, Independent Literature, Comics, Indie Rock, and Indie Publishing in the twenty-first century, as well as Crafting and the Indie Design movement. My overall impression is that the author has a poetic knack for observation and presents her observations in an engaging and descriptive story board.

In this book, the author has relied on personal observations and sites personal accounts of early zine and indie interviews. While this article is a smooth read that is entertaining and well articulated the Crafting and Indie Design portion of her book is lacking any complex observation or evaluation of the DIY craft movement. Though lacking in contribution to the larger craft dialogue in terms of DIY craft history or contemporary perspectives craftsmen would find this article useful for an entertaining and journalistic perspective of the later indie and DIY movement.