The first Refrigerator was an 8 1/2 by 14″ broadsheet, offset printed and available in restaurants and bars in Rochester for free. The circulation grew from 500 to 3,000 and the number of pages climbed to twelve. I did most of the graphics and wrote some, Peggi Fournier was the production manager. Ted Williams, Martin Edic, Chuck Cuminale, Robert Meyerowitz, Carol Bradley, Chris Schepp, Rob Tyler and Frank Petronio all contributed content. The late Norm Davis hysterically surveyed the shops on Monroe Avenue. This was back in the nineties, before the internet, and all of this work was done anonymously until the D&C did a story about the Refrigerator. With the advent of the internet TheRefrigerator moved online in the nineties and early 2000’s.
With front page tag lines like “Does Caffeine Make You Smarter?,” “Love World’s Mental Heath Tipsheet,” “Recycle The Earth Issue,” paid for by the advertisers With a tag “George Eastman Is Dead,” “My Funeral,” “Bad Acid Trip,” “Because You Don’t Need an Entertainment Guide,” (a dig at Freetime Magazine), “Rochester’s Only Demolition Derby Fanzine” and “Virgin Mary To Appear in Rochester” we attracted a faithful readership. The “Why Are You Here? issue was especially popular as was Pete LaBonne’s “Dream Breakfasts.”
Lead-ins to pieces like “Rewriting Rochester’s Cultural Heritage,” “Readers Are People Too,” “Dealing With Denial,” “The Difference Between Right and Wrong,” “The End of the World,” “Thel Sound of Doom,” “Virtual Rochester,” “Finally, The Future,” “The Tediousness of Facts,” “I Live Next Door to a Genius” and “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” were often the whole story.
The back page of “The Refrigerator” carried ten dollar, one square inch ads. Pyramid Arts Center, The Village Green, The Bug Jar, The Cadillac Hotel, Squires Of The Subterrain, the Rochester Club and City Newspaper were all regulars. Nicholson Baker, the author, was an advertiser. $10 Refrigerator Hats are still available for purchase with the PayPal button below.
TWENTY EIGHT ISSUES OF THE REFRIGERATOR WERE PUBLISHED IN PRINT FORM BETWEEN 1989 AND 1993.
The circulation ranged from 500 for the first few issues to 5000 for the last ten or so.
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
Click on the covers to see PDFs of all twenty eight issues
LINKS TO PDFs OF All 28 REFRIGERATOR PRINT EDITIONS
01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28
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The Refrigerator was an early 1990’s broadsheet/zine in Rochester, New York. Twenty eight print editions are archived abovee. The Refrigerator went online at the end of the nineties and I am slowly moving some of that content to this site, PopWars.
Best Local e-zine The Refrigerator
The Best of Rochester 2000 Critics’ Choice
City Newspaper, Rochester New York 10/25-31/2000
Some may remember The Refrigerator from its previous incarnation as a printed broadsheet, distributed for free and featuring the written work of a bunch of anonymous free-thinkers, artists, and oddballs. Those who miss that noble publication will be glad to discover that it has found a new home on the web. The new Refrigerator relies less on the printed word and more on visuals as befits the medium on which it’s delivered. A recent edition included a brilliant photo-spread of Rochester’s storefront churches, a photo essay on burning a pistachio, reader-submitted reviews of Italian restaurants, and much, much more. Matching a keen eye for style with a compassionate eye for human behavior, The Refrigerator is a cool place, indeed.
Refrigerator’ Serves Local Menu
By Steve Orr
Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester New York 08/14/2000
My favorite part of theRefrigerator might be the step-by-step pictorial on how to burn a pistachio. These nuts, my favorite food in the world, flame like little flares when set afire. Or maybe it’s the painting entitled ”Sparky Shows Me His Colostomy Bag.”
Perhaps it’s bzZb, which could be the first video ever made of someone blowing bubbles with a bubble pipe in below-zero temperatures. Or it could even be the collection of old family photographs salvaged from the trash of someone who had died, which made me want to cry. It’s so hard to choose.
All this — art, arcana, memorabilia and more — makes up theRefrigerator, to my mind the most thoughtful and entertaining Web site in Rochester.
Many people likely would disagree. No slick graphics here, no sports, no sex, no e-commerce. Rather, theRefrigerator is a low-key collection of off-beat stuff that won’t appeal to everybody — but might well appeal to you. The creators are Peggi Fournier and Paul Dodd, a wife-and-husband team of artist-designers. They put together theRefrigerator two years ago and add to it each week or so, Dodd said.
The site is partly a marketing device for their company, 4D Advertising Design. Instead of a 4D corporate site, they dreamed up theRefrigerator, which serves as a showcase for their design talents. And more. The site’s opening page looks like a fridge with magnets stuck on the door; the magnets are actually links to the content. The freezer door has a drop-down menu that leads to more content.
Inside, you’ll find photographs — of neighborhood residents, political candidates, a strange pink blob alongside Culver Road, the underside of local bridges and Rochester storefront churches.
Many of Dodd’s paintings are reproduced. You can hear music by Invisible Idiot, the band in which Fournier and Dodd play.
Visitors can read an e-mail journal from a couple that lives on a sailboat (aborted in July when someone stole their computer) and a short story-in-progress that has something to do with the old Travelodge motel.
Much of the creators’ attention is focused on life in Rochester, especially the city’s east side, where they apparently live. TheRefrigerator is very much a local documentary.
Silly? Some of it. Whimsical? Much of it. But still, it’s appealing. I spend hours a day on the Web and appreciate everything that it offers. Sometimes, though, I feel overwhelmed and put off by the incessant commercial clatter.
TheRefrigerator is a ready remedy. It has what is lacking in most other personal and commercial Web sites: a cohesive artistic sensibility. It speaks volumes about the understanding that can spring from a keen eye turned on everyday life.
Stop by for a late-night snack.