Doubles, spirals, whorls, inverted triple-axels – you may think, ‘oh no, have I stumbled upon a skateboarding zine?’ No, of course not. It’s much stupider than that. SPIRAL MANIFESTOS is a zine devoted to cultural patterns. More, SPIRAL MANIFESTOS is devoted to obsessively seeking nonsensical patterns, following our animal brains as they spiral down a sinkhole of increasingly implausible associations, connections, and conspiracies. Join us for a hypnotic and primordial journey into our own incessant neuroses – come fall down the spiral. 

Our starting point is the Double – a movement in which all things are figured. Well, actually our starting point is really the First, before it gets doubled. But One is always becoming Two. The First is always shadowed, signified, conceived, remembered, reimagined – past and future. Bifurcating in every direction, always moving dialectically against itself: One doubles.  

And what is a Double but the prefiguration of a Third? One appears unique until the Second obliterates the boundary. The Second opens up a vertiginous realm of possibility – if there can be two of something, is there really any limit to how many there could be? The double introduces us to a new sense of scale – suddenly, we’re astronauts, trying to count the stars. One mirror is singular, but with two you can discover a boundless supply. What is Two if not Three? And what is Three, if not the infinite spirals of the universe?

Before we begin, let’s clear something up: Is this zine’s epithetic SPIRAL a noun or a verb? What is a spiral? What spirals? Here is a comprehensive list: CDs & LPs, mental health, sink drains & whirlpools, DNA, spirographs, film reels, ouroboroses, falling leaves, Nine Inch Nails albums, galaxies, and recursive questions. Do echos spiral? Does love? Is the Cool Middle School S a spiral? A spiral is repetition, but also divergence. Spiral’s whorl! Is this zine a manifesto on spirals or a spiraling manifesto? Yes, I do believe so.