FOOLS

Our modern colloquial understanding of a "fool" is someone who acts silly or without wisdom. In tarot, we associate this with a foppish twit walking off a cliff.

That this ignores how "fool" used to be a legitimate job title - one with an important (sometimes dangerous) social role - is something I've come to take as personally as losing the em-dash to AI*.

This zine is a spiritual sequel to That's It I'm Tarot Shaming, in which I tore apart six tarot decks which I felt were awful in their own special ways. For FOOLS, I focus on the 0th Arcana's assorted appearances throughout over 20 decks in my personal collection. I cover the history of the symbolism, target specific touchstones & how they survived into the modern era, and share some personal stories about my affinity for tarot's misunderstood minstrel.

Each entry is accompanied by my amateur photography, which isn't great, but it felt right to use this zine as another way to explore a new thing for which I am quite poorly equipped.

I won't say much more beyond this, just that I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it, and thank you for your time.

*Obviously, no AI was used to make this. That's one new journey I'll never take.