TALK ON THE WILD SIDE: Wilderness advocate Edward Abbey once stated (with apologies, we paraphrase) that he might never visit Alaska, but he felt better knowing it was there. With regard to that northern corner, at least, cultural anthropologist Richard Nelson has done Abbey one better. What Abbey has done to immortalize the Southwest in books like Desert Solitaire, Nelson has similarly achieved on the north Pacific coast with books like The Island Within, which earned the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding natural history writing in 1991. Like Abbey, much of Nelson's message revolves around our moral obligation to preserve the world's wild places, not only for the benefit of the natural world, but for the spiritual as well as physical benefit of our own species. He has spent 30 years studying the relationship between native peoples and their environments, with particular emphasis on bringing to light alternative views to the Western notion that man is separate from his environment, that he holds dominion over it, that someone else will pay the price for our misuse of the land and its resources. His 11 books range from early scientific studies of Alaskan Eskimo and Athabaskan Indians to explorations of his personal relationships with the natural world. Though the climate is different, Nelson's message resonates here in our own once-pristine desert surroundings, where bulldozers continue to subdivide our saguaros and other native species out of existence. He reads from his forthcoming book, Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America (due out this fall from Knopf), at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, in the UA Modern Languages Building auditorium. Call 321-7760 for information. ZINE SCENE: Although we're supposedly part of the media elite down here at The Weekly, we must admit some confusion about the proliferation of those self-published curiosities known as "zines." They're everywhere, and very few of them are worthy of mention. In fact, as soon as we find one worthy of mention, we'll mention it with great enthusiasm and fanfare. In the meantime, this odd little magazine called Curio, which itself is sort of like a zine in that it's assembled quarterly by a group of "writers, artists and politicos" who sit around tables in suburban New York salons thinking themselves awfully clever, has devoted an entire section of its contents to zines. Zine Editor Mickey Z. compiles excerpts from zines nationwide. Here you'll find everything from homages to Kurt Vonnegut to journal entries from a teenage prostitute, with a page of Biblical contradictions thrown in for good measure. It's not terribly interesting, but it's pop culture at its most ubiquitous, and who doesn't want to know about that? Also contained in the spring issue of Curio, which claims to be the "special politics and leisure issue": a profile of Annabella Sciorra, in which all the questions have been removed leaving only the decontextualized answers; profiles of independent film actors Frank John Hughes, Edie Falco, Paul Schulze and John Ventimiglia; "A Photo-textual Montage," by children involved with the non-profit To Make the World A Better Place organization; and "Dead End Jobs," a poem by John Hutchison, which reads as follows: dead end jobs. well this one isn't exactly dead end it just kinda heads down a path in which my brain atrophies and i think that the new stephen king novel is clever... Words to live by while you order your next cappuccino. Curio is $3.50 on the newsstand, $12 for a one-year subscription. Call (914) 961-8649 for information. FEMINIST FAIT ACCOMPLI: It's one of those nondescript holidays that doesn't quite stick in the memory: March 8. What could that be? Here's a hint: It's a milestone, not a Hallmark. We're talking about International Women's Day, the culmination of years of women's demands for suffrage and fair labor practices. Sure, voter turnout is less than 50-percent nationwide, the "glass ceiling" phenomenon appears somewhat shatterproof, and the suit-to-skirt ratio in our nation's capital is abysmal. But that doesn't mean you can't celebrate with a bit of enlightened shopping at the independent, woman-owned Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave., which celebrates this important day from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, with live music, discounted merchandise, a bit of women's history, and free chocolate. Peepshow Unplugged, a women's acoustic trio, plays from 7 to 9 p.m. Call 792-3715 for information.

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