zine, [zeen] noun. 1. abbr. of fanzine; 2. any amateurly-published periodical. Oxford Reference

..

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Toil #2

from Blackguard

52 pages, digest size, 2 bucks or trade, Kimberlee Esguerra, PO Box 20148, Piedmont CA 94620, USA + powerofpaper(at)gmail.com
The theme of this zine anthology is 'work', something most of us can relate to. Who hasn't had a shitty job? Writing about that shitty job can be therapeutic, acting as a big fat pressure valve, not to mention that some of the greatest writing has come from this activity. Example: Charles Bukowski's first novel, Post Office.
Anyway, some of the highlights in here include Julie the Bruce's true horror story of working at the Halloween store in the local mall with creepy,"ex-high school linebacker" boss, Doug;
Mike Baker's excellent 'The Drive To Work', where he compares Starbucks to the competition, a fair trade joint. He stops at Starbucks for his morning coffee because "the fair trade pro hemp and bike riding DIY place doesn't open until two which is when the fair trade pro hemp and bike riding DIY punks who are really fucking hippies but don't have the balls to admit they're hippies finally get up from their weed induced slumber". Haw!
Kimberlee also emailed Henry Rollins, immediately after which and for the rest of the night tormented herself over what she wrote - Maybe it was totally lame, He won't write back, What was I thinking?, etc. But he wrote back the very next morning! and answered all her questions. Pretty cool.
I also really liked the illustrations in here by Mark Fox, he's got a real nice primitive style - eg. drawing of man with banjo next to tree stump sprouting gramophone with leaves floating out.
I enjoyed reading this zine on the bus, and wanted the busdriver to keep driving around until I finished it.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Search This Blog