Zine Reviews: the splice of life

We Must Bleed: A Germs Pocket Reader

mcshamrock@gmail.com

$.50 – $1

All hail the mini zine and all hail Darby Crash!

This pocket reader is a tribute to the Germs’ front singer and tells the story of his final performance and his final moments before he overdosed and left this world forever. Although this zine is small, it is very well researched and very well written. A must have for any Germs fan! Carry this zine in your pocket and have a piece of Darby wherever you go. (vanessa)

Purple Haus Erotica Vol. 1

la.pequena.mort@gmail.com

Erotic but not smutty, Purple Haus Erotica is a collaborative zine that has short stories, poetry, and drawings about sex and sexuality. The introduction states that “this zine is an experiment in what sexuality is and can be.” I found the pieces to be tasteful and non offensive, but that doesn’t mean they are tame. The poems and short stories are very descriptive and imaginative and managed to turn me on, which is usually the goal of any erotic tale. The layout is very clean with cut and paste pictures of the human body and other clip art that fits with the text on each page. The cover and back cover are beautifully silk-screened and make it worth having in your zine library. (vanessa)

The Anvil Review #4

The Anvil Review

PO Box 3549

Berkeley, CA 94703

theanvilreview.org

The Situationists are at it again. The latest issue of the Anvil Review, the free twice yearly print edition of theanvilreview.org, features anarchist writing by old-school situationist Isaac Cronin, Wolfi Landstreicher, and newer anarchist theorists like Alejandro de Acosta and Critila. We should note that peeps mostly consider themselves “Post-Situationists” now, with good reason: the tactics of the early Situationists have become so thoroughly co-opted by the bourgeoisie that you practically have to be a Situationist to sell your abstracted labor these days. Fuck that shit. But yeah, the Anvil Review is worth checking out if you like critical essays tied to culture and informed by an anarchist sensibility. Issue #4 is focused on the idea of “the city” and includes 9 critical essays that attempt to expand the ways we think about the psychical, social, and mythical space of the city. (rye)

The Authoritarians

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Recently, I read Bob Altemeyer’s book and it made a lot of things make a lot more sense. Previously I had looked at certain segments of the voting population and went, “They can’t be serious, can they?” Sadly, they can. Many authoritarian people are raised in environments where they are told that something is true “because I said so,” and are surrounded by social groups who reinforce that view. The end result is adults who have heavily compartmentalized minds because they were never encouraged to reconcile all their ideas together into one unified mental model. Thus they tend to lack self-reflection, uncritically accept things told to them by authorities without examining them, believe contradictory things and hold double standards because those ideas are never brought into mental contact, and have a desperate need for continual validation of their beliefs both in official authority and by surrounding themselves only with other people who share those beliefs. This also allows prejudice to flourish because they avoid people who would call them out on it or force them to reexamine their generalization. (colin)

Les Carnets de Rastapopoulos #9

2-7 Larch St

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada K1R6W4

Les Carnets is French for The Notebooks. I’m not clear about the Rastapopoulos part. In this issue the author reflects on his pen pals from 20 years ago. On a whim he made an effort to find those from long ago and far away and documents those who wrote him back. The results are interesting if not a little heart breaking. It’s not very political, yet nor is it worthless. You can see ordinary people address an extraordinary facet of their lfe. It’s a fast read with each scenario written in eyeblinking vignettes. The whole thing reads like a Jr. College school assignment. The simplistic perspective cataloging many stories makes for an impressionistic 20 minute read. That leaves time to write a letter to an old friend afterwards. (aubergine)

Detained

eryon.franklin@gmail.com / eryonfranklin.org

What is it like to be in jail and not know if you will ever be released? This beautiful zine describes the indefinite detention faced by undocumented immigrants who have become immersed in the American legal system, and, the design of the zine itself attempts to physically demonstrate it. It is a 26-foot-long accordion book printed on a single sheet of paper — a long, continuous image of the

Shards of Glass in Your Eye #7,8,9

$2 +postage

PO box 7831

Beverly Hills, CA 90212

The L.A. Zine Fest this year boiled over with people not phased by the so-called “death of print.” I unearthed Kari Tervo’s publication there, and it’s evident that she seems to be in a state of Zine Fever. She started this title in the mid 90’s but has recently given it a kick in the ass with a renewed focus on humor. The main content seems to be observations of the life around Beverly Hills, which often includes the most recent celebrity sightings. It’s not very counter culture. In fact, it even has an icy hostility to current P.C. trends such as veganism or fix gear bikes. But it’s wicked intelligent. There seems to be an awareness of an actual audience reading it — and that there exists with them a reachable tickle spot. Kari touches that spot with reckless abandon. (eggplaid)

Moira Scar in the Parallel Universe Comic #3

http://moirascar.blogspot.com

A sci-fi comic recounting the adventures in dystopia with this hard to pigeon band. Oh wait the comic’s mutant clones does it for us “they always played lap tops in easy listening style”. A police state populated by robots and clones work to destroy the fun being sought by Moira Scar. Humor and a dedication to creating art boldly challenge the ugly world we inherited. (eggman)

Node Pajomo #13 $2+postage

PO Box 2632

Bellingham, WA 98227

Underground directory to trade anything from letters, zines, Cd’s, tapes, mail art, post cards, photos, collages. Running strong for 5 years now. This issue highlights include a guy in Pensacola calling himself The Masked Claw who wants photo copies of people’s feet so he can “see into your sole.” Also someone in the Netherlands is collecting To-Do lists and a vending machine in Iowa looking for zines. Each issue has attached mail art throughout it all. We got a stamp from Japan and some alternative currency with our copy. As headboggling and randomly fruitful as reading graffiti in a bathroom stall. (eggfad)

Hawai’i 510 (aka No Gods No Mattress 18)

PO Box 3936

Berkeley, CA 94703

$2+2 stamps

When I first read the “Haole Go Home” article by enola d in Slingshot #111, it brought up many memories for me. I had people in my life who had the means and time to spend time traveling around Hawai’i. These people were punx who I had loved and yet, after hearing that they were traveling/moving there, I always wished I could tell them to check their privilege and reconsider. I didn’t feel like it was my place (an excuse perhaps) and they went anyway and often came back with what I felt was disappointment and sorrow and possibly some positive experiences. enola helped me to remember the sobering reality vs. idealistic images of “paradise” in places that were once perhaps “paradise” before imperialism/capitalism swept through, salting the land. Resistance is fertile though, as many of enola’s encounters with native Hawai’ians seem to suggest. I remain more committed to staying the hell out of Hawai’i after this ish of NGNM. To paraphrase/borrow from enola, maybe I’m just getting older and being more of a jerk too. Whatevs. (j-tronn)

Stowaways#13 $2+postage

52 Windover Rd.

Yorba Linda, CA 92886

romancandlemusic@gmail.com

This large size zine is packed with a shit ton of info on the underground music scene around L.A. One person seems to be doing all the work. The editor Chris is tirelessly here logging dozens of shows, reviewing new releases and interviewing a couple bands. The writing quality is akin to radio news in that it gives just the barest details of an event then its off relating accounts of the next event. For someone not familiar with the region or the music scene it might hurt your head to read. This particular issue aids in that endeavor by displaying several obvious typos–but perhaps it was a rush job to have it in people’s hands by the recent L.A. zine fest. There’s not much in the way of graphics with just a few photos and lots of open space. But when I read Stowaway a little more closely I did appreciate the writer’s passion for his subject. Through his perspective one can start to see a community existing in a place where most radicals throw away as being populated by materialistic plastic people that is dominated by car culture.