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Academics
Some literary theory, a newsletter for librarians, a master's thesis on zines, notes from the highschool trenches . . . anything that'll fit. Sure, the boundaries for this category are vague. But what the heck. You could say the same thing about "punk" or "sf" for that matter. Only the zines themselves are real. The categories are figments of our imagination.
sangdroid (copyright 1997) is apparently
a one-shot. The publisher told me she'd sent me the last one,
so don't count on being able to get it. But I had to review it
here anyway. It's like nothing I've ever seen.
There least interesting pieces are the shorter ones.
(My faithful readers
will recognize this as praise of the longer ones; I usually find most
things longer than about a page to be too long).
These include a few pages of ramblings about halftone technology,
a "Chat Between Robots" (just what it sounds like; two "artificial
intelligence" programs have a "conversation"), a paranoid
rant on the CIA & academia, the incomprehensible "Sugar Rays
and Wells of Honey", & a ads-treat-women-as-objects bit
(slightly more interesting than Z's ever-tiresome "Hotel
Satire"; I prefer the regular "No Comment" feature
in Ms. to both).
The main attraction
is the long essay Borges, X Files and Cash Registers: Pleasures
and Politics of Digital Culture by Camela Raymond. Its style
& subject matter are very much in the "postmodern" vein favored
by young academics of the internet era. But unlike most of the
(admittedly fairly small amount of) stuff of this sort that I've seen before,
it's packed with interesting ideas. The punk-ziney layout actually seems
to make this easier to read. Anyway, the theme is "how is knowledge
organized": names & topics mentioned include tables
(the French Encyclopia, Dewey decimal system, Oxford English Dictionary
. . .), computers as "efficient filing cabinets", mathematics
versus ordinary language, State power in the information
economy, Stéphane Mallarmé, Donna Haraway,
Borges of course, much more. Believe it or not, it all hangs
together & it really got me thinking.
Is "I have always been a librarian. I will
always be a librarian." a reference to Kubrik's The Shining?
Heide Solbrig's
Digital Domestics: Race, Agency and Corporate Software
considers a piece by the MIT Media Lab's
futuro-huckster Nicholas ( Being Digital) Negroponte
in the light of the teach-yourself-typing program "Mavis Beacon
Teaches Typing!". Race! Gender! Lacan again! A detailed bibliography!
It's just weird seeing this stuff in a zine. But it works.
Probably these people are publishing similar stuff in the more conventional
academic outlets.
68 fullsize pages plus some inserts including a tiny minicomic
& a placemat. $2 if there were any more. Which, apparently,
there ain't. But you might
write & see what else these folks are up to.
Pervatron Press 536 NE San Rafael Portland OR 97212.
Cocteau's Children #8.
I reviewed #7 in TPN #12. Readers of that review will
recall that editor John Doyle is a high school teacher who regularly
causes students to produce zines (The Zine Project; I understand
that this fall's ZP issues exist but I haven't seen 'em yet).
That & the "School Stories" column earns CC its inclusion in
this section.
He also describes his involvement in children's
theatre & his production of a pair of one-act plays.
He's very critical of one of the actors in the one-acts.
Doyle's forthrightness in speaking his mind about the people
he works with has earned him considerable criticism;
in particular, he's been known to discuss the behavior of his students
& name names. This seems like begging for trouble to me.
He seems to be feeling the heat, & has least considered
getting out of the kitchen. But like it says on the cover, "I try
to stop but they just keep coming". I'm sure a lot of zinesters
can relate. There are public apologies to zinesters Donnie
Smith (of Dwan) & Davida Breier (Slow Leek &
Glovebox Chronicles). Breier has presented her complaints
in recent issues of SL (particularly #13);
apparently there are more problems than
the "zine misunderstandings" cited here. None of my business of
course, but it's all there on the record & gossip is fun.
Okay, never mind that. Doyle also apologizes to some extent
to the readers since "I am not a very good writer"; he explains
that "[t]he chronic problem of teaching is that your brain degenerates
over time" from reading "the work of inept high school writers";
what literature he does have time for is rereading the same
works for class over & over. "[B]ut give me some actors, a stage,
and a few lighting instuments and I will enflame your soul".
Probably not mine; call me a philistine, but
I'm pretty indifferent to stage plays. Usually much
more trouble than they're worth, it seems to me. For the audience, I
mean. The cast & crew generally seem to get a big kick out of it.
Anyway, I find Doyle's soul-searching in CC refreshing &
hope he'll stay with it. It's true that he makes a lot of pretty
basic mistakes for an English teacher. My guess is that his
students are lucky to get him anyway since he obviously puts
so much of himself into his work (& the others are probably
not much better at the technical stuff as a rule anyway).
$1 or trade; send some extra for the Zine Project stuff.
810 Hamlet Circle King of Prussia PA 19406.
MSRRT Newsletter: Library Alternatives
(Volume 10, Numbers 5 & 6: September/October & November/December
1997). MSRRT stands for "Minnesota Library Association Social Responibilities
Round Table". Apparently, the American Library Association
has a national SRRT. Minnesota seems to have much the most active branch,
thanks to Newsletter editors Chris Dodge & Jan DeSirey.
You don't have to be a librarian to like this Newsletter;
among other things,
it's a great zine review zine.
For example, the "Periodicals Received" column for #10 has 22 reviews
(covering 4 pages) including reviews of
The Baffler & something called
The Ten Page News.
There's also a "World Wide Web" column, "Recommended Reading"
(books) & "Recommended Resources", & even "Catalogs Received",
along with "Library News" & editorials on censorship, book
superstores, & other issues of interest to socially conscious
librarians (& anyone else who reads a lot).
I wish I'd discovered the Newsletter sooner; I'll
be getting it from now on.
Back issues are available on the web.
12 fullsize pages. $15 donation (suggested)/6 issues, payable
to MLA/MSRRT. 4645 Columbus Ave. S. Minneapolis MN 55407.
The
Baffler (Number Nine;
copyright1997). Is a zine at all? Or is it rather
a "little" magazine -- one of those small press journals full
of academic belles lettres & Theory, usually (like The
Baffler) squarebound, just over digest sized, & well over
a hundred pages long? Well, what few ads they do have tend more
to CDs than to university presses. Also, it's "co-published" by
(leading alternative comics publisher)
Fantagraphics, for pete's sake. (A bad move? I got the pre-Fantagraphics
## 7 & 8 from bookstore magazine racks.
#9 was still available at Barnes & Noble but, at my local
branch anyway, was relegated to a comic-&-role-playing ghetto
behind the counter where it won't be noticed.)
Anyway, zine or not, who cares? What it is for sure is vital. Editor Tom
Frank has become famous for his
insightful & lively cultural criticism (I mentioned his emergence
into the mainstream in TPN #1).
His achievements as an editor are even greater, in my opinion,
than his top-notch work as an essayist.
Baffler #9 is mostly about labor issues.
There's a section on "The Towns That Time Forgets": some
movement history, the Hormel strike & even a
comic by Jessica Artbabe Abel on the Staley strike in Decatur
IL. Two more sections
on "What Works" (some good news about unions for a change)
& "What Doesn't" (with analysis of pro-market propaganda, a satire
on marketing literature, more). "I'll Work For Free!" consists of
a piece on the exploitation of "interns" in the publishing industry
& the ever-more-horrifying prison-industrial complex.
"History Is Bunk" has pieces by regulars Tom Frank & Tom Vanderbilt
on the disappearing of labor by the mass media
& the
"corporate soul" movement ("It was, of
course, only a matter of time before the hucksters of wellness,
those ubiquitous checkout-counter gurus like Deepak Chopra
and James (Celestine Prophesy) Renfield, began tailoring
their soulcraft to fit the hulking frame of corporate culture.")
There's some cool art & photos & even some fiction & poetry
in case you like that sort of thing.
Maybe the most important thing separating The Baffler from
the academic mainstream for me is its overall tone: these people
are engaged in the stuggle & they're having fun with it.
I'd urge you to subscribe despite
their spotty publication record (about one a year since
I discovered 'em), but I can't find a price
in their indica or ad. Send 'em $7 (postpaid)
or get it for $6 at the store.
7563 Lake City Way NE Seattle WA 98115.
(800) 657-1100 for credit card orders.
The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank.
Definitely not a zine. An honest-to-god book.
With hard covers yet. Adapted from Frank's 1994 dissertation
at the U of Chicago.
Subtitled Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of
Hip Consumerism. Disappointing.
Long. Repetitive. Many too-detailed descriptions of old ads.
Makes same few points many times. Probably worked better as
series of articles. Stick to the zine. $22.95.
U of Chicago Press. 0-226-25991-9.
This Document Will Self Destruct In 30
Seconds. Also known as Personality On Parade: A
Psychoanalytic Analysis of the Zine Revolution.
Fred Wright's 1995 master's thesis (at Kent State U.),
reprinted in zine
format. Well worth reading even if, like me, you skim over the passages
on psychoanalysis.
Chapter One discusses "History and Characterisics of Zines":
ancestors & relatives like chapbooks, broadsides, dadaism,
& samizdat;
techniques like detournement & other "appropriation of mainstream
cultural icons"; the social & personal nature of zines.
Chapter Two, "Reasons For Zine Publication", gets into
the psychoanalytic theory. The coverage of such topics
as therapy, community, propaganda, & the drive for recognition
is clear enough even for this lay reader; Lacan's Orders & the
object a will presumably be of some interest
to readers familiar with that theory or wishing to be.
"The Effects of Zines on Readers and Society", the third
& final chapter, deals mainly with the politics of networking.
It closes with a discussion of "the most important testament to
the potential power of zines", the famous Michael Diana obscentiy
conviction.
Each chapter is extensively footnoted & there's a great bibliography.
Actually two of 'em: about 70 books & articles are cited along
with a separate list of 100 zines with contact information.
48 digest pages for $2. 710 Stinaff St. Kent OH 44240.