Zine Review: Section 8 Magazine #33

zines_section-8-magazine-jeff-low

Section 8 Magazine #33: Making Faces
(Something like a) Chapbook, Various, section8magazine.com, 40 pgs

Wake up, sheeple!!! This Seattle, WA-based compilation zine (billing itself as a zine for “artists, intellectuals and global thinkers”) is an unwelcome reminder: the DIY arts are not safe from misogynist buffoons or clichéd aesthetics. See: the most notable buffoon, Michael Marrotti — “an author from Pittsburgh using words instead of violence to mitigate the suffering of life in a callous world of redundancy.” O, philanthropic bard!

To follow: an excerpt from Marotti’s “Agnostic Front Live in Pittsburgh” — “I’ve been blessed with slut after slut (courtesy of Dormont) and made the best out of it. Word quickly spread of my hard drinking, good times and ass kickings. Women in Dormont ate that shit up. I guess in a way it broke up the monotony of their redundant lives.” Review: I give this story 0.5 dead Bukowskis out of 5. (Bitter old hardcore dudes and machismo poets fuck off!!!)

Sass aside, reading this zine was such a disheartening experience. Section 8 Magazine, you’re making it pretty hard for us to give you the benefit of the doubt here. But I suppose, out of context and ironically misconstrued, Marrotti’s own words have some merit: “Bad examples can be just as beneficial as good ones.” (Jeff Low)