Who ever said a cutie can’t be smart, too? Pop Boffin is at heart a pop media/music zine, but she wears the names, faces and words of all-star philosophers, and references to their ideas, like fabulous pieces of thrift-store jewellery. It makes me imagine, to change the analogy, a form-fitting summer dress that sports a pattern of the faces of the said 21 philosophers, rather than flowers. Even though the writers and editors seem to grasp, more or less, the ideas they’re throwing about, they choose to say “Whoa, Julia Kristeva is like fuckin’ rad’!” rather than make an earnest, considered defence, because it would ruin their cuteness. I’d probably choose cute over earnest if given the choice, anyway. Pop Boffin makes me imagine a philosophy program run entirely in valley-girl (or riot grrrl) speak. It might not work in practice, but here it does, precisely because they don’t try too hard. And because great philosophers’ faces do look bloody cute in a zine, and because Saint Etienne actually granted Pop Boffin an interview (read: Pop Boffin is Approved by the anointed Cool), it really is fun. (Donato Mancini)
zine, 28 pages, $3, Lara Jenny and friends, [email protected]