Reading CRASH is like peeking in on someone’s mom as she tries to do fun, cool, neatsy-keen stuff with her daughter. It’s like a mother telling her daughter, “You think you and your generation are the only ones who can do zines, well listen sister, I invented the zine.” And, if you can believe this, CRASH editor Maggie Helwig, in her opening editorial, says she thinks she probably invented the word “zine”. Help me Rhonda. Helwig is brutally self-absorbed. She can’t even resist the temptation to intervene with her little scribbled notes and arrows when she prints found stuff: “I found this one in the street near Bloor and Spadina (arrow)”. What makes all this even more remarkable is that CRASH comes out only once a year. You’d think the editor could put a little more meat on an annual, but it looks like she just grabs a bunch of clippings from tabloids, throws in a few poems by her friends, glues it all to 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and staples it. Oh, there’s some good stuff in here. Louise Bak has a poem that is wonderful (even the half page of footnotes are okay). Judy McDonald has a story about a guy who comes in for his first day of work only to discover he misunderstood the interviewer and he didn’t actually get the job (this story is so unironic that you’ll sit there for a while after reading it and wonder if you missed something). To find the good stuff in CRASH, watch for any sign of Helwig, and then go the other way. (KS)
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