It’s hard to understand why someone who has interesting things to say makes it so hard to read their musings. Tess cuts up her text and scatters around so that the brain is led by the eye off the page and out of the zine. There are moments of course when this provides welcome relief. But at other times when one is trying to really follow Tess’ I’m fat and ugly and bitter fuck you and listen up deep thoughts things get frustrating. But maybe that’s alright. After all this is a zine about frustration, frustration against stereotypes, cultural cliches, violence but more to the point a sort of vague, unspoken frustration that makes all the articles on different subjects sound like one big frustrated tirade. Tess needs to try and develop her thoughts and give them more focus, more presence, so that she transcends just thinking about the problems of society as they swirl around her. What does it mean when she rights that she “will not lead the fight but will support it”? With no leaders but innumerable supporters, we are left buzzing like the superfly around the corpse of idealism.
zine / #4 / publisher: Tess / main creator: Tess / $1 plus post / 305 Arlington, Apt 2, Ottawa, ON K1R 5T1