Review: My Volcano
J. E. Stintzi’s emulates our distracted and desensitized present with a distant narrative voice, a rash of characters and 232 micro-chapters that rapidly switch between storylines.
Reviews
Review: Anyhow, Anyclub, Anywhere: The Rise & Fall Of Safari Sam’s
A prolonged essay on ultra-niche punk lore and the history of a Huntington, California spot that hosted the likes of Black Flag, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Minutemen, The Meat Puppets and more.
Review: If It Gets Quiet Later On, I Will Make a Display
Nick Thran’s book-fueled memoir revolves around Thran’s move from New York City to Fredericton, New Brunswick — in itself a shocking enough contrast that is layered on top of a change in lifestyle (home-ownership) and career (moving to full-time childcare).
Review: On Sneaking
Jon Iñaki’s comic outlines their philosophy and tips to avoid detection. You must avoid lures that lead you into traps. You must unmesh yourself from the distortions that have so far distracted you from your path.
Review: Ritual: Reflections On The Things We Do
From describing full moon rituals to intricate political art projects and daily habits, many kinds of rituals are on display in this anthology. Though this theme should unify the content, it was difficult for me to really get into the writing.
Review: Together We Make the Dream Real
An earnest and unfiltered travelogue of the early 2010s, Travis Egedy parses half-thoughts about isolation, extinction, loss and art among a frenzied scene.
Review: On Heaven + Holiness
This dispatch on the intersection of longing and holiness carves a palindromic path from church, to heaven, to bodies, to desire, back to bodies, to holiness and back to church again. These concepts are thoroughly entwined, at least for writer Despy Boutris.
Review: How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex
In tracing how homebrewed filth developed into the corporatized sex trade of recent years, Samantha Cole does a valuable service. Despite its focus on the past three decades, the book feels almost as much a work of archaeology as pop history.
Review: Trains
2021 Zine Awards winner O. Ashby skillfully weaves together the tangible, unignorable presence of trains with the subtler substance of the time and place in this unnamed part of the Chicago in ways that evoke its status as a home.
Review: Falling Hour
Over-educated and nominally leftist in his beliefs, Hugh Dalgarno waits around for someone to buy a picture frame from him. It’s a book that’s about nothing, but it’s also a book that is stuffed with ideas and opinions.
Review: Solidarity Beyond Bars
If prison labour did not exist, it would have been invented by a philosopher playing with employment as a concept: Imagine there were a group of workers who were not permitted to leave a compound for months or even years at a time
Review: A Shot in the Dark
Zinester Karin Panther produces this series in a quest to reunite people with their long lost photo slides. She combines analog and digital methods to scavenge and print these vintage pictures for public consumption.