Mixed Messages Zine
Art zine, 8 pgs, PO Box 12763, Rochester, NY, 14612
If you want to get anything out of this zine, you need to take a closer look. You can easily skim it and think you are above it all, but if you put your phone in the other room, put your kids to sleep, wait for the drugs to leave your system, and sit down and analyze each page carefully, you will get something more out of it. Don’t worry, it still shouldn’t take that long to get through. If you’re still looking at this collage art zine, compiled with mail-in contributions by a number of creators, for more than a half hour, then you’ve definitely gone down a rabbit hole.
An example of the deeper meaning a close dissection of each page will bring is the first page. At the top it says “living can seem so hard and I wonder how it got to be that way.” Underneath is person living under the weight of a St.-Peppers-Club type collage of what I think the artist would define as oppressive merchandise. Each piece of merchandise says something. White sugar: studies are showing that it will be the reason our children will be the first in our nation’s history that will not live longer than their parents. Cotton: an allusion to slavery, maybe. Alcohol: a cancer agent, and North America’s go-to escape button.
Like me, you could get the original intentions of each page wrong. Look closely. You might find something to think about. And if you do, perhaps you can use the envelope attached to the zine to send your own more-than-meets-the-eye submission. (dustan j. hlady)