I liked most of this collection–enough that I can say I liked it, you know, as a whole. I can look you straight in the eye and say “I enjoyed the experience I had reading the Scrivener Creative Review, Issue 31” and, if you and I puzzle it out mathematically, we’ll find that I am telling the truth–I liked about 87% of it. The best parts of this zine are the simplest ones: David Starkey’s poem “A Brief History of Twentieth Century Architecture,” Peter Biesterfeld’s “Training Ground of Warriors,” Aileen Bach’s photo as well as Teisha Ruggero and Julia Chiplis’s drawings. They all share a straightforwardness that’s pleasing to read or stare at. Starkey’s words are all the right ones and Biesterfeld’s dialogue rattles and clicks. Oddly enough, all the stuff I didn’t like as much had a theme in common, too–Claire Manibog and Yolaine Kim’s pictures are strange but less intriguing, and while Rebecca Frumkin’s short story “Just After The Battle Of Waterloo” tries hard to create something surreal, she didn’t quite draw me in enough. The rest of the zine is decent. Japhet Weeks’s poem “Leave of Absence” makes use of some nice imagery and Bradley Somer’s “Excerpts From The Third Person Diary of an Omniscient Smoker” is an entertaining (if somewhat tiring–all those footnotes!) “adaptation of an innovative literary style pioneered by Mr. David Foster Wallace.” The book reviews are even okay, if you like reading reviews of things (which I know for a fact you do). Plus it’s bound all fancy, like a real book, so you can leave it out on your coffee table when company calls. (Emma Healey)
zine/chapbook, Edited by Andrew E. Cleland and Lisa Guimond, issue 31, $10, 853 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, Que, H3A 2T6, [email protected]