The Strong Badger Chronicle
Litzine, edited by Brock Peters, 28 pgs, Volume 3, 679 Sargent Avenue, Winnipeg MB, R3E 0A7, $7 PPD
These stories are strange enough to give the impression they’ve been going on for pages before you joined, even though you’re sure you started at the beginning. That’s how The Strong Badger Chronicle left me, just a little lost at the outset. It’s a slight Alice in Wonderland sensation brought to you by the deliberately weird. I appreciate the craft but I have trouble bending my mind to the frequency these short stories and poems are meant to be enjoyed at. I think if I experienced them being read aloud, with the full benefit of the vibe of the space it was created in, then I would get a better sense of it.
The Strong Badger Coffeehouse is an arts space in the West End of Winnipeg and this zine is published in limited run and written by the folks who frequent it. The photos are really stark, urban landscapes, and the hand stitching is a nice touch. The stories and poems are lovingly typed on a turn of the century typewriter. Based on this, I would like to check out this space.
I’ll confess that most of these surreal writings didn’t do it for me, but I think it’s really important for eccentrics to get together in public and make things like The Strong Badger Chronicle. It’s really important to put things out in the world about coffee mixed with Ricola, about sedation guns, about octopi and ladybugs. It’s important for the craft, as a gesture against the hegemony, for the good of society, or at least for people too smart and odd to even need to take drugs.