zine, [zeen] noun. 1. abbr. of fanzine; 2. any amateurly-published periodical. Oxford Reference

..

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Zeen Review: Food Not Bombs

 
 

Sent to you by Jack via Google Reader:

 
 




FOOD NOT BOMBS by Keith McHenry

This zeen was amongst a standard pile of 'mystery' zeens that turn up on the desk @ Format's zeen shop when you open up. If you're lucky someone can pop in who knows where they came from. This one, for example, allegedly was from "some hippie who came in" & brought a bunch of old stock to give away. These zeens were a bit grubby & carried a familiar whiff of incense & compost. I'm happy to dismissively relegate said zeens to the freebie shelves when even the smell of them was a sub-cultural write-off. But when hippies get organised enough for a Food Not Bombs & literate enough to produce a zeen, I'm not one to resist. My experiences w/ the titular organisation have been fairly positive & their ethos rather righteous. This A4ish (folded longways) portrait format # is basically a transcript of a talk by one of Food Not Bombs' founders, including Q&A from the end of the session & a small how to article @ the back. Keith tells the origin story of Food Not Bombs & accompanying pictures are rather historical in nature. We learn about the successful beginnings in Boston & the terrible start in San Francisco, where everyone keeps getting arrested. It reads well, the language being simple as it's a speakers' transcript & not too literary. Ultimately this is a zeen about a cause, it's political. The zeens is a means to an end, not an end unto itself & I gotta assess this product w/ that grain of salt. But it's OK w/ a bit of salt, the v. long folded A4 format is interesting & uncommon in a zeen, it reads well, & I don't think Food Not Bombs is any less fucken righteous than I did before reading it. Green paper skin w/ B&W guts, staple bound.


 
 

Things you can do from here:

 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Search This Blog