PostConsumerWaste #3 / :30 / $? / 48S / Louise, PO Box 4, Enmore NSW, 2042, Australia / [email protected] /
At first, I was intimidated by the size of PostConsumerWaste, but when I finally sat down to read it, I was drawn in by Louise’s emotional style of writing. Moving back and forth between political rallies and the suicide of eir firend, Louise makes sure that every facet of eir life is covered. Even when Louise gives the reading audience a synopsis of eir dream, ey renders it in such a way that it feels real – “I think about it & realize it’s like tinned tomato soup & tinned spaghetti mixed together.†I wish I had that level of sensation in my dreams! While most of this issue of the zine is just text laid out with typewriter, Louise has an eye for different milemarkers to break up eir pieces, whether it be pieces from a newspaper, pictures in the background, or even empty space. Where things seem to be fairly happy and easy-going in the early section of PostConsumerWaste, Louise intentionally places the pieces about this suicide that ey knew near the middle of the zine. This strategic placement of these pieces show that while Louise may recall various things, placing them towards eir periphery, it is this event which is central to eir life – ey cannot just assign it to the fuzzy edges of memory. Moving, catchy, and all-around well written – even though Louise would have readers believe that this issue was rushed out, some serious care was taken in crafting this to be the most emotionally impacting zine I’ve read in recent weeks.
Rating: 8.0/10
