THREE WEEKS IS AN ARCH new triweekly emanating from New York City. In a tone that skips back a century, preferring the rhythm of multisyllabic words, its editor and three associates write about airports, cockroaches, sleep, the weather, zoo animal deaths, and a 100 percent increase in pay phone costs. Subscriptions: $15/yr. from Box 1784, New York, NY 11101
COVERING EVERYTHING from “degenerate” Chinese performance art to Balinese puppet theater, (ai) performance for the planet reminds me of the late High Performance in its scope and attractive design. The colorful magazine first appeared in Fall 2000 and is now published three times yearly by nonprofit Arts International. Subscriptions: $15 (3 issues) from Arts International, 251 Park Ave. S., New York, NY 10010; www.ai-magazine.org
A COMPILATION from influential zine Cometbus has just been published by Last Gasp. Despite Everything: A Cometbus Omnibus represents 20 years (and 600 pages) of stories and travel tales about the punk rock community. $14.95; www.lastgasp.com
EXEMPLARY REVIEW zine Zine World: A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press pulled up stakes in San Francisco last year and now can be reached in Tennessee. Besides offering short reviews of micropress publications, it’s a good source of news about free speech struggles. Subscriptions: $14 (4 issues), cash only, from Box 330156, Murfreesboro, TN 37133; www.undergroundpress.org
A year ago I spent a week in the southern Utah wilderness, hiking all day on dry washes without human footprints, red cliffs rising above me. Never have I felt so fully happy to be alone, sitting in shade, drinking water from my pack. Since then I can’t get the desert out of my consciousness, and I feed this small obsession by reading about it in magazines.
Bimonthly tabloid The Canyon Country Zephyr is edited and published by former Arches National Park ranger Jim Stiles. From Moab, Utah, an overgrown town whose population burgeons with tourists, each issue of the Zephyr contains articles and commentary on southeastern Utah’s economy and environment, from cattle grazing to wilderness “development.” A primer for people anywhere concerned about public land use, it’s got character all its own, with ads for local businesses accompanied by Stiles’ caricatures of the owners. Subscriptions: $15 (6 issues) from Box 327, Moab, UT 84532
Bimonthly Mountain Gazette, winner of last year’s Utne Reader Alternative Press Award for best regional publication, offers local flavor from a number of communities in the Mountain West. Featuring brash opinions, ribald essays, and obituaries for everything from defunct bars to dead cars, the oversized magazine always entertains. An anthology of writings from past issues, When in Doubt, Go Higher, was published last year, featuring the likes of Ed Abbey and Charles Bowden. Subscriptions: $25 (12 issues) from 5355 Montezuma Rd., Montezuma, CO 80435;www.mountaingazette.com
Redrock Wilderness, the magazine-sized quarterly newsletter of the nonprofit Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, provides details on political struggles to protect wild land from oil and gas drilling, off-road vehicle use, road building, and other human incursions. Memberships: $30 (4 issues) from 1471 S. 1100 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84105
