Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Dan Price?s Moonlight
Chronicles will make you want to keep exploring and
looking at things anew. Like past editions, issue #31 is part
sketchbook (everything from salt shakers to mountain ranges), part
diary of someone who likes to be outdoors, and part commonplace
book of quotations from writers who exemplify the vagabond spirit.
$5/issue from D. Price, Box 109, Joseph, OR 97846.
Sic (?The magazine of no value?), put out by
members of the politically minded British musical group
Chumbawamba, aims?successfully?to put ?engaged artists and
activists in the same space.? The first issue profiles both El Vez
(?revolutionary Mexican Elvis?) and Race & Class editor (and
British activist intellectual) A. Sivanandan, and includes
substantial pieces on Palestine, Italy, and Argentina, as well as
short personal takes on books, films, and music that matters. ?4.95
from Box TR666, Leeds, LS12 3XJ England.
The bimonthly Dirty Linen magazine published
its 100th issue recently. Now covering folk and international music
from Inuit rock to Delta blues, Dirty Linen began in 1983 as a
fanzine devoted to one band?Fairport Convention. Today it?s an
important source of music reviews, musician profiles, and tour
schedules. $22 (6 issues) from Box 66600, Baltimore, MD 21239
A new tabloid, War Times, documents the
extravagant costs of militarism and the so-called war on terrorism.
Published every month or two, it gives voice in English and Spanish
to ordinary people whose opinions usually go unheard. $25/yr. from
1230 Market St., PMB 409, San Francisco, CA 94102;
www.war-times.org
Recently published by Garrett County Press: Bob Helms? Guinea
Pig Zero is not only a self-help guide for people considering work
as volunteer subjects in medical research, but also a serious
history of medical testing with sobering case studies. $14.95 from
828 Royal St., #248, New Orleans, LA 70116;
www.gcpress.com
Surrealist Subversions, edited by Ron Sakolsky
and published by Autonomedia, celebrates play, freedom, utopian
dreaming, and insurrection. The 742-page anthology of mostly 20th
century Chicago-based surrealists encourages readers to move to the
marvelous and away from ?miserabilism.? Brain fodder for creative
people chafing in cultural harnesses, it positively bulges with
inspirational games, radical poetics, and provocative critiques of
race, religion and ?the art racket.? $22.95 from Box 568,
Williamsburgh Station, Brooklyn, NY 11211;
www.autonomedia.org
Small, Sweet, and Strong
Little Arts Magazines
Picture a poetry mag as thin as a pamphlet, a mini-comic that
reviews mini-comics, a self-described ?queer? zine also devoted to
dream journals, bibliography, and translation. My favorite arts
magazines have no bar codes or ISSNs, and show up only via the
mail.
Lilliput Review is a wee, long-lived magazine
of poems limited to 10 lines or less. Its space requirements make
for clearer writing than you?ll find in many self-indulgent
literary mags. ($10/15 issues from Don Wentworth, 282 Main St.,
Pittsburgh, PA 15201;
http://donw714.tripod.com/lillieindex.html)
Comixville, a mini-comic devoted to reviewing
and excerpting other self-published comics, is a great way to
discover budding, talented artists. Its first three issues have
introduced me to the disarmingly simple work of Missy Kulik, Yvonne
Ng, and Iris Porter, who create tiny picture books of personal
philosophy. (For a sample, send a first-class postage stamp to Box
697, Portland, OR 97207-0697.)
Donny Smith calls his longstanding Dwan a
?queer poetry zine,? but you?re just as apt to find dream journal
entries in it, along with memoir, correspondence, reading
recommendations, and Web site annotations. ($4/issue?but free to
prisoners?from D. Smith, Box 411, Swarthmore, PA 19081)
Also noteworthy: For the Clerisy, a quarterly
newsletter for ?people who read books for the sheer pleasure of it?
($2/each from Box 404, Getzvillle, NY 14068); Film
Flam, a ?quarterly journal dedicated to the cultivation of
film culture? ($2.50/sample copy from B. Drischell, 1752 Shields
Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104); Musea, a monthly
newsletter promoting arts free from corporate control ($10/year
from Tom Hendricks, 4000 Hawthorne, #5, Dallas, TX 75219;
http://musea.digitalchainsaw.com).
