< zine:personal >
BIG PINCH WORLD #1
($2.00 "or fair trade" from Randy Osborne / PO Box 246 / Fox River Grove, IL / 60021 USA.
E-mail)
If you've caught Randy's reviews here at Poopsheet then you know the boy can write. There's some difference, of course, between writing reviews and works of a more personal nature but I'm pleased to report that the zine is a success from this reader's perspective.
Perhaps the most engaging (and crushingly painful) piece is the first, an homage to his late father, with whom his relationship seems to have been filled with sadness and owed much to familial responsibility. A sample:
"
Then my own divorce and wandering took me all over the West, to places Dad had been and places he hadn't. I didn't plan to retrace his footsteps. I didn't even know where his footsteps went. I just roamed, like he did, like men often do when they are heartbroken by failure and don't want to stay in one place long enough for it to show."
Following that are several pages of autobiographical vignettes and one short piece of fiction, as well as a few other entertaining tidbits. One thing I genuinely enjoyed about this zine is that I can really "hear" the author's voice. I've been listening to "This American Life" on public radio lately and it occurs to me that much of this zine would be perfect for that sort of treatment (which is, essentially, interesting stories read aloud with musical accompaniment). At any rate, I recommend
Big Pinch World and look forward to more.
[ Link to this review ]
