The Constant Rider: Stories from the Public Transportation Front #7 Issue #25

By Liz Mason
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 1:30pm

Commuter activist zines like Leapfrog, Watch the Closing Doors, A Girl and Her Bike, and Chunk 666 meditate, to varying degrees, on transport without a car, whether it’s by bike, bus, train, skateboard, or human hoof. Portland public trans rider Kate Lopresti writes and publishes The Constant Rider, and she gawks at the people she finds endearing: a guy playing with a raccoon! A DJ in a Santa hat! A very compact

I never thought I’d find a drug dealer quaint, but the way Lopresti writes about her encounters, and with Tim Root’s beautiful illustrations accompanying each mini-narrative of Lopresti’s star-struck sightings, it’s hard not to be charmed. There’s even the use of a footnote — in a tiny quarter-page sized zine! Makes me wanna ride a cute three-speed old jobber.

(Please note: If you find yourself using the term “commuter activist zine genre” someday, you must make the little Nabisco ding noise and hold up a picture of me joyously chuckling with proud satisfaction all by myself, scrunching my face with delight, enjoying having coined the phrase.)

—

ABOUT THE ZINE
The Constant Rider: Stories from the Public Transportation Front #7 (constantrider.com)
$2