So Midwest Issue #25

By Liz Mason
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 1:29pm

Who says you have to get a book deal to write a book? Why not just write 233 pages, photocopy it, fold it in half, and rubber-band it? This is a zine, but, well, it’s a book. But it’s a zine. It’s – who cares. It’s one helluva good read, whatever it is.

Gender-subversive queer LB works at a health-food store in Chicago and can’t stand most of the customers (or “custies,” as she calls them), what with their buying Adbusters and expecting her to load their food into their carts while the Dawson’s Creek theme plays from the loudspeakers and all. She doesn’t care if people mistake her for a boy, and claims that when she dances, the jiggling of her fat can cure asthma. Somehow, in the misery of her daytime sobriety, however, she got moved up from bagger to cashier, though she seems to question if and when life gets any better.

Maybe it’s her writing and her art that will save her. Her drawings of customers and city maps are smart ass-y and way cool. Attention team members: Challenge binary gender systems!

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ABOUT THE ZINE
So Midwest
233 pages,$5
LBJ4prez@hotmail.com