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Losercore Issue 1 and Older Man Younger Woman by Maureen MacMillian

15 October 2002

Losercore Issue 1 and Older Man Younger Woman zines, 2$ each. c/o Pleasure Point RR 2 Barry’s Bay ON KOJ 1BO weetzie@webhart.net

There seems to be a need in our narrative culture to tell our stories no matter how banal; Maureen MacMillian has shown her ID card at the gate of humanity with these humble publications: unlucky in love alternated by luck with love. The first, “Losercore”, tells the story of self-pity (&ldaquo;being the girl you leave behind when someone better comes along (usually better means bigger boobs, better figure, longer hair)… ”) and regrets (…“regret # 43 I never told you how I felt and now you’re gone…” and 44 “…you were the coolest most magical soul and when I had you I let you go…”). A crueler reviewer would say that this is all cliché crap, but that would show a lack of respect for the universal experiences that allow such things as love and regret to exist in the first place. I’m sympathetic to this type of expression, whereas the other need we have to proclaim love from the rooftops I find more alienating. One gal’s prince charming is another’s sleaze; in “Older Man Younger Woman,” she’s found love with someone who’s thirty years older and has an ex-wife. He sounds great, she sounds happy, but the strength’s of this zine isn’t the exposition of her subjectivity, but rather it’s pleasant design, using standard 1950s nuclear family imagery with typewriter font and headlines done up in ransom-note-cutup style. Nothing groundbreaking here, this stuff feels like the literary equivalent of a chocolate chip cookie – sweet trivia. (Timothy Comeau)