Zine Review – Drastic Frivol #1: Travel

Drastic Frivol is a digest sized, collaborative 46 page zine co-written by Erik Guttman and David Bowler. Each take turns presenting vivid first person essays. Rarely have I opened a zine and been completely transported to another place and time. Within seconds I was riding on a dusty, heat drenched Guatemalan road carrying a cargo of rescued cats. Journeys through France and Germany, The Gambia, and even Afghanistan follow.

The narratives in Drastic Frivol flow together like small streams of consciousness in a parched desert. Philosophical musings about the nature of place merge with searching for ways to express the sense of wanderlust --- but something more. Drastic Frivol presents moments of awe both internal and external … those moments that one seeks through connection with a foreign place, of being fully present where one is in the world, in the moment.

Drastic Frivol is infused with captivating, literate prose writing and comes with my highest recommendation.

Drastic Frivol is available by request. Please send email to erik@spybeam.org. The cost for the zine itself is USD $2 or EUR 1.50. Postal costs are in addition: US $1.50, Mexico $2.25, Canada $2.00, Germany EUR 1.45 and the rest of the world $3.00.