Lisa Carver's Rollerderby and Dancing Queen by jenny boe ZINES HOME INTERVIEWS: Seth Friedman, Factsheet Five Paul Lukas, Beer Frame Chip Rowe, The Book Of Zines REVIEWS: Lisa Carver's Rollerderby and Dancing Queen Seth Friedman's Factsheet Five Zine Reader Paul Lukas' Inconspicuous Consumption V. Vale's Zines! Vol. I ZINESTERS TALK IT UP: Personal Media Conference Call CALL TO ARMS: Zine Books I'd Like to See NOW YOU: Survey: What zine books would you like to see? Join Tripod's Media Savvy Conference: members click here others click here

Title: Rollerderby: The Book Author: Lisa Carver Year: 1996 Publisher: Feral House Price: $14.95 US paperback (buy it from Amazon.com) Title: Dancing Queen: A Lusty Look at the American Dream Author: Lisa Carver Year: 1996 Publisher: Henry Holt & Co. Price: $12.00 US paperback (buy it from Amazon.com) Lisa Carver, creator of the beautifully deranged zine Rollerderby, has recently seen two books published. Rollerderby: The Book is an anthology of writings (by Lisa and other contributors) from the zine, and Dancing Queen: A Lusty Look at the American Dream, is a collection of Lisa's essays. When I found out there was going to be a whole book of stuff from Rollerderby, I was just as excited as could be. Rollerderby is one of the zines that I have to buy as soon as I see a new copy is out. And even though I'd read almost everything in the book before, I found myself late for appointments or even blowing things off every time I picked up the book. "Couldn't put it down" is a cliché, but in this case it was embarrassingly true. I'd finish reading Fabio's (fake) love letters to Lisa only to get sucked in by the "Manifesto of Generation L," in which Lisa stakes her claim to be the voice of her generation. So obviously, I'm sort of predisposed to think highly of this book. But seeing all this material together in one place is just incredible. The book is worth having just for Lisa's classic interview with Courtney Love (from a series of interviews with various women on body image): COURTNEY: The minute I got skinny and got a nose job and became photogenic, all of a sudden I have a bidding war, and every boy I ever wanted, wanted me. LISA: What's your tip? COURTNEY: The thing you gotta do is — A! Stop counting calories! Okay? B! Do not get on a scale! 'Cause lean muscle weighs more than fat. All right? I cut out FAT! That's all you gotta do. FAT! No cheese. That's it, Lisa. I told this to my nanny. People I tell this to lose ten, 30 pounds. STOP CHEESE. You know why the Orientals are not fat? Cause they look on cheese as this gross, Western habit — it's like sour milk LARD. They don't want anything to fucking do with cheese. If you're gonna eat cheese, take it out on a picnic, cut it up carefully, and really taste it — with wine or something. Don't melt it one shit. And I lost 40 POUNDS by not eating cheese. And I even ate a little mayonnaise. All right? Skip the butter and skip the cheese and you will lose weight. I swear to God, Lisa. I was a fat girl my whole life. No one would fuck me, and when they did they'd do things like fart in front of me. I told my friend that this guy farted in front of me, and you know what he said? LISA: Nn-nn. COURTNEY: He said, "Well, look at her; wouldn't you fart in front of her?" LISA: Oh! Here's my second question — COURTNEY: Don't eat cheese. There are a million things to eat that are not cheese. Now, imagine my delight when I realized that the book contained an unedited version of the interview — excerpts of Kurt Cobain bickering with Courtney during the conversation were deleted from the original version "because I didn't want to invade his privacy, but now that he's dead, what does he care?" Another favorite of mine is the section on "The Neighbors" — a bunch of degenerates living across the street from Lisa and her roommates in the tiny town of Guerneville, CA. There are transcribed conversations, tales of neighbor encounters, and a day-by-day rundown of a sample week: "Friday there was a big midnight discussion about how one guy would get to work the next day. The options were: car, bicycle, or walk. There was almost a fist fight about it, but everyone passed out instead." There's so much to pore over, and most of it's fantastic: The creepy found love notes, the survey-style interviews (like "How Did You Find Out About Sex?" or "Cruelest Act You've Ever Committed"), a truly astonishing number of obsessive letters to Lisa, and of course a whole slew of Dame Darcy's morbidly beautiful illustrations. Be warned that there is a lot of raunchy stuff in Rollerderby — calling it "adult content" is clearly an understatement. But if you aren't turned away by the detailed drawings on "How To Give A Blow Job" or blurred snapshots of women's pubic hairdos (solicited from readers!), you'll find this book is just full of great stuff. I can't get quite as enthused about Lisa's other book, Dancing Queen. It seems slightly watered-down compared to the material in Rollerderby. But that's certainly not to say I didn't like it! On the contrary, I enjoyed reading chapters like "White Trash" ("You can run 'em over with your car and they'll still come after you hollering"), "Other Ladies' Bodies" ("There's only one thing I can't abide by in a lady's body, and that's a flat stomach: the Jamie Lee Curtis stomach"), and "How I Learned to 'Do It'" ("Both Cheryl and I worked at Dunkin' Donuts, and we loved to fill the doughnuts, because when you turned the jelly machine on, the metal counter vibrated, and as luck would have it, the edge was at just the right level!"). Many of the best chapters began as Rollerderby pieces, like "A Visit to the Sadistic Beauty Parlor," where Lisa fondly recalls Elba, the meanest, baddest hairdresser in the Western World. "That bad woman screwed the cap onto my head as if she were scrubbing a tub made deliberately grimy by inconsiderate bathers, and set to spearing my scalp so viciously with the latch-hook rug tool that I began to feel queasy. I wondered in earnest why I had come here." Most of Dancing Queen's essays have something to do with Americans and their loud, crass, defiant American ways. A lot of them also have strong sexual content, particularly focusing on Lisa's particular fantasies and interests, which makes for some great, unpredictable reading. The essays are consistently witty and insightful, and Lisa's skill as a writer is apparent. But I guess I just like her writing better when it's more haphazard, vibrant, and unpredictable — when it really shows all those untamed American qualities praised in Dancing Queen. Perhaps the difference between the two books can be summed up by looking at Dame Darcy's illustration of Lisa in each one — virtually the same drawing with a few key differences. In Dancing Queen Lisa is wearing a cute little outfit of shorts, a halter top, and roller skates. In Rollerderby, she's wearing only a garter and stockings combo, with bare pointed breasts, a visible uterus, and a knife in her hand, peeling away the flesh above her ribs. The illustration that appeals to you more is probably a good indication of which book you should read. Jenny Boe grew up in Berkeley and now lives in Seattle, where she writes, temps, and maintains a Tripod homepage. She has recently rediscovered the joys of the International House of Pancakes. © 1997 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.