Is Bushwick ready to join the rarefied circle of literary and artistic capitals guiding the development of Western culture with a namesake Review? Are we prepared to launch as the new Chattahoochee? No, but we can poke holes in such ambitions with the Bushwick Review, a plucky staple-bound journal that, if not for the title, might look suspiciously like a zine.
Kristen Felicetti has compiled and assembled three issues of the publication, selling them for $5 each in a handful of bookstores (most locally Desert Island Comics and Spoonbill & Sugartown; outside of the borough, St. Mark’s Bookshop, Bluestockings and Quimby’s of Chicago). Issue #3 is rolling off the presses now and will make its first sneaky appearance at multiple venues participating in Bushwick Open Studios, so keep an eye peeled.
Felicetti and more than a few of the contributors are neighborhood residents, but the content isn’t all locally sourced, flowing from kindred spirits in New Orleans and San Francisco and even Manhattan. There are few moments as hyperlocal as Zachary Feldman’s Bushwick Restaurant Haiku Reviews ("tortillas so fresh/it’s like they’re wearing gold chains/hope for horchata"). Other themes are of more universal interest than that. The second issue has a particular fixation on geography and the maps we inhabit, from a circumambulation of Central Park (Vahn Tradeau’s Columbus Circle) to a circuit of the Monopoly board (Paul Rome’s The Game). Only a few of these journeys, like Alison Shanik’s attempt to say something new about a visit to the dentist, aren’t worth the minimal investment of attention.
Issue #3 promises less of a walk in the park. "I hate to be a debbie downer," Kristen writes, "but a lot of the stories, writings, comics, and artwork inside are about suicide, cancer, death, break-ups, heartache, murder, mediocrity, and other party conversation topics. Everyone is having a bad day, or having a very, very, very bad day."
More than any one theme, Kristen’s real interest in editing the Review seems to be in combining as many forms of creative output as possible, bringing in a cocktail recipe here and a radio play there, a weaving pattern and a few comics, poetry and doodles, exhibit designs, architectural designs, and graphic designs. This makes for a Review in a very broad sense, a potluck of anything and everything that can be reproduced on an inkjet. Some of the visual pieces fare better than others in indie grayscale, but it’s a limitation that zine-makers have been dealing with for decades, and Kristen has a pretty good eye for what works – especially by the second issue.
The eclecticism leads to some strange inclusions (a weaving pattern?) but it makes the reading experience a breeze and the pace never drags enough to want to skip anything. If the reader is just looking for something to browse over coffee with more physicality than a Tumblr blog, the Bushwick Review asks little and gives slightly more. It offers the small joys of a stroll to Regina Rex, rather than an edifying day at MoMA. Looking at it that way, we haven’t made it to MoMA all year, and we’ve never laid down $12 and multiple hours for an issue of the Paris Review. Maybe Bushwick really has been given the journal it deserves.
