Clamor Magazine
#7 (Feb/Mar 2001)

While reading Clamor #7, I kept trying to put my finger on what it was that seemed so unique about it. It appears, for all intents and purposes, to be a magazine, replete with the bar code, glossy cover, masthead, advertising and table of contents you expect from a magazine. It reads left to right and top to bottom, just like you expect a magazine to. I looked at a nearby Barnes & Noble, and sure enough, just like lots of other magazines, Clamor was on their shelves.

But Clamor isn't a magazine at all. It's a zine. Oh sure, you may think that's hairsplitting, but I think the distinction really sums up why Clamor is not only worthy of last year's "Best New Title" in the Utne Reader Alternative Press Awards, but of your attention and, because good media— particularly media that doesn't rely on scads of advertising—isn't cheap, your subscription.

Clamor is a zine because, true to the definition of its name ("a loud and continued uproar of many human voices), it functions from the bottom up: it reads like a real-time primer on what's going on at the roots among Folks of a Progressive Bent (FPB), without ever once getting dogmatic or condescending. Clamor respects the reader in a way many other FPB-targeted rags just don't, by purposefully cultivating and collecting a motley agglomeration of voices and analysis that, taken as a whole, allow an organic and sometimes impressionistic view of political and social realities to spring up in a reader's mind. It respects you enough to bicycle up to your door and drop off a basket of food for thought without feeling the need to stick around to make sure you draw the Right or Correct Conclusions. This reviewer, whose head is already peppered with lumps due to his insistence on reading even the most condescending pubs for FPBs, wishes to express his considerable thanks.

The 7th issue is just packed with all kinds of great stuff-too much to catalog in a review, I'm afraid. Leading off was the curiously subtitled "Light Analysis of International Wealth Inequities," by Hal Hixson. Curious because the piece, while engaging and lively, is actually well-documented and packed with lots of useful statistics and references for people who care to dig deeper than mere (light) opinion. It's accompanied by a number of beautifully expressive photos by Cate O'Brien. Looking over several issues of Clamor, one of its strong points is consistently compelling photography. Another well-documented article-and my personal favorite in this issue-was a look at "Western Medicine, Big Money, and the Cancer Racket" that really fanned the flames of my discontent where the medical community is concerned.

It was also nice to see some good sacred cow skewering in Ron Sakolsky's review essay, "Was Abraham Lincoln a Racist?," which pulls no punches in citing the well-documented record and piling quote upon damning quote from the Great Emancipator. Jane Graham's conversational look at the role of women in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ("A Pair of Tits, The Big Nurse and the Balance of Power") made me want to go back and read the book again because I think it might just have shifted my opinion of it (even if I can't imagine ever rooting for Nurse Ratchet on any level, as Ms. Graham does). Another piece by Bob Banner, "Working on Sexuality in Community Living," was a sincerely wild recounting of the author's experience in the late-'70s.

And the list goes on. Starhawk on "The Political and the Sacred"; Ben Bagdikian on the ongoing consolidation of corporate media; a chat with the people who run The Bike Club in Portland, Oregon; Sunfrog on "deschooling the university" in the name of a truer enlightenment; and a nice politicized review of the recent film, Proof of Life, starring Russell Crowe, on how it's basically a big, steaming pile of propaganda supporting the "War on Drugs."

Opinions and Assholes

My only criticism of Clamor (and would you really respect me in the morning if I didn't have at least one?), is pretty minor. They could use more variety in their layout-less 3-column page layouts with photos or pullquotes in plain ol' boxes, and more typefaces—because the layout isn't reflecting the dynamism of the material they're presenting.

Visit Clamor online at: http://www.clamormagazine.org.

reviewed by Brian Brasel
04.09.01