Placebo Jane is what you would get if you photocopied and distributed the contents of a mean-spirited co-ed’s school binder. Meredith Jones presents her readers with stories from her school, random movie reviews, excerpts from a found diary and letters from an old pen pal. I did take a certain amount of evil pleasure in reading the second installment of the Christian girl’s diary, in which she makes peace with the fact that she’s a pot addict and compares the oral sex styles of a handful of boys in her acquaintance. However, the majority of material written by Jones is riddled with misused words and on topics I can’t bring myself to care about. The article about her mother is one case where I wanted to read on, but had serious trouble seeing past the technical errors in her writing. And technical errors abound in Placebo Jane. It’s badly photocopied and there’s even a section where the pages are out of order. I’m not sure why Meredith Jones wants to put out zines, since she seems to care so little about the process of making them and the highlights of this issue are all other people’s work. Still, it does have its moments. Maybe Jones will learn from this one and continue to improve. If she does, she may eventually have a zine worth reading. (J. Blackmore)
zine, Meredith Jones, issue 2, $2, PO Box 7747, Berkeley, CA 94708 (or 94707) [email protected]