Diet Soap #1

Diet Soap is the brainchild of Doug Lain and M.K. Hobson, a simple looking black-and-white zine that bills itself as anarchist and has a goal of themed issues, as well as publishing genre-defying work. Issue #1 is all about surveillance. There’s more variety here than mere rehashes of invasive Big Brother and thoughtcrime, but the magazine suffers from the lack of a table of contents, and its genre-defying work dances on the tender edge of fiction and nonfiction, readable and not.

Lain’s introduction blossoms with paranoia. In it, he talks about the Surveillance Camera Players, a self-described anarchist group that, after sixteen years of gathering information and recording the history about secretly recording people, presents it here as an issue. This is both interesting and frustrating. Lines blur, and bits and pieces of the SCP’s history are introduced with the wave of a hand, leaving much to the reader to discern.

We start with “A Brief History of Cakes and Cake Making” by Eric Weiskott, which is nearly indescribable. Essentially, the All-Seeing Eye in the Sky gets a blurb. Microfiction sliding along the edge of nonfiction, this entry—with a nonsensical title—seemed to exist as an in-joke. That, or I missed something. The piece also came before the introduction to the issue. Odd.

Michael Scott from NBC’s The Office is quoted as saying, “What is the most exciting thing that can happen on TV or in movies, or in real life? Somebody has a gun. That’s why I always start with a gun, because you can’t top it. You just can’t.” The same might be said of speculative fiction and “The Basement, Borges” by Darin C. Bradley, which opens with two guns. Thanks to tiny spheres of light found in a man’s basement, enlightenment is possible to any that seek it. Our nameless protagonist sought it, worked it into bullets, and is prepared to fire one at Chelsea, a woman taken hostage in a bank. Only these bullets do more than kill…

One of the stronger stories in the issue, “The Basement, Borges” explores enlightenment in a cold and straightforward manner. It doesn’t ask questions, it just acts. Introspection is effortlessly handled while its slow descent into abstract horror was rather fitting. I also enjoyed that surveillance remained in the background for this one. In the end, Bradley offers the most satisfying story of the issue.

“Xi’an (a Metophilia)” by Brendan Connell is a short-short that had me reaching for my dictionary to try and better understand it. It didn’t help. The spoonful of words focuses on a man who apparently collects synthetic wigs and likes to play dress-up with them. No further explanation is offered to this oddity.

“Evelyn Manesta and the Resistance to Modern Photographic Surveillance” by Bill Brown (of the Surveillance Camera Players) delves into the history of surveillance in England. It all started in 1913 with the photographing of inmates at Holloway Prison without either their consent or awareness. Some of the inmates caught on and did everything possible to not be photographed. One of them, a window smasher named Evelyn Manesta, would come to play a troublesome role in shaping the future of governmental spying, and what follows is more or less a summary of this account.

Written like a chapter from a world history textbook, “Evelyn Manesta” is surprisingly engaging. Words are framed by photographs, and neither would survive without the other. Still, an interesting look at a group of women who fought back, no matter how slightly, and it does its job well in making the reader wonder at the histories behind other faces presented within.

Superheroes, of course, fear surveillance the most. Their true identities must be kept secret above all else, or their families and loved ones will suffer. Surprisingly, “Observer Effects” by Tim Pratt does not explore this. Instead, Pratt presents a handful of superheroes observing the world through the help of Eye-Oh (imagine a man with the power to see everyone and everything, everywhere). They watch normal people murder, drink, and scratch themselves in the nude while they avoid detection. Eventually discussion amongst the superheroes turns to offering their services to the public.

How this decision comes to affect everybody on Earth is handled candidly. A Utopian society was not to be expected. The results—and how Lesion, the Liberator, and Eye-Oh deal with them—is what makes “Observer Effects” stand out in this issue. There’s some sickly imaginative powers here, their effects clearly those of supervillains rather than heroes. Besides, any story that references Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons gets an appreciative nod.

I nearly missed “Three Naughty Palindromes” by Michael Constantine McConnell, thinking it was an advertisement. That’s not good. According to Wikipedia, a palindrome is “a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that has the property of reading the same in either direction.” I saw none in this “story,” which is a few lines talking about asses. I really wish I understood this one.

Ever Google yourself? Go on and deny it, everyone has, though, and “A Dead Man in Internet Images” by J. A. Tyler looks into the brooding paranoia that underlines these egotistical keyword searches. Only the data for our protagonist goes beyond his name, mailing address, and bank account PIN numbers. The Internet has pictures of him eating ice cream, something that happened just a few days ago. It only gets worse.

The writing is very loose, overly stream-of-conscience, which works wonderfully here. Paranoia—or better, the confirmation of a suspicion—leads to erratic thinking, and when our nameless Joe discovers impossible bits of his life spread wide over the Web, it’s only truly scary because it isn’t that far off from reality.

The plot in “From Georges Bataille to Jesus Christ in Four Moves” by Ben Segal is evident from its title, and there’s little to look at here. It sets out to prove, through several linking devices, that the two titular characters are universally connected. The piece succeeds in this, but does little to engage the reader. It’s no more captivating than listening to someone do the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

In “Diary of a Nonsworn” by Holly K. Hein, our nameless protagonist works for the division dealing with child abuse and domestic violence. She transcribes police report after police report, and many wondered if reading about these sorts of crimes would eventually get to her/him. But that is not the case. In truth, the questions the detectives ask suspects in interviews are far more disturbing than the actual horrors of a beaten wife or a stabbed son. And being a nonsworn, a middle ground between cop and citizen, makes it hard to have a solid life, considering others believe her/him to be dispensable. Continue working or fade away, that’s life’s choice.

Written as a diary entry, “Diary of a Nonsworn” accurately resonates emotion. There’s fear and humor beneath the words, a clear sign of paranoia and scrutiny. Still, this sort of writing often allows a wave of vagueness to wash in, and only bits and pieces of a mundanely violent world are hinted at. It is a snapshot, nothing more.

Diet Soap reads like nonfiction, like history passed down, like propaganda. Maybe that’s its point. Most of the issue felt abstruse. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed the stories that were…well, stories. This is a very niche zine and will appeal to those that see its appeal initially. Others might feel differently, that it isn’t as grounded as it might suspect.