Perfect Mix Tape Segue: Sickness and Health

Description

This new issue details over fifteen years of Joe Biel's improving and declining physical health as he battles doctors, naturopaths, and weirdos to try and figure out what exactly is wrong with him. Meant as a relateable tale for those who have experienced any kind of mysterious hardship, the zine is a jumping off point metaphor for all kinds of complicated and technical problems.

Joe Biel is the founder of Microcosm Publishing and creator of the documentary about the DIY music scene,If It Ain't Cheap, It Ain't Punk. He is the coauthor of 13 Years of Good Luck and the author ofBipedal, By Pedal!; all volumes of the The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting series and The Perfect Mix Tape Segue series; andYou Can Work Any Hundred Hours a Week You Want (In Your Underwear)!! He lives in Portland, Oregon.

"Detailing Biel's mysterious chronic sickness from its puzzling beginnings through to diagnosis, fifteen years later, naturopaths, acupuncturists, homeopaths, random friend's advice, and theories are expounded upon, until finally an expat British doctor figures out that he has hypoglycemia. People who have read Biel's zines over the years will dig this." --Layla Gibbon, "Maximum Rocknroll" #316 "This is a story of the illness that dogged Joe through his teens and twenties. He describes over a decade of symptoms and the Goldilocks-esque assortment of doctors that he sees. One doctor is too homeopathic and unprofessional, another is entrenched in tradition and won't listen, and the third is just right. Joe's story speaks to a few of the many problems with healthcare in the U.S.: the capitalism, and the lack of dialogue between those practicing natural medicine and the people who work in hospitals. He also calls out for people to have sympathy for their friends whose symptoms remain undiagnosed. Just because the doctor can't tell what's wrong doesn't mean that everything is okay. I would have liked to read more editorializing on the experience, instead of what was mainly a list of events, but there's something here for everyone who has ever had a frustrating medical problem and felt let down by their doctor." --"Razorcake"