Appetite for asphalt
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Paula Belina's monthly zine eats up the city
by GEORGE MADDUX
The key to putting out a good zine, according to 19-year-old Paula Belina, is being able to hold a good party. That's because the NDG-native rap-poet, impresario, editor, publisher and founder of the 20-page monthly Street Eaters has become known not only for her publication, but also for the well-attended soirées she's held to pay for the four editions she's put out so far.
"Last time it was a poetry [night]," recalls Belina, "and we held it at the Griffintown Café. The place was packed. There was no sound system but the crowd was so quiet for two hours, it was incredible."
The fundraisers have paid for the typewriter ribbons, scissors, pens and $95 photocopy bills that make the zine--produced from her St-Henri apartment--possible. Any given issue of the zine reflects her habit of commissioning offbeat assignments. For example, one edition of the pay-what-you-can chapbook features poets dissecting a linear equation; elsewhere you might see wisdom from the graffiti of the bathroom stalls of the city.
And so far the fledgling publisher has acquired material with a crafty combination of appropriation and coercion. "I'll see somebody performing who I really like, so I'll say, 'Do you want to do this for me?' or 'Can I take this out of your sketchbook?'"
Belina says her publication aims to make city dwellers "digest what you're seeing, oppose what you don't like and make the city yours." The part-time downtown record-store cashier says she started producing an early version of her zine at the tender age of 10. And she doesn't plan on ending the fundraisers or the zine any time soon. "I m going to continue this as long as I'm alive."
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