Jim Ruland is a writer of many deep talents. One of them is adapting stories into variable formats and having them come off effortless, surprising, and, yet experimental. There are few writers I’d follow who wrote a zine about a fictional, aging punk band, Absinthe, back for a reunion after a twenty-year hiatus. The zine is a collection the blog posts, left by its pharmaceutically-wagon-faller of a lead singer, Vincent. Having seen non-fictional tours of this nature with my own eyes, it wasn’t surprising that the band ends up in tatters. What’s truly satisfying is reading about one man’s struggle with sobriety and his willingness to burn everything down to the ground in the attempt to make something more beautiful. That’s something that most tour diaries don’t accomplish. Even fictional ones. (vermin.bigcartel.com)