MICHAEL CERAOLO, “Cleveland Scores Early” (KSE #162) now available

MICHAEL CERAOLO

“CLEVELAND SCORES EARLY”

KSE #162

original artwork by Justin Jackley

   I’ve always had respect for sports fans who, year after year, continue to support teams that are fated to disappoint them. It’s funny to watch, here in San Antonio, the fair-weather Spurs fans get onboard once the team gets in the playoffs. But what about fans of, say, the Detroit Lions, The Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Cubs (most of the time), or the University of North Texas ‘Mean Green.’ Teams that rarely if ever have a shining moment, and if they do have a moment or two, never build it into anything worthwhile? Presently, the Pittsburgh Pirates are living out this anti-dream. As they lost 0-20 the other day, I was wondering what kind of devotion kept people coming to the games, paying high parking prices, shelling out for tickets and overpriced hotdogs and beer, and taking the time to actually follow the season. It’s a fascinating combination of loyalty and masochism, and I think it’s admirable (I have never given up on North Texas, even when they were ranked 120 out of 120 NCAA teams by Rivals.com two years ago).

The 1974 Cleveland Indians were not on the level of today’s Pirates—-who is?—but they were not an award-winning team and often found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. CLEVELAND SCORES EARLY is the story of  a month-and-a-half of a high school sophomore’s devotion to and continuous disappointment by the 1974 Indians. But it’s also a wonderful window into the early 1970’s, into local Cleveland culture, into the teenage mind and spirit, and into the absurdist world of local sports promotion in the age before slick PR films and the like. One can still find this charm in minor-league sports today, but it’s long gone from professional sports and its overpaid and over-analyzed diva players and coaches. 

CLEVELAND SCORES EARLY (KSE #162) is the new chapbook from Cleveland poet MICHAEL CERAOLO. He published another excellent Cleveland-specific chapbook with KSE a few years ago, MORE EUCLID CREEK (KSE #53), which was singled out for praise in a piece on KSE in Arthur Magazine. He’s also the author of CLEVELAND HAIKU (Green Panda Press), EUCLID CREEK (Deep Cleveland Press), and the ongoing AMERICAN CANTOS series. Although part of the exciting Cleveland literary community, Michael is very much an independent literary artist, with a unique and instantly recognizable style, and for many years he’s been doing important and culturally significant work, much of it rooted in the great city of Cleveland, his own “postage stamp of soil” (Faulkner’s phrase)  that he always makes universal.

CLEVELAND SCORES EARLY—-which also features original front and back cover art by Austin artist Justin Jackley (who’s also done poetry book covers for A.J. Kaufmann, Michael Layne Heath, and Bill Shute)—-captures the enthusiasm, the naivete, the heartbreak, and the unbroken spirit of the great American working-class sports fan who keeps these bloated organizations alive but never gets his/her due. I’ve spent many an afternoon/evening  listening to baseball on the radio (which, Michael agrees, is the best way, short of being there, of experiencing baseball), mostly to losing teams, and Michael Ceraolo has created a unique work here that manages to nail the real pre-internet, pre cable-TV America. The 70’s seemed so advanced at the time…my, how we were wrong!

KSE #162 is now available for ordering. It’s a hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 53 copies. 

Cost is $4.00 each or 3 for $10.00 (only one copy of any book per customer) postpaid in the USA. Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247. OR chapbooks are available to non-US readers DIRECT FROM KSE postpaid  for only $5 each. Overseas orders should write to django5722 (at) yahoo (dot) com and request a paypal invoice for whatever you’d like. You’ll save money that way!

OTHER CHAPBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE:

#163, BILL SHUTE, “deep focus” (sound library series, volume 54) ;

#160, JOHN SWEET, “this moment, reflected in ice” ;

#161, BILL SHUTE, “lament for the living: Chet Baker’s Final Session” (sound library series, volume 53) ;

#158, ZACHARY C. BUSH, “is this deformed?” ;

#155, JIM D. DEUCHARS, “monongahela abstract construct” ;

#156, BILL SHUTE, “the mosquitoes of La Marque” (sound library series, volume 50) ;

#152,  K.M. DERSLEY, “many septembers” ;

#154, A.J. KAUFMANN, “vagabond vacancy” ;

#150, MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, “loons of a dogman” (sound library series, volume 48) ;

#151, A. J. KAUFMANN & BILL SHUTE, “twombly’s siracusa” (inspired by the work of Cy Twombly) ;

#148, MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, “vegas the hard way” ;

#146, MK CHAVEZ & MIRA HORVICH, “pinnacle” ;

#144, ZACHARY C. BUSH, “spin” .

Questions? Write to  django5722 (at) yahoo (dot) com . Thanks for your support!

Don’t miss the write-up on Kendra Steiner Editions in the January 2010 issue of THE WIRE (UK).

Jandek, March 2010 Australian tour links

The Representative from Corwood Industries & Heather Leigh Murray

Sydney Airport (photo taken from Wishimage.com)

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reviews of the 18 & 19 March concerts in Sydney:

http://www.thevine.com.au/music/live-reviews/live-review-_-jandek,-sydney-2010.aspx

 

review of  18 March concert in Sydney:

http://www.yourgigs.com.au/reviews/?review_id=182391

 

comments on and download link for 23 March concert in Brisbane:

http://turnitupto10.blogspot.com/2010/03/jandek.html

 

comments from Australians who saw the shows–you’ll need to scroll down a lot to get to the comments ABOUT the shows…when you get to the comments a few days before the shows about people getting tickets, etc., you’re almost there…very interesting to get these first-hand accounts from people who are fans of contemporary underground music but not having much knowledge of/exposure to Jandek previously:

http://www.messandnoise.com/discussions/376463

this comment from “nightmonster” pretty much says it all:

Adelaide show was like an ESP-Disk ‘rock’ (and I use that term loosely) band taking an hour to cover the Elevators’ ‘May the Circle Remain Unbroken’, or if the Minutemen, or even DNA, got really stoned and played free music at 1/4 speed. I’ve not really heard anything quite like it.

I think there were moments of greatness and as a whole I really enjoyed it. It really sucked you in to its personal world, each of the players returning to the same motifs, their palette was narrow but effective. I liked the fact that you could have been 5 minutes or 2 hours in and it still hung together very loosely with similar bass runs, drum patterns, and guitar sounds. Sterling’s playing was particularly revelatory, up there with Keiji Haino and Dean Roberts sets that had previously floored me, like he was tearing holes in the air with those barbed shrieks and sludgy wildman blues. I just wish he sang more than 4 lines of lyrics. I can roughly remember three of them (he sang the sets of lyrics 4 times over the 55 minute set). …”You could look it up on the computer/I’m crawling to Damascus/It’s where I want to be…” – something like that.

It’s 3 days later and I’m still thinking about it, the sign of a special performance. I really hope they come back.

 

GREAT pics/video of Australian tour (not sure of which show). This website seems to be a Heather Leigh Murray fan site as there is also a discussion of her work apart from Jandek.

http://www.wishimage.com/

 

Thanks to the Australians who wrote about this tour. There are surely more; I just did a brief google search of  “Jandek” and each city he played. This was an important tour, one that will be viewed as historic 10 or 20 years from now, yet as always, people tend to take for granted what’s happening right now, especially from an artist who is as prolific and as self-effacing as Jandek. But an artist just needs to do the work that he/she knows is essential, get it out there, and not worry about the reception and the “big picture.” That’s what Jandek has been doing for 30+ years.

DEEP FOCUS (KSE #163) now available

KSE #163

BILL   SHUTE

“DEEP FOCUS” (sound library series, volume 54)

   Deep focus–the photography technique where the foreground, middle ground, and background are all equally in focus. Where what’s seemingly “in front” and what’s seemingly peripheral are given equal weight. Anyone who’s seen Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE or MR. ARKADIN knows the technique. While watching ARKADIN back in December—-and around the same time listening to the Radu Malfatti ‘B-Boim’ cdr of “Three Backgrounds,” which in its own way also deals with issues of perspective and depth—-I wondered if I could somehow transpose this technique to poetry. I then read the following lines in a John Ashbery poem called Tapestry: “It is difficult to separate the tapestry/From the room or loom which takes precedence over it./For it must always be frontal and yet to one side.” Thus my 28-stanza poem DEEP FOCUS was born.

The poetic depth of field is very large; peripheral and central, major and minor, the featured and the hidden, the intended and the unintended are all equally in focus and placed in suspension here. Think of it as a core sample, an archeologist’s excavation of the now…and eventually forever.

This is a piece I’ll be recording soon for the poetry-music album I’m doing with Anthony Guerra. Hope you enjoy it.

DEEP FOCUS. It will put you into deep shock…or not (ap0logies to Dario Argento).

KSE #163 is now available for ordering. It’s a hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 39 copies. 

Cost is $4.00 each or 3 for $10.00 (only one copy of any book per customer) postpaid in the USA. Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247. OR chapbooks are available to non-US readers DIRECT FROM KSE postpaid  for only $5 each. Overseas orders should write to django5722 (at) yahoo (dot) com and request a paypal invoice for whatever you’d like. You’ll save money that way!

OTHER CHAPBOOKS NOW AVAILABLE:

#162, MICHAEL CERAOLO, “cleveland scores early” ;

#161, BILL SHUTE, “lament for the living: Chet Baker’s Final Session” (sound library series, volume 53) ;

#160, JOHN SWEET, “this moment, reflected in ice” ;

#156, BILL SHUTE, “the mosquitoes of La Marque” (sound library series, volume 50) ;

#158, ZACHARY C. BUSH, “is this deformed?” ;

#155, JIM D. DEUCHARS, “monongahela abstract construct” ;

#159, A.J. KAUFMANN & BILL SHUTE, “78 horizons” (sound library series, volume 52) ;

#152,  K.M. DERSLEY, “many septembers” ;

#154, A.J. KAUFMANN, “vagabond vacancy” ;

#150, MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, “loons of a dogman” (sound library series, volume 48) ;

#151, A. J. KAUFMANN & BILL SHUTE, “twombly’s siracusa” (inspired by the work of Cy Twombly) ;

#148, MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, “vegas the hard way” ;

#146, MK CHAVEZ & MIRA HORVICH, “pinnacle” ;

#144, ZACHARY C. BUSH, “spin” .

Questions? Write to  django5722 (at) yahoo (dot) com . Thanks for your support!

Don’t miss the write-up on Kendra Steiner Editions in the January 2010 issue of THE WIRE (UK).

new 25-copy edition broadside from Brad Kohler

BRAD KOHLER

“FINDING FIVE BUCKS ON THE WAY TO THE GALLOWS”

new 25-copy edition broadside from Backwash Press

free (while they last) with any 2-book (or more) order from KSE

request it with your order

Half-handwritten, half-typed on Brad’s vintage typewriter, this new poem is vintage Kohler (Brad is one of our core KSE poets, we’re proud to say), taking place once again in the world of the serious horse-track player. Brad has been generous enough to give KSE 15 of these rarities to give away with orders. It’s labelled as “A Backwash Press Handrolled Single” and it’ll be gone before you know it. Act now!

 

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