“The heart is not a metaphor – no, wait – the heart is a metaphor.”
King Daddy’s first volume of poetry for Bamboo Dart Press, Fine in a Minute, follows the author as he attempts to make sense of his life after the loss of his wife and muse of 30 years, Wendrika Thorpe, chronicling his grief and laying bare his fears, regrets and idiosyncrasies. Heartbreaking and hilarious, Fine in a Minute highlights King Daddy’s twisted, erotically-charged yet erudite wit and wisdom, which evokes fever dream poignancy and working-class empathy. From Buddha to bluesmen, Covina to catharsis, Fine in a Minute is an emotionally gripping poetic journey.
Refrigerator “Fire on 12th Street” Video Premiere’s on Austin Town Hall
Refrigerator’s new record, Get Lost, is out August 23rd on Shrimper/Grapefruit Records. The album opener, Fire on 12th Street is the first music and video released by the band from the record. The song, recorded live in one take by Steve Folta, is a jumble of stabbing guitars, loping drums, broken glass and a hymnal vocal chant coda. The video was directed by Dennis Callaci and features the artwork of Jad Fair (whose art graces the front and back cover sleeve). The first press of the LP is a limited affair and is available here, here and here for preorder. Here is what Austin Town Hall, who premiered the video, has to say about it and beneath that is the video.
Second video from Dennis Callaci and Heimito Kunst’s “First Light” record premieres
The new collaborative record First Light by Italy’s Heimito Kunst and, uh, USA’s Dennis Callaci is out July 12th on Pass Without Trace. The first video, World of Lovers was directed and edited by Kunst. The second video, below, is a one camera, one shot distilled Russian Ark affair shot and directed by Callaci for the song Consider Me. The record is out June 28th, preorders are ongoing here and here.
Trailer for Judy Kronenfeld’s Bamboo Dart Press book premieres
Judy Kronenfeld’s first book for Bamboo Dart Press, Oh Memory, You Unlocked Cabinet of Amazements! is out June 20th. The book is a paean to the author’s mid-twentieth century Bronx childhood as the sole offspring of warmly loving—if sometimes provincial, overprotective, or embarrassing—immigrant parents. It is also about the wonder of lifelong memory itself, of how the past continually offers itself up as a field to contemplate, a field of rediscovery and new discovery of one’s native landscape, and of the actions, rituals, and language—with all their redolence and significance—of those long gone whom one still loves. Check out the trailer below. The book is available for preorder now.
Austin Town Hall premieres Dennis Callaci and Heimito Kunst “World of Lovers” video/new music
Goosewind “The Miracle of Tape” record is out now
Goosewind’s The Miracle of Tape is out now. It plays like a resume of everywhere that they have ever been while charting out future roads that include De La Soul skits, SCTV bits, Turnbuckle Davie Allan riffs, and skiffle as it will sound in the twenty second century. If it isn’t enough of that, or too much of that for the never sated music fan, we offer no apology. This is not a record for music. This is not music for fans. Twenty years too soon to be appreciated. Get in on the groundfloor where the tiles are a forever chill sixty three degrees and the view is unobstructed.
James Ducat “A Field of Nopes” book out now on Bamboo Dart Press
James Ducat’s new book of black out poetry is a collection of rejection letters that he has transformed into an equally funny and dark book. “A Field of Nopes” features both the original black out poems laid side by side next to the script for each poem.
A Field of Nopes will touch anyone who has ever put heart and brain on the line for a job—particularly those who have ever had to fend for their dignity and sanity in the brutal yet cruelly tactful academic market. These poems quietly blast through the wall of mystique surrounding rejection. Drawing from redacted official letters and other application materials, Ducat has delivered a collection that echoes the satiric tradition of Kafka and Vonnegut, the economy and wordplay of Dickinson and cummings, the lyricism of Rilke and Neruda. Readers will find here a kindred of yeses.—Jo Scott-Coe, Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman (UT Press)
The book is available at your favorite independent bookstores, direct from us as well as those sad big box sites like Amazon, Target and maybe their slightly happier compatriot Barnes and Noble.
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James Ducat trailer for “A Field of Nopes” book on Bamboo Dart Press premieres
James Ducat’s new book of blackout poems is a mostly lighthearted, occasionally philosophical journey through selected application and rejection materials from the many teaching jobs he applied for a decade back but did not get.
These poems quietly blast through the wall of mystique surrounding rejection. Drawing from redacted official letters and other application materials, Ducat has delivered a collection that echoes the satiric tradition of Kafka and Vonnegut, the economy and wordplay of Dickinson and cummings, the lyricism of Rilke and Neruda. Readers will find here a kindred of yeses.—Jo Scott-Coe, Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman (UT Press)
The book is out April 18th and is available for preorder here. Check out the trailer below featuring footage shot and read by the author, edited and scored by Dennis Callaci.