Cassettes in Retrospect Kirby Jayes
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
ISSUE 1
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BOB BUCKO JR:
YOU, BEFORE THE WAR
Warm Gospel
Like Johnny Appleseed, Bob stalks the land, a bag at his
shoulder. Fingertips dip and trail from the waistline and
small green multitudes sprout in the shimmer of his
wake.
Or like the salmon, spilling roe into the sea, Bob crafts in
the furnace of self small domiciles that the unlikely
astronaut might climb within and live. Each is shaped to
the portents of their mutual destination, bound in
magnetic tape. They grow rich together.
Imagine Bob these things and more: Bob recording by
firelight, tape deck running on stripped wires and the
battery of a forlorn chevy suburban, hood popped at
roadside on a vast and desolate plain. Or imagine Bob
from Dubuque: the lord’s own messenger speaking
torrents over tape hiss into the infinite Mississippi.
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GRANDKIDS:
URBANA BASEMENT/CHAMPAIGN ATTIC
Sweeter Light Records
A family gathers on a beach. Past generations sip grain
belt premium in the chairs while the future rolls happily
in the sand. It’s a lake. You can see the other side and
everything, but a beach is a beach. Someone does lazy
laps on a sea doo in the center as the kids gather at
water’s edge and watch with distant envy.
The weather is a little cloudy, but what are you gonna do,
you know? Some huddle around a grill and walk together
through the clouds on this day summers past, then
expand their purview and trade memorable weather
from anywhere in remembered time. A blizzard is
exchanged for a burning heat wave, then swapped
quickly for flash flooding and a mudslide, which is in
turn picked up for that ice storm back in 96. In late
afternoon the clouds slip towards the horizon and the
lake flashes gold.
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CROWN LARKS:
BLOOD DANCER
Already Dead
Far beneath the city streets, a spot appears on a wall. A
pulsing pinprick of red appears between the gray blocks
and surges forward, spreading wide across the cement,
now springing back together. A hum grows and warbles
in the air, then is cut by a high tone as strands of ichor
weave themselves into a tall column of pulsing crimson.
Drums beat somewhere subterranean and the mass
begins to whirl. It totters, then straightens. A shape
becomes discernible.
The arms are clasped above the head, then swing down
and back. A knee extends. The spin grows faster and
faster, all trace of a wobble gone. Words garble in your
mesmerized ears and force their way upward through the
rising wail. In a single movement she stops and springs
down the corridor, leaping toe to toe in strides of
impossible length, her footfalls a cymbal crash. Her
laugh mingles with an ominous descent of tenor sax and
together they disappear into the flickering darkness.