leveraging a levyfest

Our friend George Nemeth over at Brewed Fresh Daily gave us the heads up on what's going on 10 blocks down the street a week from today. I've lived here since 1983 and promoted the area since 1979, and I never really knew that d.a. was a Denisonian. Here's some of what George sent us:

ukanhavyrfuckincitibak

Bottom Dog Press and Mac's Backs will co-host a reading at Art House to
celebrate the release of two new books related to d.a. levy., the poet who grew
up down the street on Denison in Cleveland's Old Brooklyn neighborhood. This
event features works from d.a. levy and the mimeograph revolution and the
tribute to levy ukanhavyrfuckincitibak as read by both books' editors
-- including former Clevelander Russell Salamon.

Check it out Tue 8/21 at 7PM.
3119 Denison Ave.,
Old Brooklyn.
http://www.arthouseinc.org/.


d.a. levy grew up in your
neighborhood?!
man. i'd organize an annual levyfest or something...

Kerouac's tracks 50 years later

The beat goes on - The Boston Globe--The Boston GLOBE has a retrospective here on Jack Kerouac, who was from Lowell. Reading him, and later Ken Kesey, gave a lot of us the ideas that led to the road to San Francisco and the cultural upheaval of the '60s. And now, here is the romance of the beats cropping up again, getting aired out, helping us fall in love with America again, the real America, where "FREE" is something more than what you see on an ironic/iconic big stamp outside a neoclassical shrine to government.

Here are a few quotes from the article I wanted to spotlight, but take some time to read the whole thing. It's a trip:

"Sal, we've got to go and never stop 'til we get there."
"Where are we going to go?"
"I don't know, but we can't stop 'til we get there."

We battled traffic through Oakland and went over the bridge into San Francisco's Chinatown , where we rolled down the windows and took in the smells and sounds that drifted in the long shadows of the late afternoon.
We had arrived at the promised land of the beat generation.
This was where in the 1950s the seeds of a hip, new culture planted by Kerouac and the poets Allen Ginsberg , Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gregory Corso formed the buds of the beat generation that would flower into the counterculture of the 1960s.

"little ambassadors"

Meet the Bloggers » David Gray, Publisher, Gray & Company --David Gray, on May 16th, described his local publishing house's 75+ titles as "little ambassadors" for Cleveland+ and the NEO region. That got me to thinking about the CVB and how they should be promoting locals who are themselves doing significant regional promoting. They at The Bureau, and "The Partnership," do not yet link to David Gray, who has a business model predicated on publishing local flavor and lore. Gray's is a business model that could succeed anywhere, and perhaps we will see more like it in other areas with stories to tell and intrinsically valuable features to promote, areas like Cleveland and its environs+.

What's odd is that nobody paid specifically to promote the area has figured out there could be leverage, or synergy, in promoting Gray.

Gray's books, the little ambassadors, fall into two categories: guide books, and gift books. I would have loved to get most of them when I was living away from home, in college, in the service, as a "Yankee boy" in the booming Atlanta of the late'70s. They are appreciative books, and will be appreciated by any recipients who are fond of--or just interested in--our area.

David is one of the businesspeople who's helping wake us up around here to the fact we must take care of each other, that we can all move forward if nobody is left behind.

He also brings us to a awareness that books are media, just as are the newspapers, radio, TV, and MTB. Listen. It's instructive. And be sure to browse the site. Mike O' Malley at the PD tells us that Michael Heaton, another "ambassador," but under the guise of "minister of culture," has a book coming out about now through Gray's.

33

Touring Warhol’s Space, and 32 Other Art-History Sites - New York Times -- Of the 33 NYC places where artsy and hip started, bloomed, and flourished, the "33 spots around the city where art history was made", I wonder how many had tax-abatement, got county dollars by harnessing smokers, or were intentionally located in preexisting, institutionally ordained art districts. What do you think? Which is the tail, which is the dog? What's wagging around here? If I recall, back in the day it used to be enough for a place just to be cheap, cool, and relatively hassle-free.