Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for June 2013

Planned Obsolescence Press to Big Data: Fuck Off

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In an unsigned Publisher’s Note to Whale Drek: The Lost Footnotes of the Olympia Press Naked Lunch, Jed Birmingham writes: “Planned Obsolescence Press specializes in distributing small shiploads of K.Y. made of genuine whale drek. What better to grease the lines of communication? The Press recycles that which no one has found any use for. […]

Antonin Artaud’s ‘Rotten Meat’

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I’d bet the quotes on this card from Cold Turkey Press won’t be found in the search engines. +++ Here are some other recent Cold Turkey cards that quote Artaud: No Words, No Thought; Artaud’s Hammer; Plague of My Tongue, 1; Plague of My Tongue, 2. Additionally, Cold Turkey publisher Gerard Bellaart, writer and artist […]

From the Cut-Up Department

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Long ago and far away (in other words, back in the 1960s), when greed & human smallness became history, I kept a cut-up diary — now lost — as something to tilt the museum, something small to fold up against, to tell what was meant. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

MLK Warned of ‘Guided Missiles and Misguided Men’

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Forget the adoring crowds. When Barack Obama spoke the other day at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, there was “a remarkable difference from the rock-star welcome” that greeted him in 2008 before his election as U.S. president and his acceptance of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. This time he was greeted by a justifiable meme […]

A New Poster from Cold Turkey Press

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The first flash mob in Europe Met in Rome on 24 June 2003. 300 people entered ‘Messaggerie Musicali’, A large book and music store, To ask its staff either for non-existent books, Or for the most obscure books By untraceable authors. One flash mobber asked for a copy of the New Testament Translated from Coptic […]

Jacques Brel, Philosophe

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“l’enfance c’est une notion géographique.” Childhood is a geographical notion. We are born in a place called childhood. It is geographical. Childhood is a sky close to the ground. It is grey, it is damp. There are adults I don’t understand. It could’ve happened in Limousin, in Brittany or Paris. It took place in Belgium. […]

Typography Meets Country Music

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Hat’s off to the designer whoever that is. The kinetic typography put me in mind of the clever card sequence in D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary about Bob Dylan, “Don’t Look Back.” The design is more ingenious now, and of course the technology is far more sophisticated. But you get the idea. As to the stylish […]

‘Artaud’s Hammer’: A Dissident Series Carries On

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Antonin Artaud by René Char I haven’t the voice to sing your praise, great brother If I bent over your body which light is going to scatter Your laugh would repel me The affection between us, during what We improperly call a fine storm Falls several times, kills, digs & burns, Then is reborn afterwards […]

‘Artaud’s Hammer’: A Dissident Portfolio Begins

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It’s weird that the cloaca of Central Europe is also the mouth of English literature. May Rotterdam be blessed by every English tongue in all the cloisters of the English-speaking world. — Sinclair Beiles EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

‘Artaud’s Hammer’: A Dissident Portfolio Continues

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This is one of two new cards in the continuing series. Cold Turkey Press publications have a flavor all of their own; there’s a kind of wild, mad goodness about them — you know you’re going to be taken on a trip. Somewhere edgy and dangerous. You may not get back. You don’t care. You’re […]

Two Artists, Two Video Trailers: Ungerer and Mc Neill

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Here are two video trailers, totally different from each other — one for a new movie about the peerless Tomi Ungerer, “Far Out Isn’t Far Enough,” the other for a dance inspired by Observed While Falling, a spellbinding memoir by the incomparable Malcolm Mc Neil. Many years ago Burt Britton kept a self-portrait by Ungerer […]

More Than Just Opinion, Osborne Has Information

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Bill Osborne’s comment about Edward Snowden’s amazing interview says what needed to be said: The abuse of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning was designed to intimidate whistle blowers like Edward Snowden. It is good to see that at least in this case it has not worked. We should soon expect a campaign of character assassination […]

My Re-Tweet: Edward Snowden’s Amazing Interview

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Watch Edward Snowden speaking to Glenn Greenwald. According to the British newspaper The Guardian: Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA. In a note accompanying […]

Another Stenciled Text: ‘No Mind Fits 5’

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At the urging of my staff of thousands, examples from Gerard Bellaart’s word-based series of artworks have been a continuing feature of recent blogposts. The others so far have been “Artaud Fragmentations,” “tric trac du ciel,” “Throws Up Words,” and “ROT NOT.” There are more to come. Bellaart is a Dutch artist and writer now […]

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