This handmade, 16-page chapbook is not about Covid-19, but the virus is present in every line.
REDUX: The Shithole and the Shithouse
Originally posted Jan. 17, 2018. By now many, many millions of people have seen the rebranded Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Or if they haven’t, at least that many have googled it. If you’re the one person who hasn’t seen it, here it is. And here, not incidentally, is Trump’s Shithouse in Washington D.C., also known as The White House.
His Birthday Was 79 Years Ago Today
![Heathcote Williams [Photo: JH, 2013]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/heathcote-williams-photo-copy-200x200.png)
Heathcote Williams was an unstoppable force. Even in death he is unstoppable. His writings, his activism, and his personal example continue to inspire others. At heart, Williams was a revolutionary. The historian Peter Whitfield placed his work in a “great tradition of visionary dissent” stretching from William Blake and John Ruskin to DH Lawrence and David Jones. I had the privilege of recording Williams’s final vinyl LP-cum-CD, “American Porn,” at his home in Oxford several years before he died. The poems he read — “Mr. President,” “The United States of Porn,” “Forbidden Fruit, or The Cybernetic Apple Core,” and “Snuff Films at the White House” — were in their uncompromising nakedness CT scans of history.
Another Lesson in the Art of Drawing
We’ve been following Amélie, a talented, 14-year-old student artist whose drawing has shown impressive skill. The last time she was asked to copy a sketch by Daumier. The point of that exercise was to shape the forms through the tonal value of the lines rather than outlining them with a fixed line. The idea was to develop the contours of the forms through the process of drawing. This time she was asked to draw an object as part of a study of natural forms.
Thanks to Covid-19, We Know Her Better Than Before
“She’s a city-dwelling, / sagely bearded / mountain man, / a libidinous old dame / dressed in evening wear. / Her eyes are hooded . . . / Into this zone of mirth / our mistress of endings / sends the world spinning / out of orbit.”
Kosti Does His Self-Publishing T-h-a-a-a-n-g . . .
Richard Kostelanetz shows us his M-A-N-Y books from Archae Editions. And he is stacked.
GC CUNY at the Center of the Conversation
The Science of Superheroes
FREE ONLINE EVENT: “The pop-culture universe of superheroes is filled with extraordinary humans and abilities. Captain America, the Hulk, and Black Panther seem to lie firmly in the realm of fantasy, but the technology behind them might not be as farfetched as we think. In his book ‘The Science of Marvel,’ Sebastian Alvarado shows that, using quantum physics, evolutionary biology, and mechanical engineering, we can find real-world parallels to superpowers such as ‘spidey sense’ and Thor’s lightning. He speaks with Shane Campbell-Staton, host of the podcast ‘The Biology of Superheroes,’ about where the science meets the fiction.” — GC Presents
A ‘Noir’ Drawing Brings the 16th Century into the Light
Hans Badung Grien (Albrecht Durer’s favorite pupil) was a master engraver as well as draftsman and painter. His drawing of a bearded old man is the subject of Gerard Bellaart’s ‘noir’ drawing, which embeds the Grien portrait from memory at its center.
Lear Lite
Shakespeare’s writing—all of it, poetry and plays—was repulsive to Tolstoy, who claimed that whenever he read Shakespeare he was overcome by “repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment.” As for “King Lear,” ranked among Shakespeare’s four greatest tragedies, he found it “at every step,” according to George Orwell, “stupid, verbose, unnatural, unintelligible, bombastic, vulgar, tedious and full of incredible events, ‘wild ravings,’ ‘mirthless jokes,’ anachronisms, irrelevancies, obscenities, worn-out stage conventions and other faults both moral and aesthetic.”
When Emmett Williams Squared the Alphabet . . .
In 1956, his color scheme was as bright as day. In the plague year of 2020 a color inversion is like the night.
Bob Kaufman: ‘Tin Pan Alley’
“No one has ever written a song about Coronary Thrombosis, / Even though its blessings have been widely recognized . . . / Even though it has saved many people from a lifetime of sorrow . . . / Even though it has rescued many people from bottomless pits of Death . . . / Even though it has provided a good life for millions of doctors, nurses, / Ambulance drivers, morticians, stonecutters and countless others. / Yet, on ungrateful Tin Pan Alley / No one has ever written a song about Coronary Thrombosis.”
GC CUNY at the Center of the Conversation
CHANGE: How Artists Lead the Way
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 7:30 p.m. A FREE ONE EVENT Featuring Vijay Gupta, violinist, founder of Street Symphony, a MacArthur Award-winner, and popular TED speaker; Hồng-An Trương, an artist using photography, sound, video, and performance, whose work has been shown at venues including the International Center for Photography, The Kitchen, and the Museum of Modern Art; and Hank Willis Thomas, a conceptual artist whose work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; and Hong Kong Arts Centre; and who collaborates on the artist-run initiatives for civic engagement For Freedoms and the Wide Awakes. This cross-disciplinary panel will be moderated by Sarah Lewis, associate professor at Harvard University; a leading commentator on race, contemporary art, and culture; and a much-viewed TED speaker.
Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs
In a Wake Island Broadcast James Grauerholz speaks to Paul Kwiatkowski. Wake Island is a conversation series exploring tone, atmosphere, and aesthetics.
‘Algorithms Will Be the Death of Us All’
So said a friend. To which I add two deformed sonnets and a collage.
Fascinating Passages from Fascinating Books
‘He did not believe that men were born good, and he admitted original perversity as an element to be found in the depths of the purest souls—perversity, that evil counsellor who leads a man on to do what is fatal to himself precisely because it is fatal and for the pleasure of acting contrary to law, without other attraction than disobedience, outside of sensuality, profit, or charm. This perversity he believes to be in others as in himself. . . . As much as possible he banished from poetry a too realistic imitation of eloquence, passion, and a too exact truth.’
Cold Turkey Press: ‘Another Pair of Sonnets’
My sonnets don’t usually come in pairs, although looking back on them I can see them being paired sometimes as sequels or cousins. Paradoxically, these two came as a pair because they are so different from each other. The darker mood of the one that came second (“Clocking In”) rebukes the lighter mood of the one that came first (“Kings”). Why I should have objected puzzles me now.
From the Design Department
Cutting Edge: Up, Up and Away Off the Page
The designers of The New York Times Magazine are at it again. Do they think edgy makes sense when their design looks like the cover was badly trimmed? Yes, the headline reads “UP, UP AND AWAY FROM IT ALL.” But if the rationale for the design was to get so far up and away, why take half measures? Why not clip off the name of the magazine entirely? Now have a look at the off-the-page design of the spread complete with layout markups, which introduces the cover story on page 43. My guess is the editors want to persuade us the magazine is spontaneous and improvisatory (as in no longer the Gray Lady of legend, which it actually hasn’t been for many years).The spread works nicely. Much better than the cover. But why are they trying so hard?