Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Another Cold Turkey Card

by

Drawing by Gerard Bellaart Past hopes rise like a ghost. Immutable. Indifferent. Are there no triumphs? Will dreams perform miracles? Strindberg said, “I dream, therefore I exist.” Stalked by a crazy sage dressed in weeds, I scribbled. The unguarded self is burdened with weariness like a dog shitting on the sidewalk. — Jan Herman (Indebted […]

Writer on a Rampage

by

In a tribute to the late German author Carl Weissner, who wrote experimental fiction in both English and German in addition to translating more than 100 books by dissident American and British authors, the literary scholar Tomasz Stompor delivered a paper on Weissner’s novel, Death in Paris, at a recent meeting of the European Beat […]

Created Image = Moment in Time

by

Speaking of maps (per William Burroughs), Malcolm Mc Neill has something to say: MAPS from Malcolm Mc Neill on Vimeo. Music from “Elements” by Ludovico Einaudi. A CREATED IMAGE is the map of a moment in TIME, embedded within it are all the energies that occurred during its making: the sounds, the feelings, the people, […]

A Book With Extra Thrust

by

This is the way to promote a book, especially when it won’t be available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble websites and won’t be readily distributed to brick-and-mortar bookstores: Click to view Rocket 88’s webpage for In the Sixties: Illustrated. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Beat Conference: ‘Paris Interzone’ 2017

by

I wish I could be there when the European Beat Studies Network meets in Paris on Wednesday. Douglas Field (University of Manchester) will give a presentation about Harold Norse’s “Cosmographs.” I remember seeing them on the wall of Norse’s room at the Beat Hotel more than 50 years ago. As I’ve written in My Adventures […]

A Dimension Not Visible

by

“ALL DRAWING 
FROM THE 
IMAGINATION I’D 
CONSIDER A FORM
 OF AUTOMATIC
 DRAWING; IF IT
 EXISTS, IT WILL 
EXIST ONLY FOR 
THE FIRST TIME.” — Gerard Bellaart Profile of an Artist by Gabriel Solomons (first published in Decode Magazine, INTELLECT: Publishers of Original Thinking) GS: Where do your images come from? GB: I think they arise […]

Paraphilia: Requiescat in Pace

by

Paraphilia Magazine officially ceased to be an active publication on September 1, 2017. It was an uninhibited online publication that featured a variety of content “likely not found in the average publication,” according to its publisher, Dire McCain. Her primary motive was to enable writers and artists to escape “the grip” of the art and […]

Fantagraphics Has the Frontier Spirit

by

Last time we looked Paul Buhle and Noah Van Sciver’s comic art biography of John Chapman, otherwise known as Johnny Appleseed, was published in a paperback edition by Alternative Comics. That was a year ago. It is now being re-issued in hardcover and digital editions by Fantagraphics Books. The production, typical of Fantagraphics, is gorgeous. […]

Caligula Gets Around

by

A friend of mine, the author of four self-published books — one of which got 22 million YouTube views when a subversive porn star read from it on camera — occasionally prints bulletins in limited editions about whatever grabs his attention. Then he mails them to friends. The most recent, Bulletin #4, arrived at the […]

Reminder: Dahlberg’s Diagnosis

by

Since it is the mind that is the vessel of all good and evil in the world, why is it that we so distrust its strength in opposing violence at large today? Thought is always prior to deed, war, history. Baudelaire said: “Every mind is a weapon loaded to the muzzle with will.” […] “Justice,” […]

Reminder: The Statue of Liberty’s Burka*

by

Words and narration by Heathcote Williams. Montage by Alan Cox. The President is obsessed with deporting Arabs Although, by a superb comic irony, It was an Arab who modeled for the United States’ icon – Namely the Statue of Liberty. The sculptor’s monument was initially designed For the opening of the Suez canal: The original […]

Ridgewood Radio

by

… from a subterranean region of Queens, New York. Later today, beginning at 3 p.m.ET, David Weinstein’s web-only broadcast on WFMU.org will stream a program called “Spheres of Influence!” featuring David First‘s “Western Enisphere,” which you can also hear (and watch) here, something by Andrea Parkins & Brian Chase, Richard Kostelanetz‘s 1988 radio opera: “Americas’ […]

‘Ghost’ + ‘Smarty’ = Opposite Attractions

by

Updated with new information. “A short video and electronic music work created in 2008, inspired by Theresa Duncan’s blog. It is a small tribute to her memory.” — William Osborne + Theresa Duncan’s video. Postscript: Aug. 9 — Per William Osborne’s comment, here is her best video. Theresa Duncan's The History of Glamour from M.Duncan […]

Lost: Whatever Happened to ‘Severe Joy’?

by

When Heathcote Williams died recently, I heard from many people who recalled the lasting impact he’d had on them. Jay Jeff Jones, Michael Butterworth, and David Britton were three. They remembered a manuscript of Heathcote’s called “Severe Joy” that never saw the light of day. John Calder, a major London publisher, had failed to bring […]

Opera: America’s War Without End

by

Anthony Haden Guest calls “The Plain of Jars” — a chamber opera by Keith Patchel about America’s secret war in Laos — “the lineal descendant of Stravinsky’s ‘Nightingale’ and Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’ and ‘Wozzeck.’” I haven’t seen it yet, but my staff of thousands tells me it “exposes the wounds caused by America’s use of […]

A Great One Died Today

by

Updated with new information. ‘He was the Shelley of his age and more.’ — Gerard Bellaart A memorial service is to be held Friday (July 14), 3 p.m., at St. Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford. All welcome. July 17 — Malcolm Ritchie, whose friendship with Heathcote spanned decades, attended the service. This is his description: […]

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog