Cold Turkey Press published this card four years ago in a limited edition. It applies now more than ever.
‘The Undying Guest’
Roving Poet With a Painter’s Eye
Mark Terrill’s latest book fits gemlike and exquisite in the palm of your hand. Yet it spreads like a flower deep in your head. Probing daily life for meaning in far-flung places, this sea-going, globe-trotting author is a roving poet with a painter’s eye. If it’s possible to be Kerouacian without the mawkishness and Baudelaireian without the derision, Terrill is both.
A Different Kind of Mushroom Cloud
Recalling the first Trinity nuclear blast, which is being memorialized by the new Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer,” I couldn’t help thinking of the last collage that Norman O. Mustill made and his first using digital tools.
A Proper Obituary for Jay Jeff Jones (1946-2023)
Jay Jeff Jones was born in in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1946. His parents, Nelson and Lila Fay Jones, both hailed from Cherokee ancestry. Raised in and around San Francisco, Jay joined the Hell’s Angels in the early 1960, riding his Harley Davidson around the city. As a teenager, he hung around North Beach, acting with the Mime Troupe, later working as a copy boy for the San Francisco Examiner. Frank Herbert, author of “Dune,” was one of his bosses.
William Cody Maher
‘If you don’t have a present, you always have a past’
‘A man is looking into his past. Let’s see what he finds there.’ — William Cody Maher, poet / writer / performance artist
Menus Animaux Is Coming Soon from Cold Turkey Press
… in a brilliant French translation by Bertrand Grimault.
The Philosopher’s Sling
Whatever you load into this self-purging contraption will hit the back of your head.
Jay Jeff Jones, RIP
Playwright, Essayist, Critic, and Such a Fine and True Poet
He died Saturday, May 20, 2023. He was 77. After theater studies and acting with The Mime Troupe in San Francisco, he moved to England, where he mostly lived since. In London he worked for Transatlantic Review, the British Drama League, and Running Man Press — and later edited the quarterly New Yorkshire Writing and co-curated (with Douglas Field) exhibition “OffBeat: Jeff Nuttall and the International Underground” at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, which drew 130,000 visitors. He published poetry, essays, reviews, and fiction in many magazines and anthologies.
Mary Beach: A Pair of Dry Transfer Letraset Pieces
‘vuv’ was published in the little magazine Earthquake in 1967. The untitled piece was never published. James Horton discovered it in Carl Weissner’s Klactoveedsedsteen archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Too Funny to Forget
Christopher Hitchens Would Be Chortling
And the staff here hopes, so will you.
At the Château Palettes in Bordeaux
An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Gerard Bellaart and a screening of three films by Fred Worden.
High Market Value of a Modern First Edition Fills a Void
A pre-owned, first edition copy of Necrophilia Variations sold yesterday on eBay with an asking price of $2,000. The author, who goes by the name Supervert, is embarrassed to brag about it. Although it wasn’t Supervert who sold it, and he doesn’t know who did, he tells me, “Market value helps fill the vacuum of feedback we writers are treated to.”
Mustill’s Big Bang
Exploding the Alphabet via Poésie Concrête
The explosion grows . . . and the letters disperse.
When the Computer Was Not Quite King
Back in the 1960s, Norman O. Mustill worked with a razor blade. But it’s not his technical skill, brilliant as it was, that makes these images so remarkable.
What Does It Mean to Prepare for Death?
I don’t have a terminal disease, unless it’s called old age. . . . But there’s always this to consider: being ready to die is an illusion.
Bellaart’s ‘Noirs’
For the Pleasure of Charcoal Sketching
Between July 2020 and June 2022, Gerard Bellaart filled 11 spiral-bound, 80-page sketchbooks with charcoal drawings. Some sketches were preparatory for larger drawings and some were studies for paintings. But most were for the sake of sketching itself. Of the nearly 1,000 drawings, he selected more than 100 for this chapbook.
And Now . . . for a Lively Change of Pace
Nine years ago William Osborne posted this trailer for Cybeline, a multimedia music theater work performed by Abbie Conant with music by Osborne. The staff finds it remarkable at how fresh it remains.