Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Ginsberg Does Indian Mantras on Sloow Tapes

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Speaking of Allen Ginsberg, I’m told a new Sloow Tapes cassette entitled “London Mantra” is about to be released. Bart de Paepe, producer of the indie label, writes, “It’s a recording George Dowden made at his home in July 1973.” The tape features “Ginsberg solo on his harmonium, singing Indian mantras and a few of […]

Amiri Baraka Has Died, a Remembrance

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Amiri Baraka’s obituary in the NY Times this morning mentioned his first contact with Allen Ginsberg. …to whom, in the puckish spirit of the times, he had written a letter on toilet paper reading, “Are you for real?” (“I’m for real, but I’m tired of being Allen Ginsberg,” came the reply, on what, its recipient […]

Above the Wintry Fields

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The poem “A Murmuration of Starlings” is by Heathcote Williams, the narration by Alan Cox. After a visit to the Wordsworths in the Lake District, Coleridge caught a glimpse from his stagecoach Of a gigantic flock of birds as it swooped, rose then fell Above the frozen, wintry fields of a passing farm. It was […]

How a Brilliant Writer Got in His Own Way

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I’m told Ben Hecht was recently inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. That could be why I was asked to write a piece about him for a special “Chicago Issue” of the Chicago Quarterly Review, but something tells me it was pure coincidence. I also have a feeling the Hall of Fame won’t […]

‘In Praise of Folly’: Advice for 2014 or Any Year

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Excerpt from Erasmus’ ‘In Praise of Folly’ (translated by John Wilson) Spoken by Folly in her own Person Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you’ll find them grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that their […]

Notes on Writers: Maugham Offers a Handful

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Edmond White writes: “I was invited to a dinner at the apartment of Ted Morgan on the East Side. Later, in 1982, I would write a positive review of his biography of Somerset Maugham, in which he gave a horrifying portrait of the aging writer as having lost his mind to Alzheimer’s though he was […]

‘The Red Dagger’ by Heathcote Williams

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London’s symbol for the hub of global finance in the City (Shown on the city’s flag to convey heraldic grandeur) Comes from a blood-soaked dagger that killed the rebel, Wat Tyler, For Tyler had challenged London on behalf of the poor. The dagger survives and is on display at Fishmonger’s Hall In the City’s secretive […]

On Burroughs, The Adding Machine, & Blurbophobia

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I see that Grove Press has just put out a spanking new edition of The Adding Machine by William S. Burroughs. I also see it has what Grove calls on the front cover a “new” introduction by James Gauerholz, the numero uno keeper of the righteous Burroughs flame. Since there never was an old introduction, […]

Nelson Algren on Frank Lloyd Wright

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This is Algren reading his poem “On the Heart It Don’t Matter How You Spell It.” It’s from a 1972 recording. Frank Lloyd Wright was the saint of American architecture. He liked steel buildings, stone buildings, tall buildings, low buildings. He liked new buildings and old buildings. He like dry buildings and damp buildings. He […]

Terkel Reads from ‘Chicago: City on the Make’

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I’ve been going through all my old Nelson Algren files to give to Colin Asher. He recently landed a contract to write Algren’s biography for Norton — that’s W.W. Norton & Co. (one of the last big indie publishers, and a great one, too). My files include all sorts of primary documents, among them a […]

‘Every Crumb Can Become a Piece of Cake’

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Here are a couple of Hanne Lippard’s vocal tone poems. She combines a voice and accent to kill for with a witty, whimsical sense of humor. The words and the way she says them are a kick. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

A Thanksgiving Team: Burroughs & Mustill, Redux

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A Straight Up tradition continues. William S. Burroughs’s words of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day paired with a couple of collages by Norman O. Mustill. Look and listen. It’s delish . . . Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts — thanks for a Continent […]

Paris Bookfair Focuses on New Practices in Art

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14 Rue Bonaparte, from Nov. 14 to 17. Open to the general public. Free admission. Postscript: Nov. 23 — The bookfair was jammed. Very impressive. The lecture hall was a19th-century amphitheater in back of the main hall. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Einstein’s Brain

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Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Some Notes Toward ‘Death in Paris’

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Not long ago Walter Hartmann sent me photos of several Moleskin notebooks that our cherished friend Carl Weissner left behind when he died. They’re captivating. Many of the handwritten notes made their way into Death in Paris, Carl’s bravura novel about a serial killer. “It is not quite natural for a guy around 50 who’s […]

Harold Norse: ‘Take a Chance In The Void’

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Via sloowtapes: During the early ’60s Harold Norse was living in Paris at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, later known as the Beat Hotel. Also living there were William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Gregory Corso, and Sinclair Beiles. All of them experimented with cut prose, a form of collage applied to texts and audiotapes. Norse made the technique […]

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