‘… and yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?’
The end of the dismal year 2023 brings Hamlet’s soliloquy to mind.
A True Poet’s ‘Great Balls of Doubt’
The world Mark Terrill sees is “essentially forlorn, if not absurd, if not entirely hopeless. But his poetry is far from hopeless.” — Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Walter Isaacson on the Craft of Biography
‘My road to biography began at TIME magazine.’
He titled his lecture ‘Lessons About Living with Geniuses.’ His latest biography is about Elon Musk. His previous biographies were about Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Jennifer Doudna.
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.
Tugboat Tillie
Straight Up has moved house and is taking a vacation break.
David Erdos: ‘Under Sea and Sky’
Offered in tribute to the crew fighting for their lives in the depths of the Atlantic.
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
Homage to Heine (and a Tribute to Martin Amis)
DANG MUSE
Dead silence from that hustler.
Perhaps she’s on a ghost ship
circling the moon.
If ever she lands
back here on earth, I’ll tell you.
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.
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.
Nancy Peters Saved City Lights Books, Yes!
“While Lawrence Ferlinghetti certainly deserves all of the accolades he’s received, the fact of the matter is there would literally be no City Lights without Nancy Peters. Beyond shepherding City Lights through various fiscal crises and providing the steady anchor that allowed Ferlinghetti to travel the world as a poet and activist, Nancy’s vision as an editor and acumen as a publisher were a vital key to the success and longevity of City Lights Publishers.”
Jamie MacGillivray: The Renegade’s Journey
John Sayles Talks About His New Novel and a Lot More
Earlier this month he was at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona. Next stop Wednesday, March 15, in Salisbury, Connecticut.
Malanga to Make a Rare Combo Poetry-Film Appearance
Anyone who has seen the 1954 movie “Friendly Persuasion” might wonder if Gerard Malanga was the precocious child actor cast for comic relief with a pet goose that keeps chasing him around the family farm.
Of course he wasn’t. That was Richard Eyer. Malanga is the noted poet and photographer who once was part of Andy Warhol’s inner circle.
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.
The Complete Poems: 1965-2020
Michael Butterworth’s Radical Legacy in Verse
For more than half a century the dissident British author, editor, and underground publisher Michael Butterworth has been “a quiet unobtrusive voice in poetry, with roots both in the small press poetry journals of the 1960s and ’70s and New Wave science fiction.”