Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Nancy Peters Saved City Lights Books, Yes!

by

“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.”

Malanga to Make a Rare Combo Poetry-Film Appearance

by

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

by

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.

‘Benevolent Loitering’
‘Unheard and Unseen’ in Istanbul

by

Having never been to Istanbul, I’ve done the next best thing — or so it feels upon reading ‘The Pleasures of Empty Lots’ by Efe Murad, poet, translator, and scholar extraordinaire. “This humble chapbook,” he writes, “is a record of the unheard and the unseen, which can only be experienced by those who find pleasure in ephemeral escapades. It is a longing for a clean slate, a tribute to benevolent loitering.” It is also more than that. It is in the most vivid, personal terms a manifesto for artistic freedom and — necessarily — social and political liberty.

A Libertarian Penchant for BS

by

This video sounds sane, but ‘tiz not my cuppa. As one of S/U’s indefatigable staff of thousands says, “Slickish until it’s obvious what the agenda is.”

A Straight Up Thanksgiving — It’s a Tradition

by

Our Thanksgiving team of William S. Burroughs and Norman O. Mustill
has been a happy pairing since 2012. It still is. So here they are again, sweetened by Heathcote Williams’s words in a narration-cum-montage by Alan Cox. It’s all so delish.

Designers Pushing the Envelope . . . ?

by

The New York Times Magazine used to have a nameplate. It still does. Most of the time it’s all there. Sometimes you have to search for it. How come? The designers are: a) being avant-garde, b) reinforcing a theme, c) too clever by half, d) all three, or maybe e) just having fun.

A Something Else Reader
Newly Discovered, It Was Hidden Away for 50 Years

by

” ‘A Something Else Reader’ is a previously unpublished anthology edited by Dick Higgins in 1972 to celebrate Something Else Press, the publishing house he founded in 1963, and to showcase Fluxus and other experimental artistic and literary forms. … He assembled the table of contents and an introduction into a proposal, which went into his archive, where it was found by scholar and curator Alice Centamore, who compiled the works and assembled it.” — Primary Information

Jack Kerouac at 100, the Beats in Ruigoord

by

Kerouac fans In The Netherlands have been celebrating his centennial with readings, film presentations, and concerts throughout 2022. The celebration will culminate on Oct. 9 at the artists’s village of Ruigoord, near Amsterdam. An international gathering of writers, performers, and scholars will pay tribute, along with keynote speakers Joyce Johnson and Ed Sanders, who are to participate via Zoom.

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog