Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Connecting Kim Dotcom and Edward Snowden

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To have a staff of thousands that keeps me informed is one of the privileges of this blog. Had I not been tipped about the projection of Kim Dotcom’s face with the words “United Stasi of America” on a wall of the U.S. embassy in Berlin, I would not have made a connection between N.S.A. […]

The Fine Art of Book Promotion

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“If this is the literary equivalent of groupies throwing their bras on stage, I’ll take it,” he says. The author, who goes by the name Supervert, was talking about a nude photo shoot with an “alt” model, which, he was pleased to learn, uses two of his books as a prop. It’s not the first […]

This ‘Auteur’ Made Some of Hollywood’s Best Films

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I just caught a screening of “Dodsworth” at the New York Historical Society, where Catherine Wyler mentioned in a pre-screening interview with AMERICAN MASTERS creator Susan Lacy that there are two new Wyler books due out soon: one by Gabriel Miller, the other by Neil Sinyard. She hoped it signals renewed interest in her father’s […]

Do You Miss New York? Frishberg Does

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WatchtheliveTimes Square camerastreaminrealtime… if it works.…Hey,this isNewYork,whereBig Mikereigns.The 108thmayor,like the107beforehim,hastroublefixin’ever’thang. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

‘The Prince of Amsterdam’

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Heathcote Williams’s tribute to the late poet Simon Vinkenoog had me choking with laughter. And when the tribute to this ‘electric, ecstatic” poet of “ultra optimism” turns serious — when it recounts what Vinkenoog says in a dream to a friend: “It’s a party in heaven. I’m here with kindred spirits only. It’s like earth […]

Hurray for Independence Day. Hmmph …

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William Osborne writes in an email: It is astonishing to see how deeply militarized American culture has become. The military colors every aspect of our lives. You could pick a thousand examples. Americans don’t see it, but Washington is essentially a military base posing as a seat of government. Even if America doesn’t have a […]

Yannick Bouillis Spreads the Word on Twinpak

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In ELSE #5, the current issue of the photo magazine ELSE published in Lausanne, Switzerland, by the Musée de l’Elysée, Yannick Bouillis has dedicated a handsome double spread to Norman O. Mustill’s Twinpak (Nova Broadcast Press, 1969). Bouillis, a former journalist and bookseller, is a member of the ELSE editorial committee and the founder of […]

Planned Obsolescence Press to Big Data: Fuck Off

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In an unsigned Publisher’s Note to Whale Drek: The Lost Footnotes of the Olympia Press Naked Lunch, Jed Birmingham writes: “Planned Obsolescence Press specializes in distributing small shiploads of K.Y. made of genuine whale drek. What better to grease the lines of communication? The Press recycles that which no one has found any use for. […]

Typography Meets Country Music

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Hat’s off to the designer whoever that is. The kinetic typography put me in mind of the clever card sequence in D.A. Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary about Bob Dylan, “Don’t Look Back.” The design is more ingenious now, and of course the technology is far more sophisticated. But you get the idea. As to the stylish […]

Two Artists, Two Video Trailers: Ungerer and Mc Neill

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Here are two video trailers, totally different from each other — one for a new movie about the peerless Tomi Ungerer, “Far Out Isn’t Far Enough,” the other for a dance inspired by Observed While Falling, a spellbinding memoir by the incomparable Malcolm Mc Neil. Many years ago Burt Britton kept a self-portrait by Ungerer […]

More Than Just Opinion, Osborne Has Information

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Bill Osborne’s comment about Edward Snowden’s amazing interview says what needed to be said: The abuse of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning was designed to intimidate whistle blowers like Edward Snowden. It is good to see that at least in this case it has not worked. We should soon expect a campaign of character assassination […]

My Re-Tweet: Edward Snowden’s Amazing Interview

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Watch Edward Snowden speaking to Glenn Greenwald. According to the British newspaper The Guardian: Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA. In a note accompanying […]

‘Orwell’s Recipe for Tea’

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Narration and montage by Alan Cox. “Orwell exposed the state’s Ministry of Truth, / As controlling man’s desire to be free / With its lies and doublespeak and doublethink, / But he’d always break off for tea.” — Heathcote Williams EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

For Nonconforming Artists, the Envelope Please

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Update: Click for the 2015 Acker Awards. And read this captivating feature story by Nicole Disser: ‘Helen Keller Was an Asshole,’ and Other Things You’ll Learn at the Acker Awards Are awards the staff of life? Of course not. But they certainly seem like food for the hungry. The list of awards is nearly endless. […]

Assange: It’s U.S. Security State vs. First Amendment

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In a 40-minute Web & television interview on Democracy Now! WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange discussed U.S. Justice Department spying on journalists and what the “abuse of the Espionage Act” against a reporter means. He also talked about the future of WikiLeaks, the financial blockade against it, and his nearly year-long political asylum in the Ecuadorean […]

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