Contemporaneous, an ensemble of some two dozen musicians, started out at Bard College as the brainchild of a pair of undergrads. Now, more than a decade later, the ensemble is based in New York City and continues to thrive professionally. It will present its largest production to date on Sept. 18. Billed as The Day of Imagination, the program at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn will feature three sets over a full day, four world premieres, six hours of music, and 50 artists.
‘Ode to Idealism’
Out of the Past
Journalism as the Poetry of Fact
Kay Boyle regarded journalism, when it was written well about something important, as “the poetry of fact.”
‘Runaway’: New Folio from Cold Turkey Press
Great beauty from great despair unbends the mind. In a pointless hostile universe that is every poet’s goal.
Here and Now
The morning light takes its time
coming through the bedroom window.
It wakes me properly in the here and now.
‘Writer Directory’ Offers More Than Information
Few books have come my way as generous and wise about writers and writing as this one. The title takes as its model the phonebooks of long ago. But forget that. Remember this: The author, A. Robert Lee, is a British-born, globe-trotting, retired professor now living in Spain, whose heavyweight academic credentials disguise a common touch so light that reading him feels as charmed as floating on air.
On Propaganda
Milton Glaser ♥ Information, Not Persuasion
The late graphic designer, most famous for creating the I LOVE NY logo, had a strong dose of advice more than a decade ago for the propagandists among us — the marketers, advertisers, public-relations spinners and, yes, journalists — along with citizens-at-large facing an onslaught of political campaigns.
Alexa Poems Must Be a Genre By Now
Why am I getting that ad on my device? / Alexa, I want a divorce. Did you hear me? / I can’t spell it out for you. No, don’t thank me. / Don’t wipe my nose. I can brush my own teeth. … If I were paranoid, I would spin bold tales / of grand conspiracies. I love those fantasies. / But they’re not my thing, though in fact / they’re not unreal. Please Alexa, do shut up. / Please disappear. You are unwanted here.
‘Water Stone Words’
This short movie evokes the rich heritage of humankind’s creative responses to the natural environment over millennia. The creators of “water stone words” — filmmaker Ed O’Donnelly, sculptor Kenny Munro, and writer/poet Malcolm Ritchie — made the movie over a period of six days.
Bellaart on Kandinsky: ‘Cornered by his white’
From one painter to another:
‘Short nights
short of long days
For distant hours
Open to foul tide
And so he wanders
Between dawn & shifty sky …’
Paris Conference: Total Assault on the Culture
Scholars, poets, writers, translators, and artists to celebrate the works of Claude Pélieu and Mary Beach. Featuring Benoît Delaune, Jacques Donguy, Franca Belarsi, Matthieu Perrot, Bruno Sourdin, James Horton, Pierre Joris, Gérard-Georges Lemaire, Peggy Pacini, Pamela Beach-Plymell, Antonio Bonome, and Raphael Haudidier.
A Great One Died Four Years Ago Today
![Heathcote Williams [Photo: JH, 2013]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/heathcote-williams-photo-copy-200x200.png)
“He was the Shelley of his age and more.” —Gerard Bellaart
“As you sat In your dotage, fountain pen / Pouring futures onto the calligraphied page / With such ease, That every political pose / And every social Shift achieved scansion, / rhyming under you, the verse surgeon whose / equal vision and zeal cured disease.” — David Erdos
‘He had no special powers, nor was he brave …’
“‘Acadian Elegies’ is a series of 24 texts that appropriate sentences from hundreds of obituaries. The source texts have not been altered except to remove proper names Their particular facts are employed to tell stories about no one in particular …” — Emile LeBrun
At MoMA in New York
Two More Sexy Cézanne Takeaways
If you can make it to the MoMA show, you won’t regret it. Have a look at two more sexy takeaways, thanks to our indefatiguable staff.
Cézanne Drawings at MoMA
Here Are Some Sexy Takeaways
If you can make the MoMA show, you won’t regret it.
New Lines to Sail Upon
When captains of the rising seas
claim mastery, and the world
in all its finery is theirs,
we who know its agonies
are left to cope. Even our
miseries are a taunting hope.
Cut-ups, Music, Soundscapes
Moloko CD: ‘Being On The Beat’
This 23-track CD compilation includes a 28-page booklet of essays, illustrations, and detailed track descriptions. The CD is dedicated to the memory of Jürgen Ploog.
Into the Mainstream
MoMA to Feature Clayton Patterson Documentaries
“Canadian-born multimedia artist and writer Clayton Patterson has lived through, and broadly documented, more of outsider culture and the evolving history of New York’s Lower East Side than anyone else of his generation. The virtually unseen archive of VHS and 8mm videos he shot there between 1986 and 2001 numbers over 2,000 tapes of astonishing diversity. … Always resolutely on the fringe, as a videographer he is best known for recording the battle between New York City police and protesters in the streets around Tompkins Square Park on the night of August 6, 1988, an event that led to multiple court appearances and appearances with Oprah and others on the talk show circuit.” — Ron Magliozzi, MoMA Curator Department of Film