Words by Heathcote Williams. Montage and narration by Alan Cox. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Fatty Ea
They Made Rabelais Look Like a Church Picnic
Otto Petersen and George Dudley have died. The NYT has an obit for the ventriloquist, calling him “the Voice of Vulgarity.” But there is no separate obit for George, the foul-mouthed dummy who delivered all the tasteless lines that made audiences laugh or walk out. Margalit Fox, whose great lede I stole for my headline, […]
Hear That Clicking Sound? Listen to the ‘Cobalt Blues’
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.Click to listen.+In German folklore a kobold was a deadly sprite That inhabited mines and could live inside rock; Hunched and ugly it warned off human busybodies: It clicked, and it made an eerie, echoing knock. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Hans Walgenbach Has Art Yen for Cold Turkey
![From Cold Turkey Press Exhibition [Walgenbach Books & Art, Rotterdam]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CT-EXHIBITION-ROTTERDAM-2-640-200x200.jpg)
Cold Turkey Press is een legendarische Rotterdamse underground uitgeverij die van 1970 tot 1976 actief was. Gerard Bellaart, beeldende kunstenaar en initiatiefnemer, hervatte het fonds in 2006 met publicaties van oa Ira Cohen, William S. Burroughs, Heathcote Williams, Samuel Beckett, Sinclair Beiles, Jean Arp, Antonin Artaud, Kurt Schwitters, Ed Sanders, Ezra Pound en Gerard Bellaart […]
Say It Ain’t So . . .
Last Bohemian Turns Out the Lights Clayton Patterson, Rebel and Photographer, Plans to Leave the Lower East Side for Europe EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
In a Light Mood: ‘No Severed Bodies or Bloody Stumps’
!['The Condition,' a new postcard from Cold Turkey Press [2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/the-condition-this-one670-200x200.jpg)
The front of this hallucinatory postcard, published by Cold Turkey Press in a limited edition of 36 copies, shows a collage by the late Norman Ogue Mustill. It is “Mustill in a light sorta mood, or so he thought,” I wrote Ben Schot, Cold Turkey’s distributor. “Light for him, anyway: no severed bodies or bloody […]
‘Eating the Rich and Famous, or Celebrity Roadkill’
!['Eating the Rich' by Heathcote Williams [Cold Turkey Press, 2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/eating-the-rich-200x200.jpeg)
“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.” — Thomas Jefferson, from his letters Words by Heathcote Williams. Montage and narration by Alan Cox. “I have been […]
Every Lapdog Should Have His Day . . . in Court
It’s time for a citizen’s arrest … Words by Heathcote Williams. Music by Max Reinsch. Performance by Alan Cox. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
‘America: How It Works’ by Heathcote Williams
The fierce dissidence of Williams’s polemical poetry is as radical as Shelley’s. “America: How It Works” bears witness to the monster within “the most dangerous country in world history.” Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. The business of America is business, And it’s number one business is war. It uses Hollywood […]
Remembering Norman Mailer, Sorta Policy Wonk
![Norman Mailer [Chicago Sun-Times, 1984]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Norman-Mailer-copy-200x200.jpg)
I’m no policy wonk on Russia and neither was Norman Mailer. But the crisis in the Ukraine and an article in today’s New York Times about the impact of thinning ranks of Russia experts on U.S. policy reminded me of remarks Mailer once made about the former Soviet Union, as though he were an expert. […]
SOS: An American Poet Is Waiting to Be Rescued
Cody Maher, expat American poet and world traveler living in Heidelberg, writes in an email message that he was sitting around “watching countries go to the dogs feeding the people nothing but lies” when it occurred to him that “the only safe place one day might be international waters.” This must have been before the […]
‘Burroughs in London’ by Heathcote Williams
Now that the Burroughs centenary has moved into high gear, it suddenly dawned on Heathcote Williams that he’d known the man on and off for more than half a century.
Barbie Duz Her Thang in the New York Times, Oh Yeah
![This Barbie Doll ad showed up in the New York Times this morning. Prominently positioned in the A-section on page 7. [Feb. 18, 2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BARBIE-ad-NYT-2-18-2014-640-200x200.jpg)
‘The strenuous exertions of this copywriter sweating blood to extract meaning from airy plastic nothings made me quite breathless.’ — Heathcote Williams
William ‘Cody’ Maher: ‘Nightmare Entering the Country’
Border security and immigration are so much in the news these days that my staff of thousands was desperate for comic relief. Then this scenario came over the transom from Cody Maher. Bingo!
‘The Intercept’ Launch: Whistleblowers Welcomed
This is not a Wanted! poster, but it might as well be. You can be sure these journalists are or will be targeted by intelligence officials. The Intercept is a whistleblowing enterprise created by Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and Laura Poitras. The site was launched today by First Look Media. Our short-term mission is limited […]
A Poem by Heathcote Williams: ‘It’s a Barbie World, or …’
Walter Benjamin said, ‘There is no cultural document / That’s not at the same time a record of barbarism…’
Centennial Conference on Life & Myth of William Burroughs
William S. Burroughs was born 100 years ago today. A centennial conference will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as part of a month-long WSB@100 Festival in April. The conference, sponsored by The Center for Humanities, “will explore the life and myth of one of the most innovative […]