Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

The Prison Memoir That Caught Algren’s Attention

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Not long before the recent prison escape that’s been making news, I mentioned to Colin Asher, who is writing a biography of Nelson Algren, that Algren once gave me a copy of Malcolm Braly’s prison memoir. Braly recounts how he broke out of prison one time early in his career as a convicted teenage burglar. […]

Carl Weissner Gets Stellar Notice in Book Podcast

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In his latest podcast at realitystudio.org Jed Birmingham zeroes in on the immensely talented Carl Weissner and his cut-up novel The Braille Film. Birmingham, who met Weissner in New York and Paris, talks about what made him so memorable and how he bought the book at auction some years ago for $75, believing it and […]

Of Poetry and Fakery, Cultural Theft, and Stolen Identity

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The title of Heathcote Williams’s memoir, Of Dylan Thomas and his Deaths, reflects the author’s belief that the great Welsh poet died not once but twice. He writes, “It can be said that he was to suffer no less than two deaths at American hands.” The first death, contrary to the accepted claim that he […]

A New Literary Memoir Recalls Dylan Thomas

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See update. A few weeks ago I remarked that Of Dylan and his Deaths, by Heathcote Williams, was so rich in the author’s personal history and “so evocative of his first inspiration, Dylan Thomas,” that it merited attention as a masterpiece of literary investigation. (The investigative aspect of the essay involves Williams’s indignation over “the […]

‘War Makes People Crazy, Religion Makes It Worse’

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Poking around the web, a friend came across “the strangest article.” It had been posted in the Israel Times in August, 2014, and was later taken down with an apology by the author. It asked, among other things: “If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining […]

Recapped: R. Crumb Epic Home Video (Un, Deux, Trois)

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This video was recorded on April 29, 2011 at the Society of Illustrators in New York City, where the exhibition ran from March 23 to April 30. Curated by Monte Beauchamp, editor of The Life and Times of R. Crumb, the show was a retrospective that presented key pieces culled from the underground art collection […]

New from Cold Turkey Press: ‘Of Dylan and his Deaths’

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A writer as prolific as Heathcote Williams runs the risk of having his poems and prose taken for granted. But this essay — a memoir so rich in personal history, so evocative of his first inspiration, Dylan Thomas, and so indignant about the cultural theft of Thomas’s identity by a famous imposter — merits attention […]

Burroughs Makes Inroads, But What About Algren?

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The British have always shown a serious interest in William Burroughs, evidenced by the fact that the most authoritative Burroughs scholars are or have been Brits such as Eric Mottram, Oliver Harris, and Ian MacFayden, for three examples, and that the most authoritative Burroughs biography, Call Me Burroughs, was written by another Brit, Barry Miles. […]

Poem for the Cleaning Women: ‘We Are All Holy’

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Courtesy of Bart de Paepe’s Sloow Tapes This is a historical recording by Judith Malina, who died two weeks ago. I’ve transcribed the text the way it struck my ear, but its true power can’t be fully appreciated until you’ve heard her read the poem for yourself. — JH every one of the cleaning women […]

The Extinction Lesson of a Comical, Salutary Creature

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But the bird was fearless and easily lured aboard By an offer of unlimited ship’s biscuits. By a miracle the bird survived the crew’s curiosity And their wondering if it tasted delicious. After it had lived out its life in England A taxidermist was called when it died. He stuffed it and, to retain its […]

Algren to Get the Literary Biography He Deserves

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The Leon Levy Center for Biography has awarded fellowships worth $60,000 each to four writers who are currently working on new biographies. One of them is Colin Asher, whose tentatively titled biography of Nelson Algren, But Never a Lovely So Real, is under contract to W. W. Norton & Company. The other recipients are Blake […]

Algren for Real: ‘The End Is Nothing. The Road Is All’

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Here he is on the big screen at last, an hour and a half of who Nelson Algren was and what he meant. It’s a documentary with the sources — authoritative sources (Kurt Vonnegut and Studs Terkel, for example, who give their personal impressions of the man). Radical sources, too (Paul Buhle for one, who […]

Easter Poetry + Hadron Collider = ‘Son of God Particle’

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Poem by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. Art by Elena Caldera and other artists. Some words from the poem: Imagine Christ particles let loose on the one percent, Erasing their fortunes at a key stroke. Imagine airborne Christ particles attacking Wall Street, Penetrating algorhythms in its mainframe computers, Moving columns of figures […]

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