This letter to Laura Huxley appeared on eBay. Where did it come from? Possibly from a dealer via the Huxley Estate.
Blogs Are Personal
A Different Kind of Mushroom Cloud
Recalling the first Trinity nuclear blast, which is being memorialized by the new Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer,” I couldn’t help thinking of the last collage that Norman O. Mustill made and his first using digital tools.
A Proper Obituary for Jay Jeff Jones (1946-2023)
Jay Jeff Jones was born in in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1946. His parents, Nelson and Lila Fay Jones, both hailed from Cherokee ancestry. Raised in and around San Francisco, Jay joined the Hell’s Angels in the early 1960, riding his Harley Davidson around the city. As a teenager, he hung around North Beach, acting with the Mime Troupe, later working as a copy boy for the San Francisco Examiner. Frank Herbert, author of “Dune,” was one of his bosses.
See the Difference
Shakespeare Rewrote This Sonnet
Which do you prefer? The earlier or the later version?
Tugboat Tillie
Straight Up has moved house and is taking a vacation break.
David Erdos: ‘Under Sea and Sky’
Offered in tribute to the crew fighting for their lives in the depths of the Atlantic.
‘The artist’s virtual junk stall is open all hours . . .’
![The Moors of Manchester [photo by Jay Jeff Jones, 2018] Click to enlarge.](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Moors-behind-Jays-house-560enh-1-200x200.jpg)
ET IN BOHEMIA EGO — A poem for the ages by Jay Jeff Jones (1946-2023).
Such a Great Read!
The Poet Dying: Heinrich Heine’s Last Years in Paris
If the opening of Ernst Pawel’s biographical study of the 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine doesn’t grab you, don’t bother to read on. But it if does, treat yourself to a great reading experience by getting hold of the book. ‘The Poet Dying’ includes a selection of Heine’s poems that runs to 80 or so pages, with the originals and the translations facing each other. Read an excerpt from one of the poems, ‘The Slave Ship,’ a depiction of the Dutch slave trade that gives you a solid dose of Heine’s sarcasm.
William Cody Maher
‘If you don’t have a present, you always have a past’
‘A man is looking into his past. Let’s see what he finds there.’ — William Cody Maher, poet / writer / performance artist
Menus Animaux Is Coming Soon from Cold Turkey Press
… in a brilliant French translation by Bertrand Grimault.
The Philosopher’s Sling
Whatever you load into this self-purging contraption will hit the back of your head.
Jay Jeff Jones, RIP
Playwright, Essayist, Critic, and Such a Fine and True Poet
He died Saturday, May 20, 2023. He was 77. After theater studies and acting with The Mime Troupe in San Francisco, he moved to England, where he mostly lived since. In London he worked for Transatlantic Review, the British Drama League, and Running Man Press — and later edited the quarterly New Yorkshire Writing and co-curated (with Douglas Field) exhibition “OffBeat: Jeff Nuttall and the International Underground” at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, which drew 130,000 visitors. He published poetry, essays, reviews, and fiction in many magazines and anthologies.
Homage to Heine (and a Tribute to Martin Amis)
DANG MUSE
Dead silence from that hustler.
Perhaps she’s on a ghost ship
circling the moon.
If ever she lands
back here on earth, I’ll tell you.
‘Singular, Tender, Euphoric, Hypnotic’
Dylan Mattingly’s 6-Hour Opera Makes It to Los Angeles
The last time we heard excerpts of “Stranger Love,” it was in Brooklyn and the score-cum-libretto had yet to receive a full production. Now it is to be staged from beginning to end in a once-only performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Mary Beach: A Pair of Dry Transfer Letraset Pieces
‘vuv’ was published in the little magazine Earthquake in 1967. The untitled piece was never published. James Horton discovered it in Carl Weissner’s Klactoveedsedsteen archive at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Essential Reading Signaled in the Night Sky
The Flower Moon, seen over Byron Bay, Australia, on May 6, was a reminder of David Grann’s riveting ‘KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” which is essential reading to understand the history of America’s marauding westward ‘progress’.
Too Funny to Forget
Christopher Hitchens Would Be Chortling
And the staff here hopes, so will you.