How about a Burroughsian blast of a graphic cut-up by Gary Lee-Nova? He is looking for a publisher for 'The Nova Machine.' Here's an excerpt. Any takers? "In all my experience as a police officer I have never seen such total fear and degradation on any planet." Click to enlarge. … [Read more...]
‘So Much Sour Salami’
Frank Scully, a long-forgotten journalist, was recalling the first time he met Luigi Pirandello in Paris in the cocktail lounge of a movie theater on the Champs Elysée. It was well before World War II, but he could have been writing about the here and now in Trumpistan. Pirandello was "on the lam from his native Italy," where his "sense of humor was too acute for a Mussolini who had completely lost his. ... Dictators still believe that the old, tired liberals must be 'removed' unless they can snap into a salute and shout for national glory … [Read more...]
Q & A With Sinclair Beiles
"Incandescent poet in your solitary cell, answer please what no prayer or deity can tell." * * * * * "To make sense of what is meant by your obscurities, the consequence— have little doubt— of an accident, your gospel may not be truth, but the clouds and planets hanging in the sky. The proper question … [Read more...]
An Incandescent Poet in His Solitary Cell
Gerard Bellaart writes that after the South African poet Sinclair Beiles died, in 2000, "a wealthy collector who owns the largest holding of Sinclair's manuscripts visited me" -- this was in 2008 -- "and assured me that he would sort out a proper gravesite. Seeing the grave now in the condition it is in makes my blood boil. I am grateful Gary is there." Gary Cummiskey, who with Bellaart has done more than anyone to memorialize Beiles, writes: "Sinclair’s grave continues to be unmarked. There is no headstone. The one you see in the photo [below] … [Read more...]
What a Beast!
“The Captain” is the best flick I’ve seen in years. If you need to read a review, you might as well read David Edelstein’s. My only demurral is that I see the setup as feral. He sees it as farcical. … [Read more...]
Old Misery at The Daily News
The decimation of The Daily News brings back memories of the two-and-a-half miserable years I worked there. I had been hired away from the Chicago Sun-Times, where I'd spent happy times during the early 1980s -- actually thrilling years -- before Rupert Murdoch bought it. To my ridiculously innocent surprise I discovered that a NYC tabloid by contrast could be a back-stabbing horror of a place to work, especially if you've been enlisted as some kind of out-of-town star to write fancy Sunday features about Hollywood movies and Broadway theater. … [Read more...]
Loose Screws in Politics
Mike Ferguson's permutation poem makes a whole lot of sense. It is also a reminder of the influence of Brion Gysin, who set the template for permutation poems back in the 1960s. Brion Gysin Let the Mice In includes texts by Gysin, William S. Burroughs, and Ian Sommerville. It is an expensive collector's item these days. The German publisher Moloko Plus has offered to bring out a facsimile edition for interested readers at an affordable price. … [Read more...]
Courage
Click each image to enlarge. "Corragio" -- My old friend said. / And then he put / the gun to his head. / That's what it took / to blunt the pain / with a hunk of lead. / It's no walk in the park. / The night is cold, / and my friend is dead. … [Read more...]
Two Ways of Looking at a Poem
No shore receives them. / All the portents dog their ride. / Their bodies sink in rough seas. We surf on a gentle tide. / The shore awaits us. / No portents dog our ride. … [Read more...]
Weinstein’s Rehab Reading
"Harvey Weinstein entered New York State Supreme Court yesterday clutching a copy of A Talent for Trouble. Was Weinstein looking for someone to teach him about being a mensch?" -- Leon Freilich He walked to the courthouse with a copy of "A Talent for Trouble," the 1997 biography of "Ben-Hur" film director William Wyler, according to CNN. -- AM NY (July 10, 2018) My own thought: What did Willy do to deserve this? … [Read more...]
NNOI Festival = 90% Water
Living organisms are gathering near the old water mill in Groswaltersdorf, 70 kilometers north of Berlin. NNOI Festival 2018 July 12 -- Crossposted at IT: International Times, The Newspaper of Resistance. … [Read more...]
‘… I floated by Daylight Donuts …’
Driving down 68 today the old van rose up a / few feet and flew into a windless corridor / and only then did I realize it had something / to do with you. / It was similar to driving down the road / but the fact that the tires were not touching the / ground sort of got my attention. / I floated by Daylight Donuts / and Supersaver. / I soundlessly whooshed by / ABC Locksmiths and Wendy's ... Click to enlarge for reading. And click again. … [Read more...]
Delicate Ghosts
Almost 70 years ago in Prospect Park where the future waited like a whim my childhood slipped through. You held me with my arms around your neck. The carousel goes round with our delicate ghosts like shadows on a scrim. The terrible wind that carries us off has not blown them away. I smell the popcorn. I hear the barrel organ. --JH … [Read more...]
Your Obituary Is Waiting
(for Philip Larkin) My ego prefers an obit published by the NY Times. But anywhere else will do, even etched into a headstone that nobody reads in a cemetery where nobody ever goes. I don't know why I care, but I do. I don't know why anyone should care, but it’s the custom to. —JH … [Read more...]
Celebrating Carl Weissner, Buk, and Burroughs
They say Berlin is the place to be. Since I can't be there myself, here's the next best thing . . . This is the Maher-Mähler film about Carl that will be screened as part of the celebration: Always These Nightmares! Toward the end of his life Carl was a writer on a rampage. He wrote three books — one in English, Death in Paris, which he described as “Doomsday Lit,” and two in German, Manhattan Muffdiver and Die Abenteuer von Trashman, whose biting satirical humor he called “vulgo-cynicism.” All three … [Read more...]
When Language Is Incorrect
Mokusatsu Asked what he’d do first if called upon to rule a nation Confucius replied, “I’d correct language. If language isn’t correct Then what is said is not what’s meant And what ought to be done remains undone. Morals and art deteriorate And justice goes astray – And if justice should disappear Then people will stand about in helpless confusion. So there must be no arbitrariness in what’s said. It matters above everything.” Asked to surrender in World War II The Japanese used the word ‘mokusatsu’ In their response to an … [Read more...]
The Nature of the Beast
Furthermore . . . “As Matisse noted, black is a colour too & in certain hands the superior one.” -- Gerard Bellaart … [Read more...]