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‘The Green Man Is a Green Terrorist’

Click for the video to listen and watch. 'The Green Man' by Heathcote Williams. Montage and narration by Alan Cox.

My blog staff of thousands didn't have to do much to persuade me that Heathcote Williams's newest dissident poem, a rhymed marvel of CAT-scan clarity, will be seen one day as a YouTube classic. Here are the opening lines transcribed from the video in four-line stanzas: Tangled vegetation sprouts from each orifice From his mouth, his nose, and his ears Signifying the creature's urge to merge with nature And rouse inhumanity's darker fears. He's Dionysus dancing drunk around maypoles He's Pan stamping a cleft foot on the ground To … [Read more...]

‘Throws Up Words’

'throws up words 2' © 2005 by Gerard Bellaart.

These two stenciled texts by Gerard Bellaart are from a series of more than 500 created in 2005. Bellaart is a Dutch artist and writer, now living in France. He creates etchings, drawings, paintings and monotypes of figures, landscapes, and still lifes, as well as works strictly from the imagination. He notes that he employs a variety of techniques & materials, including oil paint, tempera, charcoal, ink. The selection of work on his website comprises a small fraction of his output between 1998 and 2011. He writes that "a more … [Read more...]

Selling the Earth … ‘No Return, No Exchange’

Straight Up   Herman   Selling the Earth … ‘No Return  No Exchange’

A poem by Heathcote Williams, narration and montage by Alan Cox. The print edition of Selling the Earth is coming soon from Cold Turkey Press. The poem begins: After someone had sold their virginity on the Internet And made a hundred thousand pounds, Another entrepreneur would decide that he’d try To put Planet Earth itself up for sale. His website describes the Earth as “authentic”, and “used” He says it’s to go under the hammer at Yahoo Auction, Japan. And adds that the Earth has been gifted to its seller … [Read more...]

Way Ahead of My Time in 1969

Ben Shot's Sea Urchin Editions does me proud.

Where would the blogworld be without blogger self-promotion? So indulge me. Anneke Auer, webmaster for Rotterdam-based Sea Urchin Editions, has designed a classy presentation of General Municipal Election, a "collectible" action-art book of mine. I published it in San Francisco way back in '69 under the Nova Broadcast imprint. Ben Schot, the artist who founded Sea Urchin, calls Nova B "legendary," which is more than fine with me. He has a limited stock of GMEs for sale, both signed and unsigned copies. Need I say more? … [Read more...]

Carl Weissner, Cherished by Friends and Colleagues

Memorial for Carl Weissner to be held in Mannheim on Feb. 10. [Announcement & photo by Signe Mahler.]

It was a year ago today that I began posting tributes to Carl Weissner (1940-2012), whose unexpected death last January came as a shock. My own words went up with a photo and funeral announcement by the filmmaker Signe Mähler, another of his friends. The poet and performance artist William Cody Maher, the journalist and author Matthias Penzel, the author and literary accomplice Jürgen Ploog, all sent tributes of sorrow and praise. That only scratched the surface of an outpouring in newspapers, magazines, and blogs, largely in Germany, … [Read more...]

Algren on Learning to Write by Way of Academia

Advertisement in The New Yorker

I noticed an ad in the current issue of The New Yorker for the Yale Writers' Conference to be held this coming June. Since a bunch of us have been talking about Nelson Algren, the ad couldn't help reminding me of his essay "Hand in Hand Through the Greenery," published in The Last Carousel back in 1973. It was Algren's take on the most celebrated creative writing programs around at the time. The essay begins like this: "Dear Mr. Algren," a young woman writes from Wheaton (Ill.) College, 'I am a freshman and am standing on the threshold … [Read more...]

The Algren I Knew Was No Loser

Flyer for Second City tribute to Nelson Algren

Taking nothing away from the brilliance of Colin Asher's biographical essay on Nelson Algren, or my admiration for it, I have a mild but serious objection. I intended to post this earlier but didnt have the time. Now I do. The subhead on the essay calls Algren "the type of loser this country just can't stomach." It's absolutely true the country couldn't stomach him. But to call him a loser is not only untrue, it is an insult. The Nelson I knew may have been a lousy poker player, and he may have lost plenty of skirmishes with the … [Read more...]

‘tric trac du ciel’

'tric-trac-du-ciel' by Gerard Bellaart

This is a stenciled text by Gerard Bellaart, from a series of more than 500 created in 2005. Bellaart is a Dutch artist and writer, now living in France. He creates etchings, drawings, paintings and monotypes of figures, landscapes, and still lifes, as well as works strictly from the imagination. He notes that he employs a variety of techniques & materials, including oil paint, tempera, charcoal, ink. The selection of work on his website comprises a small fraction of his output between 1998 and 2011. He writes that "a more extensive … [Read more...]

Algren Gets What He Deserves from Colin Asher

I'm happy to report that Colin Asher's smart biographical essay on Nelson Algren in The Believer is the best I've ever read. I'm also glad I made an unacknowledged contribution, one nearly verbatim. Though small, it reminds me that words have a life of their own, regardless of who wrote them. Postscript: I finally found time to post a further comment on Asher's essay. … [Read more...]

VDRSVP #2 for Old Times’ Sake

VDRSVP #3, eds. Jan Herman & Norman O. Mustill [San Francisco, 1969]

Now that my venereal staff of thousands has managed to get its shabby act together for VDRSVP #1, I'll be posting info about the contents of this issue as soon as possible. … [Read more...]

‘Harry Patch: Anti War Hero’

If journalism is the first draft of history, Heathcote Williams's poetry is the CAT scan. Text by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. … [Read more...]

VDRSVP #1 for Old Times’ Sake

VDRSVP #1 [1969] eds. Jan Herman & Norman O. Mustill

I'll be posting info about the contents as soon as my venereal staff of thousands manages to get its shabby act together. But first things first: What a great title. Second things first: VDRSVP #2 and #3 are coming too. Postscript: Jan. 9 -- The staff finally woke up. Here are the contents of VDRSVP #1. FRONT PAGE Ticker running across the top:+ SAN FRANCISCO / ATHENS / NEW YORK / MANNHEIM / LONDON + TIME / 12:46 + SAMOA / NOME / MIDWAY / DEDUCT 6 HRS + WEATHER / SOFT +Above the fold, left to right: "The Story of Scroloboulopouos" by … [Read more...]

La Môme et de Rouge

"La Mome et de Rouge" [front cover of four-page folio of the published poem, COLD TURKEY PRESS, 2011].

Date: April 26, 2012 11:43:35 AM GMT+02:00 Had a message from Marianne Faithfull . . .. . . 'Isn't it time you wrote me another song?' I said 'What do you want it to be about?'she said she'd been reading a book about Edith Piaf and was gripped by it.I said I'd have a look. Attach result.-- Heathcote Williams (to Gerard Bellaart, publisher of Cold Turkey Press) "Lovers," Piaf said proudly, "now go to bed with my songs, Parisians make love to Piaf when they wish. But since Paris is making love more than once in a night I have to keep … [Read more...]

2013 Begins … Let It ‘ROT NOT’

In his etchings, drawings, paintings, monotypes, Bellaart employs a variety of techniques & materials including oil paint, tempera, charcoal, ink. Supports include handmade paper, canvas & panel.

+++ "For me all is uncertain at all times." -- Gerard Bellaart +++ I'm a sucker for Bellaart's word-image artworks. 'ROT NOT' is one in a series of more than 500 created between April and December of 2005. Some of the images are included in 'Fragmentations,' a collection of Bellaart's visual works published by Cold Turkey Press. Others, this one among them, are included in Cold Turkey Press's Cloaca Maxima series. The actual sizes vary from about 19"/26" to 28"/39". … [Read more...]

We Get New Year’s Cards … This One, for Example

2013_new-year

And this: … [Read more...]

Fresh From My Hot Little Paws

'Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me' by Malcolm Mc Neill [Fantagraphics, 2012]

A review posted at RealityStudio of Malcolm Mc Neill's spellbinding memoir, Observed While Falling, recently published by Fantagraphics Books, about his relationship with William S. Burroughs and their artistic collaboration. Mc Neill is an artist who can write. Really write. He brings a fresh analytical eye to the familiar Burroughsian fixations — synchronicity and doppelgangers, control systems, the word as virus, the number 23 — that dominate the memoir, while still offering a straightforward chronicle of the author’s relationship … [Read more...]

‘Shelley at Oxford,’ a Timely Polemic for Christmas

A second edition is now available from Huxley Scientific Press. CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER.

Written by Heathcote Williams, montaged and narrated by Alan Cox, it has just arrived on YouTube and begins like this ... In Oxford High Street, in 1810, Slatter & Munday’s Bookshop Had a large, bow-fronted window For displaying their latest wares. Aged 19, Shelley flooded it with a pamphlet On ‘The Necessity Of Atheism’. Which he could only get printed in Worthing Since no one in Oxford would touch it. Listen here: The narration comes in seven posts, continuing like this ... At Oxford Shelley wore his hair in … [Read more...]

‘Drawing Surrealism’: Arriving Soon at the Morgan

Picabia "Olga"

Somebody at the Morgan Library and Museum knows how to tout an upcoming show. Certainly the Morgan knows how to promote a press release, let alone how to have it written. Or maybe it's a work product of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the show being touted -- Drawing Surrealism -- has been on view since October. Either way, or both ways, it sounds like a great exhibition. ++ Drawing Surrealism ++ January 25 – April 21, 2013 New York, NY, December 14, 2012 -- Few artistic movements of the twentieth century are as … [Read more...]

Who Is Heathcote Williams? Not for Sale, That’s Who

Heathcote Williams, in "Wet Dreams" [1974]

"He is one of a few of genius who did not sell out and who peaks in (relative) old age. That’s quite something nowadays." -- Gerard Bellaart +++ "Fame is the first disgrace because God knows who you are." -- Heathcote Williams, "The Local Stigmatic" +++ The videos comprise Parts 1 and 2 of a semi-sendup documentary from Channel 4, "Every Time I Cross the Tamar, I Get into Trouble." It was broadcast in 1993 as an account of some of Heathcote Williams's work and Al Pacino's obsession with his writing, and includes an interview … [Read more...]

Heathcote Williams on the Real American President

Narration and montage by Alan Cox. Musical accents by Louis Armstrong. … [Read more...]

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