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Richard Feynman’s ‘Ode to a Flower’

May 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
feynman's flower

The Guardian posted a tribute to a bongo-playing physicist the other day, with the subhed "Flowers, music, strip clubs...Richard Feynman's scientific curiosity knew no bounds." Linked to a cute cartoon video based on a 1981 BBC documentary, it gives a sense of the man as a fabulous paradox. Which is perfectly illustrated in the video by Feynman's gravelly voiceover. Speaking with a heavy New Yawk accent that tells us he's a streetwise city boy through and through, the Nobel laureate extolls "the wonders of science contained within a simple … [Read more...]

05/20/13 1:41 PM | filed under: Media |

Can a Royal Party Boy Really Change His Stripes?

May 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

So how do you, in the words of Heathcote Williams, "turn a plutocratic oaf into a lovable national treasure instead of a casually racist and unthinking parasite"? With difficulty. Unless you can get the press behind you and send Prince Harry on an American tour. Trouble is, during Harry's former deployment in Afghanistan, as Williams points out in the video posted by "Stop the War Coalition," the so-called warrior prince slaughtered 34 Afghanis in a remote control air attack and was "then thought to have boasted of it" at a London night … [Read more...]

05/17/13 2:56 PM | filed under: Media, political culture |

Unbuttoned: Samuel Beckett Meets William Osborne

May 16, 2013 by 3 Comments
Samuel Beckett

I knew my friend Bill Osborne and Samuel Beckett had met and spoken about Osborne's musical settings of Beckett's plays. But I had never heard the details. Now at last the full story! By William Osborne I spent seven years doing nothing else but setting the works of Beckett to music. At the end in 1987, I gathered up all the scores and some recordings of them I had, and dropped them into the mail box of his Paris apartment. I knew he was a recluse and a bit of a misanthrope. I figured I would never hear from him and just forgot about it. … [Read more...]

05/16/13 9:53 AM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media, Music |

‘Sacred Elephant’ Is Coming to New York’s La MaMa

April 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
'Sacred Elephant' by Heathcote Williams [Naxos]. Read, unabridged, by the author.

I haven't seen much theater lately, for reasons I may already have mentioned -- so much is dull dull dull -- but the dramatization of Heathcote Williams's epic poem, "Sacred Elephant," has got my attention as nothing has in years. The show, not yet officially announced, is coming in September to La MaMa's First Floor Theatre on Manhattan's Lower East Side. It is to star Jeremy Crutchley, reprising an acclaimed solo performance, which originated last year in Cape Town, South Africa. "Sacred Elephant" is the second of four epic poems that … [Read more...]

04/29/13 1:02 PM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media, News, political culture |

‘Gossip Column’ Cut-Up by Rooney & Beiles

April 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
'GOSSIP COLUMN' a cut-up by Annie Rooney and Sinclair Beiles

Found in a drawer 44 years later. Still funny, too. And maybe you'll recognize the references. Click the photos if you don't know who they are. I almost forgot Dick Rover. … [Read more...]

04/12/13 4:02 PM | filed under: Literature, Media |

Death of a Mensch, Roger Ebert, R.I.P.

April 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Once Upon a Time at the Chicago Sun-Times

Rick Kogan has written a fine obituary, "A film critic with the soul of a poet," with a beautiful lede: It was reviewing movies that made Roger Ebert as famous and wealthy as many of the stars who felt the sting or caress of his pen or were the recipients of his televised thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgments. But in words and in life he displayed the soul of a poet whose passions and interests extended far beyond the darkened theaters where he spent so much of his professional life. Kogan, at the Chicago Tribune for many years now, used … [Read more...]

04/5/13 11:39 AM | filed under: Media, Movies |

‘Peter Bayliss and the Breatharians’

March 22, 2013 by 1 Comment
Peter Bayliss

The obituary in The Telegraph, in 2002, said: "He wanted no memorial, but his near-lunatic appetite for life will be impossible to forget." The poet Heathcote Williams certainly remembers Peter Bayliss. He remembers, too, "the Bayliss Mischief" that "might still be working / From beyond the grave." Here given their due are the vaunted philanthropic celebrities of our time (Karl Marx aside), memorialized for their various hypocrisies: Bill Gates, Princess Diana, Prince Charles, Mother Theresa, Lady Gaga, Bob Geldof, not to mention the … [Read more...]

03/22/13 10:09 AM | filed under: Literature, Media, political culture |

Iraq Invasion Time Capsule: March Madness Redux

March 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This is the week to remember the "The Ides of March, 2003." Can't let it pass without recalling what I posted at the time on MSNBC.com, links included. (Miracle of miracles, many still work). Looking back, I see the posts are very tame. I tried not to be, but I knew I could go only so far. Most of the stuff did not sit well with certain company-minded bosses to whom I reported. I was never asked to take a particular point of view, but I was called on the carpet for the viewpoint I took. They wanted me to stick strictly to entertainment … [Read more...]

03/19/13 10:30 AM | filed under: Media, political culture |

Kid Congo & The Pink Monkeybirds: ‘Conjure Man’

March 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I think of it as "Four Notes and the Dreamachine." … [Read more...]

03/18/13 12:29 PM | filed under: Art, Media, Music |

Red Factory Newspaper, Zurich, Special Issue

March 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Rote Fabrikzeitung, Special Issue in Memory of Carl Weissner [March 6, 2013] Click to download the complete issue.

Click to download a PDF of the complete issue. It's in German and English. … [Read more...]

03/13/13 10:56 PM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media |

Raw Data: Armed Drone Prototype

February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Early armed-drone prototype of World War II vintage.

This comes from Norman O. Mustill's "raw data" pile. It appeared during World War II in an ad for Good Housekeeping Magazine, warning against "A Dictator's Newest Dream." According to the text that accompanied the ad, "The army has specified that it must be able to carry 4 soldiers with full equipment or a machinegun and crew." It did not come with seat belts and did not get the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. … [Read more...]

02/25/13 2:53 PM | filed under: Art, Media, political culture |

‘Democracy Now!’: Riveting Look at the Terror Courts

February 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
guantanamo

Wall Street Journal journalist Jess Bravin reports on the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo. Describing it as “the most important legal story in decades,” Bravin uncovers how the Bush administration quickly drew up an alternative legal system to try men captured abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon evidence obtained by torture was being used to prosecute prisoners, but some military officers refused to take part. We speak to Jess Bravin, author of "The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantánamo Bay,” and to Lt. Col. … [Read more...]

02/22/13 11:55 AM | filed under: Media, political culture |

Unbeatable Sinclair Beiles Tells It As It Was

February 15, 2013 by 2 Comments

He talks about William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Tangiers, the Villa Deliria, the Thousand and One Nights, Naked Lunch, cut-ups, Minutes to Go, the Beat Hotel, Jean Fanchette, Ian Sommerville, the Dream Machine. It's an unbeatable discovery. Gary Cummiskey, co-editor of Who Was Sinclair Beiles? and the publisher of Dye Hard Press, tipped me to this hidden treasure, which he has also posted on his blog. In an email message, he writes: "It was filmed by some chap who was visiting South Africa at the time [1994] – there were two previous … [Read more...]

02/15/13 7:44 AM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media |

‘The Green Man Is a Green Terrorist’

February 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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...]

02/1/13 12:16 PM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media, political culture |

Selling the Earth … ‘No Return, No Exchange’

January 28, 2013 by 1 Comment
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...]

01/28/13 10:19 PM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media |

Way Ahead of My Time in 1969

January 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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...]

01/28/13 8:15 PM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media, political culture |

‘Harry Patch: Anti War Hero’

January 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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...]

01/8/13 11:20 AM | filed under: Literature, Media, political culture |

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

December 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
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...]

12/12/12 9:16 PM | filed under: Literature, Media, Movies |

‘The Lord of the Drones and the White House Fly’

November 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment
© Nils Jorgensen / Rex Features

My staff of thousands reminds me there's an election coming up in the U.S. of A. For all the voters going to the polls, here's a poem to cheer them on by the British poet Heathcote Williams. Part two ... enter the realm of litrichur, narrated and montaged by Alan Cox. And here's part three, the coda. Listen and weep. Hooray for the U.S. of A. Postscript: Nov. 5 -- I regret kicking El Presidente, but he deserves it ... and Heathcote Williams lays it out so well. … [Read more...]

11/4/12 3:04 PM | filed under: Literature, Media, political culture |

Viral Reading

September 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Stoya shows the cover of Necrophilia Variations.

More than two million YouTube viewers have watched this woman read a book. Imagine that. The woman is Stoya, and she's a porn star. The book is Necrophilia Variations, described by its author as "a literary monograph on the erotic attraction to corpses and death." Nothing in the video is pornographic, not even the excerpt she reads. The video went up on Aug. 1. Within days it had gone viral. The author -- he goes by the name Supervert, and he's a friend of mine -- messaged on Aug. 4 that the video was "getting a bunch of play on … [Read more...]

09/3/12 10:39 AM | filed under: Art, Literature, Media |
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