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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for February 2005

BAD DAY IN DRESDEN

February 13, 2005 by cmackie

As thousands of neo-Nazis marched in Dresden, Germany, on the 60th anniversary of the allied bombing raids that destroyed the city during World War II, I was reminded of the honkey myopia that Bill Osborne warned about earlier this month. The marchers, “waving black flags and carrying banners,” were using today’s anniversary to claim that […]

‘THE GATES’: COLOR THEM PURPLE

February 13, 2005 by cmackie

For an opening-day news story about the “The Gates” in New York’s Central Park, you might as well read the London Guardian’s report, which offers a more than adequate overview. For an opening-day appraisal, you might as well read the front-page appraisal in The New York Times by art critic Michael Kimmelman, who spares no […]

DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL

February 13, 2005 by cmackie

Rigorous Intuition’s Jeff Gannon exposé is not to be missed. Thanks to James Wolcott’s Mystery Beefcake, I just read RI’s “Stirring the White House honey pot,” about Jim Guckert, a k a Jeff Gannon of suddenly defunct Talon-News.com, “a conservative ringer” who received White House press credentials and “lobbed softball questions” at Dear Leader in press briefings. […]

ARTHUR MILLER: FRONT AND CENTER

February 12, 2005 by cmackie

“I don’t know a critic who penetrates to the center of anything,” the late, great playwright Arthur Miller once said, according to his front-page obituary in The New York Times. But it would be hard to find a better understanding of what was central in Miller’s work than this morning’s appreciation, “A Morality That Stared […]

FRYING LYNNE STEWART

February 11, 2005 by cmackie

Lynne Stewart [Photo:AP]

By Jan Herman Americans less brave than Lynne Stewart — which, frankly, means the rest of us — are easily cowed. It doesn’t take much to scare the shit out of people. As William Burroughs once wrote, “anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death,” and Dear Leader owns the biggest frying pan […]

‘WRITER OF GENIUS’

February 11, 2005 by cmackie

PEN American Center President Salman Rushdie released the following statement this afternoon about Arthur Miller, who died Thursday at the age of 89: Arthur Miller was a writer of genius. He made plays with the grandeur and power of high tragedy, revealing what he called, in the opening stage directions of “Death of a Salesman,” […]

MESSAGE FROM BEYOND

February 10, 2005 by cmackie

For the record: From Name: Jim in TexasEmail Address: ———Comments: Noam Chomsky is a lying evil whore of Zarqawi’s murdering criminals and mass murdering lying tyrants like Fidel Castro, Kim Il Sung, and Saddam Hussein and we are going to send every last one of his leftwing Fascist thug’s to Hell. In a century from […]

DEAR LEADER’S FAITH IN DECEIT

February 9, 2005 by cmackie

The sane rationality of Noam Chomsky’s words and tone of voice offers a tonic to anyone who still has hopes for American idealism. Listening to him this morning on Democracy Now!, which broadcast a talk he gave recently in Santa Fe, N.M., I jotted down some notes. Chomsky, right, spoke about imperialism, Iraq, terrorism, pre-emptive […]

THE OTHER READING LIST

February 8, 2005 by cmackie

Matt Haber, in typical shallow fashion, has posted the titles of the other books on Georgie Boy’s reading list. Unlike the much-bruited “His Excellency: George Washington” by Joseph P. Ellis, “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow, the holy Bible, Tom Wolfe’s “I Am Charlotte Simmons” and (who could forget?) Natan Sharansky’s “The Case for Democracy” — […]

WITH LIBERTY AND RETRIBUTION FOR ALL

February 8, 2005 by cmackie

When a majority of American voters re-installed Georgie Boy in the White House, it signalled not just a callous affirmation of his criminal regime, or a foul disregard of human rights at home and abroad, but most of all an overarching moral hypocrisy. Well, it’s payback time for the majority’s willingness to look the other […]

INCOMING

February 7, 2005 by cmackie

“We just got wired into the system.” Is this the future? EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

WELCOME TO THE DARK AGES

February 4, 2005 by cmackie

From Brian Urquhart’s “Extreme Makeover” in The New York Review of Books: In his recent book on the Scottish Enlightenment James Buchan writes of Edinburgh in the early eighteenth century, “Men and women were coming to suspect that knowledge acquired through skepticism might be more useful in this world below than knowledge ‘revealed’ by scripture.” […]

IN DEFENSE OF CAROL REED

February 4, 2005 by cmackie

Carol Reed was “a passable journeyman who could sometimes push a story along.” So sayeth Christopher Byron in The Sunday Times of London, referred to earlier. Jan — After Hitchcock left to work for Selznick, Carol Reed was the best director in England, and made some excellent movies before he went to war — “Midshipman […]

LET US COMPARE MYTHOLOGIES

February 3, 2005 by cmackie

I don’t even want to think about the state of our banana nation, so with apologies to Leonard Cohen for borrowing the title of his first book of poetry, here’s a comparison of three news stories that appeared earlier this week in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post about […]

A JOYCEAN GROUNDHOG

February 2, 2005 by cmackie

Today is Groundhog Day and, as history has it, James Joyce‘s birthday. FINNEGANS BASH“Tell me now, then, is it your shadow,You’re seeking, Punxsutawney Phil?If so, you’d best be looking poorly,Else we’re stuck with the full winter’s drill.“Follow the modus op of that slackerFinnegan Seamus Patrick Dougherty(Who thumbed his nose at enslavement to duty)And hoist a […]

HONKY MYOPIA

February 2, 2005 by cmackie

Arts & Letters Daily is one of the Web’s great cultural boons. It is no more than a content aggregator, but its links provide some of the most intellectual articles for a general audience to read about literature, philosophy, history, sociology and science. I don’t mind that the site leans strongly to the libertarian right. […]

KEEPING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL

February 1, 2005 by cmackie

Dontcha just love it? PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) — The American Nazi Party has volunteered to pick up trash along a quiet stretch of rural road in Oregon state, causing an uproar after getting a sign placed there crediting its work. And they’ve got some fine little helpers. The sign, on a quiet stretch of road […]

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
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Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

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