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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for February 2013

Raw Data: Armed Drone Prototype

February 25, 2013 by Jan Herman

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 […]

Edith Piaf, ‘The Sound of Suffering Humanity’

February 22, 2013 by Jan Herman

La Môme et de Rouge, by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

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

February 22, 2013 by Jan Herman

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 […]

VDRSVP #3 for Old Times’ Sake

February 21, 2013 by Jan Herman

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

Someone told me he knew what RSVP stands for. But what did VDRSVP mean? “Black humor,” I said. No point giving away the joke. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’ in a Sexy Production from Zurich

February 20, 2013 by Jan Herman

Yes, Zurich. If this is Eurotrash, I’m all for it. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Damning Account of ‘Rough Justice’ at Guantanamo

February 19, 2013 by Jan Herman

'The Terror Courts' by Jess Bravin [Yale University Press, 2013]

Jess Bravin has a new book out, The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, just published by Yale University Press. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a damning, brave book by an author who is legitimately outraged by what he uncovered.” Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue: November 24, 2001. Around Noon. Checkpoints were common as […]

Three ‘Not Poems’ by Stephen Schneck

February 17, 2013 by Jan Herman

'The Nightclerk' by Stephen Schneck [Grove Press, 1965]

I remember meeting Stephen Schneck in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore, where I was clerking at the time. He had published The Nightclerk, which won the International Formentor Prize, and I was starting a “little” magazine. He offered three “Not Poems” for the first issue. His novel, translated into 12 languages but banned in […]

Unbeatable Sinclair Beiles Tells It As It Was

February 15, 2013 by Jan Herman

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 […]

Don’t Forget to Give a Box of Chocolates

February 14, 2013 by Jan Herman

There’s the Valentine Victorian. And then there’s the Valentine Mustillian. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Getting Personal, Too: ‘Being Kept by a Jackdaw’

February 11, 2013 by Jan Herman

Jack Daw and the Poet [Photo: Jacquetta Eliot]

My staff of thousands tells me that if I post any more poems by Heathcote Williams, I will be making a mockery of this blog’s stated purpose. I’m a small “d” democrat who rules Straight Up by popular consent, so I had to admit I’ve been banging on about his poems. But — with a […]

In Bone Hebrew, the White Kaffir Speaks

February 9, 2013 by Jan Herman

A long-awaited copy of Bone Hebrew from Cold Turkey Press showed up in my mailbox. The title is taken from Paul Celan. The cover is by Antonin Artaud. The poems are by Sinclair Beiles. Here are two of them: Asphyxiation They tried every kind of gas on him. none of them would work. nothing would […]

They Called Him ‘Mister Mooch’

February 8, 2013 by Jan Herman

An elegy on film for Carl Weissner … … by Signe Mähler and Cody Maher. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

‘The Green Man Is a Green Terrorist’

February 1, 2013 by Jan Herman

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, […]

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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