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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for March 2013

N.O. Mustill’s ‘Critic’ Lowers the Boom, Whimsically

March 29, 2013 by Jan Herman

© 1971 by Norman O. Mustill

If I said I put him in a class with the great collagists dating back through the 20th century (like Hausmann, Heartfield, or Höch) — which I do — he’d laugh at the presumption. But anyone who has seen Flypaper, his book of demonic collages in black and white, or the huge collages in blazing […]

‘Peter Bayliss and the Breatharians’

March 22, 2013 by Jan Herman

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 […]

Iraq Invasion Time Capsule: March Madness Redux

March 19, 2013 by Jan Herman

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 […]

Kid Congo & The Pink Monkeybirds: ‘Conjure Man’

March 18, 2013 by Jan Herman

I think of it as “Four Notes and the Dreamachine.” EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

MacFadyen Takes ‘Front Porch’ Look at Burroughs

March 16, 2013 by Jan Herman

Detail of shot canvas [Photo: Eric Andersen]

I knew when RealityStudio posted Ian MacFadyen’s review of “The Name Is Burroughs: expanded media at the ZKM, Karlsruhe” that it would be a major critique. I had already read his “Codename Burroughs,” the pamphlet that accompanied the retrospective, which was excerpted from a more complete text in MacFadyen’s book, William S. Burroughs. Cut. With […]

Now for Something from the Lookalikes Department

March 15, 2013 by Jan Herman

'A Study of His Majesty' by Ben Schot

Ben Schot’s drawing, “Study of Majesty” — executed on the stationary of LES FREGATES Hotel **NN Restaurant, which the Dutch artist uses as a “conceptual constant” for all his drawings — was not separated at birth from Picasso’s “She-Goat.” But they look a helluva lot like fraternal twins. I’d say they make a lecherous brother […]

Red Factory Newspaper, Zurich, Special Issue

March 13, 2013 by Jan Herman

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. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

More from the Comparative Obscenities Department

March 13, 2013 by Jan Herman

And here’s a Topor bonus. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

From the ‘Let Us Compare Obscenities’ Department

March 13, 2013 by Jan Herman

'Con-de-fee' by Topor

The other day a call went out for “comparative obscenities” to add to the literary examples by Bukowski and Catullus. One reader obliged by sending a drawing by Topor, whom he regards as a “sheer genius.” Straight Up’s staff of thousands agrees and decided to pair Topor’s drawing with one of Tomi Ungerer‘s. (And here’s […]

Bukowski & Catullus: Let Us Compare Obscenities

March 10, 2013 by Jan Herman

Charles Bukowski [1920 - 1994]

The other day a friend of mine said, “I’m not sure a living human has written a good poem since Bukowski died.” His all-time Buk favorite is “The Best Love Poem I Can Write at the Moment.” Coincidentally, I came across a review by Michael Hinds of The FBI’s Obscene File: J. Edgar Hoover and […]

Still Hidden in Plain Sight, a Reminder of Old Times

March 7, 2013 by Jan Herman

Two news stories — an “exclusive” in The Guardian (“Revealed: Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres”) and a front-pager in The New York Times (“C.I.A.’s History Poses Hurdles for an Obama Nominee”) — are reminders that more than seven years ago Straight Up’s staff of thousands was onto the story about the American strategy to […]

‘Artaud Fragmentations’

March 6, 2013 by Jan Herman

Gerard Bellaart's 'Artaud Fragmentations' [2005]

And now for another kind of poem, as unlike “Death Is a Wind That Will Carry You Off” as day from night. It’s part of a large series of stenciled texts by the Dutch artist and writer Gerard Bellaart. At the urging of my staff of thousands, examples from Bellaart’s word-based series of artworks have […]

‘Death Is a Wind That Will Carry You Off’

March 2, 2013 by Jan Herman

Abbie Conant

This poem is not intended as a companion piece to “Music for the End of Time.” The tone is entirely different, not at all apocalyptic. But it covers the same or similar ground, and I can’t help thinking that the difference in treatment is a merely a matter of temperament. Which is enough: Death is […]

‘Music for the End of Time’

March 1, 2013 by Jan Herman

Excerpted from the complete 52-minute work for trombone, video and quadraphonic electronics. Based on the Book of Revelation, the music had its premiere in Montreal, at McGill University, in March 1998. The video was premiered in Taos, New Mexico, in September 2007. Personnel: Abbie Conant, trombone; Norbert Bach, digital stills; William Osborne, music and video. […]

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.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

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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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