![Cast of GB by Peter Burke [Courtesy Osborne Samuel]/](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/GERARD-NEW-YEAR-CARD426-200x200.jpg)
The Cold Turkey Press card for the New Year bears the Latin words that Balzac saw on a monk’s cell and took for his own motto. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Archives for December 2014
Consumer Poem for the Occasion: A Global Love Bomb
The wisdom of the words, the wit of the montage — to say nothing of the pitch-perfect narration — make “True Love in the Impossible Emporium” a media keeper for this holiday season and all the ones to come. Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. The poem, which begins like this, […]
But W.’s Name Is Missing From the List
This day should not pass without acknowledging the lead editorial in this morning’s New York Times: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses. It points out, among other things, that Any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and […]
Leonardo’s Notebooks: Seeing Him in His Drawings
![Notebook Drawing of a Fetus [Leonardo da Vinci]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/fetus-davinci260-200x200.jpg)
The opening of the new 3-D flick “Inside the Mind of Leonardo da Vinci” grabbed me right from the start and had nothing to do with its “stereoscopic” quality. We follow a librarian on a winding trail to the vault at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, Italy, where the drawings in Leonardo’s notebook collection, the […]
Art in Disguise: A Koons or Not a Koons?
I see in a report from Paris that someone is threatening to sue Jeff Koons for copyright infringement over his depiction of a pig and seminude mannequin. Koons has been accused of infringment before, three times successfully. He has also accused others of copyright violation of his balloon dog. Here in New York I was […]
Incidental Intelligence: A Portrait of William Burroughs
I once asked Nelson Algren what he thought of Naked Lunch. He grinned at me, as though he were being entertained by a wiseguy. I knew he had no love for the Beats. He had derided Jack Kerouac as a momma’s boy and dismissed Allen Ginsberg as a publicist. So his answer surprised me: “Burroughs […]
Music Theater: ‘Street Scene for the Last Mad Soprano’
This performance was recorded in Taos, New Mexico, in September 2014. The piece had its world premiere in Germany at Theater K-9, in Konstanz, in 1996. Abbie Conant, Soprano & Trombone / William Osborne, Music Text and Video From William Osborne’s brief description: Imagine a singer living among the dumpsters behind the Met. Tomorrow is […]
C.I.A. Refutes Torture Report, Tells Us: ‘Lick That Boot’
Our objection to the C.I.A.’s defiant pushback is best expressed by Norman O. Mustill’s collage, because words will not suffice. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Last Call for the Burroughs Cut/Up Show
The materials in this centenary exhibition are drawn from Emory University’s Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a collection of rare books, chapbooks, little magazines, journals, broadsides, audio recordings, manuscripts, and visual art from all over the world. Assembled by collector Raymond Danowski over 25 years, the collection is thought to have been the largest poetry library […]
Everyone Is Thinking About the Cops
Aw gee! David Brooks says “not enough attention is being paid to the emotional and psychological challenges of being a cop.” Such fragile flowers they are. I recall that William Burroughs gave it some thought back in 1968 when Flower Power was in bloom: “The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to […]
Cody Maher: ‘Another Day at the Office’
So it’s back to the grind, which is absurd but apparently necessary for the GDP. Here’s something to chew on besides the turkey leftovers: Subject I He appeared in our office dressed in uniform. He was asking us to believe that he had ever fought for anything in his life. The uniform didn’t go with […]