Being a serious writer hardly means leading the life of a saint. In 1951, in Mexico City, long before the publication of Naked Lunch, which made him famous, William S. Burroughs accidentally shot and killed his common-law wife Joan Vollmer in a drunken stunt. He was trying to prove his marksmanship William Tell-style. Instead of […]
Archives for January 2015
In Memory: Carl Weissner, So Rudely Interrupted
![Carl Weissner [Photo by Michael Montfort, 19XX, from 'Nachtmaschine']](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/PORTRAIT-OF-CARL-BY-MONTFORT-NACHTMASCHIN220-copy.png)
Carl died unexpectedly three years ago today. On the first anniversary of his death, I posted a tribute from friends and others. Here’s a photo from a trip he took to Marseille, where he was gathering impressions for a novel he wanted to write, which wasn’t all that long before he died. His absence among […]
Kick That Habit? Bellaart Does Burroughs
![Drawing of William Burroughs [Gerard Bellaart, 2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/JH-BURROUGHS-recto375-200x200.jpg)
This pencil drawing of William S. Burroughs by Gerard Bellaart is one of two portraits. It’s the introspective Burroughs. The other drawing, a charcoal sketch to be posted soon, catches Burroughs in a wholly different state of mind, as if possessed by the Ugly Spirit that Burroughs believed had dogged him throughout his life. The […]
Beckett But Not Beckett: ‘Being Human’
It begins in blackness with whispers. Jumps to a face with eyes closed. The eyes open. Words form: “I was almost human. But then something went wrong. I was a human being. But then I became a victim. I was almost a human being but then I ran out of time.” I wish I could […]
About That Remarkable Surge for Charlie
I’ve noticed that the “Je suis Charlie” phenomenon has come in for rightwing contempt. The argument goes that it’s self-righteous to claim you stand with the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo when all you do is gather in the street and carry signs. There’s some truth to that, especially when it comes to politicians. But I’ve […]
Posting a Cold Turkey Card While Paris Burns
![JE M'AMUSE [Cold Turkey Press, 2015]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/X-Cold-Turkey-jemamuse-front-200x200.png)
By way of explanation, I was occupied searching for word pattern. Found a rangy young man whose authority was roughly 50 words retyped in columns from the beginning more habit-forming than his life. He hunkered across the columns and typed them again. Undsoweiter … And now for R. Crumb’s pièce de résistance: EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
‘Death in Paris’ Struck Prescient Note
Apropos today’s headline about the hacked U.S. CENTCOM Twitter Account . . . a friend was looking over our late amigo Carl Weissner’s “Doomsday Lit” novel Death in Paris. Boy, is that title apt. Not to mention the chapter headings. How about this one? >im in ur base killin ur d00dz
We Are All Charlie Now
As many as 100,000 people gathered across France, according to Agence France-Presse. The crowds expressed their solidarity against the Charlie Hebdo attack. At least 35,000 Parisians, by one estimate, gathered at La Place de la République. They were silent at first, then began to sing: “Charlie! Charlie!” “We are Charlie!” “Free expression!” Cartoonists are having […]