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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for June 2015

A Spanking New German Edition of ‘Royal Babylon’

June 30, 2015 by Jan Herman

'Die Wiindsors Eine Schrecklich Nette Familie' Royal Babylon [Westend, 2015]

And now if you just care to look this way … it’s bi-lingual, too. The dark side of the English royal family From the publisher: Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II is the largest landowner in the world? She owns 10 times more land than the recently deceased King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The […]

Beat Scene Magazine Eyeballs ‘American Porn’

June 29, 2015 by Jan Herman

Review of 'AmericanPorn' by Michael Kearns in Beat Scene (winter issue, 2015)

My staff of thousands tells me that “American Porn” was reviewed in Beat Scene, a British magazine edited by Kevin Ring. That was news to me. Here’s the review: The staff wanted to know what I thought of the review. I said I liked what the reviewer said about the poet: “Heathcote Williams is a […]

Tanguy’s Priapic Drawings (and More) at Art Basel, 2015

June 21, 2015 by Jan Herman

Ives Tanguy drawing [photo: Udo Breger]

Spurt. Spurt. And that’s not all … EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Bellaart Paints Homage to Yves Tanguy

June 17, 2015 by Jan Herman

Gerard Bellaart's 'Colle de St Tanguy' (2015) [oil on canvas 122x122 cm]

Oil on canvas by Gerard Bellaart (left). Drawing by Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró, Max Morise, and Man Ray (below). Postscript: June 19 — The work of Gerard Bellaart is a continuous esoteric sub-form of question-and-answer via images. A facetious confession of being, not in the existential sense of painting and sketching, but rather through asymmetry […]

‘The Multimillionaire Arms Dealer — By Appointment’

June 15, 2015 by Jan Herman

Illustration by Elena Caldera

A new poem by Heathcote Williams, posted at IT: International Times, begins like this: There’s no difference between being an arms dealer And being a wanted war criminal. Although you don’t have to get your hands bloody The results are equally abhorrent. But arms dealing will suit anyone used to gracious living In one dinosaur […]

The Prison Memoir That Caught Algren’s Attention

June 10, 2015 by Jan Herman

'A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons,' by Malcolm Braly [1976]

Not long before the recent prison escape that’s been making news, I mentioned to Colin Asher, who is writing a biography of Nelson Algren, that Algren once gave me a copy of Malcolm Braly’s prison memoir. Braly recounts how he broke out of prison one time early in his career as a convicted teenage burglar. […]

Carl Weissner Gets Stellar Notice in Book Podcast

June 8, 2015 by Jan Herman

Carl Weissner [Photo by Michael Montfort, 19XX, from 'Nachtmaschine']

In his latest podcast at realitystudio.org Jed Birmingham zeroes in on the immensely talented Carl Weissner and his cut-up novel The Braille Film. Birmingham, who met Weissner in New York and Paris, talks about what made him so memorable and how he bought the book at auction some years ago for $75, believing it and […]

Of Poetry and Fakery, Cultural Theft, and Stolen Identity

June 3, 2015 by Jan Herman

Heathcote Williams [photo: JH]

The title of Heathcote Williams’s memoir, Of Dylan Thomas and his Deaths, reflects the author’s belief that the great Welsh poet died not once but twice. He writes, “It can be said that he was to suffer no less than two deaths at American hands.” The first death, contrary to the accepted claim that he […]

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

My Books

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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