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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Archives for August 2015

Whose Side Are They On? Not Nelson Algren’s

August 31, 2015 by Jan Herman

New York Times headline (8-19-2015)

It doesn’t take much for headline writers, editorialists, reporters, columnists, sports writers, what have you, to grab the reader’s attention with a catchy phrase. Some phrases have become such favorites that you see them used over and over. But I would bet that in plenty of cases the journalists who make use of them don’t […]

‘Plato’s Frogs’: A Long Way from ‘Saturday Night Live’

August 30, 2015 by Jan Herman

SNL-Malcolm McNeill-Storyboard

In 1984 Malcolm Mc Neill won an Emmy for “outstanding graphics and title design” for the opening title sequence of “Saturday Night Live,” which he conceived, designed, and art directed. Here’s his storyboard: Thirty years later, contemplating a famous passage in the “Phaedo,” Mc Neill made “Plato’s Frogs.” I have not asked him about it. […]

Islam’s Pashtun Warrior for Peace: Badshah Khan

August 25, 2015 by Jan Herman

Abdul Badshah Ghaffar Khan

Heathcote Williams is not a Muslim and finds the Koran “about as enjoyable as eating gravel.” But his belief in, and devotion to, the “Muslim Ghandi” led him to write a book-length investigative poem Badshah Khan: Islamic Peace Warrior, published in June by the London-based Thin Man Press. It is one of Williams’s best polemics […]

Tibet Comes to Taos at ‘Enchanted Mountain’ Salon

August 23, 2015 by Jan Herman

CLICK for further details of Andrea Clearfield performance at the Enchanted Mountain Performance Space

The composer Andrea Clearfield will present her Tibetan Recording Project at the Enchanted Mountain Performance Space in downtown Taos, New Mexico, next Sunday, Aug. 30. It’s free and open to the public. (See details of time and place.) “Clearfield’s orchestral and choral works have been performed around the world,” according to an advance program note. […]

Time Capsule: Algren, Burroughs, Mailer, et al . . .

August 17, 2015 by Jan Herman

'The Z Collection' by Jan Herman [AC Books / NY], 2015

UPDATE The Z Collection is available for ordering on line. My staff of thousands insisted on a plug for me: The Z Collection: Portraits & Sketches — my reflections on many of the writers and artists I have known, worked with, or written about — is being published by AC Books in New York in […]

A Little-Known Master Artist’s ‘Uncollected’ Works

August 12, 2015 by Jan Herman

Norman O. Mustill with one of his wall-size collages. The photo, a self-portrait, was taken in 2005.

The pages of Uncollected illustrate the variety of the artworks that a little-known master artist produced over the years. Most of the pieces have appeared in scattered places but have never been collected in one place — thus the title. Norman O. Mustill, who died in 2013, also produced many other works that haven’t been […]

A Look Ahead: They’re Putting on a Party and a Show

August 9, 2015 by Jan Herman

Granary Books, with blue arrow pointing to my sliver in the bookstack

My staff of thousands informs me that the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library has acquired the Granary Books archive. So publisher and library will mark the occasion with a bit of hoopla and an exhibition that opens Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day. It’s called . . . The Book Undone: Celebrating […]

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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