Heavy
winter snows
whitened the trees.
They turned the branches
into filigrees
shivering in the wind.
Goodbye to 2025
Beneath
that commanding sky
helicopters beat the air
like motorcycles
flying by.
Cut, Paste, Print: a Graphic History of Political Montage
The exhibition opened recently at La Contemporaine (an institution associated with Paris Nanterre University). It is free and runs until March 14, 2026. Have a look at some of the montages.
DOGE Has Evolved from Chainsaw to Ticks
Today’s headline at WIRED is a reminder of “Billboard Proposal #2,” which was posted seven months ago. And now that Elon Musk’s chainsaw has evolved, this is not so much an I-told-you-so as confirmation of his so-far inescapable assault. Let us also not forget “Billboard Proposal #1.”
A Straightup Thanksgiving — It’s a Tradition
Our Thanksgiving team of William S. Burroughs and Norman O. Mustill has been a happy pairing since 2012. It still is. So here they are again, sweetened by Heathcote Williams’s words in a narration-cum-montage by Alan Cox. It’s all so delish.
Fragments of an Unfinished Revolution
After watching all six episodes of ‘The American Revolution,’ Ken Burns’s new, much-heralded documentary, I had mixed feelings.
This Is An Emergency
Who will answer the call?
Baudelaire’s Head Floats into Gauguin’s Portrait
Cut-ups do strange things.
Memory Speaks
‘Oh baby, it’s too late now!’
The Influence of Cut-Ups on the Art of the Collage
Here are two collages. One is from a blogpost, “Visions at Midnight,” posted on May 27, 2025, and the other is an illustration, similarly styled, which appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 13, 2025. And Süddeutche Zeitung joined the game on Oct. 18-19, 2025.
Yelling His Fool Head Off
He was up early. He would not say under the cover of darkness,
because he had nothing to hide. He had something to bury. — William ‘Cody’ Maher
PARTISANS
A Graphic History of Anti-Fascist Resistance
Just in over the transom: An eye-catching collection of wartime tales of armed resistance to fascism edited by the comics writer and activist Raymond Tyler and the radical historian Paul Buhle. It’s a great teaching tool for students and for anyone else who could use a gripping introduction to the subject.
When the grim reaper comes to dinner . . .
. . . he hovers there like bad breath.
One-Strike Poems
Malcolm Ritchie’s Mountain on Top of a Mountain
Here is a magnificent book of short poems so rich in images, so clear and yet mysterious, so generous in feeling that, to steal a thought from a Donald Hall essay about Dylan Thomas, “form and shape and honey-in-the-mouth make small monuments of English literature.”
Pastel Colors, Geometric Compositions
It is rare to receive a gift in the mail as pristinely attractive as Phil Scalia’s immaculately produced ‘Utification,’ a chapbook of 28 remarkable photographs he took in Utica, New York.
Charming Landscape Sketches
Some poets have a talent for drawing. Mark Terrill is one. I am charmed by these sketches of his and have posted another as well. He makes no claims for them. They’re just one of his habits.
From Cold Turkey Press
‘Two Images. One Message. All at Once.’
Viewing these collages, you can feel your mind straining to integrate the images or to suspend the boundaries between the two. But you are immediately rewarded for your efforts, and the effect gets very close to Rimbaud’s “systematic derangement of the senses.” — Mark Terrill