This is what the people did back then: Infamous William M. Tweed, the corrupt 19th-century NYC power broker whose ring of cronies controlled the government purse, manipulated the legislature, and embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars, was booted from office in the election of Nov. 7, 1871. Thomas Nast depicted him in defeat as a bloated, gouty Roman consul clutching a broken sword, wearing a royal headband of threadbare dollar signs and a sovereign medallion off his miserable likeness on his fat belly. Fast forward to Nov. 7, 2020.
Outside the Walls: ‘Being Free’
For more than 50 years Ben Vautier has worked “outside the walls,” embracing daily life in its multitude of contradictions. Now, in “Being Free,” an exhibition opening July 11 and running through October 11 in Chamarande, France (about 50 minutes south of Paris), he brings together more than 400 works which document his prodigious output.
Is It a Moon Shot? Nope, It’s a Book Chat.
Follow the countdown—the days, hours, minutes, and yes, even the seconds—to Blake Gopnik’s chat with Annalyn Swan about his biography of Andy Warhol. Well, it IS a big book. Big in page count (976). Big in subject (Warhol’s influence rivals Picasso’s.) Stellar in praise. (I’ve read only one review that dumps on it, persuasively.) So okay, a countdown.
A San Francisco Little Mag Subscription-cum-Ad-Rate Card
Can the Internet Do This? Nope.
Collage by Late Cubist, Age 8, Bored in Lockdown
Latest Find Thrills Collector of Rare Burroughs/Gysin Books
Jeff Ball’s latest acquisition—a first-edition copy of “The Exterminator”— is not only signed by both William Burroughs and Brion Gysin but has original artwork that Gysin drew and signed on an inside page. “I’m giddy!” says Ball, whose collection of rare first editions by Burroughs and associated writers, includes some of the most hard-to-find materials anywhere.
GC CUNY Keeps the Conversation Going:
LGBTQ Pride Month Conversation with Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter
Artist, organizer, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors is the co-author of the best seller “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.” At the age of 16, Cullors discovered her passion for helping young queer women facing the challenges of poverty, prejudice, and violence. In 2013, she co-founded the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which has grown into an international organization fighting anti-Black racism. She spoke with Justin T. Brown, executive director of CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies.
Lilliane Lijn’s ‘Power Hanky’
Moloko+ Releases Maher’s New Poems in Bilingual Edition
Clayton With a Period, Full Stop
Over the years two dozen items about or related to Clayton Patterson have appeared on this blog. It’s an indication of the staff’s interest in his cultural significance. Patterson’s importance in general, but especially on the Lower East Side of New York City, comes from his commitment to social and political values for the good of his community. He has put his life on the line to document and preserve it in a way that few are brave enough to do. Now his role as both activist and outsider artist in his own right is the subject of a new book, titled simply Clayton.—yes, with a period—full stop. For those who know him, or of him, his name alone is sufficient to tell the story. For those who don’t, Permuted Press has gathered a group of remarkable graphic artists to tell it.
Jürgen Ploog, R.I.P.
He died at home in Frankfurt, peacefully, surrounded by family. Jürgen Ploog was 85. “Jay,” the name he went by among close friends, was widely regarded as one of Germany’s premiere second-generation Beat writers. But his narrative fiction—like that of William S. Burroughs, a mentor with whom he was associated—was more experimental and closer to Brion Gysin’s or J.G. Ballard’s than to Jack Kerouac’s or Allen Ginsberg’s.
Jay called his style “cut prose,” an adventurous collage technique developed from the cut-up methods formulated by Burroughs and Gysin back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was a gifted visual collagist as well, producing hybrid works in recent years such as Flesh Film, a fever dream of a novella originally published in a digital prose-only edition by realitystudio.org, and subsequently perfected in print by Moloko+.
GC CUNY Keeps the Conversation Going:
Six Fast-Paced Doctoral Presentations on Diverse Topics from Solar Energy to Anti-Corruption Laws
Borges: ‘To Whoever Is Reading Me’
Bill Murray Takes a Cue from Nancy
Borges: ‘The Thing I Am’
Nancy Masks Up in Her Bathtub
She’s taking no chances. Gary Lee-Nova has been exploring Bushmiller’s work for many years. This particular effort originated in an email exchange with Denis Kitchen who founded Kitchen Sink Press. Kitchen Sink published five volumes of Bushmiller’s work during the 1980s and ’90s. “We’ve been internet pals for several years,” Lee-Nova says. During the early […]