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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Bringing It All Back Home

January 3, 2025 by Jan Herman

She gave Zeus a headache … which he deserved.

When Words Fail, a Cut-Up Will Do

December 12, 2024 by Jan Herman

What else is there to say?

The Once and Future Prez

December 5, 2024 by Jan Herman

aaaaarrrrrffffff !!!!!!

Once Again, What Would Daumier Make of Trump?

December 3, 2024 by Jan Herman

Lithograph by Honoré Daumier [1831]

Honoré Daumier went to prison for six months for his 1831 lithograph after its publication in a satirical illustrated periodical that appeared weekly in Paris, “La Caricature morale, politique et littéraire.”.

American Sphinx

December 2, 2024 by Jan Herman

No words needed.

The Late Brion Gysin (1916-1986) Is Having a Moment

November 27, 2024 by Jan Herman

Over the years he had many, in fact, although few of them lived up to his expectations. But never mind. An updated model of his and Ian Sommerville’s Dreamachine was recently featured in a symposium on art, AI, and the humanities here in New York; and another will be installed in London at the Tate Modern, in the exhibition “Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet,”which will run from the end of this month (Nov. 28) to June 1, 2025. Meanwhile, Roger Knoebber has brought Gysin back to life in a shaggy, unconventional book-length profile, “Hysteresis.”

Does the Dreamachine Elude AI? Yes It Does.

November 20, 2024 by Jan Herman

Scholars and specialists addressed ethical and political considerations surrounding AI in collaborations with human creators. Topics ranged from AI aesthetics to the early history of machine learning, from multimedia art to computational research experiments with artificial intelligence, including AI biases and applications.

‘The Hanging’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’

November 12, 2024 by Jan Herman

These drawings, which appear in “di Umbris,” a dossier of Gerard Bellaart drawings just published by Moloko, were not intended as commentary on current events. But I can’t shake the sensation that they are.

Will the ‘Four Freedoms’ Go the Way of the Dodo Bird?

November 10, 2024 by Jan Herman

The Bible gave us the Ten Commandments. The Constitution gave us the first 10 amendments, our Bill of Rights. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave us the ‘Four Freedoms,’ chiseled in stone at the tip of Roosevelt Island as a monumental reminder of his legacy. Will the monument be all that’s left of his legacy?

Human Figuration as an Expression of Ideas

October 21, 2024 by Jan Herman

These drawings move across centuries, from the Middle Ages to our blighted times in an unflinching rawness that gives no comfort. Nothing is omitted. You will find the sexual inscribed like watermarks of passion and anguish. The demonic appears in equal measure with the angelic. Most of all, not unlike cave drawings of prehistoric times, they are an existential record of a particular creature, Bellaart by name.

Lionel Ziprin: ‘One of the Secret Heroes of Our Time’

October 14, 2024 by Jan Herman

“I am not an artist. I am not an
outsider. I am a citizen of the
republic and I have remained
anonymous all the time by choice.”

I Guess It Had to Happen

October 9, 2024 by Jan Herman

Julian Peters has done Poe, Rimbaud, Frost, Keats, Dylan Thomas, Wordsworth, Oscar Wilde, Villon, Yeats, Sassoon, and plenty of others — and they’re all damn well done — so why not T.S. Eliot?

They Come at Night

August 15, 2024 by Jan Herman

'Morose Delectation' © 1981 by Gerard Bellaart

WHISPERS

the face
that launched
a thousand ships
has sailed
and not in beauty

War Crime Outcomes —
Two Coverups in the Slaughterhouse of War

July 29, 2024 by Jan Herman

From the podcast IN THE DARK: “On November 19, 2005, a small group of U.S. Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. The case against them would become one of the most high-profile war-crimes prosecutions in American history, and then it would all fall apart. … No one was held accountable.” Why not?

On March 16, 1968, more than 500 Vietnamese men, women, and children in the village of Mi Lai were slaughtered by a platoon of U.S. soldiers. It became known as the Mi Lai massacre. The soldiers were led by Lieutenant William Calley. He was later court-martialed and convicted of murder after an Army cover-up.

Malaise . . . In the Middle of Nowhere

July 8, 2024 by Jan Herman

Not helped
by late disasters
and no idea
of what to do
but write these lines
and think of better times.

BEAT SCENE No. 110
Latest Issue Filled With Rich Tales

June 27, 2024 by Jan Herman

About Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassidy and Anne Murphy, Charles Bukowski, Herbert Huncke, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg, Milton Klonsky, Alice Notley, Bernard Kops, Neeli Cherkovski, Emmett Grogan and the Diggers, Martin Bax, the influence of Gertrude Stein, the death of Joan Volmer, and more …

Whimsy and Philosophy: Pictures at an Artist’s Studio

June 19, 2024 by Jan Herman

On a visit to Paul Zelevansky’s studio in Manhattan, I took some pictures of the works he had there on display. These are some of the ones I photographed. I post them here without commentary other than their titles for you to decide how they strike you.

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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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