Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

‘Artaud Fragmentations’

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And now for another kind of poem, as unlike “Death Is a Wind That Will Carry You Off” as day from night. It’s part of a large series of stenciled texts by the Dutch artist and writer Gerard Bellaart. At the urging of my staff of thousands, examples from Bellaart’s word-based series of artworks have […]

‘Music for the End of Time’

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Excerpted from the complete 52-minute work for trombone, video and quadraphonic electronics. Based on the Book of Revelation, the music had its premiere in Montreal, at McGill University, in March 1998. The video was premiered in Taos, New Mexico, in September 2007. Personnel: Abbie Conant, trombone; Norbert Bach, digital stills; William Osborne, music and video. […]

Raw Data: Armed Drone Prototype

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This comes from Norman O. Mustill’s “raw data” pile. It appeared during World War II in an ad for Good Housekeeping Magazine, warning against “A Dictator’s Newest Dream.” According to the text that accompanied the ad, “The army has specified that it must be able to carry 4 soldiers with full equipment or a machinegun […]

VDRSVP #3 for Old Times’ Sake

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Someone told me he knew what RSVP stands for. But what did VDRSVP mean? “Black humor,” I said. No point giving away the joke. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Unbeatable Sinclair Beiles Tells It As It Was

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He talks about William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Tangiers, the Villa Deliria, the Thousand and One Nights, Naked Lunch, cut-ups, Minutes to Go, the Beat Hotel, Jean Fanchette, Ian Sommerville, the Dream Machine. It’s an unbeatable discovery. Gary Cummiskey, co-editor of Who Was Sinclair Beiles? and the publisher of Dye Hard Press, tipped me to this […]

‘The Green Man Is a Green Terrorist’

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My blog staff of thousands didn’t have to do much to persuade me that Heathcote Williams’s newest dissident poem, a rhymed marvel of CAT-scan clarity, will be seen one day as a YouTube classic. Here are the opening lines transcribed from the video in four-line stanzas: Tangled vegetation sprouts from each orifice From his mouth, […]

‘Throws Up Words’

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These two stenciled texts by Gerard Bellaart are from a series of more than 500 created in 2005. Bellaart is a Dutch artist and writer, now living in France. He creates etchings, drawings, paintings and monotypes of figures, landscapes, and still lifes, as well as works strictly from the imagination. He notes that he employs […]

Selling the Earth … ‘No Return, No Exchange’

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A poem by Heathcote Williams, narration and montage by Alan Cox. The print edition of Selling the Earth is coming soon from Cold Turkey Press. The poem begins: After someone had sold their virginity on the Internet And made a hundred thousand pounds, Another entrepreneur would decide that he’d try To put Planet Earth itself […]

Way Ahead of My Time in 1969

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Where would the blogworld be without blogger self-promotion? So indulge me. Anneke Auer, webmaster for Rotterdam-based Sea Urchin Editions, has designed a classy presentation of General Municipal Election, a “collectible” action-art book of mine. I published it in San Francisco way back in ’69 under the Nova Broadcast imprint. Ben Schot, the artist who founded […]

‘tric trac du ciel’

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This is a stenciled text by Gerard Bellaart, from a series of more than 500 created in 2005. Bellaart is a Dutch artist and writer, now living in France. He creates etchings, drawings, paintings and monotypes of figures, landscapes, and still lifes, as well as works strictly from the imagination. He notes that he employs […]

VDRSVP #2 for Old Times’ Sake

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Now that my venereal staff of thousands has managed to get its shabby act together for VDRSVP #1, I’ll be posting info about the contents of this issue as soon as possible. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

VDRSVP #1 for Old Times’ Sake

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I’ll be posting info about the contents as soon as my venereal staff of thousands manages to get its shabby act together. But first things first: What a great title. Second things first: VDRSVP #2 and #3 are coming too. Postscript: Jan. 9 — The staff finally woke up. Here are the contents of VDRSVP […]

Fresh From My Hot Little Paws

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A review posted at RealityStudio of Malcolm Mc Neill’s spellbinding memoir, Observed While Falling, recently published by Fantagraphics Books, about his relationship with William S. Burroughs and their artistic collaboration. Mc Neill is an artist who can write. Really write. He brings a fresh analytical eye to the familiar Burroughsian fixations — synchronicity and doppelgangers, […]

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