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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Astronomy Picture of the Day

October 6, 2012 by Jan Herman

It’s a breakfast doodle by Malcolm Mc Neill. He writes in an email, “If only …” Mc Neill has two books coming out at the end of October from Fantagraphics Books: The Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here: Images from the Graphic Novel and the memoir Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and […]

Viral Reading

September 3, 2012 by Jan Herman

More than two million YouTube viewers have watched this woman read a book. Imagine that.Update: Dec. 30, 2015 — That number is now 18.86 million. Yes, you read that right. Further Update: Oct. 2, 2024 — Viewers now number 30 million. The woman is Stoya, and she’s a porn star. The book is Necrophilia Variations, […]

Mustill’s Message on a Postcard (2)

March 20, 2012 by Jan Herman

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Color Them In: Legends of the Lower East Side

December 18, 2011 by Jan Herman

I can’t let the year end without taking note of a new coloring book — yes, a coloring book — titled Legends of the Lower East Side. It’s a collaboration of the artists Troy Harris, Orlando Bonilla and the unstoppable documentarian Clayton Patterson. The book features their confederates in nonconformity, artistry, community activism, and “colorfulness.” […]

When Billboards Are Ripped and Abstracted

November 19, 2011 by Jan Herman

Richard Sargent likes to take pictures of them. “Photographing torn posters is a cliché in which I continue to indulge,” he writes. In fact, his photos of “decaying urban billboards” — all of them shot in northern California’s East Bay cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Albany, and Richmond — transform that cliché into brilliant works of […]

Mustill’s Message on a Postcard

November 7, 2011 by Jan Herman

© 1996 by Norman O. Mustill. From a postcard series of six. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

L’artiste Lui-même

April 27, 2011 by Jan Herman

Norman Ogue Mustill in his desert lair. [Self-Portrait With Collage] In 2007, at my request, he took a photo of himself with several of his collages from the mid-’60s. This is one of them. Blogs are personal (in case you hadn’t noticed). EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Cue ‘Ah POOK,’ ‘THE UNSPEAKABLE MR HART’

March 12, 2009 by Jan Herman

“Watchmen,” the movie, caused a stir at the box office when its opening weekend nabbed $55 million, the highest opening gross of the year and third-highest March opening ever. It’s a shame that none of the money will trickle down to the artist Malcolm Mc Neill, whose image of the Mayan Death God (right) in […]

Frida K Lives On …

May 2, 2008 by Jan Herman

Depending on who’s talking, the cult of Frida Kahlo has either been amplified or demystified by the centennial touring show that started out in Minneapolis, is now in Philadelphia, and is soon heading to San Francisco. I second Peter Schjeldahl (“The world will have cults, and who better merits one?”), as well as Holland Carter […]

Boris Lurie, R.I.P.

January 20, 2008 by Jan Herman

'Pinup with Flower' by Boris Lurie [1959]

The epigraph on “NO!art MAN,” a major 2001 documentary about Boris Lurie, who died earlier this month, says it all: “In a time of wars and extermination, aesthetic exercises and decorative patterns are not enough.” Those are Lurie’s words, and now they might as well serve as his epitaph. obit by Colin Moynihan in The […]

The Ghost in Their Machine

September 26, 2007 by Jan Herman

John McWhinnie@Glenn Horowitz Bookseller through Oct. 13 on Manhattan’s Upper East Side — comes as something of a surprise. Their work is not high on the list of swank art collectors. Hell, I’d be surprised if it’s on the list at all. And I don’t think McWhinnie’s Peter Plagens said to me about a Nelson […]

John Bryan, RIP

February 12, 2007 by Jan Herman

They left 12 roses on his doorstep along with half of their kidnap victim’s California driver’s license. He was grateful for the roses. “They could have been 12 bullets,” he said. The kidnappers were the Symbionese Liberation Army. The license belonged to Patty Hearst. The year was 1974. The roses were both a warning and […]

MOCKING THE VICTIMS

August 28, 2006 by Jan Herman

Slate “Orphaned,” about children victimized by Hurricane Katrina. On the right is the opposite page, the first of four luxurious pages advertising Eileen Fisher “Alive in the World” clothing that were sandwiched inside DeParle’s piece. “New Orleans was always a place of unsettling juxtapositions,” DeParle writes. So, apparently, is the print edition of the magazine. […]

BIT OF NEPOTISM

April 18, 2006 by Jan Herman

'Summer Blooms and Reflections' © 2004 by Carol Edelson [oil on linen 24" x 60"]

Taking a break from the blog, but before I go . . . I figured I’d mention a cousin o’ mine — Carol Edelson — cuz she’s got a show of recent work goin’ up soon at the Martucci Gallery in Irvington, N.Y. Actually, this bit of nepotism is just an excuse to post an […]

HERE’S A STRETCH

March 10, 2006 by Jan Herman

Almost forgot about Holland Cotter reports in this morning’s New York Times, there will be a boatload of special events, like Holly Crawford, who organized the event. I don’t know her, never met her. But she invited me, gawd help her. I’ll letcha know what happens. Postscript: From Los Angeles … EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

ANTHEM FOR AMERICA

October 21, 2005 by Jan Herman

'Score' © by Norman 0. Mustill, from 'Twinpak' [Nova Broadcast Press, 1969)

Wrapping up the week’s nervous breakdown, we bring you TwinPak. With Tom Delay coming to a head as Libby face possible indictment, a Harriet Miers debacle and her Congressional protection for the gun industry now achieved by the NRA, FEMA’s negligence and incompetence “some background noise here,” we think of Mustill’s score as a fitting […]

MILTON GLASER ♥ DISSENT

July 3, 2005 by Jan Herman

'The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics' [2005]

To keep Independence Day from becoming a more empty patriotic ritual than usual, let’s celebrate the hearty dissenter Milton Glaser, designer of many famous logos and symbols such as interviewed on PBS’s “NOW” about the “Design of Dissent Exhibit” at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and his and Mirko Ilic’s new book, […]

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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...]

Contact me

We're cutting down on spam. Please fill in this form. … [Read More...]

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