An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Gerard Bellaart and a screening of three films by Fred Worden.
High Market Value of a Modern First Edition Fills a Void
A pre-owned, first edition copy of Necrophilia Variations sold yesterday on eBay with an asking price of $2,000. The author, who goes by the name Supervert, is embarrassed to brag about it. Although it wasn’t Supervert who sold it, and he doesn’t know who did, he tells me, “Market value helps fill the vacuum of feedback we writers are treated to.”
Mustill’s Big Bang
Exploding the Alphabet via Poésie Concrête
The explosion grows . . . and the letters disperse.
When the Computer Was Not Quite King
Back in the 1960s, Norman O. Mustill worked with a razor blade. But it’s not his technical skill, brilliant as it was, that makes these images so remarkable.
What Does It Mean to Prepare for Death?
I don’t have a terminal disease, unless it’s called old age. . . . But there’s always this to consider: being ready to die is an illusion.
Bellaart’s ‘Noirs’
For the Pleasure of Charcoal Sketching
Between July 2020 and June 2022, Gerard Bellaart filled 11 spiral-bound, 80-page sketchbooks with charcoal drawings. Some sketches were preparatory for larger drawings and some were studies for paintings. But most were for the sake of sketching itself. Of the nearly 1,000 drawings, he selected more than 100 for this chapbook.
And Now . . . for a Lively Change of Pace
Nine years ago William Osborne posted this trailer for Cybeline, a multimedia music theater work performed by Abbie Conant with music by Osborne. The staff finds it remarkable at how fresh it remains.
The Complete Poems: 1965-2020
Michael Butterworth’s Radical Legacy in Verse
For more than half a century the dissident British author, editor, and underground publisher Michael Butterworth has been “a quiet unobtrusive voice in poetry, with roots both in the small press poetry journals of the 1960s and ’70s and New Wave science fiction.”
Are We Past Those Pandemic Ghosts?
A pub directly across the street from the main branch of the New York Public Library has replaced the pub that was shuttered there during the pandemic. Doorway artwork now invites the “thirsty” in for a drink, replacing the two ghostly figures seen there previously.
Éditions Béringuer
Newly Released Bellaart Drawings Connect the Centuries
A graphic narrative with a vocabulary of influences from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first.
‘Benevolent Loitering’
‘Unheard and Unseen’ in Istanbul
Having never been to Istanbul, I’ve done the next best thing — or so it feels upon reading ‘The Pleasures of Empty Lots’ by Efe Murad, poet, translator, and scholar extraordinaire. “This humble chapbook,” he writes, “is a record of the unheard and the unseen, which can only be experienced by those who find pleasure in ephemeral escapades. It is a longing for a clean slate, a tribute to benevolent loitering.” It is also more than that. It is in the most vivid, personal terms a manifesto for artistic freedom and — necessarily — social and political liberty.
Is 2023 the Year of Anti-Nihilist Gen Z?
The British magazine Prospect has just published an article making the case —making the claim is perhaps a better way to put it — that “2023 could finally hold a salve to the dark, glittery tunnel we’re living inside.” Mixed metaphor aside, good luck with that.
‘Button Up’ for 2023
Boughs wet with tears
remind the air
of sleep.
Clouds above the lake
scud on
unbuttoned, driven,
the sky beyond
my keep.
‘We bloom just once . . .’
I’m a human drape.
My bones are tight,
not so my skin. It sags
curtainlike from chin.
Pleasurable Reading: Turgenev’s Literary Reminiscences
It is filled with wisdom like this: “Life itself is nothing but a contradiction that has to be constantly overcome.”
But Where Are the Towel Racks for Kerouac and Ginsberg?
A San Francisco hotel has installed this towel rack dedicated to the memory of William S. Burroughs.
Blogs Are Personal . . .
Keeping Up With a Gen Z Artist’s Recent Drawings
Two bats, one cat, and several people. Also have a look at this art student’s previously posted drawings..