Carl Weissner was a “little magazine” editor, a radio playwright, German translator of more than 100 books (but principally of Charles Bukowski and William Burroughs, Nelson Algren and J.G. Ballard, also of Frank Zappa and Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Charles Plymell, Diane Arbus, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen), as well as a literary agent who spread the work of dissident writers even further. “Le Regard d’Autrui,” published posthumously in 2019, shows him to have been as magnetic a storyteller as any of the celebrated writers he translated.
Translator, Author, Cherished Friend
Four Books That Recently Came Our Way
Poetry by Leia John, by William Cody Maher, by Ira Cohen, and a memoir by Theo Green. Have a look and please don’t take offense at the explicitness of John’s lines.
(Yesterday this blogpost disappeared from the site, inexplicably, so the staff has re-posted it. Apologies to all who clicked on it and were directed to a dead end.)
After Carl
I awoke from a bad dream with these lines drumming in my head long after he died. I mean Carl Weissner, cherished friend and writer sans pareil. A staffer here recently found the lines written down among drafts of unfinished poems.
News as Muse
David Erdos: ‘A Penis for Christmas’
In the grand tradition of Heathcote Williams’s verse polemics, the poet David Erdos rounds on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the latest scandal of his corrupt administration.
A Frosty Vision
MIRAGE
Walking solo
in frigid weather
through familiar woods
past rolling hills
and fields now turned
to chill of winter . . .
‘I Am That I Am’ ‘I Am That, Am I?’
Brion Gysin and the Divine Tautology
“The whole idea of the permutations came to me visually on seeing the so-called Divine Tautology in print. It looked wrong, to me, non-symmetrical. The biggest word, That, belonged in the middle but all I had to do was switch the last two words and It asked a question: ‘I Am That, Am I?’ The rest followed.” — Brion Gysin
The Brooklyn-based publisher DABA Press is bringing out the most complete edition of Brion Gysin’s permutated poems published and recorded to date. The book is gorgeous to look at, sets the poems in their rightful context, and does justice to Ian Sommerville’s computer collaboration.
‘so unlike the realm of / love and ardor’
In a world of trouble
so unlike the realm of
love and ardor
the singularity of death
has come to this —
we shrink,
abandoned, into history. …
Reading Hannah Arendt Puts Me in Awe
In an essay about Isak Dinesen, whose fiction was closely drawn from her life, Arendt writes …
Paul Valéry Reminds Us
‘A Poem Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned’
Mine have never been finished either. And so . . . an updated, revised, redesigned, and expanded collection in both hardcover and paperback editions is out now, with a new title: “All That Would Ever After Not Be Said.”
William Burroughs Reminds Us
‘The Rulers of This Most Insecure of All Worlds Are Rulers By Accident, Inept Frightened Pilots’
‘Not one-man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy but a small group elevated to positions of power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decisions. They are representatives of abstract forces that reach power through surrender of self.’
Remembering Diane di Prima
A memorial issue of the Swiss magazine Fabrikzeitung pays tribute to her poetry.
‘she whose face we have never seen
she whose body is a door to the world . . .
stars are the seed pearls she sets on her flesh
they are the milk of her breasts & the juice of her love
her orgasm shakes the dark worlds to their depths’ — DdP
‘A Low-Rent Shangri-La Beyond Borders’
‘As the steep streets bow to the river,
I have been falling through holes
for some months seeking a new underworld …’ — David Erdos
Permit Me a Moment to Bask in This Review
“This biography is truly exceptional in its prose and subject matter. If you are an avid movie fan, you’ll enjoy the wealth of information about a truly brilliant director. If you simply enjoy non-fiction material, this will be a great read as the writer presents a beautifully written story on so many levels. It’s the type of book you never want to finish.” — Hope Goldsmith
Scandalous Biographers and Their Publishers
Recent literary scandals raise difficult questions for authors, publishers, and readers. Do they have an obligation to consider a writer’s personal conduct when making decisions about whether to publish or buy a book—or do they have an obligation not to? Ruth Franklin in conversation with Laura Marsh, Tim Duggan, Katha Pollitt, and Ian Buruma.
Mining the Archives
‘Un-American Express’ — It Never Happened
Speaking of literary archives, you never know what will turn up. This letter from a half-century ago, for instance: It was discovered the other day at Emory University about two literary projects, one of which came to fruition, while the other never did.
Beinecke’s Sweet Tweet
Lorraine Hansberry to Langston Hughes and His Reply
An eagle-eyed member of Straight Up’s staff of thousands, unpaid but indefatigable, noticed this exchange posted on Twitter by the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and sent it along. Perhaps you saw it? If not . . .
Ivan Turgenev on Aging
‘He Did Not Picture Life’s Sea as the Poets Depict It’
“He fell to thinking . . . slowly, listlessly, wrathfully. He thought of the vanity, the uselessness, the vulgar falsity of all things human. All the stages of man’s life passed in order before his mental gaze (he had himself lately reached his fifty-second year), and not one found grace in his eyes.” — Ivan Turgenev, from THE TORRENTS OF SPRING