Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

More News from Paris: Huge Bookfair Opens Today

by

Offprint Paris at the Beaux-arts de Paris showcases publishers of art, photography, design, and experimental music labels. The 2014 edition features more than 130 publishers from nearly two dozen countries, an exhibition (“Disarming Design from Palestine”), and a variety of public discussions and signings. Special guests include Paul Soulellis (Library of the Printed Web), Mathieu […]

The Reviews Are In: How Many Tomatoes for ‘Algren’?

by

I took a survey of viewers who saw “Algren,” the new documentary that recently had its world premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival. Here’s what they said: Reviewer #1: Really interesting and fast-paced. It gives me a great sense of the guy without being pious. I’m unsure about the kitschy style. The fast edits […]

Desktopfun: Boo-hooray’s Burroughs Cut/Up Show

by

Boo-Hooray, in collaboration with Emory University, is presenting a William S. Burroughs centenary exhibition dedicated to the Cut-Up technique. On view will be hand-edited typescript drafts from the Nova Trilogy, rarely seen publications like the mimeographed newsletter The Burrough and the Sigma Portfolio, alongside correspondence with Brion Gysin, vinyl releases, as well as the original […]

Another Sonnet Maudit from Cold Turkey Press

by

More conventional but still not Petrarchan, Spenserian, or Shakespearean. And not in Ted’s style either. Best of all, it’s presented with Gerard Bellaart’s ‘Morose Delectation,’ chosen by my staff of thousands.

Long-Awaited ‘Algren’ Bows at Chicago Film Festival

by

Is this Nelson Algren’s moment? If it is, I don’t think he’d give a damn — not personally — considering he’s gone and how long ago that was. I also don’t think he’d appreciate what has become a cliché of the Algren myth — the forgotten writer. Sure, he’s forgotten. Most writers are. And of […]

Long-Awaited ‘Algren’ Documentary to Open in Chicago

by

Is this Nelson Algren’s moment? If it is, I don’t think he’d give a damn — not personally — considering he’s gone and how long ago that was. I also don’t think he’d appreciate what has become a cliché of the Algren myth — the forgotten writer. Sure, he’s forgotten. Most writers are. And of […]

Poet Says, ‘Ecstasy Can Postpone Every Deadline . . .’

by

Love in Old Age Someone I’ve known since I was twelve Happened to tell me the other day, ‘We’re now on the shady side of the hill. ‘Not many more days to play.’ But I found myself pretending I hadn’t heard what he’d said — The implication being so unsettling: He was saying we’d soon […]

Supervert’s ‘Vision of the Future’ Has Arrived

by

It is possibly Supervert‘s most impressive book beauty to date, judging not only from the immaculate white-and-black antiseptic look of it and the heft of it — the text comes to 240 pages — but also, obviously, from the read of it. At one level POST-DEPRAVITY is a page turner (literally) and at another a […]

‘An Old Man and a Young Man in Gaza’

by

The brutality of the Israelis in its savage response to Hamas rocket attacks has been documented in photographs so horrendous I can’t bear to look at them. Listening to “An Old Man and a Young Man in Gaza” — as read by Alan Cox in a recent radio broadcast on the KPFA program Cover to […]

‘Killing Kit’ to Be Staged in London Try Out

by

Heathcote Williams’s first new play in many years is to open Sept. 21 at The Cockpit, where it received a reading last February. The company advertises itself as a radical fringe “theatre of disruptive panache, angry critique and useful, progressive ideas for the future.” “Killing Kit” traces “the volcanic life and mysterious death of Christopher […]

Cold Turkey Press Does a Nelson Algren Fight Card

by

I was having such a great time re-reading one of Nelson Algren’s “lesser” books — Who Lost An American? — that I scanned a little excerpt from the second story, “Down With All Hands,” and sent it to Gerard Bellaart. It struck a nerve. He sent back one of his choice Cold Turkey cards. In […]

‘Dying’s Annoying,’ a poem by Heathcote Williams

by

Ever since the death of two close friends, my staff of thousands has had trouble sleeping. Recently a suffocating moment of enlightenment troubled it further. The staff was contemplating an obvious but astonishing fact: When a body expires the person attached to it vanishes. The person has dematerialized. It’s hard to wrap your head around […]

Sanders: ‘Book of Glyphs’ = ‘Smile-Book of Grace-Joy’

by

Granary Books has just published a facsimile edition of Ed Sanders’ first book-length work of glyphs, which he created in Florence, Italy, in 2008, using colored pencils and a small sketchbook. The publisher notes: Though each piece stands on its own, collectively the 72 glyphs convey, with characteristic humility and humor, many of the themes […]

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog