Something worth remembering … The Buddha and the Pork Chop Apparently the Buddha met his end Thanks to an excessive degree of politeness. Though he was vegetarian, someone prepared him a meal And the Buddha felt obliged to eat what he’d been offered. Due to its being a bad pork chop, the Buddha died. Clearly […]
William ‘Cody’ Maher: ‘Nightmare Entering the Country’
Border security and immigration are so much in the news these days that my staff of thousands was desperate for comic relief. Then this scenario came over the transom from Cody Maher. Bingo!
You Are There: Where Burroughs Once Lived in Mexico City
In more than 50 years not much had changed. Although the narrow street had been gentrified and renamed, the “run-down white apartment building” was still there looking like time had stood still for it.
A Poem by Heathcote Williams: ‘It’s a Barbie World, or …’
Walter Benjamin said, ‘There is no cultural document / That’s not at the same time a record of barbarism…’
Centennial Conference on Life & Myth of William Burroughs
William S. Burroughs was born 100 years ago today. A centennial conference will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as part of a month-long WSB@100 Festival in April. The conference, sponsored by The Center for Humanities, “will explore the life and myth of one of the most innovative […]
Clayton Patterson on Jewish History of the Lower East Side
!['Jews: A People's History of the Lower East Side'Edited by Clayton Patterson and Mareleyn Schneider [New York, 2012]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/jews-a-peoples-history-of-the-lower-east-side-200x200.jpg)
Nobody I know is better versed in the history of Manhattan’s Lower East Side than Clayton Patterson. And I’d be willing to bet that nobody at all is more devoted to, or more articulate about, the history of the Jews who lived on the Lower East Side. He was interviewed a year ago — Feb. […]
Setting the Stage for Barry Miles’s ‘Call Me Burroughs’
!['Call Me Burroughs -- A LIfe' by Barry Miles [TWELVE Books, 2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/call-me-burroughs-a-life-240-200x200.jpg)
I asked Barry Miles, author of the newly published biography “Call Me Burroughs: A Life,” how he felt about the review he got in this week’s New Yorker.
Beautiful Hand-Made Paper Gems from Hanuman Books
![Willem de Kooning's Collected Writings [Hanuman Books, 1988]. This is a 1990 second printing.](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/de-kooning-in-hand240-200x200.jpg)
Describing his appreciation of early Cubism, Willem de Kooning points out that it became a movement. It didn’t set out to be one.
Do Many Women Admire William Burroughs?
My staff of thousands hasn’t taken a survey, but I can count his female fans on one hand. When it comes to the number I actually know, make that one finger. Her name is Hanne Lippard, the Berlin-based poet and performance artist with the killer voice. I’ve blogposted about her before: Prick Up Your Ears […]
A Poet Chases Away the Pallbearers
The American expat poet Cody Maher jotted down a few notes called “The Pallbearers.” I like for the grim story it tells and for its mordant humor.
Ginsberg Does Indian Mantras on Sloow Tapes
!['London Mantra' Sloow Tapes cassette [2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/LONDON-MANTRA-artwork560.jpg)
Speaking of Allen Ginsberg, I’m told a new Sloow Tapes cassette entitled “London Mantra” is about to be released. Bart de Paepe, producer of the indie label, writes, “It’s a recording George Dowden made at his home in July 1973.” The tape features “Ginsberg solo on his harmonium, singing Indian mantras and a few of […]
Amiri Baraka Has Died, a Remembrance
Amiri Baraka’s obituary in the NY Times this morning mentioned his first contact with Allen Ginsberg. …to whom, in the puckish spirit of the times, he had written a letter on toilet paper reading, “Are you for real?” (“I’m for real, but I’m tired of being Allen Ginsberg,” came the reply, on what, its recipient […]
Above the Wintry Fields
The poem “A Murmuration of Starlings” is by Heathcote Williams, the narration by Alan Cox. After a visit to the Wordsworths in the Lake District, Coleridge caught a glimpse from his stagecoach Of a gigantic flock of birds as it swooped, rose then fell Above the frozen, wintry fields of a passing farm. It was […]
How a Brilliant Writer Got in His Own Way
!['Humpty Dumpty' [1924]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/humpty-dumpty-book-cover200-e1388258523554.jpg)
I’m told Ben Hecht was recently inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. That could be why I was asked to write a piece about him for a special “Chicago Issue” of the Chicago Quarterly Review, but something tells me it was pure coincidence. I also have a feeling the Hall of Fame won’t […]
‘In Praise of Folly’: Advice for 2014 or Any Year
Excerpt from Erasmus’ ‘In Praise of Folly’ (translated by John Wilson) Spoken by Folly in her own Person Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you’ll find them grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that their […]
Notes on Writers: Maugham Offers a Handful
Edmond White writes: “I was invited to a dinner at the apartment of Ted Morgan on the East Side. Later, in 1982, I would write a positive review of his biography of Somerset Maugham, in which he gave a horrifying portrait of the aging writer as having lost his mind to Alzheimer’s though he was […]
‘The Red Dagger’ by Heathcote Williams
London’s symbol for the hub of global finance in the City (Shown on the city’s flag to convey heraldic grandeur) Comes from a blood-soaked dagger that killed the rebel, Wat Tyler, For Tyler had challenged London on behalf of the poor. The dagger survives and is on display at Fishmonger’s Hall In the City’s secretive […]