Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

New Arrival: Ira Cohen’s From Journey West

by

Sea Urchin Editions maestro Ben Schot writes: The summer of 1975 was hot. A heatwave of eighteen consecutive days singed Western Europe and turned its capitals into seething cauldrons. Ira Cohen landed on the soft tarmac of Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, in August — his mind still filled with the opiate clouds over Kathmandu, […]

Seamus Heaney, R.I.P.

by

Seamus Heaney died today Fred just told me. that leaves very few of his caliber. attached an anatomical study as a sign of respect. the drawing was on the desktop when Fred brought me the sad news. I have mailed you the ‘stone from delphi’ which really sums up the poet and man. small precious […]

Back-to-Back Writings From Underground Dos-à-Dos

by

+++ Incidental Intelligence: Anyone who cherishes raw truth, and especially those of us who were warmed by Carl Weissner’s friendship, will appreciate EINE ANDERE LIGA as a mammoth achievement. But Milena Verlag ought to correct two claims on its Web site: 1) that this posthumous collection of his underground writings has a foreword written by […]

Brecht Never Taught at Podunk College

by

Two staff messages the other day led me to compare them. One went like this: I have a colleague who reads manuscripts for a literary magazine. Recently, I spent two hours looking at the contributions she has to vet. God, the bulk of them are awful. Actually, what makes them awful is their mediocrity. None […]

‘It’s a Boy!’

by

Someone asked what I thought about the royal birth in Britain. Nima Shirazi said it for me. And let’s not forget this: +++ Or the latest addition to the Royal Babylon video archive on YouTube: Inheritance.

Herbert Huncke, Beat Hipster Sans Pareil

by

I see that Hilary Holladay will be reading from American Hipster, her biography of Herbert Huncke, in a multimedia presentation at The Beat Museum in San Francisco. Tipped by my staff of thousands, I also see that she’s due the next night at Alley Cat Books. This brings back memories … One morning there was […]

The Fine Art of Book Promotion

by

“If this is the literary equivalent of groupies throwing their bras on stage, I’ll take it,” he says. The author, who goes by the name Supervert, was talking about a nude photo shoot with an “alt” model, which, he was pleased to learn, uses two of his books as a prop. It’s not the first […]

Wrapping Up the ‘Dutch Mordant’ Series

by

Cold Turkey Press publisher Gerard Bellaart writes that he “got rather carried away.” There are now about 40 cards in the series. Consequently the 36 portfolios of 12 cards each “will differ slightly in composition.” The “sacred nose” comes from the Bellaart family album, dated 1755.+++ A photo by Frederick Sommer illustrates the “kleine Welten” […]

‘The Prince of Amsterdam’

by

Heathcote Williams’s tribute to the late poet Simon Vinkenoog had me choking with laughter. And when the tribute to this ‘electric, ecstatic” poet of “ultra optimism” turns serious — when it recounts what Vinkenoog says in a dream to a friend: “It’s a party in heaven. I’m here with kindred spirits only. It’s like earth […]

Yannick Bouillis Spreads the Word on Twinpak

by

In ELSE #5, the current issue of the photo magazine ELSE published in Lausanne, Switzerland, by the Musée de l’Elysée, Yannick Bouillis has dedicated a handsome double spread to Norman O. Mustill’s Twinpak (Nova Broadcast Press, 1969). Bouillis, a former journalist and bookseller, is a member of the ELSE editorial committee and the founder of […]

Planned Obsolescence Press to Big Data: Fuck Off

by

In an unsigned Publisher’s Note to Whale Drek: The Lost Footnotes of the Olympia Press Naked Lunch, Jed Birmingham writes: “Planned Obsolescence Press specializes in distributing small shiploads of K.Y. made of genuine whale drek. What better to grease the lines of communication? The Press recycles that which no one has found any use for. […]

Antonin Artaud’s ‘Rotten Meat’

by

I’d bet the quotes on this card from Cold Turkey Press won’t be found in the search engines. +++ Here are some other recent Cold Turkey cards that quote Artaud: No Words, No Thought; Artaud’s Hammer; Plague of My Tongue, 1; Plague of My Tongue, 2. Additionally, Cold Turkey publisher Gerard Bellaart, writer and artist […]

From the Cut-Up Department

by

Long ago and far away (in other words, back in the 1960s), when greed & human smallness became history, I kept a cut-up diary — now lost — as something to tilt the museum, something small to fold up against, to tell what was meant.

A New Poster from Cold Turkey Press

by

The first flash mob in Europe Met in Rome on 24 June 2003. 300 people entered ‘Messaggerie Musicali’, A large book and music store, To ask its staff either for non-existent books, Or for the most obscure books By untraceable authors. One flash mobber asked for a copy of the New Testament Translated from Coptic […]

‘Artaud’s Hammer’: A Dissident Series Carries On

by

Antonin Artaud by René Char I haven’t the voice to sing your praise, great brother If I bent over your body which light is going to scatter Your laugh would repel me The affection between us, during what We improperly call a fine storm Falls several times, kills, digs & burns, Then is reborn afterwards […]

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog