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 […]
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 […]
‘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 […]
Nelson Algren on Frank Lloyd Wright
This is Algren reading his poem “On the Heart It Don’t Matter How You Spell It.” It’s from a 1972 recording. Frank Lloyd Wright was the saint of American architecture. He liked steel buildings, stone buildings, tall buildings, low buildings. He liked new buildings and old buildings. He like dry buildings and damp buildings. He […]
Terkel Reads from ‘Chicago: City on the Make’
I’ve been going through all my old Nelson Algren files to give to Colin Asher. He recently landed a contract to write Algren’s biography for Norton — that’s W.W. Norton & Co. (one of the last big indie publishers, and a great one, too). My files include all sorts of primary documents, among them a […]
‘Aletheia,’ a Work-in-Progress
“Aletheia” is chamber music theater work about a musician in a dressing room preparing to perform for a gala benefit for an opera house that is taking place in the courtyard below her window. Though excited at first, she can’t bring herself to go down and perform. As her sense of isolation increases, she becomes, […]
‘Every Crumb Can Become a Piece of Cake’
Here are a couple of Hanne Lippard’s vocal tone poems. She combines a voice and accent to kill for with a witty, whimsical sense of humor. The words and the way she says them are a kick.
Antwerp Public Linguistic Poem
“It doesn’t matter what happens. I like it when there are accidents. If anybody starts to argue that’s OK. … This is a public poem. This is the work I do for 45 years. I am completely meshuga. I do one every year.” — Alain Arias-Misson
Paris Bookfair Focuses on New Practices in Art
14 Rue Bonaparte, from Nov. 14 to 17. Open to the general public. Free admission. Postscript: Nov. 23 — The bookfair was jammed. Very impressive. The lecture hall was a19th-century amphitheater in back of the main hall.
Einstein’s Brain
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.
Harold Norse: ‘Take a Chance In The Void’
Via sloowtapes: During the early ’60s Harold Norse was living in Paris at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, later known as the Beat Hotel. Also living there were William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Gregory Corso, and Sinclair Beiles. All of them experimented with cut prose, a form of collage applied to texts and audiotapes. Norse made the technique […]
Heathcote Williams: ‘My Dad and My Uncle’
![Royal Artillery gun crews and Howitzers WWI at Lydd [Bill Hyde collection].](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg)
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. Written upon learning that WWI centenary Remembrance plans are to be given £50 million by the UK government.— BBC News, 11 October 2012 My Dad and my Uncle were in World War One. At least they were in it, but not in it: Conscripted but […]
Sight Unseen, a Plug for Godfrey Reggio’s ‘Visitors’
2002: “Naqoyqatsi,” meaning “life as war,” was the third in Reggio’s qatsi trilogy. 1988: “Powaqqatsi,” meaning “life in transformation,” was the second. 1982: “Koyaanisqatsi,” meaning “life out of balance,” was the first. Reggio’s latest, “Visitors,” with another score by Philip Glass, will be released in 2014.
Get Your Megadeath ‘Fun Stuff’ Here
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. The National Atomic Museum ‘Hiroshima bomb earrings for sale’ Katherine Butler and Fiona Bell, London: The Independent, 6 August, 1999 In the National Atomic Museum At Albuquerque, New Mexico, You can buy souvenirs of ‘Little Boy’, The bomb that demolished Hiroshima, And of ‘Fat Man’, […]
Nanos Valaoritis: On Language and Poetry
At 92 / Nanos in his element / his element the world / his world the words / his words a philosopher’s. Here’s a poem of his — “Endless Crucifixion” — from the late-20th century. This is from the entry about him in Wikipedia: Nanos Valaoritis (Greek: Νάνος Βαλαωρίτης; born July 5, 1921) is one […]
He Had a Dream, But His Speech Was Hardly Noticed
![From the Wall Street Journal [Aug. 27, 1963]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wsj-little-encouragement-e1377779460236.png)
Given all the self-congratulation of the 50th anniversary celebration marking the historic significance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, you’d think its importance had been noted at the time, especially by the news media. Well, Jess Bravin has news for you. The day before King gave the speech on the steps […]
A Little Argentine Adventure, With Pacifist Overtones
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.