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Straight Up | Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

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GC CUNY at the Center of the Conversation
CHANGE: How Artists Lead the Way

October 12, 2020 by Jan Herman

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 7:30 p.m. A FREE ONE EVENT Featuring Vijay Gupta, violinist, founder of Street Symphony, a MacArthur Award-winner, and popular TED speaker; Hồng-An Trương, an artist using photography, sound, video, and performance, whose work has been shown at venues including the International Center for Photography, The Kitchen, and the Museum of Modern Art; and Hank Willis Thomas, a conceptual artist whose work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; and Hong Kong Arts Centre; and who collaborates on the artist-run initiatives for civic engagement For Freedoms and the Wide Awakes. This cross-disciplinary panel will be moderated by Sarah Lewis, associate professor at Harvard University; a leading commentator on race, contemporary art, and culture; and a much-viewed TED speaker.

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This Side of Grub Street

July 13, 2020 by Jan Herman

Readers wanted to know all about their celebrities, or at least about my encounters with them. From A-listers and B-listers right down to Z-listers. The whole stupid alphabet top to bottom. Names to be forgotten one day. They needed the publicity and I needed the job. I wasn’t a star fucker—I’ll say that, having come from the newsroom with no more interest in celebrities than any routine reporter. I was a stand-in for star fuckers.​

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Lilliane Lijn’s ‘Power Hanky’

May 30, 2020 by Jan Herman

Makes me think of … “Summertime.”

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The Language + Her Voice + Their Music = Heaven

May 29, 2020 by Jan Herman

This is bliss . . . and so is this . . . especially in tough times. MEDITAÇAO & CHEGA DE SAUDHADE (A.C.JOBIM) ANDREA MOTIS Y JOAN CHAMORRO LIVE AT JAMBOREE — Barcelona :: Andrea Motis & Joan Chamorro Quintet Featuring Scott Hamilton [Andrea Motis, voz ,trompeta & saxo; Joan Chamorro, contrabass; Scott Hamilton, tenor sax; Ignasi Terraza, piano & Hammond; Josep Traver, guitarra Esteve Pi, drums.]

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Coping with the Shitstorm #8

May 24, 2020 by Jan Herman

For a high-speed Sunday morning . . . Paul Altman commented on YouTube, “Lennie had the bass and drums recorded, and then using the reel-to-reel technology of that time, slowed them down to half speed, and then recorded the solo as an overdub an octave lower and at 1/2 of the speed released here. Then he sped the whole thing back up by 2X so that the bass and drums returned to their original recorded pitch and speed, but his piano solo was now twice as fast, and an octave higher, than he recorded it at. [Some people think that’s cheating, but] I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. Maybe some people assume that mediocre playing can be made to sound superlative by merely doubling the speed. But it doesn’t work that way. It just ends up sounding like fast, mediocre music.”

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Coping With the Shitstorm #7

May 18, 2020 by Jan Herman

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, BWV 1051 | movement i. performed Aug. 10, 2019, at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival by Shuhan Wang (viola); Bethany Hargreaves (viola); Ole Akahoshi (cello); John Belk (cello); Clare Bradford (cello); Amy Nickler (double bass); Hilda Huang, (harpsichord).

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Music for All Seasons: Little Richard Meets Vivaldi

May 10, 2020 by Jan Herman

Wouldn’t it be grand?

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‘A Daughter’s Take on the Legend of Nicholas Ray’

May 8, 2020 by Jan Herman

Three Rooms Press has just published RAY BY RAY, a combination memoir-biography by Nicca Ray, daughter of the maverick Hollywood director Nicholas Ray, with an introduction by Samantha Fuller, daughter of another Hollywood maverick, the screenwriter/director Sam Fuller. The publisher will present a livestream book launch Saturday afternoon—May 9 @ 2pm-4pm EST — featuring the […]

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Coping With the Shitstorm #6

April 19, 2020 by Jan Herman

Music for a Sunday morning.

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Coping With the Shitstorm #4

April 13, 2020 by Jan Herman

Music for a Monday morning.

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In a Time of Crisis . . .

March 13, 2020 by Jan Herman

. . . here’s a tune to calm the nerves. It’s called “My Fate Is in Your Hands,” composed by Fats Waller and played by Dick Hyman. An anecdote goes with it. But first the tune.

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Kurt Wold: ‘Stradoferous’

January 13, 2020 by Jan Herman

“I dreamt I could play the bicycle. This performance artwork plays with a number of themes, not the least of which is the continual contemporary pressure to present oneself as larger-than-life, in the hope that one might be noticed in a distracted culture. Of course the work also revels in those distractions.” — Kurt Wold

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Fluxus Impresario Readied for His Closeup

December 28, 2019 by Jan Herman

A feature documentary about the impresario of the international avant-garde art movement Fluxus from 1962 to 1978. Interviews with artists include Yoko Ono, Jonas Mekas, and Nam June Paik. Dedicated to cooperative methods and expanded processes, Fluxus could be everything and almost anything: kits, shops, festivals, islands, weddings, food, or Flux Lofts—a network of artist-owned lofts in SoHo, New York. The iconoclastic George Maciunas and the spirit of Fluxus provoke questions still critical to many working artists . . . and a helluva lot of silly serious fun.

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Fluxus, Intermedia and . . .

September 26, 2019 by Jan Herman

The Something Else Factor: Alison Knowles, Barbara Moore, Martha Wilson and I will be participating this evening in a panel about the glory days of Something Else Press, moderated by Hannah B. Higgins, at the Emily Harvey Foundation. It’s the first of four discussions organized by Christian Xatrec and Alice Centamore. The events are free. RSVP to ehf.nework@gmail.com

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A Gothic Tale Set in Black and White

September 10, 2019 by Jan Herman

Other works by Ligia Lewis include Sensation 1/This Interior (High Line Commission) (2019); so something happened, get over it; no, nothing happened, get with it (Jaou Tunis) (2018); Melancholy: A White Mellow Drama (Flax Fahrenheit, Palais de Tokyo) (2015); minor matter (2016), a poetic piece illuminated by red; Sorrow Swag (2014), presented in a saturated blue; $$$ (Tanz im August) (2012); and Sensation 1 (sommer.bar, Tanz im August -2011, Basel Liste- 2014).

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Encore: A Little ‘Newspaper Music’

July 23, 2019 by Jan Herman

This reading of a Fluxus piece by Alison Knowles from 1962 was recorded probably in 1967. The cassette tape was salvaged from a recent basement flood and digitized by the indefatiguable S|U staff. Ear plugs may be helpful in some passages.

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Alison Knowles: ‘Proposition #2 for Emmett Williams’

July 22, 2019 by Jan Herman

A transcript of this piece was published under the title “A house of dust, computer poem” in FANTASTIC ARCHITECTURE edited by Wolf Vostell and Dick Higgins (Something Else Press, 1969). The reading, on a cassette recording made ca. 1967, was salvaged from a recent basement flood at S|U’s Manhattan perch. It features four readers, including Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins. Any help identifying the two other voices would be appreciated.

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

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The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

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