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Straight Up | Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

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Taking a Break

April 12, 2021 by Jan Herman 1 Comment

Back soon.

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This Blogger Needs to Take a Break

April 12, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

We weep
to leave behind
the sun
lightly pencilled in,
nothing left of the eternal. …
We are still
only little animals.

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Rich Allen’s Film Dances to the Music

April 9, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

‘Lost in Lydia City’: Four minutes of pure sad funny nostalgic joy.

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Underground: To a Remaindered Poet

April 9, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

An ancient shadow led the exiled Dante
through the hell of his neurotic soul.
Yet you, oh poet, are silent about your escape
and slipped into the brown hide of a bookseller
to sell me your remainder of 2000 sonnets.
You did not die like the laurel-wreathed tribune
under a cloak of daggers.
No, not you, rebellious citizen . . .

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Gone But Not Forgotten
The Pyramid Club on the Lower East Side

April 7, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

Gone, finished, closed, shut forever. Though less well known than CBGB, Webster Hall, The Palladium, the Continental, it gave birth to much LES culture. Over the last few years, the Pyramid Club struggled to stay alive. Then came the Covid-19 death grip.

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Transubstantiation
Christopher Hitchens Would Be Chortling

April 4, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

Words by Heathcote Williams. Montage and narration by Alan Cox.
Video redux for Easter Sunday 2021.

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He Had A Dream

April 4, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

#1-- Martin Luther King Jr.

He was assassinated fifty-three years ago today. His dream did not die with him.

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Day and Night

April 2, 2021 by Jan Herman 3 Comments

There are day poets and night poets. Here is one of each: A. Robert Lee (whose SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES was recently published) and Helmut Maria Soik (whose RIMBAUD UNDER THE STEEL HELMET has been translated from the German by Georg M. Gugelberger and Lydia Perera). I should perhaps mention, in case anyone gets the wrong idea, that I make no value judgment as to the greater or lesser worth of “day” vs. “night.” I had so much fun reading “Suspicious Circumstances” that it felt as good as getting high, no drugs needed. The wit and wisdom of its vignettes—really prose poems laced with laughter—dissect the customs and dispel the dreariness of ordinary life. They are a much-needed provocation, like Baudelaire’s “Paris Spleen” turned inside out.

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Carl Weissner’s German Essays and Reportage
Notes on Outsiders

March 29, 2021 by Jan Herman Leave a Comment

UPDATED: To get the drift of “Aufzeichnungen über Aussenseiter” by Carl Weissner, I’ve been typing pieces of text into google translate. It’s a helluva time-consuming job, as if re-setting type you understand. Matthias Penzel, who edited the collection and wrote an afterword, tells me I should have better things to do with my time. But it’s more than worth the effort.

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A Photo Portrait for the Ages

March 24, 2021 by Jan Herman 1 Comment

They don’t make characters like this any more unless you think of Trump’s sourpusses.

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Rare Book Collecting
Connecting Brion Gysin and Paul-Armand Gette

March 22, 2021 by Jan Herman 2 Comments

UPDATED // To rate collectors by the use they make of their collections rather than simply by completeness, or by the rarity and excellence of individual items, makes great sense. Jed Birmingham’s new series about collectors of Burroughsiana is essential reading for anyone interested in the usefulness of collecting books of any kind, not just those by Williams Burroughs.

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New Folio from Cold Turkey Press

March 19, 2021 by Jan Herman

The stone lion at the gate
wears a mask like mine.
This is where I used to wait
for books that bind,
that put my mind at ease.

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From Bike Messenger to Filmmaker
Rich Allen’s Magnificent
‘Street Shots / Hooky’

March 17, 2021 by Jan Herman

When a book begins like this, notice must be taken: “I woke up, New Year’s Day 1970, in a straitjacket. I had no memory, of anything, at least not at first. I was in an asylum on Long Island after taking an overdose of some pills a shrink gave me. Slowly awareness arose. … I asked to have the jacket removed and they did. Bit by bit memories came back. I could recall details of my childhood. I remembered I’d married Cathy, my girlfriend, months ago when she turned eighteen … In a few days I felt normal.”

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Oprah Interview Misses the Bigger Picture

March 10, 2021 by Jan Herman

In all the press coverage I have seen of Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan and Harry, it has been treated as a tale of personal tragedy, a terrible racist family squabble, for the British royals — but not one mention of the larger tragedy at the heart of Heathcote Williams’s “Royal Babylon,” namely the immense damage caused by the monarchy’s greedy, rapacious treatment of peoples and nations the worldover.

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The Long Haul: New York City Grins and Bears It

March 9, 2021 by Jan Herman

“Vaccine acceleration and partial re-openings inspire hope, but coming back from the pandemic will be a complex process.” — Michael Oreskes

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Will Oprah Pick Up Where He Left Off?
Heathcote Williams on the British Monarchy

March 6, 2021 by Jan Herman

“‘God save the queen,’ they sang, ‘it’s a fascist regime.’ / And the song’s hook-line became a new anthem — / Disturbing to clutches of flag-wavers lining the streets. / And horrifying to Middle England and the Daily Mail.” — from ROYAL BABYLON

PS: In all the press coverage I have seen of the interview, it has been treated as a tale of personal tragedy, a terrible racist family squabble, for the British royals but not one mention of the larger tragedy at the heart of “Royal Babylon,” namely the immense damage caused by the monarchy’s greedy, rapacious treatment of peoples and nations the world over.

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Joseph Brodsky on the Life of Books

February 26, 2021 by Jan Herman

“On the whole, books are less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors. … Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer himself has turned into a handful of dust. Yet even this form of the future is better than the memory of a few surviving relatives or friends on whom one cannot rely, and often it is precisely the appetite for this posthumous dimension which sets one’s pen in motion.”

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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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