John Bryan published so many underground papers and magazines over three decades — beginning in 1962 with renaissance, a San Francisco literary journal inspired by Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception (which John said he read “half a dozen times,” and which turned him onto LSD) — that Warren Hinckle called him “the Peter Zenger of […]
Huge Wyler Retrospective in Paris
One of the beauties of a William Wyler retrospective as big as the one that the Cinemathèque Française has currently mounted in Paris is the chance to see the immense variety of his work. I don’t think as thorough a retrospective (41 films, including some of the silents) has been screened since the 1996 Berlin […]
Big Moment for a B-17
UPDATED May 21: When the 10-man crew of “The Memphis Belle” completed their 25th mission over Europe in 1943, they and their B-17 heavy bomber were brought home to the U.S. for a cross-country publicity tour and were made famous by William Wyler’s World War II live-action combat documentary (also called “The Memphis Belle”). I […]
Connecting With Burroughs
I was walking down Third Avenue in midtown Manhattan the other day when I saw someone reading Naked Lunch. I know the shot looks posed, but it wasn’t. This is exactly how he was sitting (below left). The guy was in front of an office building at 777 Third Ave., between E. 48 and E. […]
Trump’s Corrupt Precursor
Carl Weissner and I made this track in 1971 during the Vietnam War before Nixon resigned his corrupt presidency. The collage shows Nixon’s customary “V” for victory salute, which was as hollow and phoney as he was, with his wife Pat behind him looking over his shoulder against a backdrop of two pots, one clean […]
Not Witty Enough
A promo from The Paris Review: Withering maybe, but hardly a quip. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Art Shay, Man With a Camera, R.I.P.
![Art Shay [Photo by Steve and Dick Shay]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/art-shay-with-camera-247x355-200x200.jpg)
He was 94. His classic book of photographs, Nelson Algren’s Chicago, was published three decades after shooting them for Life during the height of Algren’s fame in the 1950s. The magazine never used them. Shay was kind enough to sign a copy of the book for me. According to Shay’s obit in the Chicago Tribune […]
‘Officially Verboten’
U.S. cities with the fastest-growing wealth gaps. Monster Nor’easter The first day of spring a blinding white curtain kidnapped the city. It was a true blast of winter. We solemn jurors braved the monster nor’easter and did our solemn duty at forty dollars a day, the price of a shovel. Like heavily falling snow white […]
C.L.R. James: Cricket Shaped Him
I know nothing about cricket. My only sense of the game came from Frank Harris’s portrait of H.G. Wells. But now that I’ve read The Young C.L.R. James: A Graphic Novelette (PM Press Pamphlet), which traces the early development of the Pan-Africanist writer and Trotskyite revolutionary who was a cricket star as a young man […]
What Would Daumier Make of Trump?
![Lithograph by Honoré Daumier [1831]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/daumier_honore_1-200x200.jpg)
Here’s the perfect hint: A mocking depiction of King Louis-Philippe as the Rabelais character Gargantua. The caricature might as well be Trump. He feeds on bundles of swag delivered by his obsequious minions and, from his outhouse throne, he shits out appointments, titles, and other rewards for the privileged class. Not incidentally, Honoré Daumier went […]
Spike, Smalls, and Mezzrow
Spike Wilner is a ragtime jazz pianist with an unusual background. He’s also the major domo of not one but two great jazz clubs across the street from each other in Manhattan. As a tireless partisan for music of all kinds, especially for the kind that keeps audiences coming back to Smalls and Mezzrow every […]
Poland Dials the Wrong Number
An open letter from Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, took up a full page yesterday in The New York Times. The heading was “It’s Time to Dial Back the Rhetoric in Poland.” I have no expertise in the matter, but I couldn’t help recalling Tuvye Tenenbom‘s take on the situation of […]
A Burroughs-Gysin ‘Motherlode’
SEE UPDATE BELOW My staff of thousands informs me that the Smithsonian Institute has posted scans of three notebooks by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin dating from 1963 to 1973, and 1977. It was described to me as “a motherlode” of writings and collages. And indeed it is. Have a look by clicking the […]
R. Crumb Classic Portraits
![Portrait of Charles Plymell © by R. Crumb [2018]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/RCRUMB-portrait-of-Plymell-508-200x200.jpg)
Charles Plymell writes: I sent Robert some old political cartoons on crumbling paper from 20’s-30’s & some extra sheets of the plain parchment which had beautiful tan sheen like I ran the first ZAP on. I had remembered the old comics I found in Lawrence of Andy Gump & another one of The Katzenjammer Kids […]
Thinking of Auden . . .
Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives. — W.H. Auden EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
‘Aletheia’ to Tour Northeastern U.S.
Composed by William Osborne for singer-instrumentalist, computer-controlled piano, and quadraphonic electronics, “Aletheia” is a music theater work featuring the solo performance of Abbie Conant as the title character. Osborne writes, “Aletheia is an opera singer who is delighted that she has been asked to perform for an opera gala. She only needs to go down […]
Oh Say Can You See . ? .
![Flag illustration © by Sonia Pulido [New York Times, 1/31/2018]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Flag-Sonia-Pulido-NYT-1enh-360-200x200.jpg)
Some ideas are so good that they’re too good to steal. Norman O. Mustill had many of them. This was one. But good ideas get around –or go around — landing many times in many places. Sonia Polido’s good idea landed yesterday as an illustration for the lead editorial “What Trump Doesn’t Get About the […]