Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

From Ralph Richardson to Alan Cox in ‘Cornelius’

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Any actor taking on what the savvy, longtime drama critic of The Guardian calls “a monumental leading role” expressly written for the great Ralph Richardson, is either crazy or brave — possibly both. Which partly explains why the role hadn’t been done in more than 70 years until Alan Cox brought it back to life […]

‘Sacred Elephant’ Is Coming to New York’s La MaMa

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I haven’t seen much theater lately, for reasons I may already have mentioned — so much is dull dull dull — but the dramatization of Heathcote Williams’s epic poem, “Sacred Elephant,” has got my attention as nothing has in years. The show, not yet officially announced, is coming in September to La MaMa‘s First Floor […]

Damning Account of ‘Rough Justice’ at Guantanamo

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Jess Bravin has a new book out, The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, just published by Yale University Press. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a damning, brave book by an author who is legitimately outraged by what he uncovered.” Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue: November 24, 2001. Around Noon. Checkpoints were common as […]

It Ain’t in Staten Island, the Rockaways, or Red Hook

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…but shitstorm Sandy had a ball here, too. The venerable Argosy Book Store took a hit on Manhattan’s East 59th Street within spitting distance of Bloomingdale’s and other posh emporiums. Here’s something to ponder: Different floors, but you get the picture. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

A Poem from the Late 20th Century

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The poet Nanos Valaoritis and I were good friends many years ago, in San Francisco. Here’s a poem of his, which I published in 1970, in a broadside edition of 500 or 1,000 copies — I can’t recall exactly. “Endless Crucifixion” is a collector’s item now. Jed Birmingham, who writes the RealityStudio column the Bibliographic […]

L’artiste Lui-même

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Norman Ogue Mustill in his desert lair. [Self-Portrait With Collage] In 2007, at my request, he took a photo of himself with several of his collages from the mid-’60s. This is one of them. Blogs are personal (in case you hadn’t noticed). EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Cue ‘Ah POOK,’ ‘THE UNSPEAKABLE MR HART’

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“Watchmen,” the movie, caused a stir at the box office when its opening weekend nabbed $55 million, the highest opening gross of the year and third-highest March opening ever. It’s a shame that none of the money will trickle down to the artist Malcolm Mc Neill, whose image of the Mayan Death God (right) in […]

John Bryan, RIP

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They left 12 roses on his doorstep along with half of their kidnap victim’s California driver’s license. He was grateful for the roses. “They could have been 12 bullets,” he said. The kidnappers were the Symbionese Liberation Army. The license belonged to Patty Hearst. The year was 1974. The roses were both a warning and […]

2007: Time for Him to Go

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It’s the new year, so nu? What’s the point of leaving Bullshitter-in-Chief and his aaaeulc. reported this morning in The New York Times, make it doubtful. “What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win, not how we’re going to leave,” he is quoted as warning the military’s top brass. He […]

MOCKING THE VICTIMS

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Slate “Orphaned,” about children victimized by Hurricane Katrina. On the right is the opposite page, the first of four luxurious pages advertising Eileen Fisher “Alive in the World” clothing that were sandwiched inside DeParle’s piece. “New Orleans was always a place of unsettling juxtapositions,” DeParle writes. So, apparently, is the print edition of the magazine. […]

BIT OF NEPOTISM

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Taking a break from the blog, but before I go . . . I figured I’d mention a cousin o’ mine — Carol Edelson — cuz she’s got a show of recent work goin’ up soon at the Martucci Gallery in Irvington, N.Y. Actually, this bit of nepotism is just an excuse to post an […]

YEAH, THE HOLOCAUST REALLY HAPPENED

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The hidebound circle jerks of the Vienna Philharmonic, whose long-buried historical relationship with the Holocaust still has contemporary echoes. For instance, at Bruckner-Konservatorium) in Linz (Hitler’s hometown), not far from Vienna, the big concert hall is named for Wilhelm Jerger, who was director of the conservatory until 1973. Jerger, right — a contrabassist in the […]

MILTON GLASER ♥ DISSENT

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To keep Independence Day from becoming a more empty patriotic ritual than usual, let’s celebrate the hearty dissenter Milton Glaser, designer of many famous logos and symbols such as interviewed on PBS’s “NOW” about the “Design of Dissent Exhibit” at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and his and Mirko Ilic’s new book, […]

FRYING LYNNE STEWART

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By Jan Herman Americans less brave than Lynne Stewart — which, frankly, means the rest of us — are easily cowed. It doesn’t take much to scare the shit out of people. As William Burroughs once wrote, “anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death,” and Dear Leader owns the biggest frying pan […]

HANGING IN WITH GEORGE

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By Jan Herman When 1984 came around smack in the middle of the rose-tinted Reagan era, many in the commentariat had a field day noting that George Orwell, for all his genius, had overstated his case. The future he’d warned of in “1984” simply hadn’t come to pass. Yeah, right. Thinking of Bill Moyers this morning, it occurred […]

REPORT FROM THE LAND OF IS

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By JAN HERMAN The wizards from the Land of Is spelled out What We Stand For over the weekend in a stellar gathering at New York University’s Skirball Center, convened by the New Democracy Project and The Nation. They didn’t need to take their cues from Paul Krugman, the economist and liberal New York Times […]

SHOOTER

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The rumor that American Media’s tabloid queen, Bonnie Fuller, shelled out $100,000 for a wedding photo of Britney Spears and ex-groom, reminds me to get cracking on the tabloid thriller I’ve been dawdling over. It’s called “Shooter,” and here’s how it begins: “Laszlo was a fabulist who put great store in truth-telling because the truth, […]

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