Our delicious Thanksgiving team of William S. Burroughs and Norman O. Mustill has been a happy pairing. It still is. But the Straight Up staff of thousands wanted to add a sweetener, something like cranberry sauce, to this year’s celebration of gratitude. Here ‘tiz: Words by Heathcote Williams, narration and montage by Alan Cox.
‘Anatomy of Violence,’ a Prophetic Blast from the Past
An article in the Washington Post declares that the riots in Ferguson have been “the most significant explosions of racial frustration since the election of the nation’s first black president, and so Ferguson forced the country out of the fantasy that America had entered a ‘post-racial’ era.” I’m not sure who really entertained that fantasy […]
The Reviews Are In: How Many Tomatoes for ‘Algren’?
I took a survey of viewers who saw “Algren,” the new documentary that recently had its world premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival. Here’s what they said: Reviewer #1: Really interesting and fast-paced. It gives me a great sense of the guy without being pious. I’m unsure about the kitschy style. The fast edits […]
Desktopfun: Boo-hooray’s Burroughs Cut/Up Show
Boo-Hooray, in collaboration with Emory University, is presenting a William S. Burroughs centenary exhibition dedicated to the Cut-Up technique. On view will be hand-edited typescript drafts from the Nova Trilogy, rarely seen publications like the mimeographed newsletter The Burrough and the Sigma Portfolio, alongside correspondence with Brion Gysin, vinyl releases, as well as the original […]
Long-Awaited ‘Algren’ Bows at Chicago Film Festival
Is this Nelson Algren’s moment? If it is, I don’t think he’d give a damn — not personally — considering he’s gone and how long ago that was. I also don’t think he’d appreciate what has become a cliché of the Algren myth — the forgotten writer. Sure, he’s forgotten. Most writers are. And of […]
Long-Awaited ‘Algren’ Documentary to Open in Chicago
Is this Nelson Algren’s moment? If it is, I don’t think he’d give a damn — not personally — considering he’s gone and how long ago that was. I also don’t think he’d appreciate what has become a cliché of the Algren myth — the forgotten writer. Sure, he’s forgotten. Most writers are. And of […]
A Message From My Orwellian Phone Carrier
The email arrived with this message: “At Verizon Wireless your privacy is our priority.” How nice. So I read on: “We’re enhancing our Relevant Mobile Advertising program in a way that can help marketers reach you with messages …” And here I thought privacy was defined as “the state or condition of being free from […]
‘An Old Man and a Young Man in Gaza’
The brutality of the Israelis in its savage response to Hamas rocket attacks has been documented in photographs so horrendous I can’t bear to look at them. Listening to “An Old Man and a Young Man in Gaza” — as read by Alan Cox in a recent radio broadcast on the KPFA program Cover to […]
‘Killing Kit’ to Be Staged in London Try Out
Heathcote Williams’s first new play in many years is to open Sept. 21 at The Cockpit, where it received a reading last February. The company advertises itself as a radical fringe “theatre of disruptive panache, angry critique and useful, progressive ideas for the future.” “Killing Kit” traces “the volcanic life and mysterious death of Christopher […]
Cold Turkey Press Publishes Portrait of Nelson Algren
![TICKET TO NEW JERSEY: A Portrait of Nelson Algren [Cold Turkey Press, 2014]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/TICKETcovera-front-COLD-TURKEY335-200x200.jpg)
This is a byte of self promotion. A byte? Haw. From the jacket blurb: Who could resist a study of a writer that begins, “if his writing had taken a flying fuck into a deep canyon, it was always balls-to-the-wall”? Jan Herman has borrowed the ghost of Algren’s golden arm with which to write this […]
Touring ‘Poetry Army’ Charts History of Radical Verse
A posting by the Stop the War Coalition: From The Peasants’ Revolt to recent events at Tahrir Square, this incendiary performance celebrates radical verse in all its glory down through the centuries. The longstanding collaboration between poet Heathcote Williams and performer Roy Hutchins, encompassing such hits as Whale Nation and Autogeddon, continues as Hutchins combines […]
50 Years Apart: ‘American Porn’ & ‘Call Me Burroughs’
The similarity was unintended, which makes it even better. The 1965 vinyl “Call Me Burroughs” is a classic.The 2014 vinyl “American Porn” will be.The 1965 vinyl “Call Me Burroughs” is a classic.The 2014 vinyl “American Porn” will be a classic.Here it is with a different sleeve. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Mc Neill’s Diagnosis: ‘Reflux’ in the Metaphysical Sense
!['Reflux' by Malcolm Mc Neill [Apophenia, 2014] (back cover)](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/reflux-back-cover-200x200.jpg)
Updated: See video below. Malcolm Mc Neil is up to no good again — I loved it the last time — with a new book of essays, titled Reflux. I take that to mean he’s describing a metaphysical case of esophagitis. In other words, as a toddler of my acquaintance, pointing to the vomitus on […]
Nelson Algren on “the American writer” . . .
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uh, before Amazon … “The American writer as often as not is a middle-aged man with a wife and children, two or three books behind him, and eleven dollars in his pocket. He’s up against a conglomerate that deals in millions. He will take what they offer.” —– Nelson Algren, 1980 EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
When War Criminals Fall in Love . . .
Bush and Blair: ‘Let’s go to war.’ ‘Let’s go to bed.’ Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.Click to watch the video. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
‘Unstoppable’: On Dismantling the Corporate State
I’m a huge fan of Brian Lamb’s ‘Q & A’ on C-Span. Listening to Ralph Nader speak to Lamb last night about Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State, Nader’s new book, was typical of the broadcast’s educational brilliance. The discussion, or rather the story as Nader told it, of Nader’s “upbringing […]
‘People Power vs. Money Power’
Written by Heathcote Williams, narration and montage by Alan Cox, with photos by Adrian Arbib. Professor Nanjunda’s Direct Actions “What India needs today is the Gandhian formula for progress, not the presence of the West which is interested in stealing our wealth.” This was Professor Nanjundaswamy’s war cry As he fended off corporate kleptocrats And […]