Peter Schumann: The Shatterer is the first solo museum exhibition of Bread and Puppet Theater founder and director Peter Schumann. The exhibition opened in November 2013 as part of the first season in the museum’s newly expanded galleries. It marks the 50th anniversary of the theater company and introduces New York audiences to a largely […]
In NYC: Catching Up With Peter Schumann
‘The Red Dagger’ by Heathcote Williams
London’s symbol for the hub of global finance in the City (Shown on the city’s flag to convey heraldic grandeur) Comes from a blood-soaked dagger that killed the rebel, Wat Tyler, For Tyler had challenged London on behalf of the poor. The dagger survives and is on display at Fishmonger’s Hall In the City’s secretive […]
‘Aletheia,’ a Work-in-Progress
“Aletheia” is chamber music theater work about a musician in a dressing room preparing to perform for a gala benefit for an opera house that is taking place in the courtyard below her window. Though excited at first, she can’t bring herself to go down and perform. As her sense of isolation increases, she becomes, […]
A Thanksgiving Team: Burroughs & Mustill, Redux
A Straight Up tradition continues. William S. Burroughs’s words of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day paired with a couple of collages by Norman O. Mustill. Look and listen. It’s delish . . . Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts — thanks for a Continent […]
Einstein’s Brain
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.
Gay ‘Kit’ Marlowe: Poet, Spy, Elizabethan Proto-punk
LATEST UPDATE: Sept. 1 — “Killing Kit” is to be staged in a London try out. The production opens at The Cockpit on Sept. 21. FURTHER UPDATE: Feb. 15 — The reading came off well, I’m told. Somebody in The Cockpit audience tweeted: “Beautiful, meaty, dangerous Elizabethan play for today’s Elizabethans. Real writing. Great night.” […]
Two Poe Shows — One at the Morgan, One on Paper
Not being a Poe man myself, I asked a friend who happens to be an avid Poe man, how he would describe him. His reply — “The best writer, the best bad writer, America ever produced” — was pretty much a capsule preview of Charles McGrath’s excellent feature in this morning’s NY Times about the […]
Heathcote Williams: ‘My Dad and My Uncle’
![Royal Artillery gun crews and Howitzers WWI at Lydd [Bill Hyde collection].](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/My-Dad-and-My-Uncle-howitzer-1-.jpg)
Words by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox. Written upon learning that WWI centenary Remembrance plans are to be given £50 million by the UK government.— BBC News, 11 October 2012 My Dad and my Uncle were in World War One. At least they were in it, but not in it: Conscripted but […]
Sight Unseen, a Plug for Godfrey Reggio’s ‘Visitors’
2002: “Naqoyqatsi,” meaning “life as war,” was the third in Reggio’s qatsi trilogy. 1988: “Powaqqatsi,” meaning “life in transformation,” was the second. 1982: “Koyaanisqatsi,” meaning “life out of balance,” was the first. Reggio’s latest, “Visitors,” with another score by Philip Glass, will be released in 2014.
He Had a Dream, But His Speech Was Hardly Noticed
![From the Wall Street Journal [Aug. 27, 1963]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wsj-little-encouragement-e1377779460236.png)
Given all the self-congratulation of the 50th anniversary celebration marking the historic significance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, you’d think its importance had been noted at the time, especially by the news media. Well, Jess Bravin has news for you. The day before King gave the speech on the steps […]
Everybody’s Celebrating the ‘Dream’ Speech
So here’s A Reminder to Our Pipsqueak Leaders. Martin Luther King Jr. was bold and beautiful for a reason.
‘No Borders’
‘The grass is greener when there are no sides.’ — Heathcote Williams Click for video. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.
Why Some of the Best Journalists Jam the Media
This comment from William Osborne, in response to Surveillance Without Just Cause, deserves its own post: Most Americans no longer care if they are being spied on by their government. We live in a society so transparent they already feel they have no meaningful secrets left. Through social conditioning, government becomes an almost aestheticized ideal […]
On ‘Planetary-wide Surveillance Without Just Cause’
Why is it that dissident journalists are articulate and eloquent in their arguments? One good reason is that the truth is on their side. Another is that they’re dedicated to human rights. Watch Jacob Appelbaum, a dissident security researcher and Wikileaks associate, speaking today in an interview on “Democracy Now!” It’s a stunner, and not […]
Archival Evidence from the 20th Century
![Cutup Fragment in the 'Grand' Style [Jan Herman, 1970]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CUT-UP-FRAGMENT-IN-THE-GRAND-STYLE.png)
The more books we read the sooner we perceive the plague that sweeps us …
Free Lynne Stewart: Save Her Life
UPDATES BELOW … Back in 2005, when Lynne Stewart was prosecuted for aiding terrorists in her role as a civil rights defense attorney representing Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up the United Nations building in New York, it was clear the feds were aiming to fry her. […]
From a Townhouse to the Vasty Deep
Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? Glendower: Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the Devil Hotspur: And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the Devil By telling the truth. […]