You can say a lot of things about Christopher Hitchens’s role as a cheerleader for the war in Iraq, most of all that it stank to high heaven. Of course it’s pure coincidence that he died on the same day that marked the official end of the war. But it’s a fitting irony that Secretary […]
Jess Bravin Explains It All for You
The U.S. Supreme Court, the Constitution, & the health care law.
Health and Safety . . . Oh Yeah
That’s the pretext for the cop sweep of OWS protestors at Zuccotti Park. Or as NYC’s billionaire mayor claims, that’s the reason for the eviction by what he called “the world’s greatest police department.” It’s the same police force recently convicted of planting drugs and currently charged with smuggling guns, armed robbery, making false arrests, […]
Godfrey Reggio’s Vision of ‘Life Out of Balance’
A day in February, 1983. Godfrey Reggio is standing in front of the old Reichstag in Berlin. A tall, gaunt man with pale blue eyes and a graying beard that looks like stubble, he has just presented Koyaanisqatsi at the Berlin Film Festival. The notices have been gratifying. One critic called it “a masterpiece . […]
Ground Zero ‘Visions’ That Never Happened
The tale I wrote at MSNBC.com back in 2002 on December 18, the day nine “visions of Ground Zero’s future” were unveiled in a design competition to rebuild the site, has long since been deleted from cyberspace. I offer it here as a lost document for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. If you detect a […]
A Poem from the Late 20th Century
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
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).
Old Photos Never Die . . . Old Diners Fade Away
The Riss diner was on 8th Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets in Manhattan. It’s no longer there. In its place is a Murray’s Bagels shop. Much less interesting. This photo illustrated the front cover of Philip Corner’s The Identical Lunch, in 1973. Click to enlarge I published the book, which Graham Macintosh designed and […]
Manhattan Muffdiver
A new novel hits the bookshelves in Vienna, and the Austrian television network ORF interviews the author on the news. Try getting a novelist interviewed on the evening news in America. Never happen. Besides, we’re talking about a book called Manhattan Muffdiver, not exactly a title that U.S. network censors would approve. It’s not altogether […]
Cue ‘Ah POOK,’ ‘THE UNSPEAKABLE MR HART’
“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 […]
Boris Lurie, R.I.P.
!['Pinup with Flower' by Boris Lurie [1959]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1959_flower1-200x200.jpg)
The epigraph on “NO!art MAN,” a major 2001 documentary about Boris Lurie, who died earlier this month, says it all: “In a time of wars and extermination, aesthetic exercises and decorative patterns are not enough.” Those are Lurie’s words, and now they might as well serve as his epitaph. obit by Colin Moynihan in The […]
Before I Forget
Here’s a tale you won’t find in It was the winter of 1970, probably in February. I’m not sure of the exact date. It must have been around the time that Tom Hayden and four others of the Chicago Seven were convicted of inciting a riot in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic Convention. The place […]
Mad Magazine + Tom Hayden = SDS
“Students for a Democratic Society, A Graphic History,” a new book due out in January from Hill and Wang. “My own radical journey began with Harvey Pekar and comics and politics at The Graduate Center, CUNY, on Monday — Dec. 10 — which also marks International Amnesty International Global Write-a-Thon. Pekar is best known for […]
Playwright Sends a Letter: Tenenbom vs. The Times
First he took on the Polish government, which claims he’s he denies. Now he’s taking on a bigger fish — The New York Times, which has declined to review his play. open letter to news media, Tuvia Tenenbom accuses The Times of doing “the Polish government’s bidding … by refusing to allow Times critics to […]
John Bryan, RIP
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
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 […]
VPo + America – Blacks = (Classical Music x Cultural Racism)²
Having taken William Osborne Given the many European press reports about the Vienna Philharmonic’s sexism and racism — see articles in Profil magazine for two recent examples — one might ask why the orchestra continues to be euphorically received in the United States. How can we explain that the Philharmonic’s sexist and racist employment practices are […]