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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

A Silent Elegy in Motion

March 14, 2019 by Jan Herman

Click to watch the names coalesce.

Have a look at this collective headstone for “the 1,337 journalists killed in the line of duty since 1992.” Watch their names coalesce on screen into the image you see here. It is a silent elegy in motion that makes it pure poetry.

Far Out Wasn’t Far Enough

February 12, 2019 by Jan Herman

The artist Tomi Ungerer has died at the age of 87. He was “a lifelong activist who protested against racial segregation, the Vietnam war and the election of US President Donald Trump . . .” Speaking about himself as an artist, Ungerer said, “I have the full respect of a piece of white paper, which I then shall rape with my drawing or my writing. When I draw, it’s the real me.”

Reality as a Metaphysical Construct

December 13, 2018 by Jan Herman

It is a rare thing when a book comes along that looks as magnificent as Flesh Film and reads like an hallucination. To be clear,  Jürgen Ploog is an author who does not write for everyone. The “story” he tells in Flesh Film has the pulpy tone of science fiction, a narrator who sounds like a globe-trotting private […]

The Z Collection at Printed Matter in NYC

December 7, 2018 by Jan Herman

Finally, you can buy it in the States without paying the exorbitant cost of international postage. The Z Collection is an illustrated memoir in the form of personal essays about Nelson Algren, William Burroughs, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, E.L. Doctorow, William Styron, Abbie Hoffman, among others, and about the literary underground of the 1960s. “Herman, a […]

Tribute to John Bryan from Cold Turkey Press

May 20, 2018 by Jan Herman

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 […]

Goodbye to a Depressing Year

December 11, 2017 by Jan Herman

Blackbird (image detail Paul Klee) Cold Turkey Press, 2017

The image is a detail from a drawing by Paul Klee. The poem owes a debt to George Grosz and Gerard Bellaart. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Back to Reality: Torma on Michelangelo’s Art

April 24, 2016 by Jan Herman

“Colossal as his works were, he saw them still too much as garlands and sought some immoderation wherewith to botch them. He was so successful that he left everything unfinished. Never push things.” EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Carly Fiorina, Untethered Gasbag’s Economic Adviser

September 28, 2015 by Jan Herman

Carly Fiorina

Here’s a blast from the past … so relevant today. Oh, and by the way: Fiorina Says, ‘I Received Only A $21 Million Severance Package — Not $42 Million’ EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

But W.’s Name Is Missing From the List

December 22, 2014 by Jan Herman

This day should not pass without acknowledging the lead editorial in this morning’s New York Times: Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses. It points out, among other things, that Any credible investigation should include former Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington; the former C.I.A. director George Tenet; and John Yoo and […]

C.I.A. Refutes Torture Report, Tells Us: ‘Lick That Boot’

December 13, 2014 by Jan Herman

© 1975, 2013 by Norman O. Mustill

Our objection to the C.I.A.’s defiant pushback is best expressed by Norman O. Mustill’s collage, because words will not suffice. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Personal History: My Father Was a New York Cabbie

February 10, 2014 by Jan Herman

'An Angel Rides Disguised as Cabbie' by Gabriel Pressman [New York World Telegram & Sun, ca. 1952 -'53]

My father drove a cab at night. This was the early 1950s. A Brooklyn-born New Yorker, he knew the city’s streets the way a junky knows his veins. I thought of him because of a headline in today’s New York Times: American-Born Cabbies Are a Vanishing Breed in New York. Dad also knew doormen, theater […]

‘Omit Dead Ends’ … Yes, Please

August 11, 2013 by Jan Herman

'omit dead ends' © 2005 by Gerard Bellaart

At the urging of my staff of thousands, examples from Gerard Bellaart’s word-based series of artworks have been a continuing feature of recent blogposts. Other stenciled texts of his that have appeared so far include “Artaud Fragmentations,” “tric trac du ciel,” “Throws Up Words,” “ROT NOT,” and “No Mind Fits 5.” There are more to […]

Another Stenciled Text: ‘No Mind Fits 5’

June 9, 2013 by Jan Herman

'no mind fits 5' © 2005 by Gerard Bellaart

At the urging of my staff of thousands, examples from Gerard Bellaart’s word-based series of artworks have been a continuing feature of recent blogposts. The others so far have been “Artaud Fragmentations,” “tric trac du ciel,” “Throws Up Words,” and “ROT NOT.” There are more to come. Bellaart is a Dutch artist and writer now […]

Orwell Was a Genius at Fiction Right From the Start

May 24, 2013 by Jan Herman

Orwell's house in Katha, Myanmar. [Photo: Aung Shine Oo for The New York Times]

Jane Perlez reminds us in this morning’s New York Times of George Orwell’s first novel, Burmese Days. Orwell is best known for his later novels, of course, the dystopian 1984 and the allegorical Animal Farm, which are remembered less for their impact as fiction than for their prescient warnings about the reality of a totalitarian […]

Still Hidden in Plain Sight, a Reminder of Old Times

March 7, 2013 by Jan Herman

Two news stories — an “exclusive” in The Guardian (“Revealed: Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres”) and a front-pager in The New York Times (“C.I.A.’s History Poses Hurdles for an Obama Nominee”) — are reminders that more than seven years ago Straight Up’s staff of thousands was onto the story about the American strategy to […]

Democracy Now! Exclusive: Assange on WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Cypherpunks, Surveillance State

November 29, 2012 by Jan Herman

“In his most extended interview in months, Julian Assange speaks from inside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been holed up for nearly six months. Assange vowed that WikiLeaks would persevere despite attacks against it. On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that the credit card company Visa did not break the European Union’s […]

Teaming Burroughs & Mustill for Thanksgiving

November 22, 2012 by Jan Herman

A Straight Up tradition continues. But this year William S. Burroughs’s words of gratitude on Thanksgiving Day are posted with a couple of collages by Norman O. Mustill. That completes the package. Look and listen. It’s delish . . . Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through […]

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Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

My Books

Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

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