Carl Weissner was a “little magazine” editor, a radio playwright, German translator of more than 100 books (but principally of Charles Bukowski and William Burroughs, Nelson Algren and J.G. Ballard, also of Frank Zappa and Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Charles Plymell, Diane Arbus, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen), as well as a literary agent who spread the work of dissident writers even further. “Le Regard d’Autrui,” published posthumously in 2019, shows him to have been as magnetic a storyteller as any of the celebrated writers he translated.
Translator, Author, Cherished Friend
Four Books That Recently Came Our Way
Poetry by Leia John, by William Cody Maher, by Ira Cohen, and a memoir by Theo Green. Have a look and please don’t take offense at the explicitness of John’s lines.
(Yesterday this blogpost disappeared from the site, inexplicably, so the staff has re-posted it. Apologies to all who clicked on it and were directed to a dead end.)
Pandemic Ghosts?
Not long before the pandemic this was the artwork at the entryway to a pub on Fifth Avenue located directly across the street from the entrance to the main branch of the New York Public Library, famed for its vast holdings and archival collections. Like many enterprises here in the city, the pub is now gone. So is the artwork. It’s reassuring to report, however, that the library and its holdings are still there.
After Carl
I awoke from a bad dream with these lines drumming in my head long after he died. I mean Carl Weissner, cherished friend and writer sans pareil. A staffer here recently found the lines written down among drafts of unfinished poems.
News as Muse
David Erdos: ‘A Penis for Christmas’
In the grand tradition of Heathcote Williams’s verse polemics, the poet David Erdos rounds on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the latest scandal of his corrupt administration.
A Frosty Vision
MIRAGE
Walking solo
in frigid weather
through familiar woods
past rolling hills
and fields now turned
to chill of winter . . .
Youth + Talent + Dedication
Amélie, An Artist in Her Own Right
A precociously talented student artist — Amélie by name — drew our attention in 2020 with her studies of a Daumier drawing and again with studies of natural forms. Now 15, she has achieved such splendid results that it is perhaps no exaggeration to say she is already an artist. Recent drawings and sculptures testify to that.
‘I Am That I Am’ ‘I Am That, Am I?’
Brion Gysin and the Divine Tautology
“The whole idea of the permutations came to me visually on seeing the so-called Divine Tautology in print. It looked wrong, to me, non-symmetrical. The biggest word, That, belonged in the middle but all I had to do was switch the last two words and It asked a question: ‘I Am That, Am I?’ The rest followed.” — Brion Gysin
The Brooklyn-based publisher DABA Press is bringing out the most complete edition of Brion Gysin’s permutated poems published and recorded to date. The book is gorgeous to look at, sets the poems in their rightful context, and does justice to Ian Sommerville’s computer collaboration.
Q&A with Lucy Glendinning
Extraordinary British Sculptor Works from Inside Out
Her sculptures, to be exhibited at Art Miami, have a striking “innerness,” an interiority of gaze and stance, as well as a primal quality that seems a function of their feathery or furry surfaces. In all their variations, they express a human connection to animal origins.
‘so unlike the realm of / love and ardor’
In a world of trouble
so unlike the realm of
love and ardor
the singularity of death
has come to this —
we shrink,
abandoned, into history. …
Once Again
Remembering the President of Soul
Someone on my staff of thousands reminded me of this blogpost and demanded that I repost it. Obedient to the call of the public, here ‘tiz …
Reading Hannah Arendt Puts Me in Awe
In an essay about Isak Dinesen, whose fiction was closely drawn from her life, Arendt writes …
Paul Valéry Reminds Us
‘A Poem Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned’
Mine have never been finished either. And so . . . an updated, revised, redesigned, and expanded collection in both hardcover and paperback editions is out now, with a new title: “All That Would Ever After Not Be Said.”
William Burroughs Reminds Us
‘The Rulers of This Most Insecure of All Worlds Are Rulers By Accident, Inept Frightened Pilots’
‘Not one-man rule or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy but a small group elevated to positions of power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decisions. They are representatives of abstract forces that reach power through surrender of self.’
The Uninhibited Bite of Dutch Mordant
With an artist as prolific and versatile as Gerard Bellaart, it is not easy to pinpoint his “style.” His paintings bring a dream world out of hiding. His drawings look spontaneous. But you can be sure they are supported by years of deep training. You can also be sure they are not “easy” viewing.
Remembering Diane di Prima
A memorial issue of the Swiss magazine Fabrikzeitung pays tribute to her poetry.
‘she whose face we have never seen
she whose body is a door to the world . . .
stars are the seed pearls she sets on her flesh
they are the milk of her breasts & the juice of her love
her orgasm shakes the dark worlds to their depths’ — DdP
‘A Low-Rent Shangri-La Beyond Borders’
‘As the steep streets bow to the river,
I have been falling through holes
for some months seeking a new underworld …’ — David Erdos