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Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

Bringing It All Back Home

January 3, 2025 by Jan Herman

She gave Zeus a headache … which he deserved.

Poem Without a Hero

December 29, 2024 by Jan Herman

You spoke in biblical flourishes,
assailed others with a rhetoric
deadlier than the barrel of a gun.
When you pulled the trigger,
your power overwhelmed
what lesser men most fear —
the death of all and everything.

Music / Words / Images
‘Cabinet I-III’ — A Steff Signer Combo

December 24, 2024 by Jan Herman

Electric Guitar Inventions by Chanan Hanspal
Text & Poetry Inventions by Florian Vetsch
Poetry Recitation by Jaswant Hanspal
Flugelhorn & Cornet Inventions by Markus Breuss
Photographic Inventions by Mario Baronchelli

When Words Fail, a Cut-Up Will Do

December 12, 2024 by Jan Herman

What else is there to say?

The Once and Future Prez

December 5, 2024 by Jan Herman

aaaaarrrrrffffff !!!!!!

Once Again, What Would Daumier Make of Trump?

December 3, 2024 by Jan Herman

Lithograph by Honoré Daumier [1831]

Honoré Daumier went to prison for six months for his 1831 lithograph after its publication in a satirical illustrated periodical that appeared weekly in Paris, “La Caricature morale, politique et littéraire.”.

American Sphinx

December 2, 2024 by Jan Herman

No words needed.

The Late Brion Gysin (1916-1986) Is Having a Moment

November 27, 2024 by Jan Herman

Over the years he had many, in fact, although few of them lived up to his expectations. But never mind. An updated model of his and Ian Sommerville’s Dreamachine was recently featured in a symposium on art, AI, and the humanities here in New York; and another will be installed in London at the Tate Modern, in the exhibition “Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet,”which will run from the end of this month (Nov. 28) to June 1, 2025. Meanwhile, Roger Knoebber has brought Gysin back to life in a shaggy, unconventional book-length profile, “Hysteresis.”

Buckminster Fuller’s Versified Prose

November 22, 2024 by Jan Herman

By my philosophy
The finite, but imponderable
Metaphysical Universe
Embraces the definite,
Ponderable, physical Universe.
‘Finite’ is not unitarily conceptual.
‘Definite’ is unitarily conceptual.
I have mathematical proof …

What Next, Trump Shoelaces?

November 21, 2024 by Jan Herman

I see that the Prez-elect is hawking guitars, his latest grift. (No indication of where they’re made.) So how about shoelaces? Very strong. Easily knotted. Made in China. Only 2 cents each, pre-tariff.

This item has been updated.

Does the Dreamachine Elude AI? Yes It Does.

November 20, 2024 by Jan Herman

Scholars and specialists addressed ethical and political considerations surrounding AI in collaborations with human creators. Topics ranged from AI aesthetics to the early history of machine learning, from multimedia art to computational research experiments with artificial intelligence, including AI biases and applications.

Fools, Fanatics, and Flunkeys

November 17, 2024 by Jan Herman

“The dodo bird cheered, swaggered, and strutted away.”

‘The Hanging’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune’

November 12, 2024 by Jan Herman

These drawings, which appear in “di Umbris,” a dossier of Gerard Bellaart drawings just published by Moloko, were not intended as commentary on current events. But I can’t shake the sensation that they are.

Will the ‘Four Freedoms’ Go the Way of the Dodo Bird?

November 10, 2024 by Jan Herman

The Bible gave us the Ten Commandments. The Constitution gave us the first 10 amendments, our Bill of Rights. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave us the ‘Four Freedoms,’ chiseled in stone at the tip of Roosevelt Island as a monumental reminder of his legacy. Will the monument be all that’s left of his legacy?

David Erdos: ‘The United Hates of America’

November 6, 2024 by Jan Herman

You can be sure his poem will not be read at the Orange Turd’s coronation.

A Second Look
Touched by a Documentary Ode to Nelson Algren

October 27, 2024 by Jan Herman

'Ticket to New Jersey: A Portrait of Nelson Algren' by Jan Herman

Some years ago I criticized Michael Caplan’s documentary ode to Nelson Algren as the cinematic equivalent of a pop tart. Now that I’ve had another look I see that I was very wrong.

Human Figuration as an Expression of Ideas

October 21, 2024 by Jan Herman

These drawings move across centuries, from the Middle Ages to our blighted times in an unflinching rawness that gives no comfort. Nothing is omitted. You will find the sexual inscribed like watermarks of passion and anguish. The demonic appears in equal measure with the angelic. Most of all, not unlike cave drawings of prehistoric times, they are an existential record of a particular creature, Bellaart by name.

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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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