!['PARISIANS: An Adventure History of Paris' by Graham Robb [2010]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/parisians-cover-200x200.jpg)
Seriously … He might spend a blessèd day with a bottle of absinthe, oblivious to the sun that fell like a stone, dozing peacefully under the muddled stars in a pool of his own vomit. That sentence — from page 164 of Graham Robb’s Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris — is hard to beat. […]
Carly Fiorina, Untethered Gasbag’s Economic Adviser
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
Going Whole Hog: The Prime Minister & the Pig’s Head
The British press has been having a field day with tales of Prime Minister David Cameron’s crush on a pig during his student days at Oxford. Maybe “crush” is the wrong term. How about “necrophiliac oral sex.” My tireless staff of thousands doesn’t presume to know the gory details. But it has taken notice of […]
AC Institute Is Having a Launch Party
Listen to “Speed Bump 4 Eva.” My staff of thousands says it’s perfect music for the image. AC Institute christens its new space in midtown Manhattan. The event will feature a short reading by The Z Collection author Jan Herman followed by music from accomplished cellist Hamilton Berry. Publisher’s note: The Z Collection, a “time […]
LARB Video Interview: Miles on William S. Burroughs
![William S. Burroughs [Drawing © by Gerard Bellaart]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Burroughs-drawing-by-Gerard-Bellaart260-200x200.jpg)
Dunno how my tireless staff of thousands missed this. It’s as striking a summary of Burroughs’s life and writing as I’ve seen. His best biographer gives a sense of the man and his work that is very different from the public impression of him. Here’s a transcript of the first three minutes of the video: […]
Tripping With Andy
‘It is Deborah Davis’s style to pan to a faraway object, complete its history, then cinematically bring it into the focus of the story. John Huston becomes cinema verité. Her style permits one to learn everything related to the trip. Even things Andy Warhol’s diarist didn’t know.’ By Charles Plymell “The Trip” it was … […]
From Fleet Street to Biafra . . . and to MI6
When I interviewed Frederick Forsyth in 1982, he spoke about his time as a BBC correspondent in Biafra during the late 1960s. He had predicted a genocidal race war there, but his editors didn’t want to hear about it. This led to his departure from Fleet Street and a two-year odyssey as a freelance reporter […]
John Lennon Sang It: ‘Imagine there’s no countries …’
Posted at “Stop the War coalition”: For the first time in the post-World War II era, more than 50 million people are on the move — as refugees, asylum-seekers or internally displaced. They are mostly fleeing wars and upheaval of the West’s making. Instead of building walls and fences to keep them out, imagine there […]
Whose Side Are They On? Not Nelson Algren’s
It doesn’t take much for headline writers, editorialists, reporters, columnists, sports writers, what have you, to grab the reader’s attention with a catchy phrase. Some phrases have become such favorites that you see them used over and over. But I would bet that in plenty of cases the journalists who make use of them don’t […]
‘Plato’s Frogs’: A Long Way from ‘Saturday Night Live’
In 1984 Malcolm Mc Neill won an Emmy for “outstanding graphics and title design” for the opening title sequence of “Saturday Night Live,” which he conceived, designed, and art directed. Here’s his storyboard: Thirty years later, contemplating a famous passage in the “Phaedo,” Mc Neill made “Plato’s Frogs.” I have not asked him about it. […]
Islam’s Pashtun Warrior for Peace: Badshah Khan
Heathcote Williams is not a Muslim and finds the Koran “about as enjoyable as eating gravel.” But his belief in, and devotion to, the “Muslim Ghandi” led him to write a book-length investigative poem Badshah Khan: Islamic Peace Warrior, published in June by the London-based Thin Man Press. It is one of Williams’s best polemics […]
Tibet Comes to Taos at ‘Enchanted Mountain’ Salon
The composer Andrea Clearfield will present her Tibetan Recording Project at the Enchanted Mountain Performance Space in downtown Taos, New Mexico, next Sunday, Aug. 30. It’s free and open to the public. (See details of time and place.) “Clearfield’s orchestral and choral works have been performed around the world,” according to an advance program note. […]
Time Capsule: Algren, Burroughs, Mailer, et al . . .
!['The Z Collection' by Jan Herman [AC Books / NY], 2015](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Z-COLcover72dpioutline-copy.jpg)
UPDATE The Z Collection is available for ordering on line. My staff of thousands insisted on a plug for me: The Z Collection: Portraits & Sketches — my reflections on many of the writers and artists I have known, worked with, or written about — is being published by AC Books in New York in […]
A Little-Known Master Artist’s ‘Uncollected’ Works
The pages of Uncollected illustrate the variety of the artworks that a little-known master artist produced over the years. Most of the pieces have appeared in scattered places but have never been collected in one place — thus the title. Norman O. Mustill, who died in 2013, also produced many other works that haven’t been […]
A Look Ahead: They’re Putting on a Party and a Show
My staff of thousands informs me that the Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library has acquired the Granary Books archive. So publisher and library will mark the occasion with a bit of hoopla and an exhibition that opens Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day. It’s called . . . The Book Undone: Celebrating […]
‘Outside In’: Clayton Patterson at the Howl Gallery
Now that Ai Weiwei has his passport back, will he make it to New York in time to catch Clayton Patterson’s art exhibition, “Outside In”? Ai says he’s heading to Berlin, and he’s planning shows of his own in London. Since ‘Outside In” at the Howl Gallery runs only through mid-August, chances are he won’t […]
And Now for a Different Kind of Music
It wasn’t intended as such. All the gear-shifting — the whining, growling, screaming soundtrack — makes the difference. Minus that it’s just a meandering road trip (at high speed, granted, on Paris streets). And that kiss? Strictly branding. Mere advertising. C'était un rendez-vous – 1976 from LeCatalog on Vimeo. Here’s the music again, Hollywood-style: EmailFacebookTwitterReddit