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 […]
‘Artaud Fragmentations’
![Gerard Bellaart's 'Artaud Fragmentations' [2005]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/artaud-fragmentations-31gb480.jpg)
And now for another kind of poem, as unlike “Death Is a Wind That Will Carry You Off” as day from night. It’s part of a large series of stenciled texts by the Dutch artist and writer Gerard Bellaart. At the urging of my staff of thousands, examples from Bellaart’s word-based series of artworks have […]
‘Death Is a Wind That Will Carry You Off’
This poem is not intended as a companion piece to “Music for the End of Time.” The tone is entirely different, not at all apocalyptic. But it covers the same or similar ground, and I can’t help thinking that the difference in treatment is a merely a matter of temperament. Which is enough: Death is […]
‘Music for the End of Time’
Excerpted from the complete 52-minute work for trombone, video and quadraphonic electronics. Based on the Book of Revelation, the music had its premiere in Montreal, at McGill University, in March 1998. The video was premiered in Taos, New Mexico, in September 2007. Personnel: Abbie Conant, trombone; Norbert Bach, digital stills; William Osborne, music and video.
Raw Data: Armed Drone Prototype
This comes from Norman O. Mustill’s “raw data” pile. It appeared during World War II in an ad for Good Housekeeping Magazine, warning against “A Dictator’s Newest Dream.” According to the text that accompanied the ad, “The army has specified that it must be able to carry 4 soldiers with full equipment or a machinegun […]
Edith Piaf, ‘The Sound of Suffering Humanity’
La Môme et de Rouge, by Heathcote Williams. Narration and montage by Alan Cox.
‘Democracy Now!’: Riveting Look at the Terror Courts
Wall Street Journal journalist Jess Bravin reports on the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo. Describing it as “the most important legal story in decades,” Bravin uncovers how the Bush administration quickly drew up an alternative legal system to try men captured abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon evidence obtained by torture was being used […]
VDRSVP #3 for Old Times’ Sake
![VDRSVP #3, eds. Jan Herman & Norman O. Mustill [San Francisco, 1969]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/VDRSVP3bothsides560.jpeg)
Someone told me he knew what RSVP stands for. But what did VDRSVP mean? “Black humor,” I said. No point giving away the joke.
Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’ in a Sexy Production from Zurich
Yes, Zurich. If this is Eurotrash, I’m all for it.
Damning Account of ‘Rough Justice’ at Guantanamo
!['The Terror Courts' by Jess Bravin [Yale University Press, 2013]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/TERRORCOURTS-e1361300992861.jpg)
Jess Bravin has a new book out, The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, just published by Yale University Press. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a damning, brave book by an author who is legitimately outraged by what he uncovered.” Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue: November 24, 2001. Around Noon. Checkpoints were common as […]
Three ‘Not Poems’ by Stephen Schneck
!['The Nightclerk' by Stephen Schneck [Grove Press, 1965]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/THE-NIGHTCLERK-GROVE200.jpg)
I remember meeting Stephen Schneck in San Francisco at City Lights Bookstore, where I was clerking at the time. He had published The Nightclerk, which won the International Formentor Prize, and I was starting a “little” magazine. He offered three “Not Poems” for the first issue. His novel, translated into 12 languages but banned in […]
Unbeatable Sinclair Beiles Tells It As It Was
He talks about William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Tangiers, the Villa Deliria, the Thousand and One Nights, Naked Lunch, cut-ups, Minutes to Go, the Beat Hotel, Jean Fanchette, Ian Sommerville, the Dream Machine. It’s an unbeatable discovery. Gary Cummiskey, co-editor of Who Was Sinclair Beiles? and the publisher of Dye Hard Press, tipped me to this […]
Don’t Forget to Give a Box of Chocolates
There’s the Valentine Victorian. And then there’s the Valentine Mustillian.
Getting Personal, Too: ‘Being Kept by a Jackdaw’
![Jack Daw and the Poet [Photo: Jacquetta Eliot]](https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/HW-and-Jack-Daw-300.jpg)
My staff of thousands tells me that if I post any more poems by Heathcote Williams, I will be making a mockery of this blog’s stated purpose. I’m a small “d” democrat who rules Straight Up by popular consent, so I had to admit I’ve been banging on about his poems. But — with a […]
In Bone Hebrew, the White Kaffir Speaks
A long-awaited copy of Bone Hebrew from Cold Turkey Press showed up in my mailbox. The title is taken from Paul Celan. The cover is by Antonin Artaud. The poems are by Sinclair Beiles. Here are two of them: Asphyxiation They tried every kind of gas on him. none of them would work. nothing would […]
They Called Him ‘Mister Mooch’
An elegy on film for Carl Weissner … … by Signe Mähler and Cody Maher.
‘The Green Man Is a Green Terrorist’
My blog staff of thousands didn’t have to do much to persuade me that Heathcote Williams’s newest dissident poem, a rhymed marvel of CAT-scan clarity, will be seen one day as a YouTube classic. Here are the opening lines transcribed from the video in four-line stanzas: Tangled vegetation sprouts from each orifice From his mouth, […]