This video was recorded on April 29, 2011 at the Society of Illustrators in New York City, where the exhibition ran from March 23 to April 30. Curated by Monte Beauchamp, editor of “The Life and Times of R. Crumb,” the show was a retrospective that presented key pieces culled from the underground art collection […]
Old News: 4 Million Vietnamese Civilians Killed
We’ve focused for so long on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we tend to forget that the worst U.S. war crimes of our time — of mine anyway — were committed in Vietnam. Here’s a well-told reminder from several years ago: Vietnam: American Holocaust Read the comment, below, and click the link it […]
Art? Software? Graphics? Design? What Is It?
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More Crumb From ‘Lines Drawn on Paper’
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Now This Is Rich
Surely you’ve read the news that Gadhafi is being sought for war crimes. You may recall that America’s BananaRepublican gangsters never committed any war crimes — not in Iraq and not in Afghanistan. Unlike Gadhafi, our very own gang of culprits is above reproach. Postscript: May 21 — Let this be a reminder: Stupidity, Arrogance, […]
Funky Friday
FRISKO © by Norman O. Mustill No comment required … but I don’t think Tony Bennett’s nostalgia quite applies. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
NYT: Bin Laden Not Ready for His Close-Up
Isn’t editorializing in a news story supposed to be out of bounds at The New York Times? Here’s the third graf of Bin Laden’s Secret Life in a Diminished World, which (with a headline describing his Shrunken World) dominates the print edition of today’s front page: Videos seized from Bin Laden’s compound and released by […]
Holocaust Remembrance and Death of Bin Laden
It’s no more than a coincidence. Osama Bin Laden was killed on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. But it’s worth noting, given that the man was motivated by one thing above all else: his hatred of Jews. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Music Grab Bag
Two young women, both in their mid-20s, both amateur musicians: I came across Amanda Dillard through a friend who pointed out her YouTube video. Leyla McCalla caught my attention not long ago in New Orleans. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
R. Crumb: Lines on Paper
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A Poem from the Late 20th Century
The poet Nanos Valaoritis and I were good friends many years ago, in San Francisco. Here’s a poem of his, which I published in 1970, in a broadside edition of 500 or 1,000 copies — I can’t recall exactly. “Endless Crucifixion” is a collector’s item now. Jed Birmingham, who writes the RealityStudio column the Bibliographic […]
Lit Crit Brigade Attacks The Soft Machine
Here’s the headline: William S Burroughs on trial for corrupting Turkish morality. And here’s the lede: The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into a book written by internationally renowned author William S. Burroughs. It was translated and published by Sel Publishing House in January. The court referred to a report written by the […]
L’artiste Lui-même
Norman Ogue Mustill in his desert lair. [Self-Portrait With Collage] In 2007, at my request, he took a photo of himself with several of his collages from the mid-’60s. This is one of them. Blogs are personal (in case you hadn’t noticed). EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Does Wikileaks Get Credit? Hardly …
Why, in a 2,160-word article, Classified Files Offer New Insights Into Detainees, which dominates the front page of today’s New York Times print edition, is the key source of the revelations buried so deep that the reader has to guess at it? Wikileaks, without which there would be no story, is not acknowledged until the […]
Old Photos Never Die . . . Old Diners Fade Away
The Riss diner was on 8th Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets in Manhattan. It’s no longer there. In its place is a Murray’s Bagels shop. Much less interesting. This photo illustrated the front cover of Philip Corner’s The Identical Lunch, in 1973. Click to enlarge I published the book, which Graham Macintosh designed and […]
Burroughs Scholars Are on a Roll
Keith Seward, in a remarkable piece of detective work, susses out the mystery behind an enigmatic literary figure. I quote from his intro: In the summer of 1959, with Olympia Press about to publish the first edition of Naked Lunch in Paris, William Burroughs was raving about the work of another writer. Jack Kerouac, Allen […]
Living With Obama and Cognitive Dissonance
Obama’s speech, “laying out his plan to reduce the deficit,” seemed to make a lot of liberals happy, or happier than they thought they’d be. Rachel Maddow, for example, praised the speech “for defining Democratic values, defending social programs, and confronting Republicans.” The plan even had Paul Krugman in sort of a swoon: Substance: Much […]