Straight Up | Jan Herman

The Iraqi TV journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi who threw his shoes at the Bullshitter-in-Chief is not the first to do it. The difference is Zaidi missed. But as Ed Sullivan used to say, he put on “a really big shew.” Too bad Señor Wences isn’t around to comment.

You just read the special five-day, 16-blogger AJ conversation A Debate on Arts Education, right? OK, so maybe you didn’t. Well, never mind. Here’s the real thing: arts education in action, musically speaking. It’s a work for trombone choir and tuba by a composer who writes that he dedicated it to the memory of “the […]

At the Council on Foreign Depredations Relations this morning I expected to hear what I thought would be a Southern-fried swan song from Laura Bush. Instead it turned out to be a speech someone wrote for her about women’s rights, because today marks the 60th anniversary of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She […]

I don’t know what took me so long. It’s old news by now. But I’m still amazed. Here’s a text in English about William Styron, chosen at random from this blog. (Actually, someone else chose it.) Now here it is in Spanish, in French, in German … OK, how about Chinese? Gawd! Put in any text […]

Malcolm Mc Neill’s unpublished memoir about his longtime collaboration with William S. Burroughs, Observed While Falling, is just as spellbinding as the lost art of Ah POOK IS HERE, his current show at Salomon Arts (now extended through Jan. 16 ) in Manhattan. Mc Neill is one of those artists who can really write. The […]

Floating around cyberspace for at least a month and a half, via White Rabbit, this leetle coupon saver caught the staff’s attention only the other day.Though we were slow on the uptake, we did notice that no toaster coupons were available to match the many lesser-known banks that failed in the last year.

Given the so-called change said to be coming to the aaaeulc, it may be seen as cynical to recall this Thanksgiving Prayer, first offered 20 years ago this week and dedicated to John Dillinger. But Uncle Bill‘s words of gratitude have a certain je ne sais quoi … the ring of truth maybe? Listen or, […]

Have a listen to the sweet nothings William S. Burroughs offers, by way of Philip Hunt’s extraordinary animation short. It was pointed out to me by Supervert. Ah Pook I’d say the film is an ideal accompaniment to Malcolm Mc Neil’s “lost art” exhibition, which has been extended through January. That’s Burroughs reading his text, […]

Is it something in the November air? Doubtful. Maybe it’s the god of artistic collaborations wanting to set the record straight. Let’s say it’s strictly dumb coincidence. Whatever the reason, this month provides a happy occasion for legions of Jack Kerouac fans, to say nothing of William S. Burroughs cultists, who always seem eager for […]

Because of something Ralph Nader said on Election Day — he asked whether Barack Obama was going to be an Uncle Sam or an Uncle Tom — I feel obliged to take note of an interview (as posted on YouTube) that Nader did shortly afterward with Fox Report news anchor Shepard Smith, who was shocked […]

If you think people have gone nuts for Obama memorabilia — they bought stacks of newspapers marking the Obama victory — get a look at the book collectors’ market. With enough scratch you can pick up a boxed set of Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope for a meager quarter mil. Here’s […]

Now that America has elected a black fist bumper to the presidency, take a look at the newspaper he has in his hand. Take a close look. The photo, shot during the election campaign, shows him carrying The Wall Street Journal. As everybody knows, the Journal’s editorial page falls somewhere between Barry Goldwater and Attila […]

Oh shit. Studs Terkel has died. He was 96. He was the blackest white man I ever met. Blacker even than his lifelong friend the novelist Nelson Algren, another black man who happened to be born white. Anyway, here’s what several former Chicago Sun-Times colleagues of mine had to say. Roger Ebert: “Was he the […]

As mentioned here at the beginning of the week, “there must be millions of cleverly individualized videos like this one circulating now.” But whether it’s the “novelty of personalization” achieved through “multiple layers of Flash animation” or the “third order of simulacra,” PalTalk got there first with its faux presidential candidate Sarah Wheaton. Watch the […]

Look at what the wind blew in … a news story about the arrest of a couple of neo-Nazi creeps who “talked of ‘killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans,” and topping that off with a drive-by of Barack Obama. From the NY Times: The two men each had “very strong views” about Aryan white […]

I know because I saw it on my video screen: There must be millions of cleverly individualized videos like this one circulating now. In other words, “all reality is an imitation,” as a friend of mine, Bill Osborne, says. He cites Baudrillard. Third Order of Simulacra: The present age — dominated by simulations, things that have […]

Here in New York, the City Council backed Bloomberg’s bid to run again. The logic went like this: It would have been undemocratic to deprive voters of the chance to elect the mayor to a third term, despite the fact that voters had twice approved a two-term limit for elected officials. So the City Council […]