{"id":63885,"date":"2025-01-16T09:45:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T14:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=63885"},"modified":"2025-01-16T09:46:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T14:46:33","slug":"american-porn-for-the-orange-mans-inauguration-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2025\/01\/american-porn-for-the-orange-mans-inauguration-day.html","title":{"rendered":"\u2018American Porn\u2019 for the Orange Man’s Inauguration Day<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thin Man Press, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Here we go again. To mark the resumption of our long nightmare, my staff of thousands thought it apt to repost this from 2017:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day he is sworn in as the preening el presidente<\/em> of a tin-pot United States of Trumpistan, enabling him to run the country like a division of his family-held company, Thin Man Press<\/a> will release American Porn<\/a>,<\/em> a collection of “investigative poems about American history, culture and politics” by Heathcote Williams. [The book is still in print.]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The titular poem, “The United States of Porn,” reflects the fact that America “owes its very name to an early Italian pornographer” (Amerigo Vespucci) and that a nation “steeped for centuries in violence, artifice and greed has reached its apotheosis” in electing Trump. Or as H.L. Mencken once wrote (in the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920): <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart\u2019s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is Williams reading the poem<\/a>, reminding us (per Susan Sontag) that “what pornography is really about isn’t sex but death.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams’s reading was recorded at his home in Oxford, England, by Straight Up’s staff of thousands [yours truly] and was released on a vinyl LP album and CD<\/a> by Sea Urchin Editions. The album also includes Williams reading the poems “Mr. President,” “Forbidden Fruit, or The Cybernetic Apple Core,” and “Snuff Films at the White House.” The poem “American Porn” was first published by Cold Turkey Press in an illustrated limited edition<\/a>. The new Thin Man Press trade edition of American Porn<\/em> includes 15 new poems and comes to 136 pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here we go again. To mark the resumption of our long nightmare, my staff of thousands thought it apt to repost this from 2017:<\/p>\n

On the day he is sworn in as the preening el presidente of a tin-pot United States of Trumpistan, enabling him to run the country like a division of his family-held company, Thin Man Press will release American Porn, a collection of “investigative poems about American history, culture and politics” by Heathcote Williams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-63885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-news","11":"category-political-culture","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/American-Porn-by-Heathcote-Williams-Thin-Man-Press-2017400.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-gCp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63885"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64288,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63885\/revisions\/64288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}