Category Archives: Writing

Exhibit to Focus on Wallace Berman’s Beat Zine “Semina”

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The late great assemblage artist/ photographer Wallace Berman, who died on his birthday in 1976 at age 50 in a car accident, will be honored at an exhibit of his Beat zine Semina, which he hand-printed on a table-top in his house.

“All components of all nine issues of Wallace Berman’s art/assemblage/beat zine Semina, alongside related ephemera, posters and mail-art [will be exhibited]. Semina bridges appropriation, fine printing, punk-style DIY and collage/montage, this already in the late 1950s!” reads the press release about the show.

“Semina 1955-1964 Art Is Love Is God,” will run from Sunday, December 8 through Thursday, January 9 at Boo-Hooray in New York.

A reception with John Zorn performing will take place on Sunday December 8, from 3PM-6PM.

RSVP here if you plan to attend the reception.

Here’s more from the press release:

“Michael McClure called it “a scrapbook of the spirit”. Outside of commerce, Semina was sent through the mail to Wallace Berman’s friends like David Meltzer, William S. Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi, Allen Ginsberg, and Cameron. The components of Semina were not only submitted, but appropriated from these friends, alongside personal heroes like W. B. Yeats, Hermann Hesse, and Antonin Artaud.

Hand-printed on a table-top at his house, this free-form zine with its loose-leaf poetry and amazing collages, montages and photography, is also most baffling in its vanguard status: nobody had done anything like this before Berman, not even in the days of dada.

Published between 1955 and 1964 in editions ranging from 150 to 350 copies, this rare publication (original issues regularly sell in the five figures) needs to be seen and cherished by anyone interested in American post-war art.

Michael Duncan points out that “Semina’s overarching theme involved a search for how to transcend the ‘monster’ of postwar meaninglessness.”

The spirit of Semina’s assemblage will feel familiar to anybody who has ever stayed up late at night at a copy shop making a punk zine or flyer. The hypnotic and delicious feel of perusing the poetry and imagery is the closest I’ve gotten to capturing those fleeting moments when one remembers components of a distant dream.

On December 8th, Boo-Hooray is publishing Semina 1955-1964 Art Is Love Is God, a 174 page softbound full-color catalogue reproducing each component of each issue of Semina. The catalogue comes with a booklet of annotations and texts by Johan Kugelberg, Adam Davis, Tosh Berman, Shirley Berman, Philip Aarons and Andrew Roth alongside silkscreened artwork, photo prints, flyers and cards, all printed loose-leaf and contained in a pocket on the back board of the catalogue in the spirit of Wallace Berman’s original publication.

This publication is limited to 300 copies and is only available from Boo-Hooray.”

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

The Time Machine: Patti Smith Reads Poetry, Stars In Ivan Kral Film “Raven”

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I came across this very cool eight minute film, “Raven,” that Ivan Kral made about Patti Smith and her band in 1975. It’s beautiful, and maybe four minutes into it Patti starts reciting her poetry.

“Raven,” from Prelinger Archives, directed by Ivan Kral with voiceover by Patti Smith.

These others have audio of Patti Smith reading her poetry.

Patti Smith Poetry Reading, 1973 NYC

Patti Smith: Poetry Reading at St. Mark’s Church, NYC (1972)

— A Days of the Crazy-Wild blog post —

Three Unpublished J. D. Salinger Stories Leak Online

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Photo via The Guardian.

Three short stories written by the late J. D. Salinger found their way online following an eBay auction of a bootlet book titled “Three Stories.”

The stories are “Paula,” “Birthday Boy,” and “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls.”

Supposed cover of bootleg Salinger book.

At the Reddit website, there is an intense discussion about the situation. This is apparently what the person who leaked the stories had to say:

It took me many weeks of research to find that this book existed and many more weeks to acquire it. I will confirm and take with that take responsibility to the claim that these are accurate to the originals.

Not much is verifiable to the origins of this book I have here. At least I will not confirm anything. What I do know is that someone with access to the originals compiled them together in this self-published collection. There is a single UPC symbol on the back that leads no where. Other than that, it’s existence is not well documented.
Enjoy.

Also posted at the site:

The book “Three Stories” seems to be a copy of a collection originally released in 1999. An eBay who sold a first edition of this collection said the following:

Ebay Seller seymourstainglass wrote:
Paperback. 47 pages. On Copyright page it says printed in London in 1999. Copy number 6 of 25.
3 short stories written by JD Salinger never published at all and that remain in The Ransom Center of the University of Texas at Austin Untitled or “Paula” (1941)

The untitled manuscript at the Ransom Center is less a story than a series of scenes not yet sewn together. Whether or not this is some form of Salinger’s lost story “Paula” is pure speculation. However, in a letter dated October 31 (1941), Salinger states that he is “finishing a horror story (my first and last) called ‘Mrs. Hincher.’ ” Undoubtedly a reference to the story described here, Salinger’s letter dates its completion to late 1941 or early 1942.

“The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls” is largely regarded as the finest of Salinger’s unpublished works. While not having had the opportunity to revue all of the author’s unpublished materials, it is hard to imagine a more important work among them
“Birthday Boy” (1946?)

The short story “Birthday Boy” is accompanied by a letter from Salinger to John Woodburn which refers to “both sets of proofs”. Although undated, the letter probably dates to 1951, the year that Woodburn published The Catcher in the Rye. However, it’s also likely that the letter does not reference Catcher, but a short story sent to placate the editor instead. Salinger’s relationship with Woodburn was brief and somewhat bizarre.
Images of the First edition http://i.imgur.com/98bfQ8K.jpg
Printing/Copyright details http://i.imgur.com/T7nymsT.jpg

For more, head to The Guardian or the New York Times.

If you want access to the stories, you might fish around here.

Sex Ed Dept.: Today Flavorwire Offers Up “25 Great Works of Erotic Literature”

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Flavorwire loves to make lists. Today we get their pick of “25 Great Works of Erotic Literature to Keep You Warm on Cold Winter Nights,” I guess because winter is here. Or maybe they just needed an excuse.

Check out the list below, but for plot summaries (what plot?) and excerpts, head to Flavorwire.

Here’s their excerpt from “Delta of Venus”:

“I would tell him how he almost made us lose interest in passion by his obsession with the gestures empty of their emotions, and how we reviled him, because he almost caused us to take vows of chastity, because what he wanted us to exclude was our own aphrodisiac — poetry.”

The list:

1 Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin
2 Fanny Hill by John Cleland
3 The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
4 Ada, or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
5 Story of the Eye, by Georges Bataille
6 The Story of O, by “Pauline Réage”
7 “Beatrice Palmato” by Edith Wharton
8 Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
9 The Sexual Life of Catherine M. by Catherine Millet
10 Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
11 Heptameron by Marguerite de Navarre
12 Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger
13 Belle de Jour by Joseph Kessel
14 Venus in Furs by Leopold van Sacher-Masoch
15 The Fermata by Nicholson Baker
16 The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
17 The Lover by Marguerite Duras
18 Nine and a Half Weeks by Ingeborg Day
19 The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell
20 Ulysses by James Joyce
21 The School of Venus by Anonymous
22 Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue by the Marquis de Sade
23 The Autobiography of a Flea by “Anonymous”
24 My Secret Life by “Walter”
25 Memoirs of a Young Rakehell by Gullaume Apollinaire

Remarkable Letters Between Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek

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Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slavoj Žižek. Photos via The Guardian.

Today The Guardian published a fascinating exchange of letters that took place from January 2013 to mid-July 2013 between imprisoned Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

Žižek begins the exchange:

Dear Nadezhda,

I hope you have been able to organise your life in prison around small rituals that make it tolerable, and that you have time to read. Here are my thoughts on your predicament.

John Jay Chapman, an American political essayist, wrote this about radicals in 1900: “They are really always saying the same thing. They don’t change; everybody else changes. They are accused of the most incompatible crimes, of egoism and a mania for power, indifference to the fate of their cause, fanaticism, triviality, lack of humour, buffoonery and irreverence. But they sound a certain note. Hence the great practical power of persistent radicals. To all appearance, nobody follows them, yet everyone believes them. They hold a tuning-fork and sound A, and everybody knows it really is A, though the time-honoured pitch is G flat.” Isn’t this a good description of the effect of Pussy Riot performances? In spite of all accusations, you sound a certain note. It may appear that people do not follow you, but secretly, they believe you, they know you are telling the truth, or, even more, you are standing for truth.

In her response Tolokonnikova writes:

We are the rebels asking for the storm, and believing that truth is only to be found in an endless search. If the “World Spirit” touches you, do not expect that it will be painless.

Laurie Anderson sang: “Only an expert can deal with the problem.” It would have been nice if Laurie and I could cut these experts down to size and take care of our own problems. Because expert status by no means grants access to the kingdom of absolute truth.

Two years of prison for Pussy Riot is our tribute to a destiny that gave us sharp ears, allowing us to sound the note A when everyone else is used to hearing G flat.

At the right moment, there will always come a miracle in the lives of those who childishly believe in the triumph of truth over lies, of mutual assistance, of those who live according to the economics of the gift.

Nadia

Read all of the letters at The Guardian.

Touché Morrissey, Johnny Marr To Tell His Side Of The Smiths’ Story

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Cover of Johnny Maar’s solo album.

Johnny Marr says he’s got his own publishing deal for an autobiography, Brooklyn Vegan reports. In an interview with the music blog Marr said:

There is gonna be one, yeah. I’ve had so many offers and so many people advising me that my story is worth it, but I understand it’s something that I have to do. I’ll do it in the next couple of years. I’m into from the stance that I want it to be so thorough that I don’t make a record or tour whilst I was doing it. It is gonna happen, and I’ve already made an agreement with a publisher for it, so I will get it done.

Meanwhile, Putnam Books will publish Morrissey’s Autobiography in the US in a hardback edition on December 3, 2013. The book, published in October of this year in the UK, is a major hit, selling 35,000 copies during it’s first week and topping Amazon’s UK bestsellers chart.

Read more of the Brooklyn Vegan interview here.

Beautiful Tribute to Lou Reed In the New York Times

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Photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino.
Photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino.

In today’s New York Times, book critic Michiko Kakutani offers a beautiful tribute to Lou Reed. It is fitting that Lou Reed, the New York outsider who documented the outsiders of New York, should now be celebrated in the ultimate New York establishment media, the New York Times.

About the New York that Reed wrote and sang about in song for close to 50 years, Kakutani writes, it was “as distinctive as Chandler’s Los Angeles or Baudelaire’s Paris.”

Kakutani continues:

Mr. Reed was a pioneer on rock’s frontier with the avant-garde, translating lessons he learned at Andy Warhol’s Factory, and the disruptive innovations of the Beat writers — Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Hubert Selby Jr. (“Last Exit to Brooklyn”) — to the realm of popular music. He not only embraced their adversarial stance toward society and transgressive subject matter (in songs like “Street Hassle” and “Heroin”) but also developed his own version of their raw, vernacular language, while adding a physical third dimension with guitars and drums. His early songs for the Velvet Underground — delivered in his intimate, conversational sing-speak — still sound so astonishingly inventive and new that it’s hard to remember they were written nearly half a century ago.

If Mr. Reed provided a literary bridge to the Beats (and through them, back to the Modernists, and the French “decadents” Rimbaud and Verlaine, and even Poe, the subject of his 2003 project “The Raven”), he also created a bridge forward to punk and to glam, indie, new wave and noise rock. He would become a formative influence on musicians like Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Roxy Music, R.E.M., the Sex Pistols, Sonic Youth, the Strokes, Pixies, and Antony and the Johnsons. As his friend the artist Clifford Ross observed, “Lou was the great transmitter” — of ideas, language and innovation.

Read the whole essay at the New York Times.

Working For The Man: How Selling Out Saved Indie Rock

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Tegan and Sara want their music used in advertisements.

I remember when the idea of a musical artist letting one of their songs be used in a commercial was the end of the world. Neil Young wrote a song about it called “This Notes For You,” in which he sings:

Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi,
Ain’t singin’ for Coke,
I don’t sing for nobody,
Makes me look like a joke,
This note’s for you.

Not any more.

Jessica Hopper wrote a fascinating story on indie rock and advertising.

“A tiny sliver of bands are doing well,” says Tegan and Sara’s Sara Quin. “The rest of us are just middle class, looking for a way to break through that glass ceiling. The second ‘Closer’ got Top 40 radio play, we were involved in meetings with radio and marketing people who said, ‘The next step is getting a commercial.’ I can see why some bands might find that grotesque, but it’s part of the business now.”

Read the whole story at Buzzfeed.

Weekend Update: Banksy, M.I.A., Arcade Fire, Dylan’s Guitar & More

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M.I.A.

In case you have a life, and weren’t paying attention to my posts Friday through Sunday, here’s a recap:

Banksy To NYC: “Thanks for your patience. It’s been fun.”

Watch: Arcade Fire Cover Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge” At L.A. Show

Listen: Stream M.I.A.’s New Album “Matangi” Now!

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova Has Vanished

Watch: Trailer For Kathleen Hanna Documentry, “The Punk Singer”

Jim James On Touring With Dylan: “”We never talked to him once…”

Iconic Object: Bob Dylan’s 1965 Strat Up For Auction

Mojo Readers Pick 20 Best Albums Of Magazine’s Lifetime

Watch: Nick Cave & Bad Seeds Debut New Song, “Give Us A Kiss”

Songs For Slim Benefit LP Due Nov. 11 Features Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams

Watch: The National Do “Sea Of Love” On “Later… With Jools Holland

Listen: Loop’s “Forever” Is The End Of The End

Watch: WikiLeaks Julian Assange Gives Short Speech Before M.I.A. NYC Show

John Fogerty On Creedence Clearwater Revival: “the fine running machine was starting to get a little wobbly”

Pussy Riot Member Moved To New Prison (#3)

Listen: Rare Bob Dylan Recording: “I Can’t Leave Her Behind/ On A Rainy Afternoon”

Why Lou Reed Matters: “…every bit Bob’s equal”

Art: Appreciating Art Spiegelman, Creater of “Maus” & Plenty More

Listen: Neil Young “Live At The Cellar Door” Preview

Robert Plant Plans Record Label, Launches “Robert Recommends” Streaming Playlist

Watch: Video Clips Of M.I.A., Arcade Fire & Eminem At YouTube Video Awards

Patti Smith Writes Lou Reed Tribute For The New Yorker

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Photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino.
Photo by Jean Baptiste Mondino.

In a beautiful tribute to Lou Reed, Patti Smith wrote in the current issue of New Yorker:

I met Lou at Max’s Kansas City in 1970. The Velvet Underground played two sets a night for several weeks that summer. The critic and scholar Donald Lyons was shocked that I had never seen them, and he escorted me upstairs for the second set of their first night. I loved to dance, and you could dance for hours to the music of the Velvet Underground. A dissonant surf doo-wop drone allowing you to move very fast or very slow. It was my late and revelatory introduction to “Sister Ray.”

Within a few years, in that same room upstairs at Max’s, Lenny Kaye, Richard Sohl, and I presented our own land of a thousand dances. Lou would often stop by to see what we were up to. A complicated man, he encouraged our efforts, then turned and provoked me like a Machiavellian schoolboy. I would try to steer clear of him, but, catlike, he would suddenly reappear, and disarm me with some Delmore Schwartz line about love or courage. I didn’t understand his erratic behavior or the intensity of his moods, which shifted, like his speech patterns, from speedy to laconic. But I understood his devotion to poetry and the transporting quality of his performances. He had black eyes, black T-shirt, pale skin. He was curious, sometimes suspicious, a voracious reader, and a sonic explorer. An obscure guitar pedal was for him another kind of poem. He was our connection to the infamous air of the Factory. He had made Edie Sedgwick dance. Andy Warhol whispered in his ear. Lou brought the sensibilities of art and literature into his music. He was our generation’s New York poet, championing its misfits as Whitman had championed its workingman and Lorca its persecuted.

For more head to the New Yorker.