Golda Foundation

Clayton Patterson
The Lower East Side: Photography Exhibition

Patterson has been a ubiquitous presence of the Lower East Side of Manhattan since the early 1980's, and is widely known for his dedicated documentation of this historic and now fast changing neighborhood. He has been a conscientious chronicler of this urban magnet for the disenfranchised that has long been recognized for its creative influence far beyond its humble street corners.

NEW RELEASE: Vali Myers

● ● ● A Memoir ● ● ● by Gianni Menichetti

The Australian artist, Vali Myers, was a legend in her own time. Première danseuse of the Melbourne Modern Ballet at seventeen, she left home and spent ten years in Paris, living much of the time on the streets but never ceasing to draw. Ed van der Elsken famously put her on the cover of his Love on the Left Bank, that manifesto of Paris in the 1950’s and her work was praised by George Plimpton in his Paris Review. Then, saying goodbye to all that, she spent forty years in semi-seclusion in a wild canyon in Italy, where she continued producing her minute, mystical, and passionate drawings.

“Vali—the original Tightrope Dancer. Most totter along life’s tightrope; Vali embraced the danger and leapt. With her fierce wild spirit, she was a familiar who swept you up in her magical world which made everything else look like a pale shade of grey.” —Ruth Cullen, director, Tightrope Dancer, Painted Lady

“It was like being friends with some angel who had gotten kicked out for lewd behavior. . .” —Chris Stein, musician, Blondie

TO PURCHASE SEE HOME PAGE

For more info, see Vali Myers & Gianni Menichetti webpage

*****

IRA COHEN

The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda II
Published August 28th, 2006 in {print}, {film}, {psychedelia}
Long, Strange Trip for a Hypnotic Film

By James Gaddy August 27, 2006 The New York Times

IT TOOK 38 years, but Ira Cohen’s cult film, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, which was first screened in 1968 at the high point of the psychedelic hippie head rush, is now commercially available. Given the close calls, the long absences and his chaotic archival system, Mr. Cohen, 71, is a little surprised himself.

“It didn’t really involve patience,” he said in his apartment on West 106th Street in Manhattan, surrounded by books stacked waist high. “It was just reality.” continued -- see Ira Cohen webpage .http://www.arthurmag.com/store/dvds.php

*****

JACK HIRSHMAN - San Francisco Poet Laureate

The Arcanes

His most ambitious work, a 1,000-page compilation called "Arcanes," published by the Italian publisher Casa della Poesia. Critics have compared it to William Carlos Williams' "Patterson" and Ezra Pound's "Cantos."

Posted on Sun, Jun. 04, 2006 (exerpt)Beat Generation dwindles, but Hirschman remains JUSTIN M. NORTON, Associated Press

The Arcanes represent, in Jack Hirschman’s vast poetic production, a fundamental and extraordinary element, the most advanced point of his questing. It comprises 126 long and orchestrated compositions, collected from more than thirty years of a particular poetic inquiry, which ground the political engagement and social themes, ever present in his poetry, with stormy leaps of mind, heart and soul, and personal events and references.

The volume is presented in its chronological development from 1972 to 2006, encompassing its entire output. In these works, fragments of poetic insight explode, from which the themes and images engaged by the poet emerge, which knowingly fuse reality with metaphysics, actuality with the memory of the past.

The Arcanes look at the life and at history, at the happenings and changes in the contemporary world, at the decline and agony in western civilization, at the role of new systems of communication, at the struggles of the new movements, at the horrors of wars that are never just. But Hirschman always succeeds in giving a sign of hope, confident as he is in human beings and above all in poetry.

For more info, see Jack Hirschman webpage

To order: http://www.casadellapoesia.org/thearcanes/

* * * * *

PRISONERS OF TRUTH

a novel by Jody Weiner

NOW IN PAPERBACK

Praise for Prisoners of Truth:

"In the novelistic tradition of The Great Gatsby, Jody Weiner has created two characters that represent the American penchant for ambition. With bright humor and unstinting honesty, Weiner holds a mirror up to the reader forcing us to examine our own weaknesses, as he portrays emotions inherent in the human drama." Cathleen Miller; author of Desert Flower, The Birdhouse Chronicles

"This fine page-turner ingeniously turns into the story of the very book one's turning the pages of. A creative twist on a genre that's usually linear, Jody Weiner's image-specifics also are refreshingly effective." Jack Hirschman; San Francisco Poet Laureate, PEN Award-winning author

"Jody Weiner is a master of authenticity, putting his story down in all its hues with the deftness of a great realist painter. His characters vividly come to life in this funny and classy legal-flavored pot-boiler/morality play. I could feel Ollie Katz's breath on my neck." Romy Ashby, editor Goodie Magazine

For more info: prisonersoftruth.com

* * * * *