On Saturday, November 9 at 4:30 PM Richard will give a short talk to introduce a screening of Robert Bresson's film The Devil, Probably (Le Diable probablement) for the Cine-Club in the Auditorium of the YWCA, 610 Lexington Avenue @ 53rd Street (admission $7.00, information 212.735.9717 -- call for their schedule; director of the club Poty Oliviera programs great films every weekend and the Bresson series includes eight movies). Bresson is Hell's favorite director and he says, "Bresson isn't what you'd call a 'topical' director, but The Devil Probably has a special power for me for the way it portrays the state of mind of the youth of 1977. The depiction in the film corresponds so strongly to my own state in that period, which I was trying to convey in my Blank Generation album (also 1977) for instance, that I'd call the movie the single work most similar in its subject and message to that record. I only first saw the movie in 1999, and as I watched, the correspondences between it and what 'punk' was in my case were so striking that I was practically throwing up with shock and amazement. Bresson was seventy-six when he made it and I don't think he was hanging out at CBGB's."

Hey, Janeane Garofalo returns the compliment (she's listed #1 in the "Girls" list at Hell's year-old "ongoing" Personal Page), saying, "I'm always interested in people who are doing something different like Aimee Mann, and way back in the late 70's, early 80's Richard Hell. ...Yeah, I just read his latest book Hot and Cold, which is okay, I prefer Go Now, but I’m interested in people like him and writers like him -- writers who are also musicians as opposed to entertainers. I consider mainstream people like J-Lo and Britney entertainers. They’re not artists and they’re not musicians, they’re entertainers and performers. I guess there’s a place for that in mainstream. If you don’t have discerning taste, that’s fine, if you enjoy it, that’s fine, but I find it unfortunate this kind of stuff dominates the airwaves," etc., in an interview at Dusted magazine.

An interview with Hell is the cover story in the current issue of the Atlanta music magazine Stomp and Stammer.

Ohta Publishing in Japan has just contracted for a Japanese translation of Hell's novel Go Now, and T-ough Press in Russia will soon be bringing out a Russian version of his "novellina" The Voidoid. (Check an excerpt and a translator's intro in Cyrillic type. It's fun to get an instant translation from Babelfish.) [posted October 11, 2002]

The image to the left is a small copy of a version of the pencil self-portrait commissioned from Richard by Dutch magazine which accompanies an article about him in their current issue (July/August, #40 ). Pretty Dutch is the high fashion magazine that as far as we can see has become the very most pornographic of the many such styley rags that have been hotly (ha ha) contesting the title. We salute them. In other fashion news, there've been numerous developments on the Hell shirt front (besides the usual goose liver stains) not even counting the Hell-oid tees we're now offering: 1) APC, the clothing store / designers headquartered in Paris, with stores in New York and Tokyo, has copied the triangle t-shirt ("triangles were falling at the window as the doctor cursed"), sans the original holes and safety pins, home-made by Hell in the '70s -- APC's press release called the t-shirt an "homage" to Hell; 2) unlike Hedi Slimane, who mentioned only Rimbaud as an inspiration for the shirt he designed for Dior that has a splatter over the heart, as per Hell's Heartbreakers shirt design (featured of course on the cover of the punk oral history Please Kill Me); and 3), speaking of which, there's recently surfaced a photo of Richard Lloyd in Hell's notorious "kill me" tee (which Hell cowardl- uh -craftily persuaded him to debut) at Max's in 1974. See these all in the shirt-o-rama illustrations. Hell is also the coverboy on the current (#62) Bucketfull of Brains British music magazine (BoB ordering info), in which he's interviewed. The drawing's a better likeness we assert.

On a grimmer note, after Dee Dee Ramone OD'd on June 6, Richard wrote a few words about the Ramones' songwriter and bassplayer. We also have a nice pic on site of Dee Dee in 1975. [posted August 9, 2002]

Richard will be talking and giving a reading (and selling and signing books) at the WORD 2002 poetry festival on Saturday, June 8 at The College of Mount St. Vincent in the Bronx. The theme of the festival is poetry and music. Other poets and musicians who will appear at the all-day event include Jim Carroll, U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Anselm Berrigan, Big Youth, Janet Hamill & Moving Star, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Eric Andersen, Jayne Cortez, and Edwin Torres. The festival runs from 11:00 AM until 10:00 PM and tickets for the entire day are $35. Check Exoterica for more info and to order tickets.

Hell spent March in London and Paris. There are accounts of his reading at the Garage in London at our Forum Board by Honda Lulu, and by James Reich, and writer Matt Thorne's description of it along with a short interview with Hell in the The London Independent. In Paris Richard read and screened some videotapes, all related to Theresa Stern, at the Balthazar film festival. There's some background to this in a tribute he wrote to his friend Zoë Tamerlis for the film magazine that organized the festival. There've been many reviews of the new Time double CD set and interviews with Hell on the web recently. Here, for instance, are typical reviews at Rolling Stone, In Music We Trust and the London Guardian (scroll to the bottom of the page when you get there); a pretty good interview at Rock's Back Pages, and a manic strung-out-on-himself one at 3 AM magazine. [posted May 6, 2002]

Hell is the cover story in the February issue of (The) Wire, best mass market music magazine going. There is also a major review of his new book (Hot and Cold) in 3AM magazine.

Richard will be in Europe in March and he will read (and sign books) in London, Thursday March 7, 8:00 PM, at Upstairs At The Garage, 20-22 Highbury Corner, London, N5 (nearest tube Highbury and Islington), price £5.00 (Tickets: Stargreen 0207 734 8932 or Ticketweb 0207 771 2000 or Ticketweb); in Paris he'll show videos, talk, read (with some translating by French poet Michel Bulteau), and sign books at 8:00 PM, Saturday March 16, on an evening of the film festival organized by Balthazar film magazine at Cinema Le Grand Action, 5 rue des Ecoles 75005 Paris (Metro Cardinal Lemoine or Jussieu), price 6.50 EUR (theater phone recording 01.43.29.44.40, or for details of festival call Balthazar at 01.43.54.08.36); and in Glasgow he'll read and sign books 8:00 PM Wednesday, March 27 at 13th Note, 260 Clyde Street, Glasgow G1, price £8 plus booking fee (tickets: 13th Note 0141 221 0414, Ticket Scotland 0141 332 4400, Ripping Records 0131 226 7010) [posted February 26, 2002]

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