The following is a transcription about the great Irish modernist writer, James Joyce and his influences.  It's from Harvey Pekar's "The Best of American Splendor" 

 

The Maven Speaks: On Geroge Moore

 

"There's been a lot of speculation about who influenced James Joyce.  Some people cite Ibsen as marking his early work..  I think it's obvious that the impressionism of Baudelaire and the French Symbolists had a strong impact on him. 

One of these Symbolists, Edouard Dujardin, published in 1887 a work called "Les Lauriers Sont Coupes" (Translated as "We'll To the Woods No More") which is regarded as the first stream-of-consciousness novel. Joyce credited Dujarden as having a profound effect on him, and he probably did.

But in citing Dujardin, Joyce ignored the work of fellow Irishman George Moore, whose writing he was will avare of, and who may have influenced him as much as anyone.  Certainly Moore's writing aniticipated "Ulysses."

Moore (1852-1933), son of a country gentleman and racehorse owner, emigrated to Paris in 1873, where he hung around with artists and writers.  One of his closest friends was Dujardin.

Moore published his first novel, "A Modern Lover," in 1883, and wrote a number of them and autobiograph9ical works over the years.  In the 1880s and '90s his work was strongly influenced by the naturalism of such writers as Sola and Thomas Hardy.  His most famous novel, "Esther Waters" (1894), is about a maid who gets pregnant and becomes a single parent.  Unlike "Tess of the D'ubervilles," however, she does not die tragically, but bravely gets on with her life.

Morre was a daring artist.  He sometimes wrote about bohemian life, and "A Modern Lover" was banned by circulating bivraries as being too racy.  He also experiemnted with writing technique in 1887, the year "Les Lauriers Sont Coupes" was printed, he published a noverl, "A Mere Accident," which contained interior monlogue passages which could be called stream-of-consciousness writing. 

Here's an exerpt:  "Her parasol--where was it? It was broken.  The sheep, how sweet and quiet they looked, and the clover, how deliciously it smelt...This is Mr. Austin's farm, and how well kept it is.  There is the barn.  And Evy and Mary, when would they be married?"

He continued his experiments with stream of consciousness technique in 1889 with "Mike Fletcher", the story of an opporunistic irish playboy in England.

Here Imagine playboy Fletcher strolling the streets thinking, "Here I am--a poor boy for the bogs of ireland--poor peopple...at all event a poor boy without money or friends.  I have made myself what I am...I get the best of everything...if I could only get rid of that cursed accent, but i haven't much...How pleasant it is to have money! Heigho! How pleasant it is to have money."

In 1895 Morre went beyond what Dujardin had done by combining stream of consciousness writing with a rape victim's dream like or hallucinatory state of mind in the novella, "John Norton"

Here Moore imagines the victem thinking, "What a horrible man...He attacked me, ill treated me...what for."   And writes about her tublulant state "...Something follow her--she knows not what...She falls over great leaves.  She falls into the clefts of ruined tombs, and her hands, as she attempts to rise, are laid on sleeping snakes..."

Starting around 1905 moore experimented with a style called "the melodic line" in which he dictated drafts of his novels to a secretary rather than writing them, and revised by dictating.  This style most strikingly employed in "The Brook Keristh", resulted in unusally long sentences and paragraphs and no quotation marks, all of which anticipated Molly Bloom's soliloquy in "Ulysses."

Here imagine Moore dictating the following to his secretary, "We understand from thee, son, Dan said, on hearing that the fourth preceptor whom he had engaged to teach his son Hebrew had failed to please him...."

"Why hasn't Moore gotten the credit he deserves from the literary historians? Well, some stereotyped him as a naturalist and were blind to the avant-garde qualities of his writing but he also appears from a number of accounts to have been an asshole: a bull shitter, a gossip, a braggart.  He really pissed some people off by claiming to one reviewer: ' "Ester Waters" is better than anything Dickens ever wrote.'

This sort of remark made some literary critics reluctnat to praise him.

If Joyce was influence by Moore, he probably wouldn't have admitted it, especially considering that Moore, unlike the almost unknown Dujardin, was a competitor of his, that Joyce was slow to praise anywon, and that Moore was known to have bad-mouthed Joyce's work. 

Here imagine Moore saying, 'Why he's nothing but a --but a beggar'

On the other hand, Joyce had written: 'Mr Martyn and Mr Moore are not writers of much originality...Mr. Moore is really struggling in the backwash of that tide which has advanced from Flaubert to D'Annunzio..."

Too bad--both men were great writers.  Joyce was the greater, of course.  But Moore was way up there too.  Poor guy, he told people that he was great, but not enough believed him.  Maybe he should've let them figure it out for themselves...of course, sometimes that doesn't work."  

..> ..> ..>..>

..> ..> ..>..> So you are off to other adventures and parts. I venture that perhaps this is to clean up? I know that most of my friends had to move away when they kicked. This was especially true if they were doing it on their own. eventually they all needed professional help, cos it's a fucking bitch. I listened to some Simon Joyner today, very nice and one of coner's friends. Joyner's seems less emotive. Those two toured together back in '99 or something. Joyner has a family so they had to work around that. Here are some quotes from my reading. This is why we get degrees in liberal arts so we drop these lines at cocktail parties. I'll save one to put in yr comments b/c i'm a sucker for the decorative/degenerate/decadent. "my ultimate goal in life is to be n irritant. Not something actively destructive, but someone who irritates, who disorientates Someone who disrupts the daily drag of life just enough to leave the victim thinking there's maybe more to it all than the mere humdrum quality of existence." Weird this is Elvis Costello 1978 "The head... On the night table, like a ranunculus, rests" --Baudelaire, "Une Martye" (From Benjamin, Walter. "The Arcades Project") "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." --Scoop Nisker, radio signoff, KSAN-FM San Francisco, 1969. (From Greil, Marcus. "Lipstick Traces.") and just b/c writing in capitals makes one feel demented... "TO HELL WITH CHRIST!" "WHO IS CHRIST TO YOU? HE'S JUST LIKE YOU--HE DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN!" "WE DON'T GIVE A DAMN FOR JESUS CHRIST!" "CHRIST IS A SAUSAGE!" --Johannes Baader Nov 1918 (From, Ibid) actually these are pretty anti-cocktail party...oh well here's to the anti-hero, the anti-quote, and all gleeful negation. just a little bit of something for you down in your bayou (sp). Errr i'm such a stick in the mud yankee. yr friend jane. well here's to every particle of us that's beautiful, clever, spendid,... your friend, Jane

I've transcribed the following commentary on Russian literary modernism from Harvey Pekar's "The Best of American Splendor".  Pekar is a comic book writer who parcels out his stories, of mostly every day life, to comic book illustrators, most notably Robert Crumb.  Since this transcription lacks any of the pictorial stuff, I've just inserted a description of the action and the character's words.  Hopefully this method isn't too confusing. 

"Between 1900 and 1935 more outstanding modernist writers came out of russia/ussr than any nation.  Chances are you know nothing about them, not even Andrei Bely, whose novel, "Pertersburg," was considered by Nabokov to be one of the four greatest prose fiction works of this century.  Why? Because they died young (often were killed) or, were shut up, and their works were suppressed by Stalin. 

I mean these russian modernist were into all kinds of far out stuff: stream of consciousnousness writing, experiments with varied typefaces and page layout, impressionism, expressionism, absurdism...There was this poet, Velimir Khlebnikov, who was so great--as far out in his way as Ezra Pound.  One of his proposals for the future was 'to breed edible creatures in the lake which are invisible to the naked eye, so that every lake will be a pot of soup--already made, even if uncooked.

I've gotta hip you to one of the nuttiest of the russian moderist novels, though--"Mess Mend: Yankees in Petrograd"* by Marietta Shaginian, a russified armenian.  It's a parody of foreign intrique novels--one of the funniest and craziest book of its kind i've ever read.  You definitely don't expect something like this coming out of russia, but man, during the 1920s everything was happening there. 

*English translation available from Ardis, Ann Arbor Michigan

It came out in 1923 under the peudonym Jim Dollar, for whom Shaginian invented a biography.  Dollar was supposed to be a foundling left with a porter at a New York railroad station.  The porter raised him but died when he was a kid.  So he lives on the streets for a year and a half, gets enslaved by a spinster, learns to read, runs away, works in factories, and develops a leftist political position, inherits a fortune, presumably from whoever left him in the statrion and becomes a great writer of "cinematic novels."

" 'Mess Mend' is about this organization of leftist workers, led by michael thingmaster (master of things) which promotes communism in the usa and tries to defend it in the USSR  against capitalists and counterrevolutionaries.  What it does is mend the mess that capitalists make." 

Here imagine Mess Mend speaking in a crowded hall, "Fellows, this Upton Sinclair is a wonderful writer, but he's not one for us [too depressing]...give us the kind of literature that will make us fell like the masters of our lives. "

"The archvillian is jack Kressling, a billionaire american industrialist, who plans a terrorist campaign to wipe out the bolsheviks, using mass assination.  He's written a book, 'Capitalism As The Substratum of Psycho-Energy.'"

Here imaging Kressine speaking to a worker, "And what is capital if not the hidden opportunity for audacity , willfulness, passion, power?"

"There's all kinds of crazy shit going on--secret passages, secret rooms, a secret reailway.  Everybody's running around in disguise.

There's the suggestion of kinky sex.  Fat doctor lepsius wears a woman's wristwatch with an enormous diamond.  Grace Notabit, a senator's douaghter, has a thing for the mysterious  masked lady.

Shaginian presents an idealized protrait of the USSR.  But it's so exaggerated that it's just funny.

"Then there's thingmaster's wonder dog, Beauty.  Who figures out how to cross the atlantic on her own. 

'Mess Mend' and its two sequels were very popular in the USSR, inspiring a movie, but soviet officials started bad-mouthing it, and eventually shaginian turned to conventional literary projects.  She was not one to ruffle the feathers of Party officials."

Here imagine Shaginian throwing out her hands asking, "Vhat can you do?"

"I wonder how long it will be until russian writing recovers.  they did so much outstanding work in the early part of the century and most of us don't even know about that.  gradually better stuff was being produced in the 1970s and 1980s, but now there's all this chaos over there; their economy's shot.  Russian's given us such outstanding literature for the past 200 years.  Man it would be great to see a revivial!" 

 

Here are some priceless quotes from Suzanne a character from that camp classic, "Valley of the Dolls." I've never read it but I've seen both the movie version and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"

What more could be asked?

I can't remember the author's name but there's a very chic sketch of her on the back of her novel, "Dolores", which as far as I can tell, was a kooked out re-imagining of the Jackie Kennedy saga. The cover features a woman wearing tons of blue eye shadow with the famous "Jackie O" sun glasses on her head.

It's worth it for the cover alone.

I can't take credit for culling these quotes.  they come care of that British fashion rag, "The Face".  Is that even still around any more? 

DOLL PARTS

"This is a man's world--women only own it when they're very young. You'll find that out some fine day."

"Remember, there's only one way to own a man--by making him want you. Not with words."

"You gotta go in direct for the thing you want. Come right out and ask for it."

"When a girl has no money and marries for love, she ages real fast. Love don't last. Men only care about one thing."

"Don't gain or lose weight. That's the worst thing for breasts. Make them pay while you have them. Men are animals--they seem to like them."

"If a woman has money, nothing can ever hurt her."

"A man who can cut every tie is a man who can never care deeply. Because Number One always comes first. Keep those eyes wide open. And when you meet another guy who's for real, grab him and run for the hills."

"It sneaks up on you--the habit. After all the emotion is gone and logic takes over, the habit is still there. For the rest of yr life."

Below continues notes on "Punk, Warhol and the Commodity Spectacle" which begins a couple of blog entries below under the later title.

More half formed sketches for later future scratchings.

Todays's "it girls", barring Kate Moss perhaps, cannot turn around without a wardrobe person or stylist mandating what image they ought to project. Obviously, an arguement can be made that Kate Moss doesn't escape this sort of pre-fabrication but on a continuum from Jessica Simpson/Britney to Moss, we could probably designate Kate at the more self manufactured end of the prespective. With the emphasis on "manufactured".

This is a long way of saying that Edie Sedgwick's appeal as an "It Girl" (and to a lesser extent Moss's appeal) lies in the sense that they seem to invent themselves. This is ripe ground for debate, for as stated above, however seemingly original a Kate Moss or Edie may seem, they are beholden to (and perhaps merely products/victems/but still perhaps exploiters of) mass culture.

In back of both, we can argue, lurks some Svengali, a Warhol, a Calvin Klein and more likely an entire apparatus controlling what image is and isn't projected. But, I think this sells each of them short. While each might be viewed as mass culure throw a ways, I would like to submit that these girls are in many ways artists in their careful application of fashion, make up, etc and that the presentation of the body, long (though not exclusively) the purview of the feminine acts as their canvas. I would also submit that women using the body as canvas (see Cindy Sherman) is very much culturally mandated, which is to say, culturally acceptable. A woman is still feminine if she's expressing herself, through the guise of fashion, as an artistic product. This keeps her consistant with the idea that woman just "are" while men "do". Afterall, the history of art is largely the continual reinterpretation of the nude, and largely the female nude, as any purusal of a museum will attest to. Ultimately a woman's use of body as canves for artistic expression may be more of a mandate and less an actual choice given sociatal contraits on female activities.

I believe that within these narrow confines an Edie Sedgwick did act as an artist in her presentation of self. As mentioned before, she acts as a precusor to punk phenomena like Cat Girl who regularly dressed herself up in spectacular Sex Shop paraphenalia and displayed herself as a walking art work at many a punk show. John Lydon (a.k.a. Sex Pistol Johnny Rotton) attests to her genius, lauding her boldness, bravery and commitment to issue her body as a vehicle for artistic expression.

In this context Edie is, as stated, an expression of the punk rock aesthetic, a harbinger of what was to come when every loser, "budding suicide", working class, homeless sucm would finally get to say in a cacaphony of different (and yet similar) voices, "I should be everything and I am nothing." The display of oneself as a walking art work seems to be a popular form of expression among the disenfranchised (whether poor, women, minorities, what have you). It is perhaps the most accessable way to make a statement on disenfranchisement (which would explain hip hop's obsession with conspicuous consumption, and also, the mod movement's similar view of fashion). If poor and working class, what easier way to cry out against such circumstances than to display yrself as emphatically NOT part of the poor and working class enviroment? Ironically, this is probably the surest way to single oneself out as disenfranchised, as seen by the contempt old money has for the nuevo riche.

If behind Edie we find Warhol and behind Kate photographers like Corrine Day (who used almost exclusively emaciated models, since, she has stated, she had often felt freakish and marginalized for her thinness) or designers like Calvin Klein, I don't think we can say that Warhol or Calvin Klein are exclusively responsible for manufacturing what could be said as each woman's distinct image. We might for a second return to John Lydon and the Sex Pistols who, according to Malcolm McLaren, were products of his exclusive genius. In a moment of high camp Lydon would say, regarding such a statement, that "Nobody invents me. I am me." Indeed, I think we would be hard pressed, given Lydon's ongoing dialogue regarding this issue, that he was merely a product of Vivianne Westwood and McLaren's shop "Sex". (THIS NEEDS FURTHER EVIDENCE--THIN) It was Lydon who, before ever meeting McLaren, paraded London streets with a Pink Floyd T-shirt above which he had scrolled in magic marker, "I hate." It was Lydon who railed against the watered down version of hippiedom that had long been marketed to the youth who had supposedly invented it, and at that time had reached every "responsible suburban adult" who were all wearing flared slacks.

Much evidence suggests, from both McLaren and Lydon's recollections, that Lydon arrived at Westwood's Sex shop already as "Johnny Rotton". McLaren was merely there to recognize it, which could be said of both Edie and Moss. We might also make an arguement for a reverse relationship between the Svengali and his object in that Edie, by many reports, brought Andy out into a part of society that wouldn't have normally bought his art. Was Andy ever so popular than when he paraded around with Edie? Might we ask, "Who really created who?" Or, how much of each individual's public persona was a product of their joint creation? Indeed where is either McLaren or Lydon without the other? Though I would venture Lydon would've been a spectacle unto himself and would've parlayed this quality into some form of swindling of the collective unconscious.

to be continued.

Help with the cleanup, there are no maids here.

In the decor of the spectacle, the eye meets only things and their prices.

Commute, work, commute, sleep . . .

Meanwhile everyone wants to breathe and nobody can and many say, "We will breathe later."

And most of them don't die because they are already dead.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

We don't want a world where the guarantee of not dying
of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.

We want to live.

Don't beg for the right to live — take it.

In a society that has abolished every kind of adventure
the only adventure that remains is to abolish the society.

The liberation of humanity is all or nothing.

Those who make revolutions half way only dig their own graves.

No replastering, the structure is rotten.

Masochism today takes the form of reformism.

Reform my ass.

The revolution is incredible because it's really happening.

I came, I saw, I was won over.

Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!

Quick!

If we only have enough time . . .

In any case, no regrets!

Already ten days of happiness.

Live in the moment.

Comrades, if everyone did like us . . .

We will ask nothing. We will demand nothing. We will take, occupy.

Down with the state.

When the National Assembly becomes a bourgeois theater,

all the bourgeois theaters should be turned into national assemblies.

[Written above the entrance of the occupied Od?on Theater]

Referendum: whether we vote yes or no, it turns us into suckers.

It's painful to submit to our bosses; it's even more stupid to choose them.

Let's not change bosses, let's change life.

Don't liberate me — I'll take care of that.

I'm not a servant of the people (much less of their self-appointed leaders).

Let the people serve themselves.

Abolish class society.

Nature created neither servants nor masters. I want neither to rule nor to be ruled.

We will have good masters as soon as everyone is their own.

"In revolution there are two types of people:
those who make it and those who profit from it."
(Napoleon)

Warning: ambitious careerists may now be disguised as "progressives."

Don't be taken in by the politicos and their filthy demagogy. We must rely on ourselves.

Socialism without freedom is a barracks.

All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We want structures that serve people, not people serving structures.

The revolution doesn't belong to the committees, it's yours.

Politics is in the streets.

Barricades close the streets but open the way.

Our hope can come only from the hopeless.

A proletarian is someone who has no power over his life and knows it.

Never work.

People who work get bored when they don't work.
People who don't work never get bored.

Workers of all countries, enjoy!

Since 1936 I have fought for wage increases.

My father before me fought for wage increases.

Now I have a TV, a fridge, a Volkswagen.
Yet my whole life has been a drag.

Don't negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them.

The boss needs you, you don't need the boss.

By stopping our machines together we will demonstrate their weakness.

Occupy the factories.

Power to the workers councils.

(an enrag?)
Power to the enrag?s councils.
(a worker)

Worker: You may be only 25 years old, but your union dates from the last century.

Labor unions are whorehouses.

Comrades, let?s lynch S?guy!

[Georges S?guy: head bureaucrat of the Communist Party-dominated labor union]

Please leave the Communist Party as clean on leaving it as you would like to find it on entering.

Stalinists, your children are with us!

Man is neither Rousseau's noble savage nor the Church's or La Rochefoucauld's depraved sinner.

He is violent when oppressed, gentle when free.

Conflict is the origin of everything.
(Heraclitus)

If we have to resort to force, don't sit on the fence.

Be cruel.

Humanity won't be happy till the last capitalist is hung
with the guts of the last bureaucrat.

When the last sociologist has been hung with the guts of
the last bureaucrat, will we still have "problems"?

The passion of destruction is a creative joy.
(Bakunin)

A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of total revolution.

The tears of philistines are the nectar of the gods.

This concerns everyone.

We are all German Jews.

We refuse to be highrised, diplomaed, licensed, inventoried, registered, indoctrinated,
suburbanized, sermonized, beaten, telemanipulated, gassed, booked.

We are all "undesirables."

We must remain "unadapted."

The forest precedes man, the desert follows him.

Under the paving stones, the beach.

Concrete breeds apathy.

Coming soon to this location: charming ruins.

Beautiful, maybe not, but O how charming: life versus survival.

"My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast."
(Unamuno)

Conservatism is a synonym for rottenness and ugliness.

You are hollow.

You will end up dying of comfort.

Hide yourself, object!

No to coat-and-tie revolution.

A revolution that requires us to sacrifice ourselves for it is Papa's revolution.

Revolution ceases to be the moment it calls for self-sacrifice.

The prospect of finding pleasure tomorrow will never compensate for today's boredom.

When people notice they are bored, they stop being bored.

Happiness is a new idea.

Live without dead time.

Those who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring
to everyday reality have a corpse in their mouth.

Culture is an inversion of life.

Poetry is in the streets.

The most beautiful sculpture is a paving stone thrown at a cop's head.

Art is dead, don't consume its corpse.

Art is dead, let's liberate our everyday life.

Art is dead, Godard can't change that.

Godard: the supreme Swiss Maoist jerk.

Permanent cultural vibration.

We want a wild and ephemeral music.

We propose a fundamental regeneration:
concert strikes, sound gatherings with collective investigation.

Abolish copyrights: sound structures belong to everyone.

Anarchy is me.

Revolution, I love you.

Down with the abstract, long live the ephemeral.
(Marxist-Pessimist Youth)

Don't consume Marx, live him.

I'm a Groucho Marxist.

I take my desires for reality because I believe in the reality of my desires.

Desiring reality is great! Realizing your desires is even better!

Practice wishful thinking.

I declare a permanent state of happiness.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

Power to the imagination.

Those who lack imagination cannot imagine what is lacking.

Imagination is not a gift, it must be conquered.
(Breton)

Action must not be a reaction, but a creation.

Action enables us to overcome divisions and find solutions.

Exaggeration is the beginning of invention.

The enemy of movement is skepticism. Everything that has been realized
comes from dynamism, which comes from spontaneity.
Here, we spontane.

"You must bear a chaos inside you to give birth to a dancing star."
(Nietzsche)

Chance must be systematically explored.

Alcohol kills. Take LSD.

Unbutton your mind as often as your fly.

"Every view of things that is not strange is false."
(Val?ry)

Life is elsewhere.

Forget everything you've been taught. Start by dreaming.

Form dream committees.

Dare! This word contains all the politics of the present moment.
(Saint-Just)

Arise, ye wretched of the university.

Students are jerks.

The student's susceptibility to recruitment as a militant for
any cause is a sufficient demonstration of his real impotence.

(enrag? women)

Professors, you make us grow old.

Terminate the university.

Rape your Alma Mater.

What if we burned the Sorbonne?

Professors, you are as senile as your culture, your modernism
is nothing but the modernization of the police.

We refuse the role assigned to us: we will not be trained as police dogs.

We don't want to be the watchdogs or servants of capitalism.

Exams = servility, social promotion, hierarchical society.
When examined, answer with questions.

Insolence is the new revolutionary weapon.

Every teacher is taught, everyone taught teaches.

The Old Mole of history seems to be splendidly undermining the Sorbonne.
(telegram from Marx, 13 May 1968)

Thought that stagnates rots.

To call in question the society you "live" in, you must first
be capable of calling yourself in question.

Take revolution seriously, but don't take yourself seriously.

The walls have ears. Your ears have walls.

Making revolution also means breaking our internal chains.

A cop sleeps inside each one of us. We must kill him.

Drive the cop out of your head.

Religion is the ultimate con.

Neither God nor master.

If God existed it would be necessary to abolish him.

Can you believe that some people are still Christians?

Down with the toad of Nazareth.

How can you think freely in the shadow of a chapel?

We want a place to piss, not a place to pray.

I suspect God of being a leftist intellectual.

The bourgeoisie has no other pleasure than to degrade all pleasures.

Going through the motions kills the emotions.

Struggle against the emotional fixations that paralyze our potentials.

(Committee of Women on the Path of Liberation)

Constraints imposed on pleasure incite the pleasure of living without constraints.

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution.
The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.

SEX: It's okay, says Mao, as long as you don't do it too often.

Comrades, 5 hours of sleep a day is indispensable:
we need you for the revolution.

Embrace your love without dropping your guard.

I love you!!! Oh, say it with paving stones!!!

I?m coming in the paving stones.

Total orgasm.

Comrades, people are making love in the Poli Sci classrooms, not only in the fields.

Revolutionary women are more beautiful.

Zelda, I love you! Down with work!

The young make love, the old make obscene gestures.

Make love, not war.

Whoever speaks of love destroys love.

Down with consumer society.

The more you consume, the less you live.

Commodities are the opium of the people.

Burn commodities.

You can't buy happiness. Steal it.

See Nanterre and live. Die in Naples with Club Med.

Are you a consumer or a participant?

To be free in 1968 means to participate.

I participate.

You participate.

He participates.

We participate.

They profit.

The golden age was the age when gold didn't reign.

"The cause of all wars, riots and injustices is the existence of property."
(St. Augustine)

Happiness is hanging your landlord.

Millionaires of the world unite. The wind is turning.

The economy is wounded — I hope it dies!

How sad to love money.

You too can steal.

"Amnesty: An act in which the rulers pardon the injustices they have committed."
(Ambrose Bierce)

[The definition in Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary is actually: "Amnesty: The state's
magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish."]

Abolish alienation.

Obedience begins with consciousness;

consciousness begins with disobedience.

First, disobey; then write on the walls.
(Law of 10 May 1968)

I don't like to write on walls.

Write everywhere.

Before writing, learn to think.

I don't know how to write but I would like to say beautiful things and I don't know how.
I don't have time to write!!!

I have something to say but I don't know what.

Freedom is the right to silence.

Long live communication, down with telecommunication.

You, my comrade, you whom I was unaware of amid the tumult,
you who are throttled, afraid, suffocated — come, talk to us.

Talk to your neighbors.

Yell.

Create.

Look in front of you!!!

Help with cleanup, there are no maids here.

Revolution is an INITIATIVE.

Speechmaking is counterrevolutionary.

Comrades, stop applauding, the spectacle is everywhere.

Don't get caught up in the spectacle of opposition. Oppose the spectacle.

Down with spectacle-commodity society.

Down with journalists and those who cater to them.

Only the truth is revolutionary.

No forbidding allowed.

Freedom is the crime that contains all crimes. It is our ultimate weapon.

The freedom of others extends mine infinitely.

No freedom for the enemies of freedom.

Free our comrades.

Open the gates of the asylums, prisons and other faculties.

Open the windows of your heart.

To hell with boundaries.

You can no longer sleep quietly once you've suddenly opened your eyes.

The future will only contain what we put into it now.



These graffiti are drawn primarily from Julien Besan?on's Les murs ont la parole (Tchou, 1968), Walter Lewino's L'imagination au pouvoir (Losfeld, 1968), Marc Rohan's Paris '68 (Impact, 1968), Ren? Vi?net's Enrag?s et situationnistes dans le mouvement des occupations (Gallimard, 1968), Maurice Brinton?s Paris: May 1968 (Solidarity, 1968), and G?rard Lambert's Mai 1968: br?lante nostalgie (Pied de nez, 1988).
Some were written by the situationists or the Enrag?s, or are quotes from SI writings, but many of the others clearly reflect a more or less situationist spirit, whether they were directly influenced by the SI, or because situationist ideas were in the air, or simply because the liberated reality was generating situationist-style feelings and insights.
This translation by Ken Knabb is from the Situationist International Anthology (Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006). No copyright.
Texts of related interest at this website:
May 1968 Documents
The Beginning of an Era (Situationist analysis of May 1968)
The Joy of Revolution (passages on May 1968)
Original French texts of these graffiti
Graffiti from the Anti-CPE Uprising in France (2006)

[Other Situationist Texts]

                                       A Socio-Political Time Line


8000 B.C.   First record of alcohol found in cave paintings (mead-honey based)

6400 B.C.       First record of beer and berry wine

5000...            First record of opium poppy being calley, "joy plant" in Sumeria.

2240 ....         Harumurabi -- first code of laws--including restriction on use of      alcohol.

500 A.D.        first record of people being buried with coco leaves (Incas)

1000 A.D.       first extensive, purposeful cultivation of cocaine.

1750               king george orders increase in production of hemp in Americas.

1794              Whiskey Rebellion

1833               first trade control on opium

1842              U.S. Government puts tax on opium imports and exports.

1856              Introduction of first hypodermic needle to U.S.

1859              Patent medication first introduced (lots of alcohol and opium based)

1860             First extraction of cocaine hydracloride from coco leaves (Civil War)

1875            first ordinance ever poassed prohibiting opium smoking--only applied to Asians.

1880           First surgical use of cocaine as an anaesthetic.  Freud's use of cocaine as an anti-depressant.

1885          Parke-Davis using cocaine in Rx drugs (Celexa)

1904          Patent medicines = 74 million dollar business

1906           Pure food and Drug Act = required listing of ingredients

1912          Sherley Amendment did away with the mandate that patent medicines prove claims made about their products.

1914         Harrison Act  first law that controlled production, distribution and sale of heroine, cocaine and marijuana. Like Prohibition this was probably one of the most disasterous events in all attempts to solve the drug plague, insuring that, among other things, the most dangerous narcotics would forever remain out the reach of any sort of regulation, which resulted in many unnecessary overdoses and deaths.  Futher, criminalizing  the use of these drugs created a whole new dimension to street violence as junkies and addicts everywhere were treated the same as violent criminals. This drove drug use and trafficking further into the criminal underground, an atmosphere no less corrupt than the U.S. government but completely out of the realm of even the most minimal public sanctions. 

1920         18th Amendment   Prohibition

1922         first narcotic import/export act limiting opium to medical use.

1924         Heroine Act   now illegal to make heroine

1933         Repeal of Prohibition (21st Amendment)

1935         AA founded in Akron Ohio.

1938        Marijuana Tax Act

1942       Opium Poppy Control Act  must be liscensed to grow opium

1951       Biggs Amendment to Harrison Act  mandatory penalties for narcotics violations.

1956        AMA  declares alcoholism a disease.   Thalidamide invented. 

1962        Ketauver-Harris Amendment--required dryg companies to test and                     prove safety of medication.

1965        DACA  Amendment --  add more controls of amphetamines,                              barbituates, and LSD--a precusor to scheduled drug classification

1966         NARA    Narcotic Addict Rehabititation Act --made mandated detox possible instead of incarceration.

1968         Amendments of DACA  allowing erasure of drug arrest if no new                          arrests in one year.

1970         Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act-- the scheduling of                         drugs (check)

1972         Drug Abuse Office and Tax Act  1.1 billion appropriation to fight                         abuse.

1973         Methadone Control Act   Heroine trafficking act.  DEA formed                         consolidation of several drug agencies in ADA/MHA (checkkkk)

1974         Extension of Drug Abuse and Control Act.

1978    "                                                                 "  Drug Abuse Education                 mandated.  Dept of Eduacation to set up educational programs.

1979     Anti-paraphrenalia Act

1980       more extensions in Drug Abuse and Control Act.  more alterations.

1984       Drug Affenders Act   special programs for addict/offenders.

1986       Designer Drug Act --  Analouge Act

1988      Anti Drug Abuse Act   founded first overseas reserach potential of new               compounds.

1990    Crime Control Act    Doubled the amount of money appropriated for drug               abuse enforcement.

1992  SAMHSA  Managed Care  Substanse Abuse and Mental Health Services           Administration

1998    CT Drug/Alcohol Counselor ...Passes (check) NIMH study  Time in                     Tx--best indicator of success. Advocacy Movement.

2002  Recovery Based Treatment. 

Here is what a 1967 issue of Vogue had to say about Twiggy.  It's pretty beyond disturbing...

 

"Twiggy is called Twiggy because she looks as though a strong gale would snap her in two and dash her to the ground.  In a profession where thinness is essential, Twiggy is of such meagre constitution that other models stare at her.  Her legs look as though she had not had enough milk as a baby and her face has that expression one feels Londoners wore in the Blitz--a look that is essentially British--dogged and touching simultaneously.

She has extraordinary beauty--a beauty that would have been unnoticed ten years ago and would, in any other age, have made her an outcast in the marriage stakes.  Her face might have been conceived by a computer to match the requirements of the face ot the sixties--bony, pale-skinned, big eyed, vulnerable, lacquered with a stony stare of arrogance.  The look of arrogance is a happy accident." 

At the time Twiggy was sixteen and well on her way to supergamine supermodel status.  I can't wait till they just start throwing fetuses down the runway! 

Some half formed thoughts and notes towards some cohesive whole for later in the future

While working on the book "Edie: Factory Girl" I ran across a common opinion among Edie's cult following, one-- that Sienna Miller, who plays Sedgwick in the film version of Edie's life, was miscast if not the downright anti-Christ, and two-- that a film of Edie's life would be, at the very least, grossly inaccurate, but even more likely, an obscene charicature of their beloved heroine. 

When hearing about plans to make a film about Edie I felt ambivalant.  On the one hand it would give me fresh material to obsess over on the other it would probably be an embarassing vapid farce. 

But when thinking more about this aversion to the movie I started to think that the resistance stemed from a deep outrage at having the consumer culture reappropriate any new or exciting phenomena occuring in the "youth culture."  I put the later in quotes b/c this statement of course presupposes that "youth culture" has authenticity or is even in fact real.  (THIS PART NEEDS CRAZY REVISON/CLARIFICATION) 

Certainly "youth culture" which often refers to popular music (rock, pop, punk, prog, trance, hip hop, trip hop, acid house ad nausea) does not make any claims towards any sense of cultural substance.  Indeed its substancelessness marks the lynchpin of its identity and why it is so disasteriously disappointing.  The young, asking some of the most important questions that exist, are given, as answer, a depressing string of worn out heros, from Sid Vicious and Joey Ramone, to Britney and Madonna.  We may (myself included) love them all but they are certainly no answer to the question of how to live the good life, that is achieve happiness, i.e. the only thing that could possibly matter.   Besides, if one is given nothing to love except a string of depressing "heros" one learns to love this one thing.  Afterall there is no choice, nothing different has ever been intorduced. 

The dictates of the commodity spectacle mandate that one's pop culture identity no matter how fringe will be usurped, re-packaged and sold back to one before you can say faux hawk. 

However if we approach the Edie question in terms of a continum of what feels real, authentic, or relevant in the popular consciousness (from surrealism to punk say)  then Edie would probably represent a moment where the machinations of the commodity spectacle had not completely rubbed the edges off.  Edie was if anything "edgy" which word shld probably be banished into the canon of forbidden words, but there it is.  In this sense, we might see her as a link to the punk rock aesthetic.  If we locate punk's precusors in surrealism and dada & if we see Edie as a forerunner of punk, (afterall where would catgirl be without Edie)*, then we may come to see Edie's presense as just as scattered, unformed and diffacult to define as these other modernist moments, moments that were, all in their turn, reappropriated by mass culture so that Dada was used to sell shampoo.  Of course this would be the ultimate Dada gesture, a mobius strip in absurdity that only the guy who took a hammer to duChamp's urinal might completely understand. 

In reference to the later event, which actually happened (French courts decided to fine him) the only other situation which comes close to such a hall of mirrors would be the super markets that made huge displays of their Cambell Soup stock with specific reference to Andy Warhol.  It is diffacult to catagorize or deconstruct such a extraordinary (and yet eeriely predictable) event. 

 But returning to our girl,  "Factory Girl" the movie does what every hard core devotee of any cult object obhores it brings the chosen icon to the masses, for everyone to consume.  Edie would no longer stand as a sort of footnote to Warhol's factory but would become as well known as say The Velvet Underground who may now be nearly as well known as the Beatles at this point. 

Certainly Edie seemed to operate in a space outside the purview of our current star system which mass produces our sex kittens.  They arrive, hand picked by Disney, sanitized, disinfected, bland, non-transgressive images satisfying what America loves most hot, young, white, jail bait tail. 

This will have to be continued later....

 

And, of course, Warhol's factory constituted a total parady of hollywood.