Le Secret c’est de tout dire! [1989]

[Sanguinetti, Gianfranco]. Giovannelli, Gianni (pseud). Le Secret c’est de tout dire! Paris: Allia, 1989. 141 p.; 14 x 22 cm.; off-white wrappers with text in black and grey. First published in Italian as Il Segreto e dirlo (Verone: Scriberus Club, 1983). Trans. Monique Baccelli.

“This book is the fictional autobiography of Salvatore Messana, a clever; determined and financially successful enemy of salaried work, bosses and bureaucrats. Written by Gianna Giovannelli, it was first published in Italian in 1983 & translated into French in 1989” (AK Press).

Gianna Giovannelli is believed to be a pseudonym for Gianfranco Sanguinetti. In a letter to Charles Vincent from 25 February 1991, Guy Debord writes: “Did you know of this recent book by Gianfranco? There are a few nice things in it” (Correspondance Vol. VII, p. 262). As Bill Brown notes in the introduction to his English translation of the text (under the title Never Work: The Autobiography of Salvatore Messana): “Note that the identification of ‘Giovannelli’ as a pseudonynm used by Sanguinetti – which is something that Gianfranco himself has denied – is repeated by the index included in the very last volume of Guy Debord’s Correspondance, published by Librairie Artheme Fayard in 2010. Under “Giovannelli, Giovanni” it says ‘see Sanguinetti, Gianfranco'” (Brown, p. v)

Scarce in the trade with 8 copies on OCLC.

Papillons de Paris: quinze papillons autocollants a decouper [2016]

Renoir, Alexis (pseud?). Papillons de Paris: quinze papillons autocollants a decouper. Paris: Rendre la honte plus honteuse, Mars 2016. Edition of 50 (ours no. 39). 15 self-adhesive stickers (various formats) printed on 9 thick pages (21 x 30 cm.), loosely laid inside a black enveloppe  (23 x 32 cm.).Also includes an explanatory statement, printed on a single semi-transparent sheet of paper.

As the author indicates, these stickers were posted across Paris (as well as distributed through the internet) in late 2015 and early 2016. The self-proclaimed objective was to publicly denounce Jean-Marie Apostolides’ biography of Guy Debord, released by Flammarion in 2015 under the title Debord, le naufrageur. Apostolides’ biography was indeed divise – lauded by some, it was severely denounced by others. As usual, this blog takes a strictly bibliographical stance and the choice to present this document does not reflect any ideological positioning.

A Professor of French emeritus at Stanford University, J-M Apostolides is also the author of Les Tombeaux de Guy Debord, précédé de “Guy-Ernest en jeune libertin. Paris:Exils, 1999 ; Paris: Flammarion, 2006. He has edited or co-edited numerous works on “minor” figures of the Internationale Situationniste, such as Ivan Chtcheglov or Patrick Straram.

While many of the stickers rely on puns and detournements (and are thus difficult to translate), we have attempted to transcribe the meaning of the first half below:

1) Marc Dachy is dead, Apostolides is alive…It’s a double tragedy for honest thinking

2) If you read Jean-Marie Apostolides out loud for ten minutes, you will get a bad breath

3) She had Apostolides from behind

4) Mr. Jean-Marie Apostolides is an old fart

5) Against Jean-Marie Apostolides’ stupidity, the Gods themselves struggle helplessly

6) Mr. Jean-Marie Apostolides is a pig

7) Shige Gonzalvez, Jean-Marie Apostolides. These are public men: they have left the shadows to be dragged into the mud

 

La Societe du Spectacle [1967] – Pierre Ansart’s copy

Debord, Guy. La Société du Spectacle. Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1967. First edition, first printing (4eme trimestre 1967). 176 p.; 20.5 x 14 cm; White cover with text in black. Pierre Ansart’s working copy. The text is heavily underlined and annotated throughout, with several indications of Debord’s philosophical sources (e.g., pp. 58 & 149: “Hegel”).

Below are translated excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on Pierre Ansart: Born in 1922, Pierre Ansart is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris and one of the world’s leading scholars on (pre-)anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. After a dissertation on “Marx and Anarchism” (1967), Ansart becomes an Assistant Professor at University of Paris – Sorbonne and then at the University of Paris – Denis Diderot. His research centers around ideologies like Marxism, Proudhonism and Anarchism, particularly in their emotional and affective dimension. He has written extensively on Proudhon, Saint-Simon, Freud, Marx, Balandier, Weber.

Provenance: Pierre Ansart, through the trade.

 

Interlude – short hiatus

Dear readers and subscribers,

My apologies for the current lack of posts/updates. Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, the blog is on a temporary hiatus. I expect to resume posting in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for new and exciting items, including some not listed in the current bibliographies.

Cheers

Situationnisteblog