Situationism
- Thread starter Tentative Andy
- Start date
Yeah the main issue with Semprum's turgid book (I read the whole thing for my sins) is that it's just an utterly irrelevant ahistorical diatribe.
william kent
Well-known member
Ivory Pearl, Jean-Patrick Manchette
Very lean. Opens with a group of men smuggling a child into a house, being ambushed by a couple of gunmen and all but one dying after a shootout, knife fight and a car bomb going off. There's a horrible description of a character slicing off someone's hand, still holding the gun, then opening up his throat and chin with some sort of machete.
Apparently it was to be a change of direction for Manchette and was intended as the start of some sweeping cycle of historical novels, but he died before he could finish it and even get started on the subsequent ones.
Why Jean-Patrick Manchette Abandoned the Crime Novel
—The following was written as an introduction to the novel, Ivory Pearl This striking posthumous work—La Princesse du sang (Princess of the Blood) in its original French version—was intended by my …crimereads.com
“The Position of the Solitary Crime Novelist”
An Interview with Jean-Patrick Manchette
Jean-Patrick Manchette was born in Marseille, France in 1942 and
died in Paris in 1995. In the 1960s, he was active in far-left politics:
he wrote articles and created illustrations for La Voie communiste and
later became strongly influenced by the Situationist International.
Over the course of his career as a writer, he wrote dozens of novels
(some of them “crime novels”), screenplays, adaptations and
translations (English to French). Conducted in 1991, this was his last
interview.
dilbert1
Well-known member
Going to have to try and find this online
en.wikipedia.org
This one looks interesting as well
en.wikipedia.org
Nada (1974 film) - Wikipedia
This one looks interesting as well
State of Siege - Wikipedia
william kent
Well-known member
There's an upload of Nada on YouTube, but it's age-restricted and I'm not sure it has English subtitles.
Have you seen Missing? That's a good one by the same director. It's about an American disappearing during the Chilean coup.
letterboxd.com
Have you seen Missing? That's a good one by the same director. It's about an American disappearing during the Chilean coup.
Missing (1982)
Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports...
letterboxd.com
william kent
Well-known member
Some other good ones:
The Mattei Affair (1972)
Azor (2021)
The Day of the Jackal (1973)
Illustrious Corpses (1976)
Slap the Monster on Page One (1972)
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
william kent
Well-known member
@version I **was** **particularly** convinced by their stuff for a while, but the tapestry of inscrutable philosophy stuff is what really sucked me in and then eventually left me a bit cold. The patent corniness was always something I tried to look past, as the deluge of literary references and provocative Foucault citations convinced me that they must be deeper than something like Crimethinc. I don’t necessarily mind a bit of esotericism, but since that time and after a lot of reading I recognized their thought and politics as for my taste (which certainly evolved as a result of this investigation) far too antinomian, antisocial, atavistic, illiberal and ‘ethical’… pretty much all the worst aspects of the New Left, which their sardonic dunking on ‘68 and embrace of its further degeneration in the following decade only proves. The bit at the end of The Coming Insurrection with the rocket-launcher attack, along with so many of their other base appeals to nihilist exuberance, really brings to mind the hopelessly self-righteous guerrilla group in Children of Men.
Don’t get me wrong, as I wrote here recently, as a kind of aesthetic document of y2k cultural and political inertia (in the same way you might look at Crass or Throbbing Gristle in their moments), I find the journal beautiful and intriguing. I really prefer the first issue; “What is Critical Metaphysics?”, “Silence and Beyond,” “Theses on the Imaginary Party” and “Theory of Bloom” are some of the more interesting theoretical excursions. “The Cybernetic Hypothesis” I found disappointing, just watch The Net by Lutz Dammbeck.
If you’re curious at some point, I would really highly recommend reading these two critical pieces which highlight the rather under-appreciated religious motifs and eschatological logic of Tiqqun’s project.
The first is a general critique of the journal immediately subsequent to the release of the first issue, focusing on the Heideggerianism and nihilism, but it also delves deep into the Kabbalist aspect. It is written by other Frenchmen and so the tone is amusingly similar in its polemics, but its coherent, and the best and most comprehensive critique I’ve ever read of their stuff (I’ve read every critique/commentary I could find on them), and on the level of thought rather than picking apart the Tiqqun “type” (which the article also just happens to identify as “bullshitting college kids” lol).
Avant-garde and Mission
D. Caboret — P. Garrone Avant-garde and Mission 1999
This second article, very recent, focuses solely on the Kabbala stuff, but in much more detail (and more sympathetically). Apparently around the time of the journal the group would summon their metaphysical shoplifting powers to procure pasta for Agamben to cook them, as over dinner he discussed Jewish mysticism’s influence on his contemporaneous book project, The Coming Community.
Jewish Esotericism in the Theories and Practices of Emancipation: The Case of the Ephemeral Journal Tiqqun (1999-2001) - Jews, Europe, the XXIst century
In the early 2000s, a radical left-wing magazine referred to the Kabbalah tradition and took a Hebrew name: Tiqqun. The magazine only had two issues, but it constituted the matrix of the Invisible Committee (collective author of The Coming Insurrection) of which Julien Coupat, arrested during...k-larevue.com
You read this one? Took me fucking ages. Main takeaway's I'm glad I've nothing to do with Anarchist groups. The comment section's something...
On Tiqqunism (Definitive Best Edition) | anarchistnews.org
anarchistnews.org
And this one and the subsequent comments are funny:
Ten Theses on Anti-(((Tiqqunism))) | anarchistnews.org
anarchistnews.org
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
I wanted to see something like this on the anarchist site, and it did not disappoint:You read this one? Took me fucking ages. Main takeaway's I'm glad I've nothing to do with Anarchist groups. The comment section's something...
On Tiqqunism (Definitive Best Edition) | anarchistnews.org
And this one and the subsequent comments are funny:
Ten Theses on Anti-(((Tiqqunism))) | anarchistnews.org
william kent
Well-known member
![Screenshot 2024-07-03 at 16-47-33 Ten Theses on Anti-(([...].png](https://www.dissensus.com/data/attachments/19/19169-d4f54f94a67f776d1df9fd0fb70cb4ee.jpg "Screenshot 2024-07-03 at 16-47-33 Ten Theses on Anti-(([...].png")
Clinamenic
Binary & Tweed
Ladies and gentlemen: the left wing.
william kent
Well-known member
I recently read a transcript of Agamben and some others dully discussing Tiqqun and that was funny too. They were waffling and people in the audience were like "What are you actually talking about it? How does this help us?" and eventually Agamben stormed out.
anarchistwithoutcontent.wordpress.com
G.A.: (very angry) What a bizarre idea you have to be interested in someone… You say you don’t know the books and that you’re not interested in them, you don’t have the faintest idea of what we’re discussing? What are you interested in? In who I am? You’re interested in my body, what do you want from me? (he gets up and leaves)
Agamben leaves the room.
Voices: he did not just say that.
Tiqqun Apocrypha Repost
A kind NYC blogger did a quick-dirty translation of the Agamben/Hazan discussion on Tiqqun. It was later taken down. I can’t speak to the quality of the translation, some things are obviously…
anarchistwithoutcontent.wordpress.com
G.A.: (very angry) What a bizarre idea you have to be interested in someone… You say you don’t know the books and that you’re not interested in them, you don’t have the faintest idea of what we’re discussing? What are you interested in? In who I am? You’re interested in my body, what do you want from me? (he gets up and leaves)
Agamben leaves the room.
Voices: he did not just say that.
dilbert1
Well-known member
You read this one? Took me fucking ages. Main takeaway's I'm glad I've nothing to do with Anarchist groups. The comment section's something...
On Tiqqunism (Definitive Best Edition) | anarchistnews.org
And this one and the subsequent comments are funny:
Ten Theses on Anti-(((Tiqqunism))) | anarchistnews.org
I recently read a transcript of Agamben and some others dully discussing Tiqqun and that was funny too. They were waffling and people in the audience were like "What are you actually talking about it? How does this help us?" and eventually Agamben stormed out.
Tiqqun Apocrypha Repost
A kind NYC blogger did a quick-dirty translation of the Agamben/Hazan discussion on Tiqqun. It was later taken down. I can’t speak to the quality of the translation, some things are obviously…
G.A.: (very angry) What a bizarre idea you have to be interested in someone… You say you don’t know the books and that you’re not interested in them, you don’t have the faintest idea of what we’re discussing? What are you interested in? In who I am? You’re interested in my body, what do you want from me? (he gets up and leaves)
Agamben leaves the room.
Voices: he did not just say that.
No, I’ll have to check those out for my own curiosity and penance’s sake, the anarchist insider baseball stuff is always so funny, typically they competitively split hairs and agree much more than disagree with each other but I still usually get a kick out of it.
And yeah I remember reading that transcript, it was for a book event with Eric Hazan who I believe was republishing their stuff prior to semiotext(e) and MIT Press getting their hands on it. All parties look stupid in the end and people are generally right to mock the political posturing. With them and Agamben there’s always some lip service paid to “not separating theory and practice” as if that somehow guarantees greater integrity in their radical politics. Of course when you think that you can assign a lot more significance to the act of writing a book, to the point where you deny its a book at all but instead a “textual virus” and “an attempt to shift the plane of political phenomenality.” The whole Tarnac/Coming Insurrection thing was definitely a feather in their cap in that respect.
Still, showing up to a book talk without having read it and complaining about its contents is a bit idiotic, but its exactly what you should expect at that kind of book talk. There was one particular bout of confused rambling at the Situationist event I attended here, not incendiary but painfully awkward, yet the speakers still found the resources to continue on. Agamben simply wouldn’t have his style cramped it seems.
william kent
Well-known member
That very long piece is by someone claiming to have stayed with them in Tarnac and has a bunch of anecdotes.
dilbert1
Well-known member
You read this one? Took me fucking ages. Main takeaway's I'm glad I've nothing to do with Anarchist groups. The comment section's something...
On Tiqqunism (Definitive Best Edition) | anarchistnews.org
And this one and the subsequent comments are funny:
Ten Theses on Anti-(((Tiqqunism))) | anarchistnews.org
Checking these out now finally, I forgot about them
dilbert1
Well-known member
Your hands are so clean, @version I’m glad there’s someone else on the forum that shares my interest, but I’m like a disaffected type of person who ten years ago growing up in Olympia would’ve seen the person authoring this longer first article as a role model and hero figure. I once actually thought being into and understanding these texts would guide my life somehow, help me sort myself into milieus of conspiracist circles filled with fun kind caring people well-read in philosophy that could help me escape having to associate with or live too much like the normies. I was never into the commune thing though, better to inhabit the belly of the beast I always thought, and that’s where things would ‘pop off’ anyhow.
Witnessing the idiocy of people hopped up on this stuff in practice and the degraded second-rate facsimile literature basically regurgitating semblances of the original texts year after year, the people in the scenes who seemed important always moving to more of a hotspot, up in the invisible chain, or ending up in jail or burned out, the whole thing slowly coming to look like a big sham or a badge of honor people who since came to their senses would make reference to regarding their past for some bona fides… it was difficult for me to slowly come to terms with the way my motivations weren’t really about fighting the system or whatever but just ending up at what I took to be the cool kids’ table. Its all very embarrassing and clearly this guy still struggles with some of that, half-jokingly referring to these texts as holy etc. It still makes me sad, and its a cycle carried over from people like the Weathermen. People who do really mean well and have beautiful souls but whose good intentions were mixed with psychosis, delusion, unthinking actionism and narcissism. And that the energy they had to fight for freedom ends up in this trap that brings out the worst in them and the idea that this is the best you can do to inspire others that there’s dignity in our small daily suffering and servitude when we think of and feel respect for such figures
Witnessing the idiocy of people hopped up on this stuff in practice and the degraded second-rate facsimile literature basically regurgitating semblances of the original texts year after year, the people in the scenes who seemed important always moving to more of a hotspot, up in the invisible chain, or ending up in jail or burned out, the whole thing slowly coming to look like a big sham or a badge of honor people who since came to their senses would make reference to regarding their past for some bona fides… it was difficult for me to slowly come to terms with the way my motivations weren’t really about fighting the system or whatever but just ending up at what I took to be the cool kids’ table. Its all very embarrassing and clearly this guy still struggles with some of that, half-jokingly referring to these texts as holy etc. It still makes me sad, and its a cycle carried over from people like the Weathermen. People who do really mean well and have beautiful souls but whose good intentions were mixed with psychosis, delusion, unthinking actionism and narcissism. And that the energy they had to fight for freedom ends up in this trap that brings out the worst in them and the idea that this is the best you can do to inspire others that there’s dignity in our small daily suffering and servitude when we think of and feel respect for such figures