Thursday, August 05, 2004

Panegyric

Guy Debord's Panegyric is online, and well worth a look. It's no doubt been there for years, but I've only just come across it. However, I must have read it in a different translation, for the line that lodged in my head was "I have written much less than most writers, but I have drunk much more than most drinkers." In the online version, this is translated as: "I have written much less than most people who write; but I have drunk much more than most people who drink." For those of you interested in Debord's work, a recent book by the Italian Georgio Agamben contains an encomium to Debord and comments on his work. Agamben begins: "Debord's books constitute the clearest and most severe analysis of the miseries and slavery of a society that by now has extended its dominion over the whole planet." As Debord (I think) said: "You can't go into exile in a unified world."

Speaking of a unified world, one of my American students confided in me after a trip abroad "they don't seem to have a cafe culture in Italy, do they?" 'What?," I stammered. 'Well, I didn't see a single Starbucks all the time I was there."

As Jim Morrison might have said, 'I've been steeped in simulacra so damn long, it sure looks like the real to me."