Thursday, May 6, 2010

Guy Debord's Words of Advice for Young Writers

"I have written less than most writers. But I have drunk far more than most drinkers."

If ever there was a quote that summed up my time at The Daily Wenzel, it's this little gem from French writer Guy Debord, whose work influenced the May 1968 student uprisings in Paris, Abbie Hoffmann's Festival of Life at the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, James Reid (the graphic designer for Macolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols), and thanks to Greil Marcus' book Lipstick Traces, batches of counterculture kids throughout the 1990s. We were big fans, and you can find links to Debord's main book The Society of the Spectacle here. Debord was notorius for hanging out at the cafes and bars of Paris, dreaming of the artistic revolution to come and not really being all that productive. If I'm being honest, the fine folks of The Daily Wenzel were always a good time, if not an always efficient and productive one.

"All my life I have seen only troubled times, extreme divisions in society, and immense destruction; I have joined in these troubles."

Below is the opening from another Debord film, known poetically in English as We Turn in the Night and are Consumed by the Fire.