13 December 1990
Dear Michel Bounan:
I thank you very much for your book.[1] Having read it, I retrospectively understand much better your previous letter: after mature reflection, I did not then know how to respond to you, [because] so many of the questions broached appeared to me to be far from my competencies. Without pretending now to understand you exactly on several different practical points, I can assure you that I find myself in very great sympathy with the bases of your thought and socio-historical critique, obviously. I will speak with you quite willingly about some of the perspectives that are opened up by this work. Tell me the days of the week that you are the freest.
Cordially,
[1] The Time of AIDS.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnote by the publisher.)
Thank you for the correspondence with the stupid publishers[1] and especially for the disk by Florencie,[2] which is so moving: I had never heard him sing "La Place Maubert."
Here are several documents from 1958.[3] The Moineau-Bistro was on rue Guenegaud after the first [one], at 22 rue du Four, around 1950-1955. La Manouche was very briefly at the rue Mazarine in 1957, and the Mont-Blanc was on the rue de la Huchette.
We were charmed to meet you, as with your book. We must see each other in January.
Cordially,
[1] Who had refused The Time of AIDS.
[2] Jacques Florencie sings Bruant and Coute.
[3] See the posters in Guy Debord, Works, Gallimard quarto edition, pp. 376-369.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher.)
Cordially,
Guy Debord
[1] The Time of AIDS.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnote by the publisher.)
To Michel Bounan
22 December 1990
Dear Michel:Thank you for the correspondence with the stupid publishers[1] and especially for the disk by Florencie,[2] which is so moving: I had never heard him sing "La Place Maubert."
Here are several documents from 1958.[3] The Moineau-Bistro was on rue Guenegaud after the first [one], at 22 rue du Four, around 1950-1955. La Manouche was very briefly at the rue Mazarine in 1957, and the Mont-Blanc was on the rue de la Huchette.
We were charmed to meet you, as with your book. We must see each other in January.
Cordially,
Guy
[1] Who had refused The Time of AIDS.
[2] Jacques Florencie sings Bruant and Coute.
[3] See the posters in Guy Debord, Works, Gallimard quarto edition, pp. 376-369.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher.)
To Michel Bounan
21 January 1991 Dear Michel:
To refuse your manuscript was not a good sign for the publishing house.[1] Or for the century?
See you Thursday,
Cordially,
[1] In June 1990, Anita Blanc [an employee of Editions Gerard Lebovici] returned, "due to the death of Madame Lebovici [...] The Time of AIDS, in which she had been interested." [Translator: Bounan's The Time of AIDS was eventually published by Editions Allia.]
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnote by the publisher.)
Note for Michel
See you Thursday,
Cordially,
Guy
[1] In June 1990, Anita Blanc [an employee of Editions Gerard Lebovici] returned, "due to the death of Madame Lebovici [...] The Time of AIDS, in which she had been interested." [Translator: Bounan's The Time of AIDS was eventually published by Editions Allia.]
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnote by the publisher.)
To Michel Bounan
6 February 1991
The single document photocopied here[1] is sufficient; it is the basis for everything (the others are or will be hidden or suspect).
Nicolas [Lebovici] affirms that he never signed anything and that one has never made an accounting of anything to him; neither during his adulthood, when his mother was still alive, nor since her death. This is notably obvious with respect to Editions Gerard Lebovici, where he was clearly the majority owner, being the inheritor of 75% of Floriana Lebovici's estate, which itself represented 99% ownership of the firm.
One was happy to tell him, and he was happy to hear, that he was the owner of "half," but that his well-known [mental] incapacity prevented him from getting involved, with the result that he truly bears the responsibility for the stupidities sovereignly made by the other "half," supported by a dishonest secretary who was supposed to be "competent,"[2] with this agreement sufficing to make the enterprise run without any supervision. Nicolas thus found himself at the center of an extremely crude conspiracy (the lawyer played a role).
A criminal complaint of inveigling of inheritance is necessary. This must be [done] immediate[ly]. The mother having died on 19 February 1990. Isn't there a prescription of contestations after a year? From almost that date onwards, one has risked seeing the emergence of nicely fabricated documents.
It seems to me that the goal is not only to destroy Editions Lebovici, but to efface a certain number of books that have become too celebrated and could perturb the social peace that we so harmoniously enjoy. The possible political implications could come from the socialist coterie in power (many of the lawyers who are involved in this affair have long been part of Georges Kiejman's movement[3]).
It could also be that one arranges a conspiracy, "familial" or not, to make Nicolas appear crazy, delirious and "manipulated" by evil geniuses who have already done so much harm to the preceding Lebovici generation (there was a psychiatrist in the family, who no doubt will be against Nicolas, following the lies of his amiable half-brother). Thus you should immediately and formally become his doctor. You already wrote him a prescription.
I advised him to marry as soon as possible the charming and intelligent young woman with whom he has lived for a long time. He consented. I had more difficulty convincing him that he must not keep around him at that moment an old friend, whom he [Nicolas] believed was devoted to him, but who was in fact devoted to his enemy-brother. I am convinced that this person sought to exert influence in favor of the enemies, and could even be dangerous to him, simply by being there.
It would be a beautiful example of historical humor if the author who was fraudulently refused[4] by these ignoble saboteurs and thieves happened to save "our publisher." Thanks, in any case.
Pardon me for the comminatory tone of this note. I judge the danger to be very serious and very urgent (and not only for Nicolas). Therefore, you know your metier.
See you soon,
[P.S.] I add for you alone a confidential note, linked to the other (I will give Nicolas a copy of the latter). You will see that Nicolas is not at all gripped by persecution mania, but unfortunately the opposite: he most often believes that the entire world conspires in his favor; to admire him; to please him; to love him as he merits. Thus, being truly intelligent, he can make stupid mistakes that a half-cretin wouldn't even consent to hear about. Although very inexperienced, he has the artistic sensibility, and even an exact sense of what life must be. All this is gravely darkened by his dominant tendency to spontaneously and firmly believe that the world doesn't exist in any objective manner outside of himself.
I must suppose that all of those people who have clumsily flattered him have a very high opinion of their own intellectual value and good hearts, due to the sole fact that they have so unequivocally manifested their great taste and excellent intentions.
Alice and I are perhaps the only ones who have never flattered him. He tolerates Alice quite well, but finds me to be rude, especially now. Because he has felt, rather than understood, how others have hatefully thrown him into so many traps; due to the fact that, through what I call his musical sensibility, he follows the justness of my reasoning; because he sees that we are his only friends -- in sum, one can say that he puts his trust in us. But especially do not believe that he can be reassured because of my historical experience, or even my reputation as an author of his publishing house. Such trivialities do not have any influence on a way of thinking that is so grandiosely emancipated from illusions of vulgarity.
[1] A certificate of ownership, established by Mr. Voitey on 2 May 1984, was deposited by Michel Bounan at the Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, along with the totality of the letters and other documents that were communicated.
[2] Translator's note: Anita Blanc.
[3] Translator's note: Kiejman was a member of Francois Mitterand's "socialist" government from 1990 to 1992.
[4] Bounan's The Time of AIDS was refused by Editions Gerard Lebovici.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)
I have a meeting on Tuesday with the lawyer[1] most highly recommended by the excellent Chanson.[2]
Your treatment appears to have already calmed my excessive tendency to stay awake. To complete your documentation, I send you a kind of graphological portrait drawn, without my knowledge, based upon three lines of my handwriting, by an important expert who knew me very vaguely by reputation and who had several motives to one day present me in an unfavorable light. Apart from two or three choices in his vocabulary, I can subscribe to it.
If you estimate that it would be useful in your struggle with the publisher at Allia,[3] at least to test the possibility of censorship, you can say to this person that I was surprised at the great futility of the "technical" pretext that he gave you.[4]
A friend in Italy who suffers from hypothyroid, I believe, and who is quite well cared for by an acupuncturist who also uses oligo-elements[5] will telephone you soon on my behalf. I will call you, so that we can see each other again, when things have cleared up a little. Thanks, again.
Cordially,
French-Français
[1] Mr. Yves Cournot, specialist in literary questions.
[2] Mr Jacques Chanson, introduced to Guy Debord by Michel Bounan.
[3] Translator's note: Editions Allia published Bounan's The Time of AIDS in 1990.
[4] Faced with the author's determination to place the Christ of Gruenewald (recovered from Issenheim) on the cover of his book.
[5] Translator's note: trace minerals suspended in a liquid glycerin aqueous solution.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)
I thank you for the magnificent historical analysis of the illness that has thus merited my preference. Ah! in what gallant terms are such things described![1] I am quite convinced that I made the right choice among all the illnesses that have been accessible to me; and I hope that this will also be, as one previously used to say, "the judgment of history."[2]
If I cannot regret this illness, I would not say the same thing for the allopathic poisons that one has led me to ingest and that I hope you can deliver me from. I judge just as you do the intentions of such remedies. The society that worked so hard to suppress pleasure has also claimed that it suppressed sorrow: although here its success has remained much more questionable. I have begun your treatment.
We must see each other soon to speak of something else. Alice will telephone you.
I have given your book[3] to my English publisher (Verso). He writes me that he will ask for an option from [Editions] Allia. He agreed with me that the subject could impassion the Americans faster than [those] here.
Cordially,
[2] Translator's note: when Guy Debord took his life on 30 November 1994, he cited polynevrite alcoolique as the cause of his distress and dated its onset from Autumn 1990.
[3] Translator's note: The Time of AIDS (Editions Allia, 1990).
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)
Nicolas [Lebovici] affirms that he never signed anything and that one has never made an accounting of anything to him; neither during his adulthood, when his mother was still alive, nor since her death. This is notably obvious with respect to Editions Gerard Lebovici, where he was clearly the majority owner, being the inheritor of 75% of Floriana Lebovici's estate, which itself represented 99% ownership of the firm.
One was happy to tell him, and he was happy to hear, that he was the owner of "half," but that his well-known [mental] incapacity prevented him from getting involved, with the result that he truly bears the responsibility for the stupidities sovereignly made by the other "half," supported by a dishonest secretary who was supposed to be "competent,"[2] with this agreement sufficing to make the enterprise run without any supervision. Nicolas thus found himself at the center of an extremely crude conspiracy (the lawyer played a role).
A criminal complaint of inveigling of inheritance is necessary. This must be [done] immediate[ly]. The mother having died on 19 February 1990. Isn't there a prescription of contestations after a year? From almost that date onwards, one has risked seeing the emergence of nicely fabricated documents.
It seems to me that the goal is not only to destroy Editions Lebovici, but to efface a certain number of books that have become too celebrated and could perturb the social peace that we so harmoniously enjoy. The possible political implications could come from the socialist coterie in power (many of the lawyers who are involved in this affair have long been part of Georges Kiejman's movement[3]).
It could also be that one arranges a conspiracy, "familial" or not, to make Nicolas appear crazy, delirious and "manipulated" by evil geniuses who have already done so much harm to the preceding Lebovici generation (there was a psychiatrist in the family, who no doubt will be against Nicolas, following the lies of his amiable half-brother). Thus you should immediately and formally become his doctor. You already wrote him a prescription.
I advised him to marry as soon as possible the charming and intelligent young woman with whom he has lived for a long time. He consented. I had more difficulty convincing him that he must not keep around him at that moment an old friend, whom he [Nicolas] believed was devoted to him, but who was in fact devoted to his enemy-brother. I am convinced that this person sought to exert influence in favor of the enemies, and could even be dangerous to him, simply by being there.
It would be a beautiful example of historical humor if the author who was fraudulently refused[4] by these ignoble saboteurs and thieves happened to save "our publisher." Thanks, in any case.
Pardon me for the comminatory tone of this note. I judge the danger to be very serious and very urgent (and not only for Nicolas). Therefore, you know your metier.
See you soon,
Guy
I must suppose that all of those people who have clumsily flattered him have a very high opinion of their own intellectual value and good hearts, due to the sole fact that they have so unequivocally manifested their great taste and excellent intentions.
Alice and I are perhaps the only ones who have never flattered him. He tolerates Alice quite well, but finds me to be rude, especially now. Because he has felt, rather than understood, how others have hatefully thrown him into so many traps; due to the fact that, through what I call his musical sensibility, he follows the justness of my reasoning; because he sees that we are his only friends -- in sum, one can say that he puts his trust in us. But especially do not believe that he can be reassured because of my historical experience, or even my reputation as an author of his publishing house. Such trivialities do not have any influence on a way of thinking that is so grandiosely emancipated from illusions of vulgarity.
[1] A certificate of ownership, established by Mr. Voitey on 2 May 1984, was deposited by Michel Bounan at the Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, along with the totality of the letters and other documents that were communicated.
[2] Translator's note: Anita Blanc.
[3] Translator's note: Kiejman was a member of Francois Mitterand's "socialist" government from 1990 to 1992.
[4] Bounan's The Time of AIDS was refused by Editions Gerard Lebovici.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)
To Michel Bounan
15 February 1991
Dear Michel:I have a meeting on Tuesday with the lawyer[1] most highly recommended by the excellent Chanson.[2]
Your treatment appears to have already calmed my excessive tendency to stay awake. To complete your documentation, I send you a kind of graphological portrait drawn, without my knowledge, based upon three lines of my handwriting, by an important expert who knew me very vaguely by reputation and who had several motives to one day present me in an unfavorable light. Apart from two or three choices in his vocabulary, I can subscribe to it.
If you estimate that it would be useful in your struggle with the publisher at Allia,[3] at least to test the possibility of censorship, you can say to this person that I was surprised at the great futility of the "technical" pretext that he gave you.[4]
A friend in Italy who suffers from hypothyroid, I believe, and who is quite well cared for by an acupuncturist who also uses oligo-elements[5] will telephone you soon on my behalf. I will call you, so that we can see each other again, when things have cleared up a little. Thanks, again.
Cordially,
French-Français
[1] Mr. Yves Cournot, specialist in literary questions.
[2] Mr Jacques Chanson, introduced to Guy Debord by Michel Bounan.
[3] Translator's note: Editions Allia published Bounan's The Time of AIDS in 1990.
[4] Faced with the author's determination to place the Christ of Gruenewald (recovered from Issenheim) on the cover of his book.
[5] Translator's note: trace minerals suspended in a liquid glycerin aqueous solution.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)
To Michel Bounan
Saturday, 23 March 1991
Dear Michel:
I thank you for the magnificent historical analysis of the illness that has thus merited my preference. Ah! in what gallant terms are such things described![1] I am quite convinced that I made the right choice among all the illnesses that have been accessible to me; and I hope that this will also be, as one previously used to say, "the judgment of history."[2]
If I cannot regret this illness, I would not say the same thing for the allopathic poisons that one has led me to ingest and that I hope you can deliver me from. I judge just as you do the intentions of such remedies. The society that worked so hard to suppress pleasure has also claimed that it suppressed sorrow: although here its success has remained much more questionable. I have begun your treatment.
We must see each other soon to speak of something else. Alice will telephone you.
I have given your book[3] to my English publisher (Verso). He writes me that he will ask for an option from [Editions] Allia. He agreed with me that the subject could impassion the Americans faster than [those] here.
Cordially,
Logic of Terrorism
Le Temps du SIDA
[1] "The illnesses of gout are always of the living who are endowed with strong creative, intellectual, sexual or social activity [...] and Hippocrates remarked that it always spared the eunuchs."[2] Translator's note: when Guy Debord took his life on 30 November 1994, he cited polynevrite alcoolique as the cause of his distress and dated its onset from Autumn 1990.
[3] Translator's note: The Time of AIDS (Editions Allia, 1990).
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! January 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)
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