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LIPSTICK TRACES - HISTOIRE SECRETE DU VINGTIEME SIECLE
“Il y a une figure qui apparaît et réapparaît tout au long de ce livre. Ses instincts sont fondamentalement cruels ; sa manière est intransigeante. Il propage l’hystérie, mais il est immunisé contre elle. Il est au-delà de la tentation, parce que, malgré sa rhétorique utopiste, la satisfaction est le cadet de ses soucis. Il est d’une séduction indicible, semant derrière lui des camarades amers, comme Hansel ses miettes de pain, seul chemin pour rentrer chez soi à travers un fourré d’excuses qu’il ne fera jamais. C’est un moraliste et un rationaliste,mais il se présente lui-même comme un sociopathe ; il abandonne derrière lui des documents non pas édifiants mais paradoxaux.Quelle que soit la violence de la marque qu’il laissera sur l’histoire, il est condamné à l’obscurité, qu’il cultive comme un signe de profondeur. Johnny Rotten/John Lydon en est une version ; Guy Debord une autre. Saint-Just était un ancêtre, mais dans mon histoire, Richard Huelsenbeck en est le prototype.�
Attention livre culte d’auteur culte�! D’un projet ambitieux, celui d’écrire l’histoire secrète du XXe siècle, Greil Marcus a donné naissance à une encyclopédie de la subversion et de la révolte, un livre inclassable où l’on croise les Sex Pistols, Guy Debord, le mouvement Dada ou encore les gnostiques du Moyen Âge. Car selon son auteur, un fil invisible relierait tous les mouvements artistiques, littéraires et musicaux dont le point commun serait le refus des conventions.
Cet ouvrage décrit le cheminement d’une histoire souterraine, force motrice des productions culturelles les plus novatrices et radicales. Un ouvrage érudit, fouillé, stimulant et complètement fou, où se dessine au fil des pages une généalogie des révoltés. Intellectuel pop devenu historien des marges et des avant-gardes, Greil Marcus signe ici un livre unique en son genre, aujourd’hui devenu un classique dans les rayons des essais tant historiques que sociaux, musicaux et artistiques.
Attention livre culte d’auteur culte�! D’un projet ambitieux, celui d’écrire l’histoire secrète du XXe siècle, Greil Marcus a donné naissance à une encyclopédie de la subversion et de la révolte, un livre inclassable où l’on croise les Sex Pistols, Guy Debord, le mouvement Dada ou encore les gnostiques du Moyen Âge. Car selon son auteur, un fil invisible relierait tous les mouvements artistiques, littéraires et musicaux dont le point commun serait le refus des conventions.
Cet ouvrage décrit le cheminement d’une histoire souterraine, force motrice des productions culturelles les plus novatrices et radicales. Un ouvrage érudit, fouillé, stimulant et complètement fou, où se dessine au fil des pages une généalogie des révoltés. Intellectuel pop devenu historien des marges et des avant-gardes, Greil Marcus signe ici un livre unique en son genre, aujourd’hui devenu un classique dans les rayons des essais tant historiques que sociaux, musicaux et artistiques.
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First published January 1, 1989
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About the author
Greil Marcus
110Ìýbooks255ÌýfollowersGreil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. In recent years he has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, Minnesota, NYU, and the New School in New York. He lives in Oakland, California.
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March 19, 2013I met Greil Marcus one weekday afternoon when I was supposed to be at work; I was leafing through sale books in the basement of Politics and Prose here in DC and he was at a table surrounded by copies of his newest book on Dylan getting ready to give a reading. I said "hi" and picked up a copy without asking and flipped through it and told him Love and Theft might be the best record of Dylan's career. Marcus didn't seem to be particularly interested in talking with me, so I put his book back down right in front of him and my greasy thumb left a big print on the shiny cover near Dylan's face that Marcus seemed to take note of with displeasure. True story.
September 28, 2017
This isn't just a book about the history of punk, peeps: this traces the spirit of negation, of scandalized, moral indignation, back into the French Revolution, through surrealism and Dada and the Situationists. As academically rigorous as it is stylishly written, it is an absolute must if you are a music lover in any way, a true classic of the oft-pilloried category of Cultural Studies: it crosses disciplinary boundaries in the most intellectually fertile way imaginable, yet jettisons none of the rigor of traditional scholarship and reads like it was written by a novelist influenced by Hunter S Thompson and, say, Joseph Heller, in that it is propelled forward by a driving, irrepressible energy even as it lingers on the smallest of evocative details (such as why Jonathan Richman's "One-two-three-four-five-six" at the beginning of his classic song "Roadrunner", a paean to the imaginative power of rock n roll on the radio, changed the world forever.
May 7, 2007
Marcus not only gets most of it WRONG, he seems intent on politicizing the expressly apolitical (early p-rock). My opinion of this book has always been colored by the fact that this guy is a clown... a fucking PRO-SITU ROCK CRITIC, someone that Debord would've punched in the fucking face (I know this cause I corresponded with Guy- and he agreed this pot-boiler is laughable... as did Jamie Reid.) No one should take this thing seriously. Fuck it off and read the original texts. Don't let this POP-CULTURE DUDE (can't be much more of a shill for the spectacle) mis-inform your opinions. A real revisionist piece of shit written for self-aggrandizement.
CULTURAL WORKERS ARE THE WORST KIND OF BUREAUCRATS
CULTURAL WORKERS ARE THE WORST KIND OF BUREAUCRATS
June 6, 2007
What I learned from this book is that Griel Marcus is a Sex Pistols fanboy, who placed way too much importance on this band and didn't even think to look beyond the illusion of Johnny Rotten and Co. to more authentic 'situationist' inspired moments of punk. The SI sections of this book are interesting, and as a history of the Sex Pistols this book is vaguely interesting, but really the book is a lot of over-hyped crap.
May 16, 2007
This book is so many things: (1) a non-linear history of the avant-garde, (2) a broad critique of the everyday life of mid/late capitalist society, (3) an account of punk, anarchy, and the historical/cultural roots of such phenomena, (4) a work of art perhaps?
This book is not for everyone, however. It is, at times, a frustrating, incoherent read - an experiment in historical scholarship. Malcom McLaren himself states that Marcus' book "was a crazy, wild, at times almost inarticulate attempt to do something that nobody else had done before."
Despite this, book is a beautiful piece of art and can serve as a great reference. For anyone interested in Punk, Situationism, and the Avant-Garde.
This book is not for everyone, however. It is, at times, a frustrating, incoherent read - an experiment in historical scholarship. Malcom McLaren himself states that Marcus' book "was a crazy, wild, at times almost inarticulate attempt to do something that nobody else had done before."
Despite this, book is a beautiful piece of art and can serve as a great reference. For anyone interested in Punk, Situationism, and the Avant-Garde.
February 1, 2009
What a bastard! sucked me in with 70s punk trivia and turned out to be an introductory text on Dadaism, Situationist International and the May '68 riots that shaped contemporary France.
But, if this book as anything to say, it shaped punk too. By bookending philosophy with punk histories it convinced me that listening to protest music was not enough; it uncovered a philosophy that demonstrates the true danger and disruptive joy that should have informed the instruments and ears of everyone under the punk tag. Assuming, of course, that all punks were academic at heart.
The book is definitely rewarding but, given its spirit, tends to gleefully confound the reader just as its focus organization once did.
The question is: being not a punk but mere punk listener 20 years too late, how do I take my new understanding of SI, '68 and continue their good work in business casual and the grocery?
But, if this book as anything to say, it shaped punk too. By bookending philosophy with punk histories it convinced me that listening to protest music was not enough; it uncovered a philosophy that demonstrates the true danger and disruptive joy that should have informed the instruments and ears of everyone under the punk tag. Assuming, of course, that all punks were academic at heart.
The book is definitely rewarding but, given its spirit, tends to gleefully confound the reader just as its focus organization once did.
The question is: being not a punk but mere punk listener 20 years too late, how do I take my new understanding of SI, '68 and continue their good work in business casual and the grocery?
July 29, 2008
As a scholarly work, this is some post-modern mush-brained twaddle.
Dude...John of Leyden...John Lydon!...Whoa! Take a rip from the history bong!
It seems to be a gateway drug to Situationism, May '68, etc. for a lot of folks, which is of value.
Dude...John of Leyden...John Lydon!...Whoa! Take a rip from the history bong!
It seems to be a gateway drug to Situationism, May '68, etc. for a lot of folks, which is of value.
May 29, 2019
Interessante senza dubbio, però questo collegamento tra movimenti ereticali medievali, dadaismo, situazionismo e punk mi sembra un po' troppo tirato per i capelli; almeno giudicando dall'alto della mia ignoranza dei tre fenomeni.
Si tratta comunque di personaggi interessanti che hanno agito in tempi molto interessanti, purtroppo per le persone che li hanno vissuti.
Un libro che mi ha interessato a tratti e a tratti profondamente annoiato.
In fondo, a dirla tutta, a parte il punk gli altri movimenti non sono mai stati tra i miei preferiti.
Si tratta comunque di personaggi interessanti che hanno agito in tempi molto interessanti, purtroppo per le persone che li hanno vissuti.
Un libro che mi ha interessato a tratti e a tratti profondamente annoiato.
In fondo, a dirla tutta, a parte il punk gli altri movimenti non sono mai stati tra i miei preferiti.
May 29, 2024
Decades later I remember the thrill of reading this book and understanding how important music can be. Waiting In hours of Chicago traffic, I recall one of situationist slogans found in the book even now. “Helicopters on demand!�
January 19, 2023
The main idea of this interesting book is to trace the connections (usually unintentional) between punk rock and various other anarchistic movements, most of them in the twentieth century. Special attention is payed to the Dadaists, the Lettrists, and the Situationists. Marcus recounts events and spends a lot of time (too much time, actually) describing his own reactions to and impressions of certain works, in particular his own visceral reaction to the Sex Pistols. I must say that I learned a lot about some groups and ideas which I was only barely familiar with before, and I was better able to clarify my own ideas in contrast with the ones presented here. In general, while being attracted to the creative and destructive fun these people were having, I couldn't help but become aware of the dangerous vacuity of their ideas, their foolhardy opposition to any and all order. Marcus, in his wistful fascination with such anarchistic fervor, seems to be pursuing the ghost of his own youth as much as anything else.
The book is quite long and there is much repetition. Marcus employs an impressionistic, self-centered writing style, splicing together bits of fact, reportage, opinion, and personal history. He latches onto a favorite tidbit (e.g. Kim Gordon's statement that "people pay to see others believe in themselves", or Edmund Wilson's "to discover for what drama one's setting is the setting") and repeats it again and again in different contexts, thus making a connection. There is a patchwork quality to the book that causes one to wonder whether Marcus is unequipped to do real social and historical research, or whether he is too enamored of his own views to subsume them too greatly to a larger theme, or whether he is stretching to come up with some exciting new melange in cultural writing. An outstanding feature is the lively use of illustrations throughout: cartoons, photos, examples of radical texts; many are enjoyable and serve to heighten the impact of the book.
The book does serve as an introduction to elements of the lunatic fringe spanning back several hundred years to include the Cathars (who believed that Satan was the absolute ruler of this earth), the Brethren of the Free Spirit (a loose order of mendicants who believed that one's desires are identical with God's), the Lollards (a fourteenth century English sect that equated work with sin), and John of Leyden and the Anabaptists (whose revolution in Munster, Germany in 1534 had horrible consequences). There is also mention of Saint Just, one of the intellectual backers of the French Reign of Terror, the Paris Communards of 1870, and the anarchist Durruti Column in 1936 Spain. No doubt other groups were excluded for various reasons, such as having forward-looking, clearly defined goals.
The real emphasis is on the Sex Pistols and a few of their 20th century antecedents: small bands fanatically dedicated (if only for a short time) to promoting radical, anarchistic, social and artistic views. Marcus has mixed success in presenting these groups and their ideologies, and he is not very convincing in his attempts to demonstrate the impact they had on history and society as a whole. The portrait of Malcolm McLaren and Rotten and company is far from complete, however, mostly the reader is given Marcus's responses to the music and the images. This eventually leads to a discussion of the original Dadaists: Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, Emmy Hemmings, and their coterie at the notorious Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Their original presentation of absurdist anti art (sound poems, bizarre musical theater with strange costumes and masks) starting in 1916 was an outburst of outrage and protest against a world destroying itself in World War I. This brief period had lasting consequences for all involved, and late in their lives some remembered it and wrote about it as an evanescent high point. Marcus does not really do a good job of allowing the reader to re-experience the Dada presentations though, focusing on memories and ideas instead.
Surprisingly enough, the Surrealists are barely mentioned, and no good explanation for this is given, altho it is mentioned that they were despised by the Situationists for being selfish careerists. The focus then shifts to a vain and arrogant young self promoter named Isidore Isou and the group he started in the Rive Gauche in the late 1940s: the Lettrist International. The Lettrists took Dada a step further by attempting to reduce communication to mere letters and symbols, to undermine the authority of words; indeed the real goal was to be an affront to authority of any kind. They staged numerous stunts and published a few amusing works before falling victim to internal struggles. This enterprise evolved into the Situationist International, which Marcus seems to have special affection for (or access to), given the space he gives them in the book. Led by an intellectual and occasional filmmaker and artist named Guy DeBord, they believed that all contemporary society was corrupt, a moribund, mechanical enterprise which could only be saved through the the spontaneous creation of situations which ran counter to the stifling order of most everyday life. They believed in drinking, the derive (drift in English, a roaming exploration of the "psychogeography" of an urban area), and in detournement (turning away, to use the materials of the dominant society against itself by disordering them and playing around with them, e.g. through collage, or through sardonic writing). A small group of around a dozen members, the Situationists did end up having an impact in the late 1960s when some young allies of theirs took over the student council of a university in Strasbourg, Germany and began using their budget to spout forth Situationist propaganda. This caused a real stir and helped to set the stage for the real uprising in May 1968, when students and then workers rose up spontaneously against the established order. So the Situationists finally had their day in the sun, but it was soon over. The group disbanded a few years later, and their guiding light DeBord went on to write a book entitled Le Societe du Spectacle, in which he characterizes Western society as providing its members with an empty, glitzy, foolish spectacle in order to take their minds off of the true boredom and emotional poverty of their lives. This is a point of view that I can have some sympathy for, even if it sounds like a critique from the far left. There were connections between the Situationists and political leftists, altho Marcus points out that they often condemned Communist society along with capitalist society. They were really egoistic slackers and anarchists, not political creatures.
Reading all this left me with the recurrence of an impression I have had many times over the years: that of nostalgia for a time and place which I only experienced the last tremors of; a time when people were united in fighting for freedom and justice and pleasure. Yet at the same time I am glad that I never got involved in one of these ridiculous radical groups, since I could never truly sign on to their beliefs. It may be fun to coin slogans and make wacky art and generally rebel against the current state of affairs, but anarchy is not a practical solution to the problems of the world. It seems doubtful to me that groups like this could really get started in America, with its long tradition of individuality and free enterprise, and its historical mistrust of European ideologies. But living in a time and place when very little serves to unite and excite people, where the society of the spectacle is still in full swing, where the dollar rules and rebellion has gone the way of Volkswagen beetles and Nehru jackets, one may occasionally wonder from where and when the next jolt will come.
The book is quite long and there is much repetition. Marcus employs an impressionistic, self-centered writing style, splicing together bits of fact, reportage, opinion, and personal history. He latches onto a favorite tidbit (e.g. Kim Gordon's statement that "people pay to see others believe in themselves", or Edmund Wilson's "to discover for what drama one's setting is the setting") and repeats it again and again in different contexts, thus making a connection. There is a patchwork quality to the book that causes one to wonder whether Marcus is unequipped to do real social and historical research, or whether he is too enamored of his own views to subsume them too greatly to a larger theme, or whether he is stretching to come up with some exciting new melange in cultural writing. An outstanding feature is the lively use of illustrations throughout: cartoons, photos, examples of radical texts; many are enjoyable and serve to heighten the impact of the book.
The book does serve as an introduction to elements of the lunatic fringe spanning back several hundred years to include the Cathars (who believed that Satan was the absolute ruler of this earth), the Brethren of the Free Spirit (a loose order of mendicants who believed that one's desires are identical with God's), the Lollards (a fourteenth century English sect that equated work with sin), and John of Leyden and the Anabaptists (whose revolution in Munster, Germany in 1534 had horrible consequences). There is also mention of Saint Just, one of the intellectual backers of the French Reign of Terror, the Paris Communards of 1870, and the anarchist Durruti Column in 1936 Spain. No doubt other groups were excluded for various reasons, such as having forward-looking, clearly defined goals.
The real emphasis is on the Sex Pistols and a few of their 20th century antecedents: small bands fanatically dedicated (if only for a short time) to promoting radical, anarchistic, social and artistic views. Marcus has mixed success in presenting these groups and their ideologies, and he is not very convincing in his attempts to demonstrate the impact they had on history and society as a whole. The portrait of Malcolm McLaren and Rotten and company is far from complete, however, mostly the reader is given Marcus's responses to the music and the images. This eventually leads to a discussion of the original Dadaists: Hugo Ball, Richard Huelsenbeck, Emmy Hemmings, and their coterie at the notorious Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Their original presentation of absurdist anti art (sound poems, bizarre musical theater with strange costumes and masks) starting in 1916 was an outburst of outrage and protest against a world destroying itself in World War I. This brief period had lasting consequences for all involved, and late in their lives some remembered it and wrote about it as an evanescent high point. Marcus does not really do a good job of allowing the reader to re-experience the Dada presentations though, focusing on memories and ideas instead.
Surprisingly enough, the Surrealists are barely mentioned, and no good explanation for this is given, altho it is mentioned that they were despised by the Situationists for being selfish careerists. The focus then shifts to a vain and arrogant young self promoter named Isidore Isou and the group he started in the Rive Gauche in the late 1940s: the Lettrist International. The Lettrists took Dada a step further by attempting to reduce communication to mere letters and symbols, to undermine the authority of words; indeed the real goal was to be an affront to authority of any kind. They staged numerous stunts and published a few amusing works before falling victim to internal struggles. This enterprise evolved into the Situationist International, which Marcus seems to have special affection for (or access to), given the space he gives them in the book. Led by an intellectual and occasional filmmaker and artist named Guy DeBord, they believed that all contemporary society was corrupt, a moribund, mechanical enterprise which could only be saved through the the spontaneous creation of situations which ran counter to the stifling order of most everyday life. They believed in drinking, the derive (drift in English, a roaming exploration of the "psychogeography" of an urban area), and in detournement (turning away, to use the materials of the dominant society against itself by disordering them and playing around with them, e.g. through collage, or through sardonic writing). A small group of around a dozen members, the Situationists did end up having an impact in the late 1960s when some young allies of theirs took over the student council of a university in Strasbourg, Germany and began using their budget to spout forth Situationist propaganda. This caused a real stir and helped to set the stage for the real uprising in May 1968, when students and then workers rose up spontaneously against the established order. So the Situationists finally had their day in the sun, but it was soon over. The group disbanded a few years later, and their guiding light DeBord went on to write a book entitled Le Societe du Spectacle, in which he characterizes Western society as providing its members with an empty, glitzy, foolish spectacle in order to take their minds off of the true boredom and emotional poverty of their lives. This is a point of view that I can have some sympathy for, even if it sounds like a critique from the far left. There were connections between the Situationists and political leftists, altho Marcus points out that they often condemned Communist society along with capitalist society. They were really egoistic slackers and anarchists, not political creatures.
Reading all this left me with the recurrence of an impression I have had many times over the years: that of nostalgia for a time and place which I only experienced the last tremors of; a time when people were united in fighting for freedom and justice and pleasure. Yet at the same time I am glad that I never got involved in one of these ridiculous radical groups, since I could never truly sign on to their beliefs. It may be fun to coin slogans and make wacky art and generally rebel against the current state of affairs, but anarchy is not a practical solution to the problems of the world. It seems doubtful to me that groups like this could really get started in America, with its long tradition of individuality and free enterprise, and its historical mistrust of European ideologies. But living in a time and place when very little serves to unite and excite people, where the society of the spectacle is still in full swing, where the dollar rules and rebellion has gone the way of Volkswagen beetles and Nehru jackets, one may occasionally wonder from where and when the next jolt will come.
November 6, 2021
This book is amazing if you’ve got the right attitude. You have to be game for provocation and the suspension of need for understanding 100% of what the fuck Marcus is saying. Marcus is a maniac. This book is not about the Sex Pistols. This book is maniacal history (the book’s layout is not unlike a history textbook, with wide margins containing related images, captions, and quotations). Or maniacal archaeology.
Marcus surveys a catalog of artifacts and ephemera to offer that there is something interesting about patterns of revolutionary symbols and gestures that appear in disparate parts of history. He does not suggest that they are mere coincidence; nor does he posit that they form some sort of intentional or even conscious continuum. These reoccurring phenomena simply provoke us to imagine alternative histories to the one we are accustomed to hearing, and to ask questions of that established history.
In Marcus� words: “Unfulfilled desires transmit themselves across the years in unfathomable ways, and all that remain on the surface are bits of symbolic discourse, deaf to their sources and blind to their objects—but those fragments of language, hidden in the oaths and blasphemies of songs like ‘Anarchy in the U.K.� or ‘God Save the Queen’� are a last link to notions that have gone under the ground, into a cultural unconscious. All that remain are wishes without language: all that remains in unmade history, which is to say the possibility of poetry. As the poetry is made, language recovers and finds its target: the history that has been made� (308).
He kicks this conversation off by offering Elvis Costello’s description of people’s reactions to the Sex Pistols� scandalous appearance on television the following morning. “On the way to work, I was on the platform in the morning and all the commuters were reading the papers when the Pistols made headlines—and said FUCK on TV. It was as if it was the most awful thing that ever happened. It’s a mistake to confuse it with a major event in history, but it was a great morning—just to hear people’s blood pressure going up and down over it� (3).
Marcus places this quote side-by-side with Walter Mehring’s 1919’s text reading:
“DADAyama is / to be reached from railroad stations…� and “DADAyama makes / the blood boil like it / enrages the crowd� (4).
It’s a remarkable similarity. Marcus muses of history as “spectral connections between people long separated by place and time, but somehow speaking the same language� (4).
And indeed, he asks, “why is it that both Mehring and Costello find themselves talking about train platforms and blood pressure? The happenstance of specific words in common is an accident, but it might suggest a real affinity. The two men are talking about the same thing, looking for words to make disruption precious; that may not be an accident at all. If the language they are speaking, the impulse they are voicing has its own history, might it not tell a very different story from the one we’ve been hearing all our lives?� (4).
And from here Marcus embarks for his big dig. Soon after he places side-by-side the Pistols� safety pin through the queen’s mouth in �77 perfectly mirroring the Atelier populaire poster of May 1968 of a bandaged head with a safety pin through the mouth (33-34).
Things get weirder from there as he plunges into over 400 pages of selective history, digging up obscure revolutionary impulses from across the centuries. It’s an amazing trip, if you’re willing to adopt a high tolerance for high theory, a mischievous sense of humor, and a taste for conspiracy.
For example, as part of Marcus� survey of Secret History, he discusses the text of 1400s mystic Pico della Mirandola (“‘If by charity we, with His devouring fire, burn for the Workman [God] alone, we shall suddenly burst into flame in the likeness of a seraph.’�) and 1970s Village Voice contributor James Wolcott’s review of the Sex Pistols� LP: “I want to see [Johnny Rotten] burst into flames� (307).
Before Marcus, Guy Debord picks up on the possibility of secret history when he asks (in his 1978 film, “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni�): “How many times, through the ages, will the sublime drama we are creating be performed in unknown tongues, before an audience which is yet to be!� (351). Marcus has tapped into that “sublime drama,� that subtle undercurrent, that buried stratum, that “history that remains secret even to those who make it, especially to those who make it� (185), including Debord, Rotten, and the many other actors in the book. Dig it!
Marcus surveys a catalog of artifacts and ephemera to offer that there is something interesting about patterns of revolutionary symbols and gestures that appear in disparate parts of history. He does not suggest that they are mere coincidence; nor does he posit that they form some sort of intentional or even conscious continuum. These reoccurring phenomena simply provoke us to imagine alternative histories to the one we are accustomed to hearing, and to ask questions of that established history.
In Marcus� words: “Unfulfilled desires transmit themselves across the years in unfathomable ways, and all that remain on the surface are bits of symbolic discourse, deaf to their sources and blind to their objects—but those fragments of language, hidden in the oaths and blasphemies of songs like ‘Anarchy in the U.K.� or ‘God Save the Queen’� are a last link to notions that have gone under the ground, into a cultural unconscious. All that remain are wishes without language: all that remains in unmade history, which is to say the possibility of poetry. As the poetry is made, language recovers and finds its target: the history that has been made� (308).
He kicks this conversation off by offering Elvis Costello’s description of people’s reactions to the Sex Pistols� scandalous appearance on television the following morning. “On the way to work, I was on the platform in the morning and all the commuters were reading the papers when the Pistols made headlines—and said FUCK on TV. It was as if it was the most awful thing that ever happened. It’s a mistake to confuse it with a major event in history, but it was a great morning—just to hear people’s blood pressure going up and down over it� (3).
Marcus places this quote side-by-side with Walter Mehring’s 1919’s text reading:
“DADAyama is / to be reached from railroad stations…� and “DADAyama makes / the blood boil like it / enrages the crowd� (4).
It’s a remarkable similarity. Marcus muses of history as “spectral connections between people long separated by place and time, but somehow speaking the same language� (4).
And indeed, he asks, “why is it that both Mehring and Costello find themselves talking about train platforms and blood pressure? The happenstance of specific words in common is an accident, but it might suggest a real affinity. The two men are talking about the same thing, looking for words to make disruption precious; that may not be an accident at all. If the language they are speaking, the impulse they are voicing has its own history, might it not tell a very different story from the one we’ve been hearing all our lives?� (4).
And from here Marcus embarks for his big dig. Soon after he places side-by-side the Pistols� safety pin through the queen’s mouth in �77 perfectly mirroring the Atelier populaire poster of May 1968 of a bandaged head with a safety pin through the mouth (33-34).
Things get weirder from there as he plunges into over 400 pages of selective history, digging up obscure revolutionary impulses from across the centuries. It’s an amazing trip, if you’re willing to adopt a high tolerance for high theory, a mischievous sense of humor, and a taste for conspiracy.
For example, as part of Marcus� survey of Secret History, he discusses the text of 1400s mystic Pico della Mirandola (“‘If by charity we, with His devouring fire, burn for the Workman [God] alone, we shall suddenly burst into flame in the likeness of a seraph.’�) and 1970s Village Voice contributor James Wolcott’s review of the Sex Pistols� LP: “I want to see [Johnny Rotten] burst into flames� (307).
Before Marcus, Guy Debord picks up on the possibility of secret history when he asks (in his 1978 film, “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni�): “How many times, through the ages, will the sublime drama we are creating be performed in unknown tongues, before an audience which is yet to be!� (351). Marcus has tapped into that “sublime drama,� that subtle undercurrent, that buried stratum, that “history that remains secret even to those who make it, especially to those who make it� (185), including Debord, Rotten, and the many other actors in the book. Dig it!
December 26, 2011
A COSMETIC UNDERGROUND
The emphasis Marcus places upon personalities ultimately nullifies any sense of individuality which his subjects might possess. The links drawn between free spirit heretics and members of the Lettriste, Situationist and PUNK movements, are forged without acknowledgement of the fact that the former lived in feudal communities while the latter were attempting to effect change within industrialised societies. Since the mental sets and social networks of individuals living under capitalism are fundamentally different to those shared by members of a feudal community, comparisons between the two are specious.
The device used to link these diverse individuals and movements is the metaphor of the medium; Johnny Rotten is a passive creator whose body is taken over by what Marcus describes as 'the voice,' but which we might just as well call the muse, or God � because it's a higher authority. In his description of the last Sex Pistols concert, Marcus portrays Johnny Rotten as a puppet whose actions are controlled by an occult force:
"As in other moments on the same stage on the same night, as in so many moments on the singles the Sex Pistols put out over the previous year, he seemed not to know what he was saying. He seemed not to be himself, whoever that was, once more he was less singing a song than being sung by it."
With the concept of 'the voice,' a hidden authority which (dis)organises the world, Marcus abandons any need for a rational explanation of the events he describes. Such a mode of discourse has more in common with the simple faith of a priest, than the considered reflections of a critic or historian; it is a creed which, with its refusal of difference, does a gross disservice both to the post-war avant-garde and the PUNK music Marcus claims to love.
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The emphasis Marcus places upon personalities ultimately nullifies any sense of individuality which his subjects might possess. The links drawn between free spirit heretics and members of the Lettriste, Situationist and PUNK movements, are forged without acknowledgement of the fact that the former lived in feudal communities while the latter were attempting to effect change within industrialised societies. Since the mental sets and social networks of individuals living under capitalism are fundamentally different to those shared by members of a feudal community, comparisons between the two are specious.
The device used to link these diverse individuals and movements is the metaphor of the medium; Johnny Rotten is a passive creator whose body is taken over by what Marcus describes as 'the voice,' but which we might just as well call the muse, or God � because it's a higher authority. In his description of the last Sex Pistols concert, Marcus portrays Johnny Rotten as a puppet whose actions are controlled by an occult force:
"As in other moments on the same stage on the same night, as in so many moments on the singles the Sex Pistols put out over the previous year, he seemed not to know what he was saying. He seemed not to be himself, whoever that was, once more he was less singing a song than being sung by it."
With the concept of 'the voice,' a hidden authority which (dis)organises the world, Marcus abandons any need for a rational explanation of the events he describes. Such a mode of discourse has more in common with the simple faith of a priest, than the considered reflections of a critic or historian; it is a creed which, with its refusal of difference, does a gross disservice both to the post-war avant-garde and the PUNK music Marcus claims to love.
Read the full review here:
July 2, 2020
Radyo Eksen’ın sıkı DJ’i Gülşah Güray’ın bir söyleşisinde büyük övgüyle bahsetmesi üzerine alıp okuduğum bir kitap oldu Ruj Lekesi. Yazarı Greil Marcus ünlü Rolling Stone dergisinin muhabiriymiş. Başka kitaplar da yazmış. Ruj Lekesi, esas itibarıyla bir Punk tarihi. Punk müziğinin öncülerinden Sex Pistols’� ve grubun lideri Johnny Rotten’� eksen alarak başlıyor. Sonra gerilere, Punk’a zemin hazırlayan hareketlere gidiyor. Dadaizm, Letterizm, Sitüasyonizm gibi akımlardan ve öncülerinden fazlasıyla ayrıntılı şekilde bahsediyor. Sıklıkla felsefi analizlere giriyor, Frankfurt okuluna, Guy Debord gibi düşünürlere değiniyor. Kapitalizmin kitle kültürü üzerindeki dönüştürücü etkisine ilişkin sağlam yorumlara yer veriyor. Punk’ın da esasen buna ve Rock’ın düzene bir nevi ayak uydurmasına tepki olarak doğduğuna işaret ediyor. (Tabii Rock’ın Punk’ın yanında biraz kesilmesi benim gibi Rockseverler için rahatsız edici.) Velhasıl epey ağır bir eser bu, bildiğimiz müzik kitaplarından değil. Tarihe karışmış marjinal akımlar üzerine yüzlerce sayfa okumayı da göze almayı gerektiriyor. Meraklısına yani. Görsel kullanımı da bolca. Son olarak çevirinin mükemmel olduğunu söyleyip Gürol Koca’ya koca bir tebrik sunalım. Böyle güzel çeviriye az rastlanır.
February 25, 2007
Brilliant. This imperative, Benjamin Buchloh endorsed, piece of cultural history examines, re-defines and formulates the entire history of punk movement from its inception centuries ago with various revolutionary anarchists all the way up to Malcolm McLaren and, yes, the sex pistols. He understands Guy Debords fundamental contributions to punk through the inception of the Situationists during the Paris May 68 revolts and covers everything an educated kid like you needs to know to call yourself party of any fucken subculture. yeah!
We don’t want a world where the guarantee of not dying
of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.
We don’t want a world where the guarantee of not dying
of starvation brings the risk of dying of boredom.
September 17, 2007
this is a tedious book, almost a textbook. (i actually have seen it taught in universities.) at its best, lipstick is engaging in waves; at its worst it is mundane, bordering on inane, and repetitive in marcus' masturbatory doldrums. reading about subversive political turn-of-the-century art movements in france and central europe can be very interesting. there's a bit on dada if you're into that. of course marcus couldn't resist indulging himself - as is his m.o., i'm finding - with firsthand accounts of end of the road sex pistols shows. you need to be committed to rip through this phonebook.
March 7, 2012
Nah... This is one of those books with little black-and-white reproductions of gestetnered Dadaist zines that stoned punks pored over in bedsits decades ago and thought they were into a genuine subculture... You know, like Chaos Magick and Apocalypse Culture? All this shit was mysterious back then but went out the window when the love-it-or-hate-it internet pipe got hooked up to everybody's house about a decade ago and now knowing about Situationism or Throbbing Gristle is as simple as hitting wikipedia for half an hour... Dense with awful cultural-studies type sentences which are frequently impenetrable.
December 23, 2021
Ever wonder about the connections between the Nazis, Surrealists, the Sex Pistols, and the classic sci-fi film FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH? I have, friend, and so has Greil Marcus, ace writer for ROLLING STONE in the Seventies and pop historian. You really can find lineages between Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" and the Ramones or "how the Nazis expanded the imagination of evil" even further than Baudelaire. "And there are signs in this for men and women of understanding."
January 10, 2009
Marcus is not only a great scholar but a great punk and a great punk scholar.
Now, to say this necessarily connects to a million other things, these arbitrary categories used for introduction and a bit of context...
Point being, this whole text rages along its own margins and succeeds marvelously.
November 20, 2023
I saw Greil Marcus when I was at Berkeley in the late seventies. I’m not sure whether it was a lecture or just a walk by but ever since, his writing connects me to that place and those years.
Lipstick ‘Traces takes a moment in popular culture, the late seventies, when Johnny Rotten memorably opened his mouth with little more than a primal scream and ignited the punk craze of the Sex Pistols. Marcus traces back that impulse, that yearning to rip it all up, tear it all down, to Dada and sometimes beyond.
He looks at all the cultural impulses that figured in that late seventies moment and made it resonate so loudly. Marcus makes the point that this isn’t necessarily the start of a coherent movement though movements often come out of these kinds of moments.
Not surprisingly, much of the spirit and intellectual heft of such moments, to the degree anything of that kind adheres to them, emerges from the French avant garde. This book intrigued me to read ‘The Society of Spectacle� by one of the key predecessors to the punk movement, Guy Dubord, which looks at how consumer capitalism gets intertwined with culture even when it appears not to.
I like that Marcus ends the book on a personal note. He relays his moment in the historical protest sun by attending a rally in 1964 at Berkeley where Mario Savio attempted to speak but got pulled off the stage right after the University President had given a highly rational defense of the university and therefore the state. It was the scream he has always remembered and it seared him. For him, punk seemed like a return to that moment.
Lipstick ‘Traces takes a moment in popular culture, the late seventies, when Johnny Rotten memorably opened his mouth with little more than a primal scream and ignited the punk craze of the Sex Pistols. Marcus traces back that impulse, that yearning to rip it all up, tear it all down, to Dada and sometimes beyond.
He looks at all the cultural impulses that figured in that late seventies moment and made it resonate so loudly. Marcus makes the point that this isn’t necessarily the start of a coherent movement though movements often come out of these kinds of moments.
Not surprisingly, much of the spirit and intellectual heft of such moments, to the degree anything of that kind adheres to them, emerges from the French avant garde. This book intrigued me to read ‘The Society of Spectacle� by one of the key predecessors to the punk movement, Guy Dubord, which looks at how consumer capitalism gets intertwined with culture even when it appears not to.
I like that Marcus ends the book on a personal note. He relays his moment in the historical protest sun by attending a rally in 1964 at Berkeley where Mario Savio attempted to speak but got pulled off the stage right after the University President had given a highly rational defense of the university and therefore the state. It was the scream he has always remembered and it seared him. For him, punk seemed like a return to that moment.
April 18, 2021
Este libro establece una relación entre la ³¾Ãº²õ¾±³¦²¹ punk y los movimientos que artÃsticos que le anteceden como el dadaÃsmo.
Particularmente me ha interesado volver a repensar el dadaÃsmo y creo que este libro me ofreció una perspectiva diferente del arte y entender la trascendencia del punk que es algo que no tenÃa muy claro. Es el primer libro que leo de Greil Marcus, pero creo que es un buen relator de la cultura contemporánea. Use parte del libro para mis clases de arte con chavos de prepa. Lo recomiendo mucho para ampliar las perspectivas.
Particularmente me ha interesado volver a repensar el dadaÃsmo y creo que este libro me ofreció una perspectiva diferente del arte y entender la trascendencia del punk que es algo que no tenÃa muy claro. Es el primer libro que leo de Greil Marcus, pero creo que es un buen relator de la cultura contemporánea. Use parte del libro para mis clases de arte con chavos de prepa. Lo recomiendo mucho para ampliar las perspectivas.
February 23, 2021
Me habÃa gustado tanto Mistery Train de este mismo autor que me puse corriendo con este otro. Menuda desilusión, vaya pestiño, ladrillo infumable, que ni habla de ³¾Ãº²õ¾±³¦²¹ ni nada. Se enrolla de mala manera con el movimiento Dadá y con todo tipo de mierdas filosóficas que no le importan a nadie. ¡Vaya chasco! Al expurgo virtual
April 27, 2014
This thing turned into more of a slog than I was looking for. Thought it would be a fun history of punk music or something, and it's more of a slightly academic treatise on youth revolts (sort of). Slips into some Marxist theory talk - still nobody has sufficiently explained reification to me so that I can use it in a sentence - but still better than the dreaded "unpacking" of the structuralists.
My first clue it would be a little tougher was that it was from Harvard University Press - they're not publishing junk (not much anyway). Once I got some page long sentences of Marx-talk I knew I was in for a haul. Thankfully it lightens up as you go, and his basic thesis - that the Sex Pistols were the latest outpouring of a nihilist/creationist trend encompassing dada and the May '68 riots in France - is pretty solid.
I did the work and wound up enjoying this immensely, and learning a good deal of art and political history to boot. If you are looking for salacious tales of Sid Vicious debauchery, this is not that. Does it stretch the point, to compare the Sex Pistols to the bohemians of Cabaret Voltaire? Nah. I think he backs it up pretty well, and makes a good case for "punk" not really existing before or after the Pistols. Fine by me - recommended.
My first clue it would be a little tougher was that it was from Harvard University Press - they're not publishing junk (not much anyway). Once I got some page long sentences of Marx-talk I knew I was in for a haul. Thankfully it lightens up as you go, and his basic thesis - that the Sex Pistols were the latest outpouring of a nihilist/creationist trend encompassing dada and the May '68 riots in France - is pretty solid.
I did the work and wound up enjoying this immensely, and learning a good deal of art and political history to boot. If you are looking for salacious tales of Sid Vicious debauchery, this is not that. Does it stretch the point, to compare the Sex Pistols to the bohemians of Cabaret Voltaire? Nah. I think he backs it up pretty well, and makes a good case for "punk" not really existing before or after the Pistols. Fine by me - recommended.
May 2, 2007
When I first read this I was so excited someone had managed to reasonably accumulate so much of this particular variety of comparative history. I recall being impressed by ideas moving through history, time and again there being such movements toward liberty of self expression.
I believe recent times reflect that pattern in an oddly popular manner. Its been assimilated somehow via capitalism or something commercial. Now it seems as though the people who in past times might have been subversive, critical, are now our brand name hipsters whose goals includes the habits of an Imelda Marcos.
and so on.
I've been considering re-reading it because I have 2 sons entering into the pre-adolescent period of serious and deliberate consideration over their identity and the means of self expression available to them, either immediate or by proxy. They are artistic and they are kind. They don't like what they see happening around them but they enjoy taking advantage of it.
I do think this is a useful book, still. I'll let you know when I set about rereading it...
I believe recent times reflect that pattern in an oddly popular manner. Its been assimilated somehow via capitalism or something commercial. Now it seems as though the people who in past times might have been subversive, critical, are now our brand name hipsters whose goals includes the habits of an Imelda Marcos.
and so on.
I've been considering re-reading it because I have 2 sons entering into the pre-adolescent period of serious and deliberate consideration over their identity and the means of self expression available to them, either immediate or by proxy. They are artistic and they are kind. They don't like what they see happening around them but they enjoy taking advantage of it.
I do think this is a useful book, still. I'll let you know when I set about rereading it...
February 26, 2013
This is one of those books that discovers you that the History is written in a background that just seldom appears in the books of History. Cultural Studies? This books is History of the Culture. from the avant-gardes to the punk, through the forever-forbitten-heretical Situtionism, here is what the a pretended prty-revolutionary-professor would never avoid to you. Highly recommended for those who mistrust of the Grand Narrative
November 18, 2017
Yes this book can be a bit complicated, or maybe full of sentences that split and flow to different directions to a point that you lose the thread of thought or the point, but most of the time it’s a very interesting book.
Grail Marcus writing is full of passion and creativity, a bit of new-journalism and the famous rolling stone’s gonzo writing, and the most important part - this book will introduce you a whole new world of new information, crazy events, and some interesting philosophies.
Grail Marcus writing is full of passion and creativity, a bit of new-journalism and the famous rolling stone’s gonzo writing, and the most important part - this book will introduce you a whole new world of new information, crazy events, and some interesting philosophies.
May 27, 2008
Essential reading! Connects Punk rock to the Heresy of the Free Spirit, Dada and Situationism. This is a poetic history that is incredibly inspiring and, it seems, somewhat speculative. But poetically it is utterly true and on the mark. Reading this book changed my life and the way that I view (and listen to!) the world.
July 21, 2008
It links ideologically the Free Spirit movement of the European Middle Ages to the Parisian student uprisings of the late sixties to the evolution of UK punk in one surly, ill-mannered, shaggy-dog epic. Ne travaillez jamais!
July 30, 2011
Just another book about the resonating splendor and life altering nature of rebellious teenage music. Actually, there's a bit more to that. Marcus covers Dada, Surrealism, Lettrists and the Situationist Movement through the lens of early punk rock, proving that there was an intellectual basis to the seemingly obvious nihilistic overtones in the Sex Pistols music.
October 14, 2012
I'm not sure there's any book that's taught / opened my eyes to more things. For that reason alone has to have 5 stars. That said its hard work at times and as for the "structure" of the debate/argument/hypothesis - well there isn't one. It's more a cyclic stream of consciousness and all the more wonderful for it.
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July 6, 2007i didn't understand this book at all. and it was during that strange period when i was sober for two months and todd was in florida. but, i'm sure it was really good. it's about rock music and how well, i don't know.
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