BauDebord/03: Romance&Anarchie!

This page is home: Links to texts; Song lists; Acknowledgments;

This is the portal to the notes on the text of Von Bark's lecture of May 9th 2003 at the Toronto School of Art.
The concepts presented herein are organized in a somewhat more coherent manner than the fragmented declaimation which characterized the original presentation, although regretably without the diversion of Rob's clever accompanying puppet show.

For those who wish to recapture that particular aspect of this lecture, we recommend that while you view this text you could make your own crude puppet show by manipulating whichever household objects are at immediate hand around about the periphery of your computer monitor.

(for a condensed version, quickly glance at #3 & #6; the funniest is #5; my personal favourite is #2)

1) Prelude and Introductory Remarks..
Consisting of some vague joking designed to lull the audience into a relaxed stupor.

2) What is Romanticism?
Designed to reveal and revel in the exquisite 19th Century Romantic temperment.

3) Charles Pierre Baudelaire, 1821-1867.
His life and works; careful readers might notice the subtle shift in style which indicates that this section was written somewhat earlier than the other texts here.

4) Fin de Siecle..
A brief sequence designed to kill off Romanticism and the 19th Century.

5) Chaos Ensues..
Dadaism, Surrealism, and Existentialism define the first half of the 20th Century.

6) Guy Ernest Debord, 1931-1994.
Letterism, Situationalism, & The Society of The Spectacle.

7) A Form of Conclusion..
Consisting of a forced and tedious drawing together of disparate threads; and a modest bibliography.





The Song List for this Lecture:

I, Neo-Classical sequence:

Jacques Loussier; Toccata & Fugue in D minor/Play Bach Now
Francis Lai; Vivre Pour Vie (wordless vocal theme)/Live for Life Soundtrack
Hector Belioz; Reveries-Passions/Symphonie Fantastique
Maurice Ravel; 2nd Movement/Quartet in F Major
Eric Satie; Gymnopedie II

II, Pop sequence:

Antoine & Les Problems; Contre-Elucubrations Problematiques
Jacques Brel; Chanson du Jackie
Plastique Betrand; Ca Plan Pour Moi
Claudine Longet; Un Homme et Une Femme
Jacqueline Taieb; 7 Heurs du Matin
Stereolab; Envirez-Vous
Klo; Society of The Spectacle
Josephine Baker; La Petite Tonkinese

Special bonus track 1:
William Shatner; Spleen (Tiberius Kirk interprets the work of Baudelaire with an overwrought and surprisingly appropriate treatment)

Special bonus track 2:
Booth/Cholette/Von Bark; Le Gout du Neant (The recording of this obscure artifact has never been published; unfortunately there is no version currently available)..

For your own personalized copy of our lecture playlist, please diligently trawl the file-sharing server of your choice, and good luck.

For our lecture presentation, these selections were spun in monophonic sound from vinyl discs on a Pioneer PL-590 turntable, thru a Sansui 331 receiver, to a single Fidelio RS3000 speaker.



Acknowledgements:

Rob the puppet-master not only makes it happen, he makes it worthwhile.

Mah bebe Mikki-Bikki put up with plenty.

Shannon K. Shields, Thomas Hendry and the enigmatic King were my liasions at The Toronto School of Art, who not only made the show possible, but also assisted in a gracefully easy set-up and provided much-appreciated encouragement.

Laurie H was my teamster who lugged and swore at traffic for me.

Fly Gallery helped prepare my notes on the altar of my dead printer.

Uncle Alex provided diversionary heckling; How do you answer someone who interrupts a lecture on anti-authoritarianism?

My favourite audience in no particular order might consist of:
Sis/Bro/Wayne/Rim/Rae/Carter/MK/JK&MO/Gene/Zen/Rotwang/etc.
& others whose names here are missing but implied.

Textural inspiration came from Andrew Hussey, Ken Knabb, Cat Nilan & Jerrold Siegal.

This project was made possible by grant support from my fevered romantic narcisstic ego. The Toronto School of Art graciously supplied the venue at no charge, for which I am thankful.

If you like you may view the online reading list

This is the original poster

This link will return to official Von Bark page.

My spell-checker has been having this little antagonism with my wurd-proccesor, so there may be a few typos... if you can find them, then, uh, whoopie, you may award yourself the prize of your choice, which you are regretably required to supply yourself. Oh, and I also have been lazy enough to intentionally ignore most French accents. Otherwise, I enjoy hearing your feedback, comments, and stuff. If you are able to clarify or correct any factual errors in this essay then I will be grateful to you and I might possibly modify this text upon verification. On the other hand, if you take issue with my personal interpretation, I am still happy to hear from you, but I do not promise any forthcoming modifications. To pester Von Bark, please email me at zenexp@hotmail.com; it may help to put 'Von-Bark' in the subject-line of your transmission in order to penetrate Hotmail's notoriously inefficient spam-filter; if you receive no reply, either I am feeling lazy, or, like myself you have been trampled underfoot by Hotmail's notoriously inefficient spam-filter.

All texts on the Angelfire/Zenexp web pages are copyrighted by Von Bark. Selections of these texts are available free for educational and critical purposes, in which case the user is kindly requested to inform us. Unauthorized commercial use is discouraged by the threat of bad kharma, voodoo, and conventional legal channels.