from Guy Debord

To Jean-Pierre Baudet
3 December 1985
Dear Jean-Pierre:

One could say that not reporting the excellent corrections that they receive[1] is a recent specialty of German publishers. You know that the inept publishing house Nautilus[2] has held the record for a long time. On this question, Klaus[3] remains very moderate, fortunately. He would surely be better thought of as a publisher of quality if he made the minimum usage of the errata sticker that you evoke. I believe that this would be a good publicity investment: all his competitors obviously think that the reader no longer merits such refinements.

The last point is more notable. Of course, this isn't really serious,[4] in the sense that I have reason to believe that the Spanish police would not be very surprised by a similar hypothesis. But I leave to him the responsibility for such an idea. I neither confirm nor deny [authorship]. Klaus would be wise to keep the same reserve.

I am not much interested in the art cinema in Germany or elsewhere, to tell the truth. The PAG appears to be an instance of newspeak, and the PAD doesn't fail to seem likewise.[5]

I hope to come to Paris soon, and that we will see each other there.

Cordially,
Guy

[1] On 16 October 1985, Jean-Pierre Baudet took note of the errors to be found in the German editions of Debord's In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni and the "Preface to the 4th Italian Edition of The Society of the Spectacle".

[2] A Hamburg-based German publisher. See Editions Champ Libre Correspondance, volume II, pp. 73-82.

[3] Klaus Bitterman, a German publisher.

[4] The fact that Debord was listed as the author of To the libertarians, which was published anonymously in 1980.

[5] PAG and PAD are German political parties of the "socialist" type.


(Translated from the French by NOT BORED! October 2008.)




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