Thank you for your many letters. Concerning that of 12 March, I share all of your judgments. I will only make a few specifications.
I approve of Annie's strategic formulation: in times as unfortunate as we know ours to be, "it is no doubt preferable to be as close as possible to what threatens us." It is only a question of the ability to be so: by making oneself respected. We will be less respected in the next three weeks, if we haven't known how to worry them. We will see.
The fact that Editions Gallimard is corrupt -- even if errors of character are mixed up in it -- it is in fact a kind of necessity in the era of the integrated spectacular. It is rendered through the automatic solidarity with the laughable aesthetic that "the company" makes use of (the Cremist[1] cretinism towards Annie) and through the still-more unacceptable solidarity with the current conditions of the pitiful thinking of the day at France's universities (the maneuvers of all the fake scholars against Alice [Becker-Ho]). You will see all the socio-political implications of this: all the dangers of poetry, now that everything behaves.[2]
I have no intention of meeting Antoine [Gallimard] at this time and simply because he has had the kindness to recognize that he has failed us. It would truly be too much if he, moreover, affected to seek, in vain, to understand why we are not happy! What is necessary is that he compensates us for these displeasures immediately.
Considering the many possibilities for war, yesterday I gave the green light to negotiations with Arte,[3] which would like to make a one-hour-long historic broadcast "about my art and times." They claim they will allow me complete freedom concerning its form and content. I believe that this resource can quite brilliantly be used to complicate the game.
Jean-Jacques [Pauvert] wrote a very gentle letter to me on 7 March. It was completely in the same spirit. I will respond to him shortly: I beg you to communicate a copy of this letter to him immediately.
Tomorrow, I leave Carentan for Champot. One must write me there; send the proofs[4] especially to that address.
I proudly detourn a celebrated slogan so as to summarize "The theses of La Riviere": P2 (this time "P" signifies "poetry").[5]
With all my heart,[1] Translator's note: a reference to Tersea Cremisi, who worked at Editions Gallimard.
[2] Translator's note: tout se tient.
[3] Translator's note: produced by Brigitte Cornand, this made-for-TV film by Guy Debord eventually aired on Canal Plus in January 1995.
[4] For Considerations on the Assassination of Gerard Lebovici, re-published by Gallimard [in 1993].
[5] Translator's note: in Italy, P2 refers to "Potere Due," the secret "lodge" to which the country's elites belonged.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! June 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)