Leaving the 21st Century

Before leaving the 20th century [London] in 1997 to return to the 17th century [Galloway- see Last of the Westland Whigs blog below], I went to Compendium in Camden (sadly now no more I believe) and bought a copy of Society of the Spectacle to arm myself against a relapse into rural idiocy [ Marx quote].

With nothing better to do I read and re-read Soc.Spec. Here I found this:

Society of the Spectacle 157

Another side of the deficiency of general historical life is that individual life as yet has no history. The pseudo-events which rush by in spectacular dramatizations have not been lived by those informed of them; moreover they are lost in the inflation of their hurried replacement at every throb of the spectacular machinery. Furthermore, what is really lived has no relation to the official irreversible time of society and is in direct opposition to the pseudo-cyclical rhythm of the consumable by-product of this time. This individual experience of separate daily life remains without language, without concept, without critical access to its own past which has been recorded nowhere. It is not communicated. It is not understood and is forgotten to the profit of the false spectacular memory of the unmemorable.

Greengalloway is my attempt to redress this 'deficiency of general historical life' by creating critical access to my own past, a history of my individual life. [For non-individual history see http://westlandwhig.blogspot.com/
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In so doing I was simply extending into cyberspace a practice which already existed - that of punk fanzines... Mark P, Tony D, Tom Vague, Richard Kick... to name but a few have been here before.

In particular, Tom Vague has fought against the forgetting and you can still get his work via AK Press http://www.akuk.com/ (click on the 'Situationism' link on their home page).

Twenty two years ago (ouch, is it really that long ago?) Vague 16/17 contained a 'Boy Scout Guide to Situationism'. It also had an Introduction piece by myself [in original edition, but apologetically deleted subsequently- reference to Flowers in the Dustbin dated it too much].

But that is not dead which can eternal lie as H.P. Lovecraft said... so have scanned the rant.
Click on image to enlarge.

Enjoy!