Complete run in 5 issues (no.4 was never published) of this legendary British counter-culture magazine put out by David & Stuart Wise, later joined by Christopher Gray, Donald Nicholson-Smith and TJ Clark (all former members of the British Section of the Situationist International).Also included here is a leaflet listing all King Mob publications.

Retracing the history of King Mob, its evolution, and its linkages with Black Mask / Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers would be too long and has already been done. I encourage readers to learn more by reading Tom Vague’s “King Mob Echo: From Gordon Riots to Situations & Sex Pistols” (London: Dark Star, 2000; in print); Tom Vague’s “King Mob: English Section of the Situationist International” (London: Dark Star, 2000; in print) and, online, the Wise Brothers’ own “King Mob: A Critical Hidden History” (available online at http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/archive-local/93-a-hidden-history-of-king-mob.html).

King Mob. King Mob 1: King Mob Echo. London: BCM/King Mob, April 1968. n.p. [12 p.]; ill.; 24 x 34 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with picture of a menacing masked man with text in white.

This first issue includes a front cover image of a menacing masked man (from Louis Feuillade’s film “Fantomas”) above a Karl Marx quotation (from “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon”). Contents include: “The Return of the Repressed” by radical psychoanalysis scholar Norman O. Brown; “Desolation Row”, an excerpt “free translated from Raoul Vaneigem’s Traite de Savoir Vitre a l’Usages des Jeunes Generations” (1967); “Urban Gorilla Comes East”, the magazine’s only original King Mob statement, co-written by Phil Cohen (also known for his involvement with the London Street Commune and the 144 Piccadilly squat) and Donald Nicholson Smith. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp. 71-81

King Mob. King Mob 2: Letters on Student Power. London: BCM/King Mob, November 1968. n.p. [4 p.]; ill.; 24 x 36 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with text in black.

This second issue, entitled “King Mob: Two Letters on Student Power”, contains the group’s response to and critique of the student revolts and the anti-university movement, with the central text by Christopher Gray (formerly of the Situationist International). Also included is a brief article by Richard Huelsenbeck on the same topic, which mentions Trocchi.  Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.85-90

King Mob. King Mob 3. London: BCM/King Mob, May 1969. 16 p.; ill.; 25 x 36 cm.; ill. White wrappers with picture of a menacing werewolf, text in black and white.

This third issue features a striking front cover with a picture of a werewolf. It reprints content from Ben Morea’s Black Mask journal and advertizes Black Mask / Up Against the Wall Motherfucker’s actions in the United States (“The first year Black Mask seized every possible opportunity of fucking up culture”) . It includes the famous action to close the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As always, illustrations are stunning and speak to the group’s radicalism and nihilistic outlook. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.101-122

King Mob. King Mob 5. Inglewood (Australia): The King Mob Collective, n.d. [1970]. n.p. [8 p.]; ill.; 22.5 x 36 cm.; ill. B&W with text in black.

This scarce fifth issue was published in Australia, seemingly independently from the British group but with similar layout and content. Contents include: “Those Still  in Prison” (a criticism of the prison system from an anarchist standpoint); “Editorial”; “Join the Revolution”; “Total self-management” (a discussion of workers councils and self-management); “The Last Puppet Show” (a criticism of students and Universities), etc. Also reprints excerpts from Fredy Perlman’s The Reproduction of Daily Life  and comics from old King Mob leaflets and journals. Provides a number of contacts, primarily of Anarchist bookstores in Australia and New Zealand. Incompletely reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.123-124

King Mob. King Mob 6: Notes from the Underground. London: BCM/King Mob, n.d. [1970]. n.p. [4 p.]; ill.; 25 x 34 cm.; ill. B&W wrappers with text in black.

This scarce sixth issue contains of a single, lengthy article on the revolutionary struggle against monopoly capitalism and the commodity hierarchy. Christopher Gray has suggested that it may have been written by Dave Wise, who has stated that it was mainly written by Ian and Diana Clegg “with a little distant help from their…friends from Newcastle”. One section reads: “Monopoly capitalism will construct its Ministry of Leisure over Western Europe: Butlins camps or rarified Belsens all along the Costa Brava”, a meme that found its way into the lyrics for “Holidays in the Sun” and Jamie Reid’s punk slogan, “Cheap Holidays in Other Peoples Misery”. Reprinted in King Mob Echo: English Section of the Situationist International (London: Dark Star, 2000), pp.125-129.

King Mob. King Mob Publications. London: BCM/King Mob, n.d. [1970]. 1 p.; 20.5x 34 cm.; black ink on white stock.

Leaflet that lists the titles and prices of the group’s publications: The first three issues of the journal (“King Mob no.1 – Vaneigem on Situationism and Norman O Brown on Genitality”; “King Mob no.2 – Two Letters on Student Power”; “King Mob no.3 – The Great Motherfucker Revolution), two posters (“King Mob Motherfucker Poster” and “Luddites’69”), a number of Situationist publications (“Ten Days that Shook the university (Situationist International); “Vaneigem: ‘Totality for Kids’ (Situationist International); “Situationist Comic”; “Theses on the Commune”). Three handwritten additions are made in red pen: “Unitary Urbanism”; “SMASHIT Cartoon”; and “King Mob 6 – Work / out shortly”. Includes the King Mob stamp with the group’s W.C.1 address in London.

 

Radical Action Cooperative (i.e., Collins, King; Corwin, Liz; Verlaan, Tony; Waring, Peter; et al.). Critique of Columbia S.D.S. New York, NY: Radical Action Cooperative, n.d. [1968]. 5 p.; 21 x 29.5 cm.; black ink on  three white, stapled mimeographed sheets.

Radical Action Cooperative (i.e., Collins, King; Corwin, Liz; Verlaan, Tony; Waring, Peter; et al.). Life, Not Survival – A Manifesto. New York, NY: Radical Action Cooperative, 28 July 1968. 4 p.; 21 x 29.5 cm.; black ink on two yellow, stapled mimeographed sheets.

Radical Action Cooperative (i.e., Collins, King; Corwin, Liz; Verlaan, Tony; Waring, Peter; et al.). Nantes – An Entire Town Discovers Popular Power. New York, NY: Radical Action Cooperative, 22 September 1968. 15 p.; 21 x 29.5 cm.; black ink on eight blue, stapled mimeographed sheets.

Rare set of items published by Radical Action Cooperative (RAC), described by Beni as “a communal organization which evolved during the Columbia University struggle of Spring 1968. Tony Verlaan participated in it on and off from about March to about October 1968. Migrated to Cambridge in late 1969, where King Collins and others in it became the Council for Conscious Existence, a situationist or pro-situationist group hostile to Verlaan and other New York city Situationists” (Reference: A Bibliography of North American Situationist Texts, 1975, p. 103).

King Collins, one of the group’s co-founders and main contributors, explains the context within which RAC was born, with a specific reference to the item Critique of Columbia S.D.S. featured here: “After the bust, SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] set about the construction of a “strike committee” dominated by their own cadre. Peter [Waring] and I and other new found friends, declined to tie in with SDS and instead set up our own organizational space at Columbia Teachers College, just across the street from the Columbia campus. The administration of Teachers College, trying to avoid any direct confrontation, agreed to give us some office space and access to typewriters and some duplicating equipment. We met often and did a few actions, some of them perhaps deserving of mention (later). We wrote a critique of the college and of SDS, from our homegrown sociological and anarchist perspective.”(Reference: From Student Life to Political Commune: The Radical Action Cooperative And The Situationist International, revised August 2014, available online at http://www.greenmac.com/CCE/RAC_01.html).

Another item discussed here (Life, Not Survival: A Manifesto) played a critical role in connecting RAC with Situationist International members in New York: “Chasse and Elwell wrote to RAC shortly after we published a document (It was called “RAC Manifesto: Life not Survial.”) Their letter raised some interesting questions and I met briefly with Chasse, and he made it clear that my thinking about revolution was not adequate in his eyes.” (From Student Life…).  Tony Verlaan, on the other hand, developed a much closer relationship with RAC members, eventually joining the group and influencing its members. As Fabrice de San Mateo notes in his preface to the French translation of Situationist International (review of the American section of the S.I.): “Verlaan engaged in discussion with some of its members and, as a result of this contact, the RAC proclaimed its affinities with the SI. Rapidly, the situationist came to share the communal dwelling of the RAC and to participate in its activities.”

Verlaan’s participation, however, was a “major source of disagreement” within the American section of the S.I. The first issue of Situationist International features a short article (“Opposition Falsified”) that points at this very tension:”Out of the Columbia strike came a bizarre communitarian grouping called the Radical Action Cooperative (RAC). They opposed themselves to the subleninists all around them, claimed to start from a critique of daily life and declared affinities with the thought of the SI. But they quickly exposed themselves as inflictions of their own boredom and confusion, as ideologists of daily life. RAC migrated to Harvard where they provoked the unimaginative ‘confrontations’ from which the well-disciplined zombies of PL tried to profit.”(translated from the French by Bill Brown, 2012, http://www.notbored.org/ecrits-preface.html)

For more information on the relationship between RAC and the SI, consult King Collins’ excellent piece at http://www.greenmac.com/CCE/RAC_01.html

I welcome corrections, additions, suggestions, etc. from original members of RAC or those who may have more insight into this material.

Rare. RAC items are found in neither the trade nor on OCLC (though the Tamiment library of NYU mentions some printed material related to the group in one of its finding aids)

 

Situationist International. Address to New York City Public School Students. New York: Situationist International, 12 November 1968. 4 p.; 21 x 29.5cm.; ill. B&W comics.

Stunning detourned Pogo comic by Bruce Elwell and Robert Chasse, published by the American section of the Situationist International in late 1968.

A translation of this comic into French is available  courtesy of Editions CMDE here . It is worth noting that CMDE issued the first French-language translation of the writings of the American Section of the Situationist International (2012).

In his preface to the French translation, translator Fabrice de San Mateo explains the context behind this comic: “At the moment that Chasse joined the SI, Elwell prepared a comic strip, “Address to New York Public School Students,” [created] in the vein of the comic-strips detourned by the [European] situationists. He composed these four-page comics with images borrowed from three anthologies of Pogo. The subject of this detournement was the union-led strike of the teachers in New York in the autumn of 1968, of which the Council had made a review in its text “The Newest School Buildings Are Indistinguishable From the Newest Prisons or the Newest Industrial Complexes”…These detourned comics appeared on 12 November 1968 as a publication of the Situationist International.At the same time, Elwell became a member of the SI in his turn.” (translation borrowed from http://www.notbored.org/ecrits-preface.html)

Not in Ford. We locate a single OCLC copy at New York University’s Tamiment Library, where it can be found in the “Ben Morea and Aldo Tambellini Papers” archive (TAM.530, Box 1, Folder 63)

 

 

 

Maurice Wyckaert [INVITATION CARD]. Milano: Galleria Del Naviglio, n.d. [December 1961]. 16 x 11.5 cm.; black ink on thick yellow stock.

Invitation card for Maurice Wyckaert’s show at Galleria D’Arte Del Naviglio in Milan on 9 December 1961.

Painter Maurice Wyckaert was a member of the Belgian section of the Situationist International through April 1961, when he was excluded “following an attempt to meddle in the SI’s affairs by the art dealer Otto Van de Loo, who had hoped to influence its politics by making threats and promises to several situationists with whom he had personal relations” (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/chronology/1961.html). Wyckaert  is best known for having been chosen to read the Declaration in the Name of the Fourth SI Conference to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on 28 September 1960. Often viewed as a relatively “minor” figure in the SI, Wyckaert’s works and contributions were brought to light in Gérard Berréby & Danielle Orhan (éds), L’Œuvre peint (1947-1996). Paris: Allia, 2012.

Not in OCLC.

[Wise, David] The End of Music. Glasgow: GPP, n.d. [1978?]. 36p.; ill.; 18 x 26 cm.; white wrappers with text in pink.

Contents:  “The Revolution of Everyday Alienation”; “White Dopes on Punk”; “Rebel Music and State Morality”; and “Music All Day Helps You…Work & Play”

Written by David Wise (formerly of King Mob), this is an important pamphlet that lays out the problematic relationship between Punk music and Situationist ideas. “Part of the genesis of punk goes back 10 years to the English section of the Situationists and the subsequent King Mob group, a loose affiliation (hardly a group) of disparate though confused revolutionary individuals in England in 1968”

Initially published in a typescript format, “this text was written around 1978 and came to be circulated in the U.K. by an informal network of revolutionaries who used the text as a focus for discussion in order critically to uncover the ‘social glue’ that maintains capitalist society.” (p. 34).

This “pirate” reprint is interesting in that, laid-in within the facsimile reproduction of the original typescript is a smaller-sized pamphlet that reproduces part of the content with a critical assessment by the authors of this edition: “We have indicated our differences with the author’s formulations at this time, in terms of an attachment to Marxist categories. While those passages dealing with the evolution of the English ‘pro-Situ’ scene are, in our opinion(s), among the most interesting in the text, we don’t view the pamphlet as accounting fully for the development of Punk or Reggae. Like Council Communism, ‘Situationism’ is the creation of a particular era in social struggle, and nostalgia bordering on mystification can only act as a brake on the re-vision of new revolutionary perspectives” (p.34).

“The End of Music” was later reprinted as part of Stewart Home’s “What is Situationism” (AK Press, 1990). It was also reprinted as part of David Wise’s “King Mob: a Critical Hidden History” (Bread and Circuses Publishing, 2014). The full text can be found on David and Stuart Wise’s website at http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/recent/216-the-original-copy-of-the-end-of-music.html

For Stewart Home’s (very critical) assessment of the pamphlet, see https://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ass/punk.htm

Ford 318. We locate 4 OCLC copies (Leeds, National Art Library, University of London Research Services, IISG), none of which of this particular edition.

 

Debord, Guy. Gérard Lebovici présente : In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.  n.p. [Paris]: Simar Film, n.d. [1981] 38.4 x 51.5 cm. White ink on thick black stock.

Original film poster for Debord’s 1978 film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (95 min.; black and white) which was released in theaters three years later (1981). The title is borrowed from latin’s longest palindrome, which can be translated as “we turn round and round in the night and are consumed by fire.”

“The film opens with an excoriating attack on the cinema-going public and its world, and on conventional cinema itself. However, the bulk of the film is given over to Debord’s quite personal reflections on his life, loves and times, taking in his early pre-situationist years in the Sant-Germain-des-Prés district of Paris, the Situationist International, and the various European locales in which he lived after the dissolution of the International in 1972” (Ubuweb)

Several film scholars view the deeply autobiographical film as Debord’s most personal production. It was re-released as part of a boxed set of Debord’s complete cinematographic works by Gaumont in November 2005.

Full feature available online at Ubuweb

We locate no OCLC copy

EDIT: We have now located the larger (but identical poster), as shown below.

Debord, Guy. Gérard Lebovici présente : In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.  n.p. [Paris]: Simar Film, n.d. [1981] 156 x 116 cm. White ink on thick black stock.

 

Rumney, Ralph and Berreby, Gerard. The cheque is not the money. Marseille: Editions Salon du Salon, 2016. Risograph print on A3 (29.7 x 42 cm.) Munchen Lynx Rough 150g paper. One of 50 signed and numbered copies.

Gerard Berreby’s homage to his friend Ralph Rumney, whom he visited regularly in his Manosque apartment while the two of them collaborated on Le Consul (Paris: Allia, October 1999). Once, then-bedridden Rumney asked for a small sum of money, and Berreby complied. In return, he received a small handwritten note with the following text: The cheque is not the money.

As Berreby notes, Rumney’s text is a clever allusion to Marcel Duchamp’s Tzanck Check in 1919: Out of money, Duchamp offered to pay his dentist with a handwritten check, stamped by him – a unique piece of art. The note also alludes to Korzybski’s celebrated The Map is not the Territory.

More than fifteen years later, Berreby  chose to enlarge the note and create a limited edition print.  It is available at http://editionsdusalon.com/047-g_berreby-R_rumney_the-cheque_salondusalon.htm

 

Debord, Guy and Canjuers, P, [pseud. Daniel Blanchard]. Préliminaires pour une définition de l’unité du programme révolutionnaire. Paris: n.p., 20 July 1960. 4 p.; 26 x 19.5 cm.; black ink on off-white paper.

Important text meant to serve as a shared theoretical between the groups Internationale Situationniste and Socialisme ou Barbarie (S&B). Led by Cornelius Castoriadis, S&B was a radical libertarian group active from 1948 to 1965. Rejecting Leninism, it embraced and advocated for council communism. At its peak, the group had about a hundred members, including both workers and intellectuals. Popular figures who militated with S&B include French linguist Gerard Genette, (future) negationist Pierre Guillaume, Vietnamese Trotskyist Ngo Van, Philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard, Marxist activist Henri Simon and, of course, both Daniel Blanchard and Guy Debord.

Debord joined Socialisme ou Barbarie in 1960 and left the following year. This brief membership is important because it constitutes an early manifestation of Debord’s desire to make the SI more of a political movement (by 1962, the bulk of the artists had been excluded from the organization).

A detailed account of the relationship between Debord and S&B, as well as how S&B might have influced Debord (and vice-versa) can be located here: https://collectiflieuxcommuns.fr/120-socialisme-ou-barbarie-et-l?lang=fr

 

The text was reprinted a number of times: in Notes critiques no.3 (1962), Mirella Bandini’s L’Estetico il politico. Da Cobra all’Internazionale Situazionista 1948-1957 (1977, 1999), Daniel Blanchard’s Debord, dans le bruit de la cataracte du temps, suivi de “Préliminaires pour une définition de l’unité du programme révolutionnaire” de P. Canjuers & G.-E. Debord [1960] (2000, 2005). In this latter text, Daniel Blanchard discusses the relationship between Debord and S&B in some detail.

The original text is available online at http://www.left-dis.nl/f/debart.htm. An English translation by Ken Knabb is available at the Bureau of Public Secrets (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/prelim.htm)

Gonzalvez 112. Raspaud & Voyer 11. BnF 134 & 219.

We locate two OCLC copies, at Yale and the Bibl. Nationale de France (BNF) in Paris.

Vienet, Rene. Crush Karate [aka La Dialectique Peut-elle Casser des Briques?] Paris: n.p., 1973. 160 x 120 cm; ill. poster with screenshot from the film.

Film poster for Vienet’s famous detourned film. “Le premier film entièrement détourné de l’histoire du cinéma, v.o., sous-titres par l’Association pour le développement des luttes de classes et la propagation du matérialisme dialectique” (“The first completely detourned film in the history of cinema, original soundtrack, subtitles by the Association for the promotion of class warfare and dialectical materialism”).

This is an alternate version of the poster that was made using the original film title. We were not aware of its existence until it surfaced in the trade recently.

We locate no OCLC copy

Compare to the original, and better-known poster:

Debord, Guy. De Spektakelmaatschappij. Leiden (Netherlands): De Kale Rok, n.d. [1976]. 84 p.; 20.5 x 30 cm.; ill. Black silk screened cover with metallic grey text and world map

Debord’s seminal text. Pirate Dutch edition released the same year as the official Dutch translation (trans. Jaap Kloosterman; published by  Baarn : Het Wereldvenster). While no definitive information exists, it is believed this edition was part of a run of 100 or 200. The handwritten feel and silk screen give it a luxurious feel seldom found in such pirate reprints.

We locate a single OCLC copy at the International Institute of Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam