Errata and Revisions
in Ken Knabb’s Writings and Translations
Situationist International Anthology
The Society of the Spectacle (Debord)
Complete Cinematic Works (Debord)
In the Crossfire (Ngo Van)
Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb
Situationist International Anthology
(Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981. Revised and Expanded Edition, 2006. PM Press edition, 2024)
The original 1981 edition had virtually no errors. For the 2006 revised and
expanded edition I made
numerous minor stylistic improvements to the earlier translations. There are
virtually no errors in this edition, apart from a dozen or so very trivial
typos. For the 2024 PM edition I again made numerous minor stylistic tweaks to
the previous translations. So far, I am not aware of any errors in it. The
articles at this website match the 2024 translations.
The Society of the Spectacle (Debord)
(Rebel Press, 2004. Revised and annotated edition, Bureau of Public Secrets, 2014. Revised and annotated edition, PM Press, 2024)
In the first Rebel Press printing (2004), the publisher erroneously
referred to my translation as “a new authorized translation.” My translation
was in fact done independently and was not authorized.
There were a few other errata is the Rebel Press edition, none very significant. The translation published by the Bureau of Public Secrets (2014) was extensively revised and annotated. It has only three or four trivial typos. For the 2024 PM Press edition I made numerous minor stylistic improvements in the translation. So far, I am not aware of any errors in it. The version at this website matches the 2024 edition.
Complete Cinematic Works (Debord)
(AK Press, 2003)
Errata and revisions:
Page
5. below freezing or > below freezing point or
11. Would you like an orange > Would you like an orange?
[Strangely, some copies lack the question mark, others do not.]
14. masters of their own lives > masters and possessors of their own
lives
37. Terrible sound, > its dreadful,
37. but the scenery > but the scene
38. The wine of life is drunk; in this pretentious nightclub
only the dregs remain. > The wine of life is drawn; in this cellar of vanity
only the dregs remain.
45. the result and the goal > the result and the project
62. city spectacle wants to > city spectacle needs to
69. is the critique of human geography > is this critique of
human geography
118. what error have they have made > what error they have made
146. every kind rubbish > every kind of rubbish
147. placed outside all the laws > placed beyond all the laws
149. This is one of main > This is one of the main
166. The same reappears. > The same woman reappears.
182. On the eve of a battle > On a battlefield
228. description of the some of the images > description of some
of the images
231 (note 78). The image is from the classic painting by
Jacques-Louis David. > The image is from a black & white sketch by Jacques-Louis David,
in preparation for his classic oil painting of the event.
235 (note 124). Le Nouvel Observateur > Charlie-Hebdo
235 (note 128). The Philosophy of Poverty > The
Poverty of Philosophy
240 (note 189). Richard Lester > Tony Richardson
246. Benny Colson > Benny Golson
246. Add this sentence at the bottom of the page: “The French script of
the video [Guy Debord, son art et son temps] can be found in Debord’s
Oeuvres (Gallimard, 2006), pp. 1870-1878.”
Additional notes:
2. She is ugliness and beauty — like everything we love today:
passage from Apollinaire’s The Poet Assassinated.
9. The published script reads “on the Shenandoah,” but the voice in the
film actually says “on the Chattanooga.” Probably Debord intended to evoke the
Shenandoah film passage that he later used in The Society of the Spectacle
(see p. 78), but misremembered the name during the original preparation of
the 1952 film.
14. Human beings are not fully conscious . . . outcomes they had not
intended: quotation from Henri Lefebvre’s Problèmes
actuels du marxisme. masters and possessors of their own lives: Cf. Descartes’s Discourse on Method
(Part 6): “we may find a practical philosophy by means of which . . . we may
render ourselves the masters and possessors of nature.”
31-32. If man is shaped by circumstances, it is necessary to create human
circumstances: quotation from Marx and Engels’s The Holy Family
(VI.3.d).
36. Already farther away than India or China: line from
Baudelaire’s poem “Moesta et Errabunda” (“Sad and Restless”).
37. “The production . . . but the
scene”: The three sentence fragments (along with the Macbeth line on
the following page) are from Debord’s 1958 Mémoires
(a book which itself consists entirely
of fragmentary elements detourned from other sources; for example, “It has all
the elements of an American detective novel — violence, sex cruelty — but the
scenery . . .” is from a review of Albert Bester’s science-fiction novel The Demolished Man).
38. The wine of life . . .
remain: Cf. “The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees is left
this vault to brag of” (Macbeth, II, iii).
86. Those who . . . hierarchical parties:
Cf. “Whoever makes himself tyrant of a state and does not kill Brutus
will not last long; nor will he who restores the liberty to a state and does not
kill the sons of Brutus” (Machiavelli, Discourses, III.3).
90. The film clip about the burning of the Reichstag is from Slatan Dudow’s Stärker
als die nacht (1954).
94. But neither the wood nor the fire . . . imparts its own nature to it:
Cf. Meister Eckhart (II:137): “Fire changes into itself what is added to it,
which becomes its own nature. The wood does not change the fire into itself, but
the fire changes the wood into itself. In the same way we are changed into God
that we may know Him as He is. Acting and becoming are one: God and I are one in
this work: He acts and I become.”
114. The spectacle does not debase people to the point of
making them love it: Cf. Vauvenargues’s Maxim #22: “Servitude debases people
to the point of making them love it.”
145. Dramatized anecdotes have been the building blocks of the cinema:
Cf. “Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion”
(Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).
147. “It is no small satisfaction . . .” follows the French
translation quoted by Debord. Swift’s actual words (from the final chapter of
Gulliver’s Travels) are: “I am not a little pleased that this Work of mine
can possibly meet with no Censurers.”
156. Bliss it was to be young . . .: Cf. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be
alive, But to be young was very heaven!” (Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book
XI, referring to the French Revolution).
163. announcing . . . that God was dead: allusion to the Lettrist
Notre-Dame scandal of 1950.
166. The same reappears refers to a repeat of the image of
Éliane Papaï.
189. “Where are those merry companions of times gone by?”: lines from
François Villon’s Testament.
There are also a number of fairly trivial détournements that I have not bothered to indicate, e.g. when a phrase was perhaps originally suggested by a passage in Shakespeare or some other classic author, but has no particular significance and could just as easily have come from any number of other sources.
In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary (Ngo Van)
(AK Press, 2010)
I am not aware of any errors in this book.
Public Secrets
(Bureau of Public Secrets, 1997)
References are to page and line (B = starting from the
bottom).
69.17: seemed appropriate > seems appropriate
82.B18: regions catch up > regions to catch up
109.5-6: Activists who who disdained > Activists who disdained
111.19: most of leftists > most leftists
123.17-18: back luck > bad luck
125.23: was release > was released
163.B12: tact > tactic
177.B2: CONTRACTION > CONTRADICTION
199.B12: We support out thesis > We support our thesis
261.5: confirmed and precised > confirmed and clarified
265: The last sentence of paragraph 2 could be more clearly and accurately
translated as: “As they lose their former material bases due to the general
proletarianization imposed by modern industrial society, these two poles are
tending to blend into each other, causing the differences between the sexes
to become less marked.” (Readers who are so inclined can of course change the
then-standard
generic masculine forms to feminine or gender-neutral forms throughout this text, and anywhere else in the book.)
272.5 (col. 1): visers > visors
272.B18 (col. 1): irreconciliability > irreconcilability
272.B10 (col. 2): Herbert Gombin > Richard Gombin
275.B6 (col. 2): public presence to our present activity > public awareness of
our present activity
283.B20: esquisite > exquisite
In the Index:
Chaplin, Charlie: 05 > 105
Chasse, Robert: 16 > 168
Chastel, Arnaud: 11 > 121
Chiang Kai-shek: 33 > 303
Add:
Rexroth, Mary, 314
Revised versions of my translations of shorter texts (e.g. articles that originally appeared in pamphlet form) are online at this website, which also includes continually updated versions of the Situationist Bibliography and Notes on the Texts.
Errata for Ken Knabb’s writings and translations.
I would appreciate being informed of any other errors readers may notice.