Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 13:22:41 -0400 (EDT)
To: avant-garde-AT-world.std.com, avant-garde-AT-world.std.com
Subject: Spectacle


Excerpts from mail: 11-May-94 The Spectacle by Mark Evenson-AT-mvision.com 
> I've always thought the spectacle was simply the manifestation of the life
> of the species-being in the 20th Cen. as refracted through mass-media.
> Looks like I've been a little careless.

The way I remember it, the sits wanted to get outside the spectacle by
involving themselves/people in situations rather than producing
something that condemned bystanders to passive observance.

> registers its appearance.  Where did the Situationists conceive their
> political action as occuring if not within 'the spectacle'?

And they seem to have had a rather naive (though of course seductive)
belief in "real experience" as opposed to spectacular/commodified
relations. So, I guess if I read yr Q right, in a marginal space outside
the spectacle... directly within people's lives (in the street, etc).

> Trying to be less dumb,

And couldn't people be a bit more tactful when they get the urge to
upbraid someone for not knowing something? Careless? Dumb? I don't think
so.