From: antonsen-AT-alf.nbi.dk
Subject: Re: SurrealMagick  
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 97 12:23:26 +0200



Kriya Shibek, 

>     I am currently working on a book or pamphlet about surrealism, 
>partially as a response to a book yet to be published in the U.S. by the 
>Situationist Raoul Vaneigem called "A Cavalier History of Surrealism." A 
>friend got me an advance copy from AK press in San Francisco where it 
>will be published sometime in the next few months I imagine if it hasn't 
>been already...

I thought AK press had already published it... Unfortunately I've never read it, 
but knowing a bit situationists and Vaneigem I think I can say that I basically 
agree.
Surrealism did have a tendency after the second world war to limit itself to 
"art" and "literature". It was the situationists' great contribition to once 
more unearth the original emphasis on the magic of everyday life present in 
early surrealism. Breton in particular put a very great emphasis on precisely 
this in his books Nadja and Amour Fou. The poems by Desnos and Prevert too, and 
of course the early (I emphasise early!) prose of Louis Aragon, especially in 
Paris Peasant. So surrealism _used_ to be about transforming everyday life. It 
still is, of course. 
Personally I suspect the preoccupation with the "spiritual" in postwar 
surrealism is to blame for the shift of emphasis. A study of the "spiritual" is 
important, because it contains heretic knowledge about the interrelationships 
between everything in the universe. But the great danger, which I suspect the 
old surrealist succombed to, is an "idealistic" drawing-away from life, a 
retreat from "material reality". If a deep interest in the "spiritual" is not 
countered by a keen awareness of material facts (the body and desire but also 
radical politics) one tends to get lost in a swamp of escapism.
The situationists were not the first to see this. The Cobra movement had seen it 
some years earlier. (Asger Jorn, one of the founders of Cobra, was also one of 
the founders of situationism).
This is somewhat briefly put but I hope you'll understand. The point is 
contained in some other quote from William Blake (besides "energy is eternal 
delight"), the ones about how the sould cannot be separated from the body and 
vice versa and "prisons are build by bricks of law, brothels by bricks of 
religion".

What are your own views on this?

	Frank