false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170526415m/58849.jpg 58849 12 <p> Greil Marcus, author of <i>Mystery Train</i>, widely acclaimed as the best book ever written about America as seen through its music, began work on this new book out of a fascination with the Sex Pistols: that scandalous antimusical group, invented in London in 1975 and dead within two years, which sparked the emergence of the culture called punk. "I am an antichrist!" shouted singer Johnny Rotten--where in the world of pop music did that come from? Looking for an answer, with a high sense of the drama of the journey, Marcus takes us down the dark paths of counterhistory, a route of blasphemy, adventure, and surprise. </p><p> This is no mere search for cultural antecedents. Instead, what Marcus so brilliantly shows is that various kinds of angry, absolute demands--demands on society, art, and all the governing structures of everyday life--seem to be coded in phrases, images, and actions passed on invisibly, but inevitably, by people quite unaware of each other. Marcus lets us hear strange yet familiar voices: of such heretics as the Brethren of the Free Spirit in medieval Europe and the Ranters in seventeenth-century England; the dadaists in Zurich in 1916 and Berlin in 1918, wearing death masks, chanting glossolalia; one Michel Mourre, who in 1950 took over Easter Mass at Notre-Dame to proclaim the death of God; the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, small groups of Paris--based artists and writers surrounding Guy Debord, who produced blank-screen films, prophetic graffiti, and perhaps the most provocative social criticism of the 1950s and '60s; the rioting students and workers of May '68, scrawling cryptic slogans on city walls and bringing France to a halt; the Sex Pistols in London, recording the savage "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen." </p><p> Although the Sex Pistols shape the beginning and the end of the story, <i>Lipstick Traces</i> is not a book about music; it is about a common voice, discovered and transmitted in many forms. Working from scores of previously unexamined and untranslated essays, manifestos, and filmscripts, from old photographs, dada sound poetry, punk songs, collages, and classic texts from Marx to Henri Lefebvre, Marcus takes us deep behind the acknowledged events of our era, into a hidden tradition of moments that would seem imaginary except for the fact that they are real: a tradition of shared utopias, solitary refusals, impossible demands, and unexplained disappearances. Written with grace and force, humor and an insistent sense of tragedy and danger, <i>Lipstick Traces</i> tells a story as disruptive and compelling as the century itself. </p> 148631 1989 Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century total:611|5:203|4:237|3:112|2:47|1:12| 611 2405 902 74 2 3 false false Tue Jul 29 16:37:23 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 16:42:27 -0700 2008
Dude...John of Leyden...John Lydon!...Whoa! Take a rip from the history bong!

It seems to be a gateway drug to Situationism, May '68, etc. for a lot of folks, which is of value.]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 06 09:02:03 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 11:42:45 -0800 2009 Greil Marcus sucked me in with 70s punk trivia and turned out to be an introductory text on Dadaism, Situationist International and the May '68 riots that shaped contemporary France.

But, if this book as anything to say, it shaped punk too. By bookending philosophy with pu...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue May 15 18:25:26 -0700 2007 Tue May 15 18:39:40 -0700 2007
This book is not for everyon...more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon May 07 07:35:02 -0700 2007 Mon May 07 07:35:19 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sun Feb 25 10:35:25 -0800 2007 Sun Feb 25 10:41:31 -0800 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Sep 17 05:06:21 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 17 05:06:21 -0700 2007 lipstick is engaging in waves; at its worst it is mundane, bordering on inane, and repetitive in marcus' masturbatory doldrums. reading about subversive political turn-of-the-century art move...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 20 10:58:03 -0800 2008 Fri Aug 14 19:30:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed May 02 09:22:43 -0700 2007 Wed May 02 09:38:20 -0700 2007
I believe ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 31 20:49:59 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 20:52:25 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed Apr 22 18:54:08 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 18:55:26 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 09 08:25:42 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 08:31:16 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Mon Aug 11 17:15:47 -0700 2008 Tue Feb 05 06:27:19 -0800 2008 Mon Aug 11 17:15:47 -0700 2008 At...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Jul 08 08:46:20 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 13:42:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Apr 19 21:04:02 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 21:05:08 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Dec 05 19:59:16 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 05 19:59:49 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sun Nov 02 16:00:54 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 02 16:05:04 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sun Jun 03 07:53:37 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 06 04:51:50 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jul 21 08:05:55 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 21 08:11:40 -0700 2008 Probably one of the best books I'ver ever read from Greil Marcus The only book by Marcus that I've ever been interested enough in to finish.

It links ideologically the Free Spirit movement of the European Middle Ages to the Parisian student uprisings of the late sixties to the evolution o...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jul 28 10:15:17 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 29 09:04:52 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 true false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1993 Wed Apr 25 16:46:49 -0700 2007 Wed Apr 25 20:24:08 -0700 2007 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=58849