Cazzo![1] Nothing has been deposired in my bank (whereas the pleasantry was made almost two months ago). What does this say?
Is Mignoli[2] fucking with us? I don't dare believe it. And if he does so concerning such a small detail, deduce what frightful things he will do concerning important things!
Perhaps there was some obstacle to this transfer? Perhaps not, I suppose, as was the case, but in the opposite sense, concerning the pizza[3] sent in the autumn of 69?
I suppose that you must now find out when the thing was done, what is the normal period of time and even how one can verify the result.
Send me this information quickly, also tell me what you have concluded. Is there some formality I must undertake? Wouldn't it better to do this directly; but obviously through someone trustworthy? (I would also like the Nardil.)
Reassure me at once.
I have received nothing of what you sent me concerning Portugal. What is Vaneigem's "toast"?[4]
Thank you for the address of the German translator.
Bravo for your success in the struggle against the night club and the Marquise!
I await Justine[5]: congratulations with respect to her will follow at the appropriate time.
The film [The Society of the Spectacle] proceeds very well. I now only have brief periods of interruption: never more than a week, with the result that it isn't worth the difficulty of coming to Florence for so few days during the summer. We will return in the autumn, after all of the work is finished. And then, for a long time, I no longer want to be preoccupied with filmmakers and this magnificent but tiring work: my stay can be, by itself, uscir dal bosco e gir infra la gente,[6] while I discretely hide my glory in the Piazza della Passera.
For financial and fiscal reasons, the production requires (not requires in an absolute manner, but very desirable, all the same) that I obtain the professional card of a Director of Films. I have thus filled out -- that is to say, I left blank -- a very detailed bureaucratic questionnaire, to which the most beautiful and substantial responses were (it goes without saying that a very precise Civil State questionnaire also asks for my age): preceding professional activities in the cinema? None. Studies? None. Other professional activities? None.
Thereupon, the National Center of Cinematography, probably a little surprised, but still putting a good face on a bad situation, united the commission ad hoc and told me that, "taking into consideration the references that I have presented," this professional card is given to me! I believe that one can say that our notoriety in the milieu of the State now goes beyond the brain-trust[7] of Marcellin.[8]
Yes, I know the misfortunes of little Mimma, the principal of which was perfectly stated by [Baltasar] Gracian: "Either action, or discourse, must be the measure of time. One must want it, when one can; because neither the season nor time waits for anyone."
Best wishes,[1] Fuck! [Translator's note: the French translation of the Italian word Cazzo is Foutre.]
[2] Translator's note: Ariberto Mignoli, Sanguinetti's lawyer.
[3] Situationist argot for money.
[4] Toast to the revolutionary workers (October 1972).
[5] Adriana-Giustina.
[6] "To leave the forest and circulate among the people." (Petrach, Canzoniere.)
[7] Translator's note: English in original.
[8] Translator's note: Marcellin was the French Minister of the Interior who, in July 1971, ordered that Sanguinetti should be deported from France as a subversive.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 5: Janvier 1973-Decembre 1978 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2005. Excerpted version published in Autour des Films (Documents), the booklet accompanying Oeuvres Cinematographiques Completes, a three-DVD set released November 2005. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! March 2007. All footnotes by Alice Debord, except where noted.)