Tosh Berman's TamTam Books by Tosh

 

 

Tosh Berman's TamTam Books by Tosh. Read it here: 

Tosh Berman's TamTam Books

Tosh Berman Introduction on Tosh Talks

"The Death Instinct" by Jacques Mesrine (TamTam Books)

The Death Instinct

By Jacques Mesrine. Introduction by Robert Greene. Translation by Robert Greene, Catherine Texier.

France's Public Enemy Number One from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s--when he was killed by police in a sensational traffic shootout--Jacques Mesrine (1936–1979) is the best-known criminal in French history. Mesrine was notorious both for his violent exploits and for the media attention he attracted, and he remains very much a public media figure in France and Europe. In 2008 there were two feature-length films based on his life, one of them starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Mesrine wrote The Death Instinct while serving time in the high-security prison La Santé; the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and was later published by Guy Debord's publisher Gérard Lebovici (who briefly adopted Mesrine's daughter, Sabrina, before being assassinated, a few years after Mesrine). The Death Instinct deals with the early years of Mesrine's criminal life, including a horrifically graphic description of a murder he committed early on in his career and a highly detailed account of the workings of the French criminal underworld--making this book perhaps one of the most intriguing and detailed anthropological studies of a criminal culture ever written.

PUBLISHER
TAMTAM BOOKS

BOOK FORMAT
PAPERBACK, 6 X 9 IN. / 325 PGS.

PUBLISHING STATUS
PUB DATE 10/31/2014
ACTIVE

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. EXCLUSIVE
CATALOG: FALL 2014 P. 77    

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780966234688 TRADE
LIST PRICE: $16.95 CDN $20.00

The Sunday Series; Sunday December 27, 2015

The Sunday Series:

Sunday December 27, 2015

Ah, the last Sunday of the year 2015.  A series of moments for me to reflect on all my successes and of course, failures.   Oddly enough, it’s the failures that capture my imagination and attention.   The successes would be perfectly OK, if it wasn’t for the nagging failures that pretty much spells out T.O.S.H. To bring lightness, let’s think of the successes this year.   Synesthesia Press put out my short piece from the “365” series (which I wrote everyday in the year 2014) as well as a short story published by Thistle & Weed Press, in conjunction to the Terry Braunstein exhibition that is taking place at the Long Beach Museum of Art.   So since I left Book Soup (a book store in West Hollywood)  three years ago, I have produced two books under my name, (“Sparks-Tastic” and “The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding”) as well as a short story for the 3AM Magazine website out of London, and critical reviews published by Byron Coley in his zine/magazine Bull Tongue Review.   Through my press, TamTam Books, I have published Jacques Mesrine’s ‘The Death Instinct” and Lun*na Menoh’s “A Ring Around The Collar.” This is all, of course, great. 

The bad news is I’m on the collapse of financial disaster.   This past week I had to fire both my valet and butler.   I began by paying them a weekly check, which slowly turned to free food for them in the fridge.   Now that the food had disappeared from the refrigerator, they have disappeared as well.  I guess we can now sell the fridge, or turn the huge icebox into a bookshelf with a heavy door.   In fact, the kitchen has been transformed into a library.   Antique dishes have been sold through ebay and craigslist, and in the drawer that once had a kitchen utensil, now holds old issues of Mojo Magazine.   Since the gas has been cut off, we have one electric pot to heat up water for delicious cups of hot water while staring out the window on a cloudless evening.   My sweetie and I like to take one spoon we have, and stir the water till it becomes lukewarm, and comment to each other on our state of stress. 

It gets chilly in the winter night, and the cold draft tends to cut right through our summer clothing.  We often have to cut up our furniture and throw it into our fireplace to stay warm.  As we move the (what’s left of it) couch and place it by the one flickering flame at the base of the chimney, we tend to remember old folk songs from the 1930s dust bowl era.  Life was often simpler than now and not only that, but the people in the black and white images looked simple as well.  Due to the photographs I have seen from that era and subject matter, it is all gray and at times it’s gray on top of gray, which makes it into a super gray.  I don’t recall ever seeing a color photograph of the Okies traveling West bound.  I often wondered if they wore bright color shirts or pants.  My image is of them is wearing gray clothing, or perhaps their actual clothing lost color due to the various dust storms that they came upon them on a regular basis.  

Looking at my own life, I clearly saw the areas where I made the wrong turn.  Yet, in my own fashion, I totally ignored the direction I was heading towards, due to a great belief in my ability to write a bestseller or two.  That my friends, didn’t happen.  I wrote a lot of words.  My diary, “I Go With My Moods, ” one of my many writing projects for the year 2015 is over 85,000 words.  Yet, even though my computer screen is full of my words, it hasn’t produced any capital, in other words, currency.   

We rarely go out.  Our existence is somewhere between Turner and Jean des Esseintes in the rather large house that we can no longer live in.   Often in nights, I wonder around each room in a drunken haze, trying to find where I left the right side shoe, while wearing the left.   It would be comical if it wasn’t so tragic.  I do have a room where it is devoted to the image of me as a child.  When I was a baby till I was 10, I was often photographed by my father, as well as by his friends.  Due to that, institutions like the Getty own the negatives that feature my presence on film.  If a friend didn’t send me some photos through the miracle of the I-Phone, I would never have them.  I barely recognized myself when I looked at photos that were taken 50 to 55 years ago.   Now, when I look in the mirror I think, as I often do, I wonder what happened to that little boy.   

As I write, I have two scarfs around my neck, a sweater, and a long bath robe.  Today, I’m sad, because it’s the last Sunday of the year 2015.  What have I done?   Where am I going?   And perhaps the most interesting question, who are you?   It is time to get on my horse, and wander off to the sunset at the end of the road.   I’ll be around.  If you need me, all you have to do is put your lips together and blow.  Till then, farewell.  

Robert Greene discusses his and Catherine Texier's translation of Jacques Mesrine's "The Death Instinct" at Skylight Books

ROBERT GREENE discusses his and Catherine Texier's translation of JACQUES MESRINE'S THE DEATH INSTINCT

The Death Instinct (Tam Tam Books)

France's Public Enemy Number One from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s--when he was killed by police in a sensational traffic shootout--Jacques Mesrine (1936-1979) is the best-known criminal in French history. Mesrine was notorious both for his violent exploits and for the media attention he attracted, and he remains very much a public media figure in France and Europe. In 2008 there were two feature-length films based on his life, one of them starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Mesrine wrote The Death Instinct while serving time in the high-security prison La Sante; the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and was later published by Guy Debord's publisher Gerard Lebovici (who briefly adopted Mesrine's daughter, Sabrina, before being assassinated, a few years after Mesrine). The Death Instinct deals with the early years of Mesrine's criminal life, including a horrifically graphic description of a murder he committed early on in his career and a highly detailed account of the workings of the French criminal underworld--making this book perhaps one of the most intriguing and detailed anthropological studies of a criminal culture ever written.

Praise for The Death Instinct:

"Jacques Mesrine was a modern Robin Hood. Modern in the sense that his story includes violence, spectacle, and that he is not just a figure of legend. He did not let the tabloids write the only version of the story. He wrote this remarkable book. About the only thing Guy Debord and Michel Foucault ever agreed on is that this book is a top read." --McKenzie Wark, author of The Beach Beneath the Street

"Unputdownable, incendiary real-life noir. With a touch of Belle-Epoque anarchist criminal Bonnot, nurtured by disposition, pathology and war. No wonder Situationists admired this escape-artist-sociopath, whose sense of honor and justice was matched only by his contempt for society. In literate and lucid contraband prison prose which, as Mesrine says, mixes all the genres: “burlesque, gore, violence, friendship, and fugitives on the lam.” Too bad this "man of a thousand faces" isn't around to help deal with present-day bank corruption, or, for that matter, the prison-industrial complex."--Woody Haut, author of Heartbreak and Vine and Pulp Culture: Hardboiled Fiction and the Cold War. 

Robert Greene is the author of five books: The 48 Laws of Power (Penguin), The Art of Seduction (Penguin), The Strategies of War, (Penguin) The 50th Law (co-written with the rapper 50 cent, Harper Books), and Mastery (Penguin). He is currently at work on his next book, The Laws of Human Nature (Penguin). He has previously translated from the French, Considerations on the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici, Guy Debord (Tam Tam books). Robert Greene lives in Los Feliz.

Robert Greene photo by Susan Anderson

Event date: 

Thursday, February 12, 2015 - 7:30pm

Event address: 

1818 N Vermont Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90027

The Death Instinct (Paperback)

By Jacques Mesrine, Robert Greene (Translator), Catherine Texier (Translator) 

$16.95 

ISBN: 9780966234688 

Availability: On Our Shelves Now 

Published: Tamtam Books - November 2014 

December 28, 2014

December 28, 2014

Everything I do have a beginning, a middle, and then an end.  Life doesn’t often naturally follow that pattern in life, but alas, the role of a publisher can frame the world in a certain light, and therefore that’s TamTam Books.  I don’t want to last forever, but the moments I’m here, I want to be the best that I can be.  Everything else is nothing more than a distraction to me.  Some think it is a matter of luck, but I feel that luck have nothing to do with it.  I think luck is an invention of those in power, who insist that everyone gets a fair chance in grabbing the big award that is only inches from their grasp.   “Like a modern ‘wheel of fortune’ the message is ‘all is luck; some are rich, some are poor, that is the way the world is … it could be you! ”

When we’re down, it is good to believe in shit, because that is the one thing we have in common.   The president of the United States shit, I shit, you shit, even birds in the sky shit.  At least three times in my life I had birds shit on me from a distance.  Is it luck that I’m shitted on?  “There is nothing more natural than to consider everything as starting from oneself, chosen as the center of the world; one finds oneself thus capable of condemning the world without even wanting to hear its deceitful chatter.” Therefore to make the chatter louder, I began to publish.

The author Robert Greene brought me the idea of publishing Guy Debord’s “Considerations on the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici.” The book is fascinating because it is both a critique of the spectacle as well as Debord’s defense to his intimate friend Lebovici, who was also his publisher and financial backer for his films.   As I read this book, it seemed that one of the key titles for Lebovici’s press, was Jacques Mesrine’s “The Death Instinct.” Like the Boris Vian titles, I needed to publish all the main works from these authors.  To do just one book would be pointless.  I thought of my press as a structure or a building.

The foundation or basement will be Boris Vian’s “I Spit on Your Graves” and “Foam of the Daze.” The first floor had to be Debord’s “Considerations…. And Mesrine’s “The Death Instinct.” One without the other would have been incomplete.   In this house of TamTam Books, then there was a need for Vian to have separate rooms for “Autumn in Peking,”  “Red Grass,” and then a special wing of the building to go to Vian’s alter-identity Vernon Sullivan’s “To Hell With The Ugly,” and “The Dead All Have The Same Skin.”   To give focus on the world of Vian, I had to co-edit a book “Boris Vian’s Manual of Saint Germain des Prés”  And if you are going to mention Vian, then you have to add Serge Gainsbourg to the mix, which means publishing his short novel “Evguenie Sokolov,” as well as the magnificent biography on Gainsbourg by Gilles Verlant.   The attic is Debord’s book as well as Mesrine’s - and there we have the perfect structure that is TamTam Books.  For spice and color, I added the selected lyrics by Sparks, as well as an art book by Lun*na Menoh.

Now that I have my house, I realized that it is built on flammable paper, and can easily be burned down.   So what I left here is a series of thoughts, images, narrations, and a pathway for a future traveler, who may want to connect the dots or string that are attached to Debord to Vian to Gainsbourg to Mesrine.   I went full-circle, and therefore, is there a need for me to publish again?  “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.  Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.”

As I merge my publishing into my writing, I’m slowly erasing the line between publishing and writing. The one thing that will be consistent in my make-up, is to read.  Often I felt like a magician in front of an audience and I’m just showing parlour tricks-of-the-trade.  I give you illusions, because you have a need for them.   Supply and demand, and I be damned if I fail in supplying you the illusion you need.  “The passions have been sufficiently interpreted; the point now is to discover new ones.” As a fellow traveler, I will sniff out what culture has to offer, and try to re-package it into another item or at the very least, a shiny new toy.  In other words, “nobody kills me until I say so. ”

A Review of "The Death Instinct" in THE PARIS REVIEW

A review of Jacques Mesrine's "The Death Instinct" translated by Catherine Texier and Robert Greene in The Paris Review.  You can read it down below:

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/12/12/the-death-instinct/

TamTam Books List on D.A.P.

TAMTAM BOOKS ACTIVE BACKLIST TITLES Lun*na Menoh: A Ring Around The Collar TAMTAM BOOKS Hbk, 8.5 x 11 in. / 48 pgs / 40 color / flexi disc. | 10/31/2014 | In stock ISBN 9780985272418 | $59.95 The Death Instinct TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 6 x 9 in. / 325 pgs. | 10/31/2014 | In stock ISBN 9780966234688 | $16.95 Red Grass TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 5.75 x 8.5 in. / 230 pgs. | 11/30/2013 | In stock ISBN 9780966234695 | $15.95 In The Words of Sparks...Selected Lyrics TAMTAM BOOKS Hbk, 4.25 x 6.75 in. / 200 pgs. | 10/31/2013 | In stock ISBN 9780985272401 | $24.95 I Spit On Your Graves TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 5.75 x 8.5 in. / 177 pgs. | 10/31/2013 | In stock ISBN 9780966234602 | $17.00 Evguenie Sokolov TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 7 x 5 in. / 137 pgs. | 2/29/2012 | In stock ISBN 9780966234619 | $17.00 Foam of the Daze TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 261 pgs. | 3/31/2012 | Awaiting stock ISBN 9780966234633 | $18.00 Autumn in Peking TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 8.75 x 5.5 in. / 284 pgs. | 2/29/2012 | In stock ISBN 9780966234640 | $18.00 The Dead All Have The Same Skin TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 8.5 x 5.70 in. / 137 pgs / illustrated throughout. | 2/29/2012 | In stock ISBN 9780966234657 | $17.00 To Hell with the Ugly TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 8.5 x 5.75 in. / 200 pgs / illustrated throughout. | 2/29/2012 | In stock ISBN 9780966234664 | $15.95 Gainsbourg: The Biography TAMTAM BOOKS Pbk, 8.5 x 5.5 in. / 400 pgs. | 7/31/2012 | In stock ISBN 9780966234671 | $24.95

"The Death Instinct" Out Now at your favorite Independent Book Store

The Death Instinct

Published by TamTam Books
By Jacques Mesrine. Introduction by Robert Greene. Translation by Robert Greene, Catherine Texier.

France's Public Enemy Number One from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s--when he was killed by police in a sensational traffic shootout--Jacques Mesrine (1936–1979) is the best-known criminal in French history. Mesrine was notorious both for his violent exploits and for the media attention he attracted, and he remains very much a public media figure in France and Europe. In 2008 there were two feature-length films based on his life, one of them starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Mesrine wrote The Death Instinctwhile serving time in the high-security prison La Santé; the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and was later published by Guy Debord's publisher Gérard Lebovici (who briefly adopted Mesrine's daughter, Sabrina, before being assassinated, a few years after Mesrine). The Death Instinct deals with the early years of Mesrine's criminal life, including a horrifically graphic description of a murder he committed early on in his career and a highly detailed account of the workings of the French criminal underworld--making this book perhaps one of the most intriguing and detailed anthropological studies of a criminal culture ever written.

PUBLISHER
TAMTAM BOOKS

BOOK FORMAT
PAPERBACK, 6 X 9 IN. / 325 PGS.

PUBLISHING STATUS
PUB DATE 11/30/2014
ACTIVE

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. EXCLUSIVE
CATALOG: FALL 2014 P. 77    

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780966234688 TRADE
LIST PRICE: $16.95 CDN $16.95

AVAILABILITY
IN STOCK

The world now has jacques mesrine's "the death instinct" in stock.  buy it at your local bookstore.  and if they don't have it, they can order it for you.  

The Death Instinct ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 2014 Catalog TamTam Books Books Exhibition Catalogues 9780966234688

Ladies and Gentlemen,

You can now purchase "The Death Instinct" by Jacques Mesrine at the Art Book / D.A.P website. Also free shipping for those who live in the U.S.  Buy now!





The Death Instinct ARTBOOK | D.A.P. 2014 Catalog TamTam Books Books Exhibition Catalogues 9780966234688

Jacques Mesrine's "The Death Instinct"

"The Death Instinct" by Jacques Mesrine.  Translated from the French by Catherine Texier and Robert Greene.  Introduction by Robert Greene.  Designed by Mark Holley.  Published by TamTam Books.  ISBN: 978-0966234688

Proofs of Jacques Mesrine's "The Death Instinct" (TamTam Books)

August 5, 2014

August 5, 2014

 It’s funny how things turn out, when you really don’t plan anything, but then everything you want to do becomes crystal clear.  I never wanted to be a publisher till I discovered Boris Vian through my wife Lun*na, and in all  of odd places, in Japan.  At the time, I was writing short fiction pieces, and Lun*na mentioned to me that my work reminds her of Vian’s short stories.  At that moment, I sort of heard about Vian, but more in a jazz music placement than say in literature.  In other words, I didn’t know of him.  Once I came back to Los Angeles, I immediately went to the Downtown Library to see if I can find anything on Vian and his novels.  The book they had there, and it was a part of their permanent collection (meaning I couldn’t check the book out) was “I Spit on Your Grave.” It was a mass-market paperback, published by a company that no longer existed.   I made a photo-copy of the novel and took it home to read.  By the time I finished the book, I knew that I must re-publish this work.   I located the French owners of the novel, and secured the English language rights.  As I signed the contract they asked if I would want the English language edition of the book that they have on file.   I said sure, and it seems that the version that they have was translated by Vian and an American army buddy at the time.  I didn’t really think of it, because I thought the American mass-market edition would be exactly the same.  That, as usual, was a totally wrong presumption on my part.  The American copy was edited of course, and Vian’s manuscript was a tad much rougher in spots.  The purist that I’m, I decided to publish Vian’s manuscript.

Now that I discovered this Vian (Vernon Sullivan) novel, I decided I needed to publish an English edition of his masterpiece “Lécume des jours.   Once I made that decision, then I knew I had to publish all of Vian’s major novels. Both under his name and the books he wrote under Vernon Sullivan.   The way I looked at I just wanted to build a structure that was Boris Vian.   The foundation would be “I Spit on Your Graves, ” which is probably his most scandalous and famous book, and L’écume des jours.   Then I would add the additional Vian titles on top of the solid foundation.  With that in mind, I discovered Serge Gainsbourg while doing research on Vian.   Vian was a big supporter of Gainsbourg and his music, during the 1950s, so I felt I had to add him to the TamTam Books’ family.   Therefore I published Gainsbourg’s only work of fiction, “Evguénie Sokolov” as well as the magnificent biography on Gainsbourg by Gilles Verlant.

The other important figure for me is Guy Debord.  The writer Robert Greene (“48 Laws of Power”) turned me on to Debord’s “Considerations on the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici, ” which is an incredible book and a tad unusual one from Debord. In that book, he defends himself and his good friend Lebovici, who was a financial backer of Guy’s writings and films, as well as a publisher.  Robert did a superb translation of the book, with a fantastic introduction, and one of the things that came to my attention is the narrative of Lebovici publishing the French gangster Jacques Mesrine’s memoir “The Death Instinct. ”

So now that I have completed the circle in a sense with Boris Vian and his world (of sorts), I decided to focus on my own writing and explore within my own world.  But alas, TamTam Books is really all about me.  In one sense, all twelve titles that I have published is very much a memoir, in that I lived with all of these books (including Lun*na’s upcoming “A Ring Around The Collar” and Sparks’ “In The Words of Sparks… Selected Lyrics), that when I look at them, I see myself in every book that I published.  In other words, this is my life:

- I Spit on Your Graves by Boris Vian (Vernon Sullivan)
- Foam of the Daze by Boris Vian
- Autumn in Peking by Boris Vian
- The Dead All Have The Same Skin by Boris Vian (Vernon Sullivan)
- To Hell With The Ugly by Boris Vian (Vernon Sullivan)
- Red Grass by Boris Vian
- Evguénie Sokolov by Serge Gainsbourg
- Considerations on the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici by Guy Debord
- Gainsbourg the Biography by Gilles Verlant
- In The Words of Sparks… Selected Lyrics by Ron Mael and Russell Mael (Sparks) with Introduction by Morrissey
-A Ring Around The Collar by Lun*na Menoh
- The Death Instinct by Jacques Mesrine

TamTam Books: "The Death Instinct" by Jacques Mesrine

The Death Instinct

Published by TamTam Books
By Jacques Mesrine. Introduction by Robert Greene. Translation by Robert Greene, Catherine Texier.

France's Public Enemy Number One from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s--when he was killed by police in a sensational traffic shootout--Jacques Mesrine (1936–1979) is the best-known criminal in French history. Mesrine was notorious both for his violent exploits and for the media attention he attracted, and he remains very much a public media figure in France and Europe. In 2008 there were two feature-length films based on his life, one of them starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Mesrine wrote The Death Instinctwhile serving time in the high-security prison La Santé; the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and was later published by Guy Debord's publisher Gérard Lebovici (who briefly adopted Mesrine's daughter, Sabrina, before being assassinated, a few years after Mesrine). The Death Instinct deals with the early years of Mesrine's criminal life, including a horrifically graphic description of a murder he committed early on in his career and a highly detailed account of the workings of the French criminal underworld--making this book perhaps one of the most intriguing and detailed anthropological studies of a criminal culture ever written.

PUBLISHER
TAMTAM BOOKS

BOOK FORMAT
PAPERBACK, 6.75 X 9 IN. / 325 PGS.

PUBLISHING STATUS
PUB DATE 11/30/2014
FORTHCOMING

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. EXCLUSIVE
CATALOG: FALL 2014 P. 77   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780966234688 TRADE
LIST PRICE: $16.95 CDN $16.95

March 10, 2014 (Tokyo)

March 10, 2014

March 10 is Boris Vian’s birthday.  Today, it’s the date, and I’m going to spend my time today thinking about nothing except Boris Vian.  He is in fact very much part of my life in Japan.    In 1989, when I first went to Tokyo, I was writing short stories, that my wife Lun*na told me that it reminded her of Vian’s fiction.   At the time I sort of knew his name, but the only thing that seemed clear to me was that he was French, and he played French jazz.  Beyond that, I knew nothing of him.  Lun*na took me to Parco Book Center in Shibuya to show the range of Vian titles that were translated into Japanese.  I was amazed that there was a French writer, who was famous in Japan, yet totally unknown in the United States.

It was around this time that I made the decision to start up a press, TamTam Books, to devote itself to the works of Boris Vian.   Mind you that I haven’t read one word from this man, yet my gut reaction was that he was an important figure and more likely a fantastic writer.    Once I came home to Los Angeles, I went to the Downtown Library on 5th and Flower to research Vian’s work, as well as get practical information in starting a business and a publishing house.  The first book I read by Vian is “I Spit on Your Grave.” At first I was confused because there was a quickie - exploration film with the same title.  The narrative was a bit similar, but a totally different context.   I was fascinated with Vian’s interest in American black pop culture, including the jazz music that was being made in the late 40’s. I xeroxed the whole text from “I Spit….” and went home thinking that this will be the source for the first TamTam publication.  Alas, just by chance, I asked the French publisher to send me the Vian novel that he himself translated into English.   His original English title was “I Shall Spit on Your Graves.”  Plus there were some editorial changes in the American mass market edition that came out in the early 60’s.   I restored the title as “I Spit On Your Graves,” and pretty much kept the original Vian translation that he did with an American army buddy at the time.

So that was my first title, the second title I needed was “L’écume des jours.” This is considered to be Vian’s masterpiece.  I had two choices, either re-publish the American or British translation that came out in the 60s, or start from scratch.  I met Brian Harper through the Internet world, and he already wrote a translation of the Vian classic, and sent it off to the Vian estate for approval.  They loved it, and I even liked it more than the other translations.  Also with my edition of the novel, there are end-notes describing the real occurrences that took place during the writing of this novel, as well as some of the more obscure references that are throughout the book.   You could read the original text with no problem, but if you want, you can also read the end notes at a separate time or at the same time while reading the novel.  You choose!   The Brian Harper edition is called “Foam of the Daze.”  

The other editions that came out in the 60s were called “Mood Indigo” in America and the British edition is called “Froth on a Daydream.” Of the two, “Froth is a better title, the American edition had trouble with the poetic title of “L’´ecume des jours, and just used the title of a Duke Ellington song, that is not even mentioned in the novel!  Nevertheless, “Foam of the Daze” is another poetic interpretation of the title, and I am happy with it.  Harper kept the poetry images of the novel intact, and I believe it's a beautiful read.

Over the years, I pretty much published every major Vian title, including his Vernon Sullivan titles “I Spit On Your Graves, ” “To Hell With The Ugly, ” and “The Dead Have No Skin.” All great by the way!

Along with Vian, I also published Serge Gainsbourg.  His short novel “Evguenie Sokolov” and a major biography by Gilles Verlant “Gainsbourg.” The connection between Vian and Gainsbourg is a very strong one.  Vian was one of the first notable figures in France to give Serge attention to his music.   Besides that I also published Guy Debord’s “Considerations on the Assassination of Gérard Lebvoici.” It’s a book about Debord’s friend and publisher, Lebvoici, who was assassinated under mysterious circumstances.  Just right before his death, Lebovici published the French gangster Jacques Mesrine’s “The Death Instinct.” That will be my next and last French literary work I will publish.  “The Death Instinct will come out winter 2014/2015.

Recently I published “In The Words of Sparks… Selected Lyrics, which is edited by Ron and Russell Mael of that band, with an introduction by Morrissey.  First of all, there is not anything better in life than Sparks.  If you don’t like this band, don’t even take the trouble to talk to me.   Having Morrissey taking part in this book is beyond a feverish dream for me.  I love Morrissey, and I love Sparks.  I also love my Lun*na, and I will be publishing her book “A Ring Around The Collar.” After that I am going to retire from publishing and focus on being an internationally known writer.  If I don’t win the Nobel Prize for literature before I turn 80, I will be deeply disappointed and quite bitter over the experience of being looked over by my peers.  Thank you very much for reading and supporting my passion.