A lovely time dockside yesterday, adorning some of the tiny Les Femmes booklets for a few favorite Dionysian correspondants—are these not precious?
A good image to use for a little note to those who write—when you do, if you could list what you already have from us, it would be très utile. That way, we won’t send you doubles et can make sure you receive exactly what you desire. If you have older issues, let us know which you’re requesting or still missing; if you have some of our broadsheets or zines, make a note of it. It’s become a bit challenging to keep track of who has what, and we’d much rather spend the time making beautiful things for ourselves and you.
Merci!
Yours,
FV
Bacchus Editions Private Press— Notre Petite Maison d’Édition
With this new incarnation, Distinctively Dionysian now lives under Bacchus Editions, our revived private press — now outfitted with a growing collection of vintage print and binding machines. Bacchus is our little atelier, a press of our own because we prefer to shape every part of what we create — following our own desires, learning as we go, and finding joy in every step, from first word to final page.
If you’re new here, Bacchus Editions is for the extravagants — writers, artists, and thinkers whose work doesn’t fit anywhere polite… the ones who live and create too richly, too fiercely. It’s also a home for the annulés — the so-called “canceled,” whose only crime was refusing to kneel.
Bacchus Editions is also getting its own maison en ligne, a proper digital home. Here, you will be able to find Distinctively Dionysian…
The site (launching mid-spring) will make it easier to browse everything we create — translations, zines, journals that don’t always make it onto this page, plus a little area for updates on translations, and, bien sûr, a shop for things. Think of it as part library, part print archive, part curiosity cabinet — for those who like to linger, to dig, to discover.
One of the first treasures you’ll find there is my most ambitious translation project yet — enormous tomes of Alfredo M. Bonanno’s works, including several never before published. Feral, insurrectionary, sans compromis — pure Bonanno. I can’t wait to finally share it with you.
There’s much more to come, but for now, I have bindings to sew and packages to send off to my Dionysians. À bientôt.
Yours,
Egoistically, of course.
XO ~ Fíona
Bonjour, amis. Apologies for the lack of updates in this space—je suis occupée! Been translating like crazy, finishing my book, getting our private press off the ground (new presses et vintage machines, yay!), and building a site, alongside all the printing and mailing. (Whew! I’m not sure what happened, but we’ve gained a wave of lovely new correspondents and subscribers. For longer letter senders, do be patient with our replies. I like to write with intent for one, but also, the mail is sent up from the States, so it can take a minute. Merci.) Onward..
But today, enfin, an update—the next issue is ready, and she is a beauty!
With the coming season, a special edition—Egoïste Exégèse—a seductive shift, a nouvelle métamorphose, better capturing my desires. If past issues were a bacchanal of inspirations—forty pages bursting like a collage of whatever delighted my mind that season (printed by ma fille et co.)—this new issue, fully in my hands, is one step closer to you, brushing against the skin. The issues are now more like a distillation—a deliberate concentration of thought and play, where the writing leans more intimate, insolent, and personal. It is a more potent invitation, provocation, un joli défi to write deeper, strip away the unnecessary, and let each word bruise or bloom as it pleases.
Journal as Object — A New Sensuality of Paper & Print
This issue (re)introduces Distinctively Dionysian in its most ravishing form—un objet d’art that better reflects my time with it and the heightened spirit within the pages. I am wildly enamored with the paper et I cannot wait for subscribers to feel it. Printed on handmade, cold-pressed cotton—each page touched with that irregular elegance only genuine handcraft offers—the kind of thing your hands wish to linger on. It’s a bit of a plaything, too—I’ve been experimenting with algae inks; soft on the eye but bold enough, absorbing into the paper’s texture like whispered secrets. This issue flirts between methods: linocuts, block prints, offset, digital, and risograph… all layered together. Every technique chosen for the sheer plaisir of texture and possibility.
It is undoubtedly a more genuine reflection of moi and the spirit of Dionysian—not only in look and feel but in the way it was made: playful, intentional, willing to trespass between mediums for the sake of beauty. J’adore the harmony between form and content—an elevation worthy of the writing.
In the issues following Egoïste Exégèse—Mi-Printemps—we will feature new writings from those I’ve found along the way, those I admire or am drawn to, whether for their art, books, thinking, or their singular way of life.
As for practicalities—Dionysian now carries a price of $18, owing to the handmade paper, the inks, the time spent courting the press machines, and to balance the gracious (and ever-growing!) habit of trades and gifts offered in the spirit of mutualité (which we love!). However, mes plus charmants correspondants—the lovelies who have been with Dionysian since its earliest fêtes—you remain at $15, bien sûr. A small merci for your dance alongside… <3
But enough of that—what matters most is this: a new issue is here, and the pages await you, freshly pressed, ready to be devoured.
Oh!
Also picture, new mini ‘pocketbook’ treasures. These little soft treats accompany an upcoming book by yours truly, titled Les Femmes Anarchistes Individualistes : De La Belle Époque À Nos Jours (The Individualist Anarchist Women, from the Belle Époque to Today). These luxe little saddle-stitched booklets contain micro-biographies of some of the women from the book. (Each woman has her own—like the one pictured here, for example, Jane Libertad.) Currently sending them as gifts to Dionysians we correspond with et or do projects with but they will also be on the Bacchus site.
In other news…
Distinctively Dionysian is now wholly under Bacchus Editions. I’ll make a proper update on that soon.
More updates later ok? I hope this greets in good health et passionate play.
XO
Yours, FV
The short, cruel words of the telegram filled my heart with sadness. Oh, Mata Hari. Oh, Mata Hari, surely you never imagined such a sad end. Surely, in spite of your skepticism, you still did not believe that the men who were crazy for you could be so vile.
Nobody tried to defend you, nobody wanted to risk a thing for you. These gentlemen who fell at your feet like rotten fruit, who revealed all the most secret documents to your eyes, who did not hesitate to ruin family and fatherland in order to possess you, these gentle men were afraid to try anything for you. And so they let a squad of common soldiers kill you like a rabid dog in a damp courtyard, by discharging red-hot lead into your divine body. And probably some of those high-toned Catos will publicly rejoice in the severity of the judges. Phew! A spy! Cowards!
Those who wouldn’t hesitate to make thousands of workers die of hunger, solely for profit; those who would risk the prosperity of entire provinces at the stock exchange simply to sate themselves with gold; those who would betray that which they call fatherland in an instant for their selfish ends; they feigned a feeling of horror when the preliminary investigation revealed what they already knew.
Phew! A spy! In order to possess you, they revealed the most delicate secrets of the nation; in order to possess you, they delivered the plans for the strongest fortress to you; in order to possess you, they gave you the lives of thousands of men as a gift. Now that you are dead, they trample you with disgust, insult you and wash their hands in your blood. Mata Hari has been executed! Poor Mata!
Who would have thought that you would meet such a savage end? When the luxurious automobile took you through the magnificent boulevards of Paris, charming in your costly gowns, who would have ever thought that a lowly prison cell would one day be your home. When your nude, throbbing, willowy body, the body of an enchantress, roused the whispers and lust of a thousand gentlemen in swallow-tailed coats and monocles in the golden salons of the high aristocracy, who would have thought that you would fall in the mud of a filthy fortress courtyard, your body riddled with bullets on a sad, rainy day?
Poor Mata!
I don’t pity the soldiers who die because of you. The brute mass that lets itself be dragged to the slaughterhouse without any impulse toward rebellion, that lets itself be butchered in such a way with no reason, that abandons everything that is most dear at mere orders from a leaflet affixed to a wall, is too vile: it deserves death, it deserves the executioner’s blade. But you, poor Mata, you were beautiful! And supreme beauty is beyond good and evil. Dying because of a marvelous woman is always the best death.
Rest in peace, poor Mata! Someone who never knew you has sworn to avenge you. And the memory of your blood-drenched eyes will drive his dagger; the vision of your mutilated body will render his bomb more effective.
~ Bruno Filippi, The Rebel’s Dark Laughter, 1916-18
