The Blandsters Part I: The Acolytes

At the bottom of the lit-establishment pyramid of elitism are the wide-eyed MFA true believers in the System. One can tell them the odds of making it as a writer the accepted way (unless you're a billionaire's son or friend of same) are 400,000 to 1. They don't care; they're going to try anyway. Their "trying" results in generic art and in stampedes of competitive fawning. These are the people who subscribe to Poets and Writers and the like. Some work as proofreaders in Chicago. Others live in Iowa. Many have become lit-bloggers.

I refer to these people as demi-puppets. (They're not substantial enough to count as puppets. More like puppets-in-waiting.)

The ULA exists to promote our own zeens and books-- our writing and that of other underground writers. For example, I'll soon be discussing Philly novelist Larry Richette's latest work on this blog. Then Tim Hall's novel Half-Empty, as prelude to the next release from Tim's Undie Press. And so on.

By contrast, what are the lit-blogger marionette-wannabes hyping on their web sites with their current "novel tournament"? Their own books? Of course not! They're giving attention to really bad establishment novels which have already received too much press!-- Lily Tuck's patrician Paraguay book, or Philip Roth's "Plot Against American History." (Watch for my next blog post about that!)

The conglomerates have billions of dollars to spend on their books, and on promoting them-- and here come the abjectly stupid demi-puppet lit-bloggers to do their work for them!

One could investigate whether the lit-bloggers are being paid for their work-- but these fools are too feckless for that. It's all of a piece with their groveling. Their brains have been captured by the establishment. They've turned themselves into intellectual slaves, mindlessly pulling Pharoah's pyramid blocks. The only explanation for their behavior is that they have no talent and know it. They therefore fully qualify as. . . .

(Sing "The Blandsters" theme song.)