The matter was proved fairly conclusively in January 2004 when the prestigious University of Pennsylvania held a poetry slam at their Kelly Writers House. First Prize was cash money and promised publication in one of their literary periodicals. They opened the competition not just to their own pedigreed students, but to members of the general Philly poetic community.
Present to compete were the well-screened well-trained "Best of the Best" which Ivy League students are supposed to represent. After all, they pay gigantic sums of money ($41,000 a year) to achieve this standing.
However, the event was won by ULAer Frank Walsh, who read his masterpiece "Reagan's Brain" and wowed the audience. Coming in close second was energetic Philly street poet (previously renowned in L.A.) Michael Grover. U of Penn's best finished far behind. From their perspective, the contest was embarrassing.
Would it surprise you to know that Penn reneged on its promise to publish Frank's work? No explanation given. (Though they did at least come through with the cash, which they have plenty of.)
Academy poets are unthinking zombies clinging to outmoded rules and training. They see a poem as a dead object to be dissected by morticians in a laboratory. Underground poets, by contrast, breathe life into their works through the synergy created by public performance. Poetry becomes a vibrant, unpredictable EVENT, as it was at the beginning of its history; compelling words combined with the speaker's passion and energy. (This is the secret to the success of Shakespeare-- whose words, as I've stressed again and again on this blog, were meant to be performed; to be heard, witnessed, viscerally felt.)
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53 comments:
The Streets v. The Tower
____________________________
Another brag about how the masses embrace recalcitrants, reject academe's weaknesses.
Personally, I've never understood which of the 'groups' I should align myself with, considering the great indifference of both towards anybody but their own insiders and acolytes. The ol' boy network working in both camps. Both 'sides' blind in one eye.
And other than some emotional release in complaining, what is the point of this continuing tirade? Is there a plan to push this underground to the respectability of a 'movement'? Is there a master plan on how to change the quo? Cause reading one bitch after another gets old pretty fast. 'Specially when the rants are powerless to cause change.
More than the rants, I think, I'd like to see some suggestions on how to expand the ranks of the underground. A blueprint for obtaining even more recalcitrant recognition for even more recalcitrants. Has anyone in the underground published a 'project plan' for unseating the favored from their positions? A formal plan for expanding the reach of the underground? That would be of more interest to me than restatement after restatement of the 'strengths' of the forgotten and the 'weaknesses' of the respectable.
-blue
We HAVE a plan for taking over literature. We're not about, though, to post our entire strategy here for all to view!
Suffice it to say we're proceeding according to plan. The first step is getting a position on the chessboard, which we've managed to do thanks to the attention we've received. Options have opened-- the trick will be to take advantage of them.
We're steadily expanding our membership and our reach. We're careful not to grow too fast.
We're not a clique-- we're open to all underground writers who agree with our program and can get involved.
There's a waiting list of writers to get on board. Managing any organization takes a lot of energy and time, however. . . .
Sorry that you get tired of our lobbying for our cause. But winning the debate over literature is a necessary step toward our goal. One has to hit the world with our ideas again and again-- to prove our point over and over. Did movements in other realms ever stop lobbying? The Marxists? Christians?
The question for you is not to expect me to stand on my head to entertain you, but to make a decision as to which side represents the future of literature. All you're doing now is fence-sitting. Choose a side and get involved! That's half the fun.
-King.
Karl W can't get a job--but he's going to take over literature. Classic. But Beau Blue, don't you love his ability to evade any criticism by one of three transparent arguments? I'd list them here, but it's beside the point, isn't it? The ULA: proof positive that habitually avoiding the truth actually makes people stupider.
Study history sometime, Anonymous, and you'll see that the most important factor in changing the world is simply believing in what you're doing! As we do. 99% of the people in any field at any time are merely marking time, unsure about what to believe-- like Montezuma when confronting Cortez and his small band, looking for signs to tell him what to do.
All I said in my comment was the truth. The ULA continues to add members and expand the number of people who know about us. As long as this continues we have no reason for concern. Just in the last few months we've added some very dynamic literary activists-- Tim Hall, Patrick Simonelli, and Noah Cicero, among others. (Maybe you noticed our www.literaryrevolution.com site's recent improvement.)
Don't I have reason to be confident about the ULA's direction? Why be glum, when our position on the game board continually strengthens?
(p.s. I should be starting two jobs soon-- when I, er, get back from Zytron that is! Not that it matters. The founder of the biggest movement of them all was usually homeless, we kind of forget. They faced their number of setbacks. . . .)
-KW
Dude, you can totally be confident. You've signed up new people? Awesome. Good on ya. You're on the chess board? Fuckin A. More and more people know about the ULA? As Mr. Burns would say, "Excellent."
The problems, as I see them as an amused/interested though dispassionate observer (who will remain anonymous because I have no desire to start getting ULA mail):
The dynamic new writers who are ULAers up in USA literature's grill are, frankly, terrible writers. I've googled some of their work. Noah Cicero has anti-talent. Tim Hall is a crank bitterly old before his time; his work has as much surprise in it as empty box. The other dude I don't know, but, given what's up at any given moment on the ULA site, I'm not hopeful. If these are the saviors of American lit, let the apocalypse begin.
On the chess board: What chess board? Art is not a political arena. It's not about maneuvering. It's not about careers, or "plans." It's funny: You guys are bigger glory hounds and more shameless careerists than the pretty boys you hate. Your entire understanding of how art and culture and literature works is completely wrong. Again, I'd tell you how and why, but that would require my belief that anything I'm typing right now will be considered and thought about by you.
More people know about the ULA: My friend, I live in a media center in the industrial Midwest. I know people who know you. I know lots of indie writers and do-it-yrselfers. And you're right: people do know about the ULA, more than ever. Unfortunately, when the ULA comes up there is usually copious eye-rolling and laughter. That you believe in what you're doing is beside the point. People who believe in UFOs believe in what they're doing. The sad fact is that talent is important. Ability is important. Your hero Shakespeare would understand that. He'd also look at the work the ULA is doing and throw up his mutton at the vindictiveness, boringness, hysteria, and good old shitty predictability of all ULA work.
In a word: You guys need to change drastically, or stop. Ten years from now, you're all going to be telling us how victory is nigh. It will be pathetic then. It's pathetic now.
I'm sorry.
Hey Mister Anonymouse-
"People who believe in UFOs believe in what they're doing."
Is this supposed to mean that UFOs aren't real?!! You really are naive, demi puppet!
You speak of literature as if there are objective standards, as if "talent" is something that you're born with, or something that can be developed through hard work and a dedication to craft. Well, as my briskly selling 'zine, "Rambings of a Half-wit Pseudo Marxist" has demonstrated, the REAL REVOLUTIONARY LIT of today is about the self-pitying narcissism of underachievers, the paralyzing whining of the less fortunate, it's about the timeless "Town vs. Gown" narrative so profoundly explored in Good Will Hunting, John Hughes movies, or "The OC". Are you trying weally, weally hard? Do you have a hard luck story? Then you are a genius, or at the very least, a "dynamic" writer.
So take that demi puppet--check, and mate!
Noah Cicero,
You can lead a moron to Sartre, but you can't make him think.
You don't respond to argument. You respond with completely unfounded accusations of classism and snobbery when, in fact, none exist. I didn't even go to college. I don't give a shit where other people went. I accept that most people, and most writers, are basically doing the best they can given their circumstances, and I bestow upon those who deserve it the benefit of the doubt. Your writing stinks not because you're poor or didn't go to college or whatever. Your writing stinks because you have no appreciation of the mystery of human beings or their lives. You hate too much with too little contemplation. You write out of unhealthy impulses: revenge, anger, scorn, recrimination, class hostility. If you think Dave Eggers (whose work I'm not that crazy about) has had an easy life, and is an upper-class twit, that's stupid. His parents died criminally early, his sister killed herself: Do you want to switch places with him? Are your parents still with us? Ever lose a sibling you loved? Just because someone grew up in a nice house does not mean they are inhuman, or unfamiliar with pain. As REM said, "Everyone hurts." Bukowski got along quite well financially, in the end. Should he be rejected because of that? You can't apply unfair standards of morality only to the people you don't admire. That's what's wrong with you. Yours is a selective morality. An artist has to be better than that.
And what's all this about your little science project that proves certain writers would sell better than others? I just read it. As a scientific set-piece, it leaves much to be desired. I also unfortunately don't trust you not to cook the books. But anyway; Who gives a shit what sells? Melville sold terribly for decades. Popularity is not what art is about. Art is about exploration, and honesty, and openness. A good writer doesn't give a shit about what her books sell. A good writer cares about sales only insofar as it allows her to keep working.
What we have here is the classic paradox: You preaching against conformity, classism, snobbery, and cruelty in terms that are conformist, classist, snobby, and cruel. I'm sorry you're plagued with feelings of low self-esteem. That's not anyone's problem, or fault, but your own. If you could get beyond that, and write about what mattered to you in a way that was honest, self-critical, skeptical, and humane, you might actually write something good. However, I sincerely doubt that. I await your inevitable raillery...
Hey, Noah Cicero!
We'd love to have lame bourgeois sex with you, even though you don't like our books. Then maybe we can ride horses together. Think about it?
xoxo,
Heidi & Vendela
Oh, there’s a SECRET plan to take over literature. Well, then by all means…
Marxists and Christians didn’t pursue their goals by whining about the fact that no one paid any attention to them and by insulting their ‘enemies’ and their enemies’ families. They did it by embodying their values in resonant works of literature around which complex constituencies could organize themselves. Stalinists and inquisitors did it the other way, and betrayed the revolutionary intent of their movements. Thugs are always reactionaries, and anti-intellectuals are always thugs, which might be good things to keep in mind in developing the secret plan.
It’s easy to enlist Shakespeare in your cause, but if the ULA had been around in the sixteenth century, you know you’d have been slagging him as a demi-puppet of James I (he even called himself one of the ‘King’s Men’! Might as well have said ‘a McSweeney person’), saying that he and his insular little club of Burbage and Kempe at The Globe were meaningless elitists only interested in furthering the careers of their friends. And who but bourgeois robots cares about stories involving kings and princes, anyway? What relevance does a play about Cleopatra have for London’s working poor? What a bunch of overeducated sellouts. You probably wouldn’t even have read him or seen his plays because you’d heard he plagiarized Plautus and Ovid and Plutarch. And then he accepted the patronage of the Earl of Southampton even though his dad owned three houses in Stratford. Corrupt asshole.
Less talk, more rock, guys.
Bam-Bam
Noah,
I'm sorry. I reread your experient's results, and you're right: Exotic dancers should be in charge of determining the course of literature. Thank you, you fucking visionary young man.
Dear Bam Bam (if that is your real name)-
Nice try distracting everyone with "logic" and historical "facts." (Like Shakespeare wasn't a made-up guy anyway.) If you want REAL FACTS, I invite you to look at the scientific study of literature at the Monday report. RAD THAT and then dispute it Demi-puppet motherfuckeringererer. The ULA does ROCK and the ghost of Hunter S Thompson--who wrote for glossy magazines but who cares because he was a "rebel"--told me so too. So take your smart little history lesson back to the tea party where you have bourgeoise sex with McSweeney's chicks, and prepare yourself for the LITERARY REVOLUTION, because when it happens, smarty pants, big-word-using jerks like yourselves are going to be the first ones up against the wall.
After reading over the comments of Bam-Bam, I have to conclude that it's now King Wenclas: 547, Demipuppets: 1. However, it is such a crushing demolishment, I think it's time to conclude that I've only been winning my arguments because my opponents get bored and stop posting. I hereby announce to all ULA members that I am staying on planet Zytron, or whatever the fuck it's called. I can win almost all of my arguments here, largely because I'm the only person on the planet. I'm now going to find all the upperclass rocks on planet Zytron's surface, and smash them. Our revolution on Earth is over. We are hopeless buttwads.
--KW
"The war the ULA is waging has so little to do with writing it fucking sickens me. "
You and me both, Noah.
Bam-Bam
OK Noah, now we're getting somewhere. You admit that the class gripes don't have anything to do with writing and that you don't understand most of what your opponents here are saying. Let me try to explain some of it to you:
I'm really sorry that you've had a tough time, and even sorrier that the tough time you've had has made you see the world in the crude terms of class. It's ok, a lot of people do--rich and poor--but I think your opponents here would argue that an artist needs to see beyond these poor dichotomies, especially in a country like this one where, in absolute terms, everyone is pretty fuckin' well off.
My life wasn't easy, and I've worked some pretty shitty, pretty humiliating jobs--digging ditches for rich people, taking care of tennis courts for rich people, fetching things for rich people--but I was always aware that it was within my power to make my life better, that I had my health, that I could create opportunities for myself.
Most of all I knew there were always others out there--inside our country and even more outside of it--who had it much harder and were handling their troubles with much more courage and grace, and so I would try not to feel sorry for myself and keep going. Anyway, I suspect you--and a lot of people posting on this blog--are better off than a lot of people, too, which makes the maudlin, self-pitying crap a little hard to take, especially when so much of it is focused on petty envy.
And yes, human beings (read lower classes) can direct hostility toward other human beings (read upper classes)--they might have better excuses for it, but an artist knows that the rich can sometimes be innocent and the poor can sometimes be guilty.
Last thing: you don't have to like the writing of Eggers or the Foer or the like, but because you don't like it doesn't mean that their writing is inauthentic. If you made "class" a basis for good literature (and that would exclude Eggers from your crude dichotomy, I think) then you'd be excluding a lot of fine literature, inclduing, as Bam Bam pointed out, Shakespeare, and also including some of the people *you* cited as secret sharers of all the "mysteries of human nature" (a statement, I'm sure, every one of them would disavow). Anyway, Eggers doesn't whine about how his mom didn't love him; he mourned her death--and his father's death-- both of which happened at a cruelly young age, and if that isn't enough suffering for someone's life to be authentic in your eyes, than you have bigger problems than being a ideologue. Of course, Eggers isn;t the one whining--he's writing books that you are free to dislike, but a lot of people do; and, instead of whining, he's putting a significant amount of money that he makes into reading centers that tutor underprivileged kids. What a jerk.
Dave Eggers is doing more for underprileged children, than the ULA, which is essentially narcissistic. This unmitigated hatred of success does not play well in America. The Jews, Blacks and Rich are not responsible for all of America ills. As a novelist, I could not care less about what the niche publiactions are doing. It's amazing ULA wastes its energy attacking what it wants to be. The Literary scene is not monolithic. I actually had a decent view of ULA, before I actually watched them closely, and my opinion keeps getting worse. Whining and moaning, which is a trait of the people you attack. They have chick lit, you the feeling that the world owes you something lit.
--The Unabashed Truth
Also, I agree with the poster who posted above me. Although I admit I am no fan of Eggers writing, but have a decent opinion of the man.
--The Unabashed Truth
This comes from a new poster but avid reader of this blog.
Noah Cicero, I used to think you were an unreflective, petty, and overall pretty stupid guy who made King Wenclas look like John Locke. After that last post, I stand corrected.
You are a lousy, evil motherfucker who deserves to be punched in nuts.
Better yet, here's an idea. Find a bottle of Seconal. Take twelve tablets. Chase with a bottle of vodka. Repeat as necessary until the world is rid of you and your brainless assaholism.
Holy shit!
King, is this what your revolution and "cultural watchdog" group has come to? One of your members wishing death on the family of a writer?
The Unabashed Truth said it well: The more closely you guys are looked at, the more disgusting you appear.
I keep hearing exclamations pro Eggers; but where are they to be found? On the ULA blog!
Shouldn't you guys be like... on the FOE (Friends of Eggers) site?
"He is not the only person to ever lose his parents, and ... he is not the only person ever to lose his parents and inherit a youngster. But he would like to point out that he is currently the only such person with a book contract." --- Salon.com
I haven't been the first person to think Dave Eggers is amused by his own barren amusement. But I would like to point out that I am currently the only such person who will not criticize; as it's made nothing but mere animals out of the "Eggers fans."
Someone stated that Eggers does more for children than the ULA. Well, why shouldn't he? Rich people have the strongest claim to pity. Eggers' education tends to render him vain and helpless. He's operating on consumer dollars, the least he could do is give a little something to a community.
Monsieur Cicero,
I think the earlier poster meant you were morally disgusting, not literally disgusting.
I think you're a sick asshole too. You want to come bash in my face and fuck my husband and beat up my grandfather? My. How about I just give you the address of the apartment building I live in, and you can randomly assault everyone who lives here?
Let's see. My working definition of gutless fucking pussy: A guy who can dish out tons of scorn, but can't take it. Wait. Is that a gutless fucking pussy, or a pathetic frustrated bully? Maybe it's just the definition of "Noah Cicero."
The ULA: America's premier literary watchdog group that threatens to rape the people who make fun of it.
Fighting imaginary wars
__________________________
Was there ever a time when the ones at the top weren't viewed by the forgotten as lifeless? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?
First an underground, then a movement, then a rung or two of respectability and lastly a footnote in someone who is respectable's history. Respectable (read 'weak' if you want) writers? Who wants to be one of those? All it takes to be a pro is to get someone to pay you to do it. Good or bad, if they pay? Guess what?
Condemning a 'group' in it's own time is a worthless exercise. In fact, it may be counterproductive. Brings them more attention from your ranks than they deserve. Ignore them in public except to raid them for converts. It's what they do to the rabble (read 'strong' if you want) writers, er rousers.
Wouldn't increased promotion of your ranks work better than dissing theirs to further your cause?
-blue
"Brings them more attention from your ranks than they deserve."
I thought this wasn't about class?
the ranks of the 'rabble writers' v. the ranks of the 'establishment writers'.
Where this began, I think. Before Noah lost his head and blew it up into gigantic political struggles best left to people a little more stable than a pack of egoists & parasites & foolish old men with what are, at best, questionable pencils.
-blue
Blue--
I can see where you're coming from (I think) but I have to disagree with something you said. "First an underground, then a movement, then a rung or two of respectability and lastly a footnote in someone who is respectable's history."
If it weren't for undergrounds and/or movements, women wouldn't have publication opportunities.
Bronte, Virginia Woolfe, etc.. are hardly a mere footnote in anyone's book.
My point is this: Conformity is a dangerous thing. The poet Juan Ramon Jimenez said "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." The underground is an entire sub-culture. It's perfectly normal to criticize literature as it is. However, actions speak louder than words. The ULA acts.
Eggers' mini-neverlands are tax write-offs. He ends up taking home more money per year with them than without them.
Marissa:Virginia Woolfe, etc.. are hardly a mere footnote in anyone's book.
They did sit around complaining about some fanciful force of oppression. She and Leonard had there own press, all these women were from upper middle class to rich backgrounds. And what is the difference between bloomsbury and the cliques of today?
--The unabashed truth
Dear Noah,
Just to be clear (again), what makes you digusting (again), is not that you have disgusting things or that you never won an award, or that you live among mullets. You're disgusting because when you become angry with people, you wish their families dead, and you threaten to rape them. You are disgusting because you're a moral monster.
Is this why King Wenclas doesn't want to reveal the ULA's Secret Plan to take over literature? Is the Plan the widespread rape of demi-puppets? Maybe this blog should be renamed "Threatening to Rape the Demi-Puppets."
The fear you say you smell isn't fear. It's the Hamburger Helper.
Anon:
Maybe this blog should be renamed "Threatening to Rape the Demi-Puppets."
LMAO
-The Unabashed Truth
Thanks for the clarification, Noah.
I move that we rename the blog: "Fucking Their Husbands after We Smash in the Faces of the Demi-Puppets."
PS It's "moot," not "mute," you fucking twit.
People who correct blog spelling are just a little bit twitty...
Did the keyword "poet" bring these new lightweights to the neighborhood?
Whiny? Karl's post was an on-target skewering of MFA poets.
The ULA is a BIG and diverse scene. It's rich from top to bottom. A yeasty foment! Ripe compost! If you give it a quick blogtron glance and dismiss it---your loss.
Noah is our resident pitbull. You should meet our writer, Wild Bill---he RAISES pitbulls.
He's an ex-boxer, -bouncer, -art model, proudly unemployable, SSI-recipient.
If you can find better sentences in today's writing than he writes (as per our Essays section of our ULA website), feel free to post one. (Try: http://timeliketoons.tripod.com/ULA/essays/essays.bill.htm)
Compare and contrast: the unbudgeted xeroxes from trailer parks versus the output of the billion$ MFA-Lit industry.
Sure MFAers get occasional hits. Nothing really of note, though. Nothing enduring in recent decades. This is worth agitating! It's not just coincidence. The system is BROKE. We're the only ones calling it on it. And we're the only ones spotlighting a system that works better: the zeen world.
Call it whiny complaining if you like but you look so lightweight in so doing.
The underground in contrast to NYC is full of easy cherrypicking for those who take the time to dig a little. It's totally under-used, even from a pure biz view. And it's the only indy scene left with such a distinction! We explain why.
Our little no-budget farflung group can come up with a hefty handful of legendary writers, (including those who've influenced generations already, without notice, credit or viable publication) just by reaching into today's zeen scene. While MFAers come up year after year with maybe a couple in a thousand fully-funded, totally-supported efforts. You're darn right we make noise about this!
And we're getting traction! We're moving steadily forward!
For instance... Next month I'm launching the ULA PRESS to the bookstore trade with the first-ever Catazeen---a distinctive combo of catalog and zeen, offering ULA projects of all kinds along with little-known but lively items from kindred publishers. It's a far cry from magalogs, ho ho. It's a revival of the usually-boring book catalog. And we'll follow up on it, too. This horse is bustin' out!
These latest snipes from the peanut gallery are just typical brainless blog reflex. See any blog exchange to compare. How about this one? It's about the hilariously pitiful fad of guys wearing striped shirts--- http://www.thephatphree.com/features.asp?StoryID=239&SectionID=11. Boy, some of them sure don't like being exposed, do they? The "get a life" retorts from striped-shirt wearers sure must sting the original essayist!
The Mice here say we're just complainers. Huh? That's who gets on the cover of the NYT? And in their list of coolest lit-sites? It's "just complaining" to be the first to dare speak up and bust millionaire writers for accepting NEA grants? The Wash. Post didn't think so. Neither did Jon Saf-Foer who turned down his cash last year out of FEAR of us. Who's afraid of us whiners? ---The entire Lit establishment. You don't think they're watching their P's&Q's more lately?
Such lightweights.
PS: That first post from Ye Olde Blue about not ever knowing which side he should take. Ha! What a wimp! Has he ever DONE anything? Worked on a big lit project yet? Has he published and sold, and heard back from readers, noting what works and what doesn't? Has he worked out beyond anyone else and discovered how THAT can work and WHO helps with such efforts? THAT'LL TELL 'IM WHAT SIDE! Does he have experience with our openness and who we've helped and welcomed and why? I'll answer: NO! Karl had it right: fencesitting do-nothing. Yeah, all sides are the same. Both favor their own insiders, both blind in one eye. And, yeah, we're ALL about sides. We have NO scope to go with our laserbeam focus. Diversity SCARES us. The underground isn't bustin' at the seams. And the MFA doesn't have a dull, repetitive program. We heard that hoary, weak "all the same" remark from the naysayers the first day we started---a hundred national media explosions and literary projects ago. Of course, it's been a worthless old canard since the beginning of humanity. Yeah, camp that couch, man! But I won't try to win you over to our side. If you were an MFA-winner, you'd be busy working for The Man. You'd only post after giving the secret handshake. If you were zeenster, you'd already know what side. So you're just another do-nothing. Can the ULA use such people? No. They've excluded themselves from the real race long ago. Not that I deny herculean transformations. Show me, is all I've ever asked.
Well put brother! The demi puppets and their MFA (ie, Mother Fuckering Assholes) ilk talk a big game, and maybe they spell things right and use words correctly, but are they willing to go the distance for literature? Noah Cicero is--he's willing to bash in faces and fuck husbands and wives for the REVOLUTION. I'll be right behind you Noah--when you're ripping the arms off of little demi-puppet children, I'll be TOSSING YOUR SALAD. When you're eating the eyeballs of demi-puppet grandfathers, I'll be licking Hamburger Helper off your body. OR whatever else you'd like me to do. That's what good writing, and social change is all about!
You demi puppets and your hyper-educated media cronies. Don't you know you're already losing? 6 out of 7 of my closest friends agree that the writings of Bukowski are better than Tom Beller's. Do you even know who Bukowski is?! You do? Oh, you read him in college . . . at your fancy Ivy League school? . . . You studied him at an MFA program? . . . You don't care for Beller either? Well fuck you, where does your grandfather live!?
You all make me sick. Look at the NY Times book review of last October. We were voted as one of the hundreds of hot literary sites out there. The New York Times!!! You and your sick demi puppet big media snobs--the New York Times gave us their seal of approval!! Who do you think makes those decisions?
Bam Bam, you clearly don't know what the hell you are talking about. Elizabethan England was a worker's utopia. It's not like there was civil war going on in England, sectarian strife, a rigid class system. Besides, kings and queen at that time were good rich people, and it has only been in the past 35 years that rich people became bad and dedicated themselves to bad literature.
It looks like we've struck a nerve. Good! For maybe the first time in their lives, the demi-puppets are forced to think, even if only to defend their insular views about literature. (Now, if they had the courage to put their names behind their statements. . . .)
So, because we want to alter the inequities of this society, beginning with the culture, we're labelled as "whiners." Oh, the Christians never were, huh? They were only put on crosses, their leader (Peter) crucified at the heart of Empire upside down for the affluent Romans to laugh about.
By contrast, I'd say we're facing not much opposition at all.
Most of these anonymous commentators, I'd wager, are not even benefitting from the lit-system they so heartily support. They're likely working shitty jobs in the dungeons of publishing while the mansion-dwelling Rick Moodys of the realm win accolades and sit on grants panels. It's why put the "demi" in front of the puppet designation. They're not successful even as puppets.
Kind of like old movies like "Gone with the Wind" where the house servants are still eagerly defending the masters while their hierarchical world begins tumbling around them. One can only laugh at them.
(Oh my, Noah is a radical who actually gets carried away and has some passion about his views. can't have that! Heaven forbid! Tuesday I (or a holographic representation of me) appeared at a sparsely attended open mic. Some fatass bourgeois dude who couldn't even get out of his chair and stand up to read he was so gluttonous fat lectured, before reading some tame verse, about the difference between poetry as "philosophy" and demagogues and radicals. WHen my turn came I looked at him and told him that I was a demagogue and a radical-- then proceeded to be five times louder and more passionate then anyone in the place. THAT'S what literature should be about-- not a collection of ticket punchers lamely going along to get along and not changing or even trying to change a thing.)
p.s. The real story, which I looked into, is that Eggers drove his sister to suicide, by his endeavors to squelch revelation of the lies he told in his memoir. THAT is the inconvenient truth.
Fence-sitting-do-nothing
______________________________
I wander around the net reading poetry, criticism and observations on poetry. I stumble onto the IBPC, the ULA, and several other orgs unsatisfied with the place they've found themselves in today's internet world of poetry. I step forward to make a comment and ask a couple questions. Which no one has answered yet, BTW, with anything approaching a reasonable viewpoint.
Because I dare to ask questions of strangers in their own home, I'm not ignored. If I hadn't stumbled in here tho', I'd just be one of the great unwashed, er fence-sitters, the ULA, the IBPC and the 'establishment' ignores consistently. So I still stand saying to all of you, "why the hell should I care?"
And why should it matter who I am or what I've published? You guys don't care for anyone but your acolytes and all of you are as xenophobic in your houses as your 'enemies' are in their's. I'm a lightweight. A lightweight who responds better to 'promotion of quality' than to 'denigration of enemies' or 'insults to strangers'. That too civil an approach for you, Jeff? I'm sorry.
I'll wander off now. I'm obviously not 'convert' material, right? 'Cause, first of all, I can think for myself and second, I'm a lightweight nobody who has never ever participated in a 'publishing project'.
You make a lot of assumptions, Jeff, and then you belittle what you are certain is beneath you. In that respect, how are you even a little bit different than those you rail against? Thanks for the xenophobic demonstration. It was cute. Not what is needed if you'd like more soldiers, but in my wanderings I've noticed that none of the 'groups' are very good at recruiting. Excuse my impudence, please, I'll try not to do it again. Perhaps there's a manual on how I should behave while in your presence? A URL to something other than railing against the fierce collective would be appreciated.
-blue
Brutus:
You demi puppets and your hyper-educated media cronies. Don't you know you're already losing? 6 out of 7 of my closest friends agree that the writings of Bukowski are better than Tom Beller's. Do you even know who Bukowski is?! You do? Oh, you read him in college . . . at your fancy Ivy League school? . . . You studied him at an MFA program? . . . You don't care for Beller either? Well fuck you, where does your grandfather live!?
Really? Wow. I can find a few million who think Ashlee Simpson is more talented than Lena Horne. Paris Hilton is more talented than Katherine Hepburn. Grisham is more talented than Nabokov. It isn't shocking people in your group agree with you.
--The Unabashed truth
Blue, rock on. You said it. King, you're such a fucking hypocrite it's amazing. Demipuppets! I have no idea who the other posters are, but I'm just a guy who's been having a ball watching you and your dickheaded friends have your balls handed to you on a platter for the last 24 hours and YOU'RE EITHER TOO FUCKING STUPID OR TOO DISHONEST TO ADMIT IT. I'm just a guy, and a reader, sitting here in small-town Colorado, don't know anyone in New York City, read quite a bit, like some of it, don't like a lot of it, DON'T REGARD THIS AS A CONSPIRACY, and have now been told, by the champion of the downtrodden, that I'm a loser and bad puppet because I don't agree with your indefensible opinions. I'm--we, I suspect--are just readers, King. Readers who care about literature. You people are so repellent it's no wonder the only writers who want in on your group are a bunch of talentless fuckwits who don't know the difference between "mute" and "moot." I'm done reading this silly blog.
No, if you're a writer still trying to "make it" through acceptable channels you just a hapless stooge.
Mad at us for pointing this out?
can't handle contention or argument?
That's what real literature is about, my friend. But run back to the safety of your cave. No one should ever take a stand on aesthetic questions, or have an opinion, or advocate (gulp!) for change, at least not with passion. Polite little discussions by professors in airless rooms only.
Jesus Christ! You're pathetic! I'm not a fucking writer! I'm a reader. I like to READ. And, as someone who likes to read, can honestly say you and your cronies CANNOT WRITE. You're NOT EXCITING. You're MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING. Different strokes, eh?
Alex
"You write out of unhealthy impulses: revenge, anger, scorn, recrimination, class hostility."
That was a good one!
What a cool list. Obviously, lotsa great art has come from such motives and included them, too. Add the "unhealthy" and "impulses." Oooo-yeah!
Now add whining and complaining and you got DA BLUES in music.
Thanks to the ULA, we got em in writing now, too.
(Jack Saunders, master of blues writing and folk writing, a supposedly non-existent genre, done as world literature.)
HEALTH, ah yes, that's what we're after! We write for our health. That's another good one!
"HEALTH?! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE HEALTH!"
Help me here, people.
Jeff,
I'll help you.
Stop writing.
It's true that we're not for everyone.
If you start with "Why should I care?" you're at the wrong place already. There's a place bland enough out there with your passive profile dialed right in.
The thing is that millions of people DO care and do want writing that pushes them and which they can respond to. They're looking for it. The pressure is building. Lots of people of course don't even know what they're looking for. There's been nothing out there for them for so long. But they're game.
We're finding them, we're giving them what they need and we're attracting the writers who are into pushing them.
And we are indeed repelling the others.
Breath deep the coming storm, for only by knowing it's depths can you survive the wrath brought upon your reality.
Love*Rulz
Bruce Larson*Moore
Of Poetic*Service
http://www.timeless-ink-press.com
http://rainbowbrain.blogspot.com/
An age we thought dead and gone brought back to life for you citizens by the ULA! Literary duels think of Dumas or Pouchkine! How many teams of disinformation agents are attacking us? Is the ULA irrelevant enough to deserve all this attention? Do you argue with crazy people ranting on the subway? You neocons and neoliberals both do agitprop so clumsily. You're all obviously interested parties who've done research and then present yourselves as the voices of spontaneous popular indignation.
Jimmy,
It's Pushkin, numbnuts. It kind of damages ULA credibility when it can't even spell the names of the writers it supposedly loves.
Jamez Joice
Mr. The Hyena,
"You're all obviously interested parties who've done research and then present yourselves as the voices of spontaneous popular indignation."
Hmm. Like, oh geez, I don't know . . . THE ULA?
Noah:
who do not represent the bulk of the American people in their writing.
Boy if you aim the complaints at Hollywood you sound exactly like the American Religious Right.
Damn elitists not representing the bulk of the population in their writing, like shakespere did in England. Or Hemingway, or Nabokov or Fitzgerald. You are simply a commercial fiction writer, allbeit with themes that are overdone senselessly, and still even with the internet not appealing to non-writers. Actually it's a lot easier to pawn dross over on someone who can't recognize great literature. Ever studied those that have a Phd in Literature? rarely are they writers. Just like the Literary critics.
The feeblest argument regularly used against us is that, because we point out the domination of publishing and media by Ivy Leaguers, we somehow want to ban them in toto from literature. As if that were possible! Kind of a false-victim posturing.
Someone says to Kerry and W: "Uh, er, maybe someone else besides Skull and Bones grads should be Presidential candidates sometime."
Kerry and Bush unite together in outrage.
"How dare you!!" they shout. "You DARE to try to shut us grads of Harvard and Yale out of the political process! OUTRAGEOUS! You're clearly just a collection of thugs."
Oooh! It's spelled Pushkin is it now? In what language? A language that has what letters that sound like what? Wouldn't any spelling be an approximation? Jamz Joice,get some feeling in these numb nuts! Lick them a bit! And yes research is being done! Names are being done! Come the revolution we'll know where to find you piggies! Remember this:
Rotting carrion is the hyena's happy meal!
That's right Mr. Anonymouse-
If we want to call him Pooshkien, we can. maybee n ur fancie demi-puppet wurld ther r standurds ubout speling, butt thaats cuz U R beeg snobbs.
We R lookking 4 U and wen wee fynd U I M goying tu rip ur smarty tung out thru ur buthole. Remember, ur still beeting hart is Ezekiel's brekfust.
Wait, Jimmy, are you actually a real hyena? Because only actual hyenas can eat rotting carrion, not just people who call themselves hyenas. People who call themselves hyenas would get sick if they ate rotting carrion. I looked it up.
jimmy is more hyena than human! He feasted on maggot infested carrion this morning and washed it down with a bottle of wine. When you no longer have the lioness to protect you you jackals won't last long. Then the hyena's feast will begin. What joy rolling around in entrails and cracking open bones to lick up the tasty jackal marrow! I'm going out the vineyards today to fill my wine casks in prepartion.
Well it does look like the King Ego is censoring peoples oppinions by taking stuff off the blog and if this is the future of underground literature we are already dead. It's a good thing he is not. You would have to know King Ego to understand why he would do such a things, as I do know him and believe that Bush should tap him for the Minister of Propaganda position. Oh yes and I was at that reading @ Penn. What he fails to say is that it was rigged by the judges.
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