It's disappointing that no demi-puppet disputed my characterization of them as "slaves"-- no one of them coming forth to claim independence; to stand as a subversive free-thinking individual within the establishment house of letters. Are their brains truly captured? Do they in fact bob and jerk in tune with puppet strings?
As evidence we have the lit-blog Co-op people, who have taken it upon themselves to faithfully serve the monster conglomerates. They regularly choose a big company release to honor and promote. Increased and more efficient groveling! Never mind that the big book companies have their own highly-paid publicity departments. The demi-puppets are eager to help!
Hype their own works? They give it not a thought. The conglomerates come first! Rack up the brownie points! Polish more apples! This from people who feign they're too busy writing to care about the ULA's actions. (Why do they knock us then on their blogs? And who are the anonymous posters on this one?) We see that THEY very much DON'T "just write"-- they're in a backroom with establishment authors, eagerly going down. Maybe some big-time publisher will notice? This is their cherished hope.
Extensions of the Machine-- of this there's no doubt.
Re "Ed Rants" of the shaky IP info: At least we know he's not "Orlando." Ed's own attempts at parody don't look like parody at all. (As poor a writer as Orlando is, Ed is worse.) Ed wrote a "parody" of Jonathan Franzen by presenting a colorless tome indistinguishable from Franzen's work. That is to say: equally dull. Ed, you're supposed to add wit and humor. The dutiful demi-puppet struggles along, laboriously crafting his pseudo-parody word by word; point by inscrutable point. Franzen is alarmed. "That looks exactly like a chapter from my last book!" What to do? He'd charge feckless Ed with plagiarism, had the lit-world not already done away with the concept.
Plagiarism is not something about which a demi-puppet is ever concerned. The more excruciating troubling dangerous matter is being put into the position of having to treat ULAers like human beings. That one of the demi-puppets might have to apologize to us is to reach the very bottom of embarrassment and shame. There is no worse consequence; the darkest of fates. Demi-puppet peers are concerned. "It can't happen!" their puppet voices scream. "No! Terrible! Rescue her! Save her!"
The puppet in question who screwed up, at the merest prospect of apology (or even simple retraction of a false statement), is ready for the loony-bin. To the rest of the collection in the toybox this is completely understandable. After all, puppets on strings aren't human and it's unfair to expect one to behave like one.
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3 comments:
My request for a retraction seems to have become lost within the MediaBistro bureaucracy. Isn't that strange? I trust it's only temporary.
All joking aside, this will be a good test of the character-- or lack thereof-- of lit-bloggers.
One of our main attack dogs, Noah, didn't hesitate to apologize, like an adult, when he got something wrong regarding a former ULAer. Great behavior-- upfront and clear-eyed, as is the way with the ULA.
(He currently has an excellent Monday Report up on our www.literaryrevolution.com site.)
Not a lot of class, on the other hand, from an "Ed Rants," who is fine attacking us privately, passing about apparently (????) false information, but refuses to answer questions and requests for clarification and further information.
Just checking in to say I agree with Tim -- Noah's review was one of the best things he's written. (And I own his The Human War.)
Great stuff, Noah.
For those who are confused about IP's, they should know that I don't own a computer, and post on this blog from a variety of places-- and so don't have any one IP. This for the dimestore detectives who've been trying to discredit the ULA.
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