Our membership stands currently at 36-- a good, manageable number. We've paused here for just a few weeks as we prepare for the year's events and take stock of where we're going as an organization. We have a great number of sympathizers. We'll likely this year grow to 50 without difficulty. Much beyond that would make us unwieldy-- until we further raise our profile and strengthen the ULA machine, so that we can adequately promote people.
We've expanded the pool of places from which we draw candidates for ULA membership. At first we allowed in only those who'd signed our original Protest against the Guggenheim-- our starting point as an organization; our Notice that we'd walked off the reservation: our Declaration of rebellion against the mainstream. Then, for a while, we considered only zeensters. Now we look for good underground talent everyplace.
There are two somewhat-opposed dynamics at work in the ULA.
1.) We seek to unite unconnected overlooked writers (and others like illustrators and performers with connections to a broad definition of "literature").
2.) At the same time we MUST maintain our uniqueness-- our difference from other lit-groups and writers. To want to be in any way like standard yuppie demi-puppet writers would be suicide.
In possible members we look for several things. Among them:
A. ) Talent-- though talent isn't enough. Some former ULAers were brought in solely for their talent, and proved a disappointment; were incapable of fitting into a team concept.
B.) Spirit of Rebellion. Moderate writers are everyplace-- found on every street corner. We seek those not satisfied with things as they are, who want to change literature and the culture.
C.) Commitment-- eagerness to be part of, and work for, the ULA team. (And patience with what we're doing!)
D.) Personality.
E.) Understanding of ULA Philosophy.
There are individuals we can aid and promote to some extent without their joining the ULA team. In members we think first of what's best for the ULA. As we grow, those we're able to bring "officially" into the ULA will increase. Many are under consideration. Each ULAer is free to recommend candidates for the team. (Though at the moment I'm behind on info mailings!-- one of the motivations behind this e-mail.) Right now we have large and growing interest by people in the message and organization of the ULA.
The Underground Literary Alliance has been hard to get into and out of. The six who left did so voluntarily. All those on our membership roll have aided the ULA cause in some way, some greatly, even if they're presently silent. Some have talents we've yet to adequately utilize-- which doesn't mean we never will. We need to make quick moves-- quicker than we've been doing-- but we're still early in the chess game.
Finally, this isn't an organization where we exist only to serve you or others. We're no one's slaves. We want not minions or dependents, but equals. We offer a framework for writers and others to work within; a set-up that allows undergrounders to help themselves through working to strengthen the ULA.
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4 comments:
There already IS a cult in the lit-world-- McSweeney's-- centered around a cult figure. One is enough. Again, the ULA is a DIY group of equals.
What-- in the way you're fascinated with us?
Your steadfast stupidity, "Frantic," is truly saddening. You're unable to see the world as it is, with any complexity; unable to make the simplest discriminations, and so latch onto easy yet inaccurate analogies in your desperation to discredit the ULA. Or maybe you seek only to find a view of the lit-world which fits your mental limitations.
Even we don't deny the existence of the McSweeney's gang. Only one willfully stupid would try to. I was uncomfortably reminded recently, as I stated, that those people are still around, no matter how much the glow which once attached to their movement is now fading.
Tell me, "Frantic," what would you have the ULA do? HOW in your thoughts should we structure our organization? What steps should we take to ensure our continued growth and rough unity? Should we be less tightly structured? More? Are these thoughts which can ever play upon your simplistic mind?
Should we abandon the project? What would this mean for ULAers as writers? What would it mean for the state of literature itself? Would it say that no change in the art and its process is possible-- that literature's role in the culture will continue to stagnate? That all hope of renewal is gone?
Do you ever view literature through a broad view, as part of a historical process-- as a living and adapting entity?
It seems to me that TWO choices have arisen in the lit-world in the last five years: the mock-renewal of lit from the inside represented by McSweeney's; and the real difference of the ULA.
The "Frantics" of the world are not even a choice; they're inward-dwelling thumbsuckers who want to clutch their vanishing view of literature tightly as they play irrelevantly in their sandbox.
p.s. Better analogies to the ULA are available than the one presented by our stupidly anonymous friend. I'll present them in an upcoming post, "Superheroes of the ULA."
Your inability to think is amazing. Perhaps, as some have suggested, you're an eight-year old playing on his computer screen; still trying to make sense of a world of vague colors and impressions encircling you.
All you really have to know: The ULA are the good guys.
Facts aren't fantasy.
The truth is that you refuse to think-- why you avoid all the points that have been made by the ULA.
You can start by addressing the questions I asked on this thread-- but that would require you to engage your brain, of which you're not capable.
So keep with your cute phrases-- "zilch, nada"-- which don't address a thing but are an escape from reality.
(Something inside that fog of confusion inside your head must be engaged, or you wouldn't still be reading and posting.)
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