Scheduled for this Monday, October 2, is Part II of my look at the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and its takeover by the media monopolies.
Don't miss it! Only at
www.literaryrevolution.com
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7 comments:
Fighting co-optation is a big part of the ULA campaign. One of our early Protests was against the "Firecracker" Alternative Book Award to McSweeney's for Best Zine.
Very laughable when one thinks about it. Alternative Book Award? Eggers was being funded/backed by Simon & Schuster (Viacom)! He was a knock-off of the genuine article.
This protest probably pissed off more folks than any other-- but what can anyone today say about it, when the Dave's colors have long since been revealed, as he engages with the monopolies in book deal after book deal? (This income stream likely keeps afloat his entire operation, including money-losers like The Believer.)
Other point: These people, in Orwellian fashion, are masters at turning reality on its head.
And so, on wikipedia, I'm charged with dishonesty and being against free expression-- by an anonymous poster!-- when the ULA campaign is a fight for transparency and for a smidgen of access, the ability for a sliver of free expression when people like the anonymous poster have a monopoly on access and noise.
After all, who was caught attacking the ULA anonymously on Amazon in 2004?
King, you mention a nefarious $350 entry fee in your MR pt. 2. It strikes me that what these Corpo Execs who are taking over Indy Lit are doing is precisely modeling it after every other white-collar hobby in the country.
The standard fee for a weekend of elite seminaring on just about any suburban-type topic is just that $350!
A weekend yoga retreat, a French cooking skills getaway, a scuba-diving intensive: they all are based on the $350 weekend concept.
That's what an organizer who books hotel (or B&B) rooms and a banquet hall plus access to a few elite brains and some lovely practice fields has to get to earn a profit for everyone if about, what, 100 people show up.
They're trying to apply standard TQM methodology to art. Only they don't realize they're leaving out the art!
They're merely cultivating and serving just another niche market. Not even a living one at that.
It's easy to see where they're coming from. They're marketing people, office folks, managers. They're organizing the lit scene so it can "interface" smoothly with all other media---heck, with all other business and production---it all uses the same model today. They're knocking off rough edges. Look at our improved functionality! Our tidy grants applications! Look! English departments CAN be run like Physics departments or the Business School! And art can be managed like an English department!
The freaky thing is that with just a little real judgement they wouldn't HAVE to kill the art. There COULD be respectful interaction between organiation and freedom/creativity. But, no, they go all the way over to the Dark Side. Conform or else! MFA or else!
They're begging to have some Car Guys who know art AND science come mop them up.
Great job of turning over the rock of the modern-day lit scene to reveal nothing but a bunch of wiggly worms.
Muchos kudos, KW.
Now *this* is worthy muckraking.
MFA programs - and not just writing ones - are the Bentleys of the art world. They're expensive, they don't work so good, and the only people they impress are people who already have one. Why anyone would pay for the privilge of learning about art from someone who'd rather teach people art than make art is beyond me.
I was working at this bogus biznez skool in France they had some University of Denver Grads there they were like Americans in a television commercial, so uber clean and cheerful always spinning out bright cheerful littles adages like there are no porblems without solutions cheaters never prosper hard work and perseverance pay off in the end. The people running the skool were part of some strango international network. I read that University of Denver only offers doctorates of fine arts in creative writing now. What's a fool to do with that. So University of Denver needs to dump its questionable educational products somewhere maybe on another continent why should I have to pay for that. The whole things built on mutual legitimation; you got an MBA from a school that hires teachers from an elite American University so you must be talented right? Maybe you'll go to work for a company that will sell the bogus cultural products put out from a company that's staffed by mfa's from the same school.
Here's what Tim Hall signed his name to on the "Monday Report" of December 13 2004:
"A few months ago I got into an online argument with a guy from
Iowa, who scoffed when I said that MFA programs were huge profit
centers for universities, educational SUVs that would only bleed dry 99% of the suckers stupid enough to sign up. I'm more convinced of this than ever, after hearing their stories."
Here's Tim Hall on THIS comment page, on October 2, 2006:
"MFA programs - and not just writing ones - are the Bentleys of the art world. They're expensive, they don't work so good, and the only people they impress are people who already have one. Why anyone would pay for the privilge of learning about art from someone who'd rather teach people art than make art is beyond me."
DOES ANYONE STILL DOUBT WHO THIS 'JIMMY GRACE' ASSHOLE IS????
Funny how "Jimmy Grace" (Tim Hall) is going all over this blog refuting and denying the obvious...but has stayed away from THIS last post like the plague.
Could it be that I have him dead to rights?
I don't care about ULA one way or the other, but nobody deserves to be stalked and harassed like Tim Hall is doing. The guy has gone insane. It was bad enough when he called Nan Talese a scumbag. Any normal lunatic would have declared victory and gone off to Buckingham Palace to demand his coronation. Not Tim!
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