Wednesday, October 04, 2006

No Answer

Monday I e-mailed several staffers at CLMP about my two-part Monday Report. I thought one of them might be interested in defending or explaining the actions of their organization.

To date: Silence, including from two staffers-- Leslie Schwartz and Jay Nicorvo-- who are involved with that bastion of free expression, PEN. But do they really believe their own ideals?

(More to come about the failure of lit people to cover this story-- and what it means about the state of literature at this time.)

Report still at: www.literaryrevolution.com

17 comments:

Noah Cicero said...

does God answer?

Jimbo said...

these are not gods but exterminating cherubim arisen from the savage garden summoned by the invocation of Social Darwinism, the annihilation of a nation implies the annihilation of its language so that the tale of its downfall can never be told in the words of those who witnessed it.....

jimmy grace said...

In other news, I threw a brick through someone's window and then wondered why they didn't want to correspond with me.

Jimbo said...

Did you tie a note to the brick? You should attach a message saying throw me back an answer soon my window's dying to know how you feel.

King Wenclas said...

Well, yeah, the literary establishment puts up roadblocks to entry, then taunts us when we can't get through them as "failures."
Why can't you address even one of the actual points made in my two essays-- or better yet, use your own name?
Is there anything lower than intellectual cowardice?
I think Noah has been getting a lesson in the kind of people who populate the literary mainstream. Their first weapon of choice is to call those who don't agree with them "losers." really bright. They have some real strong arguments there alright.
Where Noah and I differ is that I believe the only way the unconnected writer has a chance is through solidarity with others of his own kind: recognition that the "game" is a rigged one and it's time to change the rules-- or maybe overturn the game board.
Just my own opinion, of course.

Jimbo said...

but you are engaging us in conversation George K (is K for kindness?) why not leave us to rant psychoticaly on our street corner. If you get us excited we might wander out into traffic and cause an accident. For some reason a neocon agent in Germany is trying to pass the same message as you right NOW! Yes you are part of the conspiracy even if you don't know it. You see the neurons of a killer don't think they're bad, no, we're just transmitting what's supposed to be transmitted an electronic signal saying raise that hand and then let it fall they're not conscious at all of the fact that in that hand is held a knife that is being plunged into someone's heart!

Noah Cicero said...

today i went to go get a job working as a customer service call person for a big cell phone company. A good ten dollar an hour job. They wouldn't hire me because i had three jobs in the past year. They said "Our clients only allow two jobs in the past year." There was another ten dollar an hour job i applied for and they wouldn't hire me because of my credit rating.

I have no job, no money, and drive a 1990 volks jetta with no car insurance and a leaky radiator.

What does it matter what I do? Seriously i don't matter.

My complete lack of caring doesn't come from a literary stance, but from my position in the social and economic field that is America.

jimmy grace said...

You guys are really starting to depress me. You want to be revolutionaries but you can't take the disdain that revolutionaries earn. Comes with the territory, fellas. Nobody cares about my art either but you don't see me sucking my thumb about it.

Jimbo said...

you've really got it all wrong Georgy not my reasons at all if they had just let me live my life and I would have lived it. but they had to keep on playing their little post-grad games spreading out all over the world I've gone far enough to get away from them (and people like you and grace) you're just pathetic posers who will be living the rest of your life in your junior year of college when you were part of some clique and people noticed you you fucking need to think that you're special or something man I just that nobody cared really I just wish you bitches would have let me live my life what was left of it....

Jimbo said...

do you think I want to be fighting America's kultchural wars? I moved to another continent to get away from that shit. Tell me something why should English departments be the center of an archaic cultural war on American campuses? Why should neocon emerge from the University of Chicago's school of classical philogy (Leopold and Loeb the Nietzschean thrill killers? Indiana Jones?) wouldn't econmics departments be a better place for this debate to be taking place? but these people probably didn't have good enough math scores to get into the economics department.

King Wenclas said...

Some true statements from "George" that a huge segment of American society doesn't exist-- at least not in the eyes of the privileged.
Again, someone making my point for me.
Part II of my Report indicates who the literary world wants: Conformists with Money.
Yes, I guess opportunities exist to make noise for us (we're here using them) which weren't around fifty years ago-- but all other roads are being tightened.
As underground writers, to sell our products, when we don't have access to million-dollar publcity budgets, we have to find other ways of operating.
Pointing out the corruption which exists in literature is one way to draw attention to our cause.
And who can deny the corruption?
"Grace" and "George" won't even post here under the real identities. Why not?
It's a question directed not at ULAers-- but at "George" and "Grace" themselves. They know they're fakes-- but won't draw the logical conclusion, or ask themself, "Why am I doing this?"
Why are you? Does something about our message upset you? Does it strike too true?
Do you have something to lose?
(By the way, the mainstream is publishing largely irrelevant junk. I give as example the much-lauded John Hodgeman, who'll be addressed in a new post above.)

Jeff Potter said...

George says that without the Internet the ULA would've never happened, would not have had the impact.

HA!!!

Can he get more out of touch?

Never heard of the Zeen Revolution, has he.

We make plenty of ruckus in the print world today and are happy to back our ideas with stamps, but we knew how to work things just fine, with tasty impact, back in the print-only day.

I'd say the barriers are bigger today, actually. And I can give you specific examples. George doesn't even pretend to back up what he says. (Do any Demipuppets?)

My background (for George) is that I've been publishing and selling books and mags since 1982. I watched the small press scene happen, the indy bookstore scene, the big boxes, the Net, the zeen scene, DTP, the works. It's been an eyeful. And quite a ride! I see what works and what has had chances to break out. I presently know the delights of handling accounts at about 300 retail stores and a half dozen wholesalers. Selling books that I publish is my job. (I've even handled a couple 100K-unit projects.) I know what works. I see where the chances are.

I know that ULA noise *STANDS A CHANCE* of breaking thru. An unconnected genius has NO chance. Truthful, colorful noise stands a chance---online and in print.

It makes sense to try to engage the various players involved---if only because it DOES embarrass them---but I suspect that "USA Today" or "People" might be where the story will break in the end. CLMP isn't going to smile at being EXPOSED but someone will---and it's likely going to be the general public, not the panicky wannabes. The public is the only hope for Lit.

I'd say that specialty-niche info does fine getting exposure online, but it doesn't do as well in print. General culture material is in a freaky plummet both online and in print. "Except in nonfiction" as people like to say---but I say it's segregated there in a freaky way with no wide impact, certainly not in an enduring way. Lit is being marginalized and nichified. It's a process I welcome you to refute.

The Net is a great place to hide a book, George. So is a bookstore, more and more. It's a Brave New World. Some of us are working the frontiers.

Are you experienced?

chilly charlie said...

Hey, George K, nice to have you back! I know who you are.

I noticed the "cult of failure" and "lunatic" and "bullying" right away. Plus your hiding behind your son's name.

Since May of 2005 you have transformed yourself from a provocative dilettante with a digital camera and big ideas to a stalker, abuser, harasser, and total full-time idiot.

You're also a pathological narcissist, a complete failure of a human being, and a fat, unkempt, undisciplined, unemployable alcoholic who mooches off his wife. And a forty-something who still needs to hang around the young and hip. You're the only bully ever to swagger down this block.

Trash.

chilly charlie said...

PS: It's the same modus operandi, too. A guy comes out of nowhere, opens a dummy blog that never sees a single post in its own right, and starts in whaling on King.

Just like Bryan Guski, Goombah-Goombah, A. Swift, True That, and Frank Wilford.

What a sick MF this guy is.

chilly charlie said...

PPS: The foregoing is a work of literary criticism and pop culture commentary. All opinions are strictly those of the author.

Jimbo said...

Is there any place today where the sick do not wish to exhibit some form of superiority and to excercise their tyranny over the strong?

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