Sunday, July 15, 2007

ULA Ascendent

OVERDOGS try to wish us away but we're not going away. Not to realize this is the fundamental mistake of status quo literary apologists.

They don't realize we don't live in a static universe. Change is essential. No art form survives by remaining static.

ULA represents the necessary future of literature. We'll only grow stronger, more necessary. Our voices will grow louder. Yet the Overdogs of Literature still try to wish us away. They close their eyes and ears, hoping. When they re-open them they realize to their dismay we're still here.

Their behavior is comical-- such as that of the local NEWSpaper i n town, whose appeal remains only to the civilization's green zones-- genteel folks who believe everything is okay in this world as long as everything is okay for THEM. They give their dwindling number of readers their narrow viewpoint. The phenomenal garage band Detroit Cobras are in Philly this week (Tuesday at the Khyber), but the NEWSpaper which never gives its vanishing readers anything new has missed this somehow. Their circulation is up, their owner proclaims! All through West Philly, where I'm currently staying, one sees copies of today's NEWSpaper sitting on doorsteps of houses whose occupants never asked for them; including many houses which have no occupants at all. Well, that's one way to do it, I guess. Laughingly we briefly peruse the contents of the badly outdated and insular rag. What do you know? An Associate Editor says the future is now, and for him things are good, because he has his I-Phone. Music? A big article among other "Harry Potter" hype pieces about "Wizard Bands" put together by Omen-looking prep school kids. Watch out! The privileged are cool and on the move! (No one wants to see the phenomenal Detroit Cobras anyhow, I guess, at least not in their Green Zone world.)

"Where's the trash can?" we all finally decide. "A suitable place for such rubbish."

REAL NEWS
The real news is that the Underground Literary Alliance is the only exciting thing happening in the literary world now. We have the energy and ideas other stale and stodgy lit-folk lack, and we're coming to your town.
http://www.literaryrevolution.com/
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3 comments:

Robert Hernandez said...

If change is so vital, why has the ULA been playing the same tired, ineffective tune on the same tired, unnoticed horn for what...coming on 10 years?

Don't you get it yet? This "movement" is not necessary, is not influential, and is little outside of you rubbing your own ego likely because you took one too many rejection letters personal.

So you can't get published...big deal. It's no conspiracy. Your writing just sucks. Don't sweat it. There are plenty of other bad writers out there (and attached to this blog and ULA "organization") to keep you company.

Cheers!

7/15/2007 10:31:00 AM
Karl Wenclas said...

Thank you for the honest demonstration of your arrogance.
Change IS coming. The lit world is moving in our direction, as shown by lit-bloggers who try to duplicate our attitude, or by publishers presenting ULA imitations.
In the past few months we've seen much hype of Chuck Pahalniuk, Dishwasher Pete, and the Savage Detectives (whose very cover uses ULA-style graphics).
Yes, when the ULA was founded almost seven years ago, we were ahead of the curve. We saw the staleness of the literary world. We saw your innate, unjustified arrogance.
Rejection letters? I haven't sent an unsolicited manuscript out in fifteen years-- halted as soon as I realized the game was rigged. (I've done a few solicited pieces for the mainstream. Since 2000, all my writing goes to the ULA or my own venues.)
You don't seem to get that our interest is in creating an alternative to the decrepit status quo. We're genuine DIY. Authors like Wred Fright have been selling-- selling-- their work to the public for many years, as I did.
"We don't need no steenkin badges" in order to reach people. We've been reaching them on our own. Now with things like the tour we're out to reach more of them.
We don't NEED the system. Those who ignore us hurt only themselves.
The status quo has been playing its "same tired, ineffective" tune for sixty years. Its writers are standardized and interchangeable. They're incapable of presenting anything new.
They're conformists by nature. Their conformity allows them positions in the literary machine-- which causes arrogance in their persons.
They imagine their positions or their modest success is because of their talent, when, if anything, the reverse is the case.
They progress due to their unquestioning mediocrity.
Like cattle they can only follow along in the prescribed and predictable way, with bovine obedience.
If an animal steps away from the herd, panic rises. "Wait! Get back in line! Don't do things differently!"
We're out to overturn the status quo, to turn literature on is head. That kind of change doesn't happen overnight.
Are we making progress?
Are we still here?
Have we survived despite outrage, scorn, and brickbats?
Your attitude outdates yourself. It hurts only you, because you reject the future.
You reject exciting writers who carry with them the unstoppable power of words.
Welcome to the carnival tent madhouse
of the Underground Literary Alliance.
Stop and see us this Wednesday at Germ Books.
If you dare allow new ideas to enter your moldy
consciousness.
See ya there!

7/15/2007 11:59:00 AM
FDW said...

'Guess QP Dolly and anticipated especially since two of the greatest of culture underground writers have just passed out of yr stomping ground, Ohio, on their way to a triumphant tour starting in Baltimore Tuesday Night at Red Emmas (anarchist/ alterantive independent bookstore by their way) that like the gopher in the arcade game at one of those Chucky Cheese's you think it's safe to stick your head out of the gopher- hole. Your line is the same old tired line, you are the pathetic hack writer I assume who sing's the same old tired complaynt plying the Overdawg party line. Not accidental that the bourgzhee defense mechansim of "inversion"-- reversing attention of what you are in fact gulity of onto the "victim" of the crimes and misdemeanors committed by you the accuser, is transparently at play here. See we got your number-- keep yr head down in your hole before the "gopher" hammer weilded by some playful kids comes down.
Otherwise you do so no doubt sound like a petty Vichy demi-puppet trying to discredit the French resistance during the '40s!

7/15/2007 12:18:00 PM

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