Pods

The System of literature is beyond internal reform, and in its current state is doomed to mediocrity, because it's filled at every level, from universities to editors to agents to lit-bloggers, with conformist boozhies who are thrown by those less regulated than them.

There isn't a striking personality among the lot. Blandness is their calling card. They're hostile to anyone who stands out.

"The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," in either 50's or 70's version, is a perfect metaphor for how the lit-world is now. In my every encounter with literary boozhies, this is how they've acted, like pods, whether their unconcern to revelations of corruption; or the stiff audiences and readers at KGB and Miller Hall; to e-mails from those like Ed "Rants" urging me to get with the program and be like everyone else.

It's scary if one thinks about it.