I've been getting hit of late with a variety of anonymous posters, from all directions, in various guises. They're what Shakespeare described inThe Tempest, "that by moonshine do the green sour ringlets make": demi-puppets. Shadows without substance.
The shadows have complained about my hostility, yet their dissembling is hostile. They won't give my readers and myself the respect of appearing under their own identities. Their actions are of duplicity. Let them come into the light if they have genuineness and meaning. I can hardly be blamed for calling them demi-puppets when they remain demi-puppets!
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The difference is that nobody shouts insults at your readings, writes you threatening letters, takes quotes out of context from your writings, or makes wild, unfounded accusations against you on their blogs, and when you die there will be no celebratory statements. Rick Moody doesn't show up at ULA events and shout you down. Heidi Julavitz doesn't have a blog calling you names. Lemony Snickett hasn't accused you of anything. Philip Lopate hasn't called you the enemy. And Jason Shinder never would have celebrated your death.
The only thing that the mainstream has done to you is not give you enough attention.
You, on the other hand, have done all these things to all these people and more.
I have no power at all in the literary world, but if I told you who I was, you'd comb through Google until you found something you could trumpet into an "investigative report."
Spit on enough people and eventually people avoid walking near you.
The King's got a real hard-on for people appearing under their real names. Go figure. He thinks it "means" something.
I've already told you that you make me nervous insofar as you're a little too obsessive for my taste. I've had many an internet quarrel under my true name with reasoning beings from whom I expected nothing more than a rousing argument, beginning and ending online, face to face, as it were. No, King. I don't need you circulating petitions about me, or sending emails to my personal email address, or calling for a boycott of my books, or turning up at my readings and heckling me, or insulting my parents or my heritage. Don't need it. Won't put up with it. I have a real life -- children, family, friends, work. Why would I give you more substance than a shadow to hold on to? You have been bitching and moaning about the same things, and about some of the same people, for eight years -- Rick Moody chief among them. Still bitching about a Guggenheim that was spent long ago.
If I'm a shadow, then Moody's Mt. Rushmore. He's so much more than a human being to you that you feel you can batter him continuously, a depressing act of failed voodoo that doesn't even succeed in attacking the right effigy. You are a troubled person, sitting at the very edge of reason.
I use my real name. Even if it's only my first name, it's still my real name.
Still waiting for that Richette review.
The question is what came first-- the closed incestuous nature of the literary world-- or my appearance against it?
You've been giving a lot of credence to what I'm saying, Rick, by being here. I think there's a corner of your brain which recognizes you're wrong. If you can stomp me out and my ideas, then this doubt will be removed.
My ideas in fact are valid ones-- the points I've made are valid. The Guggenheim was eight years ago, but what has changed? The literary world is more entwined with the plutocracy than ever.
I'm "battering" you? Obviously you've never been battered for real.
There are many people who are battered by this society on a daily basis, in many ways, again and again-- more than a mere inconvenience of announcing someone's hand caught in the cookie jar, which is all I've been doing.
You could have ceased the entire show at the outset by giving back the funds, but you were too incontrovertably selfish and greedy to do this. The ULA campaign was enabled by you.
You refuse to budge one iota. Rationalizations after rationalizations, how I guess you and your friends are doing so much to level the playing field, when simple documented facts about who controls what would destroy every shred of your argument. Facts about the true nature of this society not covered by writers like you.
The ONLY way to address this society in order to change it is, yes, through the tools of democracy, including petitions.
Real democracy presupposes every one having an equal voice-- which is so NOT the case in America today that it's a democracy in myth only. This needs to change.
Some writers have access to the levers of noise and publicity-- their books readily considered and published, then backed by large ad budgets to ensure "the word gets out." Easy enough for them to "just write." The system constructed to benefit writers like you makes it easy for you to "just write."
For others it's almost impossible to get one's ideas out. I've been utilizing every possible avenue open to me, and will continue to do so.
I do it up front, under my own identity.
Re Richette-- the review is now written and will go up on my new review blog soon.
But why don't you buy his book and see for yourself? You won't believe anything I say anyway. . . .
(These comments you folks are making are revealing of the defensive, closed, reactionary attitude of people of privilege in this society. What's suffering is literature itself, by being monopolized by your sterile art and bankrupt attitude. It's a house definitely worth shaking. I'm going to continue shaking that house, so be forewarned, you demi-puppets all.)
(Curious that when I moderated my stance, the hostility only increased! So much for that. . . .)
p.s. I seem to have provoked the evil beast of literary corruption. Good! I plan to do more of this-- always bolstering what I say with documented examples. I have enough blogs to make a lot of noise, and will be going to it-- some great posts I've been holding in reserve now likely to go up. Stay tuned!
(p.p.s. If I get run over by a runaway street cleaner sometime, it may not be an accident!)
I am not Rick Moody.
Do you really think you'll be assassinated for bitching about Moody's Guggenheim (and, of course, all that it stands for?)?
Hey, I've got a good idea, King. No, I mean it. How about every year, when the Guggenheim people announce the recipients of the fellowships, you pick one to holler at for the next twelve months.
Because, the funny thing is, if Moody had given back the thirty-five grand, they just would have handed it right over to Franzen -- right? If not to Franzen, to Heidi Julavits. If not to Julavits, to Ben Marcus. You know how it is.
This way, you nail all of them!
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