tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post110935382038967089..comments2024-02-12T03:04:46.091-08:00Comments on AttackingtheDemi-Puppets: Moderates or ULA Radicals?King Wenclashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13709139159194279478noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109781420086057722005-03-02T08:37:00.000-08:002005-03-02T08:37:00.000-08:00Jim B. doesn't have an MFA, and neither do I.
He...Jim B. doesn't have an MFA, and neither do I. <br /><br />He's always lived in the same sorts of shitholes that I have since I graduated from college in 1995. The great majority of folks in the Boston experimental scene do not have MFAs, and are completely broke and from working-class backgrounds. I give you myself and Christina Strong and Joe Torra and Guillermo Parra, etc. etc. ad inifinitum. <br /><br />You're turning an aesthetic issue into a class issue, and it is fallacious.<br /><br />-mdlMark Lamoureuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12907078718133120295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109519753423241952005-02-27T07:55:00.000-08:002005-02-27T07:55:00.000-08:00The way to support writers outside the establishme...The way to support writers outside the establishment is to buy and read their books! No need to plow through The News From Paraguay, the National Book Award winner for fiction, with the panel chaired by industrialist and fainter, Hiram F. Moody III: it's a lame, cut-and-pasted Harlequin historical romance that actually deserves belly laughs and open, finger-pointing derision, it's so fucking awful. Instead buy and read THE HUMAN WAR by Noah Cicero, my own HALF EMPTY, The Slush Pile. Think poetry sucks? Find yourself a copy of THE LAST GREAT GLASS MEAT MILLION by John Thomas Menesini and sit down.<br /><br />Elaura Niles is an idiot, but her title is clever and the book follows the standard WD, aspirational, female, self-help, catty tone that the typical WD, aspirational, female, self-help-seeking, catty reader adores: "X ways to spice up your dialog!" "XX techniques to make your romance novel sizzle!" "5 paths to bigger breasts!" And so on. Perfect example of preying on the doubt of people and using insulting "blame the victim" logic in a schoolmarmish tone. Fuck her.<br /><br />TimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109450104864912792005-02-26T12:35:00.000-08:002005-02-26T12:35:00.000-08:00Or how about giving out awards for the most dubiou...Or how about giving out awards for the most dubious awards?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109449425938339982005-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:002005-02-26T12:23:00.000-08:00Yeah, not a bad award value: they'd be brave if th...Yeah, not a bad award value: they'd be brave if they went against academia and ambitious if they reached out to nonacademics. Ho!<br /><br />A good laff on awards should be had every decade or so: we should submit some lesser-known story by a world master to some MFA-cabal and watch it get shot down to make room for one of their pals. Then expose em and laff. (Crad Kilodney did this in Canada a couple times. Chekov didn't make the first cut.)<br /><br />PS: Hey, Him, did you take a cold shower yet after getting revved up by Bernice, Ada...and me! : )Jeff Potterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03790219160140511776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109447752724906292005-02-26T11:55:00.000-08:002005-02-26T11:55:00.000-08:00"The Award will go to "brave and ambitious" writin..."The Award will go to "brave and ambitious" writing which translates into books that may not be good, but as long as the author tried hard, he or she deserves an award anyway."<br /><br />That wouldn't be so bad, actually! But the fact is, The Believer has no intention of doing anything of the sort. Deeply cynical, underhanded, and almost pathologically passive-aggressive, The Believer will do exactly what McSweeney's has done, and hand out the awards to friends, volunteers, and insiders, using fake names and coded, "cryptic" cover letters that will provide the "judges" with a fig leaf of respectability, to give them that, "We had no iDEa!" cover story again.<br /><br />Him Tall (note the clever pseudonym)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109384400357624152005-02-25T18:20:00.000-08:002005-02-25T18:20:00.000-08:00I went to Columbia on a full scholarship, and come...I went to Columbia on a full scholarship, and come from the Bronx. I worked hard to get there, and for what? To sit in class with a roomfull of entitled candy-assed brats like Jimmy whose parents paid their rent while they played "poet"? That MFA degree is even more useless than a piece of toilet paper. At least a piece of toilet paper can rid you of unwanted shit---and I saw nothing but shit literature everywhere I looked in academia.<br /><br />I don't want to put my work into the world until it's good and solid. I don't send out ever scrap of paper with words on it like Jimmy and his friends do. Visibility does not equal quality. Look at Jim Berhle, or whatever his name is. Is Paris Hilton "quality"? Is Ashlee Simpson a good singer?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7983462.post-1109383491869916362005-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:002005-02-25T18:04:00.000-08:00Listen here young man, you are going to require le...Listen here young man, you are going to require legal assistance if you keep writing in this way.<br />Have you thought about getting yourself skilled in some trade? That way you can make a living instead of sitting at a computer all day you can get paid to sit in front of a computer all day.<br />You ought to leave this creativity business and writing to your betters, those who can afford a college education. <br />Who wants to hear what working people think or say? <br />Really young man have you considered getting yourself some mental health help? <br />Thank God we've got alcohol and illegal drugs to keep the working classes muddled and muzzled.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com