What’s Wrong with this Picture?

MORE N+1 BASHING?

WE at New Pop Lit (www.newpoplit.com) received a tweet Tuesday from n+1 magazine leader Keith Gessen. The tweet was in response to a question we asked publicly, as to whether n+1 could be said to be “oligarch-backed.” Granted, that phrase might be exaggerating the situation—but only slightly. If media moguls are nice guys, and parents of your officially listed editor, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not oligarchs!

In his tweet, Gessen pleaded poverty. They’re a “nonprofit” (the word “nonprofit” having magical qualities). They’re mostly volunteers, struggling, none of them has any money; it’s all very bleak. A situation with which I can easily identify! Reading the tweet, in fact, I became quite concerned. I expected to run into the n+1 people when turning a corner here in Detroit, the lot of them squatting in rags on the sidewalk holding cardboard signs—Keith, Dayna, everybody—the signs saying “Please help me!” I thought, “What can we at New Pop Lit do to help these beaten-down writers?” A joint presentation?

Then I caught myself and asked myself a few questions. I outlined in my head a few facts and certainties.

Among them, that the n+1 staff consists of the so-called best and brightest. All are from Harvard, Brown, Columbia, and the like. They have access to the so-called best writers in the nation; bonded and branded, well-awarded and certified. Many of them published by the Big Five. n+1’s advisors include some of the shrewdest business people on the planet, including, as I mentioned, a big-time media mogul, as well as two of the publishing world’s most successful literary agents.

On top of this, for ten years n+1 has received more and better publicity than any literary journal in the country—including the McSweeney’s machine—always positive; in the most prestigious and widely-read newspapers and magazines. World-respected newspapers and magazines. Among them, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, the New York Times. And many, many smaller outlets. People love a designated winner. n+1 has received publicity and promotion that ANY business in any field could only dream of, much of it coming from the very center of media empire, New York City, n+1’s home base.

In short, everything has gone their way.

And they’re still not making it?

An intelligent person involved with a more modest project would try to learn from their mistakes. Would analyze the situation. During that analysis, I come up with three possible reasons for n+1’s unhappy plight. Feel free to tell me which one you believe is most, er, on the money.

A.) A bad product.

B.) Flawed thinking.

C.) On the wrong side of literary history.

Brooklyn’s Literary Snob Set

(Pictured: Rumored to be a photo of Brooklyn’s Literary Snob Set at, er, work.)

WHAT is Brooklyn’s Literary Snob Set? WHO belongs to it? HOW do they operate? (The WHERE of the matter is obvious: gentrified sections of Brooklyn, NY.)

These are questions I’ll endeavor to answer in coming weeks.

Word has it that these are part of an endangered cultural species: supporters of New York-based establishment literature. Progeny of privilege. Well-connected holdovers clinging desperately to the familiar and known.

One thing is certain: NEW POP LIT (www.newpoplit.com) is an antidote to the east coast literary snob set.

Three Problems

I see three related problems with the established literary scene.

1.) CONFORMISM. As I’ve oft stated, from top to bottom in American literature there’s a herd mentality. No one will publicly buck the status quo and advocate for change. Everyone is infected with “go-along-to-get-along” disease. No one will point out the corruption and cronyism that does exist in the scene. Everyone prefers to look the other way. You’ll find scarcely one person of courage and integrity. I know this from experience.

2.) BUBBLISM. Most of today’s young literati are hipsters. Many of them have congregated in Brooklyn, or in similar Hipstervilles around the country. I’ve noted in my encounters with this crowd, off-line and on, that they can’t handle disagreement. Few of them have experienced the give-and-take of no-holds-barred debate. They rely on premises, assumptions, assertions that to them are laws, because everyone in their world accepts them. This isn’t a healthy situation for any art or intellectual scene.

They’re in fact thousands of Bubble Boys from “Seinfeld,” who’ve carried their bubbles with them. Those they interact with at their hangouts look and think exactly like them.

If you study the hipster phenomenon, as one would a variety of animal, you see they’ve adopted protective coloration to try to blend in with their new urban environments. Note the beards and gritty working-class garb; the thrift shop affectations. Yet only the outer surface has changed. They’ve brought with them their gentrified upscale tastes—as seen in the new chic menus, designer beers, and upscale prices at bars and bistros which have sprung up or redesigned themselves to cater to them.

As it affects literature, there’s little chance of converting them to new ways of approaching the literary art, when everyone of them flees and blocks their mind from the slightest critique of what they see as wonderful and safe.

3.) INABILITY TO SEE REALITY. An example of this is the unquestioning believe in a pagan nature myth like global warming/climate change, which is a variation of Eve-eating-the-apple: mankind punished for its sins and hubris.

The inability to see reality applies to their art. An objective observer flipping through their literary flagship, The New Yorker, and glancing at the month’s enclosed story, should see immediately that this is a bad product; a poor entry point for readers to jump into the joys of fiction. Long paragraphs of dense prose, of hardly any dialogue or scene. (Like this blog post!) It’s as if the stories are created to be intentionally offputting to those not of the proper breeding. It’s no way to expand an art—in fact for the past several decades such stories produced by the thousands have narrowed it. Yet when you read the opinions of literati, high and low, in prestigious magazines or on on-line websites, these kind of literary stories are portrayed as tremendous achievements. Well, maybe they are—if one could read them. They’re terrible models, terrible examples of what the literary art at its best can achieve.

"Protesting Plutocracy": a short story

"Protesting Plutocracy"

A SHORT STORY BY KING WENCLAS

In the sterling office of the pseudo-intellectual literary journal n+1, staffers read on their phones and iPads about the "Occupy Wall Street" protests taking place. The staffers carry studied faces of hip concern. Being a literary intellectual is serious business. It takes work.

"Why can't we do something like that?" a staffer asks. "To show our affinity with the protests would increase our credibility. After all, we're supposed to be Social Democrats, aren't we?"

"Yes! Social Democrats!" a colleague affirms.

"Indubitably! Social Democrats!" a third voice agrees.

Heads among the others nod affirmatively.

"But, but what can we protest?" they ask themselves.

A large sign on a wall in the office says, "THINK URBAN," reminding them they're no longer behind the exclusive gates of yale, Columbia, or Harvard. This is Brooklyn. Their Ivy League preppiness, the ascots, bow ties, and cocktail dresses that might be found in a similar office, like the office of New Criterion, for instance, have been left behind.

"Well," one of them decides, "we might protest plutocracy in the literary realm. After all, that's our field, isn't it? We could make that our focus."

"Yes. It's only natural," a second staffer affirms.

It's only indubitably correct and right," a third staffer agrees.

Heads of others nod affirmatively.

"But, but, how do we possibly go about it?"

They sit stoically but glumly for several minutes, waiting for other ideas to arise. Being intellectual is serious work.

"I know! I know!" an inspired young woman says. "Let's ask Chad!"

"Yes! Chad!"

They knock on the door of the office belonging to the journal's brainiac, Chad. The most serious thinker on a staff of serious thinkers. Inside, the man meditates, Franzen-like, in a tiny room filled with pigeons and other winged creatures. But no cellphones! It's a cellphone-free office. The birds look hopefully at the new visitors to the small space. In serious tones the visitors explain their dilemma to the serious man.

(To read the entire tale, including its shocking conclusion, click on the link below.)

http://kingwenclas.blogspot.com/p/protesting-plutocracy-short-story.html