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.

The Shocking Truth!

THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT THE NEW YORK LITERARY SCENE

I was reminded of this truth—for the umpteenth time—in the follow-up to NEW POP LIT’s revelations about the n+1 lit journal operation:

http://newpoplit.com/opinion/beyond-hypocrisy-the-n1-story/

I’ve been beating up that insulated crowd of “intellectuals” a little bit on twitter, simply to draw attention to our story. I paused to wonder if I would ever get any twitter response or byplay from them. (I did have some guy attacking me anonymously at one of my twitter accounts in advance of the story, but none too effectively.) It occurred to me that I’ll never get byplay from any of them—for the key reason. What’s that shocking reason?

They’re not very bright! I’ve yet to meet one well-hyped New York City “literary” writer who could think very fast on his-or-her feet. And I’ve met more than a few of them, even before the big 2001 debate between the Underground Literary Alliance and the Paris Review staff at CBGB’s. (An affair which was ridiculously one-sided.)

“The shocking truth” is a revelation which disgraced interviewer Ed Champion must’ve come to on more than one occasion. He talked to enough of them. I don’t know to what he attributed it—but the irritating truth led to an 11,000-word online blow-up from him and something akin to a nervous breakdown.

You see, he had bought beforehand the mythology that these are the nation’s best writers.

The question: what’s the reason? Why aren’t Approved literary writers very sharp?

It could be because of the slow and deliberate way they’re trained to write. (Think of a typically slow and excruciatingly long Jonathan Franzen novel.) Such writers end up thinking slow and deliberately.

Or it could be that most of them are trust funders who’ve never been challenged by life, were never required to move fast or think quickly.

Even from the best of them you find scantly a trace of wit in their conversations. Some of them can be humorous—Daniel Handler comes to mind—but it’s a warped, childish, frat boy kind of humor. As I depicted him in a satirical ebook novel (still available!), it’s the kind of humor which takes delight in pulling the wings off butterflies. Bludgeon-like humor. Which I take it didn’t go over very well recently at some swanky Insider Manhattan affair he was hosting!

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Rambling: The last n+1 individuals I met in person was in 2009 at the Philadelphia Free Library’s Book Fair, at which those very radical n+1 people—looking very preppyish—had a table. I think Marco Roth was one of them, along with a collection of staffers or interns who looked like they just got done modeling for either Vogue or GQ magazines. I was with Philly-based poet Frank D. Walsh, who thinks and speaks so fast, with puns and asides, it’s tough for the best of us to keep up with his wide-ranging conversation. We chatted with the n+1’ers, an impromptu debate, for ten or fifteen minutes.

It was like conversing with pets. You know: the slow stare. They know you’re saying something, but they can only look at you with abject stupidity.

I’m not exaggerating!

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.

Staggering Hypocrisy

AN ARISTOCRAT SPEAKS!

I happened to stumble upon a twitter exchange between establishment novelist Ayelet Waldman and Salon writer Dahlia Lithwick. Waldman was congratulating Lithwick on an article in The New Republic which criticizes the narrowmindedness of the U.S. Supreme Court—as all have Ivy League educations.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120173/2014-supreme-court-ivy-league-clan-disconnected-reality

Disconnected reality indeed! I made the mistake of pointing out that the east coast literary media is predominately Ivy League. I asked Ayelet Waldman where she was last decade when the Underground Literary Alliance tried to democratize the U.S. literary scene, and for its efforts was blackballed and destroyed. Ms. Waldman responded quickly:

Ayelet Waldman ‏@ayeletw 

@LiteraryCircus Seriously? You're questioning my advocacy? Because I'm not working on your issue in exactly they way you are? Fuck off.

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Yes, I was questioning her selective advocacy—which clearly steers away from her own field. Dare not one criticize one of the elite! These are questions, of course, which members of the literary establishment can’t debate. They know they can’t debate them. During the entirety of the ULA’s history, the response was the same: invective and blackballing.

Do I need to mention that Ayelet Waldman is a Harvard graduate, while Dahlia Lithwick is a graduate of Yale?

Incidentally, or not, here’s a NEW POP LIT blog post which looks at the mindset of New York-based publishing.

http://newpoplitinteractive.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/inside-out-or-outside-in/

Also be sure to read NPL’s latest Opinion piece, wrapping things up about the Tao Lin story, “Self-Marketing 101: Tao Lin”

http://newpoplit.com/opinion/self-marketing-101-tao-lin/

My co-editor refers to the piece as “Art of the Con.” One thing to be said about Tao Lin is that he isn’t Ivy League—not part of the power elite—and so may have decided that extraordinary measures were needed.

Power Used Against the Powerless

THE ARROGANCE OF LITERARY POWER

McSweeneys Books shouldn’t have included the smear essay against the Underground Literary Alliance in Tom Bissell’s Magic Hours. What was the point? Bissell wasn’t attacking and slurring the powerful, but the powerless—an organization which was already broken; many of whose writers are broken. This enabled various literary people in outlets as diverse as the New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Times, and Guernica magazine to take ill-informed shots at the ULA and its writers. That they did so was revealing—showing that the liberal pose of these people is just that: a pose. McSweeneys included.

The truth of the matter is that McSweeneys IS the One Percent. Dave Eggers IS the One Percent. Vendela Vida IS the One Percent. Many of their good friends, Rick Moody, Daniel Handler, and many others, ARE the One Percent. These are writers of privilege—in some cases, extreme privilege—who are out of touch with the struggles of the bulk of the American populace. No doubt many of them this moment are vacationing at their summer resorts.

What did they attack in the Underground Literary Alliance—in 2003 and again in 2012? They attacked the ONLY American writers group which has never kowtowed to the One Percent, is not dominated or owned or paid by the One Percent, has no connections whatsoever to the One Percent. An organization which was founded to stand up for the underdog, against power. You’d have a hard time saying these things about any other writers group—including the most “liberal” of them, PEN among them, which in reality are little more than playthings for the very One Percent they pretend to stand against. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

History will judge the truth of the matter.

Literary Citizens United

TOM BISSELL’S FAULTY ESSAY PART IV

That Tom Bissell’s biased and inaccurate essay is allowed to define the legacy of the Underground Literary Alliance, while reviewers applaud or look the other way, shows the importance of connections and standing in this society. A democracy? Not hardly. Bissell is backed by power and money, so his becomes the accepted version of the story. I could correct his distortions here for a year, and it wouldn’t change a thing. My response will be hardly read, and will be steadfastly ignored by those with literary influence who do read it. Falsehood wins the day. My Crime City USA ebook isn’t just a fictional story.

REAL LITERARY CLASSOCIDE

The irony about Tom Bissell’s false accusations against the ULA is that literary classocide has taken place in America. Populist styles of writing have been delegitimized and marginalized by the so-called literary mainstream. As I’ve already pointed out, naturalism, once the major stream of American letters, is one of those styles. The Underground Literary Alliance, which advocated a wide variety of literary populism, from the humor-pop of Wred Fright to the east Texas dialect outlaw tales of Wild Bill Blackolive to Michael Jackman’s pure naturalism to many other kinds. Tom Bissell’s distorted essay was one of the tools used to derail our movement.

Former ULA writers are around. They could be spotlighted now. Where are the many “liberal” lit outfits who constantly beat their chests about the 99%? Tom Bissell’s refined style of lit—so, so obsolete in the marketplace and among Americans generally—receives reviews and write-ups. Where are the authentic populist writers? Where are their profiles and write-ups? Why are not Salon, Slate, n+1, Guernica Mag, and all the others, in this day of Occupy, covering populists? Banker’s sons only need apply. The only style these sites and magazines seem to like is the style of urban haute literary bourgeoisie. Brooklyn hipster lit, if you will—refined and irrelevant. The same-old same-old. True mediocrity, because for all its refinement it has little to say, has few ideas, is largely pose.

THE UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD

All the Underground Literary Alliance asked for was a level playing field. Because we won the arguments we engaged in with the refined crowd, they panicked. All coverage, all debate, all discussion by us or about us was shut down. The false narrative about the ULA became the dominant narrative.

The result? Writers from the bottom levels of American society, without certifications, connections, or funds, who write in unfamiliar ways about little glimpsed realities, who present ideas which are contrary to those of the literary establishment and sometimes offensive to them, and who’ve documented financial corruption and cronyism within the literary system, are never heard. Bissell has ultimate gall calling the ULA “authoritarian,” when the system he defends—with the way it deals with alternate ideas and alternative writers—defines the term.

THE MONOLITH

Tom Bissell has scorned the idea of an organized literary system. Yet to me the system moves in lockstep, as unconsciously organized and compliant as a beehive. Look at the example of the Underground Literary Alliance and our brief but contentious rebellion. What was the result? The Machine that Bissell insists doesn’t exist embraced in totality the corruption of our targets.

Was there, say, 20% of the literary scene that took our side of the story, and 80% the side of the McSweeney’s Gang? 5% our side? 1%? No. The established lit scene became 100% opposed to us, though the facts and the truth of the matter were on our side. The members of the literary beehive knew that to do otherwise was suicide. I call that a monolith. The reason for it is that in literature today, money and power, which Bissell’s backers have in abundance, wield enormous clout. Established literary folk can sign all the Occupy Writers petitions they want. It means nothing. I know and they know it’s bullshit. In their clubby little world, such gestures will change nothing.

APPROPRIATION

The journalists who’ve interviewed Tom Bissell or reviewed his book have failed to ask the obvious questions. For one, questions about additions to the essay’s original version. Who wanted those changes? For what reason?

The changes consist of phrases or arguments portraying Dave Eggers as, of all things, a zinester. We’re brought back to the ULA’s original conflict with him. With the ULA a virtual corpse, Eggers can do now what he wanted to do then—namely, appropriate the authenticity and credibility of the independent zine scene for himself. Isn’t this how it’s usually done in American culture? The genuine article is wiped out, while the big money boys move in to play the role.

WHO CONTROLS LITERATURE?

This is the ultimate question that preening literary folk, in Brooklyn, San Francisco, or elsewhere, need to answer. The motto of the zine scene, as expressed in the pages of Zine World (aka A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press) has long been, “Free Speech Belongs to Everyone.” Does it? Or does it belong only to those with the biggest megaphone? To whom does American literature belong? To self-appointed mandarins in ivory towers cut off from the living currents of American culture? To Big Money power boys sustained by relationships to the Big Six? Or does not literature belong to all of us?

What Kind of Revolution Is It?

THE TRUTH ABOUT OCCUPY WRITERS

What does democracy look like?

If you want to see what co-optation looks like, see the list of big names at
http://www.occupywriters.com/

Many of these people are the most privileged writers in America.

The 99%? Where?

The last time I saw many of these same aristocrats, they were running over downtrodden writers with their carriages.

These folks have been literature's snobby aristo class, holding swanky soirees in modern-day palaces. To the protests, petitions, and revelations of corruption of the Underground Literary Alliance they erected a wall of hostility. Many of them verbally and even physically attacked us-- or had their security people deal with us. Now the same people are suddenly outside the palace, manning the barricades. The very same crowd! They shift stances as easily as changing cloaks. For them, it's really that simple. Being in control is all.

Their most hilarious moment is a tweet from Thomas Beller suggesting an Occupy Hamptons, with rich writers and publishers like Jason Epstein involved. Uh, Tom, the Hamptons are solidly in the top 1% of America. maybe the top 0.01%. Who will they protest against? Themselves? What's next? Occupy Fisher's Island?

I write this as one who's fought against plutocrats and media monopolies for years, and paid a price for it.

The originators of Occupy Writers-- Jeff Sharlet, a professor at Dartmouth College, and Kiera Feldman, a recent Brown University grad-- seem well-intentioned. Their associations with top 1% colleges, however, indicate they live in a closed world. They may not understand the realities of how the cultural system operates. They're certainly not among the great unwashed.

If they support democracy, will they support democracy in literature?

How many of the big talents on their list ever-- EVER-- write about the themes of the Occupy protests, namely greed, corruption, and class?

Francine Prose? Rick Moody? "Lemony Snicket" aka Daniel Handler? Handler is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and was also one of the ULA's most persistent foes, working to discredit us at every turn. Keith Gessen? Gessen was lately observed celebrating the very UNeven playing field of American literature in the pages of a conglomerate magazine, Vanity Fair, which is devoted to the celebration of wealth. These persons and many others on the list are the literary 1%. Literary aristocrats.

What kind of revolution is this?

Can anyone answer?
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To read tales of class in America now, pick up my Mood Detroit. To read a manic noir take on corruption, read Crime City USA. The e-books are available for 99 cents each at Nook or Kindle. Can you afford it?