About "Jimmy Grace"

About the new ULA Monday Report at www.literaryrevolution.com

The blunders "Jimmy Grace" made are many. I've already touched on a few of them on this blog. He was an obvious fake from the beginning.

1.) The hostility toward us from this supposed underground artist (who confused "DYI" with DIY) was baffling. Our campaign has always been well accepted by genuine undergrounders of all kinds. We have in our ranks such folks; artists, musicians, and actors.

2.) "Grace" claimed a group of Oakland poets scorned us, but couldn't name them. In fact, we've been well accepted by Bay area poets and writers. I've been on good terms with local icons like Violet Jones and Aaron Cometbus. Among the key underground poets of the area are Christopher Robin and Joe Pachinko. They both happen to be ULA members, and are totally supportive of our campaign. WHO then was "Grace" talking about? There is one group of writers in the Bay area who both know about us and scorn us: the McSweeney's Gang.

3.) "Grace" kept claiming that nobody cared about the Paris Review, about the CIA in literature, about the doings of literary Insiders. Yet he knew of the personalities involved. The Francine Prose matter was just one example. She's an Insider's Insider yet unknown by the rest of society. I doubt if anyone in the ULA outside myself had ever heard of her. Yet this supposed graphic artist Jimmy Grace quickly weighed in with an opinion of her, and about similar matters.

4.) From the beginning, "Grace" went out of his way to insist he was "not a writer." He emphasized this again and again. "I'm not a writer!" He wanted this clearly and specifically known. Why? Obviously, as he knows a lot about books and the literary world, he's done some writing. (And not just on this blog!) The ULA contains many undergrounders who, as I said, are artists, musicians, actors, and also writers. This anonymous poster Grace didn't want to be associated with the word "writer." Why not? Sherlock Holmes would figure it was because he was one.
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INTERLUDE
"The Visitor": A Movie circa 1940, in black and white.
Setting: A neutral country in Europe.
NARRATIVE: A stranger comes into town. He looks like a German, and speaks with a German accent. "I'm not a German!" he insists, before anyone asks him. "I'm Swiss. Swiss! Not German!"
Soon enough tanks are rolling in; the Gestapo taking up positions. The stranger appears among the worried townfolk. "I assure you! I have nothing to do with them. Now tell me where the town's firearms are hidden."
By the end of the movie of course he's goose-stepping around the town square in full Nazi regalia, the insignia of a colonel on his lapels. The townspeople might complain about this, but they're already in concentration camps or dead.
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5.) "Jimmy Grace" mentioned he attended a reading in San Francisco at which Daniel Handler was putting down myself and the Underground Literary Alliance. Grace also strongly backed Handler's discredited version of the fake letter matter (check this blog's archives), all evidence to the contrary. On this blog he's been an outspoken supporter of the guy. A little checking shows that Daniel Handler and Stephen Elliott are the best of friends; that Elliott has not only been at Handler's recent readings, at a place called the Make-Out Room, but hosted them. (Most recently January 8th, but also at other times.) This makes a second direct connection between "Jimmy Grace" and Stephen Elliott. The cause for "Grace"'s postings here is now obvious. All other points and questions about "Jimmy Grace" and his actions are now explained.

News

The Underground Literary Alliance is too radical to be covered by the mainstream media in this country. We received mucho coverage at the start-- this was halted when the literary establishment realized we weren't just playing like so many others; that we believed what we said. (An unknown concept in the higher levels of society.)

Maybe we'll have to go overseas to break the blackballing. We know this blog is being read in Somaliland, for one thing. I say, the next ULA show should be in Somaliland!

Apparently folks are also watching our activities-- which are historic and relevant after all-- in the United Kingdom. We were presented by the Guardian as new upstarts, along with the n+1 crowd, as major competitors to the McSweeney's outfit. (You know them: Church of the Undead.) This when describing literary activity on this side of the Atlantic. Imagine! No wonder the ruthless Eggers Gang wants to destroy us.

I now say: Next ULA show should be in London!

(See http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/02/surfing_the_new_literary_wave.html to read what I'm talking about.)

They're Coming. . .

. . From the Corners of the Nation.

Wred Fright from Cleveland.
Toussaint St. Negritude from the West Coast.
Jessica Dis aka Edna Million from Chicago.
Patrick King from Baltimore.
Yarrow Regan from Queens NY.
The Idiom Poets from New Jersey.
Frank Walsh and Eric Broomfield from Philly itself.
The Super Poet from an Ivy League genetic engineering lab.
Why are they gathering?
For an afternoon of underground poetry, meaning, theater, and noise.
Don't miss it!
It will be a great show.
Sunday Feb 25th 3 pm at The Underground.
The underground literary movement is for real.
See www.literaryrevolution.com for more details.

Reality

The Reality of Literature Today.

The ULA is more radical than the Beats dreamed of being. We examine the system of literature from top to bottom. All those moderate commentators who love lauding safe pets like hip East Village icons of the 80s and 90s (Mary G and Tama J); safely embedded themselves in institutional settings of conglomerate or academe; seek the moderately radical to celebrate; the properly safe. As with everything today, the pose is more important than the reality.

Here's the real breakdown of literature today:

1.) REACTIONARIES
This consists of the Eggers Gang and their acolytes. Throw out their progressive noises, which are done for grants and tax breaks. The aesthetic and style they push is thoroughly Thermidorean; in tone exclusive and upper-class; decadent gilded prose matching their gilded posturing-- which is why they've drawn around them the effete of the wealthy elite. (Most lit-bloggers by the way have adopted the Reactionary style. "The Smart Set": the new literary aristocracy.)

2.) MODERATES
Moderates are products of the system and exist thoroughly within it, but from their cozy offices, or typing on laptops while gazing out the windows of jet-set airplanes, they give an occasional nod to dead rebels of the past; or even in their minds today imagine they might someday do something mildly rebellious themselves, though they haven't imagined yet exactly what. (Perhaps writing about 19th century Russian samizdat.) Class in this category n+1 to Meghan O'Rourke to occasional writers for Village Voice or The Nation.

3. RADICALS
The Underground Literary Alliance.

Functionaries

We can see even by the comments of demi-puppets on this blog that what the literary system is producing are not writers so much as functionaries.

Their words and attitudes contain no passion for literature, no faith in its future, no belief in its ability to move people. In their personalities is no sense of adventure, no vision of endless possibilities-- what the writer, if anyone, would be expected to have. There's no feeling for the throb of life or the throb of art; art as a living thing. They live in a rigidly static universe. They might be automatons.

One of them believed that when I spoke about pigeons that was all I meant; so detached from the living world he entirely missed the point.

Ultimately, if they don't believe art can move or change people it's because they're incapable of being moved themselves. Art is merely an occupation to them, the creation of cost-analysts and focus groups, and monolithic institutions; a dead matter; a lifeless ritual which like priests of an outmoded religion they continue to perform without remembering the purpose behind their actions.

I suppose it's a difference between how we view the world. I see it, despite its brutal hardships, as a magical changeable place of adventure where empires can be toppled. I'm not sure what they see. A sheet of metal; a concrete slab? A computer printout? Something inanimate, surely. Nothing which can be engaged.

These are writers? They're writers like so many of their number are writers; which means, they place words on pages and the words are dead, enlivened by no ideas, no vigor, no vision, no imagination, no hope. Writers? They're not writers. They're stale reproductions of writers, Xerox copies, and the original which once had value seems to have been lost.

Spoken Word Theater

Those who wish to know what the underground literary movement is about will be at our 2/25 Philadelphia show. The establishment literary world is panicked by us. Exciting new books by us are out. Our campaign is reaching a crescendo of sorts.

We're the answer to the problems and corruption of the literary establishment. We're the truth-tellers and shit-disturbers, fearless and involved. We have voices and verve. The February 25th event will be historic.

www.literaryrevolution.com

The Literary Future Has Arrived.

Shootout at Sundown

Underground Literary Army.

I'd like to say we're the hottest thing in literature right now, but in many ways we're the only thing. The only writers with backbone.

The established scene with its legions of demi-puppets are hiding behind their parapets, hoping someone among their number will march outside to deal with us. Someone, please! Make those awful ULAers go away. Not one brave brightly arrayed knight will sally forth from the castle to joust. (Inside their gleaming armor and silk finery they're terrified.)

www.literaryrevolution.com

The Game Is Up

It's time to blow the whistle on the games and secrecy of the literary world. Major players stand revealed as frauds.

Most especially, The Paris Review. We've been very patient with them (watchdogs and attack dogs that we are); parleying with their representative; awaiting a public statement that would reveal all.

Does anyone ask: Where is that statement?

If Paris Review was NOT founded with CIA money; if George Plimpton had no knowledge of CIA involvement, no steady connection with CIA employees through the years, then where is the statement?

There has been no answer to allegations posted on Paris Review's Wikipedia entry. Why not? What happened to PR's many supporters, to their Very Important billionaires and high-priced lawyers? Where's been a murmur even from the law firm Plimpton's father founded?

Secrecy: Why the secrecy? Why is everyone hiding? From what? Why does the realm of writers-- writers-- which should be the most open of all worlds in this society, consist of closed doors?

Core ULA Ideas

The core ULA idea is that status quo literature has failed the culture. It's decrepit, corrupt, boring, insular, fossilized, and becoming ever more marginalized in the minds of the general public.

The ULA idea is that literature can redeem this society; by the people for the people. For this to happen the present structure needs to be overthrown.

Established literature has become a vampire. We're driving a stake directly through the heart of it.

The Audience

The Audience
Originally uploaded by King Wenclas.

Crazy Carl Robinson performing in Philly's Rittenhouse Square a while back, to a flock of adoring fans.

Michael Grover eat your heart out!

Money and Poetry

There's a long article in the new issue of The New Yorker by Dana Goodyear about Poetry magazine and the influence its $200 million endowment is having on it.

One effect we know for sure the money has had on the publication: It's caused The New Yorker to write about it.

Goodyear seems very "Tsk, tsk," about the entrance of Wall Street and its attitudes into the world of poetry. Yet how is The New Yorker any better when its attitude toward literature is invariably "tops down"-- the Goodyear article strong evidence of this?

Are they covering grassroots American poets who give great readings across the landscape? (An exciting event here in Philly on the 25th.) Of course not! Neither are they exposing the presence of Wall Street elsewhere in the literary world, as in the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, or the board of The Paris Review, which is loaded with billionaires and investment types.

Hypocrisy runs all through the Goodyear article, with no acknowledgement that the upper-class attitudes of The New Yorker, Conde-Nast, and writers like Goodyear are themselves also part of the problem.

The Eloi

Trying to arouse interest in the CIA inflitration of literature (to what extent it occurred and whether it's continuing) makes me feel like Rod Taylor in the movie version of "The Time Machine." A lot of blank-headed people walking in straight lines like zombies. No conscience, no backbone, no will. "Nobody cares."

Does it matter all that much to me if the CIA issue is fully exposed, as it properly should be?

Not really. The ULA is doing all it can do in the cause of truth. If it isn't enough, so be it. We're leaving a record establishing our integrity on the issue.

The big losers in the matter will be the sheep of the literary world, who by their silence are completely discrediting themselves. This includes those who used to work at Paris Review and might be expected to have an opinion on the matter. It includes especially the current names on the Paris Review masthead, whose credibility, by their inaction, will be forever tarnished.

"Well, Ms. Cipher and Mr. Blank," history will ask. "Everything you did in the cause of literature and new ideas was well and good-- but where were you when it counted? Why did you not stand up when it was time to stand up?"

Blowing the Doors Off!

That's exactly what we'll do at our February 25th show at The Underground in Philadelphia. Sunday, 3 pm, 40th at Spruce Street.

At the forefront of our noise will be ULA poet Frank Walsh. Frank is steadily underrated by people who've never heard him read. At his best, he truly is "The World's Greatest Poet," and will show this in the Read-Off against the genetically-engineered Super-Poet.

ULA voices will knock the doors off the place. You'll want to be there.

The ULA = Fun and Rebellion.

Trends

TO WHAT EXTENT CIA involvement with the Paris Review influenced the magazine's content isn't something which can be determined in the course of a few minutes on this blog. We'd have to look at CIA influence on other lit-journals, like Encounter and Partisan Review, for clues and comparison. We'd have to examine many Paris Review issues and at the same time judge the overall context; the general thrust of the journal, including which writers and kinds of writers were discovered and promoted. We'd have to place Paris Review within the context of American literature as a whole.

The point is that this is a matter which should be examined, not run from. Until then, we don't know if the CIA was a "Ministry of Culture" or not.

Important literary figures like George Plimpton, over the past decades, created what's known and accepted (and acceptable) as American literature now.

One thing we know for sure: that certain kinds of writing (Tony Christini's "Social Lit" for instance); anything smacking of crude social realism, a strand of American lit and thought widespread in the 1930s; is today practically prohibited by the established literary world, by common agreement. It's not considered "literary" and scarcely considered literature. Since the 1950s official American literature has valued style over substance, craft over content; esteeming the "well-written sentence," often to the exclusion of all else. The focus of fiction and poetry has drastically narrowed-- matching the narrowed position of letters in our culture.

What role Paris Review played in this is worth looking into.

Threads

Some individuals want to stifle the CIA-Paris Review matter not only to protect the reputation of the magazine and that of connected folks, but also because the threads attached to the matter could lead anywhere.

An example: www.cia-on-campus.org/columbia.edu/columbia.html,
a 1970 report which shows the massive extent to which the CIA had infiltrated one American university.

(Note the mention of Francis T.P. Plimpton, George's father.)

The question is whether the CIA ended these associations, or if they continue. Do massive bureaucracies voluntarily give up the scope of their reach and power?

The question is to what extent the CIA, Homeland Security, et.al., are embedded in American universities NOW.

Unfortunately, unlike in 1970, no one is looking into the matter.

A Quote

"Minimizing the CIA's role in Encounter because the journal's editors were not simply following orders, however, diverts attention from the large, pernicious consequences of having a clandestine government agancy act as the Ministry of Culture."

-Michael P. Rogin in The Nation, June 12, 2000.

The same might be said about The Paris Review.

Overdog Staffers

Overdog Staffers
Originally uploaded by King Wenclas.

ULA poet Frank Walsh talking to the enemy. (More photos yet to come.)

Questions

VARIOUS POINTS

1.) E-MAILS
Recall I said I'd received about a hundred of them over this matter (not hundreds) over the past two weeks. For the most part they were relatively polite, an attempt to persuade me there is nothing to the CIA Paris Review story beyond what the NY Times reported. I treated them as an opportunity for dialogue, and responded to many of them, and received replies to my responses. The sense I had was that persons were trying to get a sense of what the ULA does or doesn't know. In turn, I asked questions designed to broaden my information. Not real cryptic-- but the fact remains that a great deal of time is being devoted to having us drop the matter, which was my point in mentioning the e-mails. The e-mails going to Cummings, on the other hand, have not been polite; have been insulting, abusive, and in my opinion, bullying.

Once I engage with people by e-mails, I treat them as off-the-record conversations. I'm no journalist, but I do want people to feel free discussing these matters with me privately.

Yesterday I had an exchange of e-mails with a Friend of Eggers, who seemed to be accusing me of something. Am I obligated to post those e-mails here? Of course not.

2.) IMPORTANCE
Is the Paris Review matter at all important? Paris Review over the years has had-- more than any other literary journal-- what all cultural entities crave: access to media. Access to media is power in this society. The chief reason no one votes for political parties like the Libertarians, for instance, is because they don't hear about them. Such parties have no access to media.

Through this access, George Plimpton was able to make literary "stars" out of nonentities like Jay McInerney. Plimpton also of course had connections to other kinds of star makers, from his good friend William Henderson at Pushcart Prize to editors and publishers at big publishing houses.

The creation of Paris Review was also important because it set the tone for other lit journals to follow. The tone is in William Styron's remarks upon the magazine's founding; that they wanted the "non-axe-grinders." This has been the prevalent philosophy of the literary world since. Any hazards that radical ideas might infiltrate themselves into literature were squelched.

The idea that Paris Review was not founded with CIA money is not plausible. Matthiessen used the journal as his "cover," yes-- but it's not as if it existed before he came to it; before he founded it. His joining it and its creation were simultaneous.

The idea that George Plimpton, son of Francis T.P. Plimpton, didn't know of the CIA connection from the moment he joined the magazine is not plausible. No other individual so fit the CIA ethos as George Plimpton, as I'll be writing about. That his pro-establishment concerns didn't stay with him through the course of his long tenure at Paris Review is not plausible. He was what he was, very much so.

A QUESTION
In the past, Paris Review hasn't hesitated to speak up or threaten legal action to protect its reputation. At least, that was the case in 2005, as shown in an item on the 3/28 Galley Cat blog. Paris Review's then-Managing Editor Fiona Maazel told them, "I'm sure you do not delight in libel" in the context of a piece Galley Cat had run which had called Rick Moody a "financial backer" of the magazine, and discussed his resignation as a contributing editor. A minor issue, really-- yet enough to get Paris Review angry.

Strangely, in light of this example, for two years, about the CIA story, we've heard from Paris Review and its high-priced lawyers: Nothing. Not even a standard-issue threatening note on legal letterhead. Why not? Obviously they want no one looking into the matter.

Where's the Outrage?

That's the question I asked at the beginning of this discussion about the Paris Review CIA affair. We've since seen plenty of outrage expressed here-- against US, for daring to bring the matter up.

(p.s. Comments will be back shortly, when I figure out how to moderate them.)

Big Show Update

JUST ADDED to the card of our 2/25 show at The Underground in Philly is "The Idiom Poets," an exciting troupe out of New Jersey.

Stay tuned to www.literaryrevolution.com for information.

Is Dissent Tolerated?

Attempts have been made to intimidate Richard Cummings, and the NY Times writer, over the CIA Paris Review story. You can notice on this blog some of the anonymous attacks which have been made against me. (The March of the Zombies.)

If this story is silenced, it will be a mark against American literature; against the Paris Review in particular, even if the actions were done only in their name and not by them directly. I hope their editors realize this.

At the ULA we're used to it. Countless attempts have been made to destroy us, from within and without. It's a wonder we're still around as an organization.

That the literary world is monolithically corrupt has been proven many times, this situation the latest example. It was proven to the ULA with our first Protest against corruption in 2001, a petition we sent to 300 literary luminaries. Not one would sign it.

Right now we search like Diogenes for one honest person. Or at least, for one voice to state, "I disagree with what they say, but will fight to the death for their right to say it."

History

To know that American literature is class-based, one need only look at the three most prestigious literary journals today. The Paris Review's board consists of extremely rich and powerful people. The Believer was founded and is edited by Columbia grads. The difference between they and the n&1 crowd, the newcomers, is that the n+1ers went mostly to Harvard.

None of these entities are in any way representative of American society as a whole.

What's their relevance? We don't see them speaking out about the Paris Review CIA matter, as would be expected.

Maybe the CIA no longer exists, was merely a relic of the Cold War.

Funny though that the CIA is currently running radio ads recruiting for something called the National Clandestine Service. Does this bother anyone? Guess not.

The ULA campaign was formed as a way to get attention to good overlooked writers, who otherwise wouldn't stand a chance of recognition. It's a good cause. We know that history is with us. We know that history will condemn our opponents. (Maybe that's what worries them so.)

Who will history honor in this argument? Who does history always honor?

Stonewalling bureaucrats protective of their turf?

Or, the truth-seekers. the whistle-blowers, and the rebels?

Plimpton: Background

George Plimpton was raised and lived in the heart of America's establishment. He was friends with CIA types his entire life.

Throw away the notion that Plimpton (and by extension the Paris Review) had no ideology. Plimpton was the personification of classic American liberalism. He believed in an outward-looking foreign policy in politics and culture. He implicitly believed in Owen Wister's phrase that "true aristocracy is true democracy"; that the cream always rises to the top; counting himself of course among that number.

It's an ideology compatible and consonant with U.S. Imperialism. (The preferred word is "globalism.") George was the creation, like so many other Americans of his time, of Franklin Roosevelt, who might be called the first American Imperialist; the first President to envision global American Empire, who worked to set that empire in motion.

George Plimpton didn't need to conspicuously advocate this vision, this ideology, in Paris Review's pages. It's a vision which overwhelmingly predominates in American political and intellectual circles, and was subliminally present in everything PR's editors did and said. One can't be considered an "intellectual" in America today without believing the vision: a dominant ideology far more strongly rooted in our society than Communism ever was in the Soviet Union.

Those who disagree with the vision exist on the margins.

Paris Review's office in Paris, and its very title, were an expression of Empire. They said, "Here's our American outpost."

No policy was explicitly advocated in PR's pages. How do you advocate something which is present all around you; which exists in your own society unchallenged? (Anyway, to do so would've been gauche.) Their need was instead to present art free from politics, from polemics, from social conscience; which stressed as role model to the world soon to be conquered a vision of American success and affluence. Paris Review's most celebrated writers fit that role well.

Arrogance

LITERARY STONEWALLING

The arguments that can be mustered to silence the Paris Review CIA story are weak to the point of comedy.

The essential strength of the Cummings reports remains. The single most controversial, most unbelievable part of his story-- that leftist icon Peter Matthiessen worked for the CIA-- has been confirmed by Matthiessen himself. Everything else is gravy.

That Matthiessen was a CIA agent leads logically and inevitably to other parts of the story.

Matthiessen hasn't been connected with the Paris Review in fifty years, the journal's editors will maintain.

Really? But he's listed in your pages, right on the masthead, as a current board member, alongside all kinds of establishment heavyweights. Peter Matthiessen also has an essay in your current issue! Just how stupid do you think the public is, anyway?

No connection indeed!

Another tactic will be to discredit George Plimpton by painting him as some kind of clownish moron who'd never be trusted by the CIA. Anyone who's met and talked to the guy knows this contention is ludicrous. It does great disservice to Plimpton's memory. (This is a subject I'll address on this blog separately.)

The fact though is that Paris Review editors aren't saying much of anything, publicly. Their essential arrogance got them into this situation in the first place and will be the cause of their undoing.

Like others of their kind in the lit world, they feel they're answerable to nobody-- least of all to a general public they profess to want to read their publication. (Do they hold themselves accountable, as do we of the ULA? I've opened this blog to comments from every conceivable defender of Paris Review or the CIA.)

Before we ran the two-part Cummings Report, I e-mailed Paris Review editors telling them of the story. Had they contested the facts, we might not have run the essays. We never heard a word from them-- and haven't to this day.

Can we presume that such matters and how to handle them are discussed by Paris Review editors and board members? This is an impressive collection of highly intelligent people, including at least one renowned legal mind. Their decision about the CIA stories has been to say and do nothing.

THE CHANGING WORLD
These people behave as if it's still 1955, when such revelations could easily be squelched or forgotten; handled within the realm of approved commentators. Ever-silent dinosaur Robert B. Silvers is their role model. Silvers is of another time. His arrogance, the exclusivity of his attitude, is now impossible to change. He'll be judged by history-- a history which unfortunately for him will be written by writers not of his choosing.

What's the excuse of Paris Review editors for their stonewalling? Do they really think they can do a quick search of the archives and magically proclaim, "No, there's no story here. No story at all! Peter Matthiessen? Who's he? We can't see him anywhere! Plimpton? The CIA? There's no one here but us elitists!"
???????????????

They've stonewalled for fifty years about Matthiessen and they'll continue to stonewall about the rest of the story. But Cummings or no Cummings, ULA or no ULA, in the age of the Internet this is a story that won't be going away.

UNBELIEVABLE
The only really unbelievable part of any of this, for those who value the integrity of literature, is the Paris Review attitude that they'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming to acknowledge anything. Only grudgingly, when every i is dotted and t crossed, every exit for them blocked, no way to run away, will they come clean and apologize for a fifty-year misrepresentation.

They're not writers. They're apparatchiks. They behave like apparatchiks in everything they do and say. The conformist literary world of the Soviet Union had nothing on these people. In the righteous cause of their status quo ideology they sully the very idea of American democracy. (A lot of that going around right now, people say.)

THE PEOPLE
The prevalent attitude in Paris Review offices: Arrogance. The Underground Literary Alliance isn't worthy of a response from these insular snobs, because we're not proper Members of the Club.

We're only an authentic voice of the people.

Their Idiocy

If one can anticipate the other side's defense, one can stress beforehand the idiocy of their arguments.

They may have us believe that Peter Matthiessen worked for the CIA but brought no CIA funds to the Paris Review itself.

But there had to be a reason he was working for the CIA. They didn't employ him to do nothing.

Let's try to picture this. "Go over there to Paris, Peter, and start a magazine in the heart of Europe; a literary magazine, run by Americans but emphasizing the European connection-- but don't ask us for start-up money!"

Is that how it happened?

And what of the Matthiessen perspective. They're in the middle of the Cold War; the CIA has tons of money to throw around-- and indeed is throwing it around on literary journals very much like Paris Review (see Encounter)-- CIA agent Matthiessen knows all this CIA money is sitting there AND HE DOESN'T ASK FOR A PENNY OF IT to help start-up why he was working for the CIA in the first place.

What are we missing here?

The idiocy will continue once we get to old boy Plimpton himself of course, who I'll be discussing further in a future post, unless I accidentally stumble upon some poisoned soup someplace.

Auster

The most comical figure in this story so far has to be novelist Paul Auster, who professes like Claude Rains in "Casablanca" to be shocked-- shocked!-- at the Paris Review CIA revelations. Curious that the CIA rumors were floating around for years and well-connected intellectual Auster, who knows so many people in the lit-biz, never heard a thing.

(This the writer who pushes the philosophy that everything that happens in the world is mere coincidence.)

We can put Paul Auster in the George Plimpton category. Either he's being disingenuous-- or he's an idiot.

The Empire Strikes Back

James Linville, long-time #2 to George Plimpton at the magazine-- who's been anything but forthcoming-- now assures the ULA that he will be responding publicly to the CIA Paris Review matter to a fuller extent than the vague statement he's already posted on this blog. We'll be delaying a follow-up Monday Report on the story until a week from next Monday, to give Linville every opportunity to present the lit establishment's side of the story.
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COVER-UP
It's curious that the many writers and editors who are usually so outspoken about such matters are saying nothing. Why is this? Where's the outrage?

No one is talking, just as the sheep of the literary world NEVER talk about controversial issues touching their own realm; such as, for instance, the CLMP thing; or the fact that in the early 90's billionaire Jean Stein (good friend of Mr. Plimpton's) was receiving NEA taxpayer money for her lit journal Grand Street, a matter undiscussed to this day.

STRATEGIES
One can speculate on the path those seeking to quiet this matter will take.

I'd guess they will try to isolate this story to simply Matthiessen; poor misguided Matthiessen; to put walls around him and otherwise prevent any connected threads being followed. They'll put enough pressure on those involved-- even the once-glorious New York Times-- to prevent them from looking further into this story.

Yet many questions remain.

What of Robert B. Silvers, editor and founder of New York Review of Books, who worked for Paris Review in Europe, and before that, for SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe)? If anyone knew if George Plimpton was working for the CIA, wouldn't it have been him? What has Mr. Silvers had to say?

What about the April 1965 conference of literary editors sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation, chaired by Reed Whittemore, good friend of then-CIA big shot James Angleton? Participants included Peter Caws, Victor Navasky, William Phillips, and George Plimpton himself. Was the CIA ever mentioned, I wonder?

What of the William Phillips publication Partisan Review, already long acknowledged as a CIA front, which had so many connections to so many writers, including some of the neo-cons who've recently mangled America's foreign policy? Is anyone asking questions about that? Yes? No? (From the mice of the literary world I hear echoing silence.)

What about The New Republic, cited by Carroll Quigley as an establishment mouthpiece from its beginning? Its publisher from 1968 to 1979, Robert J. Myers, had been a CIA agent for 12 years. (As they say, you could look it up.)

There's still the Jeane Kirkpatrick Heldref matter to pursue. Kirkpatrick and her husband Evron (former OSS agent) controlled the Helen Dwight Reid Foundation for many years, which in turn took over in 1982 the prestigious intellectual literary journal Critique.

Many of these threads lead to old boy George Plimpton, ex-Yalie adventurer, who may not have been CIA himself but certainly fits the profile. (His father, incidentally, was heavily involved in American foreign policy.)

What ABOUT George? What did he know, anyway?

We're asked to believe that Matthiessen's CIA involvement came to George as a total surprise. Maybe we'll be told that Plimpton never knew anything.

What do we believe?

Either George Plimpton was secretive and disingenuous for fifty years about the Paris Review's CIA roots. Or, he was a total idiot. I see no other choice.

No, sorry, the idea isn't to isolate this story, to squelch it to minimize damage to literary VIPs, but instead to follow the leads until we know the full and complete truth.

The Antedeluvians

American society today is ten times a more hostile place than what the Beats faced.

The signs are around us. Movies and books (latest by Sena Jeter Naslund) celebrate Marie Antoinette, while the "gutter press" free speech heirs of Marat and Brissot are stifled. Glossy magazines on bookshelves madly trumpet "The Wealth Explosion" while the city of Detroit closes another forty schools.

We now find with the CIA Paris Review story that the enemy we fight is of one piece. CIA infiltration; rich writers receiving scarce grant money, or giving it to their buddies; the Big Money takeover of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses: it's all of one piece; one proliferating stain on the integrity and reputation of American letters.

My strategy with the ULA was contingent on finding ONE strong voice of integrity and conscience within the corrupt literary establishment brave enough to say, "Enough!"

Lacking that, our campaign faces overwhelming (but not impossible) odds.

Know this: They are going to kill us. Economically, spiritually, and psychically they will kill us. They are going to kill every one of us, every undergrounder, inside the ULA and out of it. They have to-- our very existence as independent writers points out the fraudulence of their standing.

With us around, how can Elissa Schappell pose as a bohemian, Dave Eggers as an outsider, Jason Shinder as a poet, or Rick Moody as a small press icon?

When writers stand up and speak the truth, how can established literature maintain its tissue-paper castle of lies?

Flawed DNA

The Paris Review advertises itself on its web site as "The DNA of Literature."

Worldwide Writers

Hello Somaliland!

Apparently this blog is being read (and plagiarized) around the world. For example, it's been the subject of discussion on quite a few Somali web sites. For one example, see www.allsomali.com, click on "Search" toward the right (in red-- not google) and type in "demi-puppets."

This reminded me that the Underground Literary Alliance is, after all, worldwide, with members, sympathizers, and readers in countries like Canada, France, England, Japan, and now Somaliland. To break the blackballing of our ideas in America, we need only get the word out about what's happening to literature in this country, how it's being controlled and stifled, to writers and readers across the rest of the globe. Why not?

(A positive sign: Somalis haven't heard yet from Jonathan Lethem that there is no longer such a thing as plagiarism!)

Working for the Man

The Paris Review CIA revelations throw a different light upon George Plimpton's actions over the years.

Recall that, after our Feb 8 2001 debate with Plimpton and his staff, George told me that the one point upon which the ULA was most wrong was the notion that literature could in any way be polemical. "Never!" he stated emphatically. (This conversation documented by Michael Jackman and myself.)

Pieces fall into place. I've been told much the same thing over the years by other established lit people; from well-bred award-winning novelist Charles Baxter; to an associate editor at the New York Review of Books. They seem to have been brainwashed into the notion that strong ideas have no place in fiction and poetry, as a matter of taste. For Plimpton it went beyond simple brainwashing.

STILL FIGHTING THE COLD WAR
The conjunction of literary bureaucracies in this nation is a mirror image of the cultural apparatus in the now-defunct Soviet Union (albeit much richer and larger). The mindset is the same. On one side, literary publications were infiltrated by the KGB. Here, they were infiltrated by the CIA. Both sides were fighting an intense ideological battle. Culture was used as a weapon against the other.

For American apparatchiks this meant stripping our literature of anything resembling authentic social action and conscience; anything in any way hinting of the crude socialist realism of the Soviets. Writing that champions the economic underdog was viewed as a threat by literary mandarins like George Plimpton. A great tradition of American literature, as represented by novelists like London, Norris, and Dreiser, was wiped out.

Who did George Plimpton promote instead? For the most part, the richest of the rich; using his influence with large circulation mags like GQ and Esquire to gain hyper-attention for modestly-talented brats like Jay McInerney, Rick Moody, and Susan Minot.

The Paris Review, mouthpiece of the literary status quo, founded entirely with CIA money, was ALWAYS an ideological vehicle. It remains so now. Editor Philip Gourevitch admits in the NY Times 2/13/07 story that the journal's CIA background was common knowledge in their offices. (They didn't think to inform anyone else!)

How do Paris Review editors salvage the reputation of their publication? Is it possible?

Do they even want to?

What Say Lit Folk?

What have other literary folk said about the big CIA-Paris Review story? I've been simultaneously busy trying to set up the ULA's big February 25th Philadelphia Reading and have limited time on-line.

As far as I know, Maud Newton mentioned the 2/13 NY Times story, and linked to it. Credit to her for that.

Anyone else?

On Friday I asked Richard Cummings if he'd received requests for interviews or statements from establishment media outlets. His response: "No word. Nothing."

(Curious that the 1978 remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was on television last night. I see parallels between the situation depicted, and the contemporary literary world.)

This matter is a huge dirty blot on American literary history-- on the integrity and credibility of American literature. Writers everywhere-- everywhere, including all who've appeared in PR's pages-- should be outraged.

Where is the outrage?

Cummings and Matthiessen

A crucial point to add: The breaking of the story-- Matthiessen's admission-- was ostensibly because of some letters being published. More, I believe, it was due to the relentless pursuit of this matter by Richard Cummings, who wrote about the issue not just for us, but in every available forum the last few years. It shows that if you keep up the pressure, a ray of light and conscience will eventually enter an Overdog's head, as it did for Matthiessen. (At least, we can hope!)

The battle the ULA is engaged in is ultimately a battle of ideas, of conscience, and truth. Albeit on a smaller scale, it's no different than other battles waged throughout history against corrupt mindsets; whether against segregationists in 60s America, or against a monolithic Soviet Union. The battles are always similar, and can sometimes be won by appealing to truth and conscience.

Another point that has to be made: Where was/is the so-called Left on this story? Why did it take a libertarian writer like Cummings to pursue it? Where are mainstream Leftist editors and writers now?

What Say Paris Review?

Now that CIA involvement in famed lit-journal The Paris Review has been confirmed, what say its editors? Have they spoken about this to anyone?

Now that the story has broken, it's incumbent upon them to address the issue; to state the extent of CIA financing and involvement, including providing a time-line of how long the influence lasted-- and whether it's still going on!

Cummings Vindicated!

Yes, independent journalist Richard Cummings, who said that Paris Review co-founder Peter Matthiessen worked for the CIA, and that the Paris Review was founded with CIA money, turns out to have been correct. This is a huge story-- or should be.

The fullest version of the matter to date appeared in a two-part essay by Cummings, posted on the web site of the Underground Literary Alliance, way back in 5/23 and 5/30 of 2005. Readers can find it by clicking on the Monday Report Box at www.literaryrevolution.com and scrolling down to it.

CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE
Finally, finally, an admission of this appeared somewhere (January 13th 2007 NY Times). Matthiessen has admitted the truth. Yet when Cummings's Monday Report came out I sent out flurries of e-mails. No one in the literary world-- not even renowned lit-bloggers-- were the slightest bit interested.

Is the literary world interested now? This is a huge story. Perhaps the most prestigious and influential American literary journal of the last fifty years was a pawn of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Who knew about this? How far did the tentacles of government and establishment power go? What other top literary figures, many of whom are still alive, were also tainted? Which literary conferences over the years were merely fronts? There are threads everywhere to be followed-- for instance, the involvement of recently deceased Jeanne Kirkpatrick and the Heldref Foundation in the literary world. Will anyone besides the ULA follow them?

Stay tuned to this station.

ULA Campaign 2007

Charged by the Energy of Literary Rebellion.

The ULA excursion to Manhattan was a kind of scouting mission testing the defenses of the literary mandarins, probing for weak spots, while at the same time seeking possible allies: those we can work with toward common objectives. I'm doing a write-up of the hectic adventure for an upcoming ULA Monday Report.

The Underground Literary Alliance is embarking on its most ambitious campaign in six years. The first stage of the campaign will be centered around our February 25th Philadelphia reading at The Underground. This will be one of our more exciting events-- which means, one of the most exciting literary events ever. Fantastic underground names like Yarrow Regan, Wred Fright, Toussaint St. Negritude, and the dynamic Jessica Disobedience have made tentative commitments to join the ULA Philly chapter at this event. More details to follow. (Local poets and writers who wish to be included can contact me by e-mail; info on this blog.)

In the weeks after the show we'll make more incursions into the territory of the Overdogs in New York.

ULA BOOKS
We have ample product to hype and distribute-- including new publications which are the leading edge of our literary revolution.

ULA MONDAY REPORTS
Even if we can't come up with a new Report every week-- even if we go to a twice-monthly or monthly schedule-- we must continue these essays. No feature of the ULA campaign gives us more credibility; more distinguishes us from the timid and backward literary mass. Since our inception we've been at the forefront of exposing corruption in the literary world.

For example, I'm told that fresh news about possible past CIA involvement in the American literary world is now being discussed in establishment publications. This is a story the ULA covered in 2005, by posting a provocative Monday Report by independent journalist Richard Cummings.

It sounds like a victory for the ULA, with more to follow.

ULA Invades Manhattan!

Members of the wildest writers group on the planet, the Underground Literary Alliance, will be in Manhattan tomorrow, Tuesday, January 16th, at various stops. No definite agenda. Watch for us outside your skyscraper window.

We may have lunch at Langan's, and plan to be at a place on First Avenue called DBA's by 5 pm, or shortly thereafter, where we invite all writers and lit-folk to meet us, if you're not afraid to. We're freaks, but peaceful freaks, albeit sometimes theatrical.

One Week Poetry Contest

First Edition.

Best poem posted on this thread wins. (I still have some Wendy's coupons left.)

Deadline: One week from now.

I'll start things off.

"POET ON THE BEACH"

Bongo drums go beat beat beat
bongo drums go beat
hipster be bop cool cat go!
poet on the beach
goattee wearing sunglass'd dude
Hawaiian shirt,
attitude
versify to all the world!
poetry is cool.
Sitting cross-legged in the sand
Rebel warrior, rights of man!
protest sounds, peace and love,
watch him play for all he's worth
seagulls watching, rising surf
Recite those words! Yell that verse!
snapshot tourists,
syncopated bum.
Darkened evening, sun goes flat
red-lined sky,
He takes the change that's in the hat
and says goodbye.
Echoes follow,
lingered rhythmn
seagulls watch him go
and little children
Hope he'll return tomorrow.

BIG SHOW COMING!

The cast is being put-together for a ULA Action Reading on Sunday, February 25th, 3 pm, at The Underground, 40th and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia. It will be an exciting event. Stay tuned to this blog for more details.

One Week Rant Contest

First Edition.

Subject: John Updike.

The best rant posted on this thread about the subject wins.

Deadline: One week from now.

Entries: Acceptable from everyone, even Demi-Puppets. Post as many rants as you want.

The Contest begins NOW.

Best Monday Report?

I'm putting together a contest for the Best "ULA Monday Report" in 2007.

MEANWHILE,
What's the best ULA Monday Report of 2006?
Check the line-up at www.literaryrevolution.com
There were several multiple posters, including
Steve Kostecke with 5 Reports.
I was next with 4.
Leopold McGinnis, Adam Hardin, James Nowlan, Bruce Hodder, Pat King, and I think Pat Simonelli had 2 reports each.
Plus various one-time 2006 writers.
Did I miss anybody?
Quite a selection.
What do you think?

Meet the ULA

MEET THE UNDERGROUND LITERARY ALLIANCE IN NEW YORK CITY

Next Tuesday, January 16th, members of the Underground Literary Alliance will be in Manhattan, at various locations.

During the day we'll have our zeen table set up outside several major literary establishment power centers. We'll pass out flyers, sell books, and do impromptu poetry readings. We may have lunch at a writer hangout like Langan's, if it's not too pricey; or Sardi's, if that's better. (Suggestions welcomed.)

By early evening we plan to be centered at a saloon on the lower east side-- possibly DBA's, which I'm told is a literary watering hole. Everyone and anyone will be welcome to meet us and speak with us about literature. We may even buy your first beer. If anyone knows an open mic we'd be welcome at, let me know.

Scheduled to accompany me on the visit are three of the ULA's most interesting and hyperbolic personalities:
-New ULA Director Patrick King.
-ULA poet Frank Walsh.
-Eric "Jellyboy the Clown" Broomfield, who caused an uproar last spring at Columbia's Miller Hall.

If you see us, say hi, pelt us with potato salad, buy a zeen, denounce us to the world, or whatever you feel is appropriate.

Defenders?

So far, the only persons who've spoken against my criticism of Francine Prose seem to dislike her ideas and her works even more than I do.

Is there no one who will defend her?

Even one of the many editors who publish her opinions in magazines like Harper's and The New York Times Book Review? One of her colleagues or students at the New School?

Are her writings and ideas truly that indefensible?

Conditions inside the established lit scene must be worse than we thought.

Wred Fright in Philly!

Wred Fright

Wred Fright, author of THE PORNOGRAPHIC FLABBERGASTED EMUS, has agreed to appear on the big lit-card being put together now for Philadelphia. The date: February 25th, 3 p.m. The place: Appropriately enough, THE UNDERGROUND, at 40th and Spruce Streets (underneath Copabanana). Stay tuned for more info!

Will this be the most entertaining literary show ever?

Arguments

Some recent arguments against myself and the ULA:

1.) Underground books aren't reviewed by mainstream publications like New York Review of Books. In response, the ULA has criticized these publications, and called attention to them. Now we're told that they won't review us BECAUSE we've criticized them. It's a no-win situation. Sorry, but I'll take my chances with speaking up.

2.) I'm told I shouldn't criticize Francine Prose and her ideas, even though she's considered one of the top literary critics in the nation, because she's fragile and delicate, intellectually helpless, of no real ability, etc. etc. Really? Does anyone notice the absurdity of the situation?

3.) The literary world should be a place of civility and politeness. See #1 and #2.

4.) The ULA should simply disband and go away. Then, suddenly, all the lit-folks, editors, reviewers and such, who've ignored and scorned us for years, in some cases decades, will suddenly embrace us. But the world doesn't work that way.

"Burning Mansions"

Spare me your lectures
your trivialized posing
snooty condescension
chi-chi descriptions
of the swanky parties
of bohemian millionaires,
Sedaris clown entertainment
snot-filled pastry dishes
white powder
trays of sandwiches
clinking wineglasses
at the benefit
for the African
tourist
flash photo taken with the guests
to show they're generous
progressives,
Saturday smiles of glowing teeth
boob jobs and face lifts.
They return home
comforting digs
million dollar
take off their ties and party dresses
to hand to the maid, head-bowed and silent
immigrant.
Then the Overdogs open
laid out on the mahogany end table
the neatly stacked envelopes
counting the profits
of their global investments
perfume-tinged
smelling of sanctity,
of the convent of their untouched
conscience.

Art Weasels

ULAer Tom Hendricks has a term he uses called "art weasels." It applies well to the many anonymous posters we've dealt with since we began this cause. They represent the intellectual cowardice of the mainstream, and yes, they are demi-puppets. They define the term as first used by Shakespeare: imaginary ghosts which vanish with daylight.

Too many flunkies of the contemporary established literary scene have no backbones, no truthfulness, no character, no integrity. Somewhere deep in the bowels of their consciousness they realize this-- which accounts for their screams, always, always, under fake identities.

One is afraid to give his/her name because we might then criticize his/her book. We might criticize the person's book! Outrageous! We might criticize the person's book! (We're apparently not dealing with Zola here.) A writer? This person claims to be a writer?? No; more a pretend writer. Not a writer by my assessment. I've always believed writers were the most fearless and honest persons around, willing to say what's right, and suffer the consequences, if need be-- heedless of consequences-- the one individual the rest of society could always count on to speak the truth.

Real writers. Not these skulking lying corrupt individuals (postmodern writers like John Hodgeman celebrate the lie) with great institutional and financial power and resources yet still unable to come out into the light. Fast-talking con-men without spines. Jellyfish. Invertebrates.

Wasn't one of their number once caught posting against the ULA anonymously? I believe so. Their role model.

Francine Prose:

THE FAILED APPARATCHIK

I.) First Impression.

What would we have thought if top literary bureaucrats in a Soviet-style country, seeing that the populace isn't interested in their bland, machine-like works, suddenly announce that the public must be retrained to read in proper fashion: taught to read "like writers"?

Wouldn't we laugh hysterically?

Wouldn't this be a sign of the complete bankruptcy of their cultural system, of their ideas?

Yet this is exactly what's happening in the United States today, as put forth in a new book by Insider's Insider Francine Prose: Reading Like a Writer. The book is a rear-guard action meant to rescue what little remains of the literary system's credibility. Prose's colleagues (most recently, Mona Simpson) admit that the public has scant interest in literary fiction and poetry. They blame not themselves, but the public!

In her book, Prose asks whether writing can be taught in MFA programs. She says that she's taught writing for 20 years, and so has to believe it can be taught. Picture the failed Soviet bureaucrat standing fretfully as the Berlin Wall readies to topple; "We've been doing things our way for decades, Comrades. We have no choice but to defend what is; our own existence; our bureaucratic survival!"

Prose styles herself a literary critic and theorist, yet strangely enough (or not so strangely), never exposes her ideas to criticism from outside the walls of the narrow world of status quo agreement. Being so embedded into the System and its failure, Francine Prose is incapable of stepping outside her box to view the cultural world as it exists in reality. A sad place for a critic to be.

Prose isn't a critic at all. She's a mouthpiece for the Machine, standing in a room of mirrors watching images of sameness bounce off the walls of the room again and again.

A question for Ms. Prose:
The investment in America's literary writers, through the System's programs, involves many thousands of persons and billions of dollars. The energy and expense dwarfs, a thousand-fold, the investment in art in Periclean Athens, or Elizabethan England. Yet where are America's great writers? Who can be pointed to, to justify the hundreds of MFA programs? Who rises above the interesting and competent? Maybe these programs help people to feel good about themselves-- but WHERE, Ms. Prose, are the great, moving, earth-shaking poems, stories, and novels?

When all is said and done, won't Francine Prose herself be viewed as no more than a System writer, well-rewarded with medals and ribbons-- or tokens of same-- pinned onto her chest from the internal bureaucracy, while having no relevance to the authentic culture, to the progress of the true stream of literature; her art never escaping the safe bounds of its craft, competence, and conformity? She talks of the love of language, but in her words I see no raging passionate VOICE; no out-of-control Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas, or Kerouac; no energetic unstoppable talker with an irresistably attractive love of LIFE. Instead, careful steps through the dusty corridors of literary priests.

Any reply to this, Ms. Prose? Hello? Hello?

II. Second Look.

Maybe I'm unfair. In her book, Francine Prose does admit the limits of writing programs. They don't create great writers. She accepts this. Why then the enormous expense, for society and the individual? Aren't the programs nothing more than ways to keep dutiful literary apparatchiks like Francine Prose employed?

Prose describes her efforts to impose her Princess-and-the-Pea sensibilities upon her students. To their credit, many have rebelled. Probably her lectures mimicked the "fictions" she applauds: refined murmurs from the mannequins on the sofa.

Prose's viewpoint is bourgeois and domestic. Petting a cat takes on deep significance. Such trivialities are important-- and so the immersion in details. The apt detail CAN be important for a narrative, but for Prose and writers like her they become an obsession. It's part of their fixation on their materialistic world. They've spent a lot of bucks on their possessions and so they'd better describe them!

It's an escape from thought. Prose loves Chekhov stories, she says, because they're non-judgemental. Writer, she admonishes, have no opinion on anything around you. If the world is corrupt; well, that's just the way it is. Blink at the furnishings. Let the world pass over you.

Francine Prose not only appreciates house cats-- she IS that cat, cataloguing the room's furnishings, quietly and delicately, with great feline sensibility, and stupidity, before pattering off into the sunlight for her afternoon nap.

Prose leaves the living room, of course, for funerals, conferences, trips to Europe and such, but wherever she travels she never leaves the confines of her comfortably ignorant mindset. Like others of her kind, there's no world outside her well-bred lifestyle. Her kind of writing, found in literary story after story, poem after poem, novel after novel, written by MFA-produced factory automatons, is fine up to a point-- but NOT when their stupid insular world is all there is; when such irrelevant generic craftings define our literature. Writers like Prose are blocking the way to the emergence of more authentic and original authors; to the realization of a greater art. Francine Prose has published numerous books-- 10? 12?-- while underground writers like myself have been allowed to publish not one.

Do we have anything to add to the national dialogue, Ms. Prose? I guess not! At least, not sofas, carpets, lamps, or cats; nothing so elevated as that.

ULA 2007

The ULA carnival is being brought out of its warehouse. Be prepared for event after event, action after action.

Trip to Queens

On Christmas I traveled to a get-together in Queens thrown by an outstanding local poet. Present were activist of all stripes, of various ethnic backgrounds. I received a good education about the state of New York City today, a point-of-view of the mass of people, instead of the select sliver of opinion one receives from the top-most layer on literary weblogs.

I heard about the power of landlords, the strength of their organization, their disdain of tenants-- neglect of tenants rights-- failure to do simple maintenance of the most necessary kind yet evicting on quickest notice the holding back of rent payment. I was told about the impact of so many illegal immigrants, whose situation leaves them unable to protest abuse in any way; weakening the influence of renters as a whole, as they also weaken the situation of working people. I listened to tales of the horrendous conditions of people living below the southern border, whose situation, contrary to all promises from the proponents of the global economy now being imposed on us, has, since NAFTA, deteriorated drastically.

In my turn I spoke about the Underground Literary Alliance, the measures we'd taken, the corruption we faced, and our plans for the future. Everyone there, people who live in New York City, and know the situation there better than I do, agreed with me strongly.

Curious that the ULA faces opposition from the top layer of the lit-world-- but our ideas and words find strong resonance among the 99.9% rest of the populace. This has been true everywhere we've gone; in cities like Detroit and Cleveland, as well as Queens. (I'll never forget the shouts of agreement to my opening remarks at our 2002 Detroit event.)

The future belongs to us, as soon as we get the word out.

2006: A Shameful Year

2006 was a shameful year for a literary establishment sinking deeper into corruption and irrelevance.

The "Nasdiij" affair exposed the patronizing racism of organizations like PEN.

Unlike Nasdiij, J.T. Leroy continues to be embraced by the literati, even though "his" life story was revealed to be an embarrassing fraud. Leroy's novels glamorized, for the amusement of a conscienceless elite, the notably UNglamorous world of child prostitutes. (This would stand as a nadir of establishment literary behavior were it not so typical.) Literary decision makers readily embrace phoniness while disdaining anything real.

The insular and predictable choices of the New York Times Book Review's best fiction books of the year demonstrate the ever-narrowing viewpoint at the top of today's literary world. The applauded authors are all well-connected well-trained house pets; safe and predictable.
*****************************************
THE ULA
What of the lit-world's behavior concerning the one true voice of literary integrity and independence, the Underground Literary Alliance?

It's more egregious than ever.

In the spring the ULA (along with the reputations of Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac) was publicly denounced by establishment attack dog Phillip Lopate from the stage of Columbia's Miller Hall. The contentious event raised scarcely a murmur from the sheep of the literary world.

Neither did my two-part expose this fall, appearing at the ULA's "Monday Report" (www.literaryrevolution.com) describing the big-money takeover of small press vehicle the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

This signal example of the monopolization of literature would be ignored even if the ULA weren't involved in breaking the story. Criticizing the takeover would ruffle too many feathers of too many important literary people. Conclusion: Those who should have made noise about this are invertebrates. It's useless to look to them for change.
**********************************************
WHY SOME WRITERS HATE THE ULA
We're hated because we hold a mirror up to the cowardice and corruption of go-along-to-get-along lit folk. Their "progressive" profiles are shown to be cardboard cutouts with nothing behind them.

"Nightmares of Detroit"

PROLOGUE
(Not written yet.)

THE SEARCH FOR MR. FIVE
Most put-upon creature on the planet the Sewer Rat.

He made his way through the most put-upon city through destroyed closed warehouses shops sidewalks bridges, past crumbling landmarks like the decayed hulking green decayed stone iron train station, vast green flowing smelly Detroit River rushing relentlessly behind it.

The air was gray chilled, a foot of snow on the ground. The foul smelling Sewer Rat sensed a snap in the wind beyond the cold. Something was happening. He'd sensed the moment once before several years ago. Within minutes came the impression of movement on the once-silent streets. He heard helicopters, felt the presence of police crusiers nearby bolstered by outsiders; a vast sweep looking for fugitives, including himself.

The last time there were more questionable denizens to round up. There'd been more life-- raucous bars like the Cass Corridor saloon he'd been in when a phalanx of huge black vice cops lined patrons up against a wall to frisk bodies check id cards-- Sewer Rat had slipped through the cursory examination then. More lethal subjects had been in that very room. Next to them, at the time he'd appeared harmless.

Given his brother-- the fact of his brother; that he lived-- Sewer Rat guessed he was a particular target of this round-up. They were looking for someone!

(For Mr. Five? This notion appeared momentarily at the back of his head.)

Trapezoids of icy structures on all sides as he slid down a slick sidestreet, his feet cold inside his workboots. A closed tiny ham sandwich diner which had served local shop workers: it'd been shuttered for eight years, dark barred interior showing dust and cobwebs.

To live as he had, homeless or on the verge of homelessness, existing on the streets or in tiny rooms in druggie hotels; in prostitute near-flophouses; in abandoned buildings or the interiors of barely-operating blue-smoke-billowing cars; amid the ruins of a city, on the constant verge of extinction, for years, does something to a person. To live without dreams or hope with the feeling only of survival makes a person too-beaten down and crazy to operate again in the organized world. To be seen as, and to be, an alien creature to all one encounters gives one hardness and bitterness beyond conception and redemption.

(No doubt he exaggerated his plight. In his madness; guttural-voiced grunts his only communication with most people; scarred-eye and weather-faced; he saw himself as others saw him but not as he was in reality.)

He had a few friends left in this town. For instance: Benny the Blind Man.

Sewer Rat trudged Benny's way now, finding Trumbull Avenue, a street of fallen-apart Victorian mausoleum mansions which by a miracle of neglect yet survived; too irrelevant to be bulldozed.

Some of the tall narrow houses on the long street had been restored in a gentrification project twelve years ago; most of the pioneering gentry had fled, Detroit a city which, beyond all logic and expectation, never rebounded. Others of these ancient structures were charred shells. Benny's hideout was between the two extremes. His house was a wreck but it had intact windows. Its bannisters, frames, and plumbing hadn't been gutted. By a quirk of bureaucratic ignorance water ran inside. There was no electricity, which Benny scarcely needed anyway. (For heat he burned neighborhood scrap wood in the fireplace.)

Benny's house had the kind of medieval fortress iron bars over his windows and doors which imprisoned most remaining city residents. The barred door now stood battered and broken, grillwork on the lawn, the entrance wide open. The police or Feds had already been there.

"Benny!" Rat called as he bounded up uneven steps.

Benny sat in a rickety Victorian armchair at the center of the junk-filled orange room, too stunned or pissed; old, weak, or blind; to close the entrance. The door had been knocked off its hinges. Sewer Rat propped it up to stop the wind.

"You mother-fucking trouble making white sewer rat asshole-- wuz they looking for you?" came from the old man whose angry wide-opened eyes showed blankness.

He was stocky, of wide frame, but scarcely over five feet in height (presumably he'd once been taller). In age he must be at least 90. This man WAS Detroit; he knew everything, the entire history of the city, its rise and decline, not just the riots of '67 but the even bloodier race riot of 1943. He knew the city's Gilded Age, the glorious 1920s when the Automobile was still new and Detroit's industries were King; when wealth, new mansions, and sudden skyscrapers like the gold-topped Fisher Building proliferated. When the train station was gigantic, gaudy, and bustling with people. The richest city in North America it'd been, if not on the planet.

Could this rise and fall have occurred in one person's lifetime?

The inside of the junk-filled house looked more wrecked than usual. The storm troopers hadn't messed around. Rat took a large swig from a bottle of Jack on the floor next to Benny.

"Thanks," he said to the ancient man, who tolerated him because he ran errands now and again. Rat had in fact bought this bottle, from a tiny decrepit party store half-a-mile of urban devastation away from here.

Rat felt the warm liquid fall into his stomach then swim into his head. His tired feet throbbed, tingling with the illusion of warmth the whiskey provided.

"They never said what they wanted," the small-headed brown old man moaned from his rickety chair. "But I figured it must be you!"

To the Sewer Rat Benny appeared to be an amazement or carnival freak; a preserved talking Egyptian 5,000 years old. Maybe that was why Rat liked him-- Benny was as much a freak as himself.

In reality Sewer Rat hated blacks-- or at least had been raised by his father to hate them. This from the days when the city consisted of two armed camps; battles of territoriality everyplace as Detroit changed from a white town to a black one, full of violent atrocities mythical and real on both sides. Rat's brother had been in the midst of high-school gang fights of blood and chains before moving on to other infamies. It was where he'd first made his rep and obtained his supposed leadership ability.

"They're looking for leaders, Pops," Sewer Rat said to Benny. "I'm a lone wolf. It's how I've survived. This city is up for grabs and whoever wants it has to destroy his rivals."

He had no idea who'd want the city. Even the rich rappers and drug lords found haven outside the city limits. Yet Rat sensed that the force behind the helicopters federal agents and SWAT teams believed something of value remained; some unknown jewel or hidden treasure, undiscovered, unmarked, unseen, the merely legendary. Maybe only the spirit of the meaning of the glory and wealth of Detroit's fabled days.

He climbed narrow stairs to the top room, where he sometimes stayed. In back of pipes behind a panel in a wall he retrieved a small roll of bills. Every rat needs an emergency cache. His hand clutched the small roll in the room's shadows. He'd become used to living in a blind man's house, used to hiding in the city in holes without light so that, like a blind man or a rat he could operate without light. When he cared to shave, he did so in cold water without lamp or mirror to guide him. When he moved outside he could do so by instinct more than sight.

He unlocked a ten-speed bike chained to a cold radiator. He carried it on his shoulder down the stairs to the main room and set it down, leaning it against a thick plaster wall. Benny stared ahead blindly but knew what Sewer Rat was doing.

"I'll be right back," Rat said, leaving the bike.

He walked half-a-mile to the tiny store, a layer of dust on its tiled floor; windows grimy and gray. The Chaldean store owner behind a faded plexisglass barricade seemed pleased to see him. A young street urchin stood to the side: an undernourished black youth with yellow teeth and a cold stare; no doubt a member of this or that band of predators roaming the streets. (Or one of Five's people?) Sewer Rat noted him without so much as glancing at him. The biggest mistake newcomers to the streets make is wanting to befriend the residents, naively believing this will give them safety, when instead it heralds them as marks to be played. When Sewer Rat traveled the streets he was deaf, dumb, and blind to all around him yet at the same time saw everything. In nature the opened eye is a beacon. To not pass with eyes upon any living thing was to become invisible. Rat had mastered this art.

In the brutal store Sewer Rat's stare was no less cold and contemptuous than the youth's. Rat's scars of survival displayed themselves on his face. He purchased a pound container of baloney, a loaf of white bread, and a two-liter bottle of soda. The items were dust covered.

"Thank you, boss," the store owner said. Rat glanced at him but made no other acknowledgement.

Back at Benny's he drank some of the soda and split the bread and baloney. His share would go with him, in a jacket pocket. The rest of the soda and food he left with Benny as rent payment.

When night fell Sewer Rat took the bike outside down the house's shattered steps. The snow-filled city spread in all directions. Hints of blue lights and sirens illuminated distant portions of the sky.

"Sees ya, old man," he said gruffly to the figure in the chair before propping the broken door back in place. "Take care of yourself."

Sewer Rat had a hard journey ahead of him to the safety of a better hiding spot.

THE DOGS
Traveling too fast up an overpass across an expressway, the bike hit a patch of ice in the snow and went out from under him, the Sewer Rat landing flat on his back. Embarrassed, he scrambled back onto the bike and rode down the bridge toward downriver and the industrial heart of the city, which Rat could already sense outlined glowing and terrible in the distance.

He had more broken territory to get through first; had planned his journey to bypass the zone of the dogs. The remnants of the city before him were a transplanted illusion. He saw at the same time the sprouting, barren cold wilderness that once was and would be again.

Why he was still in this city, he didn't know. He'd fallen so far there was no place to flee to. "The last white person" living in the black city, his infamous brother had mocked him as once, with blue eyes flashing, before trying to throw Rat and his Detroit smell out of his cheap suburban house (everything for the guy a physical or psychological test), this leading to a living room brawl upturned chairs knocked-over lamps reawakened yellow-haired warrior brother who'd boxed in the army hitting the Rat with jabs and flurries of punches absorbed by the head and shoulders backs colliding with thin plasterboard walls, house shaking, a quick bout between brothers amid the comical debris of a tiny room. Afterward Sewer Rat walked dazed bloodied and angry toward the closest far-away bus to take him back into the darkness of town as his brother smiled primitively from the excitement of battle while standing like a prehistoric barbarian chieftain on his cheap sunken working-class suburban porch.

The story of Rat's life was escaping, forever running somewhere, searching to find a nook of security, refuge from the violence of this mad city. Ever had it been for him, since he remembered. Ever would it stay.

He was the last white person in the city but not any longer, he'd seen or at least heard of new faces appearing on the streets, refugees from the swiftly declining suburbs. The entire area had been thrown into chaos, the machine falling apart, people flying off from it becoming wandering lost souls.

As he rode he noticed a panorama of a hundred tiny lights ahead, reflections of the snow he guessed. Only when in the midst of their raging eyes and throaty snarls did he realize he'd miscalculated; their region had spread.

Entire abandoned sections of the city had been taken over by packs of wild dogs, this one of them. The Sewer Rat pedalled faster, too late to back out. The dogs were of all colors, one notably white, like a wolf, others darkest black, all with red demonic eyes, running eagerly trying to hit his bike, teeth snapping at his feet. A chorus of barks echoed from dozens, scores of them. A hundred, their numbers grown, their primal voices building in force, more dogs rushing from shadows to join in. "Oh shit," Sewer Rat said. If the bike slid now, if he fell off, it was over. He dropped his gloves so his hands could grip the bike handles with more feel and control as he stood on the pedals and increased his speed.

From the corner of his eye Rat noticed dogs rushing to cut him off. He had to outrace the fastest of them, those mad beasts bounding eagerly toward him. The air swept cold against his face and all he saw was frigid blackness ringed with ice rubbled buildings hostile sky sweeping insane no-man's-land city, he was alone in it with no one to save him. "NO!!" he shouted as the bike shifted side-to-side wildly from his frantic pedalling, among the dogs one of them at the same time about to be ripped apart by them flesh-and-blood in their hungry mouths he'd die unknown and unmourned. Around him a symphony of bullying barking in-his-face close noise and aggression pissing him off. No different from people: brave in a crowd. He'd love to tackle the bravest of them in a fight one-on-one, to the death. It'd not be like the fight with his brother (despite his impossible reputation, a memory of a warrior past his best); there'd be no holding back. He'd rip out the dog's eyes, tongue, and throat.

The entire pack of dogs stopped suddenly at an invisible line marking their territory. They stood looking after him with tongues out and mocking triumphant smiles.

"Assholes," the Rat said, speeding ahead then turning in his madness around, firm control over the bike, riding back in the other direction from where he'd come as fast as he could. The dogs stared uncomprehending at him then went scattering in all directions as Rat on his bike like a big dog crashed through their line, Rat yelling in a powerful crazed voice as loud as he could. He laughed at the idea of his aloneness in this wasteland. He could yell all he wanted and no one heard; nobody cared. He yelled and yelled, and howled, then left their territory before the dumb animals could regroup. He still had a long way to go.

THE PRINCESS
The Sewer Rat was now in a worse environment, amid the remains of enormous factories which made him feel like an ant. He was in Hell itself. On his face dropped the polluted smell; on all sides the steel strewn lots and towering furnaces of the industrial world. The furnace of the city yet operated; that which had once powered the entire planet. Black iron outlines against cascades of red. Roaring huge semi-trucks bursting from fenced-in yards, Sewer Rat almost run over without being seen by the monsters. They were far worse than the dogs. The tires of Rat's bike went punctured and flat from nails and metalled scrap. (His feet were protected by steel-toed boots.)

Sewer Rat raised the bike over his shoulder and walked in-between narrow spaces next to fences. On one side spread the remaining industry of southwest Detroit; on the other, to his left, as if he could fall over an edge into it, lay the surging river of the straits of Detroit which grew in power as it went downriver before exploding in one last force of release toward Lake Erie; gigantic terminals and factories rising like a wall around it. A spectacular picture. Behind, he knew, without seeing it, was the Ambassador Bridge. He saw everything in his mind's eye. This was a hard inhuman world of inhuman scale. The hardest world. The toughest city. How could any living creature survive in it? Only rats could.

The man turned his path away from the river toward a large railroad yard spreading between the monster factories; a gray repository of pollution which made the ideal hiding place. The Rat had worked in it when he was in his early twenties, ten years ago or so. He knew the yard well.

As he walked to it, up a slowly rising hill, across an evenue, he passed a black-spired Catholic church built by Hungarians or Poles a hundred years ago, now closed. He passed dingy gray shops and saloons which still served stray workers, hiding aged old-time residents, and impoverished black welfare mothers; even a scattering of Mexican newcomers; sparks of life in a city written off as dead. The people were as beaten-down as their environment. He passed a soot-coated cemetary of decaying monuments which no one visited. The relatives of the dead had abandoned the city decades ago. Ahead he could barely see-- only because he looked for it-- the silhouette of the railroad tower that was his destination.

Still carrying the bike, heavy and painful now on his shoulder, the Rat climbed a steep hill of weeds buried in snow. He clutched desperately with his left hand for a grip, his hands cold with his gloves gone. He arrived at the top and gulped cold air, his eyes alert. Silently and carefully he stepped toward the shape of the gray tower when movement noise a shadow a pair of searing large eyes caught his attention-- he hissed his mouth snapped eyes bristled the bike off his shoulder thrust behind him as he grabbed the human in Rat's territory with both hands around the throat. "Yikes!" he heard in the squeak of a soft voice before he squeezed the life out of the person. In his hesitation he felt surprisingly strong hands around his wrists while he stared with shock into a young white woman's face. Helpless before her strength or her illusory beauty he stopped his fight. He stepped back or was pushed back.

"Hi there," the girl said after a pause, regaining her composure, though her lips trembled.

She carried the bearing of a training he'd never encountered. It occurred to the Rat that he knew who she was, had heard of her the way one hears of personages of a city, such as Mr. Five; such as himself.

"Don't trust any white woman in Detroit with good teeth," his lunatic brother with admonishing finger had advised him once. "They're undercover cops. No one else has health care."

This girl had fine teeth yet looked too young to be an undercover agent. She continued shaking, her stoic front unable to hide her fear. The Rat grunted. "Follow me," he told her.

He glanced behind him to make sure she did. The young woman wore a new looking poncho and baggy trousers, was lean and almost his height. Her large eyes reflected what little stray light existed in this long railyard through which few trains any longer passed. They approached a gray horizontal tower blending into, yet at the same time looming out of, the noxious sky.

"Wait here," he said as he disappeared along the side of it and reappeared with a long crowbar he'd hidden: the tool of bar-men who opened rail cars and banged them shut. The rat saw an image of three gleaming puller engines bringing trains out of the underground rail tunnel from Canada with tremendous power. Before seeing them one would hear them coming in a roar of noise, vibration shaking the tower, its walls and floors, three yellow diesel engines pulling a hundred-car train leaving a layer of soot on everything as they went by.

It was a big joke in the Del Ray neighborhood years ago that Hungarian immigrants would hang their just-washed sheets on clothes-lines behind their shack houses only to see the white sheets tint brown from the polluting shops, slaughterhouse glue factories, and diesel engines of the neighborhood-- as well as from the huge smokestacks of the nearby Mammoth complex. Bizarrely, the never-ending pollution had been a sign of economic health: available jobs. Now that most of the jobs were gone, only the layers of pollution were left.

The Rat used the crowbar to force open the heavy metal door into the tower. The girl hesitated. "It's getting colder," he said, motioning toward the sky. "This is refuge." She stepped in and he pulled the heavy door closed behind them.

He was out-of-practice talking to women. Try not to scare her, he thought, though some quality about her scared him. It was a factor beyond his comprehension-- maybe that, unlike with the dogs, he was now encountering an animal more intelligent than himself. With an instinct of survival he sensed this. The question was whether she realized it herself.

Yes, he'd heard about the girl, a runaway from the declining neighborhoods of Grosse Pointe; the once-glamorous haven of the automotice rich which was now in a state of collapse. The turning clock. "The Princess," people called her. He'd wondered if she existed for real and now she was right in front of him.

The building smelled of sulfur, soot, and urine. The Rat made his way up the metal stairs which rose in darkness. The girl followed. They passed several doors numbered "2," "3," "4," in large bright painted letters before Rat pulled one open. They entered a room at the top of the tower, window overlooking the entire yard.

Beyond lay the awesome smokestacks of Mammoth Motors pouring lighted clouds of fiery orange smoke toward the heavens. A living beast. It never failed to be an impressive sight for him. Once it'd been the wonder of the world. "The Arsenal of Democracy": At its birth the greatest industrial complex ever known. Yet it throbbed! The company a heartbeat away from bankruptcy but not silent yet. What maneuverings took place to save this corporation, this city, in the offices of their headquarters; what conversations between the powerful executives, their many designers and engineers? They existed in a circle of activity and knowledge far above him.

The girl continued to shiver, a look of displeasure on her features.

"The john's in the basement, all the way down," he told her. "Kind of smells." A men's john at that. Underground dungeons. He'd have to use it himself. For now he took off his jacket and pulled blankets out of a steel locker against the wall. Two large gray metal desks faced each other in the center of the room.

"Do I have to walk all the way down there?" she complained. "I mean, is that the only one?"

Preppy irritation; unwillingness to walk alone through the unfamiliar darkness of the solid structure. Then she was gone. Again, something about her cautioned him: a ready ability to overcome fear.

As he gazed at the belching old smokestacks which never stopped, he sensed that everything was related. The sweep of police cars and helicopters were connected to the fate of what sat like a resting giant before him. Did someone feel they could save Detroit by capturing the likes of him? A last desperate battle for control had opened. The girl returned and the Sewer Rat shut down his thoughts.

Ode to Best

Ford Shteyngart Messud Pessl and Hempel
My brain strains to contemplate
the dilemmas of talent
precocious well-crafted sentences
constructions designed for literary experts
precious New York Times perspective
five approved names
wunderkinds,
you'd think
bland, feeble, pompous
daddy complex
empty nonsense
"best" of "today"
literary sliver
tops-down culture
Ford, Shteyngart, Messud,
Pessl, and Hempel.

Novels

Critics of mine say I'm not a writer. Am I a writer? Who knows? I know how to put words on pages and blog posts.

Anyone can write a novel. Look at the well-hyped award-winning mind-numbing trash of the literary establishment.

Fiction isn't my greatest strength (it could be my least), but when I see ingenues like Marisha Pessl receiving a million dollars for stuporous crap I may as well throw my own hat into the ring.

Look for the opening section of my own big novel appearing here soon. . . . It will be one tiny piece of a much larger picture; will focus on one character out of a hundred; but will still, maybe, give an impression of the greater work which resides inside my head. What do I bring to a novel? Only my volubility and the scars of my experiences, of which I've had a few.

(After posting the excerpt I go into full promotional mode of our upcoming actions and of two new ULA novels which ARE finished and will be appearing in bookstores soon.)

Chasing the American Dream

I caught a few minutes this morning of the Laura Ingraham radio talk show. Fake-populist self-proclaimed "Christian" Laura was laughing hysterically at a portion of a speech by politician Dennis Kucinich in which he discussed the poverty of his Cleveland upbringing. I haven't decided if Ingraham is insane, evil, or both. Laughing at hardship? She embodies the essence of cruelty. No wonder folks are running away from the Right Wing.

Yes, I guess the idea of someone like Kucinich running for President is truly laughable in this corrupt society. Ingraham missed his point-- his emphasis that he's FROM the people, not imposed from on high as are too many Presidential candidates in both parties.

Just as the Underground Literary Alliance represents authentic culture, from the populace. Like Dennis Kucinich, we also are chasing the American Dream. Is there a place for us in literature today?

We think our chances are much better than Kucinich's. We've embarked on an adventure to make change. Care to join our ranks? We offer not complacent stasis, but change-- the thrilling challenge to turn literary culture completely on its head while founding a new and exciting organization. These are our early days. Jump aboard for the ride!

The Battle of Ideas

The ULA campaign is a battle of ideas. For an organization like ours without any resources, it's the one area where we can compete straight up with anyone in the literary world, and win. Our Do-It-Yourself philosophy is the foundation of our battle plan.

We've won most of the debates we've engaged in-- won them in such striking fashion that our opponents were left psychically battered. Our ideas, our authenticity, our credibility, against the rotten tottering literary structure of today, can't be defeated.

Our message and our name are currently repressed by those who control the flow of ideas concerning literature. We're like an off-stage character, never mentioned but present in everything said. This was evident in the facile interview Robert Birnbaum did with Rick Moody last year (www.themorningnews.org/archives/birnbaum_v/rick_moody.php).

The attempt to pre-empt conflict; the defensiveness about Jonathan Lethem's grant; the need to give Moody a patina of street cred, was due to us.

When you repress an idea or emotion, it bursts forth later stronger and more important than before. Such is nature's law. This will happen with our literary movement and with our arguments.

The strength of an idea is gauged by the opposition it generates. You don't abandon your ideas at the first sign of reaction. Not against a hurricane wave of reaction. Instead you push them home.

Are ULA ideas valid? I believe so, or I wouldn't have spent six years promoting them.

Counter Culture

Remember that term? It's lost much of its meaning, as the counter-culture pose has been taken by prep school establishment-embedded rich kids who want not reality but the role.

Authentic counter-culture writing is offered by ULAers. We stand outside the system; apart from the pack.

"You Demi-Puppets. . . .

--that by moonshine do the green sour ringlets make."

Mere illusions; anonymous ghosts; fanciful with no substance and nothing to say.

Best American Poet?

Adam Kirsch makes this claim in the December 7th New York Sun about Frederick Seidel.

After reading the excerpts given by Kirsch, I'd say the ULA's Frank Walsh is demonstrably better than Seidel. My task will be to prove this through examples in the weeks leading up to the big Philly Read-Off now being set up between Walsh and the genetically-engineered U of Penn freak "Super-Poet."

Stay tuned for more details.

RIP Kirkpatrick

Neo-con icon Jeane Kirkpatrick has passed on to the netherworld from whence she came.

Will obituaries discuss her mysterious involvement with the mysterious Heldref Foundation, which in the 1990's was buying up literary journals?

Note to Literary Millionaires

A few individuals from the upper reaches of this country's societal and literary pyramid skulk on this blog. They may have noticed my mention of classic underground works. They have an opportunity to buy one of them-- and at the same time help out a non-ULA underground writer who has huge medical bills and no health care.

How can you help out, you ask? (I know you're eager to aid someone from your own nation.)

It's easy! Drop a ten dollar bill U.S. (no checks; Fred's really underground and can't access banks) to:

Fred Woodworth
PO Box 3012
Tucson AZ 85702

Ask him to send you a copy of the novel Dream World.

Reading the book will be a step toward pulling yourself out of YOUR dream world; the dream world aristocratic writers who are detached from their own land are forced to live in. You'll also be helping a treasure of American literature and ideas to live.

Thanks!

Storage

Last weekend I took a few things out of storage, including some ULA stuff. (Saw a guy there who lives out of storage; or at least, seemed to be cleaning up and changing his clothes. An underground poet?)

Among the items I took out were several of the real underground masterwords created over the past twenty-five years, including Jack Saunders's Screed, Michael Jackman's "The Army" zeen, "Security" by James Nowlan (more about that later), Fred Woodworth's novel Dream World, and two great books by Joe Pachinko.

I also came upon a copy of an exchange in The Believer from 2003 between the ULA's Michael Jackman and the lit-establishment's Tom Bissell. Some interesting points were made. A Jackman quote:

"Bissell spends a good deal of effort constructing a laughable fantasy world in which the ULA has the almost Soviet power to decide what is published. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to live in a world where people like Bissell decide what is published. Yet, the punch line here is that I actually do live in a world where people like Bissell decide what is published."

In response, Bissell says about Jonathan Franzen, "a writer who, when I first met him six years ago, was basically living from month to month and struggling as much as I've ever seen anyone struggle. . . ."

But wait a minute! Mr. Franzen during that time was a subscriber of my newsletter. Copies were mailed to a ritzy address on Manhattan's upper east side-- probably the most expensive piece of residential real estate on the planet.

Quite a definition of "struggling"!

Aristocrats

The gap between writers in this country is more of a gulf.

On the one hand are writers living not much differently from Francois Villon in Medieval France; the safety net gone, or at least gaping holes in it; life and art a constant struggle.

On the other side in bright sunshine, wearing frilly collars of fashion and empty glamor, parade the clean and the saved. Millionaires, they read, in glowing palaces, their flimsy cute words to the children of the privileged, who beam, gaze, and smile with perkiness; wide-eyed, fresh-faced, and stupid as cattle.

The Aristocrats know that history is on our side. Reactionaries never prevail. Future generations not blinded by the instruments of class and career, or a shimmering phony veneer, will see them for the posers they are, while resurrecting the true original meaningful poets and writers whose words resonate with experience, grittiness, and authenticity-- with soul and anger.

More Reading

Mona Simpson on Alice Munro in the December Atlantic, Munro described as "the living writer most likely to be read in a hundred years."

"--she ought to be better known." "--she's written only short stories-- in an age that doesn't particularly value them."

Uh, Ms. Simpson, could the problem possibly lie in the stories themselves?

How will Alice Munro be read a hundred years from now if few people can read her word-clotted prose now?

Vercingtorix

I often use the historic Gallic warrior Vercingtorix as an example of my own situation.

Vercingtorix sought to unite the Gallic tribes in order to throw out the Imperialism of Rome. Small-minded chiefs contested this. "By what right," they shouted, (in Colleen McCullough's compelling version of events) "do you put yourself at the forefront?" "Because I have," he answered. "Someone had to take the lead."

Vercingtorix, of course, was undercut by his own people when victory was close.

The situation is little different with underground and small-press writers. They accept the monopolistic dominance of the bureaucratic big-money skyscrapers in New York as a given. Some writers are such loners they refuse to unite under any banner; are unwilling to stifle personal ego for the good of the larger cause. Others are hungry for any sign of mainstream acceptance, no matter how tiny; no matter how token; are unable to sustain the plethora of hardships that making change involves. Instead of remaining neutral, some of these writers even engage in attacks on us-- as if we're the problem; as if we have any power in this society. They're enablers to the literary aristocracy.

No matter! The ULA will prevail regardless. We've shown that a handful of outspoken writers can send shock waves through a closed and complacent literature. Out task is to do more of this-- to push our unbeatable ideas home.

American Realities

A co-worker of mine mentioned casually last week that his cousin had been shot. "They sprayed the corner he was on." It took me a minute to realize he was not talking about Baghdad, but Philly.

Things are tough all over. Some holding jobs in publishing in New York City are very upset that I've referred to them as demi-puppets.