I have a stack of underground novels to read and review (beginning with Tim Hall's). At the same time I keep receiving great zeens in the mail. The huge advantage zeens have is they're so reader friendly. Their very simplicity and brevity says, "Read me!"
For instance, Underground Crawl took less than fifteen minutes to read. A perfect, relaxing fit for anyone's schedule.
This caused me to muse: What if novels as a literary form have been superceded? There hasn't been an exciting establishment novel to hit the scene in decades. (Sorry, but White Teeth doesn't qualify.) The ULA is betting that the promotion of underground novelists like Tim and others and their more real and direct prose can save the art form.
Still-- the novel wasn't always the centerpiece of literature. Before the novel there was theater and the narrative poem.
It could be that the literary form of the future will be-- the blog! Who knows. It's why I've been trying to maintain an overarching theme to this blog (figure it out)-- and put everything into it; essays, rants, satire, exposes, poetry, fiction. The blog form has endless possibilities.
Jack Saunders's various web sites over the years have been kind of a super blog or super novel.
My favorite literary form remains the zeen. This is a personal preference not having much to do with the ULA. The zeen form simply allows me to be more expressive; more creative. (I like doing my own covers, which may explain my thinking.)
Though zeens (zines) remain today a marginal lit form, they have huge advantages which could someday be exploited. First, the affordable price (one to five dollars). Second, they're inviting, not intimidating to those who normally don't read anything-- the mass of Americans who are the ULA's target audience. Zeens' quirky colorful lo-fi look and crudeness puts off some, but welcomes those who have no interest in "literature" or in massive chain bookstores filled with long shelves of densely-worded volumes; echoes of the dread of high school and college. Anyone who has seen the excitement of zine shows knows what I'm talking about.
Just some stray thoughts!
Monday, January 31, 2005
Zeen Review: Underworld Crawl
A two-dollar price but this slight publication contains provocative ideas and snapshots of strong writing.
"Deviant Reading" is an essay by someone who didn't enjoy the acceptable lit works in school, and like many of us, looked for alternatives. (I started out reading monster magazines and comic books.) I agree with much of what the essay says. Yet I think titans like Homer and Shakespeare could reach more people if it weren't for the way they're taught. The very fact they're icons of the academy takes away any edge. The chief problem with both is that their works were created to be heard by the ear, not read on a page.
Shakespeare's language comes alive when you hear it, or when you speak it yourself. Then it begins to make sense.
Shakespeare never meant his work to be taken seriously. There are gigantic professorial volumes analyzing Shakespeare on bookstore shelves. 90% of what they say is garbage.
"Hamlet" contains malaprops ("porpentine" for porcupine) and a great deal of verbal viciousness. The Ghost; Polonius; Guildenstern and Rosencrantz-- it's fantastic hokum, which is why the miners and cowboys of the Wild West loved it. The Bard is laughing at the madness of the world. Ophelia's death is comedy, yet full of pathos because it's ridiculous. Shakespeare is telling us that life is ridiculous. All one can do is have a beer, laugh, and ride along. Which I'm sure he did much of.
Underworld Crawl contains pathos-- especially the small tale of a neighbor boy picked on by the world.
Two dollars cash c/o
R. Lee
PO Box 1421
Oshkosh WI 54903.
"Deviant Reading" is an essay by someone who didn't enjoy the acceptable lit works in school, and like many of us, looked for alternatives. (I started out reading monster magazines and comic books.) I agree with much of what the essay says. Yet I think titans like Homer and Shakespeare could reach more people if it weren't for the way they're taught. The very fact they're icons of the academy takes away any edge. The chief problem with both is that their works were created to be heard by the ear, not read on a page.
Shakespeare's language comes alive when you hear it, or when you speak it yourself. Then it begins to make sense.
Shakespeare never meant his work to be taken seriously. There are gigantic professorial volumes analyzing Shakespeare on bookstore shelves. 90% of what they say is garbage.
"Hamlet" contains malaprops ("porpentine" for porcupine) and a great deal of verbal viciousness. The Ghost; Polonius; Guildenstern and Rosencrantz-- it's fantastic hokum, which is why the miners and cowboys of the Wild West loved it. The Bard is laughing at the madness of the world. Ophelia's death is comedy, yet full of pathos because it's ridiculous. Shakespeare is telling us that life is ridiculous. All one can do is have a beer, laugh, and ride along. Which I'm sure he did much of.
Underworld Crawl contains pathos-- especially the small tale of a neighbor boy picked on by the world.
Two dollars cash c/o
R. Lee
PO Box 1421
Oshkosh WI 54903.
Choire Sicha and Style
BECAUSE most of us were fairly poor, living from paycheck to paycheck, in the calling room I worked in for a few years recently raising money for an environmental group, we callers never asked for as much as we should have. A psychological barrier held us back-- the idea of contributing even fifty or a hundred dollars was nearly inconceivable to us, much less more than this. (Five or ten bucks we could better understand!) Few people when asked would give more than a hundred, even though as we were told the median income of the people we phoned was $80,000 or more. (The organization had similar thinking; anyone giving more than $100 was considered a "high donor," and bothered/marketed more thoroughly, until of course they gave nothing.) I was one of the best callers through most of my stay, yet can't remember once raising $1,000 from anybody, though I raised $400 a few times, $500 once, $600 on several occasions.
I give this as background for having spotted "Gawker" blog overseer Choire Sicha's name on a list of donors to Bomb magazine in the $1,000 to $2499 range. Quite a lot for a casual donation-- on the order of zeensters giving ten or twenty dollars to the Cullen Carter Benefit Fund in 2003. One can conclude that Mr. Sicha comes from money. He certainly isn't struggling.
Which doesn't matter, except that it throws light on Sicha's remarks in the Dec/Jan Bookforum.
Sicha isn't a fan of the Underground Literary Alliance. A while back he got into a heated debate via e-mail with Michael Jackman and myself over rich author Jonathan Franzen's acceptance of an NEA grant, which, if I remember correctly, Choire Sicha thought was okay. (Grant money in this country often goes to those who least need it.)
This is why Choire Sicha's Bookforum remarks are surprising. Sicha calls for new cultural radicals, "--an outrageous, stylish, unself-conscious and unironic art movement." Yet he rejects the ULA's new literary movement. (I know; he's talking about "art.")
The word "style" may disqualify the ULA from approval by such stylish folks. For Sicha's set, "revolution" is just another style; another pose to adopt or ensemble of clothes to wear. The ULA has often been asked about our style. We've had trouble answering the question, because we represent anti-style: authenticity and roots; culture's foundations-- not the foppish trappings of fashionable segments of a corrupt civilization.
The problem Sicha had with the ULA about Jon Franzen had little to do with style, but with our mention of money-- a taboo area. Otherwise Sicha might've been friendlier. Overdogs prefer revolutionaries who are predictable, controllable, and safe; cute beribboned show dogs who can be kept in a cage or on a leash.
I give this as background for having spotted "Gawker" blog overseer Choire Sicha's name on a list of donors to Bomb magazine in the $1,000 to $2499 range. Quite a lot for a casual donation-- on the order of zeensters giving ten or twenty dollars to the Cullen Carter Benefit Fund in 2003. One can conclude that Mr. Sicha comes from money. He certainly isn't struggling.
Which doesn't matter, except that it throws light on Sicha's remarks in the Dec/Jan Bookforum.
Sicha isn't a fan of the Underground Literary Alliance. A while back he got into a heated debate via e-mail with Michael Jackman and myself over rich author Jonathan Franzen's acceptance of an NEA grant, which, if I remember correctly, Choire Sicha thought was okay. (Grant money in this country often goes to those who least need it.)
This is why Choire Sicha's Bookforum remarks are surprising. Sicha calls for new cultural radicals, "--an outrageous, stylish, unself-conscious and unironic art movement." Yet he rejects the ULA's new literary movement. (I know; he's talking about "art.")
The word "style" may disqualify the ULA from approval by such stylish folks. For Sicha's set, "revolution" is just another style; another pose to adopt or ensemble of clothes to wear. The ULA has often been asked about our style. We've had trouble answering the question, because we represent anti-style: authenticity and roots; culture's foundations-- not the foppish trappings of fashionable segments of a corrupt civilization.
The problem Sicha had with the ULA about Jon Franzen had little to do with style, but with our mention of money-- a taboo area. Otherwise Sicha might've been friendlier. Overdogs prefer revolutionaries who are predictable, controllable, and safe; cute beribboned show dogs who can be kept in a cage or on a leash.
Friday, January 28, 2005
H.G. Wells, Kurt Vonnegut, and Now
The class war of the Technological Revolution is the major unwritten story of the past 20 years. It's scantly been written about in novels, and not covered by the mass media, because Overdogs who would write about it haven't been touched by the change. They hardly know it exists.
I wrote about it in 1994 in an essay for Robley Wilson at North American Review: "Detroit: Among the Lower Classes." That the published essay which contained my most passionate writing had zero impact even on the lit world was one factor in my incentive to help create the ULA. I realized writers like myself needed a larger platform from which to address this great and awful civilization.
With jobs across the society transformed by computer technology, the bar of qualifications was suddenly and drastically raised for the average worker. I can testify that those jobs which weren't eliminated became harder, more hectic, the worker required to do more work at a vastly quicker speed.
Millions of decent-paying jobs were eliminated; the lives of millions of individuals and families destroyed. As a result, the industrial working class in America has nearly vanished. The prospects for unskilled workers, for those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, has become frighteningly bleak-- one reason for the growth of the underclass, which exists today in worse condition and with poorer prospects than at any time since the 1940's. (Even given the millions of people warehoused in this nation's prison system-- people no one wants to see.)
The choice is stark: Compete from Day One by becoming an absolute slave to the technological beast, or fall by the wayside. The mantra of the modern workplace the past decade: "Change or Die." This is not meant by those who say it to be taken metaphorically.
Even shitty $7 telemarketing jobs are now being outsourced overseas. When they vanish: nothing. Revolution or starvation?
Our totalitarian media over the past year has convinced us of a phony split between "Red" and "Blue" people in this country. It's a divide which exists mainly for the Overdogs of the Left and the Right IN media. Their split is on the order of an intramural dispute, a conflict between elites over social mores more than anything. They're still fighting the battles of the debate halls of Harvard and Yale over attitudes toward dating. (On REAL issues, such as NAFTA and the global economy, the elites of Right and Left are on the same side.)
The real divide in this country is between the affluent and the rest of us-- a divide which grows greater by the day. (The fight of the ULA against the Overdogs of literature is a true reflection of this reality.)
One of the ironies of change is that Detroit, the great creation of the Industrial Revolution, has been destroyed by the Technological one. THERE is a good place to view the economic disaster that's been wreaked on large unseen segments of this nation.
It's ironic that I write these words on-line. (Sorry if I've decided to fight; that I've refused to die.) I'm reminded of the scene in Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano when men put out of work by machines eagerly volunteer to fix them when they break. We humans have an innate love of gadgets, even when they make us obsolete.
I'm reminded also as I write this essay of another novel, Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells. Well's novel is a metaphor for the change of the Industrial Revolution. Its quirky narrative captures well the feeling of sudden dislocation and change; the realization that the world is no longer the same.
The theme of the book applies even more to the ongoing Technological Revolution-- and to what lies ahead. Within a couple decades geneticists will be able to change man himself. By manipulating human codes, they'll manufacture people with superbodies and superbrains.
Will there be any doubt that the affluent Overdog class will partake of these Frankenstein benefits-- that they'll eat the "food of the gods," and so leave far behind everyone else, who'll they'll view with inevitable and increasing contempt? America and the world will then be divided not into two classes, as is happening today, but two species.
The result, based on the products of our current Overdog writers, is not promising for literature. A great writer is made not by a giant overpowering brain but by the empathy of a giant heart and the ability to recognize and speak the truth.
I wrote about it in 1994 in an essay for Robley Wilson at North American Review: "Detroit: Among the Lower Classes." That the published essay which contained my most passionate writing had zero impact even on the lit world was one factor in my incentive to help create the ULA. I realized writers like myself needed a larger platform from which to address this great and awful civilization.
With jobs across the society transformed by computer technology, the bar of qualifications was suddenly and drastically raised for the average worker. I can testify that those jobs which weren't eliminated became harder, more hectic, the worker required to do more work at a vastly quicker speed.
Millions of decent-paying jobs were eliminated; the lives of millions of individuals and families destroyed. As a result, the industrial working class in America has nearly vanished. The prospects for unskilled workers, for those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, has become frighteningly bleak-- one reason for the growth of the underclass, which exists today in worse condition and with poorer prospects than at any time since the 1940's. (Even given the millions of people warehoused in this nation's prison system-- people no one wants to see.)
The choice is stark: Compete from Day One by becoming an absolute slave to the technological beast, or fall by the wayside. The mantra of the modern workplace the past decade: "Change or Die." This is not meant by those who say it to be taken metaphorically.
Even shitty $7 telemarketing jobs are now being outsourced overseas. When they vanish: nothing. Revolution or starvation?
Our totalitarian media over the past year has convinced us of a phony split between "Red" and "Blue" people in this country. It's a divide which exists mainly for the Overdogs of the Left and the Right IN media. Their split is on the order of an intramural dispute, a conflict between elites over social mores more than anything. They're still fighting the battles of the debate halls of Harvard and Yale over attitudes toward dating. (On REAL issues, such as NAFTA and the global economy, the elites of Right and Left are on the same side.)
The real divide in this country is between the affluent and the rest of us-- a divide which grows greater by the day. (The fight of the ULA against the Overdogs of literature is a true reflection of this reality.)
One of the ironies of change is that Detroit, the great creation of the Industrial Revolution, has been destroyed by the Technological one. THERE is a good place to view the economic disaster that's been wreaked on large unseen segments of this nation.
It's ironic that I write these words on-line. (Sorry if I've decided to fight; that I've refused to die.) I'm reminded of the scene in Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano when men put out of work by machines eagerly volunteer to fix them when they break. We humans have an innate love of gadgets, even when they make us obsolete.
I'm reminded also as I write this essay of another novel, Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells. Well's novel is a metaphor for the change of the Industrial Revolution. Its quirky narrative captures well the feeling of sudden dislocation and change; the realization that the world is no longer the same.
The theme of the book applies even more to the ongoing Technological Revolution-- and to what lies ahead. Within a couple decades geneticists will be able to change man himself. By manipulating human codes, they'll manufacture people with superbodies and superbrains.
Will there be any doubt that the affluent Overdog class will partake of these Frankenstein benefits-- that they'll eat the "food of the gods," and so leave far behind everyone else, who'll they'll view with inevitable and increasing contempt? America and the world will then be divided not into two classes, as is happening today, but two species.
The result, based on the products of our current Overdog writers, is not promising for literature. A great writer is made not by a giant overpowering brain but by the empathy of a giant heart and the ability to recognize and speak the truth.
Advice to David DeKok About Plagiarism
Mr. DeKok wonders what can be done about the Harper's plague of plagiarized stories; that literary infestation caused by arrogant editors and conscienceless essayists who can't tell the difference between a tree, coalmine, paraphrase, stolen quote, stolen idea, or larceny. To them it's all the same; postmodern thoughts from postmodern minds, words without truth or meaning.
I have to answer David DeKok truthfully that it's a hopeless cause. One might think the literary community could police its own, but it's a community of scoundrels. Ambitious scoundrels who'd sell their integrity for a dime or a yuppy Starbuck's latte, that is, if they had any integrity from the beginning. One searches for it in vain.
One need only go back to the Harper's Tom Bissell essay of a few months ago, where for the pleasure of Lord Lapham Bissell turns his own father into an unbelievable stereotype-- the mad Vietnam vet which as a fictional character went out of fashion in the 70's but has now been revived: 35 years later still wandering the woods insanely with gun in hand and psychopathic gleam in his eye. As bad Victorian melodrama no one would buy it, but the stupe editors of Harper's and the sycophantic lit-bloggers will buy anything.
These literary people are individuals of no vision. They may as well be worms or ants, bugs or fleas. They hold a similar belief in the ability to change things. Cockroaches have more rebellious wit and energy. They claim to be writers-- believe themselves to be (mark of their deluded stupidity). One finds on their blogs long accounts of recycled information but hardly an ant-crumb of creativity. Some are writing novels, people say. It's a sign of their vast conceit if they're writing novels. About what? Their battles against corruption? Characters with backbones? Visions of clarity? They can't write about matters about which they have no idea, have never experienced. They'll write instead what they know: fawning, sniggering, snobbery, cronyism, groveling to plutocrats, defense of dead literary society, corruption of an art.
Writers? These are whores, not writers!
Writing is merely the ready excuse
that's enabled them to become prostitutes.
(But I will write about the DeKok matter next week.)
I have to answer David DeKok truthfully that it's a hopeless cause. One might think the literary community could police its own, but it's a community of scoundrels. Ambitious scoundrels who'd sell their integrity for a dime or a yuppy Starbuck's latte, that is, if they had any integrity from the beginning. One searches for it in vain.
One need only go back to the Harper's Tom Bissell essay of a few months ago, where for the pleasure of Lord Lapham Bissell turns his own father into an unbelievable stereotype-- the mad Vietnam vet which as a fictional character went out of fashion in the 70's but has now been revived: 35 years later still wandering the woods insanely with gun in hand and psychopathic gleam in his eye. As bad Victorian melodrama no one would buy it, but the stupe editors of Harper's and the sycophantic lit-bloggers will buy anything.
These literary people are individuals of no vision. They may as well be worms or ants, bugs or fleas. They hold a similar belief in the ability to change things. Cockroaches have more rebellious wit and energy. They claim to be writers-- believe themselves to be (mark of their deluded stupidity). One finds on their blogs long accounts of recycled information but hardly an ant-crumb of creativity. Some are writing novels, people say. It's a sign of their vast conceit if they're writing novels. About what? Their battles against corruption? Characters with backbones? Visions of clarity? They can't write about matters about which they have no idea, have never experienced. They'll write instead what they know: fawning, sniggering, snobbery, cronyism, groveling to plutocrats, defense of dead literary society, corruption of an art.
Writers? These are whores, not writers!
Writing is merely the ready excuse
that's enabled them to become prostitutes.
(But I will write about the DeKok matter next week.)
Now Available!
In display windows of chic stores on Philly's Walnut Street is something called the "broken-in shirt." Designed for gentry to look properly bohemian in apparel-- without having to wear the shirt 50,000 times to do it.
In response, to stay one step ahead of the trendoid pack, the Underground Literary Alliance now offers "the broken-in writer." (Or in some cases the broken-down writer, or others the just plain flat-broke writer.)
Details available at www.literaryrevolution.com.
In response, to stay one step ahead of the trendoid pack, the Underground Literary Alliance now offers "the broken-in writer." (Or in some cases the broken-down writer, or others the just plain flat-broke writer.)
Details available at www.literaryrevolution.com.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
The Establishment Void
The point to reinforce about the KGB incident of four years ago is that the established lit world is a fake. A cardboard creation. There remains outrage about the ULA's brief intrusion that night, because it was an unwanted invasion of reality. An understandable feeling of protectiveness rose up for the feeble reader against the "bullies" of the ULA-- the protectors couldn't and can't face the reality that the person shouldn't have been up there in the first place! A hapless dilettante, of no skill or talent, as vulnerable as Ophelia; a French-sounding name at a glossy fashion magazine, ready to collapse at the first mild unwanted breeze-- and in the door walks the ULA. What that sham of a reading represented that evening wasn't literature, but the pretty painted cardboard imitation of it. Of course the audience was protective! Writers at these fake events pretend they're literary stars and the audience pretends along with them; a display of make-believe.
The Establishment Void is further illustrated by the Paris Review's inability to find a live personality to replace George Plimpton. There is no replacement available in their world. All that exists at that journal with Plimpton gone is empty space.
The Establishment Void is further illustrated by the Paris Review's inability to find a live personality to replace George Plimpton. There is no replacement available in their world. All that exists at that journal with Plimpton gone is empty space.
A Flower Poem
Poems are supposed to be about flowers,
tulips, roses, buds,
trees and cats and Grecian urns
Soft sonnets sweetly sung,
pleasure's harmonious glow
Life is good, for some
Enjoy! Enjoy! Forget your troubled struggled life
of sweatshop hours
of cubicles and clocks
the waiting rat race'd prison'd world
with windows sealed, exits barred,
doors forever closed
Remember beauty and flowers!
But I don't want to talk about flowers.
-King Wenclas
(From the zeen Hot Poetry.)
tulips, roses, buds,
trees and cats and Grecian urns
Soft sonnets sweetly sung,
pleasure's harmonious glow
Life is good, for some
Enjoy! Enjoy! Forget your troubled struggled life
of sweatshop hours
of cubicles and clocks
the waiting rat race'd prison'd world
with windows sealed, exits barred,
doors forever closed
Remember beauty and flowers!
But I don't want to talk about flowers.
-King Wenclas
(From the zeen Hot Poetry.)
Harper's Arrogance
I've been looking through the packet of information author David DeKok sent me regarding the unattributed use of his book on the Centralia coal fire for a Jeff Tietz Harper's essay. Most striking is the letter Harper's Senior Editor Roger Hodge (who was also Tom Bissell's editor on his disputed essay) sent to Mr. DeKok's attorney. The letter's tone illustrates the aristocratic attitude of those of power on the lit scene. It's very condescending. (The New York Observer columnist who wrote about this matter noted Hodge's tone also.)
Harper's pretends to stand for an egalitarian viewpoint. There's little trace of egalitarianism in those who run the magazine-- only elitism and snobbery. This is the problem with much of the lit-world, of course. They pose as liberals while taking all the benefits they can grab from the most elitist aspects of this society-- such as an Ivy League education, and the networking possibilities that opens for these people. Or, all is the pose, not the reality.
Roger Hodge is still operating with the attitudes of the closed lit world of days past, when an editor could treat writers in any kind of arrogant way. But now there are places like this one willing to call him on such treatment. Hodge doesn't grasp the changed circumstances of media-- that writers are gaining more leverage in the relationship-- and beginning to use it.
Harper's of course is a relic of the past; quaint and stodgy, without a shred of excitement in any of its pages. With people like Hodge in charge, it will have difficulty changing.
(The ULA: love us or hate us, we have 50 times the vitality.)
I plan to have my report on the Jeff Tietz plagiarism matter up on this blog by next week. I'll have links to the Observer piece, some Hodge quotes, and anything else necessary. Keep watching!
Harper's pretends to stand for an egalitarian viewpoint. There's little trace of egalitarianism in those who run the magazine-- only elitism and snobbery. This is the problem with much of the lit-world, of course. They pose as liberals while taking all the benefits they can grab from the most elitist aspects of this society-- such as an Ivy League education, and the networking possibilities that opens for these people. Or, all is the pose, not the reality.
Roger Hodge is still operating with the attitudes of the closed lit world of days past, when an editor could treat writers in any kind of arrogant way. But now there are places like this one willing to call him on such treatment. Hodge doesn't grasp the changed circumstances of media-- that writers are gaining more leverage in the relationship-- and beginning to use it.
Harper's of course is a relic of the past; quaint and stodgy, without a shred of excitement in any of its pages. With people like Hodge in charge, it will have difficulty changing.
(The ULA: love us or hate us, we have 50 times the vitality.)
I plan to have my report on the Jeff Tietz plagiarism matter up on this blog by next week. I'll have links to the Observer piece, some Hodge quotes, and anything else necessary. Keep watching!
Lit Journal Report: How Not to Write Fiction
Philadelphia Stories, Winter 2004-2005 Issue.
The New York Times recently pointed out there are now over 1,000 small literary publications in the U.S. The Times didn't mention that the overwhelming majority of them completely suck. Their purveyors follow the conformist specified university production-line rules. That there are so many lit-mags, so much competition, should tell the individual writer or publisher two things. 1.) Find a way to stand out. 2.) You can't make it alone.
The ULA answers both points.
On the other hand we have Philadelphia Stories, a free literary journal backed by local rich people. Its purpose is for these patrons to list their names in the back as supporters of arts and literature. The contents are extra-- stale frosting covering the true reason-for-being.
This issue contains truly horrendous poetry (poor prose broken up into separate lines) along with lukewarm stories. The stories are overwritten. They take forever just to get going, because, first, the writer has to demonstrate he can "write" in a literary way. I'd guess 95% of the free copies end in a trash bin before the reader gets past the first page.
I'm not advocating Ray Carver literary minimalism. (Which doesn't look so bad anymore; bring back Amy Hempel and Susan Minot!) I merely suggest chopping out the extraneous added garbage-- about 70% of each story. Slow paced? The stories are glacially paced. This doesn't any longer work. I'm not sure it ever did.
(Knowledge of the world and people clearly expressed through observation can hold a reader through stage setting. Few writers today qualify.)
(More info for PS is at www.philadelphiastories.org.)
The New York Times recently pointed out there are now over 1,000 small literary publications in the U.S. The Times didn't mention that the overwhelming majority of them completely suck. Their purveyors follow the conformist specified university production-line rules. That there are so many lit-mags, so much competition, should tell the individual writer or publisher two things. 1.) Find a way to stand out. 2.) You can't make it alone.
The ULA answers both points.
On the other hand we have Philadelphia Stories, a free literary journal backed by local rich people. Its purpose is for these patrons to list their names in the back as supporters of arts and literature. The contents are extra-- stale frosting covering the true reason-for-being.
This issue contains truly horrendous poetry (poor prose broken up into separate lines) along with lukewarm stories. The stories are overwritten. They take forever just to get going, because, first, the writer has to demonstrate he can "write" in a literary way. I'd guess 95% of the free copies end in a trash bin before the reader gets past the first page.
I'm not advocating Ray Carver literary minimalism. (Which doesn't look so bad anymore; bring back Amy Hempel and Susan Minot!) I merely suggest chopping out the extraneous added garbage-- about 70% of each story. Slow paced? The stories are glacially paced. This doesn't any longer work. I'm not sure it ever did.
(Knowledge of the world and people clearly expressed through observation can hold a reader through stage setting. Few writers today qualify.)
(More info for PS is at www.philadelphiastories.org.)
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
About KGB
Funny that people still remember that event. I wonder why?
If I had my choice of being anything in this world, I'd be a Shakespearean actor, simply because I love standing amid a crowd giving a speech. Of course I've read up on what performances at the Globe were really like. Crowds did not sit catatonically, but were engaged in byplay with the actors they surrounded; the shouts, heckling, shocked reactions and thrown peanuts all part of the show. Literature had teeth in those bygone days.
Five of the original Six members of the ULA, with NYC journalist Annia Ciezadlo in tow, showed up at KGB one Sunday night to give an impromptu performance to let people know what we were about. We were there a grand total of ten or fifteen minutes. It was great fun, one of the highlights of our history as an organization.
That simple "reading crash" illustrated then and for all time the difference between the status quo and what the ULA stands for. What we saw was a crowd of the gentry "appreciating" the most godawful sterile dull "performance" ever witnessed; the polite comfortable affluent people sitting like tame pets as if at a church service-- which for them is exactly what it was. The Vanity Fair editor who was reading has little talent as a writer and ZERO ability as a reader-- staring down mumbling in a monotone her precious story about vacation in France, or something similarly irrelevant and precious. (We were hoping Rick Moody and friends would be there.) There was no life in the room. THIS-- these kind of readings, are exactly what are killing literature in this country because they tell the world there's no life in literature itself-- and there isn't, if it's to be judged by these folks and by their enervated works.
So, we gave a free performance; some brief ULA Theater. For me, it was an opportunity to let my voice out just a trifle-- when Ms. Sterzinger, Mr. Bassett, and Mike Jackman had done their thing and then the balloon popped and the crowd demanded we be removed and I got off my barstool, stood in the center of the room and asked, "Who's going to remove us?" and pointed to pet after pet and said, "You? Or you?"
I was the first person out the door and so missed Jackman's impromptu speech, which I heard afterward was pretty good. The rest of the gang came down in stages where I waited outside on the sidewalk; that's when I uncorked my voice full out at the bouncers-- I'm sure it was heard in the room above-- while an Ivy League jock who'd followed us downstairs tried to give Michael the "jock push." Michael just puffed on a cigarette and laughed at him.
Theater, that's all it was. If Ms. E.S. had any ability whatsoever as an entertaining reader she would've waved at us and laughed. Instead, she froze. I've been heckled many times when reading. It's when I'm at my best-- when I can really get into my words. For E.S., it was potentially a learning experience-- and she blew it, maybe because as a talent she blows.
All you saw that evening, Anonymous, was a contrast between genteel posers and the genuine article.
The ULA's evening ended at the International Bar with a couple out-and-out brawls between us. (The early ULA saved all its most intense and violent fights for ourselves.)
If I had my choice of being anything in this world, I'd be a Shakespearean actor, simply because I love standing amid a crowd giving a speech. Of course I've read up on what performances at the Globe were really like. Crowds did not sit catatonically, but were engaged in byplay with the actors they surrounded; the shouts, heckling, shocked reactions and thrown peanuts all part of the show. Literature had teeth in those bygone days.
Five of the original Six members of the ULA, with NYC journalist Annia Ciezadlo in tow, showed up at KGB one Sunday night to give an impromptu performance to let people know what we were about. We were there a grand total of ten or fifteen minutes. It was great fun, one of the highlights of our history as an organization.
That simple "reading crash" illustrated then and for all time the difference between the status quo and what the ULA stands for. What we saw was a crowd of the gentry "appreciating" the most godawful sterile dull "performance" ever witnessed; the polite comfortable affluent people sitting like tame pets as if at a church service-- which for them is exactly what it was. The Vanity Fair editor who was reading has little talent as a writer and ZERO ability as a reader-- staring down mumbling in a monotone her precious story about vacation in France, or something similarly irrelevant and precious. (We were hoping Rick Moody and friends would be there.) There was no life in the room. THIS-- these kind of readings, are exactly what are killing literature in this country because they tell the world there's no life in literature itself-- and there isn't, if it's to be judged by these folks and by their enervated works.
So, we gave a free performance; some brief ULA Theater. For me, it was an opportunity to let my voice out just a trifle-- when Ms. Sterzinger, Mr. Bassett, and Mike Jackman had done their thing and then the balloon popped and the crowd demanded we be removed and I got off my barstool, stood in the center of the room and asked, "Who's going to remove us?" and pointed to pet after pet and said, "You? Or you?"
I was the first person out the door and so missed Jackman's impromptu speech, which I heard afterward was pretty good. The rest of the gang came down in stages where I waited outside on the sidewalk; that's when I uncorked my voice full out at the bouncers-- I'm sure it was heard in the room above-- while an Ivy League jock who'd followed us downstairs tried to give Michael the "jock push." Michael just puffed on a cigarette and laughed at him.
Theater, that's all it was. If Ms. E.S. had any ability whatsoever as an entertaining reader she would've waved at us and laughed. Instead, she froze. I've been heckled many times when reading. It's when I'm at my best-- when I can really get into my words. For E.S., it was potentially a learning experience-- and she blew it, maybe because as a talent she blows.
All you saw that evening, Anonymous, was a contrast between genteel posers and the genuine article.
The ULA's evening ended at the International Bar with a couple out-and-out brawls between us. (The early ULA saved all its most intense and violent fights for ourselves.)
A Cavalcade of Clowns
The dispute over the Bissell plagiarisms has given me enough material for my blog for months-- should I choose to use it.
I could begin with the idea that a writer, Galley Cat, would actually censor herself-- putting lines through her own words. I still find that amazing. Public self-flagellation. I'd think she'd rather put such talent to use for the FBI or CIA! She's a walking Patriot Act.
Someone else who should likewise get a job in government is Daniel Radosh, who's so artful at bureaucratic hair-splitting, his rationale in effect saying,
"It's not really plagiarism, even though it looks like plagiarism, because we in the journalistic community have decided there is no longer such thing as plagiarism. We've defined it out of existence"-- which could easily turn into "The President tip-toed up to the line of lying, but did not actually cross over it."
I especially like his use of the word "uncomfortable." The word is a masterpiece of obfuscation which should be sent immediately to Washington.
Confirmation hearing at which a litany of problems are related. Photos of various are shown (prison torture, bombed civilians, sex with interns-- take your pick.) Response: "Er, ah, we're uncomfortable with that."
It's a perfect word because it doesn't commit the person who uses it to anything, either way. It's meaningless-- ideal for any situation.
"Dean Radish, we have evidence of your professors having sex with students."
"Uh, we're uncomfortable with that."
"Coach Radish, the alumni gave your quarterback a new car!"
"We're uncomfortable with that."
"Chief Executive Radish, the pension fund is empty, $50 million was spent renovating your condo, the FBI has charged your assistant with embezzlement and mail fraud, the stock price is plummeting; costs are up and sales down; you've run this company into the ground."
"We're definitely uncomfortable with that."
Then there's the lit-blogger who believes that, instead of creating an alternative to the current lit system, we should instead be "fucking shit up from the inside."
Okay, but what exactly does that mean? Stealing boxes of paper clips? Unauthorized use of the copy machine? Giving book contracts to your buddy's 14-year-old daughter, or to untalented Ivy League drinking-buddy friends?
Does it simply mean being a fuck-up inside the system, like Tom Bissell or Morgan Entrekin?
I can see it now-- disgraced priests explaining that they were just "fucking shit up from the inside."
Or George W. at the inevitable impeachment hearing:
"I was just fucking shit up from the inside."
Writers and editors have been fucking-up inside the system for the last forty years and it hasn't exactly benefitted literature.
I could begin with the idea that a writer, Galley Cat, would actually censor herself-- putting lines through her own words. I still find that amazing. Public self-flagellation. I'd think she'd rather put such talent to use for the FBI or CIA! She's a walking Patriot Act.
Someone else who should likewise get a job in government is Daniel Radosh, who's so artful at bureaucratic hair-splitting, his rationale in effect saying,
"It's not really plagiarism, even though it looks like plagiarism, because we in the journalistic community have decided there is no longer such thing as plagiarism. We've defined it out of existence"-- which could easily turn into "The President tip-toed up to the line of lying, but did not actually cross over it."
I especially like his use of the word "uncomfortable." The word is a masterpiece of obfuscation which should be sent immediately to Washington.
Confirmation hearing at which a litany of problems are related. Photos of various are shown (prison torture, bombed civilians, sex with interns-- take your pick.) Response: "Er, ah, we're uncomfortable with that."
It's a perfect word because it doesn't commit the person who uses it to anything, either way. It's meaningless-- ideal for any situation.
"Dean Radish, we have evidence of your professors having sex with students."
"Uh, we're uncomfortable with that."
"Coach Radish, the alumni gave your quarterback a new car!"
"We're uncomfortable with that."
"Chief Executive Radish, the pension fund is empty, $50 million was spent renovating your condo, the FBI has charged your assistant with embezzlement and mail fraud, the stock price is plummeting; costs are up and sales down; you've run this company into the ground."
"We're definitely uncomfortable with that."
Then there's the lit-blogger who believes that, instead of creating an alternative to the current lit system, we should instead be "fucking shit up from the inside."
Okay, but what exactly does that mean? Stealing boxes of paper clips? Unauthorized use of the copy machine? Giving book contracts to your buddy's 14-year-old daughter, or to untalented Ivy League drinking-buddy friends?
Does it simply mean being a fuck-up inside the system, like Tom Bissell or Morgan Entrekin?
I can see it now-- disgraced priests explaining that they were just "fucking shit up from the inside."
Or George W. at the inevitable impeachment hearing:
"I was just fucking shit up from the inside."
Writers and editors have been fucking-up inside the system for the last forty years and it hasn't exactly benefitted literature.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Understanding the Herd
"I never truckled. I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. I told them the truth. They liked it or they didn't like it. What had that to do with me? I told them the truth."
-Frank Norris
Back in the early 70s, Richard Nixon ended the draft and "Vietnamized" the war, based on his knowledge of the American psyche. Take the views of carnage off television screens and the populace would once again become complacent. He knew they weren't against war, carnage, domination and exploitation per se; they just didn't want to have to think about it.
Such is the major impetus behind anti-war outrage now for many affluent people. They want the war off their TV screens because it forces them to think about the brutal nature of American civilization. It gives them hints about the source of their affluence. (Cheap gasoline, anyone?)
I see a similar mentality at work with the lit-world herd. Many willfully avoid the ULA's www.literaryrevolution.com fan site and the information given every week in our "Monday Reports," because the revelations might force these writers to have to think. Just as Kerry and those running his campaign didn't want to change the inequities of this society (only apply band-aids along the margins), so do many writers not want to alter the inequities and corruptions of literature. Change is disconcerting. They'd rather cling to the system they have.
STRIKING about last week's dust-up was the way peer pressure worked on many lit-bloggers. Starkly amazing was the 180 degree switch in opinion some of them went through over the nine plagiarism examples. The examples themselves didn't alter a bit-- and still haven't. Extraneous matters such as the ULA's previous battle with Bissell (which I thought was common knowledge-- and was ALLUDED TO in the opening lines of the e-mail I sent out) didn't change one iota the matter at hand. Yet the way the herd viewed those nine examples switched dramatically, as if their 1984 hate screens told them Eurasia was now the enemy and not Eastasia. They seemed to lose control of their own minds.
The herd dictated their opinion. Once Maud came forth with her views, and in effect TOLD THEM WHAT TO THINK, the debate in their heads was over, as Maud represents the voice of the herd. As I said, she never deviates, is never "wrong" in her judgement of which are safe targets on the lit scene and which are not.
Lit-bloggers showed sudden explosive anger when put on the spot-- when I listed three of their names. This was a trigger, because it said they were to be forced to address an uncomfortable matter; to use their minds, take a stand, engage their consciences, have an opinion-- and thus their anger at me for forcing them to do so. There's no question as to what Bissell did-- it's there in black and white. All one has to do is read the words. (You can scroll down and try again.)
But the matter had already been ignored for too long, and cut too close to the very nature of the lit-world. The lit-bloggers searched for any excuse they could find to say this wasn't plagiarism-- side issues involving the ULA's perceived flaws-- because if it wasn't plagiarism, their consciences would be eased, their pose as progressive angels sound, their lit world a place of harmony and fairness-- all would be right in their bubble of a universe.
With their outrage at my breach of protocol, their masks dropped and their true opinion of us and the classes below them came out. They hurried to link to past blog posts which labelled the ULA as neanderthal know-nothing morons.
(Why the working class is reluctant to support "liberal" politicians: We sense their true contempt for us, and the fact that at crunch time they invariably sell us out. Examples available upon request.)
The bulk of bourgeois lit-bloggers scorn the ULA and its writers for our non-genteel nature and the gritty honest authenticity of our poems and prose-- as they wear their Kerouac and Scott Fitzgerald t-shirts and drink from their Dostoevsky and Shakespeare coffee mugs (writers who were either notorious misspellers or notably unpolished). (Note: Bukowski still hasn't become "hip" enough for this crowd.) The contradiction will never register.
Demi-puppet brains were engaged for three days-- unfamiliar and dangerous territory (frightening terrritory)-- then their brains began shutting down across the board. Notes went up on their blogs one after another, "This is the last I'll say about the matter"; "This is my final post about this"; "I'm not going to name those people." Metaphorical lights seen turning off as portions of brains throughout demi-puppet land began closing.
(I'll wager you won't see them on these threads again. The word has gone out to them. Disputing with the underground is too risky. They might become contaminated. Look at Galley Cat! She's probably undergoing re-education sessions as I type this.)
There wasn't a shred of objectivity in the demi-puppet blog posts about the Bissell matter. The side they took was predetermined-- they looked for arguments to fit their viewpoint.
They can answer that I wasn't objective either. I'm sure I wasn't. I'll gladly admit it. Then again, I could've easily taken Bissell's side in things, to get right with the proper crowd. He sucked-up to me via e-mail right after The Believer article came out (as he does to anyone he perceives has some power), and indeed, did so in the article itself. Wouldn't it make sense to get along with Bissell, Franzen, Eggers, and the rest; to "go along to get along"? This is how any demi-puppet would play it.
But the ULA does not consist of demi-puppets.
-Frank Norris
Back in the early 70s, Richard Nixon ended the draft and "Vietnamized" the war, based on his knowledge of the American psyche. Take the views of carnage off television screens and the populace would once again become complacent. He knew they weren't against war, carnage, domination and exploitation per se; they just didn't want to have to think about it.
Such is the major impetus behind anti-war outrage now for many affluent people. They want the war off their TV screens because it forces them to think about the brutal nature of American civilization. It gives them hints about the source of their affluence. (Cheap gasoline, anyone?)
I see a similar mentality at work with the lit-world herd. Many willfully avoid the ULA's www.literaryrevolution.com fan site and the information given every week in our "Monday Reports," because the revelations might force these writers to have to think. Just as Kerry and those running his campaign didn't want to change the inequities of this society (only apply band-aids along the margins), so do many writers not want to alter the inequities and corruptions of literature. Change is disconcerting. They'd rather cling to the system they have.
STRIKING about last week's dust-up was the way peer pressure worked on many lit-bloggers. Starkly amazing was the 180 degree switch in opinion some of them went through over the nine plagiarism examples. The examples themselves didn't alter a bit-- and still haven't. Extraneous matters such as the ULA's previous battle with Bissell (which I thought was common knowledge-- and was ALLUDED TO in the opening lines of the e-mail I sent out) didn't change one iota the matter at hand. Yet the way the herd viewed those nine examples switched dramatically, as if their 1984 hate screens told them Eurasia was now the enemy and not Eastasia. They seemed to lose control of their own minds.
The herd dictated their opinion. Once Maud came forth with her views, and in effect TOLD THEM WHAT TO THINK, the debate in their heads was over, as Maud represents the voice of the herd. As I said, she never deviates, is never "wrong" in her judgement of which are safe targets on the lit scene and which are not.
Lit-bloggers showed sudden explosive anger when put on the spot-- when I listed three of their names. This was a trigger, because it said they were to be forced to address an uncomfortable matter; to use their minds, take a stand, engage their consciences, have an opinion-- and thus their anger at me for forcing them to do so. There's no question as to what Bissell did-- it's there in black and white. All one has to do is read the words. (You can scroll down and try again.)
But the matter had already been ignored for too long, and cut too close to the very nature of the lit-world. The lit-bloggers searched for any excuse they could find to say this wasn't plagiarism-- side issues involving the ULA's perceived flaws-- because if it wasn't plagiarism, their consciences would be eased, their pose as progressive angels sound, their lit world a place of harmony and fairness-- all would be right in their bubble of a universe.
With their outrage at my breach of protocol, their masks dropped and their true opinion of us and the classes below them came out. They hurried to link to past blog posts which labelled the ULA as neanderthal know-nothing morons.
(Why the working class is reluctant to support "liberal" politicians: We sense their true contempt for us, and the fact that at crunch time they invariably sell us out. Examples available upon request.)
The bulk of bourgeois lit-bloggers scorn the ULA and its writers for our non-genteel nature and the gritty honest authenticity of our poems and prose-- as they wear their Kerouac and Scott Fitzgerald t-shirts and drink from their Dostoevsky and Shakespeare coffee mugs (writers who were either notorious misspellers or notably unpolished). (Note: Bukowski still hasn't become "hip" enough for this crowd.) The contradiction will never register.
Demi-puppet brains were engaged for three days-- unfamiliar and dangerous territory (frightening terrritory)-- then their brains began shutting down across the board. Notes went up on their blogs one after another, "This is the last I'll say about the matter"; "This is my final post about this"; "I'm not going to name those people." Metaphorical lights seen turning off as portions of brains throughout demi-puppet land began closing.
(I'll wager you won't see them on these threads again. The word has gone out to them. Disputing with the underground is too risky. They might become contaminated. Look at Galley Cat! She's probably undergoing re-education sessions as I type this.)
There wasn't a shred of objectivity in the demi-puppet blog posts about the Bissell matter. The side they took was predetermined-- they looked for arguments to fit their viewpoint.
They can answer that I wasn't objective either. I'm sure I wasn't. I'll gladly admit it. Then again, I could've easily taken Bissell's side in things, to get right with the proper crowd. He sucked-up to me via e-mail right after The Believer article came out (as he does to anyone he perceives has some power), and indeed, did so in the article itself. Wouldn't it make sense to get along with Bissell, Franzen, Eggers, and the rest; to "go along to get along"? This is how any demi-puppet would play it.
But the ULA does not consist of demi-puppets.
Why Writers Have No Rights
Note that no literary Insiders-- Eggers, Franzen, Birkerts, the billionaire-run Harper's, or Bissell himself-- jumped into last week's fray. They have no need to when there exists a layer of loyal retainers, wannabes, and servants always ready and willing to act against their own interests by defending the literary establishment. (With an anonymous publisher urging them on.)
In the present System, writers and artists have no power, are mere hat-in-hand supplicants begging for the door of access to open. Literature in their world is like an exclusive Manhattan nightclub. At the entrance stand burly doormen deciding who is fit to gain entrance-- usually the already rich, famous, and known. The rest of the crowd remains beneath notice.
In the ULA, writers and artists are in charge. We've eliminated the hierarchies between publishing-decision-makers and writer. In our world, the writer is at the top of the food chain-- not at the very bottom of an enormous pyramid.
Yes, we're not fans of Tom Bissell (whose attitudes were hardened by working for the monopolistic conglomerates) because he's shown in his statements his contempt for D-I-Y philosophy and for the existence of underground writers. What, then, should be our attitude toward him?
*******************************************************
Worth laughing at is the mock outrage being shown by Mark Sarvas and others over the notion that the ULA had an axe to grind going into this matter. These are folks who've attacked the ULA and its writers time and again before I or anyone else in the ULA had ever heard of them. (As of course did Maud Newton.)
From where came their axes and vendettas? Where was their sense of fair play THEN??
In the present System, writers and artists have no power, are mere hat-in-hand supplicants begging for the door of access to open. Literature in their world is like an exclusive Manhattan nightclub. At the entrance stand burly doormen deciding who is fit to gain entrance-- usually the already rich, famous, and known. The rest of the crowd remains beneath notice.
In the ULA, writers and artists are in charge. We've eliminated the hierarchies between publishing-decision-makers and writer. In our world, the writer is at the top of the food chain-- not at the very bottom of an enormous pyramid.
Yes, we're not fans of Tom Bissell (whose attitudes were hardened by working for the monopolistic conglomerates) because he's shown in his statements his contempt for D-I-Y philosophy and for the existence of underground writers. What, then, should be our attitude toward him?
*******************************************************
Worth laughing at is the mock outrage being shown by Mark Sarvas and others over the notion that the ULA had an axe to grind going into this matter. These are folks who've attacked the ULA and its writers time and again before I or anyone else in the ULA had ever heard of them. (As of course did Maud Newton.)
From where came their axes and vendettas? Where was their sense of fair play THEN??
Saturday, January 22, 2005
The Embrace of Mediocrity
"A born writer, because he was spontaneous and impulsive. . . ."
-Regis Debray
Daniel Radosh's points about the Bissell plagiarism case (link given on a recent post's Comments below) are not only the worst kind of convoluted excuse for the corruption of his profession, they're also unbearably dull. They show the mindset of an apparatchik, practicioner of an enfeebled art.
Some ULAers may sometimes fail. At some point maybe we all do. But we're always original, impulsive, different, new, noisy and rabble-rousing, doing everything in our power to keep from being "caught" within aesthetic stylistic or intellectual boundaries like caged zoo animals. We don't want to sound like everyone else, and we don't.
In the Bissell affair Radosh is the other lawyer-- the colorless law partner sitting quietly at the defense table like a figurehead, having written a 500-page summary of the case none of the other defense counsel have bothered to read, but they humor him anyway while he sits smugly watching their antics botch the case (having Bissell arrive in the courtroom dressed like a clown was a bad idea), and says to himself, knowingly, "I could've won it!" If only he could've read his 500-page summary to the courtroom it would've dazzled everybody. Fortunately for him he didn't, which keeps intact his illusions.
To those who want the ULA to bring in MFAers, I point to the journalistic mindset as represented by Daniel Radosh and say, "This is what happens when you professionalize an art." You get not the natural talents-- not the Zolas shouting with impassioned polemics, "I Accuse!"-- but instead the time-markers and ticket-punchers, the credentialed crowd who got their credentials by sitting on hard asses long enough within constricted temples of dullness. In Radosh's thoughts one sees consternation and smugness, but no life; no passion.
These kind of demi-puppets (not all are so bad) are advocates of Bissell because they so well understand him; the person for whom literature is a career, the works themselves the inconvenience necessary to justify progress up the career ladder, along with other necessary evils such as brown-nosing. (Everything else is secondary-- even one's integrity-- to this goal.) For Bissell, writing an essay is not a joy or compulsion but a task; a duty he hopes to get over with as quickly as possible (like the ten minutes spent investigating the ULA for his Believer article), by finding shortcuts wherever he can. His essays aren't meant to present original writing (but isn't this what Harper's subscribers pay for?), but to obtain another credit for his career file.
Can you imagine Victor Hugo or Emile Zola having to borrow language from another's book! The idea is ludicrous. They valued their OWN words.
But these men were real essayists, natural writers, spigots of flowing talent, not apparatchiks.
-Regis Debray
Daniel Radosh's points about the Bissell plagiarism case (link given on a recent post's Comments below) are not only the worst kind of convoluted excuse for the corruption of his profession, they're also unbearably dull. They show the mindset of an apparatchik, practicioner of an enfeebled art.
Some ULAers may sometimes fail. At some point maybe we all do. But we're always original, impulsive, different, new, noisy and rabble-rousing, doing everything in our power to keep from being "caught" within aesthetic stylistic or intellectual boundaries like caged zoo animals. We don't want to sound like everyone else, and we don't.
In the Bissell affair Radosh is the other lawyer-- the colorless law partner sitting quietly at the defense table like a figurehead, having written a 500-page summary of the case none of the other defense counsel have bothered to read, but they humor him anyway while he sits smugly watching their antics botch the case (having Bissell arrive in the courtroom dressed like a clown was a bad idea), and says to himself, knowingly, "I could've won it!" If only he could've read his 500-page summary to the courtroom it would've dazzled everybody. Fortunately for him he didn't, which keeps intact his illusions.
To those who want the ULA to bring in MFAers, I point to the journalistic mindset as represented by Daniel Radosh and say, "This is what happens when you professionalize an art." You get not the natural talents-- not the Zolas shouting with impassioned polemics, "I Accuse!"-- but instead the time-markers and ticket-punchers, the credentialed crowd who got their credentials by sitting on hard asses long enough within constricted temples of dullness. In Radosh's thoughts one sees consternation and smugness, but no life; no passion.
These kind of demi-puppets (not all are so bad) are advocates of Bissell because they so well understand him; the person for whom literature is a career, the works themselves the inconvenience necessary to justify progress up the career ladder, along with other necessary evils such as brown-nosing. (Everything else is secondary-- even one's integrity-- to this goal.) For Bissell, writing an essay is not a joy or compulsion but a task; a duty he hopes to get over with as quickly as possible (like the ten minutes spent investigating the ULA for his Believer article), by finding shortcuts wherever he can. His essays aren't meant to present original writing (but isn't this what Harper's subscribers pay for?), but to obtain another credit for his career file.
Can you imagine Victor Hugo or Emile Zola having to borrow language from another's book! The idea is ludicrous. They valued their OWN words.
But these men were real essayists, natural writers, spigots of flowing talent, not apparatchiks.
A Paris Review Mystery
Whatever happened to James Linville, long-time Paris Review #2? If anyone should take over as editor, it should be him.
Last I heard of him, he was in London. Doing what?
Then there's this from a February 16 article in the American Conservative, "An American in Paris" by Richard Cummings:
"James Linville, the former managing editor of the Paris Review, who confirms that 'the Paris Review was Peter Matthiessen's cover for the CIA,' says that Matthiessen is 'haunted by the CIA.' His name remains on the masthead as an editor."
Last I heard of him, he was in London. Doing what?
Then there's this from a February 16 article in the American Conservative, "An American in Paris" by Richard Cummings:
"James Linville, the former managing editor of the Paris Review, who confirms that 'the Paris Review was Peter Matthiessen's cover for the CIA,' says that Matthiessen is 'haunted by the CIA.' His name remains on the masthead as an editor."
The Paris Review Problem
(For Added Background, see my "Open Bar, Open Debate" essay at www.texasgang.com/king2.html.)
The Paris Review Problem is the same one which afflicts the static enervated in-bred establishment lit world as a whole-- a lack of new ideas and new blood. (Their idea of new blood is to import properly screened homogenized and tame conformist MFA writers from Iowa.)
The Paris Review always was a wannabe knock-off of the Lost Generation. Always it was a one-man operation.
The Paris Review has a platform in the culture but they'll never find anyone who'll know what to do with it. The Money People behind the publication will likely choose someone they're comfortable with-- another Money Person like Rick Moody-- and it'll slowly drift further into irrelevance and obscurity. They should shut the relic down and let it take its place in literary history.
Literature should be NEWS. The only news in the lit world now is the Underground Literary Alliance. We're filled with new ideas and we're swiftly enlisting the best underground writers into our ranks. Kick-ass underground novelists like Tim Hall, Noah Cicero, and James Nowlan are some of our most recent additions (with more to come). We'll soon add the best underground poets in America to those we already have. Loud striking energetic dynamic talent is coming to US. (And yes, we'll have more women writers-- but no Galley Cats; no self-abasing self-censoring political-game-playing boot-polishing WIMPS.)
If the Lost Generation of undergrounders Stein McAlmon Hemingway Pound were alive today, they'd be with us.
As the Paris Review couldn't stand up to us in 2001, less can any status quo collection of conformist posers do so now. We're moving while the rest of the lit world cluelessly has their feet embedded in the ground.
The Paris Review Problem is the same one which afflicts the static enervated in-bred establishment lit world as a whole-- a lack of new ideas and new blood. (Their idea of new blood is to import properly screened homogenized and tame conformist MFA writers from Iowa.)
The Paris Review always was a wannabe knock-off of the Lost Generation. Always it was a one-man operation.
The Paris Review has a platform in the culture but they'll never find anyone who'll know what to do with it. The Money People behind the publication will likely choose someone they're comfortable with-- another Money Person like Rick Moody-- and it'll slowly drift further into irrelevance and obscurity. They should shut the relic down and let it take its place in literary history.
Literature should be NEWS. The only news in the lit world now is the Underground Literary Alliance. We're filled with new ideas and we're swiftly enlisting the best underground writers into our ranks. Kick-ass underground novelists like Tim Hall, Noah Cicero, and James Nowlan are some of our most recent additions (with more to come). We'll soon add the best underground poets in America to those we already have. Loud striking energetic dynamic talent is coming to US. (And yes, we'll have more women writers-- but no Galley Cats; no self-abasing self-censoring political-game-playing boot-polishing WIMPS.)
If the Lost Generation of undergrounders Stein McAlmon Hemingway Pound were alive today, they'd be with us.
As the Paris Review couldn't stand up to us in 2001, less can any status quo collection of conformist posers do so now. We're moving while the rest of the lit world cluelessly has their feet embedded in the ground.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Assessing the Demi-Puppets
A Gallery of Embarrassment.
1.) "GALLEY CAT" OF MEDIA BISTRO:
The biggest loser in our three-day test of lit-blogger behavior, for abjectly adopting the party line and censoring her original blog post on this topic. (Her first post, true to her own opinion, was more accurate.) The lines through her words say it all. A degrading performance.
2.) HARPER'S:
The floundering mag once again put itself above accountability and response. We also found that Tom Bissell ("a fine journalist" --Mark Sarvas) is not the only Harper's essayist accused of plagiarism.
3.) SVEN BIRKERTS:
Unwilling to condemn or defend Bissell, or comment on the matter at all, this public intellectual isn't very public. The Bissell essay Birkerts published in Agni (current issue) stands as something very bizarre.
4.) TOM BISSELL ("a fine journalist" --Mark Sarvas):
I don't see how anyone can argue that Bissell is not, at best, a lazy essayist and paraphraser of another's work.
5.) MAUD NEWTON:
Always predictable, this finesse operator lawyer. Her "jokes" defense of Bissell is in shambles. That her blog is not in any way an alternative to the establishment lit world; that it offers nothing new in ideas or content, is the point to make here-- though one can respect its consistency: the undeviating establishment party line.
6.) THE LIT WORLD:
Bissell's reputation ("a fine journalist" --Mark Sarvas) will only skyrocket. Not because he was cleared of unethical, questionable, or inept behavior as a writer-- but because he wasn't. Key demi-puppets have rallied around him, because he's the proto-typical example of how to progress in their Bizarro Universe. A little plagiarism? A minor matter! Trifling! Not an affair at all. That he got away with it is what earns him plaudits.
Construct a Tom Bissell bust-- that fine journalist and rationalizer. Place it in a showcase called "Literature Today." Enroll Bissell in the status quo Gallery of Heroes. It makes perfect sense. Rick Moody is caught in a grants controversy-- and is put in charge of awards panels! Tom Bissell plagiarizes-- and writes an essay for Agni on plagiarism! Don't you get it yet? Can't you see the inevitable logic? These charlatans are reflections of the current state of literature-- honest reflections of its corruption. Do you still not understand? To see things as they are in this world, the way it's ordered-- its topsy-turvy reality-- you must stand on your head.
1.) "GALLEY CAT" OF MEDIA BISTRO:
The biggest loser in our three-day test of lit-blogger behavior, for abjectly adopting the party line and censoring her original blog post on this topic. (Her first post, true to her own opinion, was more accurate.) The lines through her words say it all. A degrading performance.
2.) HARPER'S:
The floundering mag once again put itself above accountability and response. We also found that Tom Bissell ("a fine journalist" --Mark Sarvas) is not the only Harper's essayist accused of plagiarism.
3.) SVEN BIRKERTS:
Unwilling to condemn or defend Bissell, or comment on the matter at all, this public intellectual isn't very public. The Bissell essay Birkerts published in Agni (current issue) stands as something very bizarre.
4.) TOM BISSELL ("a fine journalist" --Mark Sarvas):
I don't see how anyone can argue that Bissell is not, at best, a lazy essayist and paraphraser of another's work.
5.) MAUD NEWTON:
Always predictable, this finesse operator lawyer. Her "jokes" defense of Bissell is in shambles. That her blog is not in any way an alternative to the establishment lit world; that it offers nothing new in ideas or content, is the point to make here-- though one can respect its consistency: the undeviating establishment party line.
6.) THE LIT WORLD:
Bissell's reputation ("a fine journalist" --Mark Sarvas) will only skyrocket. Not because he was cleared of unethical, questionable, or inept behavior as a writer-- but because he wasn't. Key demi-puppets have rallied around him, because he's the proto-typical example of how to progress in their Bizarro Universe. A little plagiarism? A minor matter! Trifling! Not an affair at all. That he got away with it is what earns him plaudits.
Construct a Tom Bissell bust-- that fine journalist and rationalizer. Place it in a showcase called "Literature Today." Enroll Bissell in the status quo Gallery of Heroes. It makes perfect sense. Rick Moody is caught in a grants controversy-- and is put in charge of awards panels! Tom Bissell plagiarizes-- and writes an essay for Agni on plagiarism! Don't you get it yet? Can't you see the inevitable logic? These charlatans are reflections of the current state of literature-- honest reflections of its corruption. Do you still not understand? To see things as they are in this world, the way it's ordered-- its topsy-turvy reality-- you must stand on your head.
The Jokes Defense
When comments are sifted and examined, the Bissell defense has centered on two old Soviet jokes listed among the nine examples. His "attorney" in the court of blog opinion made this the focal point of her argument, conveniently pushing aside, away from the jury's sight, the obvious paraphrasing of the other posts listed. (Scroll down please to view all nine exhibits.)
Very well. Let's examine the two jokes. As the defense stressed again and again, Russia is a place filled with cynical jokes about the system under which the Russian people live. Hundreds of jokes. Thousands. What, then, are the odds that Bissell and Feshbach would hear the same two jokes-- and independently and coincidentally write about them? Yet this is what the defense argued, only yesterday, on Maud's well-known blog.
But wait! Something else is curious about the matter. The Soviet system ended in 1990. Tom Bissell's Harper's essay was written in 2002! Are Russians still telling old jokes about the Soviets-- or not in fact others about Putin and their current rulers, and the joke of an economic disaster they live under now?
Conclusion: Bissell took the two jokes from the Feshbach book.
The well-researched and carefully constructed Jokes Defense has suddenly and swiftly collapsed; a fallen tower of building blocks. There sits the rubble of the argument on the defense table. Will Maud now apologize for it-- or, like Galley Cat, cross out her own words?
(Galley: Are you not now sorry you bought this shaky argument against your own better judgement?)
Very well. Let's examine the two jokes. As the defense stressed again and again, Russia is a place filled with cynical jokes about the system under which the Russian people live. Hundreds of jokes. Thousands. What, then, are the odds that Bissell and Feshbach would hear the same two jokes-- and independently and coincidentally write about them? Yet this is what the defense argued, only yesterday, on Maud's well-known blog.
But wait! Something else is curious about the matter. The Soviet system ended in 1990. Tom Bissell's Harper's essay was written in 2002! Are Russians still telling old jokes about the Soviets-- or not in fact others about Putin and their current rulers, and the joke of an economic disaster they live under now?
Conclusion: Bissell took the two jokes from the Feshbach book.
The well-researched and carefully constructed Jokes Defense has suddenly and swiftly collapsed; a fallen tower of building blocks. There sits the rubble of the argument on the defense table. Will Maud now apologize for it-- or, like Galley Cat, cross out her own words?
(Galley: Are you not now sorry you bought this shaky argument against your own better judgement?)
Lit-Blogger Backbone Watch, Day Three
I've decided not to out the names of the lit-bloggers who agreed with my thinking. We don't need another Galley Cat situation.
"Thanks for approaching the litblog community and others with a solid argument" was a typical response.
Another lit-blogger said, "The examples that completely sold me on the fact that it is plagiarism are p.115 and p.134-- the ones that involve quotes could possibly have been coincidences, but those two contain such specific examples that in the context of all the others it's clear where Bissell was getting his material."
Stefan Beck of New Criterion threw out two of the examples, and refused to be quoted about plagiarism, but was the first to make this astute observation: "A straight-edge razor is not a safety razor, of course, and you couldn't perform an appendectomy with a safety razor. It reads like this Bissell fellow tried to change something about the sentence, but unwittingly changed it into nonsense. Kids used to do this in middle school: copy something out of the encyclopedia and then run the computer thesaurus over every word. The results were often similarly amusing."
The only e-mail person to say that what Tom Bissell did wasn't plagiarism was Daniel Radosh, who said, "Of the nine parallels you cite, only the first one tiptoes right up to the line of uncomfortable."
No, Bissell tiptoes up to and goes over the line. The first example I gave is a textbook example of plagiarism by paraphrasing. University after university in their guidelines give similar examples. They could use this one as well.
No one has grasped the MOST OBVIOUS example of plagiarism among the nine examples, the last one. I'm sure Bissell himself hasn't caught it. (Or he wouldn't have used it.) Scroll down and read the two similar quotes again, very carefully. First, one is a paraphrase of the other. Second is the idea that a sign from a 1990 protest alludes to Khrushchev. An unusual idea about a such a protest that year, when more likely the sign was aimed at statements from more recent Soviet leaders-- not a guy kicked out of Soviet government in disgrace way back in 1964 and whose public utterances were expunged! Feshbach's is a very unique idea-- which Tom Bissell stole. (Bissell plagiarized a mistake.)
Drew University:
"Although the student has rearranged some phrases and made some minor stylistic changes, this version still follows the basic wording and structure of the original while the student repeats ideas as if they were his or her own."
(More to come, kids. Stay tuned.)
"Thanks for approaching the litblog community and others with a solid argument" was a typical response.
Another lit-blogger said, "The examples that completely sold me on the fact that it is plagiarism are p.115 and p.134-- the ones that involve quotes could possibly have been coincidences, but those two contain such specific examples that in the context of all the others it's clear where Bissell was getting his material."
Stefan Beck of New Criterion threw out two of the examples, and refused to be quoted about plagiarism, but was the first to make this astute observation: "A straight-edge razor is not a safety razor, of course, and you couldn't perform an appendectomy with a safety razor. It reads like this Bissell fellow tried to change something about the sentence, but unwittingly changed it into nonsense. Kids used to do this in middle school: copy something out of the encyclopedia and then run the computer thesaurus over every word. The results were often similarly amusing."
The only e-mail person to say that what Tom Bissell did wasn't plagiarism was Daniel Radosh, who said, "Of the nine parallels you cite, only the first one tiptoes right up to the line of uncomfortable."
No, Bissell tiptoes up to and goes over the line. The first example I gave is a textbook example of plagiarism by paraphrasing. University after university in their guidelines give similar examples. They could use this one as well.
No one has grasped the MOST OBVIOUS example of plagiarism among the nine examples, the last one. I'm sure Bissell himself hasn't caught it. (Or he wouldn't have used it.) Scroll down and read the two similar quotes again, very carefully. First, one is a paraphrase of the other. Second is the idea that a sign from a 1990 protest alludes to Khrushchev. An unusual idea about a such a protest that year, when more likely the sign was aimed at statements from more recent Soviet leaders-- not a guy kicked out of Soviet government in disgrace way back in 1964 and whose public utterances were expunged! Feshbach's is a very unique idea-- which Tom Bissell stole. (Bissell plagiarized a mistake.)
Drew University:
"Although the student has rearranged some phrases and made some minor stylistic changes, this version still follows the basic wording and structure of the original while the student repeats ideas as if they were his or her own."
(More to come, kids. Stay tuned.)
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