Which Story Is Better?

GEORGE SAUNDERS VERSUS NICK GALLUP

 Currently New Pop Lit has a Reading Challenge! ongoing-- an opportunity to read two recent short stories and compare them in a brief (25 to 500 words) review that would be posted within days at the New Pop Lit NEWS blog.

Who's game? Anyone?

(So far we've had two comparisons offered, here and here.)

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For me, George Saunders has always been a puzzling writer-- though I suppose it's not puzzling why he's widely published and lauded.

Saunders turns standard populist writing practice on its head. At one time, authors (and more, moviemakers) would offer a romanticized depiction of actual life, as both incentive and escape for the intended audience: the masses, including those struggling.

George Saunders offers a wildly exaggerated version of reality-- exaggerated in the other direction, depicting lower class life as grotesque, deformed, and diseased. We can't be sure of the intended audience-- but we do know his actual audience, which isn't the masses, but instead, those who are well-educated and affluent. Those who read The New Yorker magazine, for instance.

Which I guess means Saunders' work isn't in any way populist.

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If you can, read and compare the two stories!

Comic Book Fiction Without the Pictures

 

THE LATEST zeen from New Pop Lit is written by myself--

CRIME CITY U.S.A.

The slim publication contains a ton of artistic ideas. A hyper-noir story enclosed within a somewhat punk design, with a 1920's melodrama vibe. Sound like a mixed-up clash of motifs? 

We're just trying to be unique.

Order the zeen here today!

Reinventing the Literary Journal

DEBUT OF EXTREME ZEEN

Yes, it's here. The first literary journal since the 1920's to leap into an entirely new aesthetic direction. The first of many such experiments which will redefine what the presentation of literary art looks like.

Strictly an analog product-- one which needs to be held in the hand and gently fondled for maximum impact.

Don't be left behind. Purchase Extreme Zeen NOW at the new Pop-Lit Shop.

Thank you in advance.

Are Bernie and Biden Too Old to Run for President?

A NEW GERONTOCRACY?

ARE Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden too old to run for President?

Bernie was born September 8, 1941, which makes him 78 years old as of this writing. He'll be 79 when he takes office, if he wins.

Joe Biden was born November 20, 1942. He's 77, will be 78 when/if he takes office. Either would be the oldest President ever-- and it wouldn't be close.

(Both men pre-date Baby Boomers.)

By point of comparison, former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are five years younger now than Sanders, many years after they left office.

Bill Clinton first won election for President in 1992. Bush, in 2000. (A more recent former President, Barack Obama, who also served two terms, is a full twenty years younger than Bernie Sanders.)

The oldest President ever was Ronald Reagan, who was closing in on 78 years of age the day he left office, after a full two terms as President. Which was younger than Bernie Sanders is today.

If Bernie wins, he'll be 83 after one term; 87 after two. Unexplored territory for the most stressful job on the planet.

ANOTHER GERONTOCRACY

The most notorious recent gerontocracy was that during the latter days of the Soviet Union. Decrepit men running a decrepit empire.

How old were they?

Brezhnev died in office at age 75. Andropov died in office at age 69. Chernenko died in office at age 73. All younger than both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are now.

THE COUNTER ARGUMENT

Then again, maybe Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are the Tom Brady and Drew Brees of the political world. Have to give them credit for ignoring mere numbers and chronology.

Moses, after all, lived to 120.

ANALOGIES

Joe Biden, in this person's opinion, was pushed out there as an alternative to Bernie Sanders, whose Marxist beliefs scare many people. The support for Sanders, especially from young people-- particularly college-type young people; the lumpen intelligentsia-- seems genuine.

Which strikes me as one of history's hopeless causes, propelled by emotion, not facts or logic. (Which is ironic about self-designated hard-eyed materialists.)

One could call it "The Collective Dream." Movements that are beyond quixotic.

Examples from history include the later Crusades, or the several Polish rebellions in the 18th and 19th centuries, or the Sioux Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee in 1890. All fights against overwhelming odds. All doomed to failure.

Another example comes from sports, in the doomed comeback of former Heavyweight Boxing Champion James J. Jeffries out of soft retirement, as the "Great White Hope" pushed in the ring against Jack Johnson.

Even though Jeffries hadn't had a fight in five years, and had ballooned to over 300 pounds before beginning training for the match, and had not one tune-up fight, his optimistic backers (including Jack London) assured themselves he was unbeatable, and would surely win. They saw what they wanted to see in the former champ-- a campaign based on hope-- not what was actually there. (Jeffries was knocked out.)

I see the same phenomenon in the current campaign of Bernie Sanders. But I could be wrong.

The Multidimensional Short Story

What have I been up to the past months?

For one thing, helping to develop the "3-D" multidimensional short story. One has been released here:

"Vodka Friday Night"

Behind the Wall

RECENTLY I made a post at the New Pop Lit NEWS blog about multi-dimensional thinking. (Read it here.) We at NPL intend to soon apply these ideas to art.

IN SO DOING, we've been scouring through a host of obscure stories, novels, and movies searching for elusive examples of the point we're trying to make.

Among the more obscure works we've found is the 1966 remake of Beau Geste, written and directed by pulp novelist Douglas Heyes.

https://rarefilmm.com/2017/07/beau-geste-1966/

Yes, the film is cheap, melodramatically acted, and scantly true to its original source. BUT, its structure consists of some fairly imaginative thinking.

The setting: an isolated fort of the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. A patrol approaches the fort. All they see: a wall, with smoke coming from behind it. A member of the patrol fires a rifle in the air. In return: shots, from the fort. Then they hear more shots.

A survivor is found inside the fort. He takes the story back to the beginning-- and the narrative progresses to the present. The scenes from the opening of the movie are replayed, but, simultaneous to the approach of the patrol, we see what happens inside the fort. Behind the wall.

Why is this important? Because the movie asks the question we ask of a person, and of events, in fiction and in life: What's behind the wall? WHAT is the full story? Then the movie answers the question. Simple, but basic. A template upon which to build similar ideas.

A mark, by the way, of the movie's obscurity is that only eleven reviews of it are posted at the popular IMDB website.

Karl Wenclas Reads from "Hamlet"

YES, I thought, why not tackle the best? In this recording I start out with one of the lesser-known soliloquies-- after Hamlet has just seen the ghost of his father. Needless to say, the young man is shaken and angry. Anyway, this is my interpretation--

https://soundcloud.com/user-231741316/a-hamlet-soliloquy

(Painting by Benjamin West.)

"Star Spangled Poet": A Recording

This was written circa 2006, during a time when I was more judgmental than now.

https://soundcloud.com/user-231741316/sets/spoken-word

"Bad Poetry"

A SPOKEN WORD POEM FOR WORLD POETRY DAY

I've just started getting back into spoken word (we have a new Open Mic feature at the New Pop Lit site). I did quite a few open mics when I lived in Philadelphia; read against some dynamite underground poets, Frank D. Walsh and Michael Grover among them. I wasn't always consistent-- but tried to make it difficult for someone to follow me in the lineup.

Here's something I recorded today for World Poetry Day-- partial reworking of something I wrote several years ago. A bit over-the-top! I'll be doing better. . . .

"Bad Poetry"

Rock and Roll History: The Harvard Viewpoint

AN ANALYSIS

AFTER a twitter exchange with a defender of Current Affairs magazine, I agreed to look at essays by one of their lead writers, Briahna Joy Gray, to see if they represented a tops-down, Harvard-oriented viewpoint. I selected her 9/6/2017 essay, "The Question of Cultural Appropriation." Rock and roll music has always been an interest of mine. From my earliest memories, I grew up listening to scratchy 45 rpm recordings by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Del Shannon, and other early rock luminaries.

THE QUESTION isn't whether Briahna Joy Gray's article makes sense, and speaks some truth. The question is the viewpoint. Or: Does the essay give the full story, or only part of the story? It's looking at a mountain from one angle and thinking you understand it. But we live in a three-dimensional world.

I've covered Gray's chief example of cultural appropriation in a separate blog post, "All About 'Hound Dog.'" The one point I didn't bring up there was that Big Mama Thornton's recording sold 500,000 copies across America, to consumers black and white. For a small record company, Peacock Records, this was an astounding achievement. The record could've sold more if promoted by one of the major record companies. Elvis Presley faced a similar, or worse, situation in the early days of his career, in 1954 and 1955 when recording with a tiny but ambitious outfit, Sun Records. Not until he hired Tom Parker as manager, and his contract sold to one of the majors, RCA, did his career become a phenomenon.

THE HARVARD NARRATIVE

The Harvard Viewpoint sees the world in simplistic terms-- the terms of neo-Marxist ideology. The caricatured lens of a Howard Zinn-style history. Tops-down in view and one-sided.

In this view, America's economy is a static, stratified thing, rigidly in place, with inflexible hierarchies based primarily on race. No understanding that this complex dynamo is in constant flux, absorbing influences and undergoing continual change.

To the Harvard-based-or-educated commentator-- the staff of Current Affairs, say-- there's the Music Industry. Run by plutocrats and highly placed. The Industry decreed that black performers were to be shut out. (Countless counter-examples from Duke Ellington to Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole need not be considered, as they don't fit the narrative.)

Under the Harvard Viewpoint, black musicians and white musicians were separate entities, with strictly separate musical styles. There's enough truth to this to make Briahna Joy Gray's essay believable. When performers like Chuck Berry invented rock music (and he did help invent it), the Industry needed a white face to slap onto the genre-- and lo!, Elvis Presley was plucked from obscurity, through no effort of his own, to become the acceptable face. Thereby benefiting immensely.

This is the impression given by the Current Affairs essay.

THE INDUSTRY

In 1955, when rock music exploded onto the larger cultural scene, the industry was something of a monolith, dominated by the "Big Four" of RCA, Capitol, Decca, and Columbia. (Similar to the "Big Five" publishing conglomerates of now.) At the same time there was enormous musical excitement on the margins of the industry.

Roots music from the poorest segments of American society had been creeping into public consciousness at least since the 1930's, from the folk music trio the Carter Family, sprung from the wilds of Virginia, to seminal blues guitarist Robert Johnson in Mississippi.

DON ROBEY

Rock music would never have happened without business pioneers. The first black recording business upstart was Don Robey, of Peacock Records (founded in Houston, Texas, in 1949), and later, Duke Records. Robey recorded Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" in 1952.

CHESS RECORDS

At about the same time, 1950, Leonard Chess and his brother Phil started Chess Records in Chicago. (Leonard's original name was Lejzor Czyz. "Chess" was an appropriation.) In 1951, Chess Records released what many consider to be the first rock n roll record, "Rocket 88," performed by the Ike Turner band, though the record was credited to the vocalist, Jackie Brenston. Another appropriation?

BILL HALEY

In the same year, a low-rent country-western band, Bill Haley and the Saddlemen, recorded a cover of "Rocket 88." An appropriation. Haley, one of the top cowboy yodelers of the 1940's, had become increasingly interested in rhythm and blues, though his previous recordings had been of songs like "Ten Gallon Stetson." In 1952, he dropped the cowboy hats and changed the name of his band to The Comets.

CHUCK BERRY

While Bill Haley performed rhythm and blues with a country-western flair, fledgling rhythm and blues performer Chuck Berry began adding country songs to his repertoire. See my separate blog post about Chuck Berry.
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(WHILE rock music's roots were in the blues, it was way more manic.)
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THE POPULIST NARRATIVE

The populist narrative views American culture as not imposed from on high by conglomerates, nor by Harvard-trained culturati in Cambridge. Populism means genuine culture springing from a land and its people.

In this narrative poor whites and blacks in the South were experimenting with a variety of musical styles-- extensions of their original homelands; whether folk traditions in Scotland, England, and Ireland, or folk traditions in Africa. With the invention of the phonograph and the rise of radio, increased mixing of styles took place. Cultural integration. Integration that had been happening anyway. Technology increased its pace. As a teenager, Elvis Presley watched B.B. King playing on Memphis streetcorners, but he also listened to the radio.

Culture-mixing wasn't a one-way street, and the exchange was more horizontal than many believe. One of the few commentators to cover the topic has been Thomas Sowell, courtesy of a controversial essay, "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," in a provocative book of the same name.

Neither rhythm and blues nor country and western music were mainstream or pop enough to capture middle-class America's full attention. Only when performers like Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, and Elvis Presley synthesized influences and added a pop sensibility did rock n roll move on from its stray beginnings to become a truly separate entity. The result was a cultural earthquake.

THE MUSIC BUSINESS

More than a musical revolution, though, it was a business upheaval. Do-It-Yourself versus Monopoly. At the dawn of the rock era, the Big Four, along with mid-majors Mercury and MGM, controlled close to 90% of the record-selling market. Within a few years they lost nearly half their market share to many hundreds of new record labels. Unprecedented business change. This was with RCA buying Presley's contract from Sun Records.

The reaction came in 1960 when Congress, prodded by big business, held "payola" hearings in Washington designed to reign in free booting music tycoons. Alan Freed was destroyed. Dick Clark, more cooperative, later claimed he was forced to dissolve 200 corporations in one day. The two disc jockeys had owned or controlled hundreds of new labels.

MOTOWN

Yet sharp Do-It-Yourselfers able to spot talent continued the wave. Prominent among them was Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit, who founded Motown (first called Tamla) Records in 1959 with $600 borrowed from his sister. Gordy created another synthesis-- well-produced and structured rhythm and blues with a pop style-- "The Sound of Young America." Gordy deliberately sought to appeal to a very broad audience-- and succeeded, turning his upstart enterprise into a billion dollar empire.

CHANGE

In the real world, as opposed to Marxist-leaning textbooks, this is how change is made. By hustlers, of any color. Wannabe capitalist tycoons with over-the-top dreams. In changing the business-- and making money as a by-product-- they also went a long way toward integrating and changing American society.
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(Be sure to read the rest of this analysis, "All About Chuck Berry" and "All About 'Hound Dog.'"

All About Chuck Berry

(This post is the second of three posts. The first, "Cultural Appropriation: The Harvard Viewpoint" is yet to be written. The third is here.)

THIS BLOG THREAD is an examination of Briahna Joy Gray's 9/6/2017 essay for Current Affairs magazine, "The Question of Cultural Appropriation."

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ONE OF THE KEY POINTS Gray makes in her essay is about rock n' roll pioneer Chuck Berry, using him as an example of an artist overlooked while Elvis Presley was given the spotlight. To bolster her argument she quotes Kenan Malik:

"In the 1950s, white radio stations refused to play (Berry's) songs, categorizing them as 'race music.' Then came Elvis Presley. A white boy playing the same tunes was cool. Elvis was feted, Mr. Berry and other black pioneers largely ignored. Racism defined who became the cultural icon."

The quote is a distortion at best. At worst, a falsehood. While Chuck Berry's life was by no means easy-- he went to prison as a young man-- his ascent as a recording artist went fairly quickly.

THE FIRST RECORD

During his audition with Chess Records, his first recording session, he recorded a cover ("appropriation") of the 1938 Bob Wills country-western record "Ida Ray." According to wikipedia, Leonard Chess asked Berry to alter the lyrics and change the name to something less countrified-- Maybellene.

(Bob Wills.)

The wiki entry for the song states:

"It has been asserted that it was a common practice in the 1950s to alter the instrumental parts and lyrics of old songs and represent them as new songs . . . This practice took place because copyrights on older recordings were rarely asserted." 

Recorded May 21, 1955, "Maybellene," Chuck Berry's first record, "--was a major hit with both black and white audiences," selling a million copies and reaching #10 on the pop charts, #1 on the rhythm and blues chart.

How could this happen?? While radio stations, then as now, had formats for which Berry's record wouldn't fit (as with Presley's records), an increasing number of "white radio stations" were playing rhythm and blues, and its newborn cousin, rock n roll.

CHUCK BERRY GOES COUNTRY

At the same time that several country performers were playing rhythm and blues, and adapting the songs to their own style-- Bill Haley first among them-- Chuck Berry was playing country songs and adapting them to his style. Also adapting his style and voice to sound more "white," eager from the beginning to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

The rockabilly singer Carl Perkins, who toured with Chuck Berry, noted that "Berry not only liked country music but knew about as many songs as he did," per wikipedia.

(Carl Perkins.)

It's interesting to note the natural process of musical integration taking place at the roots level. Picture Bill Haley and the Saddlemen in cowboy gear playing the occasional rhythm and blues song to redneck audiences-- by some accounts, being occasionally booed-- and Chuck Berry playing occasional country songs in front of black audiences, who were also at first hesitant, then accepting. This is what being a pioneer in any field is about.

RADIO PLAY

Among the white disc jockeys across America featuring black music was Dewey Phillips in Memphis. Many of the recordings he played came from the tiny Memphis storefront recording studio run by Sam Phillips (no relation), a southern talent scout for Leonard Chess. Sam Phillips recorded both white and black musicians, quickly starting his own label-- Sun Records.

Elvis Presley's first record for Sun, recorded on July 19, 1954-- ten months before Berry's-- was "That's All Right," backed with a country bluegrass tune, "Blue Moon of Kentucky." While the record received local airplay due to Dewey Phillips, it didn't chart. The only recording Presley made for Sun which made it onto the pop charts was "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine," in 1955. It went to #74.

Not until Presley jumped to RCA at the end of 1955 would his career take off nationally. Why? Because RCA was one of the bigs and was able to give his recordings for them-- "Heartbreak Hotel" in January 1956 first among them-- better promotion and distribution.

MOVIES

One area where whitewashing of a sort did take place was in the movies. The 1957 Elvis movie, "Jailhouse Rock," in at least a couple of its particulars better matched the life of Chuck Berry than of Elvis.

However, Chuck Berry appeared in at least three early rock n roll films himself. "Rock, Rock, Rock" in 1956, "Mister Rock and Roll" in 1957, and "Go, Johnny, Go!" in 1959.

WHY ELVIS?

Why did Elvis Presley, and not one of the other rock pioneers, become a monster national phenomenon? Why not Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino on the black side, or Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, or even Pat Boone on the white side?

Part of the reason was race, no question. It's unlikely this would have happened if Presley were black. But another reason was that Presley was able not only to synthesize the various roots music strains into his style, but to add to the mix a more "pop," mainstream, crooner aspect as well. A touch of Bing Crosby or Dean Martin. (Pat Boone did this, but couldn't get the rest of it down.)

Undeniable as well was the fact of Presley's youth, looks, and charisma. What happened was that, like the fine-tuned universe, every aspect of the Elvis presentation, by intent or accident, was calibrated to create pop hysteria. He was outrageous-- but not as outrageous as Little Richard. (Though Elvis also wore mascara at some of his shows, perhaps an appropriation of the Little Richard act, though at this stage no one really knows.)

Promotion is never easy. The promoter-- especially when operating at a lower or working class level, like carny barker Colonel Tom Parker, the man with the big cigar-- is continually looking for just the right performer, or right mix, to punch a hole through the general, tops-down dominated culture. When Parker spotted Elvis he threw over his current act, bland country singer Eddy Arnold, for the more exciting and new.
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NEXT: In Part One I'll tie the argument together-- I'll make the basic argument-- and examine the difference between the populist and elitist viewpoints applied to American culture.

All About "Hound Dog"

THE FULL STORY? (Third of Three Parts. Other Parts to Be Written.)

There's been much talk about cultural appropriation, including in this article by Current Affairs writer Briahna Joy Gray. The target (as in Alice Walker's much taught short story "Nineteen Fifty-Five") is Elvis's recording of the song "Hound Dog." Are the criticisms of Elvis valid? Or are they distorted?

THE RECORDINGS

Mama Thornton's 1952 Peacock Records version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgmKhIxMxdI

The Elvis Presley 1956 RCA vinyl single version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eHJ12Vhpyc

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The notable thing about the two versions musically is they're from similar but different genres. The Thornton version is clearly rhythm and blues. A blues song with rhythm backing. The Presley version is what rhythm and blues morphed into-- rock n' roll. Faster, less bluesy, with hard backing; drums, lead guitar, bass. The driving Bill Black bass and Scotty Moore guitar breaks are what give the song much of its energy. For all of Elvis's vocal chops, he's along for the ride.

The different pace and different vocal style are what country added to rhythm and blues as the two genres melded their styles to create a new synthesis which captured the planet. Though saying that is even a simplification-- Elvis's biggest idol as a vocalist was Italian-American crooner Dean Martin.

WHY HOUND DOG?

The first question raised: Why "Hound Dog"? Why is this song, of Elvis Presley's vast repertoire, used as the example of cultural appropriation? At the time, Presley was appropriating everybody. He was very eclectic, fan of every possible musical style, which made him unique.

Was "Hound Dog" his signature tune? Maybe-- he performed it often. It was part of his biggest-selling single, but people forget that "Hound Dog" was backed with the even more popular "Don't Be Cruel."

At the time, Elvis was more identified with another appropriation, "Blue Suede Shoes."

COUNTRY

Here's the original 1955 Sun Records version of "Blue Suede Shoes," by country singer Carl Perkins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2f_eSZgp88

Note the hillbilly twang to the vocal.

Now, the Elvis Presley 1956 RCA version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJK4vBjT0jw

The Presley version is faster, less countrified. It's rock.

CONTEXT

The Next Question is: How seriously do we take the appropriation? How seriously were the recordings taken at the time they were released? We're not talking hindsight, projecting 60 years of criticism and revisionism back onto that time period. How important were the recordings taken to be then?

The answer is: Not Very.

"Hound Dog" was written by Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber, two Jewish teenagers from Los Angeles who loved rhythm and blues and wanted to make it in the songwriting business. They saw the genre as a quick avenue. How much authenticity of the black experience could two young white guys from California really bring to the game? In a sense, the song was an appropriation from the beginning. At some point, worrying about "appropriation" begins to be hair-splitting.

Many Leiber-Stoller songs were obviously tongue-in-cheek. For instance, "Charlie Brown" and "Yakety Yak," both recorded by the Coasters. One of their biggest hits, "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots," recorded by the white vocal group the Cheers, was an outright parody of motorcycle gang movies:

The 1955 Capitol Records version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTdVaU5O9x8

A novelty record, of the kind George Martin was producing for EMI records in England. In a sense, all of the musical subculture of the time were considered novelties. Dismissed by intellectuals and critics in New York City, which then as now dominated the cultural scene. Many of the singers themselves, such as Big Mama Thornton, no doubt took their art seriously-- but not the established arbiters of culture, art, and taste, whose main focus was still classical and Broadway (think Leonard Bernstein). They had recently warmed to jazz.

This scene from the 1957 Elvis movie "Jailhouse Rock" encapsulates the divide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLB1ftUhkN4

As does this trailer for the cheezy 1956 movie "The Girl Can't Help It," which was loaded with every rock n' roll act the producers could find. Rhythm and blues to rockabilly, the acts were eager to cash in on what everyone considered a not-to-last fad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og0ZblTNQiA


WHAT HAPPENED

What happened was that America's musical subcultures burst forth from underground, gaining popularity by their very crudeness, directness, and simplicity.

BURLESQUE

The most infamous performance of "Hound Dog" was on the Milton Berle Show in 1956. The honky-tonk show was burlesque in more ways than one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmljYkdr-w 

THE HYPOCRISY

Here's where the hypocrisy of today's Harvard-educated intellectuals comes in. They're happy to celebrate a chiefly-spent, roots-spawned musical force which came from America's lower classes, black and white. At the same time they pay no attention to underground forces in their own realm of writing and literature. No subcultures which could bring energy to a moribund scene allowed there!

They worry that Chuck Berry was banned from the radio airwaves in the 1950's. (He wasn't.) But care not a whit for banned or blackballed writers from now. A subject I know about, as I was part of a project to spotlight underground "roots" literary culture as a member of the Underground Literary Alliance. The writers we promoted included zine/roots luminaries from transgender star Urban Hermitt to Texas outlaw writer Wild Bill Blackolive.

As current editor of New Pop Lit I still feature or review the occasional authentic underground lit star, whether long-time zinester "fishspit" or e-book pop writer "Kitty Glitter." Their art is a tad rougher than anything taught at Harvard or published by the Big Five-- but, for good or bad, it's the genuine article. The sound of America now.
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NEXT: "Cultural Appropriation: The Harvard Viewpoint."

Two Essays

A REMINDER that not only do I run a literary site, with all that entails (and work a shitty job)-- but I also write. This past week in my spare time I wrote two essays:

One about Detroit.

The other a short review of The NewYorker magazine.

Take a look. I don't post here much anymore but I occasionally put my ideas out there someplace.

(Painting by Colin Campbell Cooper.)

About Instapoetry

Pictured: Poet Rupi Kaur

(I penned this to the same college student, this time in response to questions about the Instapoetry movement. Apparently he uses excerpts-- with attribution-- in a college newspaper.)

Change in any art is necessary to keep it fresh and alive. What's happening with the success of Rupi Kaur and others like her is a return to extreme simplicity in form, and to simple, basic emotion. To language's roots, in a sense. The poems are fresh and readable, and so are drawing readers to online poetry. The short, clear style is made for the digital age-- at least, as you imply, for these still-early days of the digital age. So, yes, Rupi Kaur is the face of poetry now. 

Can it last? I don't think so, unless it evolves. It's too simple, and will quickly become monotonous. What looks new and fresh today won't look so fresh a few years from now when it's been done over and over. And over, with little variety. Its utter simplicity leaves little room for variety. It's the kind of poetry (I won't call it verse; it's not verse) which anyone can write. Which means everyone will write it, and the world will be flooded with Rupi Kaur knockoffs until we're drowning in them and people cry out, "Enough!" Are Rupi Kaur and her colleagues talented enough to evolve their art? Or are they one-hit wonders who'll be writing and reciting the same tunes ten or twenty years from now? They have a penchant for promotion. That's obvious. Is that enough?

Their flaw is they use none of the effective tricks of poetry developed over centuries. Things like cadence, wordplay, the occasional (or not so occasional) rhyme. What some call euphony. Rupi Kaur stresses that her work draws on trauma and abuse. So did Sylvia Plath's. Plath's poems were extremely self-centered-- but they also used every tool in the poet's toolbox, which is why they've lasted-- why they're as strong now to read or listen to as when they were composed. 

The poetic art has fled from craft-- from the instinctive use of what some call craft-- since Plath's death, and much of the running away is from simple laziness. Academic poetry has put people to sleep for decades-- in part because it threw away rhyme and meter, elements of poetry which existed for a reason. Which existed because they helped the listener connect easily to the work-- aiding the mind in flowing into a work's rhythms and imagery. The best poetry expresses a joy in language itself-- which is why Shakespeare has lasted. It should be fun and exciting to recite. The work of the Instapoets is too simple to be fun and exciting to recite.

Still, what they're doing might be necessary to bring new people back to the art. The true innovators will be those who move strongly beyond Rupi Kaur and her peers-- who can build on the simplicity but give the new audiences the excitement of a more complex and passionate art. That's the trick. That's the task. That's the accomplishment to go after-- not to dismiss Instapoetry, but to surpass it. To top it at its own game by subtly and gently bringing back those long-scorned and forgotten tools of cadence and rhyme. Mixing them into the simple words and short works. Keeping the poems short but making them more powerful, more compressed. Creating poems which will simply engage the online reader-- but knock those readers out of their chairs with their power. That's what I'd like to see. If it can be imagined, it can be accomplished.

Karl Wenclas

Editor

New Pop Lit

www.newpoplit.com 

Answer to a Young Poet

(Answer to a series of questions sent to New Pop Lit.)

The best way for a poet to stand out is to write better poetry. Most of the poems which editors like ourselves receive are bad prose divided into lines. Poets forget that poetry is meant to be heard. Ideally, in our eyes, it should have a sense of music: pace, rhythm, and yes, the occasional rhyme. Off-beat rhyme. Unpredictable rhymes in the middle of a sentence. Plus other poetic tools like alliteration, of which too many poets seem never to have heard. The lost concept of euphony. That's what we look for-- poems meant to be read out loud, which are striking or moving or powerful when recited out loud. Which like a river or a hurricane build momentum and power and meaning with each stanza.

That there are a million poets out there struggling to be heard means the new poet needs to think beyond what's current and accepted. Create the new. Go past what other poets are doing. Any art is, or should be, in constant flux. Always changing. What the standard is now will not be the standard ten or twenty years from now. The key is to innovate. Think ahead of everyone else.

If you want to be the best, you have to know the best. The new poet should read the best poets-- the real best, of every variety. From Edgar Allan Poe to Emily Dickinson to Sylvia Plath. Ginsberg and Berryman, Maya Angelou and Dylan Thomas. Shakespeare, for the use of language, of course. Your brain will subconsciously synthesize all of it.

The new poet should attend and read at poetry open mics in the area. That's where the excitement in today's poetry world can be found. A lot of the performed poems will be hip-hop rhyming poems-- but not all of them. Besides, hip-hop is popular for a reason-- because it's easily remembered and makes an immediate connection with the audience. We believe future poetry will be a fusion of the street and academic styles. The best of both worlds.

A live audience in a hectic venue like a bar or coffee shop is the best way for a poet to test whether or not a poem makes a connection. Does it stir the audience in some way? Feedback is all. Reading with and against other poets is the best way to sharpen one's work.

We also suggest the new poet put together a simple zine or chapbook of his or her poems-- even if it's made on a copy machine. This gives the poet something to hand out at readings. Or sold, for as little as a buck. The idea being to use every available way to get the word out about yourself and your work.

Publishing in esteemed journals like Poetry magazine or The New Yorker is an opportunity open to very few. Online journals like ours provide an alternative. They can be found via listings like www.duotrope.com, or the literary magazine listings at www.pw.org. Or simply google "poetry magazines" or "literary magazines" or "poetry listings" and scores of addresses will come up.

To the new poet: Good luck!

Karl Wenclas

Editor

New Pop Lit

www.newpoplit.com

Upon Reading. . . .

UPON READING A MARVEL COMICS BACKPACK ON A TEENAGER IN LINE IN FRONT OF ME AT A BUS STOP

 

Depicted are fragments of covers from classic Marvel issues of the past—“Iron Man” “Thor”—etc. Noticeable is the amount of pure HYPE which went onto the issues:

“Iron Man Returns to Face TWO Super Villains” kind of thing.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created a massive media empire from nothing through extreme ballyhoo.

A reminder that I have to do some of that at New Pop Lit. Especially with the ALL-TIME AMERICAN WRITERS TOURNAMENT, currently on brief hiatus at this blog.

Can we turn classic American writers into superheroes?
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Technorati Tags: Marvel Comics,Stan Lee,hype,promotion,PR,marketing,comic books,writers,New Pop Lit,All-Time American Writers Tournament,fiction,American literature,pop literature,media empire

A Tale of Two Editors

I had a brief impromptu twitter exchange yesterday with long-time publishing Insider Peter Ginna. The exchange emphasized to me the gulf which exists between those inside and outside the New York City lit-media bubble.

I mentioned to Ginna something I call the “Sholokhov-Solzhenitsyn Spectrum” of commitment to artistic integrity and freedom of speech. This, after he mentioned, in a positive way (he disputes this characterization), Simon & Schuster abandoning their commitment to publish free speech provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos after a flurry of protest by the established literary herd. I wondered where Mr. Ginna placed himself on that spectrum. Though he protested much that the “Big 5” combination of publishing conglomerates based in New York was “not a monolith,” he never answered my question.

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Not surprising, in that Peter Ginna and myself come from different universes. On the subject of literature we speak different languages. At an age when he was attending Harvard and Oxford, I was working in the industrial bowels of Detroit—not the best training ground for a literary person, one would think. But my experiences gave me a sense of how this civilization works, as I saw in marine terminals and railyards how raw material is poured into a city, then creatively turned into something meaningful. It was also while clerking nights in a railyard at the heart of Detroit, near the fiery Rouge river, for many months, that to pass the time between trains I read, and read, and read—as comprehensive a syllabus as one could find at Harvard. If not Oxford.

While Ginna was paying his dues inside the bureaucracies of Big Publishing, I was paying my dues in the indy “zine” scene, creating not through staffs and levels of bureaucrats, but by hand, a series of publications, which I wrote, proofread, designed, drew on, colored, packaged—then marketed and sold. Every aspect of literary creation. On a vastly smaller level than the “Big 5” of course, with a more concise, more enthusiastic audience. It was a smaller scale view of literature, no doubt. The difference, perhaps, between the first Henry Ford making in a backyard shed an automobile out of bicycle parts—and his grandson “Hank the Deuce” inheriting a gigantic many-layered enterprise, in which someone at his level is far removed from the factory floor. Within which every aspect of the creative process—engineers; designers; marketers; accountants—is isolated from the others.

The result? With publishing, I sensed from my exchange a continuing sense of casual complacency, fluctuating from condescension in the face of contrary ideas, to upright defensiveness.

Yet if an automobile company can’t afford to be complacent (witness the events of 2008), how less can an art? And yes, literature is a business SECOND. First, it’s an art.

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I thought of this last night, when my girlfriend (and NPL co-editor) and I watched the end of the classic 1948 film “The Red Shoes,” then followed this by viewing a 1967 Soviet movie version of “Anna Karenina.” Or at least tried to watch the latter, because every aspect of the Soviet film was awful. Particularly the casting and acting. The plot and much of the dialogue were taken from Tolstoy, but it wasn’t enough to save the flick.

We were forced to ask, “What happened?”

After all, in “The Red Shoes” the Russian impresario, dancers, artists, are all portrayed as geniuses. (Indeed, the movie itself is an unparallleled work of genius.) Yet the creators of the Soviet version of a classic Tolstoy novel were obvious dullards—going through the motions of creating a classic work of art but, like wooden puppets, lacking human or artistic spark.

We see two causes.

1.) The Russian characters in “The Red Shoes” would have to be expatriates who fled their native land after the Bolsheviks took power. Looking at the Soviet film, one can infer that the 1917 revolution and Bolshevik consolidation of power chased out—or liquidated—all creative talent. The premise no doubt was that new talent would rise up after the ostensible “liberation” of the masses—but it didn’t happen. Maybe because those masses were never really liberated, only further enslaved.

2.) One can see the difference between art produced by a tight group of creative talent, and that produced by a gigantic top-heavy bureaucracy required to conform to politically correct standards as laid down by political commisars. A ballet company, as shown in “The Red Shoes,” is a tight group of talented individuals each retaining their individuality. But so was “The Archers,” the film company founded by Michael Powell and Emric Pressburger, the geniuses behind the film. They not only had immense creative ability themselves, but, as important, the ability to spot and enlist other hyper-talented individuals into their project. Whether an actual Russian expatriate in the person of Leonide Massine, or the best cinematographer maybe ever in Jack Cardiff (the colors drip off the screen), or the surreally-talented actor Anton Walbrook and amazing dancer (and amazingly beautiful) Moira Shearer. The film is a paean to beauty, and to Art with a capital A.

The Soviet film? Merely a dud. The argument—my argument—is that massive bureaucracy, if too massive, in the realm of art if not autos, produces mediocrity.

Those involved in the creation of art should ask for more. Much more.

Technorati Tags: Peter Ginna,publishing,Big 5,The Red Shoes,art,Soviet Union,Anna Karenina,bureaucracy

Who’s the Best American Writer?

I HAVEN’T BEEN POSTING much as this blog, because I’ve been helping to set up New Pop Lit's upcoming big event, the All-Time American Writers Tournament. (Long-time readers may remember I started something similar once at another blog several years ago.)

Who’s your favorite American writer? Novelist, poet, playwright, historian, or story writer? All will be considered—but there are so many candidates to choose from that we need input. Feel free to add yours.

Suggestions or 200-word arguments for a particular candidate can be sent to newpoplitATgmail.com.

Or, comments can be added to NPL’s Interactive blog, where most of the action will occur. Progress reports will also be given at the main site’s home page, as well as at NPL’s News blog.

Hurry! Get your choices into the brackets.

The Springsteen Paradox

NEWS ITEM: Rocker Bruce Springsteen seen on billionaire’s superyacht in Tahiti.

Bruce Springsteen has made a career out of being a self-appointed spokesman for the American working class. The wealthier he becomes, the harder he works on the part—as if prodded by a fear of being out of touch; losing his authenticity, his connection to reality. This is similar to certain trendy novelists (Stephen King; George Saunders; Mary Gaitskill; Joyce Carol Oates). The more they’re captives of the conglomerate publishing system, the more determined they are to prove their activist credentials. They “care.”

Once, the pop singer was a modestly-paid performer, putting on a tuxedo to perform in a nightclub. Today, Bruce Springsteen is a corporation unto himself, employing an army of musicians, agents, producers, accountants, roadies and bodyguards. When on tour, the show travels from city to city in a caravan of loaded tractor-trailers, like a Broadway production. Think Springsteen the Industry.

Picture Bruce by a swimming pool, wearing an expensive silk robe. He sighs. The people call. Time to do a concert. More millions of dollars to generate. He takes his costume from a walk-in closet larger than many homes. No tuxedo for the “Boss.” Instead, the grimy sweatband; the faded jeans and ripped t-shirt. The Bruce Springsteen Minstrel Show; adopting the garb of the dispossessed, like affluent author Barbara Ehrenreich putting on a waitress costume. It’s not Al Jolson on bended knee singing about “Mammy,” but in its own way it’s as distasteful.

The farther removed in time Springsteen becomes from his humbler days, the more with that humble lifestyle he becomes identified.

The liberal media love it! Writer for The Nation Eric Alterman has stated he’s seen over 200 Bruce Springsteen concerts. Tickets aren’t cheap. Alterman has spent a significant amount of money assuring himself that, like Bruce, he cares about downtrodden people. His message is ultimately the same as Springsteen’s. “I’m one of the good people.” In its modest way, The Nation is as much a part of celebrity culture as People magazine.

Is there safety to the Springsteen presentation, because of its lack of immediacy? Springsteen, after all, is not going to call for the confiscation of lavish estates. He’s not about to begin working in a gas station or a factory. Supporting him, indulging in his make-believe, is a harmless outlet which allows many of America’s most successful social-climbing individuals to enjoy their success yet clear their conscience and retain their self respect.

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There are many variations of the Springsteen Paradox. Take a rock musician on the other end of the ideological spectrum, Ted Nugent. “The Nuge” could buy a chain of supermarkets loaded with steaks, yet, for all the world to hear and see, affirms his need to hunt game in the wild to feed his family. Man, life is a struggle for survival! (Just ask his accountant.)

Nugent collects ever more weapons and pumps more iron, training for war. In the Sixties, when Vietnam was a real possibility for him, his patriotic belligerency was, needless to say, significantly tamer.

It’s all about an instinctive need for authenticity. These performers sense their poses are fake. The more they suspect this, the harder they have to work to keep away the truth—from themselves.

Technorati Tags: Bruce Springsteen,Ted Nugent,authenticity,Eric Alterman,The Nation,minstrel shows,superyacht,Al Jolson,Barbara Ehrenreich,Stephen King,Joyce Carol Oates,rock n roll,performers,celebrities

Cultural Balkanization

FUSION OR FRAGMENTATION?

The cultural mandarins in New York City are pushing for cultural fragmentation. At least, that’s the impression given by New York Times Magazine’s recent March 12 “Music Issue.” All is identity. In the Introduction to the issue staff writer Nitsuh Abebe says this:

“In 2017, identity is the topic at the absolute center of our conversations about music.” (“Our” being individuals at the newspaper?) And: “For better or worse, it’s all identity now.”

Abebe discusses the 1950’s as the “last great gasp” of “ethnicities,” but his is a distortion of American musical history. What made the 1950’s noteworthy is the fusion which took place between various threads of roots music, becoming “rock n’ roll”—melding into the pop music of the day and displacing it. The most visible of the new artists, Elvis Presley, counted among his influences country, gospel, rhythmn and blues, and Italian-American crooners like Dean Martin. Presley’s movies would place him continually in Latin and Hawaiian settings, motifs from those cultures’ music appearing in his songs—which were often as not written by Jewish-American songwriters in the Tin Pan Alley tradition. Elvis even did knockoffs of operatic arias!: “It’s Now or Never,” and “Surrender.” In other words, everything was fair game.

Elvis placed songs in the #1 position on the three main charts; pop, r & b, and country; the first time this happened.

Not just Presley fused various styles into his presentation and art. Chuck Berry’s first hit, “Maybelline,” was a reworking of a country song. Further, Berry’s voice had a ringing quality to it that for the time sounded “white.”

The best example of conscious fusion in the music of the 1950’s and early 60’s comes with Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., who crafted a sound he believed would appeal to everyone. R & B blended with pop form. Gordy marketed this as “The Sound of Young America”—and it was, as kids from all backgrounds bought the records.

Pop music then was truly and distinctively American, embracing the musical backgrounds of all Americans.

This seems a more unifying goal to have, than the fragmentations of now.

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In the Times Music Issue we get not just identity, but obsession with identity. A good example from the issue is the essay by Jenny Zhang. Hers is not the positive outlook of a Berry Gordy, who believed anything could be accomplished—and then went and accomplished it. Zhang mentions the “ways in which white supremacy had warped each of us.” Yet she’s confused about fundamentals. In discussing DIY/punk music of the 1990’s, Zhang says “no one much questioned why a subculture that saw itself as rebelling against the establishment was quite so dominated by white men.”

But it was an economic and business rebellion (as was the print-zine movement of the same decade, which I was part of). A rebellion against monopoly and elitism. Against tops-down thinking, and the idea that all culture must come out of L.A. and New York. A business rebellion in the same way rock n’ roll, promoted by carny barkers and street hustlers like Colonel Tom Parker, Sam Phillips, Alan Freed, and Dick Clark, was. Hundreds of upstart storefront record companies like Sun Records took away half the market share of the “Big Four” record giants—an almost unprecedented business revolution (which led to pushback via Congressional “payola” hearings intended to bust the newcomers).

Most of the DIY “punks” of the 1980’s and 90’s were white men, sure. But let’s remember that at any time in American history, including now, a huge segment of the white male population lives in grinding poverty. For an example of this study the biography of Kurt Cobain, who through the popularity of his band Nirvana took subculture grunge music, originally recorded and promoted by small Northwest outfits like Sub Pop, into the cultural mainstream.

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What can be said finally about the Times Music Issue?

A.) Maybe that someone is pushing an agenda—agendas being pushed are generally in the interest of power or dollars. I opt for multinational conglomerates as the chief culprit, who today control most of the music business and whose focus isn’t on authentic American culture, but global profits.

B.) Also that when new cultural changes begin happening (see literature now) those well-schooled souls inhabiting Manhattan skyscrapers are often the last to know.

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(At New Pop Lit we believe in American literature—and will demonstrate this with our upcoming “All-Time American Writers Tournament.”)

Technorati Tags: Nitsuh Abebe,Jenny Zhang,rock n roll,music industry,New York Times Magazine,identity,fusion,balkanization of culture