Why The ULA Makes No Fucking Sense, Part I of Maybe III
Yes, this has been a long time coming, considering it’s what I said I started this blog for in the first place.
We can all form our own opinions on the ULA’s complaints about publishing, about the product of the big publishing houses, and the professionalization and codified elitism of writing by many (though not all) successful writers and publishers. Personally, for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’re entirely wrong. I have met a few people who live up to the broad caricature Wenclas draws, and many of them have, in fact, been quite worthless. People who revel in their own inaccessibility, elitism, and boredom-inducing-writing (that’s how you know it’s “serious”). The question, of course, is where you go after making that realization about some (but not all) influential writers and publishers. That, I’ll get to in my next post. This one will focus on the ULA and its writing itself, and not what “the others” are up to. For very good reason, this is the subject the ULA hates dealing with most of all.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm is the worst piece of drivel ever committed to paper by either human or keyboard-slapping chimpanzee. An overstatement beyond belief, but let’s pretend all assembled agree not only to the truth of that statement but to that fact that this would be somehow important. Let’s also pretend (and suspending disbelief on this one will be quite difficult) that in all the world, no one makes this powerful and oh-so-deadly-serious point more forcefully and articulately than Karl Wenclas and the ULA. Well, if that was what the ULA was “for,” in this fantasy world where the above was both true and of consequence, we could declare mission accomplished and all go home.
But that isn’t what the ULA is “for.” While part of their, uh, charter or mission or whatever may be to point out the satanic conspiracy of contemporary literature, that’s only Part I of what I’ve been led to believe they’re all about. Part II comes after we all agree that every writer we’ve actually heard of sucks but are being foisted upon us by a publishing cabal attempting to spread the values of the John Birch Society to an unsuspecting audience. After we're all on the same page about that, we need to be exposed to the real, revolutionary, streetwise, rough and powerful writing that’s gonna knock us on our motherfuckin’ asses but is being maliciously kept from us because Little, Brown & Co. won’t publish it out of spite or something.
The problem is that the ULA thinks their very, VERY infrequent sideshow act (a couple days in a Philly basement bar one year, a couple hours of handing out pamphlets at Columbia the next) is somehow an answer, response or solution to anything. It is none of these things, not only in some big-picture objective sense, but even for them. They just don’t seem to realize it.
Of course, Wenclas and his minions usually respond that all sorts of “rabble rousing” (his words, I assure you) and promotion are absolutely essential to letting people know your writing exists. That if you’re an outsider—not a Manhattanite, not a MFA holder, not a person with connections—you can write the most brilliant novels, poems, or stories imaginable in your little room, weeping about the injustices of the world, and no one will ever know about you or give a damn. And he’s right. If you want to become involved with anything that requires “a public” you have to put yourself into the incredibly uncomfortable position of self-promotion (especially hard for introvert writers, I’d imagine), or else find someone who’s comfortable with that sort of thing (and Karl volunteers).
The style of, er, “promotion” the ULA chooses is highly confrontational (usually just an internet e-blitz, but once in awhile there's an in-person direct frontal assault on their “enemies” or poor, bewildered passers-by). Their “promotion” is, yes, heavily reliant on bullying (note: sorry, Charlie). All well and good, I guess, even though I personally find it to be completely unnecessary and really stupid, because matters of taste, one way or the other, are not a criminal offense (I’ll get to the issue of taste next time). But if that’s the line you’re going to take—not “you should read my writing” but “all this other writing is horseshit, my writing is the Truth and the Way”—you’d better be able to back that up. Not only cutting down virtually all other non-ULA/ULA-sympathizing writing as a disgraceful waste of time, but both betraying your total lack of perspective by demonizing every New Yorker intern and Moody lover as evil incarnate, as well as claiming to be THE THING that will get THE PEOPLE reading again is pretty gutsy, because what you've got had better be fucking excellent.
You know what, for the thousandth time? It’s not. The ULA writing just isn’t any good. It can’t back up the constant mouthing off and the self-aggrandizement. The fact that the ULA chooses to represent itself in such a nasty and combative way leads people not simply to shrug their shoulders when they’re not into the product and move on, but to lash out at a group of people seemingly so clueless as to exactly how good, important, and revolutionary their stuff is. The ULA’s circus act, in the end, leads to absolutely nothing, because of the very few people who end up checking out your stable of all stars in the first place, after one of your pieces of “street theatre”...well, it doesn’t appear too many of them are very impressed. If they were, if I’m totally wrong, you’d think your readership would increase. You’d think you’d find more people who weren’t directly involved in the ULA who either supported them, or failing that, had ever heard of them in the first place. The irony is that the only people who seem to have heard of you are the very same members of the "lit castle" you're trying to tear down, and none of them seem to give a shit.
The ULA is currently, at least for the past couple weeks and probably for some time more, resting on the laurels of its Columbia incident. 5 years from now, Karl will wistfully remember the Howl event as frequently and with as much of a deluded self-congratulatory tone as he remembers his CBGB Paris Review takedown (perhaps the only publication in the world with a lower circulation than Slush Pile…well, other than the New Criterion).
You ask why I can be so dismissive of the ULA’s latest so-called accomplishment, or any of the previous ones. That’s an easy question to answer, after which I’ll end this incredibly overlong post. As far as I can tell, if the Underground Literary Alliance is being honest about what its purpose is, it’s a collection of writers. So, it can embarrass as many lit professors as it wants, it can claim ownership of as many 50+ year old poems and L.A. writer-drunks as it wants, it can expose as many Rick Moody sweetheart deals as it wants, but if the writing sucks, and it doesn’t get any new readers, then what’s the point of this shit?
Yes, this has been a long time coming, considering it’s what I said I started this blog for in the first place.
We can all form our own opinions on the ULA’s complaints about publishing, about the product of the big publishing houses, and the professionalization and codified elitism of writing by many (though not all) successful writers and publishers. Personally, for what it’s worth, I don’t think they’re entirely wrong. I have met a few people who live up to the broad caricature Wenclas draws, and many of them have, in fact, been quite worthless. People who revel in their own inaccessibility, elitism, and boredom-inducing-writing (that’s how you know it’s “serious”). The question, of course, is where you go after making that realization about some (but not all) influential writers and publishers. That, I’ll get to in my next post. This one will focus on the ULA and its writing itself, and not what “the others” are up to. For very good reason, this is the subject the ULA hates dealing with most of all.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm is the worst piece of drivel ever committed to paper by either human or keyboard-slapping chimpanzee. An overstatement beyond belief, but let’s pretend all assembled agree not only to the truth of that statement but to that fact that this would be somehow important. Let’s also pretend (and suspending disbelief on this one will be quite difficult) that in all the world, no one makes this powerful and oh-so-deadly-serious point more forcefully and articulately than Karl Wenclas and the ULA. Well, if that was what the ULA was “for,” in this fantasy world where the above was both true and of consequence, we could declare mission accomplished and all go home.
But that isn’t what the ULA is “for.” While part of their, uh, charter or mission or whatever may be to point out the satanic conspiracy of contemporary literature, that’s only Part I of what I’ve been led to believe they’re all about. Part II comes after we all agree that every writer we’ve actually heard of sucks but are being foisted upon us by a publishing cabal attempting to spread the values of the John Birch Society to an unsuspecting audience. After we're all on the same page about that, we need to be exposed to the real, revolutionary, streetwise, rough and powerful writing that’s gonna knock us on our motherfuckin’ asses but is being maliciously kept from us because Little, Brown & Co. won’t publish it out of spite or something.
The problem is that the ULA thinks their very, VERY infrequent sideshow act (a couple days in a Philly basement bar one year, a couple hours of handing out pamphlets at Columbia the next) is somehow an answer, response or solution to anything. It is none of these things, not only in some big-picture objective sense, but even for them. They just don’t seem to realize it.
Of course, Wenclas and his minions usually respond that all sorts of “rabble rousing” (his words, I assure you) and promotion are absolutely essential to letting people know your writing exists. That if you’re an outsider—not a Manhattanite, not a MFA holder, not a person with connections—you can write the most brilliant novels, poems, or stories imaginable in your little room, weeping about the injustices of the world, and no one will ever know about you or give a damn. And he’s right. If you want to become involved with anything that requires “a public” you have to put yourself into the incredibly uncomfortable position of self-promotion (especially hard for introvert writers, I’d imagine), or else find someone who’s comfortable with that sort of thing (and Karl volunteers).
The style of, er, “promotion” the ULA chooses is highly confrontational (usually just an internet e-blitz, but once in awhile there's an in-person direct frontal assault on their “enemies” or poor, bewildered passers-by). Their “promotion” is, yes, heavily reliant on bullying (note: sorry, Charlie). All well and good, I guess, even though I personally find it to be completely unnecessary and really stupid, because matters of taste, one way or the other, are not a criminal offense (I’ll get to the issue of taste next time). But if that’s the line you’re going to take—not “you should read my writing” but “all this other writing is horseshit, my writing is the Truth and the Way”—you’d better be able to back that up. Not only cutting down virtually all other non-ULA/ULA-sympathizing writing as a disgraceful waste of time, but both betraying your total lack of perspective by demonizing every New Yorker intern and Moody lover as evil incarnate, as well as claiming to be THE THING that will get THE PEOPLE reading again is pretty gutsy, because what you've got had better be fucking excellent.
You know what, for the thousandth time? It’s not. The ULA writing just isn’t any good. It can’t back up the constant mouthing off and the self-aggrandizement. The fact that the ULA chooses to represent itself in such a nasty and combative way leads people not simply to shrug their shoulders when they’re not into the product and move on, but to lash out at a group of people seemingly so clueless as to exactly how good, important, and revolutionary their stuff is. The ULA’s circus act, in the end, leads to absolutely nothing, because of the very few people who end up checking out your stable of all stars in the first place, after one of your pieces of “street theatre”...well, it doesn’t appear too many of them are very impressed. If they were, if I’m totally wrong, you’d think your readership would increase. You’d think you’d find more people who weren’t directly involved in the ULA who either supported them, or failing that, had ever heard of them in the first place. The irony is that the only people who seem to have heard of you are the very same members of the "lit castle" you're trying to tear down, and none of them seem to give a shit.
The ULA is currently, at least for the past couple weeks and probably for some time more, resting on the laurels of its Columbia incident. 5 years from now, Karl will wistfully remember the Howl event as frequently and with as much of a deluded self-congratulatory tone as he remembers his CBGB Paris Review takedown (perhaps the only publication in the world with a lower circulation than Slush Pile…well, other than the New Criterion).
You ask why I can be so dismissive of the ULA’s latest so-called accomplishment, or any of the previous ones. That’s an easy question to answer, after which I’ll end this incredibly overlong post. As far as I can tell, if the Underground Literary Alliance is being honest about what its purpose is, it’s a collection of writers. So, it can embarrass as many lit professors as it wants, it can claim ownership of as many 50+ year old poems and L.A. writer-drunks as it wants, it can expose as many Rick Moody sweetheart deals as it wants, but if the writing sucks, and it doesn’t get any new readers, then what’s the point of this shit?
posted by Bryan Guski at Friday, May 05, 2006
13 Comments:
The irony is that we're so unimportant (agreed), yet you see us as THE major problem in the literary world today.
Obviously, our campaign has struck a nerve in you in some way.
You haven't been able to totally dismiss us-- and so you've constructed your own campaign to resolve the dilemma which exists in your mind.
Yes, you're attracted to what we're doing-- or you wouldn't spend so much time analyzing us.
To address your points:
First, keep in mind that what we're attempting isn't easy. We've set very high goals for ourselves. You're upset that we haven't chieved them. Fair enough.
I don't think you have any understanding, though, of what we HAVE achieved.
We've laid a foundation for further growth. Whether we can achieve takeoff from where we're at depends upon the members of the ULA.
What we've done:
Targeted the media center of the universe, New York City.
Love us or hate us, MOST literary and media folks know who we are.
This was always our first priority: establishing a brand name. For complete outsiders like ourselves, the only way to achieve this was to make noise.
A compatible goal was to set ourselves apart from the lit-world mass-- from the two million or whatever the number is other writers out there in this society.
we've accomplished this. We're NOT lumped in with the mass of other writers groups out there-- not even with the many hundreds of lit-bloggers.
To understand why this is important, you'd need to have some understanding of how the world works. Unfortunately, you don't.
Shorthand, think of the supply/demand equation, which determines the value of any product. When the supply is huge, the value becomes nothing-- which is pretty much the state of the lit-writer today. we've worked to avoid that trap. If nothing else, we're unique.
Pissing off people? EVERY movement including artistic movement which has been successful and brought radical change caused outrage.
Do I have to bring back my examples of how the early rock n rollers were dismissed as having no talent or musical ability? (Most had only their energy.)
As for our "talent," such quality is overrated. Given this,
A.) It's absurd for anyone to expect us to compete straight up with the entire literary system which is backed by enormous investment, by publishing companies and the vast network of expensive university writing programs.
The largest investment ever made in literature-- and it produces for the most part stifling mediocrity. Questioning this is what you should be doing.
Change has to start somewhere-- we're still in our modest beginnings, laying the proper foundation for change. At least we've set out on the path!-- which puts us ahead of the rest of the pack.
B.) I suspect you haven't read the ULA's best writing anyway (such as Nowlan's "Security,") and I also think you're not interested in giving our writing a fair shake.
The rest of what you say can be easily contradicted-- if I had the time.
Pissing off people? We're not pissing off anyone who really matters (given the current marginalization of literature). If we get our act together we can leapfrog the entire literary scene. This is our plan.
Our ninety-minute protests?
You're seeing the half-empty glass from the wrong angle. he amazing thing is that we can get a flurry of attention for just an intermittent ninety-minute activity.
It's not my fault if there hasn't been proper follow-up!-- that when we first started making noise our chief writers ran away.
This doesn't mean the road ahead is not open for us at any time.
Etc etc. You really don't understand this noisy society, and how noisy it is, and how difficult it truly is for writers to get attention.
You're not going to do it solo, I promise you that.
What, after all, are you doing? Hiding in obscurity?
(But your blog post is interesting-- the fact of it-- especially given that you're writing for an audience of two people.)
p.s. Further point-- which illustrates your total ignorance of the history of culture, and how culture today is created.
We have not many readers at the present time.
Well, I hate to use another bad rock n roll example, but it's appropriate.
At the beginning of 1964 the Beatles couldn't sell a record anyplace in America. They and several record companies tried. (They even got "She Loves You" on rate-a-record on American Bandstand, where it received a poor score.) No one wanted to buy what they we're selling! Yet within a matter of a week EVERYBODY wanted to buy their recordings.
How did this sea change occur?
One would've have to study the dynamics of that situation thoroughly, as I have, to understand how it worked and how it can, on a smaller scale, be duplicated.
By the way, the original ULA plan had four parts to it-- only ONE of which (the attack campaign) was ever implemented, and that only partially. Given the chance to start pushing the other three tactics, the ULA will be bigger than the Beats. No brag-- just fact. (Again, look how close we get anyway with a smidgen of activity. Interview on WNYC? Not to be dismissed easily. If we can get that, we can get all kinds of media.)
You've made a big mistake betting against us, Chump. You're going to let your pessimistic attitude keep you down while we make history.
Go on, bet against us. I'll take that bet-- and use it for motivation.
p.s. Part of why you're a total ignoramus about the ULA campaign and whether it can succeed (which truly interests only ULAers and ex-ULAers) is that you've never done any chess playing.
Study the games of Bobby Fischer and in the early stages all you see is a mess which makes no sense. How is this guy going to achieve anything? Look-- he's already lost important pieces! getting his ass kicked all over the place.
But meanwhile he's putting his pieces in the right position to succeed-- he's able to see far ahead to other sections of the game.
This, you're unable to do. You have a very superficial intelligence, but-- as with most lit people-- no vision of time and space. You're unable to see beyond what is, this instant, today-- and so panicked at any risks taken; any attempt to achieve things by stepping outside the mainstream.
A very insecure and limited personality, really. Satisfied with your limited station?
I wonder. If you really were you wouldn't have started this blog.
I never said anything about you being THE major problem of the literary world today. I never said you were even a problem to the imagined-monolith at all. What I said was your ideas make no fucking sense and are incredibly naive and childish, and that your actions in defense of those ideas are caustic enough to make me want to tell you so.
Do I personally dismiss you? Yes. Is it in my power to have you "dimissed"? No. It has nothing to do with me. All I can do is comment on the fact that despite all you've said here, or all you've said ever, your organizaiton has never made progress. To you, that's a laughable charge, because you think the Gawker mentions and the AP piece mean something, a BIG something, because they "get your name out there."
P.R. and passing gossip column mentions don't mean anything when it doesn't lead to higher readership. It doesn't mean anything when you don't have a decent product (as much as I hate using that word when it comes to fiction, it seems to be what you think of it, anyway).
What this makes you is a snake oil salesman. "The Show" is all well and good, if clowns and "masked perfessers" are your thing, but I'll ask again: if pretty much everyone who's led from a Wenclas sideshow to the actual "product" seem to agree it's not any good... and the people who even get that far are few and far between in the first place...then what's the point of this shit?
Again, you have no understanding of how the culture works. You want immediate results-- and ignore my arguments regarding this. Your choice. The only person who loses is you.
In this age, what's most important is grabbing space not on bookshelves, but in people's heads. This comes first. We've been accomplishing this. Fast enough? No way-- but that has nothing to do with me. As I've said, the plan would've worked in 2001 if properly carried out.
This is all beyond your understanding, because basically you're a timid moron.
The product? We'll need the right product at some point. Right now I'm waiting for Potter to publish Nowlan's book. We'll see what critics make of that.
Our first task though is accomplished-- that critics, media, et.al., where it counts (not Chicago, sorry) know who we are.
We can adapt our image at any time. The point is first to make the word "ULA" a known commodity. When we produce a couple good books-- and we will-- then everything else will be forgotten. Memory is not static. nothing is static in this world. Everything is in a state of flux.
You view the world as set in stone; you think the ULA will always be as it is now; that static bookshelves are what counts.
We don't need to sell anything NOW. We're playing for the end game-- right now we're best off setting things up.
(We've put a lot of pieces in place, have grown our membership enough to be better positioned when we get more press attention to keep things going.
Reaching opinion makers is the most efficient path for any business/endeavor without resources.
It'd take too long for me to explain what a fossilized viewpoint you have. . . .
Meanwhile, pick up a book or two on marketing. It might help you understand our campaign.
Basically, though, I'm wasting my time here. You're a blockhead-- a mass through which light never penetrates. Excuse me while I plan more ULA actions which will give us more visibility in the culture. Whenever we carry out the ULA plan, it works. We've never done it consistently-- hopefully this time we will. (For you to casually dismiss the attention we achieved with our ninety minute action demonstrates your absolute stupidity. I'll give YOU fifty years to get on WNYC, Chump, which is great publicity-- would gladly be taken by any book company for their writers.)
There was this one time, I think maybe 1999(?), when I heard a guy who'd written a book about the motif of the front lawn in American culture on The Connection with Christopher Lydon.
Do you think your 2 minute segment on WNYC's literature show will be that successful? How many Slush Pile orders have you gotten since then? For your own record keeping, I should tell you the lawn guy probably got like 4 sales off that shit. If you get 5, you win.
Total cluelessness of course. Paris Review: yes, they always had a very modest circulation, but always had tremendous leverage-- so that GP discovered a long-line of what would become well-hyped writers.
(Didn't you once submit a story to them??)
By the way-- what are YOU doing? Whatever happened to your writing and career?
Wasn't the last reading you did a complete disaster-- you ended up reading to no one?
Huh?
By the way, literary journals with a circulation of 7 people are only important and holy to people who give a fuck about them in the first place--it certainly doesn't intersect with any objective reality.
You the streetwise rebel who shuns elitism jack off to the Paris Review, I don't, end of story.
I don't think bryan guski is Tim Hall. Tim hall can't articulate this good and does not have the cognitive complexity to write these things.
Bryan Guski doesn't appear to be completely drunk while he writes.
A voice of sanity in the wilderness, at long last.
Take Mr. Cicero's internet-fingerprints just in case, King, he might be Tim Hall too. Everybody is, I hear.
??? Tim Hall isn't my concern. The only time I addressed him was when he called me out on Noah's blog.
Meanwhile, "Bryan's" contradiction: Attacks us for not reaching our potential, while spending untold energy over five years making sure we never do!
It's as if a new restaurant opens in town, serving unfamiliar fare. The Town Skeptic proclaims, "It'll never make it!"-- then shortly thereafter is seen inside the place smashing windows and overturning tables.
Think if all the energy you've expended attacking me, B.G., had been spent instead in encouraging the ULA movement. It would've been a more productive investment.
I am, after all, human, and can be taken off track-- as I was in 2001 when everything was going our way and the group devolved into an idiotic internal war. As I briefly was again last year after our Philly show, when "Bryan" spent thousands-- yes, thousands-- of words attacking me and the ULA.
It ain't going to happen again, Chump. For the first time we have a real Philly team in place and we're working hard to put the next steps in place.
Who is Bryan?
No one can say for certain, Noah. Never can when someone hides their identity like that. I know the person sounds very much like someone from the ULA's past-- and is preoccupied with past events.
(The themes are very similar to those expressed in a zeen from 2001 whose point was to attack the ULA. The person hasn't advanced in thought one iota in almost five years. A Michael Grover cousin-- the same petty grievances displaying total ignorance of how the world works.)
Note, Noah, the narrow perspective. this isn't a person who realizes we have to address the world in order to change-- doesn't understand the context.
Yes, when Plimpton ran it (not now), the Paris Review was the most influential lit journal in America. That's fact-- not opinion, and it's buttressed by the long line of preppy writers whom George discovered, including McInerney, Janowitz, Minot, Moody, and many others. The glossy mags like GQ and Esquire, on whose mastheads Plimpton appeared, received their signals on who to promote from HIM. After all, they're clueless, and have to look somewhere. (Now they're not sure where to look-- which is resulting in lit-scandal after lit-scandal.)
Believe me, when you go to NYC and examine these people up close-- when you see them in "performance" or meet them for lunch, you quickly realize that nothing is there.
Which means, opportunity for all willing to go after it.
p.s. Anyone noting objective reality had better take not of the changes which have taken place in that concept with the rise of the Internet. Some of this society's major cultural voices (Matt Drudge to give the most obvious example) have sold, as far as I know, NO books.)
Again, the important point is how much space you take up in people's heads. The ULA is doing an adequate job of that right now. The sold product will come, but it's never been our first priority.
Someday I'll tell you all about "Guski," and the person's own missed opportunities, which have been enormous.
p.p.s. Anyone who thinks we don't have writers should check out the current Monday Report by James Nowlan.
The ULA, in print or person, brings way more energy to the table than the status quo. It's why we'll win. We're an irresistible force. (Gathering new allies every week-- watch for an upsurge in membership.)
...and then a downsurge in membership two weeks later.
I'd almost love to take a picture of my driver's license and send it to you, King, I think you'd be quite surprised to see this name staring back at you. It would probably be too much to take.
Of course, I don't REALLY want to send you a picture of my driver's license, because then you'd know where I live, and I'm too afraid you'd set me on fire using gasoline soaked pages of Frank Walsh poems.
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