What a surprise.
Mr. Wenclas, in yet another weeks-long complain-a-thon (rhyme unintentional), has denounced yet another writer/magazine/critic/group/movement as counter-revolutionary. Why? It's the same old story. Sure, he dresses it up in his usual rhetoric and so-called ideology. But ultimately, his issue with n+1 is that they don't think he's as important as he thinks he is.
They didn't publish Karl Wenclas's "brilliant" letter to the editor (I read it on his website: uh, no comment). Because of this personal insult--not worshipping at the throne of Wenclas--they get tossed on the pile with Gawker, New Criterion, McSweeney's, Paris Review, Media Bistro, and every other publication or person who once made passing reference to the ULA and then, obviously, stop. Conversely, any outlet that would pay His Highness what he deemed an appropriate level of attention is legitimized. That's really all it comes down to, as Karl believes in nothing other than his own ego, and his right to be famously important. Anyone remember his very brief love affair with the New Criterion, those uber-elitist conservatives, because they shared his dislike of McSweeney's and others? It probably would have continued too, if they hadn't brushed him off.
A personal disclaimer here: Do I think n+1 is an "important" publication (whatever that means)? No. Do I think they're pompous elitists, in an Ivy-League-mess-hall-style quarrel with slightly ideologically different pompous elitists? Yeah, it looks like it. Do I think pompous elitists with literature PhDs should go ahead and publish a magazine for the 2,000 people in the world just like them who want to read it? Definitely. Personally, I'll pass, but's it's not really a big deal.
If you don't like it, do something else yourself. Create an alternative (you've still never done it, never even really tried it, because it's too difficult for simpletons like you to figure out). But you can't do that. Some Ivy Leaguer creates a limited-run magazine that is carried in one or two bookstores in 6 or 7 "cultural" American cities, and your response is "I want your pages! I want your pages!"
The undergrounder obsessed with the mainstream of literature. It's no wonder so many other zeensters and underground writers shrugged you off as a joke when the ULA was founded (that info was in an article about you from a few years ago, Karl, in case you were wondering). He doesn't want to be an alternative to it, he wants to take "it" over. And it'll never happen, so he just gets more upset and more isolated.
Creating an alternative that's popular with those dissatisfied with what major publishing houses publish? There are those out there making an effort, and it's certainly possible if you put in the work and have the talent (meaning, sadly, someone other than the ULA will have to do it). But displacing or taking over the mainstream? Get real, Karl. Independent music is viable because it doesn't waste time obsessing over what Mariah Carey is doing or how her record company gets her albums exposure by cross-promoting with Pepsi. Because unlike you, almost all innovative independent music doesn't want to sell Pepsi, and they know how to get to their audience. But Suicide didn't displace KC & The Sunshine Band. It doesn't work that way. A lot of people really, really, really want KC & The Sunshine Band. If they get Suicide instead, they'll be unhappy and confused. And a lot of people really, really, really want Jon Franzen. The journals and professors and writers you try/fail to push around don't want you, their audiences don't want you, so what is the point of this?
Your audience is elswhere, fellas, if they exist at all. They weren't in the Miller Theatre, therefore, you accomplished nothing. If I hadn't read Karl's blog, I would never have heard a peep about it just like nearly everyone else on the planet, because nobody gives a shit about what professors, poets, cultural critics and intellectual socialites do with their weekend afternoons unless they're into the same things to begin with. You think Maximum Rock 'n Roll had a correspondent there or something? Nobody cares about this shit. Deal with it already.
By the way, I didn't mean to suggest that the ULA is as good as Suicide. Just sayin'.
Mr. Wenclas, in yet another weeks-long complain-a-thon (rhyme unintentional), has denounced yet another writer/magazine/critic/group/movement as counter-revolutionary. Why? It's the same old story. Sure, he dresses it up in his usual rhetoric and so-called ideology. But ultimately, his issue with n+1 is that they don't think he's as important as he thinks he is.
They didn't publish Karl Wenclas's "brilliant" letter to the editor (I read it on his website: uh, no comment). Because of this personal insult--not worshipping at the throne of Wenclas--they get tossed on the pile with Gawker, New Criterion, McSweeney's, Paris Review, Media Bistro, and every other publication or person who once made passing reference to the ULA and then, obviously, stop. Conversely, any outlet that would pay His Highness what he deemed an appropriate level of attention is legitimized. That's really all it comes down to, as Karl believes in nothing other than his own ego, and his right to be famously important. Anyone remember his very brief love affair with the New Criterion, those uber-elitist conservatives, because they shared his dislike of McSweeney's and others? It probably would have continued too, if they hadn't brushed him off.
A personal disclaimer here: Do I think n+1 is an "important" publication (whatever that means)? No. Do I think they're pompous elitists, in an Ivy-League-mess-hall-style quarrel with slightly ideologically different pompous elitists? Yeah, it looks like it. Do I think pompous elitists with literature PhDs should go ahead and publish a magazine for the 2,000 people in the world just like them who want to read it? Definitely. Personally, I'll pass, but's it's not really a big deal.
If you don't like it, do something else yourself. Create an alternative (you've still never done it, never even really tried it, because it's too difficult for simpletons like you to figure out). But you can't do that. Some Ivy Leaguer creates a limited-run magazine that is carried in one or two bookstores in 6 or 7 "cultural" American cities, and your response is "I want your pages! I want your pages!"
The undergrounder obsessed with the mainstream of literature. It's no wonder so many other zeensters and underground writers shrugged you off as a joke when the ULA was founded (that info was in an article about you from a few years ago, Karl, in case you were wondering). He doesn't want to be an alternative to it, he wants to take "it" over. And it'll never happen, so he just gets more upset and more isolated.
Creating an alternative that's popular with those dissatisfied with what major publishing houses publish? There are those out there making an effort, and it's certainly possible if you put in the work and have the talent (meaning, sadly, someone other than the ULA will have to do it). But displacing or taking over the mainstream? Get real, Karl. Independent music is viable because it doesn't waste time obsessing over what Mariah Carey is doing or how her record company gets her albums exposure by cross-promoting with Pepsi. Because unlike you, almost all innovative independent music doesn't want to sell Pepsi, and they know how to get to their audience. But Suicide didn't displace KC & The Sunshine Band. It doesn't work that way. A lot of people really, really, really want KC & The Sunshine Band. If they get Suicide instead, they'll be unhappy and confused. And a lot of people really, really, really want Jon Franzen. The journals and professors and writers you try/fail to push around don't want you, their audiences don't want you, so what is the point of this?
Your audience is elswhere, fellas, if they exist at all. They weren't in the Miller Theatre, therefore, you accomplished nothing. If I hadn't read Karl's blog, I would never have heard a peep about it just like nearly everyone else on the planet, because nobody gives a shit about what professors, poets, cultural critics and intellectual socialites do with their weekend afternoons unless they're into the same things to begin with. You think Maximum Rock 'n Roll had a correspondent there or something? Nobody cares about this shit. Deal with it already.
By the way, I didn't mean to suggest that the ULA is as good as Suicide. Just sayin'.
posted by Bryan Guski at Wednesday, June 21, 2006
10 Comments:
I don't think even Wenclas takes his claims that seriously. It's "ballyhoo," remember? There's no realistic goal, no writing that Wenclas believes in for its own sake. His only weapon against the evil literati is his "noise." The ULA is truly a post-modern movement.
That pretty much sums it up.
Still at it?
Everything you post highlights your staggering ignorance.
Would you say that National Enquirer and Reader's Digest are more influential than say the Weekly Standard, because they dwarf it in circulation?
WS was one of the most influential mags in the country even when it was doing like 2,000 copies-- because it was read at the White House and other places.
New Criterion and n+1 aren't after large circulation. Their goal is to be opinion makers and to influence opinion makers; to define literature and the direction of literature.
The ULA campaign is in part a battle of ideas. We have to engage such people.
The ULA campaign, Tim, has always been beyond your comprehension. Always will it be, because you have no patience, no ability to grasp a larger picture or to think more than one step ahead; no understanding of interconnections between forces or between actions. Anything I do then makes no sense to you, or can be understood only in terms of your own simple motivations of ego gratification and immediate personal gain.
I haven't gained at all personally-- that's not my objective. That I've pushed my persona forward at times has been strictly by default, when more charismatic personalities-- from Ann or Jackman to Noah and Bernice-- flinched from putting themselves out there. Even with the Howl event, someone else was supposed to be the lead guy inside the theater, making waves, but didn't make the trip. He bailed.
I know this: If I had your gaping character flaws the ULA wouldn't have made it out of its tenth week.
It's good that you left when you did. You should never have been in the ULA. Your mind runs at a level of constant panic. You're unable to ignore blue smoke and noise to see what's really happening. Instead of filtering out hype and slowing down time, for you, when noise is made, everything speeds up.
Your post here screams with panic. My blog sets you off and you grasp for the first available explanation. (Because you're a blatant opportunist, you assume I must be.) You're running around like a chicken with its head cut off. This happened as well when you were in the ULA. "Ohmygod! He's upsetting MediaBistro people!"
Like Grover, you were a ULA wannabe, not the real thing. A little opposing rhetorical fire and you lost your head and began running the other way. This entire blog reeks of hysteria and panic.
How else to explain the total sea change in your attitude toward the ULA? Explanation, please.
You disagree with my strategy. But what's yours? Lay it out for us, Tim. What progress have you made?
All I see is that you've alienated everybody, including those who were willing to work with you. Not just me. Not just the ULA. Everybody.
What benefits did you gain from resigning? Any?
(You gained not even a lessening of panic in your head. Now you panic that you're not in the ULA; at any hint that we might actually get anyplace.)
While you're at it, explain what happened with the Cicero book? Are you going to blame that on me?
You have no business skills-- no business aptitude or business mentality, and no balls, which I guess is why you speak in such a high-pitched voice. (Okay, you're a writer-- at that you're at least a mediocrity; not terribly bad but not terribly good either.)
For the ULA, you are what you've always been: a total waste of our time.
There is no parallel between the Weekly Standard and the Paris Review. Federal politics are dictated to the people, even in a democracy. I don't get to make up a foreign policy because I don't like the one the country I live in engages. If the VP reads the Weekly Standard and buys into their view and pushes it as policy, that's one thing.
If George Plimpton's ghost tells me, or tells some big wig at a mainstream publishing house, that this poet is good and this poet is bad, that would only matter to the biggest culture-is-top-down idiot in the world (that means you, despite the fact you hilariously believe yourself to be the opposite).
I don't look to the big publishing houses for what I want to read anymore than I look to Warner Brothers Records for the music I want to hear. Your obsession with Elvis fucking Presley tells me you wouldn't really understand that point, but I'll make it anyway. Your taste and knowledge in music, tells me the same thing that your taste and knowledge in writing, and the tactics of your so-called organization tell me: you're a very conventional, mainstream guy. Anything else is window dressing.
But you'll never get it, because your mind doesn't comprehend anything underground, despite the name of your fiefdom.
For some reason, I remain compelled to set the record straight, although it'll never make a difference. Tim Hall is like you. Therefore, I don't like him. The only difference is unlike you, he think he can make your stupid, bullshit philosophy work solo instead of in a collective. You're both wrong. He might be even, er, "wronger," as his press and personal website seem to have folded. It appears the guy's been defeated, and who fucking cares?
You'll never believe it, because you need me to be him. It really is a religious belief with you guys. My dislike of you: heartfelt. Of him: a brilliant, brilliant ruse to hide my identity. The more specific I explain why he's no better than you? It's all a trap, y'see. Uh huh.
You're Tim Hall.
Zzzzzz.
Curious that Tim Hall styled himself an authority on music-- was a musician himself, I guess. I don't know what happened there. (I'd guess he couldn't get along with anyone.)
As for his remarks-- where does one begin to deal with such stupidity?
My interest isn't the music itself (though it'd be hard to argue that Elvis wasn't a major figure in American music), but the history of the music business. BUSINESS.
Tim apparently doesn't understand the context within which I discuss the idea of a "Zeen Elvis."
I use as my example the history of Sun Records in Memphis-- which very much was a tiny storefront operation-- as underground as you can get.
Sam Phillips had plenty of talent around him. What he lacked were resources.
He discovered Elvis-- say what you want about Presley, but he had phenomenal charisma and energy, as well as a natural appreciation of all forms of roots music and an ability to blend them together.
Phillips sold Elvis's contract to RCA-- which enabled him to expand his operation, to record and promote talents like Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and many others.
The ULA's initial plan was to mimic this. It almost worked. After a few weeks of hype and action, we got a feeler for our "Elvis"'s work from one of the top editors at a major house. If we'd kept things going, we would've gotten the person a half-mil advance (they throw money around on whim). The ULA would've taken part of this-- seed money which would've financed everything else.
Unfortunately, I didn't bank on the panicky personality of writers-- best represented of course by yourself.
What about this don't you understand?
(Beyond this, the early Elvis is useful as myth-- at least as depicted in "Jailhouse Rock," which is a primer on DIY theory. Watch it sometime.)
Endless stupidity. . . .
Underground? Well, gee, Tim, I've been underground as a writer and zeenster since 1992. In that time I've not once sent an unsolicited manuscript to anyone-- but have been solely focused on DIY.
Your argument now is to be "underground." Hey moron-- most of the people in the ULA were key figures in the print underground of the 1990's (I even wrote an article for Factsheet Five back in the day).
One realization which came to some of us, is that strictly staying in our own bubble doesn't work! Not even for someone like Aaron Cometbus, who's been as big an underground success as a writer as is possible.
But one still has to deal with the context of the society, of the entire culture-- of lit's marginalized position to begin with within it.
Let's pretend you actually are "Bryan"-- though nobody but you thinks this notion is at all tenable. (A great example of your own cluelessness-- trying to hide an elephant with a handkerchief.)
Okay, "Bryan"-- what's your strategy? What should we be doing?
Specifics, please.
The whole ground-up way of thinking and operating we've all done. I did it very intensely in the late 90's with Pop Literary Gazette-- getting copies in bookstores, the whole nine yards. Then I read a few books on marketing and realized that for any fledgling business to succeed, marketing-- advertising; NOISEmaking-- has to be 90% of the endeavor. Not 10% Not half. NINETY percent. (I still haven't gotten ULAers to realize this.)
When we've followed our strategy, as we did recently, it's worked very well. We have no ad budget-- duh!-- so we have to get free publicity.
How much would a twenty minute ad on WNYC cost? An ad in Time Out? etc.
It's not that "Howl" didn't work for us-- and work well-- it's just that we haven't done enough of that kind of stuff.
Unfortunately, we lack time and resources. When the ULA began I was budgeted for a certain time period. It would've been close run. Internal disputes-- idiocy; trying to explain fundamentals of business as I'm doing here with you-- derailed our train.
As I've said, this kind of discussion is a total waste of my time-- all because you know nothing about anything. This applies whether you're Tim, Bryan, or the man in the moon.
And lest we forget, Elvis came to prominence through insulting and harassing Lawrence Welk and Frank Sinatra.
See you in the historical dustbin, Col. Wenclas.
You've never been underground, you've only been unsuccessful. There's a difference.
And please, enough with the straight-out-of-your-ass percentages. You really do sound like a marketing book, congratulations. It's 90% endeavor, huh? Well, that sounds like 62% bullshit.
Elvis was a clown. As I think about it, it really does make sense why you fellas like him so much. Is he a bit different than Pat Boone singing "safe" versions of Little Richard and Fats Domino songs? Sure. But not by that much.
But he was in a movie about a Clambake. You'd take that one, eh, Wenclas? Good "exposure" for the integrity-filled dangerous writer?
(Sinatra considered Presley a "cretinous goon" as a matter of fact. . . .)
It makes no sense having a discussion with a total ignoramus. You don't know and don't want to know.
Yes, "Clambake" was a disaster-- made after he'd sold out. As I've stated, my interest in Elvis, as a model for the ULA, is in the early, relevant version.
Here's some interesting quotes about the Beatles, from reviews of them after they appeared on Ed Sullivan:
-"a magic act that owed less to Britain than to Barnum."
-"75 percent publicity, 20 percent haircut, and 5 percent lilting lament."
By the way, that we found only limited success as undergrounders not working together was my whole point. That's why we've taken a different path.
I still want to hear you explain what path we should take. Details please.
I'll accept that you disagree with our actions and strategy. But why does this bother you so much that you've devoted an entire blog to discussing it?
It's especially silly in that you don't present an alternative.
You haven't told us what YOU'RE doing-- what success you're having.
(What did you say? None? You're having no success at all?)
I kind of think this is what really bothers you, Tim-- why you insist on continuing to make a fool of yourself in your "Guski" role.
Here's a couple more questions to answer:
-Why did you misrepresent yourself to the ULA? Wasn't this dishonest?
-If you disagreed with our direction, why didn't you try to change things from within-- instead of quickly bailing out? Throwing stones from outside is meaningless.
-Why the hate campaign? What did I ever do to you? Run over your dog or something?
Well, keep it coming. With Undie Press apparently going noplace, I guess you have nothing else to do.
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