IF the Underground Literary Alliance reinvents itself, it should do so, in my humble opinion, with pronounced attitude and edginess. There’s room for “pop” cartoony writing—I engage in this style myself. But the presentation of the outfit needs to be harder, befitting hard times—times of which we the many ex-ULAers bouncing along this unequal world can testify. We know them as well as anyone.
We’re cultural revolutionaries bringing difference to the tame bourgie-hipster world of the mainstream and its snobby pampered Insider bands like McSweeney’s. But to regenerate our movement we’d need to look like what we are. We’d need to be a stronger, newer band—and recruit strong new street writers—to take on our opponents straight up, challenge them at every point and in every place, and reveal them by contrast to be the weak tepid representatives of status quo American literature that they are.
4 comments:
That's all I do these days - cartoony writing. That's what most humor and satire is. The kind of edginess you describe sounds kind of gloomy. Beautiful, perhaps, but gloomy just the same. The old ULA had a good mix of both. Wred Fright and Frank Walsh. King Wenclas and Yul Tolbert. Revolution and dancing....that was nice. Ahem...not to open old wounds, but one of the reasons the Seven broke off from the ULA was that it didn't seem fun anymore. I don't know, something to think about, perhaps. That was a nice response to the 'unpublishables' remark, though. I liked seeing that.
Also, I like the idea of "cultural revolutionaries." It is about class war. Always.
Party revolutionaries PAR-TAY! I think that Karl kept the fun in the protests pretty well -- and having Jellyboy the Clown didn't hurt. Going to NYC with placards is always good for a laff. Hey, didn't Karl wear blinking goggles and carry a flapping eagle? I always liked Will Ratblood's "Army" ploy. Fun happens!
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