Fearless Writers Group

When re-reading an article on the infamous Amazon glitch, discussed here--

http://kingwenclas.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-are-facts.html

-- I realize what a balls-to-the-wall writers group the Underground Literary Alliance was in 2004, and in some ways remains. We took on literature’s biggest, most powerful names—lit’s Big Money Boys—exposing their corruption for the world to see. It’s no wonder we were 99% destroyed! But we were fearless. We created hysteria within the clubby corrupt walls of the established literary scene. I suspect that if we ever got going again, they’d be as panicked. Their hostility toward us to this day comes because they await, with abject fear, our return.

A Victory for the ULA

The egregious 11/27/12 Oxford American book review smear by Johannes Lichtman was absolutely a victory for the dormant but still latently powerful Underground Literary Alliance.

The book review is a display of an esteemed literary publication shitting all over itself. A ten year old can see the review for the smear job it is. This gives literary renegades a shorthand way of pointing to the corruption of the literary establishment. Simply give the link, and add that Oxford American editor Roger D. Hodge is best buddies with Tom Bissell. It’s like instant oatmeal. Add water and stir.

Second, the fact of the review shows that the literary establishment remains terrified of the ULA and what it stands for. Terrified enough to blackball us and slam us. Too terrified to engage us.

Third, the fact of any literary rebellion anywhere is a victory for free speech and the reform of our nation’s decayed literature. One literary rebel is one rebel too many for blackballing literary totalitarians like Dave Eggers. “The Dave” and his colleagues at The Believer made it clear at the outset that they’re against literary dissent and disagreement. They’re opposed to everything which makes literature vital. What they want: The blank-minded McSweeney’s  Smiley Face. “Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.”

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Given today’s lobotomized literary world, the existence of a satirical novel like The McSweeneys Gang is a huge victory for free expression. It’s a blow against all literary totalitarians. Assuredly no one of the timid establishment mice who today call themselves writers and reviewers will review the ebook.

Reading the novel then becomes in itself a blow for the rescue of American literature.

Buy The McSweeneys Gang by King Wenclas at Nook or Kindle now!

The New ULA

ULA 2.0 will retain only fragments of the previous incarnation. It’ll be as comparable to the older version as a jet to a biplane. Throw out all past narratives about us, including our own. We’ll write new ULA history and new literary history. If you think you know us, you don’t—and won’t.

Finding Allies

The first step: Establishing our principles.

Second step: Establishing a credible literary alternative. One NOT like everybody else. Revolutionary in style and attitude. Then we allow allies to come to us.

Why the ULA?

Why should writers of all stripes consider joining a renewed Underground Literary Alliance?

Because we have a track record. We’ve been at the forefront of literary change from the beginning—a change that now is mightily beginning to take place. We wear the scars of our opposition to the mainstream—which no other literary group can claim. Absolute credibility. We’ve already built the name marking us as literary change agents. That name retains power and authenticity: “The ULA.”

The Rivals

Who would be the immediate rivals on today’s literary scene to a resurrected Underground Literary Alliance? Right now I pick out three.

1.) The McSweeney’s Gang.

The literary world’s Evil Empire. Boss Dave Eggers is a shrewd operator. He’s a first rate promoter, and knows well how to put an organization together—as well as figuring out ways to keep the money flowing. (The Empire isn’t dependent on sales. Intuitively he knows only an elite few want the precious McSweeney’s style of writing.) Two other points can be made.

A.) Eggers himself is not in any way an intellectual. He’s surrounded himself with strictly limited individuals. Limited either in brain power, in independence, or, like Tom Bissell, in character. What becomes noteworthy when you examine the persons around him is that no one could possibly be a threat to his dominance. They’re followers one and all. “Believers.” Ready made to be acolytes.

B.) They made a collective blunder in republishing the Tom Bissell attack essay on the Underground Literary Alliance—especially if the ULA was perceived by them to be their greatest danger. Why provoke a nearly-dead opponent? From any practical standpoint it makes no sense. Mere gratification of self; indulgence in feelings of revenge.

2.) n+1.

While Brooklyn-based n+1 is another branch on the same postmodern tree that McSweeney’s sits on, n+1 has adopted a different stance. They present themselves as intellectuals presenting ideas to the literary world. The problem is that their ideas are usually wrong—as when a few years ago they proclaimed to one and all “The End of Oil.” Right now the world is awash in oil. So much for that prediction, as so many others.

The n+1 boys and girls have a huge barrier to being credible as intellectuals. They put ideology before reality.

Another problem for them is that, like McSweeney’s, they’re creatures of the”Big Six” publishing giants, which are in turn owned by a handful of media monopolies. Without true independence you have no intellectual freedom, and can only become a mouthpiece for the status quo. Puppets.

3.) HTML Giant.

HTML GIant takes postmodern pseudo-intellectual posturing one step beyond. They carry all the weaknesses of the other two groups without the facade of independence. Much of their purpose is as absolute sycophants to official literature as found in either the conglomerates or the university. I joined several of the discussions there, a couple years ago or so, and every time mopped the floor with the lot of them, even when outnumbered 100 to 1. Followers through and through—I can’t say I’ve discovered amid their bombardment of posts an original thought.

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That’s it, kids. Not a lot to contend with, in the final analysis. A revived ULA’s main obstacle wouldn’t be our competitors, but ourselves.

Lit System Weakness

WHEN YOU study the herd mentality, you find that being a stable member of the herd—for example, the established literary herd—comes at a severe price. The price of stability is narrow-mindedness. The herd needs to proceed on its steady path, its members focused on that path. Only disaffected members of the herd, or those outside the herd, see the herd, and the herd’s path, as they exist in reality.
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The inability of the established literary world’s best and brightest to engage me about the Tom Bissell Believer essay, or about anything, is a sign not of strength, but weakness. The system gives off vibes of unmistakable weakness. It’s only their constant affirmations to one another about how special they all are which keep them from seeing their shrinking world as it exists in reality.
Tom Bissell is praised far and wide by system writers and wannabes as “great” and a genius. Everyone believes this. The one person in the herd who doesn’t believe it is Bissell himself. He and his patron, Eggers, are like Montezuma’s Aztecs. They still carry the trappings of their corrupt civilization, but at heart they no longer believe in it, nor in themselves, not really, so in the face of any strong and fearless opposition they can only shrink away. Putting their shallow literary ideas and insular art to a test is unthinkable. The title of one of their flagships, The Believer, then becomes a bluff, a boast, an empty affirmation. An irony.
Bissell gave the game away as far back as 2003, in the original version of his ULA essay. The talk of “lots of tombstones,” the allusions to the crimes of the Bolsheviks, is an image sprung from his unconscious mind. The image is a metaphor for the ULA’s (or somebody’s) coming victory, a victory of art and a victory of ideas. An occurrence which will indeed wipe system writers from the scene. It may not be the ULA leading that revolutionary change, but it’s happening regardless, as system newspapers and magazines continue losing money; as indie ebook sales increase; as the scope for the favored few of the literary establishment to operate becomes narrower and narrower.