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For the moment I’m putting on hold ideas of restarting the Underground Literary Alliance. I’ll soon be involved in another literary project with different tactics and somewhat different goals. At the same time I encourage other former ULAers to restart the ULA campaign themselves. Or at least, I won’t oppose such endeavors.

Getting It Right

WITH THE FIRST VERSION of the Underground Literary Alliance there was clearly a mismatch between reality and hype. The presentation was kickass. The products and writings were a different reality. By our zine background, we were basically quirky. The writing and look we showed was in line with this. But our hype, in order to attract attention, had been extreme. We had a punk element to ourselves, but not enough of it. For instance, the logic behind the name of our house zine, Slush Pile, was sound—embracing the criticism to defuse it. In hindsight, we needed more. “19th Street Murder” or such would’ve been more attention getting.

Our “look” was low-rent pop. To fit the reputation we needed to be edgier. I was edging toward this by 2004 or so with one of my own small projects, Literary Fan Magazine.

No longer completely “pop,” but requiring more edge.

The writing? “Pop” writing which people enjoy reading, and can read, is a necessity. It’s a start. The trick will be to do more than that.

I think about this often.

The New ULA Part I

The new Underground Literary Alliance will run on fanatical commitment. It will be more akin to a religious order than a writers group. That’s the only way to combat the Cult of McSweeney’s and other ruthless establishment fronts.

We’d need to be like an order of medieval knights, eager for cultural crusade. Knights for the renewal of art.

Authenticity or Fakery?

UNDERGROUND VS. ESTABLISHMENT

Authenticity: Texas writer Wild Bill Blackolive:

 

Fakery: Lit-establishment darling John Hodgman:

 

 

ULA Looking for Shit Disturbers!

ONE of the reasons ULA 1.0, the first version of the Underground Literary Alliance, failed was that it was too nice. We had too many moderates in the organization, who naively believed that simply by asking for it, we would receive a level playing field from our artistic enemies. It’s not how anything in this ruthlessly-run society is played.

We needed more of what we advertised we were: balls-to-the-wall and in-your-face radical writers determined to change a creaky and corrupt artery-hardened literary scene which for decades has been aesthetically stuck in concrete, unable and unwilling to change while the world outside their stuffy empire moved at a quickening pace.

If you snoozily dawdle along with your carefully crafted “literary” writing while listening to the monotone voices of NPR—we don’t want ya. We’d rather have you driving your creations and your lives at 100 miles an hour. We want your voices and minds up to the hyperspeed pace of this insane civilization. Then we want you applying that energy and wit against the deadened artifact rest home museum known as the literary mainstream.

Fake Genuine

WHAT distinguished the Underground Literary Alliance from the rest of the literary scene, and caused amid that scene untold anxiety, is that we weren’t pretending. We were, for the most part, authentic grass roots writers. My God, look at Wild Bill Blackolive. He never changed a comma of his prose for anyone. Never sold out. A stand-up, straight shooter.

The literary hipsters who opposed the ULA, on the other hand, at places like McSweeney’s and n+1, were all about the pose of authenticity. It’s pretend with them. And so, Dave Eggers will pretend to be indie, and the n plus one gang will claim to be populists, even rebels, but neither camp will give up their elite status and their relationships to power; so the clothes they wear, the fashion they adopt—their ideas are nothing if not fashion—mean nothing.

New ULA Media Room

The Underground Literary Alliance has a new media room, of sorts, at the twitter handle @ULANews. Once the outfit gets going again, this will be the place to find the latest announcement. When things happen, they’ll happen fast, so stay tuned.

(Undergrounders and literary rebels can send any of their own updates there, and if properly kickass and exciting, we’ll retweet them.)

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.

A Fact

This is a fact: You are the most conditioned, programmed, processed, marketed generation in human history, bombarded with messages day and night, from every direction, every gadget of electronic media, on a panoply of electronic devices. Messages of fashion, ideology, style. The assault is extremely sophisticated.

Literature, as it lags behind the culture, also lags behind in sophisticated conditioning-- but it exists at key levels. It appears in mainstream media when they decide which literary group, or which story, they cover or don't cover, favor or disfavor.

The most consistent processor in the literary business, the most accomplished messenger with the most all-encompassing aesthetic, is the McSweeney's organization.

The ULA's task is to open up one corner of totalitarian media: the literary field.

The new ULA will have a simple message: Free Your Mind. End the Conditioning.

Literary Followers

EXAMINING THE LITERARY HERD

It’s curious that those who exhibit the most hostility toward the ULA aren’t the various establishment lit groups’ leaders, like Dave Eggers and Blake Butler, but the followers—those who latch onto an Eggers or Butler or Tom Bissell, then follow them blindly. A Ron Hogan or Glenn Kenny, for instance, can’t interact with the ULA except behind a stream of insults. They see red inside their minds the instant they see my or the ULA’s name.

Why is this? It has to do with the herd mentality. These are the less intelligent, less open-minded members of the herd. They’re incapable of divorcing themselves from the herd mindset. Logic and reason hold no sway with them—their verdict has already been decided. They’re securely within the literary grouping where they best feel intellectually safe. They’ve convinced themselves that theirs is the “best”—and only—style of writing. That there could exist alternate viewpoints to theirs or their leaders is incomprehensible to them, and unsettling. Their first instinct is to wipe such notion from their minds. Such possibilities can’t be tolerated within the herd mind.

As a renewed Underground Literary Alliance works to create a new American literature, and to redirect the current literary scene from an elitist to a populist viewpoint, these hard-core followers will be the ones left behind; beyond reaching, clutching to their well-indoctrinated belief in “literary” writing which keeps them from that which troubles them most: having to think.

New Literary Media

What’s evident is that there is no true literary journalism to speak of—no examining or questioning of the literary scene today. Only blind acquiescence. Gushy puff pieces.

The task of a new Underground Literary Alliance will be to once again become the voice of truth in literature, exposing the cronyism and corruption of the approved literary scene—ripping away the cover of falseness to reveal the cockroaches beneath.

We’ll have real literary journalism, as well as real literary criticism outside the narrow bounds of literary groupthink.

Why Restart the ULA?

For me the reason would be the same as the reason why I helped begin the original version in 2000. Namely, the realization that with established literature, nothing is there. A cardboard castle filled with posers and phonies. Am I surprised that the "great" Tom Bissell refuses to defend his smear essay? Not at all. He's a literary con artist, with the facade of substance but not the reality of it. Is he the best they've got? It's scary to consider how far American literature has fallen. Bissell has touchy-feely glibness, and is an artful propagandist able to fool the perpetually naive, but of any semblance of real intelligence he's lacking. Bissell is a herd follower whose ideas are guaranteed to consistently conform with those of the herd, allowing himself no variation, due to his limitations. He better than anyone knows this. In a fair discussion about his essay-- or literature in general-- the paper facade would be exposed for all to see.

Why restart the ULA? Because if we got a team together of kickass underground writers, and stayed on track-- instead of disintegrating from internal disagreements (or our own poverty)-- we'd rip through the paper established literary scene of today. Constipated arrogant personalities living in a make-believe world of self-importance, sincerely believing they're "great" writers and thinkers.

Defamation?

Here's a definition of the word defamation, from thefreedictionary:

Any intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person's reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against a person.

Does this apply to portions of Tom Bissell's Believer magazine essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, reprinted in his collection Magic Hours?

What Do I Want?

I ask Dave Eggers and his outfit to disavow the Tom Bissell essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, republished in Bissell’s collection Magic Hours—or at least to renounce the most egregious passages of the essay smearing the ULA maliciously, such as the remark that the ULA’s actions would cause “lots and lots of tombstones.” One can’t present oneself as a generous liberal and stand behind those remarks.