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| Read the current Monday Report below! |
The ULA Monday Report!
This week's report by JEFF POTTER
with UKULA magazine's ROSIE AIELLO
UKULA Interview Part 2:
Jeff Potter Speaks!
The international culture e-mag UKULA recently
interviewed Underground Literary Alliance members
Steve Kostecke & Jeff Potter. This is the full
unabridged interview. Click here to read Part One.
1. Who exactly are your targets for criticism and why?
JP: Bigtime NYC editor Bob Gottleib said there are no
undiscovered geniuses toiling away in the hinterlands. He
thought he was being funny. We're trying to wake up folks like
him.
When we see wealthy elites like J-Franz, Moody and Eggers get
tax- free grants, board positions and awards for ersatz zeens, we
cry foul. Someone had to do it!
The public seems to agree with us---I doubt that you'd now see a
millionaire take a tax-funded NEA grant again. Jon Foer seemed
to learn from Franzen's experience and turned down the money.
But we've yet to see a needy writer get their due.
Standing up, engaging and interacting is natural for zeensters.
And it's good for art. But the lit establishment is hooked on
hiding. They can't imagine another way. We can. If they were to
engage us it would be a win-win situation. Where's their noblesse
largesse? Other arts experienced booming access...and growth.
We're going to give establishment publishers what Hollywood got
from indy film awhile ago, a shot in the arm from fresh new
voices. We want a relevant literature again. We love books. The
general public used to get major uplift from books. We disagree
that they've gone over to TV and stadium events to figure out
how to live or that they've stopped caring. Nothing beats books
for the job of cultural exploration. We found this to be so in our
own lives, from books mostly published before the 80's, and we
want to see that spark brought back to life.
Since we have no budget, we try to expose the most influential
abusers of the system---we aim at NYC and the elite MFA
programs. This gets us the most traction as we try to get a fresh
chance for relevance in the book world. It's David versus Goliath
all right!
2. What is the purpose of your protests/ criticisms?
JP: Access, openness, a revived lit scene---for lit to regain the
verve it once had, for lit to be surprising again. It'll get that once
it starts giving props to the underground, to the writers of the
streets.
3. What inspired you to take on the cause of fighting corruption in
the literary mainstream? Was there a specific event/events?
JP: The zeen explosion of the 90's was totally ignored by the lit
world---dozens of fresh writers exploded on the scene, getting
thousands of fans, with zero help, while the duds hogged the
goods. The zeen scene was ghettoized and the chance was missed.
But it's not gone yet.
Furthermore, several major talents who'd been thriving in the
underground and trying to break through were prevented---
Jack Saunders, Wild Bill Blackolive, Blaster Al Ackerman. Jen
Gogglebox and Aaron Cometbus were big talents who seemed to
say they were OK with being marginalized---they thrived in the
underground---but I bet no one tried to lure them up to the level
of influence they deserved. Jen even felt compelled to drop her
great art as she tried to make a career in the magazine staffer
side of the lit world---that was a real shame. She had more
impact on people than anyone else in that office yet her work
didn't count.
4. Have you ever been or tried to be part of the literary
mainstream? Were you burned by corporate/academic
publishers?
JP: We compare notes. Our heroes have applied for every lit
grant and program---and been rejected. We're talking writers
with decades under their belts, with a global fan base, critical
acclaim---and ZERO access to the system. I'm involved right
now with a writer...who died...and his wife wants to publish a
new book of his work but his old NYC publisher won't let her...
yet they never spent a penny promoting the one book they did
for him. Ratfinks!
5. Do you think the writing coming out of underground zines are
better than that that is commercially published? Why?
JP: Sure---it's coming from real life, the life that most folks can
relate to. Zeensters don't write about elite English department
angst and summer homes in gated communities. Cynicism and
irony are kaput. There's too much good stuff going on.
6. What would happen to underground literature if it were to
become mainstream?
JP: Talent would get its due?
The world was missing out when Charlie Parker was playing in
tiny cellars. Charlie was, too---he coulda used a living wage.
The underground romantic to a point. While a star is learning.
But when they're ready to soar the whole culture needs them to
soar and the whole culture benefits from knowing their work.
They need to be let out of the cave. But they do NOT need to
have lawyers and marketers tell them how to make their art!
Underground art CAN survive the radical idea of its artists
making a living. If bold writers then occasionally get busted for
writing criminal thoughts they are as able to do jail-time as any
rock star can for stupid drugs.
James Michener said you can make a fortune but not a living
being a novelist---it's time to change that.
Undergrounders can take care of themselves. Bukowski and
Henry Miller stayed true even when they had steady food in the
fridge.
The market for literature would grow again. A whole art form
would regain lost relevance. It would be cool.
Black music finally got out of the ghetto. And folk music wasn't
hurt when the world was finally able to get easy access to it
thanks to the mainstream success of the Carter Family.
The world has nothing to lose by publishing and reviewing folk
WRITING for the first time ever.
Did you know that folk writing isn't considered real? Folk art is
still considered mostly illiterate. I think that's the reason they
use to deny the reality of folk writers. Folk music and folk
painting are called real. Folk writing, DIY publishing, is not
reviewed BY DEFINITION. It's not considered real writing!
Absurd! Especially in this Net age.
I tell ya it's disorienting to see "Banned Books Week" displays
that still exclusively focus on "To Kill a Mockingbird" and
Harry Potter and "the bad old days" and rural school district
goofiness when a whole huge sector of underground literature is
denied even its existence.
To be given permission to exist and then to be normally
reviewed---and even trashed---that's what underground folk
writers want first. The rest will take care of itself.
7. What are the advantages of Independent publishing over
corporate/academic publishing?
JP: It gives a chance for writing that has impact. The culture and
reality of nichification needs to be explored not just accepted.
Corpo-Academic publishing is a self-marginalized niche. What's
up with that? Indy lit is the ONLY place that has the perspective
to explore what's outside the worldview of corpo/uni media. You
can't ask the NYC lit scene itself why it's lame and get a
meaningful answer. New York just HATES it when we show that
they're not independent.
8. What, specifically, is wrong with contemporary mainstream
literature (perhaps explain what the ULA means by the
irrelevancy and lack of integrity in literature) ?
JP: Too many novels about exotica, nannies, grad students and
trendy diversity rather than more commonplace realities.
9. More importantly, what are these failings of mainstream lit.
doing to society?
JP: We can't see where we are. Literature has been said to be the
best way for a culture to look at itself and see what its options
are. Sounds good to me. Nothing else has tried to take that job.
Someone has to do it. But indy lit is the only way. Careerists
can't have perspective.
10. What is the purpose of literature? (Is there room for an
author to be self-gratifying in his work?)
JP: Sure! The purpose is testimony. A writer says how it was for
him or her. That's gotta feel good. Its success is when we can
relate to it. What sucks is when a great success in that regard is
stifled because it doesn't fit in with the career flowchart set up
today for writers. The prescribed range of who readers are even
allowed to try to relate to is twisted and restricted. Can you
believe what writers have to go thru? First, writers don't get to
write---they have to teach. Huh?
They usually get derailed by the power games there. Writing
screenplays for Hollywood is step two. Selling options. Then they
have to go on boring, exhausting reading tours (set up for the
kind of writers who aren't used to the road life, who can't
perform, who get peevish---"Where's my driver! I didn't order
this latte!"---it turns into a series of hotel/conference/trade-
show/autograph grinds).
It amounts to NOTHING. None of it! No academic publishing or
screenplay writing has meant a thing in the past few decades.
Bummer!
11. In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (though a feminist
herself), argued that the women's movement was conter-
productive to women's success in literature: women writers spent
their time ranting about their disadvantaged position and gender-
based injustices, rather than devoting that time and energy to
developing their craft. Do you think there is merit in this
statement, and do you think it applies in any way to the ULA?
JP: It's a good one. We have to take it to where it has led us
today. Ginny was rich, for one thing---so she actually only was
talking about women writers who have a "room of one's own"
and a trust-fund. True! Read what she said---she presumed the
room had a trust fund to support it. The world has grown so
much since Ginny.
A woman writer who tells the truth can only help the women's
movement---and every other justice movement. As soon as a
woman writer starts narrowing her work (lying!) to please first
her lady professor then her lady editor...it's DEAD no matter
what its politics are. By extension, an honest man writer helps
the women's movement as much as a woman can.
Well, you can tell I'm no politican---I see no necessary virtue in
any manipulation of art. Anyway, the next big thing in writers is
coming RIGHT NOW from writers who are janitors and
custodians. Non-union. And (one blink later) the unemployed.
These writers squeeze in writing when they can---in their rusty
car on the way to a temp job. No special rooms for them! That's
today's reality. The lessons that Ginny showed us from her point
of privilege need to keep extending down to everyone.
12. For what are the members of the ULA known best?
SK: Unbridled writing and unstoppable noisemaking. We're
contendas and we'll talk those bigshots into allowing some wild
new action into the ring that they're going to thank us for.
===============================================
UKULA magazine: www.ukula.com
Jeff Potter is ULA marketing director. He runs ULA PRESS
and OYB Books: http://outyourbackdoor.com/
===============================================
CLICK HERE TO READ THE PREVIOUS MONDAY REPORT!
GO HERE TO ENTER THE MONDAY REPORT BOX.
This week's report by JEFF POTTER
with UKULA magazine's ROSIE AIELLO
UKULA Interview Part 2:
Jeff Potter Speaks!
The international culture e-mag UKULA recently
interviewed Underground Literary Alliance members
Steve Kostecke & Jeff Potter. This is the full
unabridged interview. Click here to read Part One.
1. Who exactly are your targets for criticism and why?
JP: Bigtime NYC editor Bob Gottleib said there are no
undiscovered geniuses toiling away in the hinterlands. He
thought he was being funny. We're trying to wake up folks like
him.
When we see wealthy elites like J-Franz, Moody and Eggers get
tax- free grants, board positions and awards for ersatz zeens, we
cry foul. Someone had to do it!
The public seems to agree with us---I doubt that you'd now see a
millionaire take a tax-funded NEA grant again. Jon Foer seemed
to learn from Franzen's experience and turned down the money.
But we've yet to see a needy writer get their due.
Standing up, engaging and interacting is natural for zeensters.
And it's good for art. But the lit establishment is hooked on
hiding. They can't imagine another way. We can. If they were to
engage us it would be a win-win situation. Where's their noblesse
largesse? Other arts experienced booming access...and growth.
We're going to give establishment publishers what Hollywood got
from indy film awhile ago, a shot in the arm from fresh new
voices. We want a relevant literature again. We love books. The
general public used to get major uplift from books. We disagree
that they've gone over to TV and stadium events to figure out
how to live or that they've stopped caring. Nothing beats books
for the job of cultural exploration. We found this to be so in our
own lives, from books mostly published before the 80's, and we
want to see that spark brought back to life.
Since we have no budget, we try to expose the most influential
abusers of the system---we aim at NYC and the elite MFA
programs. This gets us the most traction as we try to get a fresh
chance for relevance in the book world. It's David versus Goliath
all right!
2. What is the purpose of your protests/ criticisms?
JP: Access, openness, a revived lit scene---for lit to regain the
verve it once had, for lit to be surprising again. It'll get that once
it starts giving props to the underground, to the writers of the
streets.
3. What inspired you to take on the cause of fighting corruption in
the literary mainstream? Was there a specific event/events?
JP: The zeen explosion of the 90's was totally ignored by the lit
world---dozens of fresh writers exploded on the scene, getting
thousands of fans, with zero help, while the duds hogged the
goods. The zeen scene was ghettoized and the chance was missed.
But it's not gone yet.
Furthermore, several major talents who'd been thriving in the
underground and trying to break through were prevented---
Jack Saunders, Wild Bill Blackolive, Blaster Al Ackerman. Jen
Gogglebox and Aaron Cometbus were big talents who seemed to
say they were OK with being marginalized---they thrived in the
underground---but I bet no one tried to lure them up to the level
of influence they deserved. Jen even felt compelled to drop her
great art as she tried to make a career in the magazine staffer
side of the lit world---that was a real shame. She had more
impact on people than anyone else in that office yet her work
didn't count.
4. Have you ever been or tried to be part of the literary
mainstream? Were you burned by corporate/academic
publishers?
JP: We compare notes. Our heroes have applied for every lit
grant and program---and been rejected. We're talking writers
with decades under their belts, with a global fan base, critical
acclaim---and ZERO access to the system. I'm involved right
now with a writer...who died...and his wife wants to publish a
new book of his work but his old NYC publisher won't let her...
yet they never spent a penny promoting the one book they did
for him. Ratfinks!
5. Do you think the writing coming out of underground zines are
better than that that is commercially published? Why?
JP: Sure---it's coming from real life, the life that most folks can
relate to. Zeensters don't write about elite English department
angst and summer homes in gated communities. Cynicism and
irony are kaput. There's too much good stuff going on.
6. What would happen to underground literature if it were to
become mainstream?
JP: Talent would get its due?
The world was missing out when Charlie Parker was playing in
tiny cellars. Charlie was, too---he coulda used a living wage.
The underground romantic to a point. While a star is learning.
But when they're ready to soar the whole culture needs them to
soar and the whole culture benefits from knowing their work.
They need to be let out of the cave. But they do NOT need to
have lawyers and marketers tell them how to make their art!
Underground art CAN survive the radical idea of its artists
making a living. If bold writers then occasionally get busted for
writing criminal thoughts they are as able to do jail-time as any
rock star can for stupid drugs.
James Michener said you can make a fortune but not a living
being a novelist---it's time to change that.
Undergrounders can take care of themselves. Bukowski and
Henry Miller stayed true even when they had steady food in the
fridge.
The market for literature would grow again. A whole art form
would regain lost relevance. It would be cool.
Black music finally got out of the ghetto. And folk music wasn't
hurt when the world was finally able to get easy access to it
thanks to the mainstream success of the Carter Family.
The world has nothing to lose by publishing and reviewing folk
WRITING for the first time ever.
Did you know that folk writing isn't considered real? Folk art is
still considered mostly illiterate. I think that's the reason they
use to deny the reality of folk writers. Folk music and folk
painting are called real. Folk writing, DIY publishing, is not
reviewed BY DEFINITION. It's not considered real writing!
Absurd! Especially in this Net age.
I tell ya it's disorienting to see "Banned Books Week" displays
that still exclusively focus on "To Kill a Mockingbird" and
Harry Potter and "the bad old days" and rural school district
goofiness when a whole huge sector of underground literature is
denied even its existence.
To be given permission to exist and then to be normally
reviewed---and even trashed---that's what underground folk
writers want first. The rest will take care of itself.
7. What are the advantages of Independent publishing over
corporate/academic publishing?
JP: It gives a chance for writing that has impact. The culture and
reality of nichification needs to be explored not just accepted.
Corpo-Academic publishing is a self-marginalized niche. What's
up with that? Indy lit is the ONLY place that has the perspective
to explore what's outside the worldview of corpo/uni media. You
can't ask the NYC lit scene itself why it's lame and get a
meaningful answer. New York just HATES it when we show that
they're not independent.
8. What, specifically, is wrong with contemporary mainstream
literature (perhaps explain what the ULA means by the
irrelevancy and lack of integrity in literature) ?
JP: Too many novels about exotica, nannies, grad students and
trendy diversity rather than more commonplace realities.
9. More importantly, what are these failings of mainstream lit.
doing to society?
JP: We can't see where we are. Literature has been said to be the
best way for a culture to look at itself and see what its options
are. Sounds good to me. Nothing else has tried to take that job.
Someone has to do it. But indy lit is the only way. Careerists
can't have perspective.
10. What is the purpose of literature? (Is there room for an
author to be self-gratifying in his work?)
JP: Sure! The purpose is testimony. A writer says how it was for
him or her. That's gotta feel good. Its success is when we can
relate to it. What sucks is when a great success in that regard is
stifled because it doesn't fit in with the career flowchart set up
today for writers. The prescribed range of who readers are even
allowed to try to relate to is twisted and restricted. Can you
believe what writers have to go thru? First, writers don't get to
write---they have to teach. Huh?
They usually get derailed by the power games there. Writing
screenplays for Hollywood is step two. Selling options. Then they
have to go on boring, exhausting reading tours (set up for the
kind of writers who aren't used to the road life, who can't
perform, who get peevish---"Where's my driver! I didn't order
this latte!"---it turns into a series of hotel/conference/trade-
show/autograph grinds).
It amounts to NOTHING. None of it! No academic publishing or
screenplay writing has meant a thing in the past few decades.
Bummer!
11. In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (though a feminist
herself), argued that the women's movement was conter-
productive to women's success in literature: women writers spent
their time ranting about their disadvantaged position and gender-
based injustices, rather than devoting that time and energy to
developing their craft. Do you think there is merit in this
statement, and do you think it applies in any way to the ULA?
JP: It's a good one. We have to take it to where it has led us
today. Ginny was rich, for one thing---so she actually only was
talking about women writers who have a "room of one's own"
and a trust-fund. True! Read what she said---she presumed the
room had a trust fund to support it. The world has grown so
much since Ginny.
A woman writer who tells the truth can only help the women's
movement---and every other justice movement. As soon as a
woman writer starts narrowing her work (lying!) to please first
her lady professor then her lady editor...it's DEAD no matter
what its politics are. By extension, an honest man writer helps
the women's movement as much as a woman can.
Well, you can tell I'm no politican---I see no necessary virtue in
any manipulation of art. Anyway, the next big thing in writers is
coming RIGHT NOW from writers who are janitors and
custodians. Non-union. And (one blink later) the unemployed.
These writers squeeze in writing when they can---in their rusty
car on the way to a temp job. No special rooms for them! That's
today's reality. The lessons that Ginny showed us from her point
of privilege need to keep extending down to everyone.
12. For what are the members of the ULA known best?
SK: Unbridled writing and unstoppable noisemaking. We're
contendas and we'll talk those bigshots into allowing some wild
new action into the ring that they're going to thank us for.
===============================================
UKULA magazine: www.ukula.com
Jeff Potter is ULA marketing director. He runs ULA PRESS
and OYB Books: http://outyourbackdoor.com/
===============================================
CLICK HERE TO READ THE PREVIOUS MONDAY REPORT!
GO HERE TO ENTER THE MONDAY REPORT BOX.
| Questions, Comments, Submissions? Email to: report@literaryrevolution.com |