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Monday Report...
This week's report by Patrick Simonelli, ULA
*King Wenclas contributed to this report*
Daniel Handler Gets Snickety with King Wenclas
In this Monday Report we’ll find out what happens when Lemony Snicket,
David Sedaris, and a fake King Wenclas letter collide with the Underground
Literary Alliance! Yeah, it’s very weird, so pay attention. And no chain-
smoking or chortling until we’ve finished, please...
The August/September issue of the Ruminator features a David Sedaris
interview conducted by Daniel Handler. It starts off with the giggly pair of
writers talking about the trials and tribulations of flying first class. Sedaris
offers a woeful tale about a flight to Paris where a crying middle aged Polish
man disturbed his enjoyment of a very important film…
Sedaris: Well, this was first class. [laughs] We didn’t talk or anything when
he sat next to me, but he was crying. I was trying to watch this Chris Rock
movie, and it was so funny. I was trying to stop myself from laughing—
because it seemed so bad to laugh while he’s crying—but trying to stifle the
laugh just made it even more painfully funny. Of course, if someone you
love dies, you want the world to just stop. It doesn’t make sense that people
are shopping and watching movies. But I just couldn’t help myself.
As the interview proceeds, Sedaris and Handler fret about their self-
proclaimed lack of “any particularly useful skills,” then the next major topic;
auditioning for film roles, rears its heavily rouged head. Handler muses that
he nearly landed a part in Gigli, “the worst movie of all time,” while Sedaris
bitches about the time he had to read from a bad script for As Good As It
Gets. Awww, poor guys!
Fast forward a bit and we find David Sedaris complaining about a book tour
he went on years ago, where the most tip money he received in a night was
$160. He then humorously pulls envelopes of cash out of his pocket.
Next the pair chat about reading with your fly down, mock people who send
them self-published books to read, and finally, this inspiring exchange…
Sedaris:[laughs] I just feel lost when people come up to me after a reading,
during the book signing, and explain that they can’t afford to buy a copy of
my book, but here’s this manuscript they’d really like to get published. I just
can’t relate to them at all. I don’t understand where they’re coming from, but
I feel so bad. I mean, if you write a book and nobody reads it, you can tell
yourself that you’re a genius—so smart and so good—but you’re just not
appreciated. But if your books do well, there’s guilt that comes with it. I feel
like, if people are spending their money on my book, that’s why they’re not
buying their book. If my book’s doing well, someone else’s must not be. Do
you ever feel that way?
Handler: Guilty? Certainly, but mine goes in a completely different direction.
It took me years to get published at all, (ULA note: Handler is only 35 years
old and has already published at least 15 books) and I spent those years
getting more and more bitter—I guess, in order to prep myself for giving up.
I used to tell myself, “I don’t really want to be on the bestseller list, because
there’s never anything good there.” The problem is, if I do better do I have
to revise my opinion? Either the bestseller list got much better…
Sedaris: I was the same way. And once you’re on the list, you find yourself
saying, “Well, Jackie Collins isn’t so bad.”
Then the philosophical duo gets on to the subject of hate mail…
Handler: [laughs] I just got a great hate letter [Read Here] … Really crazy.
Sedaris: Wow. [laughs] This is really beautiful. [reading aloud] “You and all
your rich little friends will be flat cartoons on the street.” Yeah, that’s a hate
letter all right. And it’s not even really a letter you can respond to.
Handler: [laughing] That’s true.
The King Wenclas “hate letter” Handler presents is a fake, slightly
humorous, but mostly misleading and offensive. Since when is it
permissible to write an expletive-sprinkled letter in someone else’s
name and present it as the real thing? In his interview intro, Handler says,
“I brought with me a handful of items people have sent me recently.
I believe the term for these items is 'icebreakers.' ” Perhaps Sedaris and
Handler have an understanding that they’re actors in a make-believe play
session (or perhaps not…it’s unclear from Sedaris’s reaction whether he
thinks the letter is authentic or not), but what about the perception of
everyone else who reads this interview?
An effective spoof wouldn’t need to be signed with the target’s actual name.
The fact that it’s signed “King Wenclas” leads one to believe that this letter
wasn’t quite formed in jest, but rather as an intentional effort to smear King’s
name, and the ULA’s by association.
And what’s the deal with signing it with an X? What does X really represent
in this context? The real King Wenclas raises the accusation that it’s a
classist gesture that makes light of illiteracy. As Wenclas wrote on his blog,
“You see, the rampant snobbery of people like Handler and David Sedaris,
caught up in the wonderfulness of their own talents, will automatically
dismiss all those not exactly like them. There may be a billion people alive
today who are "illiterate"-- yet does this mean they're unintelligent, or can't
communicate?” He also points out the oral tradition that sustained early
“literature,” in times when the overwhelming majority of the population
were unable to read or write.
Let’s take one more peek back at the interview, still on the topic of “hate
mail”…
Sedaris: I got a letter from this woman who started by saying, “I’ve got a
very good sense of humor—everybody tells me how good my sense of
humor is. My sister recommended that I read your book, so I read your
story, ‘Merry Christmas to Our Friends and Family.’ I just want to know how
any writer could think it’s funny that somebody would find a dead baby in a
washing machine.”
I wrote her back: “The baby was found in the dryer, not the washing
machine. And that’s funny. Now, in the washing machine… I’m with you on
that. But the dryer? That’s funny.”
Yeah, real funny. Given the enormous amount of publicity and accolades
David Sedaris has received over the years, you probably already know
enough about him and his work. But let’s take a closer look at Daniel Handler.
Handler was born in 1970 in San Francisco, where he still resides. He’s
written screen plays, including Kill the Poor, based on a novel by Joel Rose,
and several books including Basic Eight and Watch Your Mouth. His greatest
claim to fame so far has come writing a dozen childrens’ books for Harper
Collins under his pen name Lemony Snicket. His books inspired last year’s
film, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Mr. Handler/Snicket has several interesting ties to individuals and cliques
who have crossed pens with King Wenclas and the ULA. He’s had close ties
to Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia for years, frequently lecturing and reading
alongside The Dave. This December McSweeney’s will release Handler’s
book How to Dress for Every Occasion by the Pope.
Handler’s written for the Believer, and is a big fan of writer Philip Roth. In
October 2004, he gave a glowing review to Roth’s book The Plot Against
America in the San Francisco Chronicle. Around the same time, King
Wenclas panned the book on his blog, to some outrage from anonymous
commentators. Also, Handler, Eggers, and (wait for it…) Rick Moody have all
written lyrics for the gimmicky McSweeney’s-backed band One Ring Zero.
These are all curious connections, to say the least.
This fake Wenclas letter presented by Handler in the Ruminator is the latest
down & dirty attack against the ULA by high profile writers, especially the
McSweeney’s crowd. King Wenclas compiled this partial list of recent
incidents:
* “After the ULA's "Firecracker Awards" protest, our house publication Slush
Pile being excluded from bookstores with close ties to Dave Eggers. (Such
as Atomic Books in Baltimore.)
*The poorly researched 2003 Tom Bissell hatchet job on the ULA, filled with
inaccuracies, which appeared in The Believer.
*The January 2004 revelation, discussed on the front page of the New York
Times, that Dave Eggers had been personally attacking the ULA
anonymously on Amazon.
*The bizarre Rick Moody short story about Philadelphia, "Free Library," in a
2004 issue of Ploughshares. The story includes a character modeled after
me, with details about my life which could've been obtained only through
investigation, or from a close source.
*In 2005 the campaign against myself and the ULA has heated up, as
evidenced by the steady variety of attacks on this blog. We've seen phony
ULA sites, mad anonymous posts, and imitation Demi-Puppet blogs.
SOMEONE has been investing a great deal of time in mocking us. The posts
and fake blogs don't appear spontaneously on their own.”
This doesn’t even mention some of the antics of our lighthearted lit-blogger
friends, who never seem to let truth and fair play get in the way of a good
poke at the ULA. And what about Ruminator’s lack of concern in publishing
the fake letter presented by Handler? The mag claims to be “the love child
of Salon.com and Harper’s” (a publication that has been blasted by Wenclas
on his blog).
Since the King was the target of this latest attack, we’ll let him sum up what
all this means… “A trivial matter, no doubt, but it DOES reinforce the notion
that for many of this country's trendiest writers, truth has no meaning. Which
leaves them free to construct phony letters, fake other writings, plagiarize,
and further reinforce and add to the widespread dishonesty and phoniness
of American society-- which of course we experience every day on our TV
screens. "Why should writers be any different?" seems to be the thinking…I
do believe that in the back of their minds, people like Handler and his
friends, who get a chuckle at what we're doing, are bothered by what we
represent...This matter, if nothing else, is a test to see if ANYONE in the lit-
realm has integrity.”
“The ULA campaign itself is a test to see if the literary world of today can
tolerate alternative ideas. So far, it's failing the test, big-time.”
UPDATES to this report, added 9/12/05 & 9/15/05:
1) From the King Wenclas blog, Ruminator Response (9/8/05):
Today I received this response to my query about the fake letter in the
Ruminator:
"We printed a scanned version of the original letter sent to Daniel Handler.
Thank you for your comment, Susannah McNeely, Editor."
In my reply to this, I said, in part, "Sent to him by who??? Again, I didn't
write or send that." --King Wenclas
2) Maud Newton posts on this incident, but totally misses the point, and
seizes the opportunity to take irrelevant snipes at King Wenclas. (9/8/05)
3) From the King Wenclas blog, Response from Daniel Handler (9/12/05):
Since my last post on this matter, I've received an e-mail from Daniel
Handler stating that the fake letter was forwarded to him from his publisher.
He also says he's since received another. Handler says he doesn't care
about the letters, that he has other things to do, etc. I have to point out that
he cared enough to pass it around at parties, and include it in the Sedaris
interview, as if it was a big joke. --King Wenclas
4) Wenclas offers solid proof that he told Daniel Handler he didn't write the
"hate letter" more than a month before the Ruminator interview was
published. Yet, Handler and Ruminator presented the fake letter anyway.
Click HERE and HERE to read the Wenclas blog posts on this matter. (9/14/05)
5) After much pressure from the ULA, Ruminator agrees to add a disclaimer
to the fake letter in their next issue. Click HERE to read more. (9/22/05)
The question remains as to who authored & sent the letter(s).
It's clear, however, that Daniel Handler and Ruminator are at
least guilty of being totally irresponsible.
Far as the ULA is concerned, if the Ruminator prints a correction, this matter
will be settled. Anyone interested in truth and fair play is welcome to contact
the Ruminator and urge them to correct this situation.
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