King’s “Attacking the Demi-Puppets” blog has been running strong for years now. In it he parries and thrusts against the MFA wannabe’s who have ruined the literary scene in the USA.
There’s more antics and action here than in any other literary blog, I daresay. There are some fancy, chic, clever blogs out there trading gossip, being coy, snubbing this way and that.
King’s blog is not that.
He holds up Dickens, London, Conrad, Steinbeck and the like against today’s pretenders and says “Bring it on!”
He holds up the longtime censored and blacklisted champions of the underground and zeen scenes and says “Let’s rummmmmble!”
His blog entries of Nov. 12 and 13 *plus* his replies are inspiring reading. (I posted a couple pile-on/me-too replies, too.)
King is the PR flack for the tiny, farflung ULA (which I’m a member of). His noisemaking skills have gotten the ULA more attention than million-dollar PR firms have gotten for the ULA’s rivals. A poor little guy with a mouth. With nerve. It helps that he’s right.
The ULA itself is as mercurial as a game of bumperpool. It’s been hilarious. We’re a fiesty group of public activists, performers, writers, readers, publishers. Keep an eye on the ULA if you want in on a good measure of the fun in the US lit-scene today. King’s Demi-Puppet blog is a good place to watch. As is the ULA homepage, literaryrevolution.com.
We recently made hay with the relevation that the Paris Review was started as a CIA operation. This was followed by a confession to this effect from its first editor, the hallowed Peter Matthiessen—no hard feelings to his fans, but it’s essential to know the background of our literary elites. The CIA was an in-thing for 50’s cultural elites of a certain type of (financial) independence. Kinda makes ya wonder who’s funding Paris Review even now, as well as other parts of today’s equally elitist lit-scene.
In the 50’s the “PR” and other avante-garde journals (in every major Euro area) promoted (with CIA funds) modernism against the social realism of the Commies. This resulted in the inevitable publication of *bad* modern artists and the rejection of *good* realistic ones. This was followed by cultural confusion due to these journals working against their *stated* goals of quality, etc. Why put up so much bad stuff when there’s so much good art out there? (A good question for lit journals even today!) But see what artists who go against the grain have to put up with? Not nice is it. It makes them seem like they’re the crazy ones. Then we find out stuff like this! Of course, any ulterior ax to grind works as viciously as if it was CIA funding. Basically, the US lit-scene suffers because people publish for brown-nosing reasons rather than quality. A problem. Heck, the auto industry suffers from the same thing. It’s just CORRUPTION in another guise. We complain about it, and look down on it in Mexico and other developing nations, but it’s our doom just as much. And it’s the natural subject of the next relevant art. But who will publish it? (Think U…L…A… And no one else. Unless of course someone beats us to it. Likely?)
https://kingwenclas.blogspot.com/
