Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Unstoppable Mo

THE ULA'S UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM

Sometimes I feel like an inventor who helped design and put a project together, then to watch the project move off on its own-- often in its own direction.

The ULA can't be stopped despite all its enemies and all the sometimes best efforts of characters like myself who have care of it.

As Example: Witness the big Wred Fright and Crazy Carl Robinson book tour, WHICH WILL arrive in Philadelphia Wednesday July 18th 7 p.m. at Germ Books at 2005 Frankford Avenue in Fishtown. The excitement of this tour puts the fledgling ULA Press at the forefront of small press happenings in this nation.

The ULA Lives! One can't ignore reality. The building ULA "New Wave" can't be denied. Join the Excitement-- Catch the Wave of Today's New Literature.

(More Info at: www.literaryrevolution.com, www.ulapress.com, www.wredfright.com.)

THE ULA NOW!

2 comments:

LongIslandNation said...

Please, sir, a comment/analysis on the Salon article, "The Struggle for Independents" and how the bankruptcy of Advanced Marketing Services/Publishers Group West has affected McSweeny's.

The link is here:

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/06/21/independent_press/

King Wenclas said...

It's an interesting article.
Who has taken over Soft Skull?
These entities are certainly not intellectually independent. They've been completely tied in to the status quo all along (Soft Skull since Nash bought it). McSweeney's after all was begun by a rich guy who networked assiduously the richest or most connected "Insider" writers in the country; young New Yorker-published writers especially. Very tied into the literary establishment.
It's not as if McSweeney's offers or has ever offered an alternative voice. If by some quirk it went under (I'd guess its financial troubles are strongly exaggerated), Eggers, Vendela, and the entire crowd of privileged darlings they spotlight would easily find other venues. What would be the loss?
(Would anyone really miss fakes like John Hodgman if by some miracle he did vanish?)
Isn't Eggers involved with scores of book deals with the conglomerates now? McSweeney's would become an imprint of one of them. (Right now it's practically an imprint of ALL of them.)
People need to grow up and learn something about the interlockings of business and realize the pose of McS's as an "independent" "small press" is largely pose, if not scam.
Or, don't buy the hype.
BUT, if these glamorous rich folks and their pet projects even have occasional financial stumbles-- what about writers like those in the ULA who exist in the bottom levels of society; who have no cushy deals with the Big Guys; who have little financial resources to start with and work ultra-shitty jobs to try to obtain some-- usually just to survive?
Oh, boo hoo, everyone's crying for poor Dave and Vendela-- a few less jumbo shrimp at the next mansion reading outside San Fran-- while not even acknowledging that true DIY independents even exist.
We're not going anywhere, because we've learned how to survive on nothing-- financial setbacks are moderated when you have no financial resources to start with. . . .
(I hope you've been keeping up on this blog's Movie Serial, about the Eggers Gang and such, which is in the process of being moved to a separate blog whose location is for now a mystery.)