B184-DES128
Discursive Discontents
Copyright Ó by Dan Schneider, 1/8/05

Appara-Chick     Hipsters     Sciolism     Sayonara     Epilogue     Dean Esmay Update   Reactions

  Many years ago I would, in my pre-teens and teens, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, watch the occasional debates on tv that were aired on PBS. This was long before cable tv rose to prominence and C-Span broadcast such things as political fora. My favorite such show was the William F. Buckley Firing Line debates, not because I agreed with Buckley’s views, but because it was the only such place where actual debates were broadcast. Yes, there were shows like The David Susskind Show, or Tomorrow, with Tom Snyder, that good discussion would take place, but only in Buckley’s purview would there be prescribed rules and proscribed transgressions. While some real debate experts would challenge the idea that they were formal debates, for there was no weighting of points, nor any other such minutia, there was no denying the educational value of having a Buckley and his three or four Republican and Conservative allies tweak his opponents, usually a group of Liberals and Moderates headed by a ‘name’ such as 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator George McGovern, from South Dakota, or, later, another failed Presidential hopeful, Senator Gary Hart, from Colorado.

  There was no shouting down, booing nor hissing, there were no deliberate personal potshots, and only attacks against ideas, separate from their proponents. Buckley could often win a debate on dialectic skill alone, even if he was substantively wrong on the facts, and my favorite parts were always when someone might utterly nail him on a point that was irrefutable. Buckley, sensing he was hemmed in, did not rage, nor lash out in a puerile fashion, but, gracefully counterpointed with wit, if not grudging concession. And that was his grace. Even if one thought his points racist, classist, or the like, his grace of wit made you not angry at the man, merely how such a capable man could be dead wrong.

  Yet, discourse, today, is dead. Anger, rage, accusation, and a lack of a common center, have made it near impossible to discourse. To me, an even worse casualty than discourse, itself, has fallen to dust- that of wit, Bill Buckley’s strongest asset. There was a time when an Oscar Wilde could exist, and even knowing his strengths and flaws, differing views could appreciate his wit, even at the end of its barb. Today, he would be pummeled by the merciless benighted zombies that dominate the reprehensibly exploitative tv talk shows like Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Montel Williams, or hosts of lesser shows- which are almost all uniformly Left Wing, the raging troglodytes that inhabit talk radio and cable tv political shows- almost uniformly Right Wing, save for NPR, which is so banal and inoffensive that it is beyond being Left Wing or PC, and just plain old bad and dull, and the hordes of online bloggers and chatrooms which make the aforementioned ‘professionals’ seem, indeed, professional, if not dignified, by comparison. The most manifest thing that assails the reader of these chatrooms or blogs is that their posters are overwhelmingly vicious, ill-informed, not to mention they cannot even construct parsable sentences, much less arguments. And this cuts across politics, religion, genres like sci fi or horror fans, tv cults centered around sites like Jump The Shark, or shows like American Idol. The vitriol with which contestants on that show have been assailed is enormous. And usually for no demonstrable reason relating to their vocal abilities- more likely their look (too fat or too beautiful), or intangible personal biases based upon the poster’s own failings or rumors that have thinned out so much that they are like water at a blood bank.

  There are occasional respites, of course, but there is no towering figure like Bill Buckley on the horizon. The best of the bunch, it seems, are political moderates like John McLaughlin, on the entertaining and fun The McLaughlin Group- although it’s worth noting that show is from a different era, nearly a quarter of a century on the air, or the occasional level-headed punditry of Log Cabin Republican Patrick Guerrierro, Newshour regular Mark Shields, or ex-Nixonite Kevin Phillips- a semi-regular on the reprehensibly hypocritical, and massively disingenuous, but thankfully put out to pasture poseur, Bill Moyers’ tv show Now. Yet, aside from them, and perhaps a handful of other level-headed folk, moderates, and fair-minded folk of all stripes, have little place to turn.

  Certainly the stoop-kneed, and hilariously mislabeled ‘Liberal Media’ of the mainstream offer little. Fox News, at least, makes no real claims to hide its right wing bias- its ‘fair and balanced’ claim a widely recognized industry in-joke. CNN, at least the few times I’ve seen it in airports or when local tv stations have tapped into its Headline News for cheap filler, is not Fox’s Left Wing counterpoint, as much as an oddly robotic, formulaic, and sterile near-parody of the news- something that was in the 1980s seen as parody in the ‘graphic novels’ of a Frank Miller. Somewhere Ted Baxter, from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show sitcom, has had his revenge.

  Then there is the culprit, the presumed ‘smoking gun’ of the Right Wing’s charge- CBS News and Dan Rather, and their ‘Rathergate’ mishandling of the story of President Bush’s chickenhawk adventures in the Texas and Alabama Air National Guards. The real story is that Rather, foolishly, in his zeal for a big story, accepted copied documents- an absolute and iron-clad journalistic prohibition, from a known Bush enemy, as genuine, without seeing the real thing. In short, many pro-Bush bloggers claimed that they were faked because typewriters in the early 1970s were incapable of super- or suprascript, ^{like this}. It was also claimed that the Times New Roman font was only developed years later, after the computer. Both claims were soon and easily proven false, but Rather’s gaffe was a classic case of him getting ‘Gotcha’d’ on the front page, and the possible retracted truths getting page 78 small pica point print. Thus the legend was born. I know it’s a legend personally because in the early 1970s my mom had a behemoth (30-40 lbs.) of an electric typewriter, from an old job, that did have suprascript- and it was probably from the mid-late 1960s! Yes, there’s no doubt Rather has always been liberal and especially disdainful of the Bushes- see his 1988 row with the elder President Bush, but none of this disputes the substantive charges of the documents, nor the fact the younger Bush got preferential treatment to get out of the war, a war he supported, but would not put his money where his mouth was. None of this would have been a big deal had he been a vocal opponent of the war, or gone to college to avoid the draft, like President Clinton.

  But, Rather’s guilt and flaws as a journalist, not to mention bizarre personal escapades- his late ‘80s beating by a tormentor assailing him with the query of ‘What’s the frequency, Kenneth?’ ranking right alongside with New York Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner’s 1981 World series claim of kicking an LA Dodger fan’s ass on the wacko scale, do not tar all of CBS News, for he wielded significant heft there. His one gaffe has since cost him his career as anchorman, as he has announced his retirement in mid-2005. That network news, like the others, goes where the ratings lead- they gave Reagan a pass for years until the corruption of Iran-Contra was beyond ignorance, they rah-rahed Gulf War 1, they relished in the salacity of the Clinton-Lewinsky fellatio melodrama, and utterly abdicated their journalistic duties after 9/11, and the manifest, and many, in retrospect to the public, lies and distortions that got us into the current Iraq mess.

  As for NBC News? I think it’s pretty hard to argue that Tom Brokaw was a Liberal, especially after his ultra-nationalistic and hagiographic odes to war on the Greatest Generation. He seems to have accepted the ‘fact’ that the World War 2 Generation were veritable saints while the Baby Boomers were decadent, hedonistoic hippies. Yet, the Baby Boomers both fought in a war they were told was honorable, helped end it when that was proved a lie, and played crucial roles in the Civil Rights movement, women’s movement, and gay rights movements, while the Greatest Generation was utterly content with segregation, Eisenhoverian conformity, and the denial of sexuality as a vital part of the human makeup. Now, with his mumbling, speech-impedimented, self retired, I hope Brian Williams- already a vast improvement in my book, will bring real journalism back to that show.

  ABC News, however, is the worst of all. The cyberworld has been abuzz with the claim that its anchorman, Peter Jennings, joined a Born Again cult a few years back, which would explain both his and the network’s Jesus obsession over the last few years, laced with falsehoods and half-truths worthy of being called Von Dänikenesque. How any such person, or organization that peddles such can be called Liberal, in the pejorative political sense, is a further indication of the erosion of discourse. Black is polka dot, and white is fuchsia, and when yellow appears I’ll be in Scotland afore ye!

  But, even were we to assume that all the anchors and reporters were Liberal, there is still the plantation model- that being that no one has ever accused Viacom, Disney, or General Electric of being filled with anything but bloodless corporatistas, who skew heavily Republican, and control content and purse strings in all but those few cases where a rather is willing to bank his career on a piece. When asked to point to Liberal bias in the reporting of stories, the Right falls back on the canard, ‘It’s not that bias exists in reporting a story, just in what stories they choose to cover.’ This fallaciously presupposes that a news story on someone scammed by a con artist, someone suffering because of Vioxx, or some other FDA approved drug, or the unfairness of taxes on the middle class vis-à-vis the wealthy or a corporation that gets ‘aid’- aka ‘corporate welfare’, is inherently political, rather than the journalistically defensible reportage of fairness and ethics. This mixture of mere ethics with a political point of view, is symptomatic of the twist into illogic that many who now traffic in dialectic pursue. Of course, the fact that a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet are far more likely to have a news story, or interview (de facto infomercials), broadcast about them, rather than a labor leader or community activist like Cesar Chavez (are there any?) is not seen as political, even though the arguments against that are equal to or greater than those lobbed against the ethics-based tales.

  There is not even an outlet, to my knowledge, on the Big 4 networks for such a thing as the old Point/Counterpoint segment on 60 Minutes. It is because of this collective dearth online and on-air, that I write this piece, using mainly the assorted online correspondence I had with a number of folk late last year, toward the end of 2004, both in online postings, essays, and blogs, and emails. I fully admit this is my collective riposte against the barbarians of the Left Wing artistes, and the Right Wing politico nuts, but that does not invalidate the charges I will make, and detail, nor make my Moderate stance somehow as fecal as theirs. Of course, these are my interpretations, but I am confident that my case will be overwhelmingly made with the selections of interactions I have chosen- most from the arts and poetry world, and one from the world of political blogging. The only editing I have done have been on some of my own typos, as I feel free to scratch the itch I get re: that. I have not altered a single letter, misspelling, nor punctuation mark, in the words of others- not to show their ignorance for a ‘gotcha’ moment of my own, but, because there have been those who have accused me, even in correcting such a thing, in the past, in a return email thread, of being dishonest. You will, of course, have to take my word on it. However, I think those who opposed me will admit that I have been honorable in that sphere, even as they may damn my soul for my opinions, and even worse, for my ability to best them in dialectic. Is there any greater rage than an insecure person knowing they lost fairly, with nothing to blame but their own lack?

  If you can bear with the manifest silliness and vitriol that many of those I will showcase harbor, and put up with the length of this piece- but I need to quote in full, I think you will get a good cross-section of the online state of discourse in the early Third Millennium, especially those who are reading this decades or centuries hence in my Collected Works, or in some form of online archive, or repository of human knowledge that will supersede the Internet. Excelsior!

Appara-Chick

  One of the most noxious sorts of people to deal with in a discursive way are the willfully benighted bastions of culturata- those self-appointed guardians who labor as editors or publishers or curators. While they are always anxious to get others to support their, at best, questionable wares, they show almost no interest in what those outside their purview have to offer.

  Such was the classic case of this email solicitation I received a while back, doubtlessly due to a mention, a month earlier, of Cosmoetica in the New York Times, and posted on my contact form: 

T1: Erika Kuebler Rippeteau
T2: (her email)
B1: Submit
Dear Dan,

I wonder if you know the work of Ted Kooser, the new U. S. Poet Laureate and the first poet from the Great Plains to hold that job? The University of Nebraska Press is publishing his new book, "The Poetry Home Repair Manual," in February 2005, and I would love to send you a galley. Here's a link to our website for more information: http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/featureTopics/tedKooser/index1.jsp

Best,
Erika Kuebler Rippeteau
Publicity Manager
University of Nebraska Press

  Manifestly, Ms. Rippeteau was merely gleaning as many poetry websites online as she could, without hint, nor care of their essence, to publicize her book. Which is fine. Except it never occurred to her to even skim my website, manifesting the annoying tendency to not even have an idea of what I, or Cosmoetica, was about. This is akin to me submitting poetry to a site that only wants Buddhist poetry by Tibetans. I recall last summer I got an email from a fellow who wanted to pick my brains about the life and times of Julian Jaynes, the scholar whose book I reviewed. I told the fellow I merely got a book, and reviewed it, but he seemed shocked that I would not venture an opinion into areas of the man’s personal and political life I knew not of. Yet, to me, this was eminently sensible. I do not opine on that I know not of. I am no sciolist- or know-it-all. Yet, when I do declaim, you can take it to the bank. I stick by my assessment of Jaynes’ books worth and failures, but could not expound upon the man, and referred him to the author’s online society. Yet, the man was stunned that I refused to preen.

  Thus, the first symptom of dialectic discourse- people who speak of things they know little or nothing of, and subsequently hang themselves. Thus it was with Ms. Rippeteau, who I am sure was utterly nonplussed by my reply: 

  Well, before you do I have to be fair & tell you I have an upcoming essay on Kooser in my This Old Poem section that'll probably hit before year’s end. Unfortunately I don't think he holds a candle to such great Nebraska poets as James Emanuel nor Weldon Kees. BTW- I’d suggest you look into doing a volume on Mr. Emanuel’s work. He is a long neglected poet whose work & reputation I’ve helped resuscitate online.  I can put you in contact with him and his people if ever interested. Kooser is not so much a bad poet as a poet that seems passable by comparison to the horror that’s published. Even the foolishly oft-derided John G. Neihardt I’d consider far better.
  That said, if you still wanna send me his book I’ll read it, & perhaps review it, but I leave the choice to you. Unless old Ted has been hiding a career’s worth of Frostian masterpieces I doubt whether he’ll change my opinion of that part of his corpus I’m aware of. Also, if I review it, and it’s bad, I have no hesitation to say so, & show in excruciating detail why. My point is I’m not some mindless, career-minded blurbist. But, I am fair. Let me know. Here’s the upcoming essay. DAN 

  Of course, history will side with my judgment on Kooser’s work, but the point is that in a single response I have done something that is almost non-existent in today’s dialectical environment- I have been honest, and fair. As we proceed, you will see just how rare that is.

  Now, were I to receive such an email, I would take it as a challenge that this work will win over a critic. But, I would also go out of my way to find fair-minded critics who, however wrong, in judgment, I might rely on, to possibly tweak the book, make better editorial judgments and the like. Surely, you do not expect that that was the case, do you? Here was the reply I received:

Hi Dan,
Thanks for your note and for forwarding your essay on Ted Kooser. I think we'll take a pass on sending you the new book.
Cheers,
Erika

Erika Kuebler Rippeteau
Publicity Manager
University of Nebraska Press
www.nebraskapress.unl.edu
Publishers of Bison Books

  To her credit, at least Ms. Rippeteau is nice in her spurning of my counter-offer. Yet, there is manifest cowardice in such a reply that troubles. There is a lack of engaging ideas and debating things to their essence- pro and con. That I am not a typical game-player should, one would hope, fire her even more to win me over with the wealth of excellence Kooser has- if she really believes it. My critique of Kooser is eminently fair.

  Apparatchiks, like Ms. Rippeteau, who may well be a lovely and otherwise intelligent lady, outside her shilling for a bad poet (perhaps mere professional necessity), have no real reason to compromise, to engage. They have the power, however meager and delimited by circumstance, not the people they seek to proselytize. Yes, it might, indeed, advance my career, heighten my chances to get a ‘name’, or a book published, were I to trot off a banal blurb for Kooser’s mediocre poetry, at best. Yet, there is a sense of integrity that would be lost- that oneness that seems to have so little truck with the online hordes, and the incredibly soulless sorts who work in publishing, and worse- its online equivalents.

  Not to mention that such folk as Ms. Rippetteau most likely really do have little idea that they are peddling garbage, dumbing down both discourse, and the level of intellect, by their very mercantilism. Is there much difference between her and the hucksters that sell mindless video games, porno films, or even drugs, cigarets, or fast food? To me, it’s a difference of mere degree, not kind. Others may argue, but I think they go hand in hand, with all leading to a rot of one or more portion of a person. Video games and porno merely make infantilism a desired state. Is pretending you’re a gangsta or Johnny Wadd really something that expands? Is taking drugs, smoking, or gorging on Big Macs, and ruining your health, good? So, too, I say that lacing your mind with bad art, and wasting that time, better served in ameliorative ways, is bad.

  My retort to the Cosmoetica email list:   

Oh, to be a career-minded dishonest blurbist. I'd get free books! I’m too damned honest!  DAN

  And it’s true- I am too damned honest. People, nowadays, want flattery and sycophancy. It’s a form of currency, most obviously perpetuated in book blurbery. Note, that she shows no interest in finding out more about the poet Emanuel, and I doubt she has ever heard of him, nor the even older Neihardt. This is another aspect of discourse, the disdain, and eschewment of seeking out knowledge. As I will show, there is also the damning of those who do seek it out, but another feature that has killed discourse is the desire to seek- be it knowledge without, or within, to ask why another disagrees with you, or not.

  Then, there are those that not only choose ignorance, but revel in it, and anger at anyone who challenges their view. If Ms. Rippeteau and her kind are the most powerful folk in the dialectic arenas, but also the least willing to probe and discourse- they are the willfully ignorant. Their opposites are those with little or no power, who are, at best fringe elements, who delude themselves that they have knowledge- sciolism- and power- megalomania. Their hallmarks are rage at those above them who do not see their ‘genius, worth, or the like, and those below them, who do not pay them homage, fealty, or show ‘gratitude’ for their presence on the planet.

  These are the hipsters, the cool boys, usually classic nerds or geeks who set up their online power bases to remake themselves online into what they have failed to do in the real world. They haunt and harangue chatrooms, send obscene emails to those who disagree, exert their power by technoratic means, to spam enemies, and belittle anyone who dares violate whatever territory they’ve piss-marked. Let’s look at a couple of them next.

Hipsters

  Next I want to delve into some of the exchanges I’ve had when I’ve sent around work for posting on other sites- be it articles, reviews, or some of my memoirs. I fully realize that most of the sites online are filled with poor writing, run by people whose ability to write and read are often very minimal, who mistake Political Correctness, or having good intentions with good art. Some folk, though, are just plain idiots- they are out on a limb, like Shirley MacLaine, obviously suffering from delusions, or other mental ills, or just plain nasty. There’s no need for nastiness in dealing with rejecting a person’s writing. A simple ‘no thanks’ is best. However, when you are a single person and run a popular website, like Cosmoetica, sometimes that is not an option, so, on my Vers Magnifique page I post the explanation below:

Cosmoetica seeks to post excellent poems from all over the world. Vers Magnifique is dedicated to those poets of quality. See the rest of the poems on Cosmoetica for a sampling of the quality & diversity sought. Although quality is the top priority poems under 2 pages in length & not as visually complex stand the best chance of appearing. Poets must allow their name, & place of origin (city/state/country- but not actual address!) to be posted- a brief bio/artistic statement may be a nice feature; but not required. Also, if the poet has a website they can have Cosmoetica link to it. If chosen the poems will be posted ASAP. Dan Schneider may comment on the poem's quality & why it was chosen. How to submit? Paste the poems within the email or attach them via WORD, or fill out the form below. All submissions are appreciated. Those rejected can request a reason why & if time allows Dan may comment on why the poem was rejected. Thanks!

[To those many who have sent poems to me but not received comment back on it is because of 1 of 3 reasons: 1) I'm too busy- in life generally & my own writing. 2) Most of the submitted poems have been so amateurish & terrible that when I've commented back upon them the doggerelists who submitted get pissed & send nasty emails.  3) Both 1 & 2. PLEASE- look at the quality & diversity of writing on the site- from me to my wife to the UPG & TC Poets to the Neglected poets. Read some of the poetry essays I've written. I am not running a poetry clinic. If your stuff is obviously nowhere near passable I will probably not waste time to comment on it, especially since my words will not be used constructively but as a reason to pout. I will give advice to those poems that have potential & need some reworking, &- of course- post poems that are already excellent. I apologize if feelings are hurt by this warning, but too bad. There are literally 1000s of other outlets online to publish garbage- this is not 1 of them!]

  Although I’ve gotten no great poems in the four years of Cosmoetica’s online life, all the poems herein are technically defensible as good, solid poems. There simply is no reason for me to go out of my way to demean someone’s poetry when it’s not up to even passable standards. So, of every thousand poems I get submitted, I post perhaps one or two. And while I’ve not the time to comment on all poems there have been a handful of promising and/or persistent poets that I have given appreciated advice to.

  The first half is notable because I do not encourage people to emulate the diverse poems they see on the site, merely the quality- a big difference from the majority of poetry websites, while the second half- a tad more sarcastic, was written in a bout of frustration where I was literally getting a dozen or so bad poems a day, and ten of the twelve poetasters haranguing me for critiques, or damning me for having the gall to be truthful that they were not a budding Plath or Rilke. I’d’ve removed it save for one thing- it cut the flow of bad poetry submitted by about 98%.

  Yet, I’ve never been nasty re: poetry, even bad- I respect the art form too much. Nor have I ever jeered a poet onstage, as is the wont at poetry slams. In short, I have always respected the honest attempt to make a poem, if not the result. Such is not always the case. A number of very insecure, and bad writers have abandoned the idea that they should show some tact and helpfulness regarding poor writing. They see it as cool to be cruel, and justify it by saying that pc slugs need to be counterbalanced by insensitive thugs. Now, to someone like me it matters not, but many a writer I know has been curtailed by bad criticism. And by ‘bad’ I do not mean that the comment is the work is bad, I mean criticism that does not elucidate the writing, nor help the writer. There is bad ‘positive’ criticism of bad writing, and bad ‘negative’ criticism of good writing, not to mention the very tone in which that criticism, pro or con, good or bad, is delivered.

  The first bad critic, and nasty rejecter I’ll touch upon is a fellow named Drew Burk, who is an editor for an online website called Spork. It’s merely one of several hundred of the thousands of online magazines out there and one evening I submitted one of my memoir pieces to the magazine. Usually such places decree they want ‘No Simultaneous Submissions!’, meaning they want to be able to waste your time looking over work, while no one else can. Of course, it’s a known fact that only the very newest of comers to the writing field heed such nonsense, because at that rate no one would ever get a piece published or posted.

  My piece is called ‘Beyond Those Swans: Missive For Annie Mendes’. It is about 5200 words long and recounts my on-again, off-again quasi-romance with an emotionally troubled Nuyorican poetess back in the 1980s. It’s a terrific piece, in a quasi-missive form, from my third book of memoirs- filled with insight, humor, and parallax to other areas of my life. Here are the first three paragraphs:

  Annie, if you ever read this- know I never forgot you. Where you are I do not know, but I feel a need to speak of you. This letter designed to let you know I still care. Forgive I will let others in on your past, but it is also my past, & I have a right to it, as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  I 1^st met Annie Mendes at Aqueduct racetrack, as sexy a woman as I ever laid eyes on- 5’3”, olive skin, short, cropped hair- almost a Navy cut, revealing the longest, sexiest nape ever seen on a woman, large full lips, black leather miniskirt revealing muscular little legs flexing as she leans against & away from the rail, & deep blue eyes- whose colors I rarely remember- that sear because of the contrast with the rest of her person. They should have been deep brown, but they were blue, & leaning over the rail of the track before the 1^st race. I watched the figure she cut as Trench Norton snuck up behind me. ‘Quite a fuckin’ piece, eh?’ he whispered. ‘Yeah, who is she?’ Trench told me her name- she was the girlfriend of Jack Zito’s older brother, Bob, a bit older than us, because Bob was 5 years older than Jack, who was our age.

  Jack Zito was a tall Italian kid who had a lucrative job as stableboy here & at Belmont racetrack. Jack’s job was great because he got it via New Wave mobster Eli Carbo, who was scamming a fortune off the ponies with a cocktail that could kybosh the ability of a horse to perform its best. Over the decades similar cocktails were tried, but all were easily detectable. Carbo’s was not. Jack was his ‘inside man’. Every few days, during select races, Jack would dope the 2 or 3 favorites, so Carbo could bet heavily on the field & clean up. The drugs were undetectable, but suspicious betting patterns had to be forestalled, lest tip off the New York State Racing Authorities. Over a year passed- not a single horse Carbo doped was ever tested for suspicious behavior. It was foolproof, & ingratiated Carbo with the Gambino crime family, headed by Pauly Castellano. For a while Carbo seemed on his way to being made in the clan.

  Note that the first paragraph serves as a de facto epigraph, that immediately tells the reader there is trauma and regret coming, yet the characters are separated by time and space, now, yet the writer- ostensibly me- then changes gears- a sign that old habits of dealing with the mentioned woman are not easy to break. This sets, in a short paragraph, an emotional tenor, and expectations that may be met and/or subverted. Right away, we start off the story with a very distinct start.

  In the first narrative paragraph we get a classic noir opening- something that a Mickey Spillane may have written, as well as some more background. The last paragraph quoted introduces two major characters in the tale, and a feeling that we may be reading the start of a heist story, rather than a failed romance.

  So, in three paragraphs we get a tableau laid out, a classic scene, and then subversion of expectation. This is not exactly a routine occurrence in modern storytelling, but it’s something that most people will want to read on, for seeming archetypes of characters are mixed with characters you’d not normally associate together- racetracks are an overwhelmingly male dominion, while the narrative tropes’ being at odds with each other set up a tension that needs to be resolved. Tension is what sours readers onward. In short- this is a terrific start. The rest of the tale, and its end, are equal to the start- but superfluous in terms of the point needed to be made.

  Anyone outside of someone not weaned from banal workshop conventions, nor relentlessly hipster in their nature, and subject to its own clichés, would- or should- welcome such a break from convention. Not so with Spork, and Drew Burk. Less than fifteen minutes after sending off my emailed submission I got this email in return:

  Uh... no.

  You’re lacking in the depth and style departments. Most problematic: you did not reach deep into me and refashion my soul in your own image. At best you scuffed my shoe, but I'm wearing steel-toed boots, so it’s all for naught... knot not.
  If this piece is indicative of where you are right now, skillwise, thinkingwise, etceterawise, I’d say that you got maybe 1200 full pages and seven years of constant writing to go, incrementally improving the whole way, no real leaps or anything, and then you might be somewhere... you’re still in training, you know? Keep training, don’t bother with the rest right now, just keep training. Wax on, wax off... work work work.
  But thanks anyway. And good luck.

Drew Burk
angry fiction guy
spork

  Now, given just fifteen minutes to read a 5200 word piece, and a complex one at that, there’s simply no way, assuming he was online, for him to read more than a page, and then, most likely, having a brain fart, overloaded by not being able to see where the tale was going.

  So, obviously he didn’t read it. But, let’s look at the email. It’s obvious that Burk fancies himself witty- a rarity in dialectics, although utterly lost in the revelation of his critical acumen, or its lack. Even assuming he read the whole piece, or just what I quote from it, he’s palpably wrong. he claims there’s a lack of ‘style’ yet the piece turns romantic and noir conventions on its head in just two paragraphs. He may not ‘like’ it, but this is not about ‘like’, but excellence, although there’s no doubt Burk and his band have every right to publish what they ‘like’ rather than good writing. When responding to a submission, telling them, in essence, that you do not like the piece does nothing. A simple no thanks would suffice. The fact that he feels a need to be cutesy, and passively/aggressively hostile bespeaks far more of him than any piece submitted.

  He also claims it lacks depth. Read this passage ‘muscular little legs flexing as she leans against & away from the rail, & deep blue eyes- whose colors I rarely remember- that sear because of the contrast with the rest of her person. They should have been deep brown, but they were blue, & leaning over the rail of the track before the 1^st race.’ Note what it says- we get a bit of information on the speaker, then an interesting comment on what he expected a part of the ogled female to be- setting up a query as to why?, and then we get the image of the eyes, themselves, leaning over the rail.

  Now, is this deep in a philosophic sense? No. But, we’ve just started the tale. In the rest of the piece we do get much revelation of human nature, sexuality, the artistic temperament, and quite a bit else. A comment like Burk’s sentence is thus merely a knee-jerk reaction, and a way to avoid saying anything of substance that could be argued with. Of course, a no thanks would be simpler, shorter, and nicer. But, Burk has issues with that, and must continue pushing the nasty envelope.

  The rest of the first paragraph is an admission that he did not ‘like’ the piece. It is void of critical worth. It alone, however, would suffice as an admission of his own limitations and be a suitable rejection. But, he cannot stop there. Another paragraph comes. He has to try to dick-wave, and be hiply sarcastic, then dismissive, as if a master from on high. Then, he ends with a half-hearted attempt to pooh-pooh the pent up hostility as just play. Most telling, of all, is his ‘signature’ as ‘angry fiction guy’. When someone gives themselves a name it’s about as out there as referring to oneself in the third person. So, what would impel such a response, when it obviously was a piece not read in toto? Well, envy, stupidity, a desire to feel empowered by belittling others…all are good surmise.

  But, certainly, if a piece that opens as well written as mine, by flouting conventions and weaving intriguing imagery, is deemed not good enough, then Spork was be home to prose that is of a quality so superior to other online and print magazines that its quality is in dispute. After all, here’s their Mission Statement: 

  The mission of Spork is to support excellence and innovation in words and things. Our goals are twofold: to foster and support a dynamic arena for artistic works that make significant contributions to inquiry or expression; to present these works in small editions of hand-bound books using the highest possible standards of material and design.

  It is our belief that literature is transformative — essential to the individual spirit and a necessary element in a thriving culture — and that the book, as object, is a concrete manifestation of this power of language.

  Hmm….what gives? Certainly, just from my selection we’ve seen excellence and innovation, so why was it rejected? Ok, there have to be works better and more innovative. If seeing them within Spork manifests then they are more consistent with Mission Statements, then criticism. Hmm….keep in mind what it seeks. Excellence, innovation, inquiry, expression, transformation, powerful language. Well- all notable ends. Can’t wait to see what is within their walls, eh?

  Here’s the first three paragraphs from a piece called This Is What Would Happen Later, in Spork, by a Stephen Elliott- a typical hipster sort who’s gotten sucked into Academia, on the basis of his ‘rough life’ being deemed chic. Bear in mind what Spork claims to want, what they told me, and my piece’s first three paragraphs:

  I was fourteen and I had been living on a rooftop mostly for six months the day Constantine got arrested. It was Constantine who had gotten the acid. Fat Constantine with his broad shoulders and his shirts and jackets always too short.
  He had said that morning to me when we placed the pills under our tongues, “What I love about acid is that once you take it there’s no getting off the ride. You’re stuck.” He had smiled when he said it, and I knew he was trying to give me a bad trip. I despised him.
  Smith was arrested as well. Smith was Constantine’s sidekick and his only relevance was this connection. Smith had a head like a spike and smooth, sloping shoulders so it was like his face descended straight into his arms. He leaned forward when he walked and was awful to look at.

  The first paragraph sets a scene not too unfamiliar- an anomic character, and a companion. Not bad, but not as distinctive as my first epigraphic paragraph, nor does it do as much to set the scene, both emotionally and technically.

  Paragraph two is utterly trite, and fashionably nihilistic. It is a cliché and ends with the outright cliché of one loser hating an ‘inferior’ loser. Paragraph three is mostly description.

  Given that this is probably as far as Burk got in my piece do the two pieces compare? No. Mine is vastly superior and all but hipster wannabes who can relate to the pathetic lifestyles of Elliott’s characters, would sooner want to read my tale further. In twenty years, when those slackers/losers have grown up, wised up, or just taken to cable tv for their whole entertainment, the majority will be near 100% in favor of a piece like mine. Yet, Spork wants excellence, innovation, inquiry, expression, transformation, powerful language. Elliott expresses something, but all art does. That his paragraphs do it poorly, and the content is utterly familiar- well….

  But, ok, that’s just one clunker. Let’s be fir, and try again. Here’s the start of a piece called Sponge Art, by a Michael Karl (Ritchie). While I’d state it’s better than Elliott’s piece it’s not up to snuff with mine:

  For those who wish to believe in romance, first there are the bunched ermine and vermilion roses. Asymmetrically bent, thorns prick along their stems like sutures that have not yet been surgically removed. Is the sexual too overt here? Color and scent jazz along the jasmine. Nick Avona loves Yuki. He simply doesn’t know which sex Yuki is, was, or was going to become. Instead, he thought he would learn all this by watching a cartoon. He didn’t learn much about Yuki, but he sure did about plankton.
  His mouth would gape in ovals and opals as he imitated the voices on the screen. Slowly Nick was learning English. Words formed a relay in the ricochet chamber, and the onion of memory unpeeled as if at its bitter center would be found the hollow halo of the soul. And then he relocated to the Learning Channel. Which theoretical mathematician first posited the inane idea of a geometrical infinity? It was false, Nick thought, surfing back among the balloons. Everything is tinged all about with the rust of finality. Anyone dealing in flowers could tell you that. Eternity is bounded by timeless time. Those colorful blue and yellow ribbons tie in a double helix around the blood apple, pumping puny art with the arteries clogged. 

  Paragraph one has an interesting set up, but it is straightforward- it does not play with the reader as mine did, nor does its second paragraph build tension. Paragraph two, though, is not as good- a bit overwritten, which is the indication of an immature writer- some forced descriptives and metaphors: ‘the onion of memory unpeeled as if at its bitter center would be found the hollow halo of the soul’. This is trying too hard to be deep. Then there’s this cringe-worthy bit: ‘Eternity is bounded by timeless time.’ Ok, so Karl is a tyro. Burk’s advice to me is far more apt here, yet his bit is better than Elliott’s- it shows he’s still restive and pushing out at ideas and words, whereas Elliott is a total creature of Academia, of the hipster sort. Still, another bit of not good writing online. Let’s give it one more shot. Here’s the start of Sole Survivor, by James DiGiovanna:

  I have a horrible tendency to be the last person left alive. Like that time in Bermuda, when the Hurricane hit. We were all partying on crystal meth in my hotel room, and there was an announcement that this thing was coming in faster than anyone had ever seen. They were evacuating the hotel, but I’m from Connecticut, so I said fuckit, I’m sitting this out right here.
  My friends, Dino, Sara, Raj and Tweak thought that that would be cool, what with me having all the crystal. I mean, sure, they could have tried to steal it from me and then run away with it, but that would have required one of them actually saying “hey, let’s just take his crank and get the fuck out of here,” and nobody wants to be the first to say that kind of thing. What if nobody goes along with you? Then you feel like a real idiot, have to pretend it was a joke, and nobody believes you, and you can be damn sure that you aren’t getting any more free crank. So they all stayed.
  The bellboys or whatever they were called down there told us to leave, and we said we’d be right along, but it wasn’t like they were coming back to check on us. Who would? Bermuda hurricanes are nothing like Connecticut hurricanes, it turns out. Big, big things fall over in Bermuda hurricanes. Things like trees and buildings and goat farmers. Big goat farmers, the kind with the gnarled hands and the bags of crank back at the goat farm. You have to ask, you know. 

  Paragraph one starts off with a good first line- one that could be used to great ironic effect, if what follows could play off it. But, the lapse into hipsterism. Reread Elliott’s piece, and you can see we’re dealing with the singular hipster mind. The next two paragraphs only suggest DiGiovanna has read Elliott’s ilk and is furiously trying to out-hipster them. This is easily the worst of the three pieces. So, what gives? Are Burk and company hypocrites, or idiots? Or, are they utterly incapable of judging good writing? Ok, surely Burk, himself must be a good writer. After all, no one who would act so condescendingly when given a quality piece, and publish utterly trite crap like the three pieces above, would dare do so unless he, himself, could put forth quality? Right?

  Here is the start of a piece Burk wrote called Notes On Construction, re the site:

  Every time I end up in jail my tattoo saves me. I guess I should say every time I’ve ended up in jail since I got this particular tattoo, this particular tattoo has been the thing that kept me safe. I’m not saying it made it O.K., that it made it better in even some small way… no, it sucked, it was awful every time. Shit smeared on the walls, packed into a triangular cell for two with five other people, a mat thrown on the floor by the toilet in case I wanted to sleep; I have never, ever, slept in jail. [1] I’ve slept in court after jail, I’ve slept on the ground outside the jail while I waited for a cab to come pick me up and drop me somewhere near my life after hitting a bank so I can pay the guy—and by hitting, I mean stopping by the ATM, let’s just be clear about that, all right?—I’ve slept in those cabs, I’ve slept on the floors of my friends’ bathrooms after using their showers, washing as much of that very specific stench from my body as I can before I go home, even though it continues to seep from my pores for days afterward. My crimes aren’t worth listing here, the various reasons I periodically end up in jail far too pedestrian and boring to mention; what we’re talking about is this one tattoo, on my left arm, just inside and below my elbow…. 

  So, it’s apparent why such a fellow finds Elliott and DiGiovanna to be quality writing. I Googled Burk and found a number of similarly ridiculously bad hipster type pieces, as well as a sort of profile of the man here. Need more be said? Ok, just a little. Here’s a bit from his relentlessly cool hipster blog:

Friday, November 19th

Why poetry sometimes rocks -- written by the guy who's not the poetry editor, and for the most part isn't even that big a fan of poetry, though he does seem to be coming around of late...

stops there, & thinks probably he’s going to bruise, / & how nice it will be to walk & think of how he’s / like a peach, dropped on the floor & fucked hard, an

That little disjointed orphaned stanza gives me shudders and thrills (I screwed up the line breaks, but it wouldn't display properly...) and maybe it's just that it says Fuck but fuck in itself is not enough. Sure, swearing goes a whole long way with me, but... well, like I said, in and of itself it's just not enough. I left my keys at work last night and my wallet at home this morning. (The important thing here is that you ask me how I got to work... I must be kidding, the Bahamas are islands...)

  This was written after a night partying with DiGiovanna, so it’s really unfair of me to point out its piss poor quality. Compare any of these pieces of writing to mine, and it’s staggering. Burk is a perfect example of a bad writer who, because he can afford a website, sets himself up as an editor. Hey, it’s America, it’s the Internet, but that’s the problem. there is absolutely no ability in writing nor editing that is required any longer. Even titles of works, like DiGiovanna’s, reek.

  As I said, Burk’s attempt at wit, a lone possible saving grace, is utterly lost due to the mean-spiritedness with which it is couched, and the manifest lack of any knowledge nor ability to produce or publish good writing. Even assuming someone like Burk was right, mere nastiness does nothing. Either attempt a helpful comment or don’t reply or send a formulaic rejection. Spork, like almost all online and print publications, knows what it likes, but is utterly clueless to what entails quality in writing- either in content or style. Even basics, like clichés, slide by them. I know, because many of the poems and prose pieces I’ve had published and posted- well over a hundred- are often set right next to utter crap, their inclusion in the anthology, magazine, or website dictated only by the editor’s whims, not any acknowledgement of quality.

  Yet, you query, why didn’t I tear Burk a new asshole? Well, first off- what good would it do? He’s obviously incapable of reasoned thought, and would only preen ceaselessly with pseudo-hipster put-downs, and possibly rage with a spam or virus campaign, or the like, as many others have done in the past. Secondly, though, is that a few weeks earlier I sparred with a fellow who made Burk seem like an intelligent and witty chap by comparison. My only reason for replying to him was because, unlike Burk, he made the hilarious attempt to ‘show’ me what he thought was good writing. Burk either couldn’t be bothered, or was too lazy or smart not to tempt fate, and my hangman’s noose. Which happens to be the name of the pathetic fellow who made Burk look good by comparison.

  This Noose, who always went the e.e. cummings lower case route, edits a magazine called Cyanide (can you just smell the hipsterism?) that is about on par with Spork. Unlike Burk and Spork, he, it seems, actually read the whole piece, at least after I forced him to, with my retort, and took a week or two to get back to me. The dialectic was, to say the least, a sure sign of why discourse is in a dire condition. I wrote back within a few minutes of getting the email. My retort is in black, his is in red:

Well, thanks, I guess for the critique.  When I get poetry submitted to my site I either don’t bother replying, or I post it, if good enough. I’ve posted maybe 15-20 poems out of 10,000 submissions, & am still waiting for a great poem. I don’t reply to the poetasters because if they’ve read any of my criticisms or any of the poems posted- by me or others- & still cannot get a qualitative feel there’s nothing I can do, & all it will do will be engender hostility. So, take these remarks as you will. Interpolated:

  NOTE- I am always non-emotional, consider his remarks, and then show why they are very ill-rendered.

noose wrote:

Dan:

  Here’s my critique and as I’ve been backed up severely I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get back you about this. With that I don’t think it's strong enough yet to be established in the magazine. It needs revision to strengthen it first.
  First off, you tell the story. I, the reader, don’t experience it. You overuse passive verbs. Go back through and cross all instances where you use is, am, were, have, had, think, thought, remember, et cetera and replace it with an action verb. Each action verb packs more power behind it versus linking and passive verbs. Unpack the memories and the scenes. Make me feel it. Your first few sentences read.

It was not always about money for Rollo- even when it was. Rollo is an assassin- a pro. He has skull tattoos on his body representing all the people he has killed.

But those feel stale, stagnant, weak. Try improving them with action verbs and bringing things to life. Personification works.

Rollo received money for every hit, but it was pointless, he cared about as much as a dying woman does about getting water. He made money off of taking lives- a professional killer. Skull tattoos creep down his muscles, a tick mark for every life he took.

Now I’m not saying what I’ve written is brilliant by any means, but everything has more life now that they are doing something rather than sitting around.

***The piece is a memoir, & the speaker dispassive because the events, themselves, draw readers in. Perhaps not you, but your advice is straight out of MFA programs, & why most writing is formulaic. You, indeed, advance a formula. Look at how the piece ends- by using action verbs you undermine the intent & power of the end, making it almost a cartoon. This is fine for Japanese manga- but not this piece. Now, look at your rewrite. It’s not only not brilliant, but it’s generic & hackneyed. Any hack could pen it. It’s 5th rate Mickey Spillane. Narratively, I set the whole tale up in my 1st sentence. Yours undermines that, which shows 2 things- 1) you did not get the point of the tale- which was not to be bad ass nor cool & 2) you have a fondness for clichés. Do you really think your last quoted sentence is a good sentence? You added alot of unnecessary modifiers- i.e.- fat. To keep it in the same vein, you forsake Joe Friday of Dragnet for an off-the-rack bad pulp book. A critique that understood the story’s narrative, + good sentence structure would have suggested cutting, not adding, perhaps suggesting cutting the qualifier ‘a pro’ from my take. Except, that that qualifier means more than just a professional killer. My opening, therefore contains multiplicity of meaning. Yours is a cardboard cutout.
You can take these or leave these- I’m just explicating what usually goes into good writing. Also, when giving crit, you have to make sure it’s good crit, not formulaic, & endorsing genericizing the writing, not to mention making obvious that many of the ancillary points were missed. That I could glean this from just this part of the email gives me no solace.

  Really, now- look at Noose’s rewrite. I’m sure Burk would rave over such, and that’s the point.

Second. When you use as many created words for your gangs and what not like you do, you need to break the reader into it slower. Slowly introduce it with back history or only when it’s necessary to know it. I don’t need to know who Paco’s gang is within two paragraphs. Which many lines like the one dealing with Paco’s gang in the second paragraph are confusing with your use of structure. Simplify them and make them more comprehensive. Less is more in this instance.

***I don’t know what words specifically but 2 things- sci fi is loaded with such, as are many slang/hipster novels of the last century. I don’t think that there’s anything that will lose a reader, + if the tale is involving enough people either elide words they don’t understand, or look them up. It’s like the poem/prose mix. People who detest poetry can pluck out the poems like excess raisins in bread, & enjoy the prose. 2) This piece is part of a memoir series so many of the words will have provenance earlier- although point 1 applies as well to the reader of just this. Regardless, the 1st paragraph either sets the table, or recaps what's gone before. It’s a serial format, in some senses.
This argument has more merit than your 1st, still- it’s more of a subjective bias. That’s simply not good enough for crit. Many’s the time I’ll- well not often- I’ll read a poem or piece that subjectively I dislike- either the style or content- but critique based on that is useless to the writer. There are infinite possible ways to subjectively interpret good writing or bad, but an objective crit tosses biases aside. Earlier you say ‘make me feel it’- this is an emotional response, not bad if merely a reader, but it has no merit as criticism since other people can feel it. I can argue it’s your deficiency. A crit has to be more than that. Worse, when you intellectually advocate padding concise writing, & more so padding it with generic clichés, it leaves your crit suspect.
It’s not enough to say, I don’t like a recap or summation of major elements early, but say why, & more so, show a flawed sentence, etc.

  Note that I grant him a bit of a point, I’m not dismissive, but actually attempting to help him. He actually advocates adding banalities and length, arguing against concision and originality. Had he simply rejected, or even given his sermon, I’d not have replied, but it’s the colossal error of trying to justify bad writing that drew my corrective.

I’m not disapproving of the content in this story by any means, but I do think the approach needs an overhauling. Go ahead and work on it on your own, or via us within the forum, or via other writer workshops and feel free to resubmit then, because this shows potential, but needs work. Thanks for considering Cyanide. We hope to hear from you again. --noose.

***Luckily, you’re not 1 of those advocating read our mag, see what we like. This is why I send my pieces about to many diff mags- so people will come out of their shells & see diff styles. To end, think objective excellence over subjective like. Also, when suggesting a revision, by all means, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by suggesting making something longer, more generic, & flaccidly stuffed with clichés. Really, reread your rewrite- it’s atrocious for those 3 reasons. That is an objective statement anyone who’s read prose of the last century would make. Anyway, thanks for your interest enough to write. DAN

  It’s important to note he says the work has potential, in light of what follows, because clearly he’s either lying in stating he believes that, or gets so indignant with my advice to him that his rage forgets that fact. Then, he advocates workshopping! I also end conciliatorily, although I knew that someone as clueless in writing might lose it. He did. A day later I received this gem, to which I replied:

  This is 1 of the reasons I generally don’t bother responding to people who manifestly do not understand good writing- they cannot take criticism. The only reason I bothered this time was because you ‘tried’ to show what you thought was good writing. Note- there was no attack of a personal nature in my reply, simply a point-by-point rebuttal. Again, look at your rewrite- longer, more banal, larded with 2 clichés in 3 lines. How do you reply? With childish rants. I’ve spent years in critique groups for poetry & not & welcome crit that shows a person understands something. A bad crit can be good if the negative points to something. Bad crit, however, is not just negative crit. I shrug my shoulders when something is praised for being banal. Had I written some of the examples below or what you suggested, & gotten raves I’d be as appalled. Worse is you show absolutely no humor, you act upon your crit as if it's yr baby. 1 cannot personalize too much. Interpolated:

  The single most important point throughout this piece may very well be the death of wit- that saving grace of William F. Buckley’s that even his greatest detractors must concede!

noose wrote:

Dan:

When I first read your story I thought it would be a satirical hip-hop memoir with its flagrant misuse of slam/hip-hop poetry conventions, but I was disappointed in that regard.

***Reread what you just said- instead of a blank slate you think it's gonna be hip hop. Why? Niggaz? You are already judging a piece not by what is on the page but by what is not. Think of the solipsism & solecism you've just made.

Here he utterly betrays himself. He comes in with a mass of prejudices and already shows a lack of objectivity.

Then you followed up that disappointment with more in the shape of a critique poor in execution and skill. If this was not a joke, in story or critique, I recommend you buy a can of gasoline and burn all of your literary attempts along with the thesaurus that sleeps by your bed, because it is quite obvious that you had to crack it open again to act pretentious in your slander.

***Look at the ad hominem, all because I’ve revealed your lack of  acumen? It’s a tale, not a critique- where do you read any critique in this piece. You’ve hauled another bit of your baggage into your crit. Slander? Of whom? Names in the piece are changed because most folk cannot handle the truths about themselves (ring a bell?) If you refer to my crit of your crit- you are again personalizing since I did not attack you, I rebutted your mis-assessment. As for thesaurus- yes I do know words like solecism & can use them when I need- it comes from intellect & making it out of diapers. Your point?